the $1300 road cone

Yes, the road cone is costing $1300 to repair. This is when I'm glad I have to have full coverage on my auto insurance since I live in the city.

But, some good news: today Wilson went to the vet. He did a great job and made everybody's morning. He's a healthy 3-month old puppy and weighs 7.5 pounds. that's 2.5 more pounds than 3 weeks ago. No wonder he's so clumsy!!

Chris is out in Johnson City (East TN) doing some photography stuff so it's been just Wilson and me. We got the vet visit out of the way, got some movies from Blockbuster, got my car's oil changed in preparation for the monstrous 14-hr drive to NoVA for Christmas (YAY!!!), did some grocery shopping, cleaned the apt some, and watched some movies.

I watched "The Queen" because Chris didn't really want to see it. It wasn't a thriller, a comedy, or an action movie. But it was awesome. I highly recommend it. As long as you're okay with serious, not-much-action-but-awesome-acting movies. Then I watched "The Muppet Christmas Carol," which is probably my most favorite Christmas movie. I had to rent the DVD because I couldn't find my VHS. We're going to show the movie during classes Monday and Tuesday because at this point the kids really can't do anything that has to do with thinking or retaining info. Instead of watching the regular version, since I've seen it so many times I can basically recite it while it's playing, I watched the version with Brian Henson's commentary. It was awesome to learn how much it took to make the movie, like having the entire set 4 feet off the ground with movable flooring for all the puppeteers to maneuver around, and how many times they had to use robot puppets and do the green/blue screen stuff.

That's about all the excitement I could handle for the day. Oh, and I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Because, you know, they're healthy enough to eat for dinner. I'm attempting to get over this cold/bug thing I've had for a couple weeks that seems to be going around the school.

Hope everyone's having a great time getting ready for the holidays!!

etc.

I'm definitely ready for winter break. And I was sick this past week and was only at school 1 day. The next week is going to be ridiculously busy with all the after school rehearsals and going to sing places and having an in-school concert from the local high school band, our in-school concert, and our evening concert.

Wilson's doing really well. He's got "sit" down, as long as he's in a standing position and isn't really excited. Not so well with "shake."

Chris shot a wedding yesterday and some of the photos he's shown me are AMAZING. He's so talented! Hopefully we'll start making time for him to really teach me and for us to go through some sessions so I'll be a good second shooter. Eventually I'd really like to quit teaching and just do photography with Chris. I know that won't happen for probably at least 5 years, but it's something to look forward to. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching. But I'd much rather be a business partner with Chris and get to be artsy fartsy.

So while Chris was at a wedding yesterday, I was busy running over road cones. Okay, really what happened was I was on a highway going to see some apts because my current lease is up at the very beginning of March. I was driving behind an 18-wheeler and there were a couple of those 2-foot orange road cones next to the lane. The cones were so light, and the truck was going so fast, that the wind created by the truck swooped the cone out in the middle of the lane in front of me. Being on a 2-lane highway, going 60 mph, with it misting out, and cars everywhere, I had no choice but to hit the cone. First of all, I have no idea where the cone ended up. But I know it hit the front of my car on the bumper's grill, seeing as half of the grill is now gone. Of course I called my parents crying. But I called USAA, my amazing insurance company, and the helpful lady talked me through everything. Since I'm living within Nashville's city limits, I have to have full coverage on my car. So repairs will only cost me my $100 deductible. And I learned the hard way to pay a couple extra bucks a month for rental car coverage, so USAA will pay up to $30/day while my car's being repaired. Maybe this is a good time for me to rent a car I've wanted to buy... well, as long as it's $30/day or less!! (Yeah, right.)

So the start of the apartment hunting didn't go so well. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Wilson was with me and he'd knocked his water bowl over in his crate and spilled it all over the newspaper and everything was soaking, including Wilson, who was shivering. This happened pre-cone. So I'd done what I swore I'd never do and put him in my lap. All he did was sleep on my lap, until the cone incident, at which point he was hurled onto the floor. By my feet. Not so fun when I'm the one driving. He shook for the next 3 hours.

Back to the apartment hunting... I went to a couple complexes closer to school and liked them both. But one place had this weird lease term situation where they can only have a certain amount of people moving out at the same time, so depending on what day you sign your lease, you could only have a 15-mo option, or a 7-mo option, or a couple other options. Not what I'm looking for. And they won't know what places they'll have until the end of December. And the places available may or may not end up being in my price range. Each floorplan is priced according to base price, extra for each floor, extra for a water view, etc. And washer/dryer hook-ups would only be a possibility in some apts (although there are pay-laundry facilities throughout the 80-acre complex).

The second place has 2 1-bedroom places available when I need to move in. Although they do have 6-mo leases, I'll have to pay an extra fee per month, but I'm okay with that. And one floorplan is a townhome! It's got a loft bedroom, and upstairs is the full bath and walk-in closet. Downstairs has an extra half bath and a breakfast bar. AND both floorplans have a washer and dryer. So today after church Chris is going with me to look at the second complex and I'm going to go ahead and do the deposit thing and all that. And, since I'm a public school employee, I get some fees returned, some waived, and a discount on rent! Sweet!

So one bad thing (cone), but two good things (apt found, great wedding photos) happened yesterday. Not bad. Although... now I have to get my car repaired. Blah.

Wilson!!!

We got a puppy!!!!!

For Christmas, on Thanksgiving Day Chris and I drovoge 20 hours to Carthage, NC and back. Fun points: we made a huge event out of it; we got to stop by Biltmore (but did not pay the $55 per person to go on the tour!); we got a freaking puppy. Not so fun points: we had to leave at 3 am; nothing's open, including fast food, on Thanksgiving.

We absolutely love Wilson. He's adorable! He tries really hard to be a good dog, too. We're doing really well with "Sit" and I'm starting to work on "Shake." And as long as he goes out every couple hours he doesn't go potty inside.

He likes to stuff his toys underneath his bed in his crate so he's more comfy. He's a really picky sleeper. Everything has to be perfect. He moves around about 10 times before he's got the perfect spot. He's like a cat and will climb all over you (and sometimes when he whines he meows). He thinks he's sneaky by bringing his squeaky toy, Mr. Elephant, over to something he'd rather chew on and "accidentally" switches to my shoe.

So, it was an awesome Thanksgiving, and I got an awesome Christmas present!!

You can see a slideshow of photos of him on my blog!

Raced for the Cure

I did it! The Race for the Cure yesterday went well. I raised over $1000!!! So a HUGE thanks goes out to everyone who financially and emotionally supported me!

Next year hopefully I'll raise a good amount and actually be able to run some of the Race. There were 10,000 people there, so since I didn't get close enough to the runners I got stuck in a pack of walkers, which isn't bad. I walked with my team (headed by members of my school's county's educators association (read: union). I stayed with them for the first mile but it took 30 minutes and Chris had a photo shoot to get ready for, so I excused myself and walked as quickly as I could for the other 2+ miles. Then after the race I did get some free stuff, but I do have to say I was a little bummed that I didn't get to the Ford tent until they were out of scarves. Apparently they hand out really cool scarves every year. Chris and I did get some free Sun Chips and Panera bagels, and I got a free visor from Shane Co. (a jewelry store).

Then it was off to, well, change my air filter. We'd walked by a couple auto stores on the way from where we parked to where the race started, and I was in dire need of a new air filter. So we bought one and Chris helped me change it (he did most of the work).

Then we went to Famous Dave's for a celebratory lunch then to the photo shoot at Fellowship Bible Church, where Chris and I have been going to church out in Brentwood the past few months. He's on the email list for a photography club through the church, and he got to be one of about 5 photographers for family portraits. The first two families (each family had an hour with a photographer) were really difficult. The third family was awesome and it made everybody's day. Chris finally had a fun time and got some cool stuff.

Next on the schedule was the drive-in! We love going to the drive-in. It's inexpensive (including the food), fun, and we get to see 2 movies instead of 1. We saw "Michael Clayton" (the new George Clooney movie) followed by "The Brave One" with Jodie Foster. Neither are feel good movies but I liked them both.

So after a really long 19+ hour day, we got to turn the clocks back (yay!).

And I think we're going to Cracker Barrel for breakfast!

fall break!

For the past week I was in NoVA. It was a great time. I had way too much to do and didn't get to do it all, or see everyone. But it was great nonetheless. Plus, Mom got me a bunch of fall clothes (always a plus).

Now it's time to go back to work. Okay... it's not yet. Man, I love a two-week fall break!

Other than seeing some awesome friends and spending some time with the rents, I got some quality sleeping-in time a couple mornings, I went walking solo or with Mom for an hour to an hour and a half every day, and went down to VA Beach to help Chris' family celebrate his sister's awesome graduation from massage therapy school. And I got to read some magazines I put off during the school year.

Hopefully I'll be able to get back to NoVA over Christmas break to do some more stuff I didn't get to do, like going to see some friends' houses, going to church at Reston Town Center, eating at Big Bowl, and visiting more people.

Maybe a two-week fall break isn't as long as I thought it'd be...

chugging along

Things at school are basically going well. I wish I had a more supportive administration. Chimes meets after school on Mondays, chorus meets after school on Tuesdays, and starting next week the musical rehearsals will be after school Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Chris has been super busy working part-time as a school photographer (think picture day and yearbook stuff including sports teams) and doing his own photography stuff on the side. Last weekend he shot a horse show for the whole weekend and I helped out on Saturday and Sunday. I had an awesome time. I do have to admit I'm not the biggest fan of dressage (where the rider has to make the horse do certain things like walk and canter and turn with the least amount of movement as possible). I'd much rather go to a rodeo (something I still haven't done out here). The best part was that I got to pet a bunch of horses. It made me realize even more how I'm completely happier when I have animals around me (nice animals, that is). So I've decided I want to take some horseback riding lessons for a month or so just for fun. Hopefully my friend Katie, who owns some horses, will be my teacher. I really hope it works out.

Also, I've joined the Nashville Race for the Cure. I'm running (err, walking... err, crawling) in honor of my mom's mom, my granny, Alene Bohanon. She had breast cancer when I was little and had a mastectomy. I'm on the Wilson County Educator's Association (county my school's in) team, so I'm hoping I'll get to know some other teachers and people working in the county. And I'm hoping to raise some money for breast cancer research. If you would like to help me reach my goal of $1,000, you can go to my website for the race. I'm super excited about this!

stupid finale registration

I just spent about 6 hours working on some hand chimes music. I basically had to take 4 songs and cut them apart (musically/notationally... if that's a word... speaking) and rewrite them all in Finale NotePad. I would have loved to use the version of Finale I bought back in college, but I loaned it to too many people and can't register the software on my newish laptop.

I will probably never want to hear Jolly Old St. Nicholas, Jingle Bells, Up on the Housetop, or We Wish You a Merry Christmas after the chimes group is done with them.

We're working on getting the musical approved by our principal. I hope it's approved. My team teacher really wants to do it (and I don't really but that means I'll be able to do the one I like when I'm teaching solo). It's a new kids' musical called Dreamcatcher. The teacher I work with is all into Native Americans and ghosts (she says she can communicate with ghosts and wants me to go with her to the Bell Mansion to see if she can communicate with the Bell Witch Ghost... on halloween). Last year's musical was some spinoff of The Wizard of Oz and it was almost not approved because there's a witch/evil/scary stuff. Mostly evil. I mean, this is the first year where if the chorus sings a Christmas carol (We Three Kings, for instance), we also have to sing a secular Christmas song (Jolly Old St. Nicholas). We weren't even allowed to sing any songs with the words Christmas or Jesus when I was in elementary school. (Sidenote: apparently this school system drove out the ACLU a couple years back, and when we do the moment of silence we actually have to bow our heads and close our eyes.)

Next week is my first observation and I'm not too excited. The state of Tennessee has so much paperwork for observations that it's taking me longer to do the paperwork than prepare for the lesson! And I don't know what this administrator wants so I'm not positive what kind of lesson will make her happiest. From what I can tell, anything that connects to other subjects is good. Basically involve as little music as possible, and as much social studies as possible.

But I'm finished for the afternoon, so that's good! I learned that a new teacher spends an average of 70 hours per week working. So it's great to have a little break!