This weekend was a wonderful beginning to May

This weekend was a really nice beginning to the crazy month of May.  Andrew and I were exhausted at the end of the work week and went bed at 9:30 on a Friday night.  We are not in our 20's anymore! :)

Saturday morning I got up and went up to help at my mom's house.  She wasn't feeling great, and I ended up not being there very long.  It was such a gorgeous day, and I decided to make a quick trip to the cemetery.  I miss them all very much.  That evening we had dinner plans we are best friends, and it's always a fabulously fun evening with them.

Sunday was another absolutely gorgeous weather day.  Catherine had been at our house Friday evening to help with some weeding and other outdoor chores, and Andrew wanted to finish trimming.  I worked in the garages and was able to make a good deal of progress.  Honestly, I was delighted to soak up the gorgeous weekend weather.

Today is the exact opposite of that gorgeous weather, but I don't really mind.  It was a quiet day at school, except for the very wet carlines.  But, it is the only evening I'm home this week, and I'm so very happy to sit in my house and watch the rain fall outside.

Only eleven more days of school this year.  We can do this!

A year of marriage

Today, Thomas and Lyndi are celebrating their first year of marriage.  It's hard to believe it has been a year, and it's crazy to think that we put on a wedding the week prior to my craziest week at school.  Holy moly.

I am so grateful that Thomas found Lyndi, and I'm incredibly grateful that she puts up with him.  They are so, so young, and I worry about that, but they truly do love each other.  Thomas was a bit of a putz in the beginning of their relationship, but I couldn't be happier that these two have found each other.

They took a trip this week to celebrate since they never really had a honeymoon last year.  I hope they have many, many happy years together!

This month took forever

I can't believe today is the last day of April.  Not because the month flew by, but because it feels like it took forever to get here.  I mentioned today to my co-workers that Easter was only 3-1/2 weeks ago, and we all felt that couldn't possibly be right.  I can only hope the summer moves as slowly as April. :)

Tomorrow though, May does finally arrive!  We only have fourteen student days remaining.  That doesn't make me sad at all.  In addition to all of the crap we have dealt with at school, life in the world, and especially our country, feels really, really hard.  Gas this week jumped an entire dollar and is $4.99/gal.  It's almost double what we were paying just six weeks ago.  This comes at a time when Andrew is starting to contemplate retiring from teaching, and when my school's enrollment was already struggling, and these gas prices won't help.  Things feel precarious.

I'm going to try to remember that each day, I "get to."  I get to wake up and spend the day with great kids and co-workers who are literally the best on earth, and then I get to come home and spend an evening in a house I love with my awesome husband and our fabulous pets.  And if I'm really lucky, I might even get to hang out with my kids from time-to-time.  I should wake up each day and be glad for whatever I "get to" do, so that is going to be my goal.   And the first day of May seems like a great day to start.

A beautiful day for my dad's birthday

Today is another year of not being able to celebrate my dad on his birthday.  It's an absolutely gorgeous day.  With a birthday at the end of April, I have so many memories of celebrating dad on perfect weather days.  Dad's birthday on a Sunday is particularly memorable.  As a child, Sundays were the only day might dad might not work.  I miss him more than I can even put into words, but I also know that anyone who has lost a parent understands what I mean.

There was a part of me that really thought Grandma might not wake up today.  It's hard to see her living the way that she is and the way that she never wanted to be.  I really thought maybe it would be too much for her to face another birthday of my Dad without him here, and that she would be ready to go see him.  Grandpa has been gone over 21 years, and I just suspect she is really to see them all again.

Andrew will be home in about an hour.  He and Thomas had a spectacular weekend together, and I know they loved getting to see Andrew's mother.  I know she loved having them.

I'm feeling emotional about a lot of things right now, and I can't help but feel some changes are on the horizon.  I'm working on holding on to a peaceful feeling and for being grateful for the blessings in life.

This is my kind of Saturday morning

This morning is so incredibly peaceful, and so incredibly needed.  As much as I love my husband, and as much as I do miss having my kids around more, this peaceful morning is exactly what I needed.  The three animals are all sound asleep here in the living room with me.  The weather is sunny and cool, and I can have the windows open and listen to the sounds of nature that are all around me.  I have plenty of things I want to get done and I'll get to them later.  There will be baseball on TV and maybe listening to some radio.  But for right now, I'm going to soak up every second of this quiet peace that I can!  And of course it is a Saturday which makes it all even better!

Draft weekend

Andrew and Thomas have been looking forward to this weekend for quite some time.  The draft is in Pittsburgh, and the guys have gone over to partake.  They left last night after Andrew finished parent conferences so they weren't at the first round.  But, they have spent the day in the city today doing draft things, they are at the draft tonight, and they'll be in the city again tomorrow before heading home on Sunday.

Honestly, I've been looking forward to this weekend as well.  Since it isn't fair to the dog to be alone for an entire day, I stay home with Janey.  This means I don't have to leave the house if I don't want to!  I can get the house picked up, and maybe even doing some photo digitizing.  I can also sleep as much as I want!  I'm very excited about a weekend with no obligations...other than making sure Janey gets four walks a day!

Right now we are receiving a soaking rain which makes it even more lovely to just get to hang out at home.  It's bringing a cool front through, and I'm happy that we won't be having more 80's right now.  Have I mentioned our house stinks?  I'm not going to get into it, but we need to be able to leave the house open to air out, so cooler weather is beneficial.  And tomorrow it is supposed to be very cold, and I'm so very excited about that!

We have 18 days of school remaining.  It's hard to fathom that I have to tolerate some of these parents for another 18 schools days.  It's also a little hard to believe that in four weeks it will be Memorial Day weekend.  I am 100% not sad about seeing this school year come to an end.

What a week!

This was a heck of a week.  Andrew regained his voice by the end of the week, so we are grateful for that.  He also had cataract surgery Thursday morning.  We are very grateful that also went well.  He jokes that he will be going back to work tomorrow as a whole new person!  Having some extra time off has helped him to get ahead on the classes he'll be teaching next year, but that is a post of its own.

Thomas also managed to land himself in the hospital Thursday evening.  We aren't entirely certain exactly what happened, but our best guess is that there was a medicine interaction that proved problematic.  His system is just sensitive and fragile.  We left to drive the hour to the hospital and got there at 9:30 Thursday night, then I had to drive the hour home and let the dog out, thinking I'd be going back in the morning, but Thomas ended up being released and I was on my way back up in the middle of the night, so it was 3am before I was in bed.  I went to work later in the day than normal, but needed to make sure I got there because we had to fire a teacher that day.  That was just a really long two days.  Holy moly.

The good news is that Thomas is doing okay, and Andrew and I were able to meet him and Lyndi for dinner this evening.  Yesterday, Andrew and I made a trip to Columbus to visit our friends we hadn't seen since last summer.  It was such a needed visit, although the two hour trip each way was an exhausting drive.

Today before dinner, I spent the day at my mom's working on her house.  It was a actually a little bit fun as we came across some old memories and things we had forgotten about.  Next week Andrew will be gone all weekend, and I'm looking forward to getting some pictures digitized and organized.

I'm exhausted and we are headed into the busiest part of the school year.  But, there are only 23 more school days to go, and then we are going to have a wonderfully carefree summer!