Dear Self,

Next time you think that its a great idea to drink 8 glasses of wine, alternating white with red at some strange dude's house, and then have your husband proceed to drive you home (a lengthy drive) while the earth is spinning and you want to die, please, DON'T DRINK THE WINE!!

love,
me


Well, the fireworks I saw were totally excellent, of course then the cops came and no more could be set off. But how or why i consumed so much wine is a mystery to me. And let me tell you, the hours afterward were freaking ROUGH! At least I'm done puking now. UGH.


In other news, if this headache and queasy feeling ever leaves me, i'm going to make ice cream today!

So a few weeks ago people were telling me that apparently there's research that flip flops are bad for you. BAD! Flip flops! They are two of the funnest words ever, put together to create the most comfortable of shoes. Flip flops come in all shapes and sizes, just like people! How on earth could they be bad for you? I found the article in the Times online today, reprinted below so everyone knows of the dangers of flipping and flopping:

Summer Flip-Flops May Lead to Foot Pain

Flip-flops are a mainstay of summertime footwear, but they can be painfully bad for your feet and legs, new research shows.

Researchers from Auburn University in Alabama studied the biomechanics of the flip-flop and determined that wearing thong-style flip-flops can result in sore feet, ankles and legs.

“We found that when people walk in flip-flops, they alter their gait, which can result in problems and pain from the foot up into the hips and lower back,'’ said Justin Shroyer, a biomechanics doctoral student who presented the findings to the recent annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Indianapolis.

For the study, the researchers recruited 39 college-age men and women and asked them to wear flip-flops or athletic shoes. They then had them walk a platform that measured vertical force as their feet hit the ground. A video camera measured stride length and limb angles.

Flip-flop wearers took shorter steps and their heels hit the ground with less vertical force than when the same walkers wore athletic shoes. People wearing flip-flops also don’t bring their toes up as much as the leg swings forward. That results in a larger angle to the ankle and a shorter stride length, the study showed. The reason may be that people tend to grip flip-flops with their toes.

Mr. Shroyer notes that he himself owns two pairs of flip-flops, and the research doesn’t mean people shouldn’t wear them. However, flip-flops are best worn for short periods of time, like at the beach or for comfort after an athletic event. But they are not designed to properly support the foot and ankle during all-day wear, he notes.



Now, despite what this article says, I don't think I can make myself go flip flopless. I'm addicted to them, much in the way i'm addicted to tank tops. I own tons of pairs and can't stop myself from buying more. Hey, at least i'm not addicted to some sort of super bad drug or something, right? I'll just have a bad back and a silly walk. And I already have both of those, so no harm, no foul right??


Camp is going well, We are making giant paper mache bugs and they are looking AWESOME. In Jewlery we will be using fimo next week, whooo! Also, tonight mike and i are going mini golfing. But for now, I'm going to go clean the kitchen. FUN TIMES!

sooo, i'm home! That was a fun, but definitely tiring weekend. Doing the whole last day of school thing, racing home, packing and then booking it into Jamaica on the train so Kathy and I could head up to Mohegan Sun for Annie's bachelorette party was just the beginning!

We had a lot of fun though. Got to the hotel around 8, drank rum and cokes and looked at silly penis toys...got ready and went to the casino where we had delicious seafood and fancy girly drinks. Mohegan Sun is really very pretty, I wasn't expecting taht. The only casinos I've been to prior to this was the really awful box shaped scary one in freeport, bahamas, and the cheesey one set in 1985 that was on our cruise ship two summers ago. So it was really neat to see this place: all fancy and with awesome glass lighting fixtures and mosaics everywhere, the casino was set up more like a giant cruise ship itself, onlyl with you know, no windows or sea to look at. There were nooks of gambling mixed in with tons of stores, bars and restaurants, and lots of waterfalls and cool sculpture pieces to look at. fancy indeed!

The first night, i was awesome! I wont like 75 bucks on the slots and that was excellent. Of course as the weekend went on i was not at all the high roller (ann's friend won like 350 or something doing blackjack, and i ended up losing all but 30 bucks back into the slots, dammit!) but it was fun. Now I'm home and exhausted even though i napped for two hours back at 5. I have to get in bed momentarily as tomorrow begins OOMPAH, the arts summer camp. Whoo hoo! I have to be there at like 7am tomorrow because i was too much of a lazy ass last week to drop off all my shit and set up, so now i have to go in early to do it tomorrow. Sometimes i really make things suck for myself. Oh well. I'm done at noon and then i have big plans to go home, relax, and eventually go to the gym, food shop, and make important phone calls. What an exciting first day of summer yes/no?!

so lets see...here are some rated G pictures from teh weekend in case you care!

this is a really awesome sculpture made out of twisted glass. it was sort of phallic and therefore tickled us pink at seeing it during a bachelorette party.


Kelly and i have delicious drinks at this summery fish place...it served lobster but it was super pricey. I was excited to see lobster on the menu anyway though...




we got martinis at this fancy martini bar that was like, on a fake mountain with a fake planetarium sky...it changed colors and had comets and everything! Also, their pomegranate martini was delicious!


Here is where i began my winnings. YAY lucky 7's!

anyway, I could post more, but lots of them are inappropriate and involve a plastic blow up man named Pierre. So  you might have to wait til i get around to putting those on our flickr account to view them :)

hoorah!!! Today was the very last full day of the year, awesomeee! I am a bit sunburnt as I took my second graders outside and played with chalk (we made fish in the second grade sea) and then of course I let them go on the playground equipment as it was just feet away and they had the itch to swing and climb, but it was a lot of fun. I just wish my forehead wasn't so itchy!

Tomorrow is a half day, although I have to stay for almost the full day and pack up my room. It shouldn't be too awful as I've been slowly packing up for the past week and a half. Friday is like a day of nothing: go in, say goodbye and hug 6th graders, get paycheck, get out of there! Even though camp starts Monday, its pretty exciting to be done with this year! It was a good one for the most part, but the fourth graders were totally insane and I'll be glad to vacation from them and hope they grow up over the summer and return quiet and nice to each other. HA!

I'm still saying no to the play for next year. I'm hoping this is upheld because I really feel like it mostly stressed me out and made me a crappy teacher. My kids work just wasn't as good as it could be and its totally my distractedness that did it. So next year: focus is all on art again! Also, we are doing this superawesome art auction to raise money for kids in Africa next year and I want to spend a lot of time getting my kids to make amazing things for that.

At any rate, I must be off to the gym. Later I want my undivided attention for when "So you think you can Dance" comes on. I swear, its the best show ever. Amazing costumes! Awesome dance numbers! Drama! Mean judges!! Could you really ask for anything more? I didn't think so.

Also, Friday afternoon I'm headed to Annie's bachelorette party at Mohegan Sun. I'm getting excited!

Here are some pictures of house stuff we did recently...nothing too exciting but its still fun to see, right?!

whooo its saturdayyy hoorah!! One more week of schoool! yayyyy!

Okay i'm not really that peppy, i still need coffee...anyways....last night mike and i went to see Get Smart, it was cute, not the best movie ever but I enjoyed it. When the movie let out, no joke,it was pouring and thundering and lightning so hard, i thought we were going to be swimming home! Mike ran out to bring the car to me (he's such a gentleman!) and as he ran, there was this HUUUUGE crack of lightening and then ALL of the lights in the parking lot went out! I nearly shit myself, i was convinced he'd just gotten fried by lightening.

Of course, he didnt, and then i twisted my ankle running in three inches of rain in my flip flops to get in the car. blah! We were going to get diner food but the torrential rain meant we just went home...which was okay with me, although now i'm still craving a tuna melt and cheese fries. We will have to go eat that soon i think.

Mike woke me up this morning because he had work at 9. Now, when I have to go to work and mike has off, I tiptoe around, and get ready reallll quiet and then i give him a very small kiss goodbye and let him keep sleeping, how nice!! MIKE gets up, clomps around, runs into things, runs over to me like every 5 minutes and tries to ask me things and then smothers me with big sloppy kisses and a scruffy face because he didn't shave, and thus, I woke up at 8:30 on a Saturday. meh! Oh well, I did say I'd love him for better or for worse!

I have very grand plans for today, they involve:

-cleaning the ten years of tissue out of the lint trap/air duct from the dryer on the side of the house
-doing my 8 minute abs
-painting my bench (for realz!)
-putting down some mulch and weeding, whoo hoo!

I'm also going to visit my dad for belated father's day i think, and go shopping in northport for end of year gifts for the secretaries. Or should I just get them movie tickets? I can't decide!

Oh well, time to get dressed, ttfn!

What with all the children getting more and more anxious for summer, I get out of school to find 4 text messages from mike....Remember the flies about a month ago?! They're baaaack! Actually, its like a different set of flies, the last ones were black, these are grey with red eys, red bottle flies to be exact. They are not, however, in the basement only. On no, they are all over the house! Poor mike was painting the ugly wainscoting (sp?) in the kitchen white when he saw one, then two, then twenty...you get the idea. He was so pissed at them that he swatted one and dumped paint on the WOOD floor! (eek!) but he cleaned it up, I feel so bad though, he's on vacation this week and instead is battling bugs and spilling paint.  Anyway, you all know MY feelings on the things, and I sort of almost vomited repeatedly when i called home and mike told me about it, but luckily he dealt with the worst alone...but still, UGH...there were TWENTY in our screen window iN OUR BEDROOM. I'm so horribly grossed out. We have killed all we can see and called like 8 exterminators...but everyone says the same thing, something must be dead somewhere and they are feeding on it, etc...i checked everywhere, under the deck, under the porch, in crevises in the basement and outside along the house...nothing! This means something is freaking dead in the wall and or else in the gutters where we can't reach and don't yet have a tall ladder. We have an appt for an exterminator to come thurs to see if they can find the source of the flies, but we might cancel it. The last guy i talked to (thanks jen) was really nice and basically told me that all we can pretty  much do is wait it out and in about a week the decomposed animal should be fully decomposed and the bugs should be gone. I'm still really grossed otu by all of this though.

So basically, we are apparently a big ol' trap for flies here in our cute little house, and I'm kinda worried about what kind is going to come next? Or perhaps the plagues will just switch to locusts and giant frogs falling out of our trees?

Gotta go, i have fly paper to hang.

why hello lj!

I feel bad. I've been so busy lately and I keep forgetting to update, and then when I do I have nothing interesting to say...I guess come summer I'll be excited to write about the mundane things in my life, or perhaps really adventurous things will happen instead, you never know! For now, we've got two weeks left and then its vacation! Hoorah!  Of course, the monday right after school ends summer camp starts, but that ends at noon so its ok. I have big plans for this summer. Mostly, i want to finish painting that bench I have in the backyard and then make a pillow seat for it with my mad sewing skillz. I plan on getting my sticker to TOBAY beach for real this summer and going at least three times a week, so I can lay on the sand and read books after camp. Oh, how I love the beach! I also want to hang out with my grandma because that was my new years resolution and so far it hasn't been much of a regular thing. Oh well, there's more time to do stuff right around the corner!

Anyway, yesterday was Annie's bridal shower, and it was lovely! It was also lovely to see people I haven't seen in awhile, and to wear fancy fun dresses. Jenny is here and she looks super cute as she's like 5 months pregnant at this point. I hope i look as cute as her when i'm pregnant!

oh and by the way, the other day in school a kid raised her freaking hand and goes, "ARE YOU PREGNANT!?" to which i said, "NO!" to which she replies, "WELL YOU LOOK IT!" beeyotch!

I am now sort of super sensititve about lester. Its not my fault he comes to stay in the winter and then won't vacate in summer, god! I busted out my old 8 minute abs dvd in an attempt to rectify the situation, but last night Jenny and I ate cookies and drank pomegranate lemonade and I dont think that helped things in the stomach area at all!

oh man, i'm so sweaty. i showered and stuff and then i ironed things in the nice and cool basement and THEN i tried to unpack stuff in my little craft room down there, but it got SO HOT that now i'm sweaty again and debating a second shower. Eh, I dont know! I have the ac on upstairs so i might go hide in my room soon, i just cant take how hot it is, no air to breathe, blahhh. The thought of another day of stinky hot children is quite unappealing for tomorrow. I wish i could take a personal day and go to the beach. If this heat wave keeps up, i might do it at some point!

okay, probably not really. I'm kind of a chicken about that stuff.

anyway. below i am posting things that make me feel better about the heat. Post your own if you want to!







yeah. i dont really feel better either. oh well, it was worth a try!!

going to school and teaching sweaty kids when its 100 degrees out is pretty much NO FUN!!!

MAKE THE HEAT WAVE END PLZ!!!!

oh man, this entry was dull.

Um.....who has a pool and when can I go swimming?!

Yayy its Friday! All my classes today were for some crazy reason really really really well behaved. Which is awesome as yesterday they were all really really really horrible. So it evens out i suppose.

I have big plans this weekend...chick lit book club tonight, and tomorrow and sunday: lots of cleaning. The house looks groooosss.  I need to scrub the bathrooms and the kitchen and dust and do laundry and water the flowers and...lets just not think about all that right now.

Anyway, I need a snack, so ttfn!

Well...that that was an adventure...

I went to the allergist to get my shots today, as I do every single freaking week since 2004 or so, and today instead of getting my shots and waiting the required 30 minutes before heading  home, my arm started to itch like crazy the second the shots went in. And then it got puffy and a huge welt showed up around the shot point. And then my throat started to itch. And then when they checked on me a half hour later and saw and heard all this, they got all crazy like i was going to die and made me have a full checkup and gave me benadryl and made me sit in a chair for another hour til they were sure i wasn't going to die or have my throat close up. and then they gave me steriods and some antihistamine and i have to take more tomorrow morning. Fun! All i wanted to do was go to the gym and make pot pie, but i ended up spending an hour and a half at the allergists, boo!

the good thing is that a)i'm fine now and was never really in any danger i dont think. and b) this means that i'm finally up to maintenance, which means in a few more weeks i only have to go once a month for shots, hooray!

I am very happy tomorrow is Wednesday but not really in the mood for hyper 7 year olds. At least we are painting castles and cities with watercolors, they hopefully will chill out for that. My fifth grades are totally falling for our summertime still life paintings so i hope these have the same effects!

My back is killing me from gardening and the gym this weekend, my feet are sore and blistery from the new shoes i wore today, my eyes are itchy and burny from the allergens outside, and my head hurts because i had to spend my 8th period class with 11 4th grade boys who wouldn't zip it for a million bucks.

aargh!

Is it June 27th yet??


Luckily I was a genius and made lasagna last night right up til the cooking part, so I can just warm up the oven and pop in dinner!

I would just like to take a moment to share with you the one truly annoying aspect of being a teacher:

Yesterday I went to the allergist and to do other errands, I ended up accidentally food shopping verrry close to my school district, which isn't a huge deal, but you know, seeing kids outside of school is never great, and I just so happened, on this fine day, to be wearing my "Peas Shut Up" shirt..which is of course totally adorable, but still, I guess not the best message to be saying to kids. Whatever. I figured, its still a Stop and Shop far enough away from school, what are the odds??

In fact, as I shopped, THREE different people stopped to tell me my shirt was awesome, and it is! I got to the checkout and the coast was clear! No one I knew, particularly in the 10 and under range. Awesome! And thennnn they had to make me wait in line while they found the price of the stupid turkey scallopini i needed. I couldn't have gotten any other package, could i? I turn around and who do i see? Two of my students and their mom! Crap! I tried to play it cool, "hey guys! How are you enjoying the day off?!" heh. Maybe no one noticed my shirt?

The younger one (who is in second grade) whispers to her mom, "HER SHIRT SAYS PEAS SHUT UP!"...and not a low whisper, oh no! So I laugh nervously and go, "Heh, didn't think I'd see anyone i know, but hey, it could be a far less nice message!" or some equally mortifying ramble, its kind of a blur to me now. Thankfully the mom laughed and than mercifully, they came back with the price of my turkey and i got the fudge out of there.


Today in class the little one goes to her classmates and me, "I saw Mrs. M in the supermarket yesterday!" and I"m like, "yes, you did!" and THEN she goes, "YOUR SHIRT SAID SHUT UP!" all accusatory! I was like, shit! quick thinking!!!

"Well....it says PEAS shut up, and really, it would have been more polite if they said to 'be quiet', i'll look into changing that..."

and then we dropped it.
Oh man. totally stupid and totally mortifying all at the same time!

Soo, it took me probably 4 hours total, and two days because I stopped to have fun with Ann and Ray, but the bathroom floor is done! I think it looks really nice, much cleaner than the old floor. I also think I might be decent at laying real tiles and not just peel and stick. Aside from cutting a few crooked, I managed to make them all lay pretty straight and line up correctly. yay me! And it all cost like 25 bucks!

Under the cut: the before and afters!! (ooohhhh ahhhh ohhh!)

Soo in the efforts to keep away from the scary basement of doom, I decided this morning to go out and spend my birthday present: 150 bucks to Anthropologie!

It was a very exciting prospect because they have totally adorable sweaters and shirts (and really awesome draw pulls apparently, go figure), but they cost a freaking buttload!

My parents, in a very giving moment, gave me the giftcard so i could actually buy something from there.

I ended up being incredibly thrifty and got not one, but TWO purchases! Of course, if i'd gone to the Gap and spent 150 bucks i'd have come home with like 10 items but lets not discuss that. Instead, look at what i got!


I LOVE this sweater. Its pixelated in this image but whatevs. Its lightweight, has a hoodie and goes well with jeans AND dressy pants. yayyy!

also, this was not as expensive as i guess it could have been since i was left with 60 bucks to get THIS:



totally too much money for what it is, but hey, when else was i going to be shopping at this place??

Then i got a delicious iced grande 6p vanilla caramel macchiato and came home.

I'm going to eat a fast late lunch and start putting down the peel and stick tiles in the bathroom. Before and after pictures will follow. Anything to stay away from the flies, ya know?

well here's a fun fact i learned last night:

I'm horribly afraid of flies.

Last night i went into the basement to get paint supplies as i was pumped to paint the back of our front door and i see a black thing on the floor. Upon closer inspection, its a black fly. It wasn't moving so i was like....okay, whatever.   Then I look up at the wall across from me...and see SIX more flies. I freaked out and sprayed spider killer on them cuz thats all we have and they all started flying!! I swatted at them with a folder and killed them, one more was still on the loose!! I screamed and ran upstairs and refused to go back down.

Mike came home and killed more of them! Then he vaccumed up the bodies...

today i tried to be brave and wen to get the laundry and killed 3 more...i went out and got fly bug spray and sprayed the heck out of the basement, and a little while ago, i killed more of them!! There were 4 or 5 on the windowsill of one of the windows alone, ewwwww!!

What the hell is going on?! IS this going to end or is it a plague of some kind?!

I pretty much think i might refuse to set foot in the basement ever again unless something can be done!

I made it!

Its vacation time...five days of lovely time off, hoorah! I have a lot to get done this long weekend, but for now I plan on RELAXING. "So you think you can dance" starts tonight i think, and i'm kind of excited to watch it. I"m lame, but i'm fun all the same, right? right?!

I made it the whole day without a single irate phone call from parents about the art show, so i think i'm in the clear, yayyy. Also, today was teacher appreciation lunch and it was delicious!

I also saw American Idol last night and good thing because like the first kid who came into my room today was all, "I'm so glad that so and so won American Idol!" and I gave her a lecture on spoiling tv shows and told her she was lucky i'd seen it already or ELSE! 

Someone has to teach these kids life lessons, you know?

time for a snack, ttfn!

I AM SO EXHAUSTED. THE ART SHOW HAS ONCE AGAIN KICKED MY BUTT!!

One more day until vacation, THANK GOODNESS!!!!!

P.s: I haven't seen American Idol yet so DON'T TELL ME!! I will not be looking my friends pages til i've watched!!!

It took us FOUR HOURS to hang up the art show! FOUR!

Mainly because Mike and I were almost done and then suddenly! It was a big deal that i was squished into the corner even though I had asked several times exactly where our spaces ended and no one told us so we just shoved everything together and figured we wouldn't bother anyone. But then it was too squished and i had to take shit down and move it all to the left and put it all back up and that was really really irritating!

At least the worst is over. Taking it down Wed night will suck too, but it won't take 4 hours and that makes me happy. Phew!

All in all though, I think it looks good. I mean, its sort of obvious that I'm not a pro teacher yet but I think the kids work looks good and its all reallly cute and cute makes everything better in elementary school!

Next year I need to remember:

_smaller pieces
_pick more like 8 per class, not 10
_move the boards before stapling even when no one will make decisions
_try to do the coolest projects early so they are done in time for the show
_pull stuff and matt it immediately! Don't let it all pile up til the last minute!

THE END.

I'm going to the gym now, despite the fact I really just want to eat a mashed potato bowl and pass out on the couch.

TTFN!