Conference Going

I went to my first library conference for the last several days.  I left on Wednesday afternoon and drove to Ft. Worth with Matt following behind me in his car.  He took his own car because he had to come back early to work on Saturday.  I stayed through the end and was glad because I finally got to attend a fairly useful session in addition to hearing Nia Vardalos and Neil Gaiman speak.  The rest of the conference was hit or miss.  They had some other interesting speakers like JR Martinez and Dan Ariely.  Some of the sessions were good, but others weren’t very helpful or informative.  I struggled to stay awake in some of them.  But I did get a lot of information to take back with me and new ideas to try next year. 

When the conference was over, I headed over to Garland to see my cousin, Amanda, and her family who just moved there from San Diego.  I’m excited that they are now in Texas and are relatively close.  I left their place a little after 6:00 yesterday.  Most of the drive was uneventful.  I was kind of tired, but had a Dr. Pepper and a coke to wake up.  When I got to Austin, there was a brief stint of heavy rain.  It was gone by the time I got out of the city limit, but when I got to San Antonio, it was storming pretty hard and I was driving with white knuckles on the steering wheel until I got home.  I think we’re supposed to get more storms tonight.  We could use the rain.  Matt has been trying to get the yard looking nice and there are some spots that just need a lot of water. 

We went to church this morning at 10:30.  I had to settle for the Blue Haired choir because Fiesta was going on and we couldn’t go to other one we intended.  That and I needed to sleep in this morning.  I had my concert this afternoon.  I needed to practice some parts of my music, but I never found the time.  So I faked a few spots in the music.  The concert was very long – two hours, but we had Mariachi players for about half an hour of it.  After the concert, Matt and I went to a Mexican restaurant across from the venue.  I had enchiladas and a very large margarita that made me very happy.  I wanted to go to Kohl’s afterward, but I decided that I just wanted to sit at home and do nothing.  I’ve been going nonstop since Monday so I think I deserve this time to just relax. 

Proud Mother

Well, my son had his senior music composition recital this evening.  He is an amazing composer.  I'm very proud of him.  He wrote some very interesting and beautiful pieces of music.  The players that performed his pieces did very well.  We had a very nice reception afterward (paid for by my aunt and uncle).  Maybe when I get a CD of his music, I'll post some it on here so that you can hear some of his music.  It's been a very exhausting weekend, but very fulfullilng.  I know I'm only giving you a tease right now.  I'll try to write in more detail later.  I just wanted to let you know that I've been busy with all of this, and my son is simply amazing.

Dress Shopping

I wanted to find a new dress to wear to my son’s upcoming recital, but it was a daunting and depressing task.  I’ve slacked off on the exercise so I don’t fit into anything any more and trying on bigger sizes just makes me sad.  I found a dress that I liked at one store, but they didn’t have it in my size.  Today I went to four more of the same stores in town trying to find the dress.  I finally gave up and went to a different store where I found the same dress in multiple sizes and found one that fit me.  It was larger, yes, but it didn’t accentuate the rolls of fat on my hips.  I’m going to make the effort to start using the treadmill again next week.  I really need to do something.  I bought the complete season of Columbo and first three seasons of the Big Bang Theory to watch.  The problem is that we haven’t been able to get the tv mounted in front of my treadmill. 

Yesterday I took my car to the Toyota dealership to have the oil changed.  Matt and I went to a BBQ place in New Braufels for dinner after stopping at Kohl’s first.  I didn’t find a dress there, but I found a great dress shirt and tie for Josh and we found some nice shirts for Matt as well.   After dress shopping today, I started cleaning the house until I realized I was out of floor cleaner.  I had to go to the store to get more cleaning supplies.  I got all the tile areas mopped.  Matt and I went to late church tonight so now I’m trying to get a few more things done before bedtime. 

Tomorrow and the next three days I have to teach dictionary lessons to the history classes.  Those will be exhausting days.  My aunt and uncle are coming on Thursday and then on Friday we are heading to Nacogdoches.  Well, I better get more cleaning done – or maybe I’ll have some ice cream. 

Is it Friday yet?

I’m sure I’ve used that headline before, but this has just been one of those very long weeks.  Yesterday was a very frustrating day.  A student made an accusation against me that was completely unfounded, but it had to be investigated none-the-less.  I made a statement refuting the accusation and I was proven right, but it was ridiculous altogether.  I didn’t find out that it had been resolved until this morning, so last night was a long night.  I went to the store after school about bought lots of chocolate.  Luckily I didn’t drown myself in it.  I had a beer and took a sleeping pill instead. 

So today I was exonerated and I got to leave work early to go to a meeting.  We even got out of the meeting early. I finally won a game of Scrabble tonight so I’m in better spirits about the game.  Thankfully tomorrow is Friday.  Unfortunately, I have to go to a band board meeting after work. This weekend, I need to have my oil changed in my car and have my tires rotated.  I also need to clean the house more since my aunt and uncle are coming next week. 

Josh has been accepted to three schools now and he has to make a decision by Monday.  I think he will choose University of Houston which will be nice that he’ll be close to home.  Can you believe that he will be graduating from college in May? 

Well, I’m going to watch The Big Bang Theory and then call it a night. 

Scrabble Sucks

First of all I should confess that I’m writing this after consuming two rum and cokes.  (Or a little coke with my rum)  Matt was watching the Spurs game and I was happily playing Trivial Pursuit on my phone.  I offered to play him in Trivial Pursuit and he countered with Scrabble.  So I foolishly played Scrabble against him.  I don’t know why I do it because it’s not just the fact that he beats me most of the time, but it’s a pound my face into the dirt kind of beating.  Lately I’ve either just drawn horrible, horrible racks or I just suck at playing Scrabble.  At Scrabble practice on Thursday, I lost both games I played.  One game I didn’t even score three hundred points.  The second I scored around 301 after I got the extra points from my opponent’s rack. 

I just threw my phone at him and now he has to finish playing the game by himself.  He calls me a sore loser.  I don’t think that is accurate.  While I certainly don’t like losing – I can handle it if I played my best and it’s not a total beating.  When I can’t even score 300 points, it ticks me off.  I know it seems petty, but I’m a competitive person who is also a bit of a perfectionist.  Maybe I need to find something else to do.  Maybe it’s time for me to work on the jigsaw puzzle again – though I’m sure I could turn that into a competition as well.  Maybe I should just put away the bottle of rum. 

What an exciting weekend

Matt and I went to dinner at a new local seafood restaurant yesterday.  We were going to go two weeks ago, but it was jam packed during Lent and I refused to wait that long.  So last night we tried it and it was decent.  Nothing spectacular, but service was relatively fast and the food was hot at least.  After that, we headed home and worked on some house items that needed to be addressed.  Matt has been proving himself to be more handy than I first thought.  He changed the float in my bathroom toilet and now it doesn’t run any more.  I tried installing the brace for my new tv that goes in front of my treadmill, but I couldn’t get it done.  I stripped the screws so we headed to hardware store to get more and then Matt stripped those.  So now we’ll have to get more screws and try again. 

Today I worked on a flyer for Josh’s upcoming senior recital.  He liked the way it turned out.  My aunt and uncle sent me $250 in gift cards to use for his reception after the recital.  Now Matt is yelling at the tv watching the basketball game.  He’s wearing a Wichita shirt that he had back in his college days.  I told him as long as he didn’t wear it in public that would be ok.

I guess I better go cook some dinner.  I may have to leave the room if Matt keeps yelling at the tv.  Luckily I have a wireless router.  I can just take my laptop upstairs if necessary. 

The Joys of State Mandated Testing

How would you like to sit and watch students test ALL day long?  Don’t be jealous – I know you would all trade with me in a heartbeat.  Remember though, you can’t just sit.  You have to “actively monitor” so you have to walk around every once in a while.  I had a whopping three students today but even so I got up every 10 minutes or so.  There’s no boredom quite like the doldrum of testing when you can’t do anything but sit and watch students take a test.  Of course you can’t really watch – you can glance – make sure they’re not cheating, but no looking at actual questions or the answers they put.  You can’t read, write, check email, or do anything else but sit and monitor.  I got a whopping 7 minutes to scarf down a lunch and one bathroom break. 

Now I’m debating whether I’m going to go to band tonight.  I’m feeling tired after my exciting day.  Nothing wears one out like sitting and doing nothing all day. 

I’ve actually been doing some house cleaning.  I’m trying to get ready for my aunt and uncle coming at the end of the month.  I did a LOT of laundry this weekend.  On top of that, I even folded and hung it all.  You can actually see the floor in my bedroom and my closet.  I also cleaned the kitchen.  I still need to tidy up the loft/craft room area.  I’m thinking that if I don’t go to band, I will have to do some cleaning in exchange.  I have 10 more minutes to decide.  What to do?