The Office & Pantry

Jeremy and I tackled the office this past wkend. It had gotten a bit out of control. Random crap stacking up in front of the bookcase, unused/broken dog toys on top of the dvd shelf, National Board stuff everywhere. So we decided to pull it ALL out and start again...Thought it was going to be a huge undertaking, but it wasn't so bad. We went and had pieces of wood cut as "braces" for our bookcase shelves b/c we have sooo many books the shelves bow. So we emptied the bookcase and stained the "braces" to match. This went really well, but they didn't dry as quickly as we'd have liked. So after a wkend of having an empty office and piles (and I mean piles) of books in my living room the "braces" dried and we put the office back into working order Tuesday nite. It looks awesome!
So in the mood of cleaning/redoing things, we also discussed tackling the pantry. With it being under the stairs it had kind of become the catch-all for, you guessed it, more crap at the back of the pantry. And as I had a "snow" day today, I decided to do the tackling myself. I pulled everything off the floor of the pantry, and the back shelves, IE. the crap. I then proceeded to vacuum the floor on the pantry and wipe down all shelves. If you've seen my pantry, you are realizing the massive undertaking of today. I went through every little thing, and it went in either the trash, salvation army pile, or back on the shelf of that category. (yes they are categorized, are you surprised?) Needless to say, after about 4 hours, I emerged from a clean, crap free, more categorized pantry. And I am sooo happy about it. I really feel like today was a wonderfully productive day, and that my house is in better condition than before the Christmas fairy came and left. Go me!!!!
The pics aren't great b/c they were taken with the ever trusty super-cute white iPhone.

Pet peeve #1

A little ranting:
indecision
I really dislike it when people can't make a decision. Also if someone shows interest in something and then doesn't ever act on it- really annoying. Maybe I just don't get it because if something interests me or it is something I want to do then I do it. Indecision bothers me.
Sorry if this doesn't make sense, just really frustrated lately with lots of people in my life due to indecision.

Great Sunday!

I have had the best, relaxing Sunday. Did I lay around and do nothing? No but it was awesome. I got to sleep till 10- fantastic! Jeremy and I cleaned up the office, updated our contacts, and I got things situated for my open house Thursday- super productive! Then I coached my wonderful girls at the indoor game- so fun! And from there we finished up Christmas shopping to bring our total to 90% complete- wahoo! And last but not least, chatting at Starbucks over coffee- the best! In a few we're off to dinner w/ his family where I will consume several beverages, so as not to be annoyed w/ the company- perfect!
Main idea of today- I love spending time with my husband- no matter what we r doing. Love it!

My NBC

Well it's official, I am now a National Board Certified teacher! I found out this mng that I had past my certfication. I swear I closed the browser and reopened it to log in again at least three times before I believed what it said! So after 2 years of hard work and the re-entry of one entry, I feel so calm. It's been a while since I haven't had to think about what lessons would videotape well, or which unit to write about, or the spending 7 months- TWICE- just waiting for my scores and wondering if I should start preparing more lessons... I am so excited and relived, I can't really keep my thoughts straight here. The main point is I passed, on my own at the age of 27, with 4 & 5 years of teaching experience when I started this journey! I am SOOOOO excited! I also could not have kept my sanity without the help of my wonderful husband Jeremy, my collegues, my family & friends, and my sopranos telling me I could do it and how awesome I was as a teacher the whole way through this! Thank you! Love u all dearly!

"Step-sister's" wedding shower

I went to Edmond today with my aunt Suzy for my dad's wife's daughter's wedding shower. Aka the "stepsister". I say "stepsister" b/c we are adults and neither of us live at home, etc. therefore she's dad's wife's daughter. I enjoy her, and I think she is a very nice person- but how totally akward today was- having only really spend 6-12 hours of "quality time" with her over the past 9 months. And I have to assume it's weird for her too, but maybe not, we aren't close enough for us to discuss our weirdnesses with each other lol. As Jeremy says my other stepsister (mom's husband's daughter), who lives in England, has more in common with us and we have seen more than the "stepsister" who lives in Edmond. This is a very true statement, but I don't really know how to be friends with the "stepsister". It's like a person you meet and think you could be friends, but then you have one convo and you realize you've just discussed everything you possibly could with that person. Anyways, she had a lovely shower, although far too many shower games lol. Looking forward to the wedding in December though, I think she will be a beautiful bride. And her fiancé is a great guy, and he's named Jeremy to boot. Now I'm only stumped as to what to get them for Christmas...?!

Teaching Jessie to blog on her iPhone

So I'm sitting here at Mandy's party and Bethany and Blaze are complaining that I don't blog anymore...
So here I am blogging on my iPhone, since they told me how to blog from my iPhone. I really have nothing exciting to blog other than what has already been said.

I'm So Excited...

And I just can't hide it!
So yesterday was my birthday and my merm got me a Cricut! It is the coolest machine that is like a dye-cutter on crack. I use my friends machines when we are all together to scrapbook, and then I come home and work on my books and think, oh I need a Cricut for this title, or something...So then I put that page to the side to be finished later...ask me if this is progressing the completion of the scrabooks? (Yes, plural.) So my plan is to get a couple more font cartidges in the next few weeks and have two books finished and one other caught up to current times by the time school starts. (Our Italy book will neither be finished or caught up-due to the ginormousness of it!) Anyways, if you want to come over and play with my Cricut you are so welcome to! But I have to warn you-you will want one.

On other birthday business-
I had a great time being with my family. I got some great gifts, and there are more to come today because today is dad's day. =) We had a nice relaxing morning yesterday while opening gifts, and then it was on to cousin Emma's 5th birthday party (her b-day is Tues. with her Aunt Sarah)-nothing like 5 year old girls squealing at every package that was opened. Then we went to shoot a round of sporting clays...love it! Get this I shot a 57 out of 100, but that's hitting over half the clays people and I don't do this often. (only when we are in edmond) And the best part is Jeremy scored a 52...that's right I beat him-on my birthday! I am telling you it was a great birthday. Last night, we went to dinner at an Italian place in the city and then had ice cream cake with my cousin Sarah to celebrate our birthdays. (hers is Tues.-same age as me-twin cousins) One last fabulous part- Jerm's getting me an iPhone for my birthday tomorrow. So I will official be one of "the cool people." =)

Hawaii

Well it's been a week or so since getting back from Hawaii, and I just realized I hadn't said or posted anything about it. We of course had a fantastic time as we usually do. Glad to be home though, we missed our Guinness terribly! And he of course missed us, and my sister was done being "tortured" by him. hehe I am having Jeremy pull all of our pictures from the camera onto flickr, so go visit flickr.com/jeremydcase if you want to see them all soon. I will post a couple of my favs on here in the next fews days. Oh and I have to mention I was like 10 feet from real live wild bottlenose dolphins...it was soooooo awesome! Dolphins are the coolest; they were swimming along the edges of the boat so they could get a free ride and not have to do the work lol. Anyways, I will post more about Hawaii later with pics of the dolphins among other things!

Farming

So I have taken up farming...
and before you say "what not teaching anymore...!" Let me stop you and say I am farming on farmtown on facebook...lol. I am so addicted and so is the rest of my family, mom, aunt, cousins, husband...someone has to stop us! I mean we are calling each other and having people check our farms to see if crops are ready to harvest, or we are planning ahead like, "oh i can't plant grapes...I won't be online to harvest them in 4 hours better plant potatoes." And to make matters worse it has chat on it, so the fam will get online and go to one persons farm and harvest and chat. (which i love because i get to talk to my fam from far away all together like we're in the same room rather than eachof them 1 at a time) Well got to get back to my farm... chatting with my bubba...stop the maddness

Too Busy...

So apparently I am too busy to blog anymore...not sure what it is I have been doing, but whatever. Why I didn't blog about my excitement of our upcoming trip earlier I don't know. We are leaving for Hawaii in two days, and we are super excited to go! It's been a whopping 4 years since we were there last, and it's always great for us to return to the paradise where we got engaged. Especially this year, since it's our 5 year wedding anniversary, it will be nice to spend time where we got engaged. We are excited to surf and snorkel again as well as lay around and do nothing in our cabana! The only bad part is leaving Guinness dog at home...I tried to convince Jeremy that we should buy him a ticket and bring him with us but I was shot down. Can't imagine why...;-)! I will have to get on and post some pics from the beach...and of course more photos after we get back.