Happy Birthday, Brent!

(Many of you blog readers have already received an email with pictures, but I'm not motivated to do anything today but play on the computer).

My little monkey turned 7 on Sunday the 24th! I don't know why, but seven is such a big number to me. I feel like it's impossible that he's SEVEN already. I don't know how to explain it. Each year goes by faster than the last. He is so much fun at this age and he's such a good boy; I wish I could keep him here forever!

He got spoiled, as usual. LEGO sets galore, which are his favorite things in the whole world. My parents also got him his "very own pair!" of rollerskates that adjust from size 1-4 so hopefully they'll fit him for a couple more years. He wants to go to the rink this weekend, but we have his friend party this weekend, so we'll see. And John got up early and stood in line outside the Target store in hopes of finally obtaining a Wii. SUCCESS! Obviously, that was the biggest surprise and got the biggest reaction. The neighborhood dogs are probably still in pain from the scream he let out. It was awesome.

On to MY favorite part of his birthay: the cake! I love making fun food! Unfortunately, I also love eating it :-) Last year I made him a cheeseburger cake. This year, we found a hot dog and french fry cake. He thought it would be cool to "keep making cakes that look like regular food" each year, so here's my take on the hot dog and french fries, drizzled with raspberry dessert sauce "ketchup":

The fries were undoubtedly the coolest part because they look so real! People started eating the fries while the candles were still smoking :-) Anyway, Happy Birthday to my little man. I love you!

I may be the worst teacher in the world....

but I never knew that Puerto Rico had delegates in our elections until about 2 minutes ago. Am I the only one?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080224/ap_on_el_pr/puerto_rico_republicans

It makes sense, of course, since they're a US territory, the citizens are considered American citizens too, etc (I know THAT much)--I guess I just never stopped to think about it.

Also: I discovered today that I have gained 10 lbs since getting all sane and crap last summer. This is on top of the 10 lbs I had already gained back prior to THAT.

If it weren't for all the meds, I would be really, really depressed about that right now. ;)

(Seriously, though, I have some work to do. I knew I had gained weight but didn't realize it was that much. I shouldn't have weighed myself so close to V-day, as I'm still swimming in chocolate goodness. Damn. I do great when I'm on eDiets, etc., but apparently it all goes to hell when I try to do it on my own. And the sad thing is, I'm still exercising, even--4-5 nights a week, 30 min. at a time. Clearly, it's time to step that up.)

Happy Birthday

Shawn (the new guy--5 weeks strong, LOL) is this coming weekend. It's always hard when there's some kind of major holiday shortly after you start dating: gift card? regular card? gift? how much? how personal? So I've been kicking this around in my head.

Well last night while I was over there, he was showing me some stuff on his computer. (No, not the porn.) ;) It was some paintings by Peter Max, an Andy Warhol-type "pop art" guy. It was obvious that he really liked his work, as he spent a considerable amount of time going through the slides. And an idea was born.

Once I got home, I jumped on MY computer and did a search for "Peter Max." Twenty minutes later, I had it. There's a BEAUTIFUL coffee table book filled with his work (260+ pages); according to the reviews by Amazon.com customers. Even better, they had the $50 on sale for $31, which is almost exactly the amount of the gift card I got for Valentine's Day. (I'm not saying that in a tit-for-tat, "that's what you spent on me so that's what you're getting back" kind of way; rather, it let me know that I was in an acceptable price range for where we are--wherever that may be, LOL. Although, I will say that every time we hang out we do seem to get a little closer and more "couple-y." I guess this is how NORMAL people do it, huh?) ;)

Anyway, I had to upgrade to 2-day shipping to make sure it's here for the big day, but it's going to be so totally worth it. I really think he's going to like it. I think it struck that balance of being a personal gift that shows I listen, know what his interests are and care about him, but it's not TOO personal, mushy or "lovey."

OK, I've spent enough time analyzing this gift (LOL...there's no amount of meds in the world for that, I'm coming to find out. That's not the bipolar....that's just ME.) I'll let you know how it goes over. *

*Having said that: knowing my track record, I'll go over there tonight, at which point he'll announce that he fell in love with a supermodel while running errands this afternoon and it's officially over, effective immediately.)

Big ups to Anna...

....for the drunk dial last night. I've never actually been drunk dialed by a FEMALE before....it was a nice change of pace.

I LOVE YOU TOO!! And seriously, I miss you.

Baby Got Back, folk style

First, he has a pretty voice. But this is also just funny as hell.

I'm going to be a Ghostbuster!

I won't actually be bustin'.....but I WILL be huntin'.

http://www.floridaparanormalresearch.com/

I should talk to the lady tonight....I'll keep you updated. I'm not sure exactly what the schedule would entail, etc.--obviously, I can only do it on weekends for now because these investigations are done at night, duh--but how AWESOME!!!! (Especially during the summer, when I CAN do it during the week, etc.)

Seriously....are any of you REALLY surprised? ;)

Killing Time

I should be working on my Masters assignments (I'm about 2 weeks behind; not a huge deal though because I have until May). However, I've been spending my 3-day weekend watching the complete first season of Growing Pains on DVD.

MUCH better choice, no?

Happy Valentine's Day!

I had my date last night with my "big" Valentine.

And I had my date today with my 22 little ones.

In case you don't remember from your school days, Valentine's Day is like Christmas, the 4th of July and Halloween rolled into one. Seriously, it's HUGE. On top of that, the 5th grade ran a Candy-Gram fundraiser (chocolate rose suckers to be delivered today)--and, since I'm the one who was kind of heading it up, my class was (by proxy) in charge of the prep and delivery. Needless to say, it was not the most productive of days. It was, however, a lot of fun.

First, they had to Shower the Teacher with Gifts. I am currently looking at 7 heart boxes of chocolate, a tube of chocolate hearts, and random other pieces of chocolate. I have 2 beautiful chococlate roses. I have 5 adorable stuffed animals (and half were from my boy students, which surprised me).

We took took of CandyGram deliveries first thing this morning. Then--because I'm the most evil of teachers--I gave them both a social studies test AND a science test. And after THAT....it was Valentine time. (I wanted to do it before lunch, since we have reading after lunch and I didn't want to take away from that.)

We passed out our Valentine's (SO. MUCH. FUN.) and while they were looking through their "mailboxes", I passed out juice and chips and various snacks that the kids had brought. Lots of kids brought candy, too, of course. One mom brought in a cookie decorating kit (and, thank God, stuck around to help with the execution, LOL). The kids were actually very well-behaved (after bouncing off the walls most of the morning; giving them their candy and Valentine's seemed to soothe the savage beast). As they sat there, contentedly reading Valentine's, eating, and talking to their friends, I overhear X., my student from Guatamala, say, "This is the best day EVER."

(And the funniest thing about it was that he wasn't even talking to anyone. He was just sitting at his desk, munching on a cookie, delirious with happiness. It was adorable.)

Here's another one

Guns n Roses, Sweet Child o' Mine. I dare you to keep a straight face when he gets to the guitar solo. Hhahahhahahh.

I heard this on the radio...

...and had to look it up when I got home. It's hysterical. (And he plays more, too. Search for it on YouTube under "manualist.")