Saturday night date

About 6 tonight, John suggested that we ride to Alex City to go to The Home Depot. No particular reason other than to get out. Twenty years ago, if a guy suggested going to somewhere like THD to "hang out" for an hour or so on a Saturday night, I probably would have turned him down in a heart beat. The Home Depot on a Saturday night, or ANY night for that matter??? Now I actually enjoy going there or to Lowe's. Sounds weird, I know, but one of my favorite TV shows is Cool Tools. All the home improvement shows I've watched over the last few years have had an impact on me. :) We did pick up a few things--a soaker hose, a kitchen faucet, a bulb for the outdoor light, and slides to go under the piece of furniture that weighs a ton.

After leaving THD, we went to Carlos' for some Mexican food. Yum! They had karaoke going on in the bar area. Talk about entertaining. hahaha There was one girl who was good, but one of the guys had us laughing so hard. I truly hope he knows he can't sing well but he just doesn't care so he gets up for the fun of it. I'm certainly not saying I could do a better job because I know I can't, and that's why I don't do karaoke, but anyone who does should know that they are subject to being laughed at.

I worked on the dining room floor today trying to get the wax, shellac, whatever it is on it cleaned off. It's probably going to take another cleaning or two to get it where we want it, or at least to where we can live with it until we get the floors redone. I'll post some before and after pictures tomorrow. It's amazing at the difference already!

I'm headed to bed. Have a great one. :)

I love a bargain

Dolly called this morning to see if I wanted to ride to Auburn/Opelika with her today. She had an appointment to get her hair cut--her niece works at a salon in Opelika--and then she had some running around to do. Hmmm---so my options for today were 1) stay home and do some lesson plans for English 11 or 2) go hang out with one of the most fun friends I have. Hard decision. :)

After getting her hair cut, we went to a couple of the shops right by the salon. Opelika has done a lot with the old downtown area. A lot of older towns/cities should follow in their footsteps. We had lunch in this quaint little cafe. A very simple menu--chicken salad, tuna salad, ham sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, BLTs--but very good. Those are the kind of places I like to go for a quick, cool lunch on a hot summer day.

Anyway, about the bargains. I've been wanting to get some new bedding for the trailer, but I didn't want to spend a fortune on it. Everything I've seen that I liked would be outrageously priced, so I had just about given up. At Tuesday Morning, they had a quilt that I loved. It was a "lakey" green, and it was about a third the price of what I've been seeing. After I decided to get it, I just happened to find the matching bedskirt. Now, I'm not a huge bedskirt fan, but the bed at the lake is kind of...well...ugly, so a bedskirt will cover up the frame. Then, I found a sheet set to match. Woo Hoo! I didn't find pillow shams, but that's okay. I can make do without them. I'll just look around for a couple of throw pillows that will coordinate.

I found a frame at Hobby Lobby for Sam's newest picture. I'm sure I have one here somewhere, but I cannot get to where all m extra frames are because the dining room furniture is in the way. The floors haven't gotten refinished yet. I'm about ready to move the furniture back in because the next time we'll be able to vacate the house for them to be done will be during my fall break...in October. I refuse to live with the dining room table in the middle of the living room and the china cabinet in the guest bedroom. Wow--that was a wild tangent--I started out talking about the frame for Sam's picture and ended up talking about furniture. Since the background on the picture is black, I got a black frame, but it has some mild distressing on it with red as the accent color. The outfit he has on is red, so it matches really well. I couldn't find the 5 x 7, but I found out that Poppa John has taken it to work. :) I guess he put it in one of the frames he has there.

That's about it for today. I'm about to go cook dinner because the chicken salad I had earlier is about to be all gone. :)

Awesome schedule!

I just got my schedule for next year, and it is perfect! First semester I'll have English 11 for 1st and 2nd blocks and English 12 for 3rd block and planning for 4th block. I don't usually get as much done with 4th block planning because I'm exhausted from being "on" all day. That seems to be the general consensus for many of us. My favorite time for planning is 1st block so I can come in and get focused on the day ahead. Anyway, second semester I'll have English 12 for 1st and 2nd blocks, 3rd block planning (which I really like, too) and English 11 for 4th block. I've done English 11 once, so I'll still have to do a lot of planning. I've got the teacher's edition in my bag to take home with me. Guess I'll start on that later today.

Jessi called yesterday to tell us what they'd discovered with her car. The timing belt needed replacing and they replaced the spark plugs while they were at it. She sent a text today to tell me how much it was going to cost. The labor for car repairs is just outrageous. Things that people used to do for themselves, like changing oil and spark plugs, can't be done by anyone except an expert. John was going to change the spark plugs on his truck the other day, but he couldn't get to them. Jessi and I decided there is a conspiracy between the engineers who design the cars and the mechanics who work on them so that people have to take their vehicles in to the dealership to get them fixed. hahahaha I do love a good conspiracy theory. Hmmmm--I haven't read one of the Jason Bourne books in a LONG time. Might be a good time to pull one out.

Guess that's about it for now. I've got to run to the bank to make a deposit before going to lunch. Hope everyone has a great day!

Still in vacation mode

I'm still in the "I'm on vacation, so I'm not doing anything" mode today. I have done several loads of laundry, but that's about it. That may not sound like much, but we had a ton of stuff to wash. It would've been a lot easier and faster to have just taken everything to the laundromat, but I don't know that there are enough quarters in the entire town to have done it all. :) :) :)

The pups are still recuperating from their busy week, too. It usually does take them a good day to get over any trips we take. They don't get their naps in with all the excitement around, so they crash. I'm going to guess that about 7 tonight they'll begin to be more active, and then tomorrow they'll be back to normal.

Mr. Davidson had sent out an email telling us that schedules were done, so I'm going to the school tomorrow to see what mine looks like. He said they were basically the same as they were last year. I think Dolly and I are going to try to have lunch, too. I need to give her a call in a bit to make sure.

Karen, Mary, and I are going to a Blogs and Wikis workshop Wednesday in Phenix City. Since I'm planning on incorporating more technology in my classroom this year, I figure this would be a good one to go to. With Karen and Mary, I know we'll have fun. :)

I hope John is up for Oskar's for dinner. I have this huge craving for catfish, and they have really good catfish! Besides, if he isn't, all we have here is stuff for sandwiches. ugh!!!!

I'm BAAAaaack!

It is going to be SO nice to sleep in my normal bed tonight! The four nights I slept on a dorm-room bed were not as comfortable as I remember from my college days, and our bed at the lake is comfy, but it just isn't MY bed. We hated leaving the lake, though.

We had such a great time. We did exactly what we wanted to do--pretty much nothing! That's the kind of week I wanted for John. There was one day that I'm not really even sure he left the recliner. :) That was perfectly okay, though, because he works so hard during the week, and then he does so much in the afternoons and on weekends around home that he doesn't usually have much free time. There are very few weekends when we're at the lake that we just can do nothing. Even this week, we still had a couple of things that needed to be done, but we got them done early.

A lot of people would probably go stark-raving mad at the thoughts of spending a week doing nothing but staring at the water and not having tons of places to go and hundreds of things to do. Some people have to surround themselves with others and have to be busy all the time. (I have a friend who would go into DTs if she had to live more than about 10 minutes from Wal-Mart. And the idea of living somewhere so far out...forget it! hahaha) We love it though. This is just one of the ways that John and I are so much alike. We love the quiet, the peacefulness, the solitude--it's good for the soul. True, you don't just run to the store to grab a loaf of bread, but that's fine with me.

We did go out to eat Saturday night with Roger, a friend of John's from high school. He and his wife have built a gorgeous home on the Jasper side of the lake. From what Roger said, I think Amy is a lot like me--she'd rather stay at the lake than at home.

We took the boat out almost every day. We rode down to visit with Ron and Cindy and their grandsons (Will and John) one afternoon, and then we all took a late afternoon ride. It was SO nice!! I read three more books. That's a total of six so far this summer. I'll probably get another one or two in before school starts back. John grilled every night, so the few pounds l lost the week I lived on ham sandwiches are back. (Thanks, Honey.)

I guess the best part of the entire week was Friday and Saturday when Jessi, Katy, Phillip, Sam, and the pups all came up. We'd been planning on them coming up for about three weeks, but last Saturday Jessi called and said something was wrong with her car. We didn't know until Thursday that she'd be able to come at all. She has a friend who must be awesome--Audrey let her borrow her car so she could come up! Audrey, I'm quite sure you will never read this, but THANKS!! You made Jess's dad's day (and mine, too.)

They got to the lake about 1ish, I guess. After they grabbed a bite to eat, we headed to the water. Sam had his first taste of being a lake baby. :) He did pretty well. Once he'd had enough, I took him back to the trailer, changed him out of his wet stuff, and snuggled with him. In about two minutes, he was out like a light. On Saturday, he got to take his first boat ride. He seemed to enjoy it--it only took him about five minutes to conk out. After we got back to the dock and he woke up, John took Katy, Jessi, and Phillip back out to tube, and Sam, Linda, and I relaxed in the shade. I don't want to rush Sam's life, but I can't wait for next summer when he can REALLY enjoy playing in the water. Of course, when he's five and wanting to learn to ski, we'll be wishing to be back to this summer. Poppa John had him laughing so hard before they left Saturday. I have never known a kid of any age who didn't just love John. He just has a way of connecting with them. I guess it's because he's really still a kid a heart. I still look at John looking at Sam and just get all teary-eyed. He loves this child so much!


We got up early this morning so we could go to Hartselle to see Billie for a bit. The Alzheimer's seems to be progressing faster than any of us want. Of course, any progression is too fast. Because of us being three hours away, everything falls on Danny, Linda, Tim, Tisha, and Connie, and we hate that. We know it isn't easy on them.

Ali and Bama had a great time, too, but they are both worn out--just like their momma! One thing they aren't going to like is NOT being able to sleep in the bed with us. I'm sure that's another reason I'll be so glad to get back into my bed. :) They are both conked out by my feet, but as soon as I move, they'll be in my lap.

Speaking of moving--I'm going to move on and close out this post. I'm barely holding my eyes open as it is.