A Great Visit

For my last weekend before school starts, I could have gone to the beach or slept 24 hours a day, but I got something better - family time! Kori, Briana, Jack, and Kaya came into town to visit and they stayed with us! Woo hoo!

On Friday: Kyle and I watched 24 and I made the best meatloaf ever. I also made blueberry cobbler and it was delicious. Best dinner I ever made. Poor Kori, Briana, and the kids were stuck on 95 in bumper to bumper traffic and didn't come in until pretty late in the night. It was great to finally see them when they got here.

On Saturday: Kori and Briana had a job taking pictures of a family friend and so Kyle and I watched our favorite niece and nephew. We don't really have many toys around, so I blew up some old water balloons I found. Fun times....I hope. : ) Then we visited with the family out in Swoope and came home to hang out with Zach and Kacey until we couldn't stay awake any longer.

Kaya liked the balloons. 

On Sunday: Troy, Kim, Cayxie, Zach, and Kacey brought over bagels and donuts and we had a house full. It was a blast. Kacey's kitten Cinci and Jack and Kaya had a contest chasing a lazer pointer around the kitchen floor. It just solidified my theory on the similarities between babies and cats...but I will save that for another time. Then, we all took Jack and Kaya to the awesome playground near our house. Besides all the sweat it caused, that was probably the most fun we had all week. Finally, Kori, B, and the kids and I met up with Zach and Kyle at the river. They just had to go fishing. The Marylanders left after that and Kyle and I stopped by Kacey's house for Zach's "Going-Away-to-College" barbecue. We ate some really delicious food. Now, I am back here, Kyle is on his way back from fishing again, and I have to go to work tomorrow. Boo that the summer is over.

Either chasing a kitten or the lazer pointer.

We play like children. 

I will post more of these pictures later. There are some funny ones. 

At the river. 

Food Food Food

Kyle and I have decided that every Tuesday or Wednesday, whatever day he isn't working, we will have "dinner and a movie" night. Last Wednesday was our first movie date. I made Zucchini Quiche and Kyle picked the movie. He picked Fast Times at Ridgemont High because I never saw it before. He said I HAD to see it. Honestly, I really didn't HAVE to see it. Ha. The best part was Sean Penn as a pot loving surfer dude. He was pretty hilarious. I give it 2 stars.

 Zucchini Quiche - very cheesy. I give it 2.5 stars.

Tonight for dinner though, I decided that recipes take too long...all that measuring. Ha. So I just decided what I wanted to eat and threw what I had together. I made one of the best salads ever and some pretty great stuffed peppers.

Pretty Awesome Salad

arugula
baby spinach
fresh basil
lemon juice
garlic salt
tomatoes
red onions
avacadoes
hard boiled egg

Oh man...delicious!!!

Pretty Awesome Stuffed Green Peppers:

Green Peppers

Fresh Sweet Corn 

Ground Beef

Onions

Can of Tomatoes 

Rice 

Tomato Sauce

Worcestershire Sauce  

All the seasonings you want

Sometimes, we gotta throw the recipe book out and experiment, because sometimes it turns out great! 

Here are some silly pictures we took  : )

I do love my job.

I do.
I do love my job. 

It is stressful and I constantly am wondering "Am I doing enough? Am I really reaching them? Am I making a difference? Are they learning anything?" Yet, I just spent 5 hours, up until 3 in the morning, planning for my first day. Excited about what great things I can accomplish this year. However, there is always that teetering moment. Within the first day or week, I always feel as if I am standing on the border of "I got this" and "I can't find my own sanity in this mess." That border makes me nervous.

Everyone keeps saying this is going to be a cakewalk for me. "You taught in Baltimore City? Wow, this should be so easy for you."

They are probably..... wrong. Ha. It won't be easier, I don't think. I think I will just get a greater return. I will put the same amount of sweat, tears, and time into it, but maybe I will receive a little more in pay out. Maybe. Oddly enough though, I feel myself missing Digital Harbor HS and my kids there. As crazy as they were and as foreign as living in the rundown parts of the inner city is to me, those kids seem comfortable to me right now. I feel like if I had another room full of Bmore kids, I could handle it, no doubts.

But now I am new.

I hate being new.

It's the worst.

Everyone looks at you more, watches you more, evaluates you more. And they can never give you enough information. You are always just a little lost all the time. A little unsure, ALL the time. You fear testing the waters, mainly because you are barely in past your knees. And when I say "you," I guess I just mean me. I am so backward these days. I really do keep to myself and almost even fear interactions with people I don't know. It's not that I lack confidence, I have just come to loathe searching for conversation material. I want to talk to you when I have something to say. This is why I also have an aversion to the phone.

I am such a weirdo.

Luckily, I like my weird self. I think my kids will like my weirdness as well. At least I hope.

Like the banner I made for my class web page?

DC with an old friend.

I love visiting D.C.

Someone else who lives in my house...no naming names or anything...would rather have his toes cut off by a lawnmower than volunteer to spend a whole day in D.C.

Luckily I have friends who love D.C. as much as I do. Gavin, one of my friends from college, is back in town for a bit, so we decided to meet in the city for a walk and dinner. Gavin teaches English in foreign lands.  He is in from Saudi Arabia and is leaving Thursday for Istanbul. So adventurous, I know.

Cool sculptures.

Posing with the fountains. 

 WWII Memorial - One of my favorite memorials. Beautiful construction and feet friendly water. Great place to rest on a hot humid day in the city. 

Best wishes in Istanbul, G!

Corn. Sweet Corn.

So I have been domesticated. No more wild at heart run around chica here.

I got vegetables in bulk and froze a bunch in order to store away for the winter.

I even wore pearls, high heels, and a flashy apron to do it.

Okay.

Well.

Not quite.

Here is the true story. My uncle gave me three bags of sweet corn. Oooo I love sweet corn. And really no frozen or canned corn out there can compare to fresh sweet corn. So I decided to save a few cobs to eat now and then freeze the rest.

Step 1: Husk it. Watch out for bugs.
Step 2: Wash it off.
Step 3: Boil some water and cook batches of ears for 3 minutes each.

Step 4: Cut if off the cob. This is the longest part. I listened to some new country music I downloaded (Little Big Town and Gloriana) and bopped around to make it a bit less monotonous.

My helpers. They laid at my feet for the whole time.

The end result = only 9 bags of sweet corn. Like 75 ears of corn down to NINE bags of sweet corn. Luckily the corn was free and it will be oh so delicious. 

Here are some corn recipes I plan on trying with it:

Corn and Bacon Dip

Tomato and Corn Risotto

Corn Pudding

I Been Done Gone Fishing

Ha.

I think it is so hilarious when someone uses like 8 helping verbs in front of a verb. How much help does one verb need? One time, after asking a student if she had completed her worksheet, she told me, "I been done did that."

Ha.

Anyway...we took a trip to PA to visit my family and go to my cousin Kim's baby shower. Kyle's favorite part? Going fishing Saturday morning with my cousin BJ. It was kind of my favorite part too. We had fun and I caught 3 fish!

It was a beautiful morning. We got up at like 6:30, but for no reason it seems, since the fish didn't wake up until about 9. As much as fishing seems cruel to me...it is fun to get something on your line. I just hate when the poor things swallow the hook. We took we caught home though and my cousin BJ fried it up. Kyle and I mostly munch on the corn on the cob though. : )

Kyle loves this.

I didn't so so bad.

Yay for summer!

Living Room Progress

Our living room has been a project, but it is coming together piece by piece. I am going for shabby chic. I love old elements and things that are mix-matched. But I also love very clean lines and simplistic groupings. I am still waiting on some furniture to be delivered...so hopefully once that gets here I can really start putting it all together. I also need to sew a window seat cover and some throw pillows.

But here is what I have added so far...

We added a carpet and some more furniture to start completing the space.

And finally, now when you sit on the couch, you have something to look at. But once again - not your conventional TV stand. That's an old bench I bought off craigslist a long time ago and I ordered two ladder shelves - one for each side. We are waiting for the second ladder shelf. It looks a little lop-sided right now.

I added a little to the walls as well: a collage of family photos, some cork board tiles decorated with old postcards, and an old phone clock Kyle found for me.

Living Room Progress: 50%