And now I have a cold

I thought I’d be luckily enough to go an entire school year without getting sick.  Well, I almost made it.  I talked myself out of taking sick days the last two days so I went to work feeling kind of crappy.  But there’s so much that needs to be done.  I’m slowly making progress.  I was supposed to get some hired help in, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.  I didn’t know enough people around here to suggest anyone and now it’s down to just a week of school left.  (Yay!)  I actually have two weeks of work left, but it will go by fast.

Josh is no longer employed by my uncle so that’s going to dampen things around here for a while.  I’m going to have to cover his bills this summer.  It’s kind of hard to find a job for just two months.  But at least he has employment in the fall as he’ll be teaching freshman theory classes. 

My friend Kirsten is coming down to visit tonight.  We’re going to go see the new Star Trek movie tomorrow and then go to Fiesta Fest at Six Flags on Saturday.  We’ll get exclusive ride time on the new Iron Rattler and Superman.  That will be awesome!  I hope my cold subsides before then.  I’ve been taking Zicam when I think about it, but I left it at school today. 

A Nice Trip Back “Home”

“Home” is a relative term these days.  I headed back to Canyon for a trip this weekend.  And though that place was my home for many, many years, I’m finding that I really belong to San Antonio now.  It was great to see people though.  I was able to see my friend Pam who I hadn’t seen since her daughter’s funeral.  She is still having a rough time, but managing the best she can.  She cried when she hugged me.  We had dinner at Abuelo’s – a really good Mexican restaurant.  On Saturday morning, I went to the Donut Stop and enjoyed a maple donut and a cinnamon cluster.  I went shopping afterward and bought some books and a gift card for my friend that is retiring.  I met my former mother-in-law for lunch and we went to The Plaza which is another Mexican restaurant.  It’s funny how I came from San Antonio – a city with 100’s of Mexican restaurants and ate my fill of Mexican food in Amarillo.  We had a nice visit and then I did more shopping afterward.  I went to Dillard’s and they had a pretty good sale going on so even though I shouldn’t have, I bought some clothes.  But they’re really cute.  For dinner on Saturday, I met my friend Carol from church.  We went to Feldman’s and had a nice long visit.  Everyone wants to know when Matt and I are getting married and I tell them that I’d like to know that myself.  On Sunday, I slept in a little and then went to the 11:15 mass at church since the men’s ensemble would be singing.  Mass was very nice and I realize that my church is one of the things I miss the most about Canyon.  I still haven’t found a church here that comes close.  I feel more spiritually renewed when I go back to St. Ann’s.  After church, I met Mary, my former choir director, and her husband and son at Taco Villa.  Yes, I finally got my Taco Villa fix.  I ordered the meat burrito grande and a cripy taco.  It was so yummy.  After that I went to the retirement party for my former colleague who taught for 35 years.  It was great to see her and catch up with all my other speech teacher friends.  I intended to leave by 3:30 or 4:00 but the entertainment lasted longer than expected.  I didn’t get out of there until 4:30.  I went to Taco Villa (again) and picked up a burrito to eat on the road.  Luckily I didn’t hit any weather on the way home.  I made it in around 12:30 last night.  I had to work today so I came home pretty tired.  Josh has a friend (female) visiting here for a few days.  Matt grilled some tilapia this evening.  Right now we’re watching the Spurs game hoping that they’ll go ahead and sweep the series.  I’m probably going to bed early tonight.  Tomorrow I have to go to a meeting all day and then the rest of the week, I’m going to work on cleaning up the library and getting rid of a lot of equipment that we have in storage. 

Been awhile

I’ve been buried under a mountain of work.  It is a crazy time of year.  I’m trying to deal with all the fixed assets at the school which is an extensive task.  This past weekend was our middle school UIL contest and that took up the majority of my time over the past few weeks.  I was working with students, making arrangements for travel, ordering lunches, and preparing to run all the speaking events on the day of the contest.  Luckily I made it through everything.  Unfortunately we had several students that didn’t show up the day of contest.  The contest that I ran went well, and one of my students placed 2nd in her event.  We had a total of 13 students compete and 4 of them placed in the top 6 in their contests.  My principal thanked me for the work I did.  Now I have to try get everything done that needs to be done in the next few weeks before the end of school. 

I have had some fun too.  Matt and I went to Fiesta Texas this past weekend.  We rode the new Iron Rattler rollercoaster twice.  The second time we waited for a front row seat.  It was a really great ride.  We’ll be going back on June 1st for an ACE event at the park.  My friend Kirsten is coming down for it and Josh will be going as well. 

I’m going to go back to Canyon this weekend.  A speech teacher friend of mine is retiring and there’s a party for her on Sunday.  It’s a chance to visit with a lot of my old friends that I haven’t seen in a while.  Plus I can eat at Taco Villa. 

So I think Matt and I are destined to be together.  How do I know this do you ask?  Well, we got confirmation of it at Six Flags.  It was a hot day and when you need to cool off for a bit, you go shopping in the air conditioned shops.  While browsing, I saw this exactly as it is pictured:

I’m not sure what it means that my name was on top – but the two name plates were just like that.  I was just casually looking around and noticed it so I had to snap a picture.  Now if Matt could just deal with his final commitment issues, we would be good to go.  I think part of it is still dealing with his mother.  He did take a small step.  Her birthday was this past weekend and he sent her a gift card and a note stating that we wanted to visit her sometime.  We’ll see if we get an invite or not.  I guess whatever the answer is, it will at least be an answer.  It’s not going to change our relationship.  I think he hopes that she’ll approve of me, but if she doesn’t, we’ll both move on. 

Roller Coaster Riding

It was a very long day of waiting.  I set my alarm for 6:07 but was awake shortly after 5:00 a.m.  I got up around 5:45.  I left the house right at 7:00 in hopes of avoiding bad traffic and I was lucky in that respect.  It slowed down slightly near downtown, but wasn’t bad at all after that.  I got to the park around 7:40.  Once there, I turned in my release form and then went through security.  We had our pictures taken with our names for identification purposes.  We headed over towards the coaster around 8:00 but ended up going past it to another area where they served us breakfast.  I honestly thought it was going to be a smaller group of about 30 or 40 people, but there were over 100 there.  Breakfast was decent – lots of fruit and pastries.  Then we waited and waited.  One of the guys directing the commercial came around and starting pairing people off. At the end there was a group of “singles” that hadn’t been paired and I was one of those.  I feel like an outcast being one of the last to be “picked.”  I got a partner but we ended up being nearly last in line.  Then we waited more.  We finally headed over the the coaster a little after 11:00.  Then we waited.  We finally got up on the platform and they sent a couple of trains with people through.  But then they had technical difficulties.  It was close to noon so they had us leave the platform and go eat lunch.  They served us a choice of BBQ brisket or grilled chicken with beans, potato salad, and cobbler.  So we ate.  Finally we got to head back to the coaster around 1:00.  Again, I was at the end of the line.  I finally got a ride shortly before 2:00.  It was a great ride – I love the hybrid compared to the rough coaster it was before.  After that ride we had to go back down to the ground level and get in line again if we wanted another ride.  Slowly people started leaving.  They had to do reset cameras again so I had to wait another hour or so.  I was able to get a second right around 3:15 – second to last car in the back.  Event though they were going to open more coasters and keep going until 8:00, I had to leave by 3:30 to go to a meeting for UIL.

I made it to the meeting with time to spare.  We had to grade the papers for the writing events.  Luckily I was able to choose a smaller group of papers and we finished by 6:45 when I had to leave to go play my last orchestra concert for the season.  I got home shortly before 10:00 tonight.  I’m going to head to bed shortly since the Spurs aren’t playing very well tonight. 

Time to clean the garage – again

For those loyal blog readers that have been around a while, you know that I have made numerous posts about cleaning my garage.  I think it is a never ending battle.  I thought that perhaps when I moved to a new place that I could for once and for all have a nice clean garage.  No such luck.  When I first moved down her to San Antonio, I did have a fairly clean garage that wasn’t really filled with all that much stuff.  When I moved again to the house I’m now, the garage was mostly filled with empty boxes and the regular tools and such.  Then Matt decided to get rid of a storage unit at his apartment and he moved a bunch of his stuff into the garage.  Slowly the piles started to grow.  We’re moving Josh back home this weekend so we needed to make sure we had space to put his stuff in there until he moves again in August.  So Matt and I worked on de-cluttering.  We really just threw a bunch of stuff away and then reorganized the piles.  At least there’s room to get Josh’s stuff in.  I think if Matt ever wants to park his car in the other side of the garage, we’ll need to get a storage shed in the backyard for the lawn stuff and some of his items like his fishing gear and golf clubs (though he doesn’t play). 

In other news, on whim I applied to be in a commercial shoot for the new Iron Rattler at Fiesta Texas.  I don’t know if I’ll get selected, but I thought I’d give it a shot.  I’d have to take a day off of work, but it would be cool to get to ride the coaster before anyone else does.  --- UPDATE--- I just got an email back from the park stating that I’m going to be in the shoot … how awesome is that!!

Things at work are busy as always.  The conference I went to in Ft. Worth was pretty good – got several ideas, but I need time to sort it all out.  As soon as I got back I had to handle a week of technology testing.  This week I’m having to work on fixed assets which means I’m going to be all over the school looking for technology equipment.  Next week is UIL which means I’ll be going crazy getting all the stuff ready for that.  After that I have to start trying to get in all the overdue books and work on textbooks.  The end of the year is just crazy, but I’m excited about summer break coming soon!