Trip to Florida #2: A Visit to the Grandparents' House

Three days after I returned from The Walk, I got back and the car--this time I took Amelia--and we went to Florida to visit my parents. Darryl was out of town last week, so it was "just the girls."

(It dawned on me when I was coming back home this past Saturday that I had driven though/eaten lunch in Eufaula, Alabama three Saturdays in a row!)

Anyway, Amelia and I went down to my parents' house on Saturday and just hung out for a while and ate some good food. The rest of the week was busy with one activity after another; we packed a lot of fun into one week!

Sunday we went to my parents' church, where they had a cookout afterward to welcome the new preacher and his wife. Amelia was all decked out in her patriotic attire.


That afternoon, Amelia and her Nana made a flag cake. (Truth be told, it really ended up being Nana's and my project. Amelia was too interested in tasting the frosting.)

See?




We also attempted to take Amelia fishing off the neighbors' dock, but they weren't biting. I like this pic of Amelia with Mr. P, whom I've known ever since I can remember. He used to help me fish when I was a kid.

Monday, the 4th, we went to the beach in the morning. Here are a few pics of that.




That evening, we went to see the fireworks. Here's a photo of Amelia with her cousin Cameron.

That thing Amelia is holding is a firecracker she made in her summer daycare class. She had saved it for several days and was so excited about opening it, and then she ended up losing it. She was verrrrrrrry sad. I was sad for her. :-(

Tuesday we went to an aquatic center that had a play area/pool for kids. We had such a great time there and it wasn't too crowded. Amelia enjoyed pretending that she was the swim teacher and that we were her students, so she kept making us swim laps while she told us, "That's it, girl. You're doing it! Next time, use big arms." (Can you tell she's been in swim lessons for a while?)

We also tried fishing again that morning, and this time, Amelia was successful at getting her first fish!! She didn't want to touch it, though. I can't really blame her.

Wednesday, Amelia, my mom, and I went shopping and had a good time...but I didn't take any photos of that.

Thursday, we went back to the aquatic park because we had so much fun the first time. It was much more crowded the second time around, but we still had a great time.


Friday, we went to a local farm and picked tomatoes. This photo is TERRIBLE of me (no makeup, ball cap, and about three chins), but oh well.


That afternoon (and one afternoon earlier in the week, but I can't remember which one), Amelia and I visited Darryl's side of the family and Amelia had a good time playing with her cousins. Ashley (my sister-in-law) took some photos of that, so I hope to have a couple of photos to show soon.

Saturday, Amelia and I came back home. We had such a great week visiting with Nana and Paw-Paw!!


(Edited to Add: The reason this blog has Tuesday's date on it is that Tuesday is the date I started this post and then procrastinated with finishing it.)

Falling Off the Face of the Earth...And "The Walk"

Hi there.

I really didn't mean to just fall off the face of the earth unexpectedly like that. One day led to another, and before I knew it, several weeks had gone by. My reason? I've been insanely busy. Since I last blogged, I've been to Florida and back TWICE.

When I quit my teaching job (that is still hard for me to type), I decided that I still wanted to invest in the lives of teenagers in some way, so I signed up to be a group leader for a group of 9th grade girls at my church. The idea is that I will be their group leader until they graduate from high school, and I think that's a cool idea.

One of the first "activities" we participated in was a 4-day trip to Panama City Beach called "The Walk." I co-lead our group with a recent high school graduate named Jennifer, and I adore her. Here's a photo of our group. (Forgive the "flash bulb" eyes...I'm too lazy to "correct" all those eyes at the moment.)


Yep. They are all tan, thin, and beautiful. Ah, youth.

What I learned about ninth grade girls this week is that they aren't the tidiest people on earth, and they do disgusting things like eat the cream out of Oreos and put them back in the box. They also spend A LOT of time on their hair.

BUT.

They are also very sweet, and when they aren't leaving towels everywhere and eating cream out of Oreos and fixing their hair, they ask these kinds of questions:

--Why did God give us free will when He wants everyone to follow Him?
--Why did He allow Satan to exist if He knew what Satan was going to do?
--Why did God make Satan an angel in the beginning?
--Some versions of the Apostles' Creed says Jesus descended into Hell. Did He really?
--Will we know our relatives in Heaven?
--Why were animals sacrificed in the Old Testament?

Goodness.

Oh, on a less spiritual note, we also participated in a flash mob. I don't think this video quite captures the "energy" of what we were feeling at the moment, but it was so, so fun. :-)

Cleaning and Organizing: The Refrigerator

One of my goals while to accomplish until I am gainfully employed is to clean and organize areas of our house.

Yesterday I had a couple of hours to myself, so I decided to start with a fairly small task: the refrigerator.

This photo probably isn't very impressive because I don't have a "before" shot, but believe me when I say that this is a major improvement. I also wiped down all the shelves and such. Very nice!

Weekend Wrap-Up: Scrapbooking Class, Father's Day, Etc.

How about a little weekend wrap-up?

Friday night, I went to scrapbook class at my friend Mary's store. While the project itself (a Unibind album) isn't something that I consider "my thing," I like to take classes like that just to learn some new techniques. Plus, as I said in a previous post, I'm just trying to get my creative mojo back.

Just for the heck of it, here is a photo from the class.


(Tim, if you are reading this, I'm thinking the crowd in that photo is probably what you envision when you picture "scrapbookers." Let me assure you that Blayne (on the top right), Mary (whose hands you see on the left), and I are very cool scrapbookers. And I think we were the youngest ones there.)

Honestly, I don't remember much about Saturday. We had a Cracker Barrel breakfast, took Amelia to swim lessons, and had dessert for dinner. Yum!

For Father's Day, we spent most of the day just hanging out together, and that was nice. We went to the pool that afternoon and Amelia and Darryl took a long hibernation-type nap that afternoon.

Here's the only Father's Day photo I took. Poor Darryl didn't even get to eat his own lunch; Amelia wanted his broccoli cheese soup and he graciously shared. (We were on our way to the pool, thus the hat that Darryl is wearing.)

A Whole Lotta Nothin'

This has definitely been an up-and-down kind of week.

After I wrote Wednesday, we had some bad storms in our area. After they cleared and the rain stopped, Amelia and I attempted to meet Darryl at a nearby restaurant for dinner, but I got about a quarter of a mile down our road and there were trees across it and a cop blocking the road. I tried to go another route and encountered the same thing. It was kind of creepy and scary. So I ended up going back home and fixing some macaroni and cheese out of the box. Amelia was perfectly happy with that. Me, not so much.

Finally the trees were cleared enough for Darryl to get home, and then the power went out and stayed out until about 3 a.m. It was good times, y'all. (I remember when I was a kid and thought it was fun for the power to be out. Those days are no more.)

Yesterday, I met my friend Blayne again to scrapbook. I'm trying to get my creative mojo back, and it is coming back very slowly. When I got home, I was inspired to clean out/organize my small scrapbooking space (read: the guest room closet and a small desk in the guest room).

On a random note, I don't know what has happened to my attention span, but I can't focus on anything on TV for longer than 15 minutes. I have tons of shows I recorded while school was going on, and I just can't make myself watch them yet. I have five episodes of Glee waiting for me and several episodes of Modern Family, but I just can't make myself get into either of them.

But you know what show I do like to watch in little 15-minute spurts? Oprah: Behind the Scenes on the OWN network. SO interesting! (Darryl makes fun of me anytime I watching something on OWN.)

I also don't have the attention span to read a book for longer than 10 minutes.

Is this normal??

Pool Party and House Alarm

So my pity party from yesterday is now over and I feel better. (However, yesterday I decided to go to the gym to help myself snap out of feeling sorry for myself, and as we were getting in the car, Amelia had a wipeout in our driveway and scraped up her chin, her knees, and her ankle. We were ultimately both in tears before she was all bandaged up and ready to go again. But NOW the pity party is over.)

Yesterday evening, Amelia went to a pool party for her friend Tanner's birthday. Amelia got to see all her buddies and was so excited to be there. I took only one photo, but it's a good one. Is this the life or what?


This morning I got up to realize we had no water. Apparently there was a water line leak, and some city workers had cut off the water to repair. (A heads up that they were going to do that would have been awesome, though.) Then I made the mistake of heading out to my car to get something and forgot to turn the house alarm off, so I set off the alarm. Darryl is the contact person for the alarm company, but unfortunately, he was on a plane coming back to Atlanta, so a cop ventured out to our house. It was a lively morning, to say the least. :-)

Unemployment and Bathing Suits

The Bad: So while the theme of last week was "The Life of Riley," this week's theme is "Reality Sets In: What Have I Done?"

I know leaving my job was the right decision, and I knew early on that I was going to have a week like this one (and it's only Tuesday, people).

This week, panic is starting to set in. The panic of "oh my goodness, I had a job and I left it. Was I insane?" It wasn't helped by the fact that yesterday I went to a career networking meeting was sitting in a room of 100+ unemployed people.

It stings when I see that my old work friends are making plans for lunches and things together and I'm not a part of that anymore, and I realize that life moves on without me...and while that is something I've always known in my brain, it is still hard to sit by and watch.

And I worry that I've screwed up Amelia's life. She was in a great daycare before and I had to move her to a different one. How do I know it will be just as good? How will I know that she will be happy? How do I know I've done the right thing by her?

(I must insert her that Amelia just walked in with her panties on backwards and it was much needed comic relief.)

I'm really not trying to have a big pity party, nor am I looking for anyone to comment to say that everything will be all right; I just had to get all that off my chest. And I actually do feel a little better.

(Speaking of comments...NOBODY comments on my blog anymore. That makes me sad. Hint, hint.)

The Good: After the meeting yesterday (which actually was pretty good, despite the fact that it is overwhelming to see a lot of unemployed people in one room), I decided to take on the task of finding a one-piece swimsuit. I'm going on a trip with a high school group in a couple of weeks, and all the females are required to wear one-piece swimsuits.

This was a daunting task because A) I'm not really at the best weight I've ever been, and B) I'm kind of long-bodied, and I always felt that one pieces made me look like a high school wrestler.

But.

BUT.

Yesterday, the heavens opened up and delivered a swimsuit that, believe it or not, was so flattering that I bought it in two different colors. AND it was on sale!!! (Actually, I bought it online when I got home because there were more colors available online.) Behold this bathing suit that is sure to cover or disguise a multitude of body wrongs. (I tried to get a photo of it, but they were all too small):

The Lands' End Grecian Swimsuit

And I searched online for a coupon code that gave me 25% off the sale price plus free shipping!

So, if I'm still in my unemployed state come September, I'll just put on this bathing suit and feel like a million bucks.

The Life of Riley

Honestly, this week I've been living "the life of Riley." I told a friend of mine that if every week could be like this one, I would never work again. (Darryl, don't have a heart attack and keep on reading.)

Yes, I do plan to hit the job search hard and heavy (and I've already applied for a couple), but I just needed a week to, you know, chill out.

Today I went to my friend Mary's store and did a little scrapbooking with my friend Blayne. I haven't scrapbooked at all in several months, and it was good to play with some pretty paper and photos. I'm working on an album for our Disney trip last October and hope to finish it soon.

Getting my scrapbooking on also made me get back in the photo-taking mood. I've been terrible about taking photos lately, but I really want to make sure I catch a lot of little everyday moments...like these from this afternoon.

Aquariums and Diaper Champs

Tuesday I took Amelia to the Georgia Aquarium. We went last year at the end of the summer and Amelia really enjoyed it then, so I figured she might enjoy it even more now...and she did.

Here's why I am a fan of the aquarium, especially in the summertime:

1) It is indoors and COOL.
2) It is easy to get to.
3) The parking is oh so close to the entrance.
4) Again, it is indoors and COOL.

Did I mention it is indoors and cool?

Amelia didn't stay still for long, so it was hard to get photos, but here are a few...




And this has nothing to do with the aquarium, but I have to show you a photo of this momentous occasion:

That's our Diaper Champ, waiting to be collected by the garbage truck.

SWEET MERCY.

Amelia is, I believe, a smart child, but heavens to Betsy, she really didn't give a rip about potty training. Around Easter, I finally just decided to put her in some panties to see what happened, and lo and behold, we haven't looked back.

Well, that's not 100% true. We glance back to Pull-Up Land for naptime and bedtime, but other than that, this is a diaper-free zone.

HALLELUJAH.

A New Beginning

So.

I quit my teaching job.

I'm not sure if that was a crazy decision to make in this economy, but it feels like the right decision.

The bottom line is this: I was spending at least 60 hours most weeks doing teaching-related things. Amelia was spending 10 hours a day in daycare, and that's not even counting the time that Darryl was "Mr. Mom" on the weekends and even on some evenings while I graded papers at Starbucks. I wasn't fulfilling my role as a teacher or my role as a mother to my satisfaction. What's more is that for the most part, my passion for my job was dwindling, and I really didn't want to become "that" teacher who is bitter and nasty to all her students because she doesn't really want to be there. (We all know those teachers exist. I had no desire to be one.)

So I resigned. Even though I knew (and still know) it was the right thing to do, it was still a hard decision to make. I had been at my school for seven years. I had a niche. I got to teach AP classes. I had friends I had grown accustomed to seeing every day. I enjoyed most of my students.

Now, for clarification...my "plan" is not to be a stay-at-home mom. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, but I don't think it is for me. I hope to find something, though, where I can leave the office (or wherever) at the end of the day and be DONE with my job until I return to work the next day.

Even though that is exciting (and terrifying), it was still hard to say goodbye to...

...my desk,

...these friends,

...this classroom.

Where I've Been and What I've Been Doing

So, what's the reason for all the quietness on the blog lately? (If all two of you were wondering...)

Non-stop craziness.

After Spring Break, it seemed like life was just one thing after another. The weekdays were filled with the routine of school, and the evenings and weekends were filled with all kinds of fun stuff, like...

A surprise party for my friend Rebecca, who was turning 30. (Ah, 30...)



The prom. (Here I am with my friends/fellow teachers Lisa and Charlee. And yes, that is a stained glass window of Jesus in the background.)

An Easter party. (I didn't make it to the actual party, but I did make it to the egg hunt.)


Easter. (My parents came up for Easter. Unfortunately, Amelia was running a little fever and couldn't go to church, but that afternoon we put on her dress anyway and took some pics.)

(The above is a cake Amelia and my mom made. Amelia wanted lots of rabbits on it.)

A quick senior trip. (Seriously...we went to Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure in Orlando and back in 28 hours.)





Lots of end-of-the-year evening festivities, like an academic awards ceremony, Class Night, and Graduation. (Here I am with Tim and Kim before Graduation. Also, this was taken with my phone, hence the poor quality.)

Busy, busy times. I think I'm still catching up on sleep. :-)

MIA

Missing In Action. Not Mia.

Sorry I've been quiet on the blog lately. There will be a catch-up post next week that will explain the absence. (Nothing is wrong...I've just been TERRIBLY busy. It's that time of year.)

I need to go for now; I have about 100 essays to grade.

Sigh.

Spring Break: The Promised Beach Pics

(To my mother and any other concerned parties: Darryl was just outside the frame of these shots. Safety first.)

Spring Break: Food, Fun, and Pink Eye

Well, we're winding up Spring Break over here. The end of a vacation week always makes me ponder two things that defy the laws of physics (I'm not sure if that makes sense or not, but it sounds smart, doesn't it?):

1) Why does a week of vacation go by much more quickly than a work week does?
2) Why does a week of vacation produce twice the amount of laundry that a normal week does, especially when we still pretty much still subscribe to the whole one-outfit-a-day routine?

Anyway, because Darryl has traveled so much for work lately, we decided we needed to get away just the three of us for a few days. We did NOT want to head south and join the mass exodus of Georgians headed to Florida, so we went to Charleston.

We left Sunday after church and arrived in Charleston that evening. We found a pretty good Italian restaurant for dinner, and then we settled in at the hotel for the night.

Monday was kind of a weird day filled with this and that. We browsed around downtown, had lunch at a place called Barbara Jean's (it was very yummy), and then went back to the hotel for naps because Amelia and I were both in bad moods. :-) We later went to Folly Beach and just walked around. Amelia enjoyed playing around at the water's edge, but it was too cold and windy to really do much more than that. I have some really great photos from this excursion, but I just realized my "good" camera is in the car, and Darryl has my car right now, so those will have to wait until later.

Here's a photo of Darryl and Amelia walking around in downtown Charleston, though:
Tuesday was a better day. We had an INCREDIBLE lunch at a place called Poogan's Porch. Y'all, at this restaurant, I had the best biscuits I have ever had in my life. Seriously. I'm pretty convinced these biscuits are going to be served for breakfast every day in Heaven. I was so pumped about these biscuits that I had to take a photo of one and post it to my Facebook page immediately.

And here's a photo of Amelia and me by the restaurant's sign because I wanted to document the place where I had eaten the BEST. BISCUITS. EVER.
Forgive the ball cap. I had pretty much surrendered to the Charleston wind and humidity. (If I hadn't contained my hair with a ball cap, it would have totally looked like Monica's hair on the Friends episode where the whole gang went to some tropical locale.)
Anyway...that afternoon we went to the Family Circle Cup at Daniel Island and watched a couple of tennis matches. It actually was more fun than I thought it would be, and Amelia loved being outside and bouncing her big tennis ball, which you can see in this shot I took with my phone.

And here's Amelia watching a pro practice. I can't remember who this is, but I thought it was cool how close we could get to the practice sessions. (Edited to add: This is Jankovic, whom I am currently watching play in the semifinals on TV.)
That evening, per Amelia's request, we took a horse-and-carriage ride through some of the older parts of Charleston. Let me clarify...Amelia isn't some prodigy history buff who wanted to know the history of Charleston. She just wanted to be close to the horses. Anyway, I didn't take any photos of that. :-(

We came back Wednesday. I don't have anything eventful to report about that.

So where does the pink eye fit in with all this? Amelia and I both were fighting allergies/sinus infections/something all week. Amelia's eyes have been kind of, well, gross, so when I took her to the doctor yesterday, she was diagnosed with pink eye. (I really thought it was just allergies.) So we're ending our week with lots of laundry and a case of pink eye.

Coming later...cute beach pics of Amelia! :-)

A Little Catching Up--Amelia gets new wheels!

Friday afternoon, we were enjoying the nice weather outside with our neighbors. They have a daughter a little older than Amelia, and she let Amelia take a spin or two on her Princess bike. Amelia loved it so much that we ended up getting Amelia her own bike (a Tinkerbell one!) Sunday afternoon.

(Disclaimer: We don't buy Amelia everything she loves just on a whim like that. However, her birthday isn't until November, and it definitely won't be that nice outside then.)

She loves the bike and has had so much fun riding it up and down our driveway. Yesterday we went to the park and she had a blast riding on the trail. I hope the weather stays nice like this--not too hot and not too cool--for a good while longer!

A Little Catching Up--Altered Angels!

Here's what happens when I don't keep up with blogging--I feel overwhelmed by all the stuff I need to catch up on, so I put it off.

So I think I'm going to tackle just a few things that have happened in the past month or so in no particular order.

So here we go...

My scrapbooking friend Mary opened a scrapbook store in Alpharetta called Altered Angel. She had her grand opening yesterday, and I met my friend Molly there to do a little shopping.

I'm so excited for Mary and very proud of her for pursuing her dream. Her first day was great, and she really has a lot of cool stuff that most stores in this area don't have.

Afterward, my friend Blayne and I went next door to Cinco to chat over some chips and queso. (Blayne was helping Mary with the grand opening.) It was great just to have some conversation time along with some good food.

Yay for scrapbooking and girlfriends!

Ooops...a month has flown by

I really am a horrible blogger, aren't I?

I'm going to try to get a real post up later this week.

The last few weeks have been crazy busy. And here it is, Saturday night, and I'm attempting to wade through the 125 or so midterms I have to have graded and entered by Tuesday morning. Oh, and did I mention the midterms are ESSAYS? (I'm not trying to knock my school, but explain the logic in requiring the English Department to make students write in-class essays for the midterm, but then scheduling that midterm on the last day of midterm week, thus giving the English teachers the least amount of time to grade.) Granted, I'm not making comments on them--I'm just scoring them with a rubric--but still, that's a lot of writing, y'all. And the majority of it ain't pretty.

Okay. Obviously I need to go. I just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive and hope to return to the blogosphere soon.

An assortment of things

Apparently to keep up with my blog, I need to be snowed in for a week. :-)

If you can't tell, life has just been busy lately. And I don't really have anything of substance to write about, so here's a little trivial nonsense for you:

1--I started going to the gym again this week. Go me!

2--I have a sore throat again...or still. This has been off and on for the past six weeks. I go to the doctor, get an antibiotic, and it feels better until the antibiotic has run its course. Oh, and teaching all day AND having a sore throat...not a good combination.

3--I am LOVING Darren Criss on Glee.



4--I'm so behind on Modern Family.

5--I love that one of Amelia's favorite things to do is get in Darryl's and my bed and watch TV. She'll say, "Will you take your shoes off and get under the covers with me and watch Mickey Mouse?" At the end of a long day, it's kind of hard to turn down that request.

6--For about the 842nd time on this blog, I'm about to vow to lose weight. Again. I've gotta do something. My plan is to watch Jennifer Hudson's interview with Oprah as well as last Tuesday's DVRd episode of The Biggest Loser to inspire me.

7--I miss Baton Rouge at this time of year. On Saturdays in the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras, Darryl and I might have gone to the bakery down the road from our house and bought a still-warm-from-the-oven king cake...and it was awesome.

8--The fact I mentioned the king cake right after the weight loss vow shows that I might possibly have an issue with food.

9--We lost our February vacation days because of the snow week. Can I just say that I am REALLY going to miss those days next week?

10--Here's number 10 just because I wanted to have 10.