Catching Up

Since last blogging, a lot has happened. Here are some highlights:

February
This is the 1st year in a lot of years that I actually celebreated the Valentine's Day holiday by doing something other then drinking myself into a stupor with girlfriends. Instead, Tim took my to a special Valentine's Day Couples meal at The Melting Pot. It was very romantic, & restored my faith a little in the Hallmark holiday.

This month I also started a class that was offered through IUS to learn about educating second language learners. Since my school is a magnet school for this, I took the class on Saturdays. The class actually paid teachers to come to it through a grant that was offered. This month I started the class in an effiort to not have to get a summer job.

March
We were actually off several days for school due to snow. Yep, snow in March.
For Spring Break I went to New Orleans.

April
This was a fast month. For my birthday, I went out to eat at Kabuto, one of my fave places to eat in Indy and a party afterwards. The rest of the weekends in April were spent on chores at Tim's place and getting the loat ready for boat season.

1st Week off of School

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of me. I have been completely unhealthy the last couple of weeks as I was tieing up loose ends & ending up the school year. I can't tell you the last time that I excersised. I have been eating terribly. I have been drinking too much over the weekends.

It is a time of complete stress every year for me when I approach the last 2 weeks of school. I am completely overwhelmed, & it is hard to complain to others that are not in the teaching field exactly why it is so stressful---because the answer always is, "well you're off for the summer so I don't feel sorry for you." type of answer.

The fact of the matter is that there is a lot of paperwork associated with the end of the year. There is a lot of organizing . (something I continually struggle with) There is a lot of details to cover, & I am not a detailed person. I came home every night last week & went to sleep by 9:30. I never do that. I know how I act when I am completely stressed out--- & I am a sleeper. That is how I deal with stress. I promise that next year I will get more prepared for the last two weeks of school. I know that I say this year after school year, but I really mean it. I can already tell a difference from the first year that I was teaching; I get a little better at it each year.

Anyway, this is my 3rd day off of school. Yesterday I went to the track with a buynch of people from work & had a good time. I didn't win very much, but I only lost $12.00, so the day wasn't a complete loss. It was just fun to do things with people from work. The day before I got all of my laundry done. there is something so comforting in knowing that all the laundry is done.......

Today is my first day to really play on the computer a bit. I always seem to have to blog & journal on my first week off of school. It's like my mind needs to process everything so I can go on to the next chapter of the summer. I am definitely noticing patterns of the summer. I have been off enough summers now to know what I like to do & how I like to spend my time off.

Today

Today I have a couple of things that I need to get done before Tim gets home from work. I need to go get stamps. I need to find a place to work out up here half of the week. I am also trying to help him redo his kitchn. It's so nice to have the freedom to go back & forth from Indy to Louisville now & not be stressed out about it. It was sucking my will to live there for a second.

Summer Goals

This summer I have a couple of goals that I want to accomplish & have already gotten started on them:
1) Redo Tim's place
I want to try to get the wallpaer off of every room in his house. There are three rooms to tackle. I am hoping to have all three done by July 4th. This seems to be the time of the summer when I start to get tired of working on projects.

2) Work on my backyard
I have a wonderful backyard that was in impeccable shape when I got the house last year. I have had the place for almost a year & there are a lot of projects back there that I need to perfect. I definitely need to get some weeding done & find out a little more about the variety of landscaping that I have back there.

3) Spend time with my family
This past yeqar I have spent a lot of my extra time with Tim. Understandably so, since we were in a long distance realtionship. Thererfore, thsi summer I am going to make an extra effort to do a ton of stuff with tthe kids. Natty will be in 4th grade & Jack will tackel 1st grade next year. 1st ghrasde is such a hard but learning year. Heather will have her hands full next year. Heather has settled into the empty nest syndrome this past year incedibly well, so I am sure that she is up to Jack's challenge. At any rate, I definitely need some family time with everyone!

4) Exercise & lose weight
This is always at the top of my list for over the summer. Last summer I kinda fell off the band wagon after meeting Tim. My goal this year is to excersise off all of the alcohol that I consume. Getting older is changing the way that I gain weight & extra beer calories do nothing for me except yearn for younger days.