That boy is TALL!

J can be described in a lot of ways. Tall, cute, funny, smart, smart-ass, tall, friendly, quiet, kind, sarcastic, tall, generous, pessimistic (though he says he's not pessimistic, he's realistic), goofy, hard working and tall are just a few of the descriptors that come to mind right off the bat.

J's whole family is tall. His dad is about 6'6" tall, and his baby sister is about 6' tall. J is 7' tall. On Easter weekend, J's sister C wanted to get a picture of him standing next to her, because the people she works with don't believe he's as tall as she says he is.

Believe it or not, I usually forget how tall he is. Sometimes, though, there are things that happen, or I look at him from a different angle, or I see a new photograph and I realize again how freaky tall he really is! Some day I'll put together a collage of pictures of J with other people so you can see how his head always sticks out in a group photo...it's pretty funny!

Here's that photo of J with his sister. Remember, she's nearly 6' tall herself! (Isn't she cute, too? When J and I started dating, C was nine years old and in the third grade. She was several inches shorter than me, but that changed quickly! She just turned 20 in November. She and I were talking over Easter when we were running some errands, and I came to the startling realization that I have been with J for MORE THAN HALF of C's life!)

Kennewick

A few weekends ago, J and I decided to go on a picture taking tour of Kennewick. The first place we went was up to Jump Off Joe. It's just a few minutes from our house, and you can see much of the Tri-Cities and surrounding areas. We each had a camera with us, and took all sorts of pictures.

I snapped this one of J when he wasn't paying attention to me. I LOVE this photo! It was in March, but it had snowed the day before. It didn't stick to the ground in town, but it stuck up at Jump Off Joe. The weather couldn't decide if it was going to be a beautiful day or a icky day...so it was somewhere in between. This photo is straight out of the camera...I didn't even resize it in Photoshop. Look at the clouds!

After we went to Jump Off Joe, we drove back down to Clover Island, also just a few minutes from our house. One of the only reasons I love this area is our proximity to the Columbia River. This picture is a shot of "the Blue Bridge." I honestly don't know the name of the bridge...everyone around here calls it the Blue Bridge.

I thought this picture was neat, too. These tough little flowers are making a go of it in a gravel parking lot.

After we went to Clover Island, we went to Columbia Park. It's a neat park that is very narrow and several miles long, running along the Columbia River. This particular part is at the end of the park nearest our house. This is a picture of the Playground of Dreams. It is the coolest playground I think I've ever seen. A few years ago, someone burned it to the ground. The community was outraged, and took action. They raised almost a half a million dollars and rebuilt it. It's amazing. I don't go there often because I don't have kids yet, but when Leah and her little ones visited me a few years ago, we took them there. (That was before CJ! Jared was almost walking, and Em was about 3!) J and I decided that though we both had cameras, because there were kids playing on the playground, I was the one who should take pictures. We didn't want him to be the weird old man taking pics of the playground...

This picture was also taken at Columbia Park, about a mile or two down the river from the Playground of Dreams. Every year the hydroplane races come to the Tri-Cities. It's crazy how busy this town gets over a boat race! And the people! They come from all over just to watch the races. I personally don't understand the draw to sit outside in 100+ temps with hundreds of other people to watch really loud boats drive in circles, but apparently, it's the "cool" thing to do. This hydroplane is on display year-round at one of the entrances to the park.

Here's a little trivia about this area: Have you ever heard of the Kennewick Man? Interestingly enough, the Kennewick Man was discovered by a teenager (the little brother of one of J's friends) during the boat races back in July of 1996. He had waded into the water to cool off, and was enjoying the waves from the boats, but he felt something keep hitting his foot. He reached down and discovered a skull. How freaky would that be?! At first they thought it may have been someone who died fairly recently, but carbon dating has shown the bones to be 9,300 years old! Anyway, there's been HUGE controversy over the Kennewick Man. Basically, the scientists want to study the remains (they were able to recover most of the body), but the local Indian tribes say he belongs to them and they don't want him touched. Google it if you're interested...

We took about 150 photos that day, but barely scratched the surface of this city we call home right now. Next time we go, we are going to take pictures of our favorite places in town.

Spring Break...where did the time go?

I had such plans for Spring Break...I was going to:

1. Clean my house, top to bottom.

2. Sort through and organize every closet in the house, especially the clothes closet in our bedroom. Right now there is an enormous mound of clothing on the bed in the guest room. I would like to live out of our closet rather than out of baskets in the guest room.

3. Sort through and organize my crafting area.

4. Make lesson plans for the rest of the year for my freshman, my seniors, my Ignite mentors, and Navigation 101.

5. Sort through and organize the MOUNDS of paperwork we've been stashing for four years.

6. Write a newsletter / letter to my in-laws modeled after a letter Mom sent to J when he was a freshman at Texas Tech.

7. Read a few books I've had on my nightstand. One of them is a book that Josh, one of my seniors, read and thought I would like. He was so sure of it, in fact, that when he turned it in to the library, he asked the librarian to recheck it out in my name, and he brought it to me.

8. Go to the dentist.

9. Make an eye doctor appointment for me and one for J.

10. Help my friend organize her sewing room. (I'm SO jealous of her sewing room...it's a room of cupboards and counter space ALL dedicated to her crafting!!! She and her husband designed the room around her needs.)

11. Work on a Mother's Day gift for my friend with her step-daughters.

12. Update my blog daily, and get several entries started for future posting when I don't have a lot of time...

13. Laundry. Laundry. Laundry.



What I actually did:

1. Read, but not the book Josh gave me. I read two other books by Phillipa Gregory (author of The Other Boylen Girl) instead.

2. Went to the dentist.

3. Helped my friend organize her sewing room. We got through every cupboard except for two, and cleaned most of the counter space. We didn't finish, but all in all, it was a successful day!

4. Spent the day with Kennedy and Courtney working on a gift for Laurie. We didn't quite finish, but set a date to get together again to complete the project.

5. Sorted and organized all of the paperwork we've been keeping forever. I emptied out the file cabinet, gathered all the boxes of papers, and got to work. It took me two days, but I did it!! I had THREE laundry baskets full of papers to shred...I finished shredding the last one last night!!! I even got new folders from Office Depot, and color coded the files in our file cabinet. For example, all the taxes are in green folders, and so are our pay stubs. All paperwork on items we own (like instruction manuals, receipts, etc.) are in blue folders. Health stuff for us and for the cats in yellow, etc.

6. Went to a movie with my friend.

7. Went to dinner with my husband.

8. Cleaned, sorted and organized my craft area. It looks great...for now...

9. Avoided doing all school work until this morning. And now I'm avoiding it even more by updating my blog...with only TWO entries, instead of one each day plus extras for later.

10. Two loads of laundry, just to get by, before running out of detergent. J is going to buy more today on his way home from golf. I'll do a few more loads today.


Well, even though I didn't get everything done that I wanted to do, I got a lot done. I didn't sleep in later than 7:30 any morning, and I showered and dressed by 10 every day except yesterday, but including today. I'm not sure I'm ready to go back to school tomorrow, but I do miss my kids. I'll get back to school work now, and hopefully I'll feel better about going back this afternoon.

I've been tagged!

I’ve been tagged by Leah over at Laughing Leah Loves Lilies.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share seven facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.


7 things about me:

1. I can wiggle my ears. I’m not sure how I realized I could do this, but I can. When people find out, they always want to see me do it. Neither of my sisters are able to wiggle their ears, but my mom can. When I showed my college roommate for the first time she said, “Damn, girl!! If you’re not careful, you’ll fly off!” J thinks it’s cute and will periodically ask me to do it, even after nearly 11 years together.

2. I have a birthmark in my right eye. My eyes are blue, but in the iris of my right eye, there is a fairly large dark brown spot. My biology teacher in the ninth grade told me that it happened because of a “mutated gene.” At first, I thought she was telling me I was a mutant. I was both embarrassed and immensely relieved when I figured out what she was really saying to me.

3. I love the Kennewick area now, but I harbor a not-so-secret desire to move back to Western Washington somewhere near my in-laws. I love my parents, but I don’t love the big city. My dad is in Seattle, and my mom is in Federal Way. My in-laws are in Ridgefield, a much smaller community. If I can’t live on Puget Sound, I picture us on Mt. St. Helens or somewhere in the woods, but still near a river at least.

4. I thought I would have children long before now. (We both want a baby in a bad way, but it’s just not happening for us yet. We’re talking now about the next steps, but neither one of us really wants to go to the doctor…I think we’re afraid of bad news…)

5. I LOVE the water. Pretty sure there is water running through my veins, not blood. Before I went to WSU, I never lived more than 10 minutes away from Puget Sound in my entire life. I grew up in West Seattle, and I still have a special fondness for Alki Beach. My dad is a commercial fisherman (well, I guess he’s technically retired by now, but he fished all my life, and most of his before that), and I love to be on a boat. I was on the swim team in high school, I managed the boys swim team, I taught swim lessons, and I was a lifeguard. Every P.E. class I took was in the pool. I HATE to run, but I love to swim, so my mom talked to my P.E. teacher my freshman year and worked it out so that I could stay in swimming even when the rest of the class switched to team sports. I taught kids who weren’t strong swimmers how to swim better. I smelled like chlorine for my entire high school career. When J got a job here and we talked about moving in together, I was unsure about it…but only because of the water. I knew I was meant to be with J, but the lack of Puget Sound really stressed me out. Other than J being here, the only reason I agreed to move to the Tri-Cities is because of the Columbia, Snake and Yakima Rivers. If there wasn’t water here, I probably wouldn’t have been here for seven years and counting.

6. My dream house includes a HUGE mud / laundry room with shelves and cupboards galore. It also includes a wrap around porch, and multiple levels of decks with nice, big, teak patio furniture all around. There is also a campfire pit a short walk from the porch where we can roast marshmallows or hot dogs, and sit around talking. There’s so much more, I don’t have space here to write it all down…but when I’m rich and famous, and can afford to build this house, I’ll send you pictures.

7. My husband thinks I’m weird, and I secretly love it. I don’t know why, but I do. I think it’s because on the surface and at work I appear to be really normal. But underneath it all, I have a bit of a crazy streak that is dying to get out. I love being able to be myself with J. I actually try to make him look down at me (he’s 7 ft. tall!!), smile and shake his head while he says, “You are SO weird!” If I can make him laugh by doing something goofy, it’s icing on the cake. I often will go out of my way to say or do something silly if he’s nearby just so he sees it.


I don't know seven people who have blogs, so unfortunately, I can't tag anyone. But this was fun!

Purse meme

Leah tagged me the other day in a purse meme. I think this is a fun one!! Here's the contents of my purse as of this afternoon.

Here's the outside of my purse. It was my 30th birthday gift from my mom and step-dad! I love it! I've done a post before about my obsession with my new purses...you can read about it here. I have a few purses now, but I wanted a bigger bag. So Mom and John got me one!

Here's another view of the outside.






Here's a shot of the inside. I love how big this purse is, and I love that there are no pockets on the outside. The only thing I don't love is that there is basically just a big cavernous pit inside. I have to dig around a lot to get to my stuff. Especially because I have a lot of black items. I didn't plan it that way, it just sort of happened.

Here are two of the three inside pockets. I use them for my iPod and my cell phone.

The zippered pocket is where I keep gum, mints (sometimes), a Burt's Beeswax Lip Balm, a pen and random other stuff at different times. Right now that's about all there is in it, though.

Here are the contents of my purse, neatly laid on the table. It's not that neat in my purse, however!

My cell phone and Bluetooth.

My iPod and headphones.

Sour apple gum, a cute mini pen, what's left of my orange TicTacs, and the best lip balm EVER created.

Let's take a closer look at this item. Have you ever used Burt's Bees??? I LOVE IT! I usually can't stand to have stuff on my lips and wipe it off, either consciously or unconsciously. Not this stuff! It absorbs pretty quickly, but leaves your lips feeling soft. Don't use too much, though, or your lips will get waxy...go figure!

My camera case. It's empty of the camera here, but there's an extra battery in there. This was a great find. I got it at Wal-Mart for $5!! It's the perfect size for my camera. My camera did not come with a case, but it has a touch screen on the back that I did not want to scratch up. My other camera case is WAY too bulky and takes up a lot of space. I found this, though, and it's perfect! And, I love how cheap it was! I looked online at Sony to see what camera cases they sold for my camera, and they ranged in price from $20-40 or more! You can't beat $5!

My house and car keys. I have a key and alarm dealy for my car, and also for J's truck. I have my house key, and a key to my mom's house, as well. I love the key chain. My sister gave it to me for Christmas two years ago. It's way more girly than I usually go for, but it's just cute!

My school keys. I have a "fob" that I have to use with a code to get in when the school is locked up. I have a "common" key that gets me into the office and the different academic wings, conference rooms, etc. It does not get me in other classrooms or the library, though. Then I have my classroom key. A key to the elevator. A key to the locking cupboards in my room. There's also a key to a file cabinet...somewhere. I am reluctant to get rid of the key, but I don't ever use it. There's a cute apple key chain my sister gave me last Christmas, and two flash drives. One that I use for EVERYTHING. I work a lot at home, so I save every single document to my flash drive so that I have everything I need wherever I work. I used to get stuck at school trying to print something to use in class that day and realize I had created it at home. I don't have that problem anymore! I also have a memory stick the school bought for me to use with my advisory program, Navigation 101. I usually use my personal one, but I'll back up my Navigation files to the other flash drive periodically. (Sorry...that was a LONG discussion of my school keys...and you probably don't even care!)

A cd with about 150 photos on it. J and I went around Kennewick on a picture taking mission last weekend. We thought it would be a fun way to spend an afternoon, and it really was! We went to Jump Off Joe, a high hill where there are some radio towers and giant windmills. When you're up there, you can see most of the Tri-Cities, and the surrounding areas like Burbank, etc. You can also see where the Columbia River intersects with the Snake and Yakima Rivers as well. Then we went to Columbia Park and took pictures of the Playground of Dreams and the river. Then we went to Clover Island and took more pictures of the river. It was fun. I used my new camera and J used the one we already owned, and we just wandered around taking photos. We burned the photos to a cd to send to J's mom. She is a professional artist, and likes when we give her photos to use as possible inspiration. Plus, she's coming to visit this summer, and is considering entering an art show while she's here. We thought she might like to have a painting or two of Kennewick. I've been busy all week, though, and haven't had a chance to get to the post office. I'll do it this coming week because I'll have lots of time...it's SPRING BREAK!!

My sunglasses. Until last spring, I never had prescription sunglasses! I don't love these, but I like them well enough. I just don't wear them that often, though. I need to get in the habit of it, still. I keep them in my purse, hoping that I'll put them on when I find myself squinting in the sun...

My wallet. Isn't it cute!! It, too, was a birthday gift for my 30th.

I love the stripes inside the coin purse side of the wallet. It is empty now because I had too much change the other day and dumped it into a container in my bedroom. Eventually I'll take the change to a CoinStar machine and get paper cash.

I also love the pink leather inside the wallet. I have all the usual stuff. Debit cards, drivers' license, insurance information, my educator's discount card for Barnes and Noble, etc.

This is my "wristlet" that my sister gave me when she first started working at Coach. Sometimes I'll empty it out and put my cell phone, license, debit card, etc. and just carry it. Like when I go to the park, or somewhere I know I won't want to have to worry about a purse. Most of the time, though, I keep my "necessary" items in there. Allergy meds, eye drops, another Burt's Bees, a travel size deodorant, tampons, Tylenol, etc.

That's it!! The contents of my purse! When we are traveling, you can usually find J's cell phone, iPod, wallet, glasses case, etc. in my purse, too...he finds it as convenient as I do, but he refuses to carry it...wuss.

Gravity - it works for me

When I was a senior in high school trying to decide which college to go to, my mom made me go visit campuses. I'm glad she made me do that, because originally I said I was going to go to Carroll College in Helena, Montana. I just knew it was the place for me. My aunt Terry and my mom took me to visit WSU in Pullman, and then they put me on a bus for Montana. I liked the WSU campus well enough, but I thought it was a waste of time because Montana was the place for me. However, when I arrived in Helena, I got off the bus, and immediately wanted to go home. But I was stuck there for two nights and three days. I was miserable. It just didn't feel right. Have you ever had that experience? When you walk into a place and you know immediately if it's right for you?


When I got home, I started looking more closely at WSU and Central Washington University. We took a family camping trip, and went to visit both campuses again. I liked Central, but try as I might, I couldn't picture myself there for four years. The next day we made our way to Pullman again.


This time, I knew I was home. It just felt right. It was comfortable, and I knew I could be there for four years at least. The only question was what dorm was right for me? I felt like Goldilocks and the Three Bears...I tried on several dorms, and while a few were okay, none were just right. Until I got to Gannon-Goldsworthy. It was the last dorm we visited, because our tour guide knew I was going to be an education / English major. You see, GG was the Math, Science and Engineering dorm, which meant that mostly math, science and engineering majors lived there.


For the second time on that visit, though, as soon as I walked in the doors, I knew I was home. I told my parents I was going to be a Coug, and I was going to live in Gannon-Goldsworthy.


As one of very few non-science majors, I was way outnumbered. I had NO classes with any of the girls I met on my floor. The upside, though, is that this meant the only time we spent together was fun. And I didn't compete with any of them for grades on anything. Man, were those girls competitive. And while I don't think I'm dumb, some of those girls were brilliant.


On the downside, though, that meant that ALL of my friends and all of their boyfriends were science majors, and let's be honest: science majors walk a fine line between totally geek and totally cool. My friends fell mostly on the cool side of the line. Unfortunately, most of their boyfriends fell on the geek side.


One of these guys in particular was not only a geek, he was sort of a jerk. By sort of a jerk, I mean a real ass. To me, anyway. He was nice to the other girls and guys in our group. But for some reason we really did not mesh. He spent as much time as he could arguing with me and trying to make me angry. I'm ashamed to admit that I let him bother me...often. His problem was twofold: first, he's a chauvinist, and I'm a strong female, and two, he was an elitist. He felt that liberal arts majors were "worthless" and that's a quote. J was over studying with this guy and his girlfriend, and he told J exactly what he thought of English majors. His girlfriend, my friend, told him to shut-up because J was getting angry. I don't know if he was dumb enough to think that J wouldn't think of me when he said English majors were dumb, or if he was so dumb he didn't realize who he was talking to. I'm betting on the second option, but that may be giving him too much credit.


Two of our dumbest arguments really stand out in my mind. The first was when we were in the car coming home from a movie we had all gone to see. I commented that movies today are longer than they used to be. He told me I was wrong. I told him he was wrong, that movies used to be about an hour and a half, but now were usually two hours or more. He had no examples or proof, but continued to argue with me. I finally realized how dumb the argument was and quit talking to him, but he sucked me right in at first. I hated that about him...how easily he could get me into an argument.


The other argument that was monumentally stupid was when he told me that because I didn't know the mathematical formula for gravity, that I couldn't say it existed. I was flabbergasted. I asked him what the formula was, and he pulled out his math book. I told him that any idiot could look up the formula, and that if he didn't know it by heart, by his own definition he couldn't say it existed, either. He then amended his stupid argument to say that if you didn't understand the mathematical formula, you couldn't say gravity worked. I was SO mad!! I was sick and tired of him implying that I was dumb. That I was worthless because I was a liberal arts major. What an ass he was. I think he was just intimidated that I was smart (I'm pretty sure I'm smarter than he is, but I could be biased) and that I stood up for himself. His girlfriend never argued with him when he was stupid. She always let him have his way. Not me.


Anyway, after he implied AGAIN that I was dumb because I didn't know the math that proved gravity's existence, I had had it. I stood up, picked up a textbook that was sitting on the table, raised it high in the air and dropped it with a loud THUD.


I glared at him, pointed at the book and said, "It works for me!" Then I turned and stalked out of the room.


I don't know what his deal was, but gravity does work. Even my cat knows it. Zoe is probably one of the laziest cats on the face of the planet. She will jump up on to a surface, but she will NOT jump down. She will take her front paws, lean over the edge, and just wait for gravity to pull her large hiney down behind her. Here are a few video clips of her doing just that. Sorry for the poor quality of the video. I'll get better stuff eventually and update this post. Also, these videos show her using gravity from low places. She'll even do it off the counter or the bed...anywhere, really.