Breakfast at my desk...an english muffin and iced coffee. The cheerleaders were going to be in costumes for the football game on Halloween...Mac was going to be a hot dog...then the cheerleaders decided they didn't want to...sadly Mac's hot dog costume went back to Target. Getting mail out of our crooked mailbox with a completely rotted-out base, but we haven't had time yet to fix it and it probably means taking the plant I love around it out. My intro to Sociology students had to develop their own cultures this week...and they made flags to wave in the class as they explained what each group came up with. Mac went to dinner with my mom, so Sean and I had leftovers in front of a little college football. We managed to squeeze in another walk tonight and the sunset was amazing...then we were off to our second to last night of phone banking.
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Week in the Life: Wednesday
Every morning one of the first things I look at is my Timehop app. This morning it showed that three years ago today we were working on the Mac & Cheese costume. I snuck a photo while my students were taking a test. It's spirit week at Sean's school. Since today was jersey day the high school soccer jersey came out of the closet. I packed myself a little bento lunch...and after teaching for four hours straight and talking to students for an additional hour and a half straight I finally got to eat it. I forgot to make dinner so it was a $5.99 pizza. Today I wore olive green and navy stripes with the comfiest silver shoes. Sean got to see the first inning or so of the World Series before we were off to phone banking and school bond committee meeting.
Week in the Life: Tuesday
At 6:48am Sean drops off Mac for a zero period art class at 6:55am. I get to sleep in a little on Tuesdays...and stay in bed for a few minutes watching the Today Show while crocheting. I sent Sean a text about a big idea I had today. Tis the season for letters of recommendation...weird that I am the one writing them. Before class I brush my teeth, scribble in a little extra eyebrow color and tame it all with clear mascara, put on chap-stick and coconut nectar perfume. A quick, blurry shot from the faculty parking lot outside the brand new building I get to teach in this semester. While I was in class Mac and Sean were at the orthodontist for a six month check-up. Sean and I managed to get a walk in after dinner before we both had to be somewhere for the night. Sean took Mac to tumbling...that's him blurry and flipping through the air. I went to work the school bond phone bank...I made eighty-four calls in a little over an hour.
Week in the Life: Monday
A shower is the only thing that has a chance of waking me up at 6:18am. Leaving for work right before the sun rises. A yogurt snack at my desk in between my three classes all right in a row. Coming home at 1:22pm with my overstuffed work bag, lunch bag, pile of mail and Starbucks. Cutting a million pieces of paper...treats for my students and holdiay progressive dinner invitations for my neighbors. Mac's pile on the floor when he gets home from school. Cheesy chicken and rice for dinner. Sitting on the couch for a minute while dinner cooks. My outfit today...I change into pajamas when I get home in the afternoon, but get right back into work clothes to teach my night class.
Fourth year in a row...
I recorded a week in the summer of 2011...the spring of 2012...and the early fall of 2013. Looking back, I love seeing all those details and how much everything has changed...
So I am in totally in for another week in the life.
A little Halloween...
Way back on our honeymoon in August 1999 I bought a little Halloween decoration for the front table in our apartment...super excited about all the holidays ahead in our family's future. Fifteen years later the little welcome witch still makes it way out of the storage box this time of year. This time it's on our mantle with a few other decorations and the pumpkin lights that are usually on our front porch.
For the first time ever we won't be home to host a pizza party and go trick-or-treating. Mac has his last home game on Halloween, so I have been hesitant to decorate the front porch because I hate the idea of it being all cute & glowing without us being there to hand out candy and drink lots of apple cider.
At least we can enjoy a cute, glowing mantle...and maybe still sip some hot apple cider when we get home from the game.
Fresh & Clean...
Tuesday and Thursday mornings I am home in the mornings before teaching a class at the community college in the afternoons. Often this means I am scrubbing down the kitchen sink, cleaning the counters, and wiping down the fridge (our new-ish stainless steel fridge is my cleaning nemesis). I used to always microwave the sponges we have to keep them clean, but the boiling hot water coming out of them was tricky and if you waited for it to cool, it kind of defeated the purpose of cleaning it.
This summer I came up with a super fancy sponge cleaner. Vinegar in a squeeze bottle from Target. I squeeze out the sponges really well, fill them with vinegar and let them sit for awhile...done.
Spinach Artichoke Dip...
This is the stuff...one of the best recipes I've got. A friend gave it to me back in 2006 and I have made it for about 254 parties since then...give or take a couple.
Spinach Artichoke Dip
- 10 oz frozen chopped spinach; thawed & drained
- 16 oz artichoke hearts in water; drained & chopped
- 8 oz cream cheese; softened
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ½ cup sour cream
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ½ cup parmesan cheese; grated
- 1 cup monterey jack cheese; shredded
- 2 cloves of garlic; minced
Mix all ingredients together, by hand, in a large mixing bowl. Pour dip into a shallow, uncovered, glass baking dish, Bake at 375 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes until bubbling hot and slightly browned on top.
Relax...
I mentioned freedom. And I took advantage of a little of it this past weekend. We sat down on the new couch on Saturday night and watched football. I flipped through magazines in my favorite app...it is my absolute favorite to see the Thanksgiving issues popping up.
We went for a walk and I even completed the blanket I started earlier this year. After working a good portion of every day, seven days a week for almost two months straight, I forgot how good it feels to sit down and relax.
Do you know what that looks like?
To start the second half of Thursday night's Homecoming game, the helium balloons floated out of the run-through and drifted off into the night sky.
I turned to the cheer mom next to me and asked, "Ah, do you know what that looks like?"
"No" she answered, understandably puzzled.
With a smile, I simply explained "Freedom".
This signals the end of the frantic pace of cheer team work...now there are actual little breaks. Until try-outs in the spring...
The summit...
I said at the beginning of the month we had a little too many plans...and the next two days are the height of it. Over the next 72 hours the house will be filled with almost 70 people...and a heck of a lot of cooking. I took a quick break from the stove to answer some late night emails. We have a little more to do and we're hoping to be in bed when the clock strikes midnight.
I cannot wait for my head to hit that pillow...
Little did I know...
The schools I work at have online platforms to share class announcements, content like the syllabus or articles to read, and keeping a gradebook accesible for my students. I am pretty used to using them after four semesters, but next semester I will be teaching an online class that will have me using the platform for everything.
The community college mandates we take a three month course to be qualified to teach online and I am officially halfway through...thankfully. I realized, as I have been completing 10 hours worth of assignments a week, that having a blog all these years has been preparing me to teach online. I am used to making categories, new pages of information, and sharing all kinds of files. Most importantly, I am very used to trying to make things cute. This is far from the most important aspect of higher education...but, boy, is it important to me.
My collection of digital kits and free fonts helped me design a banner for the entry page of the class and I used my stack of books image for the PDF of my welcome letter. Of course then I needed to coordinate the color codes of my "Start Here" page titles with the colors in stack of books. I wish I could also use numerous colors in my navigation menu, but it only allowed one. It was a big decision.
Then I decided I needed to find cute images to upload with assignment links. The light-bulb is for a sample quiz we needed to set up for colleagues in the class to take. Mine included multiple choice questions like, Sociology is: A) The very best subject B) Super cool C) Lots of fun D) All of the above.
Guess what the answer is?
Nuns and muffins...
I put together this collage on the big wall in our living room over three years ago and have only futzed with it a little bit since then. At the end of the summer I switched it around a little more, adding a yard sale painting of nuns on the beach with red balloons and and old muffin tin full of patterned paper.
The painting was from a fundraising sale at Mac's grade school. One of the parents pointed it out as a joke, I loved the frame it was in and bought it for that...and then I ended up kind of loving the total randomness of the entire thing. The painting has ended up on our mantle occasionally, but was waiting in a closet for its debut in the living room.
The muffin tin has also been in and out of the closet...it was first filled with patterned paper a few years ago and has had several combinations since. A two and half inch circle punch worked perfectly with some foam tape.
This isn't my first super quirky idea for the this wall... remember the humongous red rectangle?
Happy thoughts...
Sending off my niece's birthday gift last week gave me an excuse to be crafty for a minute. My sister-in-law told me her favorite color was blue. As you can see, I took that seriously.
Between phone banking and precinct walking the biggest accomplishment is when someone cares enough that they are willing to put a sign in their yard. I snapped a photo from the car window of one of our lawn sign victories from this weekend's walk.
And a couple of weeks ago I went a little crazy stocking up on bracelets. I have put together a new combination of colors to wear everyday since.
See you next week...
We will be feeding 52 mini cheerleaders and 47 regular cheerleaders all day Saturday at Mini Cheer Camp. I was washing 13 pounds of apples this morning for one of the snacks. We will be precinct walking again for the bond school bond measure. And I will be working my you-know-what off on assignments for the on-line class I have to take so the community college will let me teach on-line classes.
A little bit more of a party house...
It seems like a house decorating cliche to purchase big furniture at IKEA, but I first noticed this couch three years ago and have wanted it since. I might have mentioned a time or two that we host some parties around here and having a family room that only sat a few people comfortably wasn't that practical. This is a huge sectional that, thankfully, doesn't seem to overwhelm the room too much.
We measured the heck out of this room so we knew exactly how much we could cram in here and headed to the store with an entirely different configuration in my head...that turned out not be an option, so we contemplated not getting a chaise added on since it doesn't directly face the television. However, I could not resist that cozy place to put our feet up, so we got it anyway and I am really glad we did.
Sean got everything built and I combined some throw pillows from around the house with a couple new ones. I want to keep a throw on the end of the chaise so we can plop down and not worry about getting it dirty, so for now I put the first blanket I ever crocheted on there.
We are hosting two parties on the 16th and 17th and I am excited to see the couch be used...then one day we will actually get an hour or two to sit around together on all this new comfy cozy space.
How my brain works...
Over the weekend I was stressed and trying crank through all of the stuff that needed to be done for this week. I was prepping for my classes and digging into the haphazard pile of boxes all my supplies are stuffed into.
Despite having no time for such an undertaking, I spent a half hour consolidating and clearing three drawers in a dresser in our guest room so that I can get all my class supplies organized and easily accessible. Made perfect sense to me...take time you don't have and complete an unnecessary re-organizational project. The results made me a little too happy.
Looking at all this together seems pretty crazy. I have a gender neutral doll for when we discuss raising a genderless child. I have large dice to play a game about social inequalities. I have a coloring book to contrast to students making a their own feminist coloring book. I have prisms. I have supplies for when I pack my "Invisible Knapsack of White Privilege". And I have lots and lots of crayons.
End of an era...
This couch is pretty much the reason Sean and I are married. I shared the story years ago on the tenth anniversary of our engagement. We have had it since college. It has had a slipcover on it ever since it was paired with my Grandma's chartreuse couch...until it was kicked out of the living room altogether a couple of years ago. Underneath, it is plaid circa 1998 and it's a couch bed as you can see from this college football camp out.
This weekend was officially the end for the couch we've had for sixteen years. We really needed more seating and something a little more modern. Before I share the photos of the new couch, I was super sentimental and wanted to document the retirement of this special one.
The life a cheer booster president...
Get home from class at 5:00pm.
Print seven sheets of car wash tickets and cut them apart.
Write a "script" for the game announcer about the car wash on Sunday and Mini cheer camp registration.
Grab the gifts I made for our girls to give to the away team cheer squad (just clothes pins with washi tape in the visiting team's school colors).
Stop at the grocery store on the way to rushing to the field because we need $20 in change to sell car wash tickets with.
Buy two Snickers bars, so Sean and I have something for dinner.
Hang up a dozen sponsorship banners on the fence (actually Sean did that alone).
Meet the game announcer and give him the script.
Have four girls from the freshman squad sell car wash tickets and hand out mini cheer camp flyers.
Answer questions about mini cheer camp for parents.
Kindly remind those four cheerleaders less talking to their friends, more talking to people who might register someone for Mini Cheer Camp.
Talk to the treasurer about losing our contact at a local florist, who made our fresh flower head wreaths for homecoming, because she no longer works there.
Brainstorm what the heck we are going to do now because we barely have money in the budget for it.
Recruit a mom to host a Mini Cheer Camp bow making and Homecoming hair accessory making night at her house next week.
Take down sponsorship banners with Sean.
Stop at my mom's house to pick up old towels she is donating to the cheer team for Sunday's car wash. And sell her a car wash ticket.
Head home and spend an hour sending emails for the cheer squad.
This month...
Switched my calendar at work this morning and took a moment to reflect upon the fact that now life will get even more busy. In addition to school bond phone banking there will be weekend precinct walking. The cheer team has it's biggest fundraiser and Homecoming in the same week. We are hosting dinner for 46 cheerleaders one night and the next night we have the sleepover I host every semester for the new members of my college sorority. And then there is just the usual work for school...for instance on this first day of October I have a 175 papers to grade...and actually 49 more are being turned in tomorrow.
So, October...it's going to be a challenge, but a good challenge. As you can see in the picture the calendar is right next to the "Do what you love" print...and I do love it all. Okay maybe not cheer parents who do not volunteer to help the team...or people who do not answer an email asking them about phone bank recruiting. I love the rest of it though.
And I am looking forward to November already...when much of this stuff will be all done.
Pumpkin time...
It's October and I am so excited for all things pumpkin...we had our first batch of pumpkin chocolate chip mini muffins tonight, there are pumpkin scented candles to burn and pumpkin decorations.
I joined in on Eighteen25's Spooktacular September again this year and stitched up a messy fabric pumpkin. I actually made a smaller one at first to make sure the idea worked enough before making the one I shared on their blog.
I have had our mantle a little fall-ish for about a month now, but hopefully this weekend I'll get a chance to dig into the fall decorations box and gather together a lot more pumpkins.
