Busy as a bee

I actually started a post last week but I found it to be too whiny about the Ash Wednesday service I attended so I didn't finish it.  Let's see if I can catch you up on stuff.

I came up with a great idea for Matt's Valentine present just in the nick of time.  I bought him tickets to the Doobie Brothers concert coming up in April.  He had emailed a couple of days before asking if I would want to go so I just went ahead and got the tickets.  He did send me flowers and some chocolate, but the delivery came after I had already left school for the day so I didn't get the flowers until Saturday morning after I texted the custodian to see if he could let me in the school.  Matt sends me flowers in a box which are usually ok, but after sitting overnight, they didn't fair well.  At least it's the thought that counts and the chocolate was pretty good.

School is has been busy with practice testing before the actual testing.  It seems all we do any more is test, test, test.  No wonder kids are failing - they don't have time to learn anything because we are always testing.  I had to test Monday and Tuesday in another teacher's room which is not fun.  I had a student that refused to actually try on the test and wouldn't cooperate most of the time.  Thankfully he stayed quiet most of the time - because he was sleeping.  Sometimes you have to pick your battles.

Today was great because they were still testing 8th grades, but I didn't have to help.  The library was closed so I spent time working on getting stuff ready for my UIL Academic sponsors.  I had to make copies of materials and put them in folders.  I am also working on writing a grant to get some chromebooks for the library.

I've been doing quite a bit of designing in Photoshop and inDesign lately.  I had to create a flyer for the upcoming Fiesta concert and create the program for the next band concert.  I've become the official graphic designer for the band.  I can't say that I do amazing work, but I have fun with it and have come up with some creative ideas.  I love when I learn how to do something new.  The thing about the Internet is that EVERYTHING is online.  So I need to know how to manually curve a line in Illustrator?  Google it!  What I have discovered, however, is that I really want a new computer now.  I'm using my laptop which is ok - but it still has fits every now and then where things slow down and stops for a few minutes.  Then all of a sudden it's ok.  Then again, sometimes chrome crashes for no discernible reason as well.  I need something with more RAM and a larger screen.  A touch screen would also be nice.  I'm thinking of looking into an All-in-one computer.  I just can't afford it at the moment.  But I'm looking.

Hopefully tomorrow will be another glorious day of actually working in the library.  I have so much stuff I just need to sort through and clean.  I also have to get as much of the grant written as I can.  I need a clever title for it.  Hmm... maybe it will hit me at 4:00 in the morning.  Well, I'm going to call it a night - it's already past my bed time.

Too Old for Romance?

I don't know if it's an age thing or a comfort thing.  When I dated almost everyone else before Matt, I often tried to go above and beyond in the romance department on special occasions like Valentine's day or birthdays.  I once sent a boyfriend on a scavenger hunt to find me on Valentine's day.  For Richard, I once baked and decorated a heart shaped cake with frosted roses that I made.  I've done creative music compilations and a myriad of other things for the men of my heart.  I did do a music thing for Matt on our first Valentine's day, but since then I haven't gone over the top like I've done in the past.  We usually go out for a nice dinner and Matt sends me flowers but that's about it.  Last year I think I bought him the Lumosity subscription.  I keep trying to figure out something to do this year and I couldn't think of anything.  Matt emailed me at work the other day asking if I wanted to go to an upcoming concert and I finally figured that I could just get him the tickets to the concert.  So that's what I did.  I no longer feel the need to go above and beyond with really creative ideas.  I try to be thoughtful and that's all I need to do.  I think that in the past, I felt the need to be creative to keep the other person interested.  I finally realize that a good relationship shouldn't require that much work.  It's not to say that you can't spice things up every now and then, but it shouldn't be required to keep your partner's attention.  So our Valentine's day will be fairly simple.  I'm sure that Matt will love the tickets.  I'm fairly certain that he'll be sending me flowers at school tomorrow.  But we're both happy with the way things are and that's the way it should be.

Too Much Information

No... not that kind of TMI, just a lot of technology talk last week.  I spent five days in Austin at a technology conference.  By the end of each day, my brain was full.  There's only so much information that I can take in in one day.  Matt came up with me on Sunday evening.  I registered for the conference and then checked into the hotel.  When I went to my room, the door was open and the bed was stripped.  I had to go back downstairs and inform the desk clerk.  Thankfully she moved me to another room, but unfortunately it was right next to the highway.  Since I usually sleep with earplugs in, it didn't bother me too much.

Matt and I invaded a friend's house on Sunday evening for a Super Bowl party.  On Monday evening we went to the Austin Scrabble club because it was one of our Scrabble friend's last time to play.  He is moving to Iowa tomorrow to be closer to his girlfriend who lives just two hours away now.  I wasn't going to play, but they talked me into staying for a game.  I'm glad I did because I had a really good game scoring 486 points with three bingos.

The conference was good overall, but I had an issue with the registration.  I didn't get it resolved until Wednesday so I missed out on some sessions that I should have been able to go to.  I went to other ones instead, but it was frustrating not to get an immediate response about it.  I tried going to the registration desk twice and both times the answer was "we're sorry - that's happening to several others too."

It would have been more fun had there been other people I knew there, but I only saw a couple of other people from our district.  I had lunch and dinner on my own every day.  On Thursday I started feeling a pain in my shoulder.  I wasn't sure what I did to it.  I'm guessing I must have slept weird or something.  The hotel bed was not very comfortable.  On Friday morning, I took two aleve and it didn't really help.  I was contemplating going to the medical clinic, but I decided to stick it out until Saturday.  It turns out that Tequila is very good at relaxing muscles.  Matt and I went out to dinner on Friday night and after two margaritas, the pain had subsided.  Now that I've been home a few days it seems to slowly be getting better.  I'm guessing sleeping in my own bed helps.