a season of changes

On April 15 2011 the most important man in my life passed away, my dad. I was always following him around as a child, desperate to help in any activity he was currently occupied with. I learned to work on cars, fix anything, and have great times with anyone.

My father never met a stranger and that was never more true at his funeral, I have never seen so many people packed into a chapel. The loss of his larger than life personality has left a gaping wound in me. It aches.

I called this man after every test, every goofball move I made. I was mad at The Boyfriend he was my first call, if I was excited about a job, he was my first call. And just between you and me, he was the only person I ever drunk dialed... a lot.

I got back to Nashville with only one of classes left. My heart isn't in it, but I won't throw the semester away. I am looking forward to a month off so I can stay in bed with the sheets over my head like I want to. In July we are headed to England so The Fella can do research. I promised to get my ever enlarging behind out of London and see the rest of the country while he is at Kew.

What, you think you're going?

That was the question that fella posed to me last night while out celebrating. He has had a hard time working on his prospectus for his PhD. Topics and sources have changed many, many times. But, but, last week he got the go ahead from his committee and the ducks were lining up nicely. Then yesterday evening he asked me to help him find some great archives from Chinese missionary trips. I found some of the best in the world and compiled the list in order of substantial archival information to the most intricate rare specimen ( one photo isn't really worth the trip). So what does that mean? It means grant money and research trips. So we went out to celebrate.

At some point in the evening we started talking about some neat places close to one of the top archives. Me, being a little TYPE-A went ahead and made a google map while I was putting a list together for the top three archives of other excursions. Yes, I got ahead of myself. However, it was at this point when I was telling my fella,"oh my gosh, the best Italian restaurant is three blocks over" he looks at me and says...
"You think you're going?", "Don't you have classes this summer?", "Are you going to get a job?"

I wanted to punch him in the nose. HARD!

review of first day of class....

I just got back from my classes about half an hour ago. I am so thrilled. The faculty is interesting and so far I feel like they are still "in teaching" for the satisfaction of it. I have homework, boo. I have even more reading to do, big boo.

Starting to get a little worried

I am so excited to go back to college but as of right this moment I am also on the verge of tears scared. I don't know why. I know I can handle the classes. I know I am making the right decision to complete my degree. I am not really worried that my teachers won't like me or the people in my class.

So what is my problem? Maybe it is just my nerves. Maybe, its that my books haven't arrived yet because of all the snow in our area and I am very superstitious sometimes.

I did get a Starbucks giftcard for Christmas so I was thinking of stopping for a treat on my way to class in the morning.

Happy Fabulous 2011, i'm back y'all

I finally feel like the chaos that is the holidays have left my mind, body and soul. Hoorah! I am looking forward to so much this year. I am going back to university January 13th to finish my public administration degree. The boyfriend is getting back on track with his research to finish his PhD. And maybe the biggest thrill. His son is going to graduate in may and we are moving back to our condo downtown in August.

This year I decidedly set broad goals (not resolutions). Here they are

1.  be smarter about my finances and using my money wisely
2. work on deepening my relationship and building ever stronger bonds
3. stay on course to finish my degree 
4. improve my cooking skills and range by attacking the "to try" pile of recipes in my binder

So far we have been pretty good about getting on track. We have made several recipes. Boyfriend is even cleaning up dishes, wow!

I get my financial aid package on the 24. I can wait to not be broke!

cheers, here is to the new year

They were dropping like flies,...but

My day is suffering from bipolar disorder. No, ...really, it is! I got up early to see my sweetie off to work. So that's fine. Then I stayed up to get ready to substitute teach for him and I get a call.
"I got the time wrong" he says. "You need to be there at noon".

So, great, whatever, I didn't really want to eat my big bowl of grilled chicken ceaser salad that I had been craving for two days. I would much rather leave it alone on the counter for the next three hours. Yes, I wanted that damn salad that badly!

So I get to the campus I only have one copy of the test for the 28 students. I don't know why!  So I have to find a copier but they put a freaking code on each machine. Guess what I don't have? Yup, a code.

I eventually make it to the classroom only 10 minutes late. I go over the rules, pass out the test and tell them what the bonus question is. Not five minutes later I have two students hand my back the test, no answers and walk out. I look up again three minutes later and there is a line queuing to hand back test. Now people, this test should take a well prepared person an hour to take not 8 minutes.

It onloy goes further down hill after that. I even told students who came in late they couldn't take the test -per the rules outlined in the syllabus.

So I get home and its pouring down rain. I drop my purse, things go everywhere. And there it is. My dishwasher. It died two Sundays ago. I called the repair people for our apartment complex. They come out and tell me it will be two or three days to get it back up and running. Well today was the last straw. They still hadn't been out to fix it. I call the honey-bunches and nagged and cry at him. I tell him I want a new damn washer to he is washing all the dishes from now on.

Was I being a tad over dramatic? Oh. Yes. I.  Was. Did I care? Nope. Did it work? I came back from the school pick up and there was a NEW dishwasher in my kitchen. I was so happy. So, So, happy.

I am stubstituting tomorrow...

Lucky me! My Sweetie is a professor at a local 2-year community college while he finishes his PhD. Tomorrow he has a meeting he can't get out of and I have to fill in for him by babysitting the class while they take an exam. His test make him notoriously hard by reputation. I actually don't mind doing a lecture for him because I am engaged. Tomorrow I just sit for an hour and change while they have mild nervous breakdowns.

Speaking of which. My step-son's school called and told us one of the teachers had suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be "dealt" with. Enjoy this video of the incident in question.

gone crazy