Beyond Our Bipolar Weather.

Sorry that the last couple of posts have been so brief. How silly is it that the weather has been the only thing worth updating the blog for this past week? Pretty darn. Actually, we've had fun stuff going on I just don't tend to have time to type more than a sentence or two. The 36 or so hours of clear weather we had were absolutely marvelous! It was warm outside with beautiful sunshine in the day and a sky full of stars at night. I think summer in Enumclaw is going to be pretty great (minus the fact that when it warms up even a few degrees the smell of cow seems to become so much more intense). On Friday evening the Ottos invited us over for a BBQ!!! Can't wait for more of those. They have a fabulous backyard with an incredible view of Mt. Rainier. I suppose maybe I should have taken a picture of that but Chevy was looking pretty cute on his lawn mower so you get this photo instead :)

Steven started a game of hide-and-seek with Colby and all of the sudden Colby was instructing everyone where to hide so that he could find them. I balked when he directed me under the slide and tried telling him there would be spiders under there but he didn't seem terribly concerned. Howie was happy to accompany me though she was mostly worried about getting a little head scratch. We had hot dogs and chips and salad and then roasted marshmallows at the fire pit. It was a lovely little taste of summer and I hope there's more to come in the very near future.

The weather was just as nice when we woke up the next morning so I chased Steven outside to help me reorganize our little storage room. I've been wanting to do this since last October! It felt SO GOOD to take everything out and see what was there and then put it all back in stacked nicely and in such a way that I could actually find and retrieve something if I needed it. It was a slightly sad experience though... I know that I have a lot of stuff but it was somewhat difficult seeing all of these lovely things, especially the kitchen things, that I just don't have room to keep in the house right now. We have a great little apartment that I really do adore but a bigger kitchen, well, obviously I would never pass that opportunity up. Steven kept rolling his eyes at all of the things that we were pulling out of there. I keep a lot of stuff "just in case" because you never know when you're going to need something and chances are -- we'll have it when we do need it.

Our reward to finishing the storage unit was a little picnic. Steven said he felt silly sitting on our front lawn eating our lunch but I told him people probably thought it was cute. Besides, it's not our fault that we don't have a nice, private, fenced-in back yard to hang out in and everyone should be outside on days like these. We were definitely having some trouble taking a photo of the two of us with our picnic but I thought maybe I'd just post this one and let you think I was trying to be artsy or something. We shared tuna and cheese paninis, pickles, wine and tea :) Yum!

It was hard to leave the sunshine but following our picnic we drove up to Woodinville for a little study session outside of Jamba Juice and then dragged ourselves into the freezing cold warehouse we call church for Easter-Eve service. It was such a treat going to church Saturday evening and not having to worry about getting up early or working in the nursery (though I did miss those cute little kids!). Easter weekend was not at all lacking in food... following church we went to dinner at my dad's (salmon and rice!!), Sunday morning Steven and I went out to breakfast, Sunday afternoon we had lunch at Steven's parents' house and Sunday evening we went up to Papa and Grammi's for Easter dinner. I feel full just thinking about it!

It was such a treat to go out to breakfast just the two of us. We went to The Kettle again (same place we went for Christmas Eve breakfast) and shared a waffle and an order of biscuits and gravy. I don't know why but going out for breakfast just feels so special.

Steven's dad spent the afternoon telling me all about his trip to Orlando and what he learned at the Disney Institution! He had all sorts of fun facts about how they run things down there and it was all really interesting. I want to go to the Disney Institution... he even had a little "graduation cap" with Mickey ears on it.

The evening with the Parducci's was wildly entertaining, as usual. I've recently decided that the whole family needs to go on a Disney cruise together. Can't say the uncles are too stoked about that idea but I've got at least 6 people on board -- that's half the family! It might take a bit more time to talk the others into it.

And yes, I was serious about the snow the other day. I couldn't believe it. It only lasted an hour or so, thank God.

My fun little project these days has been planning a bridal shower for Lena :) I love love LOVE planning parties! Especially for people who I love. I finally finished and mailed the invitations just yesterday. Steven kept trying to tell me I was spending way too much time on them ("they aren't wedding invitations for goodness sake!") but I was just having such a great time making them cute and Lena-esque. The shower isn't for a couple more weeks but it's coming together beautifully and I think it's going to be a really fun time. Great food, great friends and a beautiful bride-to-be!

In other exciting news, as of this morning I am officially employed by the Auburn school district. Woohoo! So that means I'm now in 6 different districts. I'm hoping May is going to bring in lots of work for me.

Well, Steven and I are off to Gorditos for dinner and to see a show at the Taproot Theatre.

TTFN. Ta-Ta for now!

Snow.

Outside my window. Are you freaking kidding me?

Sunshine.

I just crawled into the back corner of my closet and pulled out my capris. It's going to be a good day.

Messing with my System...

Okay, so, confession: I have a tendency to open blog posts and start them on the day that I want them to say they were posted because sometimes I want to write about something on a certain day but I just don't have time so I just start the post that day so that it will have that particular date on it. Then later I go back in and finish it and when I post it it is still dated with the day/time that I originally opened the post. Well now I guess that blogspot has changed their system so that I can't do that anymore. The posts that I posted today had all been opened throughout the last week on the specific days that I wanted them to say that they were posted on (It just helps to keep things chronological and for me to have a good idea of when stuff happened since this is kind of like my public journal) but then when I finished and posted them today they all posted under today's date! Gah! So, true to my OCD nature, I typed the date at the top of each post that I wanted to have the post appear under even though it's all connected to today. I now, I'm ridiculous and maybe you wouldn't have even noticed but it was bugging me so I thought I might as well just get it out there in the open. Phew. Glad I got that off my chest.

The good news is, I think I've found a way to beat the system! If I actually post my new post that is in the works and just say like "coming soon..." in the body or something then it will save itself on the actual date that I want it to (I hope) and then you can all just be super excited as you anticipate the completion of the new post that probably already has a really cool fun title!

Oh. My. Goodness. I'm such a nerd. Please love me anyway.

Blogging I Am.

Thursday 21 April 2011

We had a very fun Seattle date on Tuesday. We saw the Star Wars exhibit at the Science Center. They had all kinds of props and costumes and set pieces from the movie and then they slipped in some science exhibits where ever they could. They had these little legos with magnets so you could make your own little hover-craft type things and they had displays about how bionic limbs work and new science on artificial hearts and skin. And just all kinds of crazy stuff.

And since it's member appreciation month at the science center we got to see the Born to be Wild IMAX for free. It was about these ladies who raise orphaned baby elephants and orangutans and then release them back into the wild when they're old enough. The little babies were so cute. During one of the elephant scenes Steven leaned over and said "No, you can't have one." I didn't even ask! But he knows me so well. I was wanting a baby elephant. (Let's face it, I just want a baby.)

And here it is --- get excited --- PROOF that the sky is still blue behind all of those clouds (I had my doubts) and the monsoon season may be coming to an end in the very near future. (I took this photo on Tuesday 4/19/2011, honest) The rain this year has been unbelievable but I think the sun is doing it's best to come back to us.

The excitement of the week -- I was substitute teaching at the alternative school yesterday and at 1:48 (about two minutes before we would have been done for the day) they announced that we were in a lock down. I spent the next hour in a dark work room/closet with 16 eighth graders. We had no idea what was going on. All we knew was that it definitely wasn't a drill. The kids were all stressing out and everyone had to call their parents and tell them not to come pick them up and some kids were getting really upset/scared and it was just crazy. They finally let us out at 2:45. I found out this morning that there was some 11 year old homeschooler (gotta watch out for those ones) walking on the edge of the high school campus with his BB gun. What a lot of trouble he caused. I'm sure he received quite the talking to.

God Has a Sense of Humor.

Monday 18 April 2011

I can't believe I'm waking up to snow in mid-April. This wasn't exactly the reprieve from the rain that I was hoping for. At least the sun is out... right?

Happy tax day.

Workin' 9 to 5.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

I think I can officially say that I am now a working woman. Of course I don't actually work 9 to 5. Sometimes it's 7 to 3 or 8:30 to 4 or 7 to 7... it just depends on where I'm working that day. Steven and I have essentially swapped schedules (although mine isn't qiute as hideous as his was). Now instead of him working all of the time and me being home alone all of the time, I am the one who works and is occasionally gone for 12+ hours a day and he's the one who gets to stay home alone! I can't say that this was really the kind of change we were looking for but it's still good. It's good for me to be working and it's nice for Steven to have a bit of a break. He's been spending a lot of time filling out applications and studying for tests. He has a test with the Tacoma FD next Tuesday morning and the his test with the Enumclaw FD is on May 7th (I think), which is coming up incredibly fast!

I have been working almost full time. I've substitute taught at least 4 days these last two weeks and then I've also been working at the tutoring center about 6 hours a week. So there are certain days where I leave the house at 6:45am to go sub at a high school and then don't get home until 7:30pm after tutoring. At which point I usually just feel like pulling on sweats and getting in bed to watch an episode or two of Iron Chef with my husband. It's hard to get motivated to do much else (as you would very quickly notice if you walked into my rather messy little home right now). I've been very fortunate over these past couple of weeks to have had sub work scheduled in advance. Sometimes I'm able to find jobs online and not only was I able to work a full week this week but I already have three days scheduled for next week! As of next Tuesday I will also be employed by the Puyallup School District so I'm hoping that that will help me to get even more work (and at a higher pay rate).

I've come to the conclusion that the tutoring job has been really good for me. The timing isn't ideal (we usually don't end up eating dinner until 8pm on those days) and it's tough to go back to work after a full day of teaching but I'm glad that I'm doing it. I've been having a pretty tough time with the substitute teaching. And if you've been reading my blog for any length of time, then I'm sure that's nothing new but it's a topic I'm revisiting just the same.

Substitute teaching can be so easy, in a sense. Soemone else has already done all of the lesson planning for you and quite often it just involves turning on a movie or handing out a worksheet, but the rest of the job is challenging in a way that my own description cannot do justice. First of all, it is so difficult to basically have a new job every single day. Since I'm new to these districts I'm not even familiar with where the buildings are. So I get a job, I look up directions online and jot down the phone number just in case (I've already gotten lost twice and had to call to say I was going to be a couple of minutes late). Then I find my way there and try to determine where I'm allowed to park: visitor parking? staff parking? am I taking someone's spot by accident? One time the spots were ALL numbered so I called the office and they had to look up the assigned spot of the teacher I was working for. then I have to get my bearings in the building and try to remember important things like where the bathrooms are and how I get back to the office (I just don't really go to the bathroom at school ever because I don't want to ask someone where it is). Then I read the sub notes and frantically try to figure out what the heck it is I'm supposed to be doing. Then the kids come in, "Sweet! A sub!" I wish this meant they were actually happy to see me. What it means, in fact, is that they assume they don't have to do anything while I'm here and they can just sit and talk. I. Don't. Think. So. But that's their expectation for when there's a sub so that's what they try to do and I try to be all nice and friendly about asking them to be quiet and get some work done but then I end up having to yell to get the point across that I mean business and then I get all upset because now they think I'm mean and I'm really not but they made me be mean because they weren't following directions and they were being disrespectful. I've recently discovered a secret weapon. If you "sacrifice" a student (sending them to the office or ISS - in school suspension) then the rest of them will shape up pretty quick. If not, kick another one out. I had never sent a kid to the office before I started working down here but it really helps. And let's be honest, I don't have to put up with everything they're dishing out. They can be so rude some times. The other good thing is that I know that I have the support of the other teachers and administrators in the building. Everyone is willing to step in when there are behavior issues. And when I take attendance and accidentally mispronounce someone's name everyone laughs like how-could-I-be-so-stupid-to-mispronounce-that-name-in-such-a-weird-and-totally-wrong-way? As if it's my fault their parents named them something I can't pronounce! Then I spend the whole day worried that I'm letting the kids talk to much and all of the other teachers probably think I don't know how to manage a class or maybe I'm yelling too much and the other teachers think just crazy or maybe I didn't follow the sub notes exactly and the teacher is going to be frustrated when they come back or maybe everyone's just thinking "who let the 23 year old in here?" because I'm also always really self conscious about how young I am... and I could go on and on and on. The students don't understand that I've had the same training their teachers have and I deserve the same respect. Kids are always saying how substitutes are so mean and now I know why: Zero job satisfaction. And heaps and heaps of job dissatisfaction.

Basically, I never feel successful as a substitute teacher. I don't really get to help anyone or see the kids make progress. I'm not accomplishing anything or working towards any goals and that's difficult for me. I am a product of 17 years of education where my teachers told me exactly what I needed to do to be successful and now I've been tossed out into the real world where there aren't any rubrics or guidelines. No one is going to hand me a list of things that I need to do to get an "A" in life. And it's just so difficult feeling like I'm failing everyday. Okay, not everyday. I do get paid on the last day of the month and on that day I usually feel decently successful. So that's where the tutoring comes in. At the tutoring center I usually see the same students every week. I can chat with them and ask how school is going and how their weekend was and I can give them the one-on-one attention that they need and actually watch them learn. I can see their progress from week to week and celebrate with them as they improve. It feels good to move through math packets with them and see them conquer a concept that had them totally stumped just three weeks ago. It feels like I'm accomplishing something and having an impact and I can't even explain how much I need to feel that.

So that's how I feel about that.

Aside from work, these last couple of weeks have been pretty fun. We had Tara over for a sleepover and game day while she was on spring break. We had a super fun dinner with the Piehlers and played two great games of Scrabble. I've done a little shopping, including buying a dress and shoes to wear in Lena's wedding. I love shopping and have seriously missed it! It's so fun to come home with bags of shoe boxes and clothes. On Steven's last full weekend with the ambulance company a spent an afternoon with Tara and our dad building bee boxes. Dad has bees on his farm. Last year he had 40 pounds of honey but he's getting more bees this year and is expecting 1,000+ pounds of honey! We spend almost four hours drilling holes and putting boxes together. And on Sunday of that weekend I spent 8 hours at church. No joke. And 6 of those hours were spent in the nursery. I did my normal church stuff in the morning and then stayed after to help set up for the membership class and then went in to the "under 2 years" classroom for 4 hours during the class. We had everyone from a little 7 week old baby to two almost two year olds who were potty training. It was crazy. My back was pretty sore for the next couple of days.

Tonight Steven and I enjoyed a much needed date night. I put on some new shoes (yay!) and we went to Salty's on Alki for happy hour. It was so tasty and such a beautiful view, as always. It was still cloudy and somewhat rainy but the sun was shining on the city and it was lovely. We shared a sushi roll and a basket of fish and chips and then drove into the Seattle for a show at the 5th. It's a new Dolly Parton musical called 9 to 5. It's not our new favorite or anything but it was cute and fun and we laughed quite a bit.

Sorry this post was so long... that's what happens when I go two weeks in between updates!

We've got a fun weekend ahead of us including a visit from our dear friend Chelsea and a long awaited worship night at church.

Hope you're having a great week!
Steph

April Foods.

I'm not much into the whole April fools thing so today was filled with food instead! Steven wanted to try telling everyone I was pregnant but doesn't it just feel mean trying to make someone believe something that isn't true? I think so. It makes me crazy when Steven tells me stories and I say "nuh-uh" "no way" or "that's not true!" And then he finally gets me to believe it anyway and then says "No, of course that's not true!" and then I feel really stupid. It's just not cool. Anyhow, I know people have a lot of fun with it. Actually, I have to admit (though I'm pretty darn embarrassed) that someone got me good this morning. We were up on Capitol Hill and someone had changed the "Pike" street signs to say "Pine" and vice versa. I was really confused because I thought I knew what they were supposed to be but the signs told me otherwise so I went along with it. Thanks to Cupcake Royale I found out it was just a prank: http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10150149162284096&set=a.70207794095.71502.50176324095&theater

I spent today in Seattle getting some much needed "girl time" in. Lena and I met at her house and had lunch together (grilled cheese and tomato soup! as well as zucchini and a mango) then spent some time looking at nail polish colors online. I tell you what though, I'm not so sure that those colors translate very well over the internet. We looked at one that Lena actually owns and it was totally purple on the website but translucent pink in real life... hmm... then we spent some time looking at dresses for me to potentially wear in her wedding and she showed me her wedding dress and a really pretty purple dress and some silver shoes that she will be wearing for her friend Anna's wedding. We even spent some time planning Lena and Aaron's honeymoon. I love planning vacations online and looking for good deals!! And then we ventured out, first to QFC for some free bags of chips (random April fools promotion type thing) and then to Cupcake Royale for birthday cupcakes.

There were some Red Cross guys outside of Cupcake Royale and this one really really wanted us to make a donation. we were stuck talking with him outside for like 15 minutes!!! Seriously, he just wouldn't let us say no. I tried telling him that we both have significant others who we make our financial decisions with so we couldn't just sign up to make monthly donations without talking with them. (to which he said that we're so awesome we must have equally awesome significant others so of course they wouldn't be upset when we came home and said we had committed to donating to the Red Cross on a monthly basis.) I tried telling him that we give to other organizations and there are a lot of different charities but one person can only give to so many (to which he said that the Red Cross is the best! to which I said "well, but I've already given to the sub-par charities so I have nothing left!") and on and on it went. Finally, he told us to go into Cupcake Royale and talk it over and then we could talk with him after. At that point we were just plotting how we could get out and back to the car without him seeing us! I told Lena we were allowed to say no and just walk away and he was just going to have to deal with it. We really let him talk and keep us there much longer than we should have considering that we had no intention of signing up from the very beginning. We were maybe being a little too nice... By the time we got back to the car it was 12 minutes past the amount of time we had paid for -- yikes! We didn't have a ticket yet though. The good news is, we got cupcakes. We went back to Lena's house and ate ice cream and drank tea and ate our cupcakes. Lena had a lemon one and I had a coconut lime one, which was absolutely fabulous.

Then we decided to paint our nails and somehow a bottle of dark purple nail polish broke (on the carpet!!) and spilled all over! We were frantically trying to clean it up before it dried.... Lena was freaking out so I gave her the laptop and suggested she look up ways to get nail polish out of carpet while we tried to get it out with nail polish remover. The article she found told us to do all sorts of crazy things including using Windex, hydrogen peroxide, non-acetone nail polish remover (uh... the one we were using was 100% acetone, wonder if that's bad) and hairspray! We tried pretty much everything and then Krista realized it probably wasn't very smart for us to be mixing all of those chemicals. We instantly put them all away and stuck to the nail polish remover. It actually worked decently well and now there's just a little hint of pink to this lovely brown carpet. It sounds like their landlord is planning to replace the carpet soon so hopefully this won't be an issue.

The whole thing was really a fabulous house-bounding experience. Three of Lena's room mates were in her room helping us clean up the mess. We laughed a lot! Lena and I decided we should make the most of the broken nail polish and used it to paint our finger nails and toe nails before throwing it out. It's really pretty and I think I might need to buy a bottle of it for myself. I've never worn purple nail polish before but I'm loving it and I think it would be the perfect shade of purple to wear at Lena's wedding! We spent the rest of our afternoon together painting nails and watching Dirty Dancing Havana Nights. It was so "girly" and relaxing and I absolutely loved our time together! Either Steven needs to start painting his nails and eating more ice cream or I need more of my girlfriends in my life! (I think the second option would be everyones preference.)

I spent the rest of the evening on a pie date with Lindsey! It was so great so see her!! We hadn't gone on a coffee date since last spring and I hadn't seen her at all since the wedding. We had a really nice visit. We went to the Seattle Pie Company in Magnolia (I had a delicious piece of raspberry/marionberry pie) and just sat and talked until they closed. We might have to make that a regular thing. It was lovely.

I told you it was a food day!! Toast with cream cheese, goldfish crackers, grilled cheese sandwich, tomato soup, zucchini, mango, coconut lime cupcake, udderly chocolate ice cream, tea, and raspberry pie -- I'm stuffed! (and if you noticed that there seems to be an excessive amount of desserts where dinner should be, well, life's more fun with dessert, don't you think?)

And now I'm laying in bed, about ready to fall asleep. Steven is downstairs playing Tide of Iron with Jeremy. I wouldn't be surprised if they're up quite late. This is the first time we've ever had a friend over to hang out with only one of us when both of us are home and it's so weird being upstairs in bed while Steven and Jeremy are downstairs playing a board game. Usually when our friends come over they want to play with both of us but I suppose there's a chance that Steven needed the guy time just as much as I needed the girl time.

Lastly, Steven received the e-mail from the Enumclaw Fire Department yesterday. Applications will be available starting next Thursday and then tests start and then interviews towards the end of May. They'll know who's being offered jobs by the first weekend in June!! It's so nice to finally have a timeline. We're very excited and nervous and anxious and hopeful and excited! Pray for the best.

Goodnight!