eliminating outside...kinda

today was a normal day. unfortunately i don't think i'll have another normal day with my homeroom class until school's out.

so i got home and decided it was time to try to get the boys to pee outside (still on their pee pad, but it's a start). so i put them on the balcony. they wouldn't go and wouldn't go even after i put water out for them to drink..they just kept playing with leaves and dead bugs..."bruno, look at this one!" "hey, does this leaf make me look fat?" and so forth, so i took them for a walk hoping maybe they'd go, but that didn't work either. although they have been doing really good off leash when there is no one else around on the back trail. we hung out in the dog park and another gal showed up with her two chihuahuas and they all got along just fine. chaco was super friendly jumping up in everyone's faces. then a little girl came by on her scooter and the chihuahuas wen nuts-o but bruno and chaco were so great they just came back to me and stuck close (no barking). yes! they made me so proud!

but no potty. so i brought them in and put them out on the balcony again. for a long time...no potty. but bruno did jump up on the small camp chair (he gets in the big one easily, but this was the first time he's gotten on the small triangular one.

i was so proud of him for getting on the chair that i let them come in...and watched them and finally they were sniffing around and i got them out on their pad just in time! woo hoo!! but it's going to take a whole lot more! but hey, they are doing some things right!

tomorrow is and wednesday are going to be long days because of this extra round of testing. not looking forward to it at all, but i know these guys are going to do well~
for the rest of the evening i have got to get things ready for the unexpected sub tomorrow!

celebrating little victories!
julie

so many jobs, so little time

did i mention that yesterday when i was checking out at tom thumb i was that woman? you know, the one who has the price check and no one is available to do the price check. i said, "i'm pretty sure it was $8.99.." wait..wait.. someone switches lines...wait..finally they guy comes, goes off to check, wait some more..."it's $8.99." (that's when the smug smile crosses my face as i think, 'see, i have integrity.' it was for my collector cup:

boy behind me: that's a really cool cup!
me: thanks. my grandparents used to work for kellogg's!
boy: cool! are you getting it from them?
(slight pause)
me: no, i'm getting it for me...to help me think of them more often!

wow, that sounded a little selfish.
my grandparents worked at the kellogg's in battle creek for years and years. i remember going on a tour one time when i was young (i vaguely remember what i saw-big vats and machines) but what i do remember was getting a tony the tiger plastic kite. pretty big deal for a little kid!

my grandparents worked one job most of their adult lives. me...well, i've worked so many jobs i almost forget some of them...kinder care, janitorial for the college, server for applebees, tippins, california pizza, mesquite grille, jewelry at montgomery wards, filing for an xray dept at the hospital, sprint conference lines, spanish magazine distributing company, comair airlines, roadway packaging service (like ups), eddie bauer on the plaza, receptionist for a speech pathologist, counselor at kanakuk kamps, tutoring esl, kmart, heartlight alt. boarding school, car dealership, insurance company, and now teaching-which is where i plan to be for awhile! i know, it sounds ridiculous, but i feel like a lot of life experience has been good for me in its own way.

as i typed each of those jobs down, memories come flooding back of different very special people i've worked with over the years. i know God had me in certain areas at certain times for a reason. except for kinder care, that was just miserable..and the receptionist job...although some funny stories did come out of that office! and roadway packaging job was more of a dream/daze because it was a night job, cold, and very physical (there were times i would drive home after work at 3 a.m. and wonder exactly how i got home)..dangerous and stupid.

i'm sure you'll hear stories about some of the places soon. in fact i just remembered that i worked at rps the other day when i was looking at the liberty fest information because it had something about rugby and the manager that i had was a big rough looking girl-michele- and she was a rugby player and i basically did my job (partnered with jason) and tried to stay out of her way. the farmers branch festival is also featuring the spin doctors, 38 special, and rick springfield (my aunt used to have a crush on him-i had a crush on shaun cassidy from the hardy boys), but i used to get rick and shaun mixed up because they both sing, and so i didn't really know who was who, i just liked the guy with the blond feathered hair (yea for the 70's and 80's...then the more i watched the hardy boys, the more i liked parker stevenson, the other hardy). so...yep, there's a festival in farmers branch, tx soon!


be well rounded, but not so well rounded that you roll down the hill!
juile

free samples-i love saturdays!

it's a good thing chronicles of narnia was on this morning, because that made me feel a little better...

**BRUNO PEED OUTSIDE!!  you don't understand what a wonderful accomplishment this is! i definitely celebrated! hopefully it wasn't just a fluke! we had a great little walk! there is a neat little patch on the backside of the complex with beautiful wild flowers.

love this patch of  wild flowers

this is what they did when we went into the little gated doggy park. they never run and play to expend their energy...instead, they followed me around, and bruno peed. woohoo!

then we went out of the complex and i notice the streetlight as we were walking by, so i snapped a picture of it. i get mesmerized by streetlights sometimes. when i am at a light, i sometimes notice if the little bitty lights are missing, and it bugs me. they remind me of the lite brite toy i used to play with when i was young (the one with the black paper that you plug little light pegs into and they shine-i loved it!)
and sometimes if you look at it long enough, it seems like the little lights move in patterns-optical illusion-but don't stare too long because the honking behind you is not an auditory illusion.

fascinating, right?

in fact, i remember when i lived in branson especially i loved coming down 76 in at the stoplight by the good shepherd hotel around Christmas when it was snowy and you could see red and green street lights and if you squinted your eyes just right, it looked like a Christmas ornament. (with bob evans in the background, so you might not opt to put that one on your tree). 

once we got home, i went to tom thumb for groceries because it's the closest. how did i not know that saturday is the day?! there were sample people everywhere! i passed by several sample people to get what i needed. then a starbucks lady brought an instant starbucks coffee and few minutes later another offered a frapuccino (granted they were mini); and that's when i went to get my last item (fresh salsa) and i was closeer to the cash register, which is where i should have gone...but i turned around to try one more sample that i had passed by. i am so glad that i did because i tried these little spinach/feta sausages-amazing!! guess what, i will probably begin shopping on saturdays from now on!

if you can find these, they are totally worth it! slice em up and yum-o!

i may or may not have just been flipping through the channels and stopped on cspan 3..civil war volunteers/blue and gray...

free samples rock!
julie

idiot, read the invitation better

5/13/2011*** i am so mad at myself right now. i am going to post this tomorrow, but i decided to get a head start by looking up the address for theresa's wedding and putting in my phone. i've had the invite up on my door so that i would see it every time i walk out the door-i even had it held up by a magnet which has to do with an ongoing joke.

theresa, i'm soooooooo sorry.

well, for whatever reason, when i got the invitation, i read it over and i didn't look to see what day it fell on and just assumed (go ahead, i know you're thinking it, so i won't write it because it's way overused) that it was on saturday. yep, you know the rest of the story. i looked at it and it definitely says may 13, not may 14. i'm an idiot and i think that officially makes me a poor friend (or a friend with terrible organization skills. i KNOW i should've looked at the calendar and written it on the calendar). lesson learned.

i've been really bad with my mail lately. that will be my goal: to promptly look at all mail and read it. and use my calendar more diligently. i've tried the day-planner..the palm pilot..my coworkers often see things written on my hand. my students see me write on my hand and i just say, "well...if i write it on a piece of paper, i might lose it, but i'll never lose my hand..i hope." one boy said, "you're going to get ink poisoning." i just smiled because his parents might really want him to believe that common myth. (in case you weren't sure, unless you're a pen vampire and you drink the ink you cannot get ink poisoning-it is non toxic unless taken internally).

ok, but back to my dilema. i am so frustrated with myself that it's making me a little nauseous. i'll have to redeem myself; how does one redeem themselves from something like that? i could try to locate their honeymoon vacation and serenade them or something...but that would just be weird.

i'm 0 for 2 on weddings this spring. and both involve people very dear to me. what is going on?

--------------------
it's saturday morning and i'm just as disappointed now as i was last night. it throws off my entire weekend because the wedding was really all i had planned for today. and to see everyones' posts on facebook about it gives me that 'grr..ummmmff..grrr' feeling in the pit of my stomach. but what i've seen so far is simply beautiful!

disappointed,
julie

the cat must've told the raccoon to do it

i couldn't get into blogspot to post yesterday-it was in a read-only mode. which was probably good because i had so much work to do last night! yesterday after school in my story-writing class, one of the girls very seriously informed me that there are talking cats in mexico and they have red eyes (must be the tequila). i let her know that there is no such thing, and it made me wonder, should i expose these truths to them, or let them keep believing in fairytales and myths? at what age do you tell them to stop being gullible?

and today i was reading through some expository books my kids wrote; it's the first time they've done much research, exploration. in fact, it was not on purpose that i read the page i read-it fell while i was binding them! and it was about a raccoon. hmm..interesting. did you know that raccoons can ruin things? like your house and your computer. maybe that's my problem. those raccoons that the neighbor was talking about (the ones that are the size of midgets-her words not mine) they've somehow managed to get in and ruin my computers (the boys must have been fighting in my room while all of that was going on!)

i'm thinking i might need to go around the complex and see if i can find the maintenance guys pulling carpet from an apt and snip a few pieces off of the discarded roll to try to do an patch job. it bothers me more and more; i wonder if i can get them to spring for a new flooring; i've been here a long time. too long.

oh, by the way did you catch the fact that it's friday afternoon and i came home and bound 40 plus books for my class?

strangely i really enjoy binding books...that's actually gigi's binding machine in the background-she's allowed me to use it because we do books.

i do love binding, i don't know why. that's why i try to get my kiddos to do so many books! i might even get bruno and chaco to make one. i'm guessing chaco will write about the time he saw the raccoon sneak in and he pretended not to see the pest and instead distracted bruno in the bedroom by fighting over a chew toy while the raccoon put a spell on my computer and ruined it.

alright, it's 'bound' to be a great weekend! one of my dear friends is getting married tomorrow!

jules

the neighbor might be creepy..but he's nice

today my back started to hurt-every time i stepped, so i took a muscle relaxant and i think i read somewhere that ice cream was supposed to help, and since we didn't have our scheduled 'new teacher/mentor ice cream social' i decided it would be a good idea to get some ice cream. then i looked for my source of information to verify and it actually said 'ice PACK'--oh well too late!

tomorrow's thursday!! that means the creepy neighbor will take the garbage out if i leave it out tomorrow morning! creepy because he just is. but it sure is nice that he offered to take out the garbage for the people on our floor (only 3 other apt's). then strange thoughts went through my head. is he really doing this out of the goodness of his heart and desire to exercise (which is what he said) or is he later going to take us all to judge judy and demand back pay for his services? or is he a spy and does he take our bags to his place and sort through them-identity theft he's in an identity theft ring maybe...cue up eerie music.

did i mention that i rushed around to get bowls, cups and spoons for the ice cream social that we didn't have? gigi, you can have the sporks and spoons back.

wow. that muscle relaxant relaxed every muscle in my body and i just had an unexpected nap! and the boys slept right through with me. it was one of those where i could feel it coming on, and there was NOTHING i could do to stop it! now i'm still going slow motion.

so i mentioned yesterday that there was something i wanted to include that i had left at school. well, here it is!

don't be fooled, gigi pointed out that it was made in china. probably be a 5 year old, and they still got the spelling correct!

the perfect souvenir for a reading teacher! thanks gigi! i remember my grandparents went somewhere one year and brought back a t-shirt-one of those that says: my grandparents went to (insert vacation place here) and all i got was this lousy t-shirt.   souvenirs are fun. it means that at some point while someone was off having fun they stopped long enough to think of you! (even if it was in the spur of the moment in an airport gift shop, or walking by a street vendor, or while waiting in a hotel lobby or sometimes by making a special trip into the dreaded "little gift shop town" (like little china town)... it's special. thanks!

i'm pretty sure chaco is true to form and enjoys tunneling. lately when he comes to a resting spot, he digs around until he has made himself a little tunnel to get under-it's really cute.

a little hard to see for the shadow, but those are his hind legs.

and he likes to snooze. this morning, the alarm went off in the morning and he was the first in my face, then after i went in and wash my face, bruno was the only one sitting there watching me. i went back into the room and found chaco completely burried again under the sheets! bruno's more like me, once he's up, it's go time.

i think that's it for today-hope you're not creeped out by your neighbors!
julie

mochi...a strange little nugget of sweetness

last week, or was it 2 weeks ago? i don't know, and it really isn't pertinent information to this story because you wouldn't really be able to fact check unless you're cia and have access to all of the cameras and satellites...so, however long ago-i noticed a sushi restaurant near my house, then later when i drove by, i saw the name: mango's sushi. hmm. the first thought was what does a mango have to do with sushi? thought number two: mango from snl. ew. but the sushi was what kept drawing me in because i love it! and i haven't found a really good restaurant near me. i had to look at the picture i took again to make sure i saw that it said sushi, because when i went into the restaurant, the sign on the front door said: mango's noodle house...which didn't sound sushi-ish to me.

so i guess it's mango's because they serve smoothies.

 yep, i sat down and scoured the menu, i checked both sides, i tried to check for invisible ink, i looked at the pictures in case it was hidden in there like where's waldo...but to no avail, i didn't see sheashea yumyum anywhere (or any other sushi roll for that matter). nope..it was either vietnamese or thai..sorry, i don't really know the difference, and am not a huge fan of either. (just the food...i like the people).

so i got the firecracker shrimp app, and the crunchy chicken roll, not realizing that it was a spring roll...ew. again. sorry if you like spring rolls, but they reminded me of looking at an avocado and chicken finger fetus through a very thin membrane. sorry, i know that sounds gross, but it was. i guess i must've been thinking egg roll b/c of the word "crunchy"

what did one spring roll say to the other? why you gotta be so thin skinned?! bahhaahhaha bruno got it.

and of course the firecracker shrimp looked like...FIRECRACKERS! i know, crazy.

pretty good-not explosive, but not duds either. i thought they might be a little spicier.

one redeeming factor was that they did have a good montage of music. adele, regina spektor, mraz....oh, and for desert i tried the mochi. i wasn't sure what to expect, the waitress really couldn't explain it, she said, and i quote (isn't that a given? if i tell you what she said, i am quoting her), "it's kind of like a gelatin on the outside of ice cream. it sounds weird, but it isn't horrible." so i got the strawberry, and it was not horrible. but it was certainly strange. the shell-like-thing that just kinda gooey and like...i don't know...maybe like when glue kinda dries and gets a little rubbery, but you can still cut through it, but it's neither solid, nor liquidy...strange as it was, i'd get it again (strawberry).

then i got home and tried to search something, and once again got a virus, that is why this is being posted so late. and the reason it is so short is because i have to get my grades in for progress reports!

goodnight!
julie