Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Daily 3 - To Do List

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days.  Been busy with workshops and final judging of a book award thing.  (Will write more on that later.)  Here are 3 things on my to-do list for tomorrow:

1.  Get a haircut - I've gotten completely lazy about doing my hair which is why I've kept it fairly short for a while now.  I grew out the pixie cut I had two years ago and for the first time in about 25 years I've also grown my bangs out.  My hair seems to have gotten curlier in the last few years so I have a short chin-length bob and just let the curls/waves do their thing.  I think I want to go with a more angled A-line bob where it's longer in the front and shorter in the back. 

2. Put together the rest of my IKEA stuff at school.  I went up to school after my workshop today and put together a couple of things but I have a few more items that I need to work on. 

3.  Clean out and organize the library office/craft room.  I basically turned my office into a craft room last year but I had a giant table in there that was really too big for the space.  I took it out and put in a smaller table and desk and now it's open in the middle.  I need to sort through and organize my shelves and make it a workable craft area for teachers and students wanting to use our new cricut machine. 

This all of course is AFTER I sleep in tomorrow.  Wednesday is my last day before I officially report back to work so I'm not going to rush going in tomorrow. 

Saturday, July 27, 2019

Daily 3 - Back to School Shopping

After paying bills I found that I had some extra money so I headed out to do some back to school shopping today.  These are the three stores I went to:

1. IKEA (Again) - After putting all my other stuff together, I realized that there were a few more things I wanted so I headed back this morning and again bought too much stuff.  Luckily I had a coupon for $20 off when spending over $150.  Hopefully I'm done with that store for a while. 

2.  Ross Dress for Less - I mostly did a cursory walk of the store.  No clothing interested me so I checked out the furniture.  I'm looking for some smaller side tables or magazine racks but everything I saw was more than I wanted to spend.  I did, however, find something I had to have.  It's two sided chalkboard sign like you might see outside of a cafe noting today's specials.  Since I have a coffee bar in my library, I thought it would be a nice addition and it was only $30.  When I compared that to online prices, most were $70 or more so I think it was a good deal.

3.  Kohl's - I did pretty well only buying three tops, a pair of black pants, and jacket (which was on sale for $4.80).  I had a 20% off coupon which saved me about $20. 

I also stopped at Walmart on the way home (for more cat food and some other items).  The only other store that I really need to go to before school starts is Skechers.

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Daily 3 - Best Friends

So I've never been one to have a lot of close friends.  It was easier in high school but as an adult, I've found that becoming close friends with someone is more difficult - especially after moving to a brand new city.  I developed many acquaintances but no really close friends that I call up and shoot the breeze with.  One of my Scrabble friends, however, just moved from Austin to San Antonio and we've been doing stuff together so there's a closer friendship in the making.  Today's daily three are my three closest and longest friends.

1.  Kirsten - I've known Kirsten since we were probably toddlers.  My aunt and uncle were friends of her parents.  I spent many summers visiting my aunt and got to know Kirsten.  Starting in 7th grade we were in the same school and have been friends ever since.  She is a music professor in Nacogdoches and probably the smartest person I know.

2.  Kim - Kim and I met in the 9th grade at Valleyview Junior High.  She commented on my suspenders I was wearing and just started talking.  She was also in band so we became fast friends.  She moved away after (or maybe during) our sophomore year, but we stayed in touch through letters and phone.  I visited her in Mississippi during college and was in her wedding.  She was in both of my weddings. 

3.  Pam - We met while working my first teaching job at Valleyview.  She sent me a very nice thank you note for something at school and we chatted after school in the teacher's lounge one day.  We commiserated with each other about relationships, raising kids, teaching, etc.  She left Valleyview the next year but I encouraged her to take a job at another middle school doing yearbook and speech (which is what I taught) - she has been there ever since.  She's had a rough life - her daughter had cystic fibrosis and died several years ago.  Her dad died in a car accident before then and she had a nephew that was killed in a work accident.  I don't know how she has gotten through it all but I've tried to be there for her. 

All three of these ladies were in both of my weddings along with my cousin, Amanda.  The only person that was also in my first wedding was my former best friend Robin.  I wrote a post about that several years ago.  Still never figured out what went wrong there, but I've moved on from it. 

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Daily 3 - IKEA

Yesterday I spent about an hour and a half at IKEA getting stuff for my library this year.  I'm hoping that I'll be better organized this year and won't get buried under paperwork and stuff.  Here are three things I got at IKEA to help me in this process:

1. Three shelf drawer unit - Planning on using this to store printer paper under my side desk so it's easily accessible but also out of the way.

2. Storage Boxes - I found a variety of boxes that I can use to store dry erase markers, pencils, and other items as needed.

3.  Side tables - Not so much for organization but to put in my seating areas near my comfy chairs where I can put books that students might pick up and read. 

Sunday, July 21, 2019

Daily 3 - Three Days

Sorry I've bailed for a few days.  Josh and his girlfriend have been here and just let today.  Today's daily three will be three things I've done the last three days.

1. Thursday - I met with my district library coordinator to plan a digital breakout to do at our upcoming back to school library meeting.  I then went to my campus and created the breakout and did some work that was actually productive. 

2.  Friday - Dropped Matt off for a liver biopsy.  He's potentially participating in a research study for his fatty liver and had to have a biopsy done.  I then did laundry and house cleaning in preparation for Josh and his girlfriend coming.

3.  Saturday - Went to Six Flags Fiesta Texas and rode roller coasters with Josh and Emmalee.  It was hot and some of the line waits were long.  We got six rides in before we called it a day.  We took them to dinner at a local Italian restaurant. 

Josh and Emmalee headed back today so hopefully, I'll get back on schedule with blogging and other stuff I need to get done. 

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Daily 3 - Jobs

I've been a librarian for 8 years now.  It's one of the best decisions I've ever made.  I actually enjoy my job and am looking forward to going back to work in a few weeks.  Today's daily three are other jobs I've had:

1.  Hostess at Denny's Restaurant - This was my very first job ever.  My sister was a waitress at this restaurant and suggested me for the hostess job.  I basically sat people dining in and ran the cash register.  I only worked the job for a few months - it was a summer gig after my first year in college.

2.  Snackbar Cashier at Walmart - This was my second official job that I worked briefly while in college.  I made sandwiches, popped popcorn, and sold various snack bar items.  I happened to get pregnant while I was employed there (no, not AT the store, just during that time period).  I had pretty bad morning (afternoon, and evening) sickness for several months and I don't think the smells of the snack bar (like the BBQ or taco meat) really helped.

3.  Yearbook Sales Associate - I did this after teaching for 5 years.  I had enough of the students and wanted something different.  My yearbook rep at the time was looking to hire an assistant and I got the job.  I traveled to about 35 schools in the Panhandle and helped them in the creation of their yearbooks.  I designed covers, pages, installed printers, etc.  I developed a lot of my technology skills through this job.  I did this job for five years until I had to return to teaching in order to get health insurance and benefits after getting divorced.

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Daily 3 - College Classes

I started college in the Fall of 1988 as a music business major.  I tried accounting twice before I decided that the "business" part was not for me.  I didn't want to be a band director and I didn't have the drive to practice and be a performance major.  I got pregnant with Josh early 1990 and after having him I decided to switch majors to speech education with a minor in English.  It took longer to graduate because of all of this but I did graduate Summa Cum Laude in May 1995.  These were some of my favorite classes:

1.  Band - even though I dropped music as my major, I stayed in band all 7 years (my last year was technically an internship).  I'm still and will always be a band geek.  I still play in a community band here in San Antonio.

2.  Persuasion - This was one of my speech classes that I really enjoyed.  We had to do a bit of persuasive speaking, but I enjoyed learning about the psychological aspects involved in persuasion. 

3.  Debate - I was dreading this class when I first signed up for it because I had never understood how debate works and didn't think I would do well with it.  The first time I nailed someone during cross-examination, I was hooked.  I loved the logic of debate.  I think if I hadn't become a teacher I might have considered getting involved in law.  It's hard to win an argument with me if you don't have evidence (or good logic) to back up your claims.


Sunday, July 14, 2019

Daily 3 - Moving

So yesterday Matt and I went to dinner for our anniversary with some friends of ours that just bought a house.  We went over to see the house after dinner and didn't get back until really late so I didn't have time to post a daily 3 as I pretty much just fell into bed and went to sleep.  We are going over there shortly to help them with unpacking.  Having moved a few times in the past 8 years, today's daily three are the best things I paid for in moving:

1. Moving guys and a truck.  When I bought the house I'm in, I had planned to borrow a trailer from a fellow teacher but of course, it would RAIN the weekend I'm moving.  I rented a U-Haul truck at the last minute.  When I discovered that big guys (Matt and his friend Jason) don't necessarily equal strength, I called to see if I could get a couple of moving guys.  They were by far the best money I ever spent.  Even though I was only moving a couple of blocks away, they loaded up all the big stuff and my boxes and unloaded them in 2 hours. 

2.  Installing a pet door.  I actually had to buy a door and the pet door and have both installed.  The door to the back yard had a big pane of glass in the middle of it. 

3.  Garage door opener.  I've been spoiled by being able to park my car in the garage.  (Note that only 1/2 of the garage is clean)  I don't really have to deal with frosty/icy mornings anymore, but it's nice to enter and exit via the garage. 

Friday, July 12, 2019

Daily 3 - Happy Anniversary

Today is my anniversary.  Matt and I have been married 5 years now.  It's not quite a milestone yet.  Richard and I were married for a little over 5 years.  I'm certain that this marriage will last quite a lot longer than my previous one.  Tonight we went out for pizza as part of a social gathering with Matt's work.  The problem was that the restaurant couldn't sit everyone together so we mostly just had a table to ourselves.  It was crowded and took quite a while but pizza is Matt's favorite food.  I don't really like crowds and waiting but that is part of my introverted status.  Tomorrow we are going to a fancier restaurant for our celebratory dinner.  We're going with two Scrabble friends of ours.  They got engaged about 6 months ago and they just closed on a house today. 

Today's daily 3 are things I love about Matt:

1.  He's smart.  He is an intelligent man and likes to read.  He also likes that I'm smart which is a relief.  I think that my brain was intimidating to other men I've dated.

2.  He likes to play Scrabble and ride roller coasters.  We actually met because of this.  He had a profile on CatholicMatch.com that mentioned he liked to play Scrabble and go to theme parks.  That intrigued me so I contacted him.  He wrote back and then we emailed for a few weeks before he asked me out on a date. 

3.  He's oblivious to other women.  Matt is basically the antithesis of my ex-husband.  Richard seemed to need constant validation and ego boosts.  He liked women that needed his help.  He always had his eye elsewhere.  It took Matt 2 months to kiss me.  He is oblivious to other women and doesn't have a jealous bone in my body.  I have no reason to be jealous of him or question his whereabouts.  He has no interest in strip clubs, dirty magazines, or porn site.  It's quite a relief. 

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Daily 3 - My Library

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of days.  I left on Tuesday morning to drive up to Austin to attend a short library conference.  I attended a meeting at 11:00, went to lunch with some people from SA, then found out my session after lunch had been canceled.  I booked a hotel via Priceline so I headed up there to check in.  I had dinner with Marty.  (Yes, THAT Marty - ex-boyfriend, Marty)  We had a nice time catching up and he even paid for dinner.  Yes, I told my husband that I was having dinner with him and he was perfectly fine about it.  On Wednesday, I attended two other sessions and was able to leave early and get back to SA by 2:30 or so.  I woke up early that day so I ended up taking a nap. 

This morning I headed up to my school to work in my library.  I've been thinking about rearranging it (again) and wanted to get that worked out.  Last year, I ditched the Dewey Decimal system and genrefied my entire collection.  It's mostly bookstore-like now.  If you want books on War, there's a section for that. 

I spent a few hours there and today's daily three are the three things I love about my library:

1.  It's spacious.  There's a lot of room for a high school library with about 12,500 books, 15 tables, comfy chairs, and more.

2.  My new comfy chairs.  I got a grant last year for comfortable seating in the library.  It was called "Seating for Reading" in hopes that it would encourage more students to curl up with a book.  I got 16 new chairs in the grant and they are spread out in the library.  Last year I had to be the "Chair Police" and kick students out of the chairs if they weren't reading.  Now that I've submitted my grant results, I'll let them use them as needed. 

3.  Games.  I have multiple games available for check out in the library.  Some I bought with my own money, several came from a Donor's Choose grant.  Students love to play games during lunch and I check out the games so it helps with my circulation statistics.


Monday, July 08, 2019

Daily 3 - Series Books

I'm a big fan of series books - especially those that are still being written and I can usually expect a new book at least once a year.  I like the character development over the course of a series.  Here are my top 3 favorites (with some honorable mentions).

1.  Harry Potter Series - Still a favorite and I reread the series every year.  I read the first book when Josh was in 3rd grade.  He was reading one of the books and I started it and then had him check out the other books for me.  I now have a Harry Potter Club at my high school library. 

2.  Sue Grafton's Alphabet Series - It was a great loss when she passed away before getting to "Z" but I still love this series and have reread them a couple of times.

3.  Lee Child's Jack Reacher Series - I happened on this series around 2010 or so because I randomly had the book from a book club I once joined and was intrigued after reading.  It was because of this series that I got my first Kindle because I looked at my bookshelves and decided if I was going to commit to another series that I really didn't have room for more books.  I got Matt hooked on the books as well and now he buys me the books for my birthday since they are usually released in November. 

Honorable mentions:

Miranda James Cat in the Stacks Mystery - this is a series I happened upon a couple of years ago that features a librarian as the main character who has a Maine Coon cat as his sidekick.  It's a cute series.

David Baldacci's Memory Man series - I'm not sure how David Baldacci writes so many books so fast, but I've enjoyed this particular series by him.

Rick Riordan's Tres Navarre series - You might not know this, but Rick Riordan (known for the Percy Jackson YA series) used to live in San Antonio.  He taught at a middle school here and at one of the universities as well.  Before he began the Percy Jackson series, he wrote a series about a San Antonio PI named Tres Navarre.  It's kind of cool to read a mystery about places I've become more familiar with. 

Saturday, July 06, 2019

Daily 3 - Places I've lived

I've lived in San Antonio for almost 8 years now.  I bought my current house almost 7 years ago for $139,000.  I'm currently working on my case for protesting my property tax appraisal.  They are estimating it is worth over $192,000 or around $81 per square foot.  That would be great if it were in truly sellable condition, but it's not.  I bought it as a foreclosure and my pets have since ruined the carpet and my fence is falling down.  After comparing other properties in the area, I think I'll be able to get it down significantly, at least I hope.  My hearing is on Monday morning and this time I'm going in better prepared.  Last time, they agreed that they overestimated my property value and reduced it by $10,000 without argument.  This time, I'm going to argue my case and have pictures supporting it. 

Today's daily three will focus on three places I've lived in my life:

1.  Perryton, TX - This is where I was born in 1969 and lived until I was 5.  We moved after my kindergarten year.

2.  Amarillo, TX - We lived here (but in 5 different places) from 1975 until I left for college in 1988. 

3.  Canyon, TX -  I lived here pretty much from the time I went to college in 1988 until I moved to San Antonio in 2011.  I lived in the dorm, 4 rental houses, and 2 owned houses (one that I lost to foreclosure after getting divorced in 2004). 


Friday, July 05, 2019

Daily 3 - Fireworks

Growing up in a small town, the 4th of July and the fireworks show was a big deal.  I remember shooting off our own small fireworks in the back yard on a brick patio - mild ones like small cones, smoke bombs, sparklers, a tank that moved and shot sparks and the chicken that laid eggs.  From my aunt's house (and later my parents and then my house) we had a great view of the fireworks that were shot off from the park that was just down the street.  When the trees got too tall, we would take lawn chairs to the church parking lot across the street and watch them from there.  During my teenage years, I would watch them with my friends - sometimes from their backyard (and rooftop) that was even closer to the park.  We ended up making up names for some of the fireworks so here's three of them for your pleasure:

1.  Bill Fred - these represent the gigantic fireworks that fill the sky completely.  They are the most impressive of the fireworks.

2.  Pooters - these are the tiny fireworks that are hardly worth our while. 

3.  Spermies - these are the fireworks that after exploding, several smaller bursts of wiggling sparks move through the air (like sperm). 

In case you were wondering - there are actually real names of fireworks you can see here

Wednesday, July 03, 2019

Daily 3 - Facebook Groups

Today's Daily 3 will be some Facebook Groups that I follow:

1. Future Ready Librarians - this is a group for Librarians that often share ideas, ask for advice, and such.  It currently has over 21,000 members.

2.  North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) - this is the official group for the competitive Scrabble group that Matt and I compete in.  They make announcements about Scrabble-related business and people will post about game scenarios or ask Scrabble-related questions.

3.  UPS Dogs - This one is just fluff to make me smile.  It features UPS drivers interacting with dogs (and other animals) as they make deliveries.  It's cute pictures of dogs - what more could you ask for?


Tuesday, July 02, 2019

Daily 3 - TV Shows

I'm struggling to think of a topic for today.  Since I'm currently watching TV before bed, I figure I can list 3 shows that I typically watch - even when it's just reruns.

1.  Big Bang Theory - I didn't start watching this until about Season 4 but it has been a favorite of mine and I'm glad I have a DVR that was able to record the last season for me.

2.  House Hunters - Yeah, it's formulaic but it's interesting to compare what houses go for in other cities.  It usually makes me feel better about what I paid for my house.

3.  Friends - When there's nothing else on and I need something mindless, I usually have this on in the background.

Monday, July 01, 2019

Daily 3 - Things You Don't See Much Any More

So today was our last day of travel and it feels really good to be home other than the fact that I'm either getting a cold or my allergies have been unleashed.  We had an 8 hour drive today but I'm thankful to see my pets and to sleep in my own bed tonight.  Today's daily three are those things you don't see much of anymore when traveling.

1.  Stuckey's - these roadside convenience stores used to be everywhere.  Now they are few and far between.  I only saw two of them on our 3500 mile road trip.

2.  Gulf Stations - Maybe these are more prevalent in other areas, but I can't say that I've seen any in Texas in a long while and only saw two on our trip.

3.  Volkswagon Beetles - Remember the Slug Bug game?  You hit your friend in the car when you were the first to see a VW Beetle?  If your friend was a jerk, they made sure to hit you as hard as they can?  I think I only saw one of these (and it was one of the newer models) on our trip.