A Heart's a Heavy Burden

Last weekend (LAST last, the 22nd) Ben, Sean, and Dave were visiting from Madison. Well, Dave is continuing to visit from Europe but yeah. I can't remember all the finer details but the point is that Sean and Ben were going to Disney World (AGAIN, but this time with Ben's parents) and Dave was going to be alone for a week. Steve and I thought that was nonsense and invited Dave to spend the week with us.

Steve and I have never actually had a house guest stay longer than the weekend, but we DO have a guest room. Dave was such an easy guest: all he wanted to do was eat baguettes, order cheap pizza, play ITG, and talk about ITG and mini golf. He managed his own schedule and kept himself busy while we were at work. In the evenings one or more of us would play ITG. All 3 of us made improvements, and Dave ended up getting 2 new quads which is super impressive. Steve and I did pretty well too. I still need to re-learn officials after not having played them in months while preparing for Cupcake. But even with that, I have improved like 10 scores. I just need to increase my stamina and suffer through hard songs.

That's pretty much been my life! I also started knitting a hat with a super fun technique, SO EXCITED. I've been buying a lot of fun yarn lately. So happy about my yarn. I should knit more.

I've been really really tired still. Even with many hours of sleep, still so tired. I've been working on my attitude AT work (still really struggling with the getting TO work part), and negativity I could be bringing into my job. It's helped this week be better - I think I'm naturally one of the better educators at connecting with kids and making them feel like I care about them and want them to do well - AND that I expect them to give their best. However, I still think I've been struggling at being 100% and not getting bogged down with the annoying things - refusals, bad attitudes, etc. - and this week I decided to take it in stride and not allow myself to get exasperated. Instead I've been infinitely patient and understanding. For example, when Tino said he wished I'd teach at the board and if he didn't get it, come to him individually........... which is literally all I do. Forever. I did that even HARDER today than most days; usually once we get to "work days" I'm working individually and small groups 100% but today enough kids needed help that I went for a class re-teach. But I listened patiently and told him that tomorrow I will do just that. lol. We're working on 2-step equations and I know that's a challenging topic and requires a lot of thinking and effort on their part.

I'm super nervous about next year's group, it sounds like the 6th graders are much lower than this current group of 7th and 8th graders, so I'll have to manage them differently. Trying not to freak out already, but it's like, I'm working so hard at FINALLY building my curriculum binder after having lost most of my online resources when I left SPPS, and next year I'll have to change it probably. It's okay.... one thing at a time.

Therapy appt yesterday went well, but I left here around 2:30 and that is TOO LATE somehow to get all the way around the Twin Cities and at the appt by 3. So I blustered in at 3:05 and had to ask to let me go to the bathroom because I hadn't gone all day hashtag teacher life. Otherwise we had a lot of really good conversation about communication in my relationship with Steve and talking about boundaries and how boundaries/needs/agreements aren't static and we should revisit them regularly to see if they changed and how to modify our needs, etc. She also suggested a different book for me and Steve to review together that is more modern and might be more helpful now that we're not in crisis. I talked with Steve about it on my hour drive home, and I think he also will be looking into individual therapy. He still has a lot of bad moments and we agree it would be good for him to vent or work through some of these thoughts with an impartial and supportive third party.

We've been spending a lot of time in daily contact with Ben/Dave/Dmac/Sean, and have seen much less of our local friends. Noah fell a little off the map for a bit but is back. I've had some minimal texting wtih Courtney and it sounds like Steve talks with JWaid and Nick, but we haven't been hanging out? It's interesting. Noah mentioned to me the other day that it feels like everyone is just being regular old adults and it's disappointing. I imagine that happens in everyone's lives. I remember being a teenager and my mom hanging out with her best friend from high school after not having seen her in like 10-15 years and thinking that was insane! How can you not talk to your best friend?! But now I get it. And Bre and I maintain spotty contact and technology of course allows us to keep up with people without having to directly interact with them often anyway.

Uh I totally dropped the ball on shirts for both Fantastic Beats AND Cupcake. I just like... forgot about them. Whoooops. It's not a huge deal for Cupcake but I feel pretty bad about FB. It's not super like me to forget, but it just feels like I've got a million things I'm thinking about at any given time and my brain just decided that ordering shirts was not a necessity. That and I guess I had no reminders sooooo it's hard to remember.

My great-grandma died a couple months ago and she willed her money to her children, but since my grandpa Jack died a couple years ago the money allotted for him went to HIS kids. My mom sent me $1000 as a nice gesture, and I think that was super sweet. I think I'm probably going to use it for tattoos - I have a bunch of medium-small ideas I just want to knock out quickly here.

1. Something like "Go all in" from this Jim quote in The Office - "Well, you know, you can’t have everything so you gotta ask yourself what makes you the happiest. You just go all in for what’s most important. That’s my new thing." Pretty self explanatory, one of my favorite lines in the entire series, really speaks to me. Probably on my wrist? Somewhere I can see.
2. "A Heart's a Heavy Burden" with either blue Calcifer or the shooting stars from Howl's Moving Castle - I know I have an entire Ghibli sleeve but also this quote is my entire life. Either over my heart, or on my available ribs/side/hip.
4. Booya Moon from Lisey's Story. It's my favorite Stephen King book of all time, and I'm linking the image given on the book jacket for reference, but I think Andy would really like to draw his version or vision of it. I like his art. Probably on one of my thighs.
5. Possibly one of Andy's drawings, because I know how much he likes to tattoo his originals, and one recent one he posted is super good. Not sure where though.

Today we woke up a little late, and were both frisky right away in the morning so we decided to take advantage of that!

Then we relaxed with coffee before needing to head out to lunch with Steve’s parents and grandpa, who just turned 92. We planned to get to Roseville a little early so we could stop at Half Priced Books. Today was a bust for me, no cheap SK hardcovers, no Murakami I don’t have, no manga that seemed interesting and no humor books that caught my eye. I was feeling flirty with Steve though so I made my trip interesting that way. He ended up finding a DS game he wanted and a manual for a Castlevania game he was missing. Score for Steve! Then we needed to go over to Baker’s Square.

When we first started doing lunches with his grandpa, it was at an Applebee’s, and that sucked. Now we go next door to Baker’s Square, which still sucks, but at least the pie is good. The food itself is bland and mushy. I opted for the in-season peach pecan pie, which is like a cheesecake with peach preserves on it. It was pretty yummy. The conversation was fun this time, everyone appeared to be in good moods and we planned for Steve and maybe me to go up north the weekend of the 19th for four-wheeling. Steve’s parents talked about plans for an RV so they can drive around the country during the cold months. I knit on my second Totoro sock, woo.

Next on our agenda was MilkJam. We had planned to go there since we wouldn’t be far from Minneapolis, but the drive ended up being like 25 minutes anyway. The weather was good and the being with Steve was awesome so I didn’t mind. I parked us a few blocks away, and we were surprised to find that there was like no line... score! We each got waffle cones, me with Cereal Killer and Steve with the mango sticky rice. I loved mine, but also I wanted the mango. I’ll probably get that next time. We walked and ate our cones, and just enjoyed each other’s company.



Finally we headed home. I had thought maybe I’d play ITG, but I was not feeling it at all by the time we got home. Too much sugar for the day, so sleepy and lazy. So I knit on my sock and Steve played his game (which he eventually beat) and we watched The Office. Soon after, Ben started streaming, so we watched him try some Fantastic Beats songs and then some officials. It was a great time. Steph was in the Twitch chat and Dave was chatting with her a bit and maybe I got protective of our Officialz group when she was making comments about officials songs (we all usually communicate via the fb group vs in twitch. I’m working on it, but it’s obvious that Ben is also protective of the four of us (him, Dave, Steve and myself) and our work on Officials. So.

After he finished playing, Steve and I went back to a show and I finally went to bleach my hair so I can dye it lavender for Bethany’s wedding. Steve beat his game and we watched a few more episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. We realized Netflix started us on the last season. I really enjoyed the Dana Carvey episode, and the Kate McKinnon episode even though she was so intense.

We ended the night continuing to watch Seinfeld while I iced my arms. Before that though we talked about the nuances of yoga and did a few postures. I’m super excited for Monday yoga, can’t wait to get back to the stuff I crave.

Finally I was able to get up and wake Steve up in time for morning coffee! Yay! It’s sooo hard to wake up when the snuggles and sleep are so good. Also I realized I wrote day 14 twice, whoops, gotta fix those lol.

Tealie told me last night that she was calling in because she’s trying to sell her house and needed to schedule several appointments, which intellectually I was totally fine with and support her, but also it’s so annoying and stressful (at least until first block gets going). For some reason every time she’s gone I am max annoyed for foundations and the beginning of first block, but then I remember everything is fine. It’s not like the kids only behave for Tealie, but they ARE rude to subs usually. Thankfully (tbh) she didn’t appear to have one, so I got to spend the first half of first hour with Nicki covering for Tealie. I liked having nicki in the room, because she has a loud voice and at the beginning when I couldn’t find the math review she gave them a stern speech about when they go to 7th grade and the expected noise level. After math review, things went smoothly. We were doing an activity that measures and compares the hand span of everyone in the room, and the way I structured it really worked for them. When we were finished, we went outside for like a half hour (our classes are 80 minutes). Malik of course fell down immediately and bloodied his leg up somehow, but he was back eventually. The rest of the kids organized a couple of games of tag or did little competitive things on the swings. It was relaxing and fun.

Even though I get kind of annoyed, and I’m sure she does too when I’m gone (and I had a lot of paperwork days this year), we never are snippy with each other about it because we’re always being supportive. She texted me halfway through the day checking in, because Kristin made sure to text her and let her know no sub showed up for her, stressing her out, but I just reassured her and she cheered up.

Second block was good, I spent the time running between each kid basically in the first group, and it was uneventful and nice. Second group Dyshawn asked if he could be reading his book for English in the pod, and he sat right outside the door and did read for a decent amount of time.

I had to be at Nokomis at the right time today because my replacement was shadowing me today, and st first I was a little stressed, but since she’s been in the district and has already done split schools, it was wayyy more relaxed than I thought it would be. It ended up being an easy day other than talking a lot about students we’re finishing up, including talking to Brian and Todd over the phone about kids at parkway.

I came home and tried to nap because I was sooo tired, but first I got distracted with Steve, which we both weren’t even expecting and was a nice way to spend my getting home. Lol. THEN I tried to nap, and I think I dozed a little right at the beginning but after like 10 minutes or so I just couldn’t sleep. I only had like a half hour until I was supposed to go to yoga, and when it was time to go I felt so tired it was like I was sick, but I need to stop being reluctant to go to yoga when I love it when I’m there. And I’m so out of practice it’s absurd and frankly makes me sad. So I got up and changed and headed out. It was easier to motivate myself because Hannah was teaching the class tonight, and she’s still by far my favorite instructor. She was subbing for Brittany, and Brittany loves handstands and other inversions, so we spent the hour working on shoulders, core, and legs. I like Hannah’s way of doing core, which is insanely hard but atypical. She has us use our blankets to go from plank to pulling our legs in, in various ways. Vs several others who like to basically do sit-ups and other lame things. The last time I was working on handstand I was able to do L pose pretty good, but today my back was not having it. Which was okay. I felt so good just doing yoga again. When I looked at the schedule, I saw Hannah’s back to doing hot yoga on Saturday mornings, and I just have to go. My favorite time period of doing yoga was when I was consistently able to go to Hannah’s hot yoga class, which at the time was on Monday. I just love how long you hold each pose for, and that it’s the same poses and yet they never get old, and you can really monitor your flexibility and accuracy in the pose.

This was something Steve and I talked about later, about how I was happiest and felt the strongest and healthiest when I was going to yoga almost every day. I asked him to encourage me to go to yoga when I’m being lazy, and he reminded me that people (me) can get belligerent when asked to get active when they’re (I’m) not feeling like it for whatever reason (usually because I’m tired). So we talked about and agreed upon a silly and horrible “code phrase” that he gets to use if I refuse.

I was feeling pumped up still after getting home, so I decided to play some ITG after Steve was done. By the time I got home he’d basically completed his sit and was tired, so I hopped on while he played Owlboy. Shoe-wise it was a bad day, my feet were extra slippery in the shoes (whereas last time I thought I was getting used to to them). However, even with the mild tantruming I did, I did improve a few scores. Most notably I finally got a 98% on Cryosleep, which was one of my oldest scores, from October of last year. Lately my TimeHop has been showing me when I got old scores over the last 5 years, and even from two years ago it’s crazy to see how much I’ve improved. It’s nice to see that progress!

I’ve continued to chat with and encourage Noah on mfp and he and Steve and I have been a good mfp team!

I write so slowly, lol. An entry takes me anywhere from a half hour to almost two hours, depending on the entry. I take my time really thinking through the day, my thoughts, conversations and interactions I had, what I want to write about and what I'm okay forgetting. It's like I relive the day as I write it, and that takes time!! But in that way then it's like everything is in limbo or pause, because Steve can bang out an entry SO FAST and then he's just kind of waiting around for me. He's not TRYING to pressure me but it totally does because I feel stressed that I'm taking too long and wasting time!!!!

In the morning we took our time waking up. Steve and I were gonna go shower but first we got distracted, and that was amazing. But then! Shower. The three of us went to Ward 6. It wasn't quite as hot as it would be, so we sat outside, and that was perfect. Our server was kind of weird, like he gave me spastic energy vibes, and he was barely outside. I was super thirsty for water because of the alcohol consumption the night before combined with the fact that it was hot out, so I didn't drink a lot of my coffee during the meal, but that didn't mean I didn't want it! I ordered the belgian waffle per usual, and for the second time in a row of waffle-ordering, I got a crispy waffle :/ I want FLUFFY and SOFT waffles, not burnt hard waffles that chafe my gums. Ward 6 always has a fresh fruit compote that changes with what's in season, and this week it was apricots and cherries I think. That was the best part of my waffle. At some point during the meal, Steve went to tell me something and addressed me as "Nero." Pronounced Narrow. The short version of Habanero. NERO, OUR CAT'S NAME. It was so goddamn funny. Thank god for something funny during the meal because when Steve went to pay the check the waiter TOOK my FOOD AND MY COFFEE! I wasn't finished!!!!! But it was like, my mouth was full, the waffle was lame, and the coffee was hot and I didn't wanna make a scene. It was way more entertaining to be indignant and mournful than to fight for two more bites of waffle.

Yesterday Noah talked about how he's working on getting healthier, but that he knows gamer weekend isn't the best time for that, and commented that he's on MyFitnessPal. Steve suggested we all get on it and start using it again. it was fun when we were using it with Nick and I think we should definitely do that kind of thing with our friends. Noah is a big guy and has lost a decent amount of weight already, but he's still got a way to go for his goal weight. Steve and I also would like to lose a significant amount. What better way than to support each other on MFP?? And Steve really wants me to be happy with how I look, and find the best way to encourage me to exercise, especially with going to yoga, which makes me feel strong and happy in addition to nourishing my body and soul.

After Ward 6 we dropped my car off at the nearby car place and walked home, playing Pokemon Go. It's rock-type weekend so we've been into hurrying up on our evolutions in that area. Also adding some walking calories to our MFPs ;)

After we got home I played ITG for a couple hours. It was my second time playing using the FitKicks, and this time I started with two pairs of socks right away, and for the most part that worked well. I didn't feel the need to adjust as much, just kind of tapped my heels occasionally to shift my foot further back in the shoes. I noticed more soreness or tension in my shins than in a very long time, and it's probably because with shoes I need to actually pick up my damn feet instead of sliding them. I think overall I did better than last time, not as much sticking to the pad because I dragged my feet, but it is weird how such a thing can make a huge difference in performance. It was clear that I'm worse right now than I was because I'm adjusting to a completely new style - my feet hit the arrows at different times, and those milliseconds MATTER. I did improve my Disconnected score, which was nice, and AGAIN I KNOW can get a really solid score on Kagami, but little dumb things keep getting in the way. I'm also reading at faster and faster speeds... It just FEELS much better. I was trying to explain to Steve how it's just a feeling, a thing I can sense, when the speed is right. It just "clicks" in my head when reading it and it seems so clear. Right now I'm reading between 1005bpm and 1012bpm.*

Overall it was a really fun day, playing mostly randoms with Officials mixed in. I basically quit because I got too hot and my shoulders hurt and I spent a long time laying on the floor cooling down and drinking water. Since then my left elbow has been giving me twinges of pain, and that sucks, but hopefully it resolves itself soon.

After that I had to shower and do Cafetalk with Riria and Shinpei, my two cutie regular kiddos. That was good. I made the mistake of letting Riria choose our next book since we finished Charlotte's Web, and she chose Hachiko. We read chapter 2 today and they are definitely building up to ruining my life. Shinpei showed me his most recent programming skills on his robots, and we practiced his reading. I've been throwing in math puzzles, some with words and some without, because I think his stamina for reading is lower and I can keep him in good spirits if I give him some math inbetween. This child just turned 10 and can QUICKLY do things like 2-digit by 4-digit long division. I think because he's so smart, English being a real challenge for him to read is frustrating. So I try to keep his spirits up.

After that I caught up on LJ and blogs and joined Noah and Steve downstairs and *gasp* picked up Persona 5 again. Hence where the title of this entry comes from. Noah was like OH MY GOD NOW WE'RE ALL PLAYING GAMES. And he really wanted the three of us to play RPGs this weekend, and he REALLY wanted me to play Persona 5. It took a bit for me to remember what I was doing and get the hang of the play again, but now it's good and god is it a pretty game and I'm happy I was pushed into playing it again. I'm working my way through the second dungeon and working on my social links!

*I have talked a bit with Ben about reading speed, and he mentioned recently how he's slowed down his reading speed I think to the 800s? Low 900s? I simply don't understand how to do that. When I try to slow things down, the arrows jumble together and I can't read them! On HIS machine I read more slowly, because it's farther away and the SM5 plays slightly differently than SM3.9, but it's still in the 900s. DDR players seem to read in the 600s, and Dmac and Dave read pretty slowly too.

Breaking this one up by the topics I divided up yesterday!

Garage sales and Pokemon Go
Steve was interested in checking out the Madison garage sale scene, so we meandered about without much luck for awhile, but it turns out that we were just in the wrong area. We turned around after Steve looked up garage sales on Facebook or something (seriously, did you know that was a thing?? Weird) and we had more luck in a DIFFERENT neighborhood. He likes to go to garage sales to look for old games and systems, particularly with the hope that it's an older person (usually a lady who cleaned up after grandkids) or parents after their kids have moved out. I don't like garage sales and haggling makes me nervous, but I don't mind driving around and knitting and playing Pokemon Go, so I have fun too!

Sow's ear breakfast/Pokemon Go/New plague
We couldn't spend TOO much time garage sale-ing because we needed to eat and I had a knitting class scheduled at the Sow's Ear. The Sow's Ear, I've mentioned before, is an amazing Cafe and Knitting shop in Verona, WI. If you're ever near Madison, go there. Not only do they cater to people who love good yarns, they also have amazing drinks and food options. I ordered the grilled cheese on a french baguette and a cup of their summer asparagus soup, plus a hot chocolate with soy because YUM. Then Steve and I walked around a bit getting PokeStops and marveling at how there could be so many damn people on "Main Street," like calm down people GO! AWAY!!!

Knitting class and cute texts
My class started at 1, and Steve and I took bets on how old the other people would be. Steve guessed an average of 39 (with me bringing down the average, and I said 45 and older. There ended up being 5 other women in the class, the youngest of which was 40+. Three of the women were at least in their 60's. Everyone but the youngest was fine, the woman on my right was funny, and the woman on my left was kinda derpy. The youngest of them just had that annoying voice quality (think back to Yarnover and the fuckin' nerd ladies with their pressured speech and nasally voices) and she knit very slowly. But she was nice, and she showed us a stranded (colorwork) double-knitting project that made my colorwork look like a kindergartener's so I should stfu about knitting speed. Though she did make multiple comments about how fast I knit and suggested there had to be crochet videos for learning to crochet with your right hand and I should try to find them.

The stitch I was learning was Brioche, and I'm REALLY glad I learned it in person before trying to learn it via videos or words. It's basically a type of ribbing, but the way instructions talk about them is way more complicated than the act of brioche. It has a very easy and repetitive rhythm, and once you get a couple rows, you can just SEE the stitch and just remember which ones you yarnover on, which you slip, and which you work. It's also really neat because it's technically reversible. I started my practice with a yarn I thought would look good and knit up okay, but I didn't like the black contrasting... it's too bold. I'd want something else I think to finish (though the yarn is Mano del Uraguay and sooo soft).



Steve had gone out to more garage sales during this time, and he actually found some awesome deals. He ended up with a complete NES system in addition to several games - two of them BOXED, which is super rare to find at a garage sale. Usually Steve ends up finding video game boxes on ebay, and NES ones are not easy to come by. He's actually just finishing up getting boxes for all of our SNES games, so it seemed fitting he'd finally found some for the next system he needs to collect for.

He texting me such cute texts about how much he loves me knitting and how taking knitting classes is ideal girl behavior. I missssssed ideal girl stuff. When we first started dating he would point out things I did that were "ideal girl behavior" - things that he didn't necessarily KNOW of, like didn't have a list in his head, but things that definitely count towards comprising the perfect girl. Apparently knitting (/having a passion for a hobby) is one of them. ^_^ All I want is his looooove and support! He's VERY good about supporting my endeavors, love him so much!

I got to talking to the woman next to me about how beautiful her yarn was (from KnitCircus) and she said they have kits specifically for the cowl we were working on at their store, and I HAD to go check it out. It was 3:30, and the store closed at 4. I quick packed up my things, raced out to Steve and explained the situation, and we booked it out.

Omg what happened Knitcircus exploded from a small store to a store filled with yarny treats
Last year Sean and I went to KnitCircus and it was definitely in a different building, this store was MUCH bigger and had so many more options. It was to DIE for. They have the best gradients and rainbows and mixes of colors, and their yarns are already wound for you. They're pretty spendy but SO worth it. I was in yarn heaven.



I found some yarn for the cowl I wanted and we realized we were pretty tired after so much stuff in the day, and we headed back to Castle Seanjamin, put on some Hearthstone, and I cuddled up into Steve's perfect nook and we promptly fell asleep. It was a good nap! We woke up rested and hungry, and I suggested we try Dumpling Haus, a place we've seen on the way to The Great Dane a bunch of times. I was intrigued!!

Dumpling dinner/socially unacceptable food behavior
Steve of course didn't remember that I've talked about this place a bunch of times. It just sounded so good!! When we got there, the place was PACKED. There was ONE small table left and I claimed it, and Steve and I each ordered a set of dumplings (Bao) plus dessert bao (nutella) and Steve ordered pork and greens wontons and chicken fried rice. I also ordered the tofu soup. The bao was perfect and light (I got veggie and it tasted like Spring). My soup was exactly what I was looking for as well. I knit while we waited.

There was a man and his child eating next to us, and I thought they were very normal but Steve did not get good vibes from the dad. He just seemed serious and probably the kind of parent I would be - he didn't freak out or even say anything really when the kid knocked over his pop, just suggested he get more paper towels. He mentioned more than once that he didn't like wasted food, and when they left, the child had left one bao untouched, which I thought was strange. Like, they could have easily taken it along and given it to family (who they were talking about) or saved it for later! I asked Steve if he would eat it if I grabbed it off their plate (I assumed it had meat in it because most of the food there did), and he said he would if I was brave enough to violate the social code of not taking food from strangers' plates. They had been seated less than a foot from our table; we basically ate together! I had no problem snatching the bao off the plate and plopping it in with ours. It turned out to be pork, and Steve ate it happily. I have never understood why it's so frowned upon to take someone else's leftovers, especially if they're completely unsullied. :P






Witness to an accident/co-op/COPS
Full and happy, we decided to go to Willy's Co-op right after dinner instead of the next day, just for time's sake. I really wanted to stock up on their vegan jerky, which is AMAZING and I haven't seen it anywhere else. On the way, we were at a red light at a really weird intersection, and we watched an SUV sideswipe/half T-bone a sedan with two women and a child. The child was in the seat where the SUV hit, but it looked like he had slowed enough and she was turned enough that most of the damage ended up on the tire well and did SOMETHING so the trunk popped open. Steve was driving and observing to make sure the family was fine, so I was completely impotent when the SUV just DROVE! AWAY!!! What the fuck?! Like, the damage to the SUV was at least as significant to the sedan, and he didn't even check to see if they were okay???? WHAT THE FUUUUCK!!! I was so stressed out, I am such an "action" person when it comes to emergencies. My brain works in such a way that it immediaely develops a bulleted list of things that need to be attended to and wants to DO them. As a passenger and also in a situation that I really couldn't be helpful in after a certain point, it was a frustrating situation. The people in the sedan were okay, I think they were just really scared and upset.

Got the jerky, got some coffee, got a water bottle and some treats - vegan gluten free dense soft muffin for me, and vegan banana muffin with peanut butter frosting (literally his perfect dessert)

On the way back to Castle Seanjamin, we passed no less than 6 cops on this 5-miles stretch of road. The first was a cop pulling someone over who was next to Steve. Then we passed one speed trap with an undercover SUV, and then at the next exit there were TWO cops (one undercover charger and a regular cruiser), and THEN we saw TWO SEPARATE people pulled over, within a hundred yards of each other, plus another cop just driving (probably after just having pulled comeone over). It was madness. WHY SO MANY COPS. CALM DOWN.

Dmac/ITG/knitting
When we were on our way back from the co-op, David (Dmac) asked if we wanted to play ITG with him. Of course! Though I also wanted to be KNITTINGGGGG. It was good. We played a bunch of songs from the Fantastic Beats pack, but Steve and I weren't having off-days exactly, more like Ben's machine just feels sooo different from ours now... it's really weird, and we were both late ALL the time, which NEVER happens. I just couldn't find the sweet spot and would insanely overcorrect. Just strange. But we all had fun, talked to Dmac about the popularity of Ultimate Frisbee in Madison and his tryouts for teams, and he ended up getting a really good score on an ITG Rebirth song.

During that time I started my Knitcircus cowl and it's been beautiful so far. After Dmac left we showered quick and hopped into bed!



Oh, and we've also decided to rename from couple complaints because we don't really complain much - we just initially stole Ben's book titles (College complaints, corrupted complaints, cubicle complaints and "Compendium of Complaints" - all of the books). Ben has a really funny way of talking about things, and I never really think of them as *complaints,* more like musings and thoughts. Like he doesn't strike me as a negative person and he's quite funny, but I GUESS he's complaining? It's just not how I personally view complaining. lol. So I think we're going to rename to couple chronicles. Fits better. :)

All in all, it was a busy, but relaxing, and just basically a perfect day. Wow. Love this boy, love this life!

That quote is from Nick Offerman's (Ron Swanson) book. I'm almost finished with it, and as has happened with every single non-fiction book I've listened to that is narrated by the author, I want to start it over again to relive the joy of listening to him speak and talk so frankly about his life. Other favorites include Amy Poehler and Anna Kendrick (her book I HAVE listened to twice). They're amazing, and funny.

HOW has it been a month. HOWWWWWWW. God there is too much to write about!!! How will I ever catch up?!?! Even now while I'm writing this, I feel like I don't have the time to. Ugh. So damn busy. Because of this, I have also fallen too far behind to catch up on the entire last month of reading my friends page. So sorry! I've kind of gotten bits and pieces over the last week but it's not enough and I hope you'll understand.

I just checked when my last entry was... I DIDN'T EVEN WRITE ABOUT ERDKINDER?! oh my god. Okay. I'm making a list for myself on entries I need to catch up on. In the meantime, things have been up and down.

I can't wait for winter break. It's simultaneously too far away and too soon. Too soon because there is so much to do. When I came back from Erdkinder there were FOUR new initial evals waiting for me, so stressed! Todd wants me to do some testing on a kid I don't know (which I'm doing tomorrow), mine and Tealie's class is coming apart at the seams (to be fair, the whole 6th grade is), and I'm gonna put Brian's head through a wall because he can't prioritize.

Example, he emailed me tonight saying that one of my students has an IEP that says she should be receiving all of her services in special ed but she only get's 11% pullout at this time, and he had the fucking nerve to say, "Is this something that will be revisited in her IEP meeting?" I went from zero to red zone immediately and started typing out a really bitchy response about 1. He was looking at the wrong IEP and 2. To mind his OWN FUCKING BUSINESS and worry about the students on HIS caseload, who are ALL having much more issues... before deleting it. Instead I called Tealie and vented and then just sent a terse response about the current IEP vs her old out of district IEP. Tealie said I should confront him in general about putting his nose in my business (and everyone else's) and acting like our boss when his own shit isn't getting taken care of.

On a good note, on Friday we had a college and career day for the 6th graders, and I brought in Courtney, who does graphic design work, and my vet Dr. Clinch. It was sooo much fun and it sounds like it went really well overall. They each got a couple thank you cards from kids, and the spellings were sooo damn funny. Dr. Clinch got "Dr. Flinch" on a card, and Courtney got 1 that was spelled Courtnie and another that was Quartney XDDDD She was so adorable grateful for the opportunity and said she had a lot of fun. It was really cute having her there. I thought her presentation itself was amazing, but she was pretty quiet and non-emotive when she was actually presenting. I was surprised, because she is really animated when talking generally, and anytime we were interacting during the day she was expressive and giggly, but even during her 3rd and 4th presentation she was still pretty quiet. Luckily students signed up for ones they were interested in, so the kids were able to deal with it, but I think it would have been better received if she had acted more excited and less like she was at a conference. Since she does graphic design as a job, of course her PowerPoint was insane with graphics (tastefully) and her art and color schemes were everywhere. It was really neat. I loved seeing her professional work. She also came up with an activity for kids to design their own logo at the end of the presentation using the three tips she gave. AND she created and printed a list of graphic design jobs that students could do in the future depending on their interests. She was great!

( College and Career Day! )

My math class has been going really well overall. Students are working on grade-level adding and subtracting integers, and I really like how they're doing. I bribe them with Goldfish crackers, but that's a small price to pay for some learning and work. I think it's all ending soon because we're creating a resource room and my name is on the schedule for one of the periods, which I assume means combining my two pullout math classes. That will likely be a disaster, as kids are split on purpose into each section to avoid conflict. It will be okay though. I've had worse.

Last week I had training in the evening two of the days 4pm-8pm and Tealie and I had a training during school another day. I was basically never home and the house became a complete disaster zone. So Saturday Steve and I deep cleaned and got some organization done. It's beautiful. The upstairs is so much bigger and nicer with the ITG machine not taking up the living room. We moved the bookcase upstairs that Ron made me when I was like 12, and it looks really good there. Steve and I have begun reading at the table during downtimes drinking tea or eating meals. Having the bookcase there really helps. We pared down the books we love and got rid of ones we don't. We put all our signed books on display on top of it too.

We've been playing a ton of ITG, and the other day I got FOUR new tri-stars (99%). It was awesome. I've been getting pretty good at ITG accuracy on the Officials. I should really start practicing for the upcoming tournament. The songs in that are very different from officials, but having good general accuracy helps. I'll be an insane amount better than I was a year ago. I might still be in the bottom tier at the tourney, but I'll have a fighting chance.

I've been obsessively watching health and food documentaries lately, and I realized this weekend that it's not about the information really anymore, I feel like I know a lot about that topic and how food interacts with the body, etc. and how to reduce cancer and other illness. It's that I just find seeing good food, particularly produce, inspiring to eat more. I love seeing the colors and arrangements and meals made with fruits and veggies. I like seeing sustainable farming and the passionate people in those jobs. I've doubled down on eating right for me, which looks like a crapton of greens (in smoothie form in the morning and a salad at night, plus embedded within my lunch), some sort of bean dish for lunch (this week it's lentils, last week it was chickpeas), and a bean or noodle dish for dinner (this week it's a pinto bean chili).

I really encourage people to check out The Blue Zones. I finished the audiobook and it makes a great case for living a long and healthy life.
( Food! )

This week was definitely a good week, just spending time with friends and trying to get organized. I got some stuff for the Masquerade party Lindsey's having on the 15th, bought a dress for it that is sooo cute that I can just wear any time (actually, Steve bought it when we were out shopping because I'm stupid and left my card in a different pair of pants and for some reason my checks declined). We also had a super cute and funny talk kind of like 20 questions where he was trying to see if his guesses for his birthday gifts are correct. He is certain about like 2 of them, which is a little sad because they are amazing but doesn't take away from his excitement, I disproved one guess, and he just won't get the other two. He can't, it's just too specific. :)

We got the new cable in the mail for the DDR pad, and tried it out this weekend. Oh. my god. You haven't LIVED unless you've played on a metal pad. Of course the arcade ones are the best, but for one you have at home, this is near perfection. The only issue we've come across is it shorted out on Steve twice. However, he seriously has some like EMP issues and causes electronic failure so we just reset everything and it's worked fine since. I'm even starting to play 7- and 8-foot songs, which is HUGE. We are also doing very good about getting into shape, I haven't looked this trim in a long time. It's nice.

So... some TMI for everyone, pic included! -

( Read more... )

I also have an interview on Tuesday for working with a 12-year-old autistic boy. I really need the money and he loves being outside so it would force me to stop being a bum who sleeps for 12 hours and gets up at 5pm.

Last but not least, it appears on Tuesday I will be using the money Steve gave for a tattoo. I don't know if I mentioned it in a previous entry, but I'm going to get an anime tattoo. And it seems it will be huge and covering a lot of my small back. And I will love it and Steve will love it but I bet a lot of people will hate it or think it's silly. I however will think it's AMAZING. I was very surprised how receptive the artist was. I brought a printout of the art and he immediately seems excited about it! We discussed wording and the Japanese characters, how much we wanted to shrink the image, and placement. I was so happy to find a tattoo artist, covered in all this black and white and skulls, get pumped over a cute Loli anime girl. Seems like a found the right person!! The shop allows one person to come with for a tattooing, so I'm of course bringing Steve because he happens to have the day off. His coworker Jason scared me because I didn't think about the likelihood of pain I will experience being on such a sensitive area. Eek! I didn't consider it because I have three other tattoos and I just chalk them all up to a specific brand of pain, nothing more. Now I'm a touch nervous. I just hope it comes out like I want :)