it's just that, you know...

Man. I don't want to give up the ghost on this site (thanks to Tiresa for the lovely saying, though applied differently here than in our previous conversation), but I just am ... busy. I am off now, for 2 months, so that should help. My time between today and August 27th will be spent firstly praying that my EI claim is accepted, and then..not doing much else. The fam is all going to be at the cottage for this lovely long Canada day weekend, where we will likely get blown around a bit, and drink a bit, and make ice cream in the old-school type crank ice cream maker. Jury's still out on what flavour we'll do, but the boys chose last time, so I think my sister and I get to pick this time. And mom, I suppose. I'm thinking teddy bear. Do you remember teddy bear? It was just chocolate ice cream with chunks of peanut butter in it. No nuts, no chocolate swirls or crunchy bits, just chocolate and peanut butter. So good. It was around in high school, but has disappeared in the (ten, holy shit) years since then.

I do have a reunion this summer, which I am currently planning to attend, but if something better comes up, I'll probably go to it. Most of the people I liked in high school I still know, so I don't really need to see them. Might be fun to see if anyone has gotten fat or anything though. For sure nobody will have a cuter kid.

We're going to Maine to see my uncle and eat at his restaurant. It's super delish, and if you're ever in the Boothbay area, and need some breakfast or lunch or anything in between, you should totally stop in. Also, I designed the website, and thanks to some tweaking, it's now coming up in top spots when you search "blue moon boothbay" or "blue moon maine". Better hits with boothbay. There are a LOT of things called the Blue Moon out there. They (my uncle and his wife, technically my aunt, yes?) took over from someone else and kept the name. Anyway, so yes, plans are to eat lots there and not spend too much at the Carter's / Children's Place / North Face outlets. Mmm, Freeport.

I am, as mentioned, on vacation. Paid or not, we'll soon see. I will be returning to work, at a new school, but to a very similar position. Resource & Methods. Used to be Methods & Resource, but MR also stands for mentally retarded, and apparently people were getting confused. Regardless. I'll be doing that, which I do enjoy, so that's good. Bigger school, hopefully the staff is as super as the one I'll be leaving. I will know a couple of people, and my tech guy will be the same, which is oddly comforting. I can still talk to my old cronies on MSN (the inter-office / district version) so that should be fun too. I found out about my new position in an odd way though. I had gone to interview, on relatively short notice, for a job that I had indeed applied for, as a 2nd choice, at this school. The interview was at 5:45 on a Friday, and ended up being at 6:10, and it was so hot, and I had some kind of cold / flu, and thought I might die before I made it through the interview. Anyway, that was for a French position, and while my language skills are good, I had never actually taught French, and the person they hired has, so that's fair. Anway. The following Monday I got a call, and it was the HR guy from District office. He said, so, you had mentioned during your French interview that you had applied for the resource postion at the same school. I said, yes indeed. (that was actually my first choice). He said, would you still be interested in it? I said yes (thinking, sweet, I get another interview). He said, ok then, that will be your position next year. Well ok then!

So that was cool. There was no need to interview me really, since it would have just been all the same people, and since I was so clearly awesome.

The man is doing another course towards his masters, so is pretty busy. The boy and I will likely be spending some quality time at the cottage this summer to avoid being a distraction and to work on our tans. WITH SUNSCREEN, of course. The man's birthday is next weekend. For almost 2 months, we'll be the same age. Then I get to be older, wiser, etc, again, at the end of Sept.

The boy is of course wonderful. He's very clever, though refuses to express this verbally in any significant way. He will though use enough words to get his point across. The other night he wanted to get out of bed after having been put to bed about half an hour previously. He's like, "poop." Baby, you need to poop? (we're trying to encourage but not force the potty thing, he's SO NOT interested). He's like, 'yes.' Ok, let's go. No, he's just joking. No poop. Smart boy, got himself some more out of bed time.

We went for his first real haircut a couple of weeks ago. It was horrifying. He screamed and tried to get away the whole time, she did a great job considering but cut it shorter than I would have liked. His hair grows quickly though, so it's pretty much perfect now. It's actually longer than it should be just for heat's sake, but damn, it's so cute. He has the little curly wings and stuff, I can't just give him the like, 'boy' haircut. You know what I mean. We went to the carnival and went on some small child rides (spinning teacup, merry go round etc) and that was very fun. He threw darts at balloons and actually hit 2 of the 3, and won a prize, but didn't want the prize, wanted to throw more darts. That was not, by the way, my idea. The carnie guy suggested it and I was like, sure, let my 2 year old throw darts near you. This should be entertaining!

I've been on the computer a long time now. I should get off. I promise I will be back sooner than a month this time. In the meantime, plan something nice for our first wedding anniversary for me. It's August 5th. You can go look at some pictures to inspire you. The man will be busy with school still, so it can't be like, a romantic weekend or anything. One evening, probably.

wedding pics (sorry to be cryptic, but I don't need creepy strangers going there)
www.(myname)and(man's name).com/wedding
boy pics
www.(myname)and(man's name).com/(boy's name)

later skaters.

Oh, I'm SO excited for the Transformers movie!!! That will likely be the man's bday date. I'm curious who will go see it. Us, clearly, our generation, but what of the younger set? They have no idea who transformers are, but the movie looks awesome, and has Shia LeBoeuf in it, so hey.

I have a 2-year old

How frigging crazy is that? As of two hours and...21 minutes ago (6:24pm), my dear boy is two. And terrible! Ha! No, not really. No moreso than he has been for the last little while anyway. He's big into things being his, and getting what he wants when he wants it, regardless of logical or nutritional barriers to that end. We had a nice day today. We've had a crazy long long weekend, we (the boy and I) had a snowday Thursday, then Friday to Monday off for Easter. Tomorrow we're back to the regular routine, but no students at school, parent-teacher meetings and PD. 2 days of regular school, then I'm off Friday again for the annual NB Learning Disabilities Association conference. I'm going to be so frigging trained up by the end of this that anyone would be FOOLISH not to hire me. Which should come in handy. Anyway. Today was nice, we went to McDonald's for lunch, because that's fun. He had nuggets, apples, and chocolate milk. Relatively healthy, as far as McD's goes. Then we went and got some groceries, and had his picture taken. It was his first non-mom photo session, and it was a bit of a fiasco. He was wailing when we went in, which is never a good sign. I tried to put a nice shirt on him, but no go. He then would absolutely not sit or stand anywhere near where he had to in order to have his picture taken. But then...he found the sports gear props. We had 2 basketballs, one small and one regular size, a mini football, and a mini hockey stick. The 3 pictures I ended up ordering were all with the hockey stick, which wasn't really what i was going for, but whatever. He looks like ME in one of the pictures too, which is really the reason I got it. The good smiles were elicited by him hitting the basketball with the hockey stick, and then me and the photographer lady clapping and cheering madly for his great shot. I was like, his dad will be so proud. We had a little cake and candles (which he knew exactly what to do with, cute enough) but we'll have the big shindig next weekend. We didn't want to interfere with anybody's Easter weekend plans.

What else. Easter bunny brought the man and I a truly ridiculous amount of sugary stuff, despite our repeated requests for that not to happen. We trade amongst ourselves and his brother for the stuff we each like most (eggs - mini, caramilk, creme, whatever, for me), and then the two of us end up bringing most of it to work, where our co-workers curse us while stuffing themselves silly. Good times. He also got new tires, which is sweet, and I got a new complete outfit. I'm debating whether I should wear it tomorrow for PT / PD day, when I will surely impress my co-workers and the 3 parents who come to see me, or the next day, to impress my 11 & 12 year olds. And co-workers.

Alright. Enough dialuppage for me. I'm going to upload some new pics to the boy's site in the next day or so. His birthday party is next Sunday afternoon. Stop in if you're in the neighbourhood!

I'm not dead, it appears

Just busy. With limited readership, and limited exciting things going on, it's hard to find much to talk about!

In semi-important news, my 10 year high school reunion is coming up, apparently. It's looking like the last weekend in July will be the date. So, if you, like me, graduated in 1997 from HTHS, there's a group on Yahoo, and Facebook, to join. On a sidenote, how fun is Facebook! I registered on there this week...I can't access it at school, damn firewall security bastards...but I got a fair bit done and connected with lots of people I haven't seen in years. So, if you know me at all, poke me. Remember, I'm married now, so if you get a poke from a Sarah R. and you're like, who the hell? It's me! I was thinking too, there are people I haven't seen since before the baby was born, who I was really good friends with. How / why does that happen? We just get busy, I guess. And then it's like, hmm, it's been 2 years. Do I just say, hey! How's it goin? Sorry I haven't spoken to you in 2 years, nothing personal. Sorry I didn't invite you to the wedding, but that was just a fiasco, and I don't want to talk about it. Ha! Hmm.

I've been keeping pretty busy with work and the boy. The man and I had our 6 month anniversary last month, and we both forgot about it. Not that it's the most important thing in the world, but it's kind of funny. Hopefully we'll do better with the one year.

I saw some really good movies over the break. Music and Lyrics, with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore (every time I see her, I want to totally change my style and grow my hair. I've decided I should start wearing scarves.), was a little predictable but very entertaining. Stranger than Fiction was really really good, and even those of you who harbour a dislike for Will Ferrell based on his Talladega Nights type movies, would love it. Bon Cop, Bad Cop was also much better than I had expected. My one complaint was that while the French was subtitled, beneficial for those of us not fluent in Quebec French, many times the white print was on a light or white background, and literally impossible to read. My French is good, so I got most of it, but it was pretty quick, and there were parts where even the characters admitted to not understanding everything a person said. Employee of the Month was decent, funny, but not worth writing home about, as one would expect from a Jessica Simpson movie. I want to see The Number 23, and the man wants to see 300, so maybe we'll go on a non-date and see different movies at the same time.

I have so much work to do. Which is why, clearly, I'm writing this. I have only 2 full weeks of school before Easter weekend and the boy's birthday. One week I have a day off for R&M meetings (it's called R&M now, not M&R, because MR stands for mentally retarded, and apparently people were getting confused...) so not really a day off, but a day away from school. Another week I have a 2-day training course on how to implement PRIME math teaching at my school, and how to train others to do so. Pretty exciting stuff. Then Easter, 4 day weekend for we government types, then a short week, then a full week, then another R&M meeting for end of term. Lovely. Then, hell, it'll be May, which is almost June, which will fly by and then it will be summer. But then it will be fall, as always happens, and lather, rinse, repeat, and so on.

I really should do some work. In summary, check out the boy's new pictures on his website. Also, if you're from HTHS class of 97, or know someone who is, go sign up at Yahoo or Facebook so you can be kept apprised of new developments on the reunion front.

first day back? I think not!

You've just got to love it when you wake up at 6:30 to get ready for school, and you catch the weather news, and it's saying 15cm of snow followed by 15cm of freezing rain. And there's no school in pretty much all the districts.

lovely.

If you're a teacher, of course. Otherwise, it's pretty terrible news really, since you still have to get up and make it to work despite the horrible weather. The man is on his way home though, because it's getting worse rather than better. Most of the snow has fallen off our roof, and the cats are having a wonderful time trying to catch it as it falls. It's raining and terrible out now.

The boy and I enjoyed our bonus day together, we went outside and played for a bit, but he was wearing his new, heavier boots, and that combined with the heavy snow to make it un-fun for him to walk around. He wanted me to carry him around outside. He'd point to some random thing, we'd go check it out. Good times. It didn't last very long though. I tried building a snowman, but the destructive little man was having none of that. He'd wait until I got a good base snowball rolled, and then attack it with ferocity, diminishing it to a pile of useless snow chunks. Then he'd say "oh!" and laugh. When the snow turned more to crap rain, we came inside and watched Baby Einstein, the Wiggles, and Little People movies. His favourite is the Einstein one about animals. I'm trying to get it cheap on dvd, because we have it on vhs, and it's not going to last long. He laughs at all the animals, and sometimes calls out to them on the tv with whatever noise they make. His favourite noises are monkey and lion. Good to know that while his comprehension is truly excellent, and he chooses not to speak much English, that his speaking of animal languages is coming along nicely.

I get to start carpooling tomorrow. I'm doing all the driving, but will be getting some gas money, which is nice. Also, it'll give me an excuse to leave at a reasonable hour each day. People stay late there, and I'm not sure why. I get my work done, I usually work through breaks and lunch if I'm not on duty, and then I want to get the hell out of dodge come end of day. Reasonable, I think.

I've come up with what I think is a pretty clever invention idea. I even came up with a catchy name for it. I now have to make this clever invention, and then apply for a patent. It's quite an involved process, many steps. I think I'll also have to trademark the name if I don't want people to steal it. Obviously, I can't tell you what the idea is, or the name, but once I get the process going, I'll fill you in. It is, however, one of those things that if I saw in the store, I would think, man, good idea! Simple! Why didn't I think of that? Then I would buy it. Anyway, assuming this all goes well, I guess I have to then figure out whether to try to make them myself, or who and how to try to sell the idea (or part of the rights, or something) to. Exciting times! I have many projects on the go. I did, briefly, consider opening a daycare, but I kiboshed that idea pretty quickly, because I don't actually want to take care of a bunch of kids, I just want to stay home and take care of mine. Maybe like, 1 or 2 others. Depending on how many I end up with on my own! haha. No, I'm not pregnant. And neither is my sister. So stop asking! Someone I know is. 2 people, actually. But not me. I'll let you know if / when that happens. And revive the preggo blog. Have to move it though, since someone took over the preggoblog.blogspot space, and then linked it to porn. Assholes. But, again, no need to do that any time soon.

Alright. This is respectably long. It's really not nice out. It's nice in my livingroom though, because our new tv is all hooked up, and I hung all my glass balls, and they're right purty. I'm going to lie on the couch and wait for the man to get home. It's quiet, the boy is sleeping. Going to enjoy.

A belated Merry Christmas

and all that jazz. And, I guess, a slightly early Happy New Year! Santa found us, we got a bit spoiled as usual. Mostly he found the boy. I think his favourite presents this year are the tent / tunnel combo that my sister got him, and the A-Z learning zoo animals that my parents got him. He would hang out in the tent all day. Overall I think we did well picking out presents. A little easier this year, since he has interests and can do more than crawl and sit.

We got a new tv, that I think we'll try to hang on the wall to keep tiny, curious, pointy fingers away from it. It's an LCD, I'm not sure if those come with some kind of protective shield type thing on the front, or if it's soft like a computer screen. We'll see! We also have to find out how to get it home, since there's definitely no room in the SX. I got the Joy of Cooking and a really pretty glass pitcher, so I can cook somebody a nice meal and then get them loaded on margaritas or something. A pair of knee-high heeled black boots, veddy nice. Some money, always a very appreciated gift. A food processor, so we can find a great pizza recipe in the Joy and then I can make dough and chop my veggies and maybe even shred cheese?

The man did some post-Christmas shopping yesterday, and then we went to dinner and a movie. Half price apps at Don Cherry's, the new one in Dieppe, that has a tv and an X-BOX in each booth. We sat at a table, thankfully. We went to see Night at the Museum, and it was really ... entertaining. Cute, funny. Safe for the under 18 crowd for sure. Probably was PG. I don't think there was any swearing, but it wasn't like, damn, we're at a kids' movie. There was a whole row of small children in front of us, which was cute, but it was the 9:25 show, which seems a bit late for a bunch of 3-7 year olds. All in their jammies with popcorn from home. It was much better than I thought it would be, definitely worth a cheap night outing or a rental.

Tonight holds no big plans. We were in Hali from the 22nd to the 27th, when we came to Rexton. We'll be here until NY Day. The man has to work on the 2nd, so we'll head home. I think NY Eve is an evening in Moncton with friends, food, games, and drinking. The usual. We have the game Scene It, the Friends edition, so that should be fun.

I have a bit of shopping to do, but have all next week to do it, so will likely postpone. Heading to Shoppers today for 20x my points. That's the only time I shop there. It's also a decent 1-day sale on tampons and advil and diapers. Very exciting stuff, I tell ya!

If any of you are around next week, give me a shout. We'll hang out and stuff.