I'm Engaged!

It's official. Matt and I are engaged. I've been sitting on this information for two and a half weeks which has been difficult. So the last two or three people that actually read this blog will get the story. This blessed event actually started on my birthday and a very bad mood. All day long Matt would tell me that my present was that he was going to mow the yard. He did mow the yard, but I didn't think that was a very good present since he normally does that anyway. The only thing he did for me on my birthday was take me out to dinner. That was nice (in spite of the restaurant messing up my order), but that was it. No flowers, no other gift, no promise of I'll get you something later. We got home and then he proceeded to sit on the couch and watch sports. I had enough so I decided to go to bed a little after nine. I was in bed watching the Big Bang Theory when he came into the bedroom. I told him that he didn't need to be up there. He said that yes he did. He then dug into his dresser and pulled something out. He sat on the bed and said it was my present. I opened a velvet bag and discovered that he had given me his Rolex watch. I asked him why he was giving me his Rolex. He said that he wanted me to sell it so that we could use the money to buy an engagement ring. I asked "Really?" He said "Yes." So that started the process of figuring out the best way to sell the Rolex and get enough money for a ring. At that time he said that he thought we should wait to tell people until we actually had a ring. I reluctantly agreed, though I did tell my aunt. Thankfully, I did because we were able to sell the Rolex to my uncle for more than we'd probably get on ebay, at a pawn shop, or a jewelry store. I decided that I would also try to trade in my wedding ring from my previous marriage to help cover the cost as well. We started looking at rings the day after my birthday. We went to the largest, but best reviewed jewelry store in San Antonio. Their selection and pricing overall seemed good, but they were unwilling to take a ring for trade. The next day we went to another local store who advertised that they bought jewelry, but they only wanted to give me $650 for my ring that originally cost $2300. We tried another locally owned store in the mall and found something I liked, but with my ring as a trade, they wanted $3700 on top of that. We thought that was too much, even with the $2000 we were getting for the Rolex. The salesperson invited us to come back later in the week when the owner was there since he had the ability to make a better deal. Next we went to Jared but we both didn't like the atmosphere at all. It seemed they were trying to upsell from the moment we walked in the door - pointing out all the magnificent jewelry they had. We both decided that would not do business there after we left. Matt thought that we could possibly afford an extra $1000 for the ring so we decided to check out the store at the mall again last Friday. The owner was there so we looked at the setting I liked again and checked out several round solitaire diamonds to go in it. I choose the diamond I liked best and then set to negotiating. I had given the owner my ring to examine and told him that we had $3000 to spend in total after the trade. He asked if that needed to include taxes and I said yes. He crunched the numbers and said that he could do that so we applied for financing (six months, no interest) and he was able to have the stone set and the ring resized while we waited. So I had my ring last Friday, but Matt still wanted to wait to tell people. I had to finally wear him down and compromise so we set the "roll out" date for Thanksgiving. Of course he had a double standard it seems. He ended up telling some of his out of town friends when he talked to them on the phone. I decided that I could play that game so I told my three friends that were going to be my bridesmaids last weekend. My friend, Carol, also knew early on because I was going to have her start checking with Father Phan (my priest back in Canyon) to see what dates would be available this summer. Matt originally wanted to get married in May, but I reminded him that I was still in school until June. He then said June, but I think we have decided on July since it will be easier for one of my bridesmaids and for the music if I can coordinate it during band camp. I got to start wearing my ring when we left for Albuquerque on Monday. It feels a little weird, but I think it is beautiful. My aunt took some pictures of us so that I could post them on Facebook. Can you believe that I'm actually getting married? A part of me is still in shock. I never thought that moving to San Antonio would have such a positive impact on my life. Matt is an absolutely wonderful man and I am so lucky to have found him! I can't put pictures on this blog right now since I'm posting from an iPad. If you're friends with me on Facebook, there will be some pictures there.

Vacation Time!

It’s a cold, blustery day here in San Antonio.  I’ve grown so accustom to nice, balmy weather, it’s almost a shock to my system.  Thankfully, this will only be temporary – a few days, but I’m staying inside today.  I have a lot of things that I need to get done, but it’s been difficult to get out of my bed.  I have my laptop on my lap, the tv on, and books at my side.  What more could I ask for? 

Unfortunately, I do need to start on my laundry so I’ll have things to pack for our upcoming trip to Albuquerque.  It’s a good thing that I held on to my sweaters when I moved.  It’s pretty cold there right now, but I think it will warm up some while we are there. 

I need to read a dozen more books before the end of the year.  I have a goodreads account and challenged myself to read 50 books this year.  I have 38 down, but need to get a few more in.  I think I can do it – I just ordered four books from Amazon and bought two more at the bookstore the other day.  I’ll get several of them read as I travel.  Airplanes and airports are good for reading. 

Well, my battery is about to die on my laptop.  I guess that means I need to go downstairs and plug it in.  I’m getting hungry so I’ll see what I can come up with for lunch.

TGIF

It was a relief to end this week.  With the excitement of the news broadcast earlier this week, I stayed behind on getting things done that I needed to.  Of course that meant that I would get further behind because I had to babysit again on Thursday.  I had the ESL students and the first class was only four students, but the three boys in there were jerks.  They pretended that they didn’t understand anything I was saying to them like “sit down” but had the ability to ask me in English if I knew the bad words in Spanish.  I’m sure they cursed me out, but I was fed up by that point.  I was trying to get ready to go to a meeting where I had to leave by noon, but I kept getting bombarded with students. 

At the library meeting yesterday, 10 schools were awarded grant funding to start their own Scrabble clubs at their schools.  I’ve started a trend it seems.  I’m excited that other schools are getting on board and I hope we can have some interschool competitions in the spring. 

Tomorrow I’m going to take my car to the tire place and have the tires rotated and balanced.  My tire light has been staying on but I think that was due to the cold front we had come through this week.  Luckily the weather is warming back up.  It was a beautiful day today.  I actually had to turn the air conditioning back on at the house this evening. 

Tomorrow I’m also going to mail Josh my old iPhone since his phone is cracked and he still has another year to go before he can get another one. 

I’m glad we only have one more week of school before Thanksgiving break.  We are looking forward to going to Albuquerque.  I just found out that my sister is going to be moving to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in the next month or two.  That will make it nice for visiting and going to ride roller coasters. 

My 1 minute of fame

The local news came to our school today and filmed a story about my Scrabble club.  I think my principal was very pleased that we got some positive news footage for once.  My students were very excited about it.  They had to bring permission slips to be filmed, but I had almost 20 students in the library when they came to film.  If you want to see the story here’s the link: Scrabble Story.  I had to leave school early to watch it as it aired on the 4:00 newscast. 

I have to go to band rehearsal tonight and I really don’t want to go.  With the time change, it’s dark by the time I leave and I’d rather just put on my pajamas and get comfortable.  But I guess I better get my clarinet and head out so I won’t be late. 

Happy Birthday to Me (And Josh)

Well, it’s not quite our birthday yet – but just a few more hours and I’ll officially be 44 (yes, I feel somewhat old) and Josh will be 23.  I celebrated tonight by buying Matt and I new iPhones.  I got the 5s and Matt got a 5c.  Josh will get my old iPhone 4 since both of his phones are currently broken.  He has another year on his contract so this will give him something to get him by until then.  I tried going to the AT&T store to get the phones but the ones we wanted were out of stock so we headed to the Apple store instead.  Luckily, they had what I wanted so it was fairly quick and easy to get everything.  We had dinner at the mall at an Italian restaurant.  The food was very good and I brought some leftovers home for lunch tomorrow.  I also went to Victoria’s Secret and got a new bra.  Maybe that’s too much information, but you have to understand that I wear them until they practically fall apart.  I figured it was a birthday present to myself. 

We have no plans for tomorrow other than Matt will take me out to dinner tomorrow night.  I plan to sleep in for as long as I want tomorrow morning.  We may wait to go to late church around 1:00 pm.  I already sent Josh an Amazon Gift card for his birthday since I wouldn’t be seeing him this weekend.  Though he is somewhat close by, he is busy with school right now.  Besides, we’ll see him in a couple of weeks when we head to Albuquerque for Thanksgiving. 

I think I’m going to go play with my new phone some more and then read until I fall asleep. 

New Books!

Even though I work in middle school library, I order a lot of cool books.  Today I got half of an order in and I spent time processing the books, but that also means I take time to sit and look at some of them.  I made a commitment on GoodReads this year to read 50 books and I’m behind at the moment.  I am reading a library book on my Kindle, but I have about 20 books to go before the end of the year.  Maybe with my new books, I’ll find several that I can read quickly and add them to my list.  I still have a few more Rick Riordan books to finish so I should be good if I read some every night.

I skipped band yesterday.  We had a late faculty meeting after school and I didn’t feel like rushing over to rehearsal.  It was nice to stay home and do nothing.  Matt and I were going to go to Wurstfest in New Braufels this evening, but the weather is kind of cool and windy.  I was already feeling cold from being in my library all day so we decided to just stay home.  I made some fish, pasta, corn, and salad for dinner. 

We are going to a Spurs game this Friday.  My birthday is Sunday so Matt will take me out to dinner.  Other than that, we have no plans.  Josh is in Houston so I guess we’ll have our birthday dinner some other time. 

We’re heading to Albuquerque for Thanksgiving this year.  We were going to drive, but my aunt and uncle paid for us to fly there instead.  We will fly out of Houston to make it easier on Josh since he still has school the day we’re leaving. 

Happy Anniversary to Us

Can you believe that it was two years ago that I had my first date with Matt (aka “Library Guy”)?  We communicated online for a few weeks first and then he called me up one night and asked me out.  We went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in town and I guess the rest is history.  If you remember, he was very slow in making the moves, but it turned out well.  We are still very happy with each other and he says he’s going to make an honest women of me some day. 

We didn’t go out tonight since we were gone all weekend.  Matt had jury duty today and then came to my school after he was finished.  We went to the store and picked up some steaks for him to grill for supper.  They were really good.  Now we’re just sitting on the couch.  Matt is reading a book and I’m obviously blogging.  I just borrowed a book for my Kindle from the library so I’ll start reading it soon.

As far as the Scrabble tournament goes, I did ok.  I ended up 6th overall out of 13 in my division.  I won more games than I was expected to win which means my rating went up a little bit.  Matt did very well.  He won his division and won $190.

Today was a better day at school compared to last Friday, but of course I’m so far behind, I’ll never catch up.  Luckily, no babysitting today.  Tomorrow I have to focus on cleaning up the mess that seems to be growing in the library. 

Well, I think I’m going to go read my book and call it an early night.  Hopefully I’ll sleep better without the constant beeping of one of the smoke detectors in the house signaling that the battery is low (missing).  We got batteries tonight and that’s taken care of. 

I'm a bad blogger

I know, I know. I haven't blogged in forever. I feel bad, but life just seems to get in the way these days. I don't know if anyone is still reading out there, but I'll try to give you a few updates.
Class reunion
Matt and I headed back to Cayon a few weeks ago to attend my 25th class reunion. We drove halfway on Thursday evening and then the rest of the way on Friday. We had lunch at The Plaza with a retired speech teacher friend of mine and then we checked into our hotel. After that, we headed to Walmart to pick up some things - a hat and sweatshirt for Matt because it was colder than we expected. Friday evening at the tailgate party before the game was pretty miserable. It was about 35 degrees with 30 mph winds. The class turnout was ok, but a lot of people didn't want to brave the weather. Our team won handily and after the game we went to an after party.
Saturday morning the committee had to decorate the dinner area so we had to get up early. We took care of that and then picked up Taco Villa for lunch. We were supposed to have a picnic at Conner Park, but only about a dozen classmates showed because it was still windy and cool (and a few might have been hungover from the night before). The party Saturday evening was successful but we must be getting old. Most people left by 10:30 and we had the venue cleaned up before midnight.
We went to church on Sunday morning and were able to visit with my good friend Carol for a little while. We stopped at Taco Villa (again) for lunch before heading back home to San Antonio.
School
If you asked me about school this past Friday, I would tell you that it is horrible and that I need to look for another job. In general, it has been ok. Scrabble club is still going strong. I still have a million things to do every day and I never have enough time to finishe them. Now, I'm teaching a "flex" period class for 30 minutes every day and I usually don't get the "lessons" until the morning of. That is frustrating and irritating. Friday royally sucked. I had to be a "substitute teacher" on Friday because we had 10 teachers out and only 2 subs on campus. So I got Mr. Limon's English classes. I had them to a research assignment in my lab, but that meant that I had to stay in there the entire time and didn't get any work done in the library. I didn't get to eat lunch at all that day. On top of that, we had a school assembly and at the last minute they came to tell me that they needed a projector and laptop set up in the auditorium ASAP. Someone else had to take the class down while I took care of the equipment. The assembly was about bullying and wouldn't you know that at the end of it two guys broke into an actual fight. It was embarassing. I was so frustrated by the end of the day that I came home mad and hungry. I just felt overwhelmingly emotional that I never really calmed down until I finally went to sleep after taking a benadryl.
Scrabble
I had to get up dark and early this morning (5:30 a.m.) so that we could head to Waco for the Texas State Scrabble Championship. I didn't really want to come, but I know Matt wanted me to play (and he paid my entry) so I came. I decided to have the attitude that whatever happens, happens. I don't care whether I win or lose. I'm just going to play. I guess that attitude is working because I played fairly well today. It doesn't mean I'll still do well tomorrow - but again, it doesn't matter. I've already won my expected number of wins so my rating shouldn't drop any. After the rounds were done today, Matt took me Kohl's and I bought a new pair of jeans and a shirt. We went to The Elite Cafe for dinner. Food was ok, but not outstanding. Now we're back at the hotel and I'm looking forward to getting to sleep in with the time change tomorrow. I guess that's all the excitement in my world at the moment. I'll try to post more often this month. Maybe I'll participate in one of the daily meme things going around.