Well, it's not Saturday night :)

"Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody, I got some money cuz I just got paid..." Hmm, don't know if those are the actual lyrics. That's what's stuck in my mind tonight. Maybe because it's paycheck Friday. Yay! I've been dirt poor for two months due to some upcoming trips to and dresses for weddings, a big tax bill, and a clogged sewer line. I feel like I should go celebrate my return to money. Instead I left work #2, picked up some Qdoba, and now it's 8:30 and the delicious Burrito is still sitting in the fridge waiting for Chris to get home from a bike ride with his friend. I kinda want to go see a movie, but maybe a different weekend -- a rest weekend -- my favorite :)... good thing there's a fun playoff Avs game on. Hopefully we won't lose...

Harold the Phantom :)

Here's the newest member of our quickly growing family of bicycles! This is my first NEW bike, just for me, not used by a sibling, since my banana seat bike when I was 8. Chris surprised me at the bike shop today with his plan to not only fit me on a bike, but to also buy the bike too. I'm really excited to finally have a bike all of my own that fits. After getting home shortly after dusk we took a few quick spins around the block and I'm really excited to take it out again tomorrow. Now I'm all set for my first really long ride in Buena Vista in less than a month. Eek!

No more pink!

One of our least favorite rooms in the house was always the 3rd bedroom. It was piercing pink when we moved in. Very very cute for a little girl's room, but seeing as there won't be a kid in that room for quite a few years, we've wanted to change it into a home office for a while. It's been a pink storage room since we moved in and the paint has been sitting in our garage waiting to be applied to the walls. I finally got a chance to paint and clear out the clutter. Here is a before picture.









Unfortunately the ugly wood panelling did not get torn down this go-around, but hopefully this summer we'll get a chance to tear it out and redo the crumbling shelves... here's the after picture.

Green thumb, itchy nose

Yay for Spring Break! One of the many benefits of being a teacher. It is a much needed break -- probably seen as unnecessary to anyone who has never been a teacher. Yeah, most professionals work the year through without any major breaks, but teaching is unique. You have to be one or be closely familiar with one to see why these breaks are necessary to the survival of our future generations :)

Today was a beautiful day. I bought a rake and did my first yard work of my life. It was fun and surprisingly satisfying. Don't get my wrong, I will not become a gardener any time soon. I don't like that you can work your butt off all day and then one gust of wind can ruin most of the work. It is nice getting rid of all of the dead leaves and grass that cover up the potential life that might mysteriously be growing underneath. This will be our first spring here in our house and I am quite anxious to see if anything grows in the fenced off garden in our yard. I'm hoping for pretty flowers but will most likely get a sea of weeds (haha, sea weed). I found some interesting bamboo shoots while cleaning out the garden -- don't know what that was all about.

I also started the long process of renovating the now-pink storage room into the soon-to-be blue home office. It will be nice when it's done...

That's all for now, must take care of the dizzyhubby.

A picnic under a house?

Sounds like a good time to me I guess. Assuming you could get under there and there weren't a bunch of little animals crawling around. A kid told me that a picnic is a lunch -- when asked where you eat the lunch (expecting him to say outside) -- he quickly told me that it is under a house. Hmmm...

I went on a two hour mountain bike ride with Chris after work yesterday. It was sooooo fun and we had beautiful weather. I have to say that I'm getting better at the little things that make me a ridiculous bike rider. Like the fact that I hate going downhill quickly. And riding for extended periods of time. Chris did a good job of being an encouraging bike partner and we ended up having a great time. One of the best Monday nights I've had in a long time. Don't get me wrong -- I'm hurting today. The right side of my back feels like it is constantly cramped up, my right knee is killing me, and my left groinular region is not so happy either. Good times.

Here's my work rant for the day: How, in this time of great thinkers and innovative research, can some idiot mandate that we give my ELL (English Language Learners) Kindergarteners a standardized test? Are you fucking kidding me? They actually have to fill in bubbles. I knew people in college who couldn't fill in bubbles if their life depended on it. They expect these kids to read a paragraph -- haha, have they ever met 5 year olds? Seriously. And then answer questions by filling in a bubble. People are talking about it being a conspiracy against publically educating kids that don't natively speak english. Set the schools up for failure and they say "see, we told you so" and then close us down. Luckily I haven't become that synical yet. I'm sure it's coming...

On a lighter note. I have to say that I have the best dog in the whole world :)

Random rant about an unproductively productive weekend

There's always a tension over the weekend between being productive and resting. Weekends should be a time to relax and recover from a long week of working two jobs. Weekends are also the only time to catch up on the housework and social life that's been neglected during the week.

Weekends are really only one day for me since I work on Sundays. It's only 3 hours, but it's smacked right in the middle of the day. No time to be productive OR relax before and after.

Weekends are time for Chris to get reacquainted with his bicycle seat. He feels the need to be on that damn seat 90% of the weekend. Sounds really uncomfortable to me. I understand it though -- when I got to ride with him last weekend, it was a way to feel both productive and relaxed. I wish I could ride with him more often, but I'm usually the tag along on rest weeks or on a "cool down" ride. I guess I'm not quite good enough to be a part of any real meaningful rides, but we both enjoy it when we do get to go. Daylight savings means that I'll hopefully get to ride with him once in a while after work, but it also means that when I don't ride with him, I don't expect to see him until well into the evening. I feel like being the wife of a biker is similar to being the wife of a doctor or a fireman. They're always on-call and ready to go. It is a unique experience, being married to a biker...