Long time NO Blog

It has been some time since I last blogged, hasn't it?  I have been using twitter and facebook religiously and sadly my blog has been neglected.  Thanks to Beverly for giving me the nudge to finally post something!  :)

Summer is nearly over... but I am THRILLED to have several more weeks thanks to a construction schedule at school.  We are getting central air in all of our classrooms which meant taking out all of the ancient plumbing and vents.  We are also getting new shelving along the outside wall.  Can't wait to see it all put back together.  However, I am so grateful to have the few extra weeks this summer.

Our summer has been full of swim meets as always.  Chris loves his job and has been so very busy!  I have tagged along for a few of the big meets.  He is currently one of the coaches for Team Illinois at the Central Zone meet.  After this weekend, he is finally done for the summer and has a break just about until I go back to school.  Usually he gets done just as I have to go back to work.

We did get to sneak away downtown for our anniversary.  We saw Mary Poppins and also took in a Cubs game with GREAT seats.  I used priceline and we got a GREAT deal on a hotel downtown.  We stayed at the Hilton on Michigan Avenue for $79 each night!  (Of course parking was $55 per night!)  It is hard to beleive we have been married 13 years.  We've been together for more than half of my life at this point!

I just returned from a wonderful weekend in New York with my virtual sisters.  The group of us met 6 years ago on AOL through the Scrapbooking message boards.  We've remained close and try to get together every other year.  It was nice to see them all in person and be able to give each of them a hug.  I was able to see New York and Vermont over the weekend and even took a trip down the Alpine Slide.  Ate lots of chocolate, did some shopping, and had some great laughs.  Looking forward to seeing them again in 2011! :)

My newest obsession involves my hair.  I have had a love/hate relationship with my natural curls for my entire life.  I can say that most of the time I currently lean towards the LOVE side.  Yesterday I went and got it cut short again, and I really am happy with the cut.  I was ready for something new.  I have a great stylist that really knows her stuff and always talks me out of doing anything outrageous.  As I was researching the cut I wanted, I visited naturallycurly.com a site that I often check.  I started to read up on the curly girl method of hair care.  I kept reading, and the more I read, the more it made sense.  I won't bore you with all of the detials, but here is a great link: How to Go Curly Girl.  I have been having a horrible time with my scalp in the past few months and I really think my products are to blame.  I have been using the same products for almost two years now. So as of today, I am now sulfate/silicone free.  It is going to take some time until I find products that I love.  It is my hope that I will have it all figured out before school starts!  :)

Grad school is almost done... November 4th can't come soon enough!  I have one more session in my current class and then two weeks off.  Of course I have several assignments I should be doing right now for that class.  :)  Better go do that now...

Happy Birthday Megan!

Happy Birthday to my dear friend Megan!

Megan and I met through work- We both taught at CSMS until last year. Megan got her dream job at a new school and left us. I miss seeing her every day. She is a good soul and is my voice of reason. We've tried to talk at least once a week since school started. Today is her birthday and a few of us sent her a cookie boquet shaped liked birds... this is only funny if you know that she is terrified of birds. :-) Hopefully she will get a laugh and think of us all today.

December 5th

No Day 5 Christmas Journal to share YET. I did the journaling, so I accomplished the one goal. However, I just didn't have time to create the page. It is all done in my mind... just need to get it down on paper! :-)

Decided to go get my hair cut today after school. On Friday night we went out to dinner with one of our High School friends and his wife. We had a great time at a little martini bar in Grayslake. Great food, great drinks, and even great music! Before we knew it, we were closing the place down at 12:30! Chris (not my Chris, but our friend Chris) and his wife, Cori had a great evening with us. Cori owns a salon in Mundelein and she cuts MY Chris' hair. I decided to go in and see her today. I decided to let her color it as well. I am getting used to it. I will try to remember to post a picture tomorrow maybe. I think it is really different, but Chris (my Chris) thinks it isn't that different at all. Tomorrow will be the test. We'll see what my students say! They are known to be brutally honest.

Tuesday is Chris' one night home early. Early being 7:30ish. By the time I got home it was almost 7. I made dinner and then we watched Friday Night Lights. I snuck back upstairs to read email and post this entry. I am not going to break my streak on Day 5!

I am planning on leaving school right after work tomorrow. Planning to get todays entry as well as tomorrows done. I also have orders for about 15 ornaments and an album to get done. I really should get started on that!