Cash Snow

The other day, I made a profit while taking Shea for a run. Odd, I know, but I really, I did.

As we were running down the street, something flopping around caught my attention. Boy, am I glad it did. When I got close enough, I recognized Mr. Andrew Jackson. I looked around, as I have always been taught honesty. Nobody was out or around to claim this lovely twenty dollar bill, and it was in the middle of the street, not near anybody's property. So, I snapped a picture of my luck, before I slipped it in my pocket.

I don't mind running with Shea. In fact, I quite enjoy it. However, I learned that I like it even more when I feel as though I am making a profit for having fun. 

Ever since that day, I have had an extra keen eye out for anything greenish looking besides the grass. A few times I have done double takes, thinking I've hit the jack-pot again, unsuccessfully. That is how our run started out this afternoon. Shea and I were both on the lookout for cash while taking in the beautiful sights and sounds of early spring. 

One of those sights and sounds did not include children playing at the park. You may be able to tell this, by the fact that we were hanging out on the empty playground. 

You may also notice, that if you look closely, snow was starting to fly. Yup, March 30th and snowing. Actually, it wasn't just a little bit of flurries. The snow, from the point that this picture was taken, started coming down hard. Our run home did not include searching for dropped money. Who can see money through snow-covered ground? 

Vet

I like to call this.....

the calm before the storm. 

Shea has a vet appointment today. He needs a check-up and some routine shots. I took him for a nice run this morning, to say hello to the neighbors and chase his tennis ball for a little while. The timing of this appointment is perfect, as yesterday we noticed some lovely green discharge coming from that area we don't talk about with the neighbors. 

Let's hope this goes well, on all accounts! 

What's In A Name

I don't need any baby name books.

I don't need this sweet a$$ baby-naming website either: Baby Name Generator.

Why would I need those, when I have people all around me. The only thing people are currently interested in, is what Jeff and I will name our son. Since Jeff and I are telling everyone, honestly or not (you can be the judge of that), that we do not have a name picked out yet, the next thing everybody wants to do is offer up some names.

I thought, I must be mistaken, that since I am doing all the work, that I got to name this little guy. Apparently, everybody who knows me finds it is partly their job.

Currently, two of my aunts, we can call them Aunt Joni and Aunt Mary, are amidst a very facebookly public debate over my son's name. Ever since I married Jeff, Aunt Joni has been adamant about us naming a son Maxim. For, back in the day, there was a very famous Russian communist leader named Maxim G. I mean, really, who wouldn't want to name their kid after a Russian communist. Just think of the things he could do would that name. Not to mention, he's incredibly handsome....

Aunt Mary has come back with fight. She thinks Maxim is an awful name. She prefers Trout, even implying that my grandfather would love it, because he was an avid fisher. My grandfather was an extremely honest man, sometimes brutally honest. I feel, quite the opposite of Aunt Mary. I believe that my brutally honest grandfather, if he were alive, would ask me what the hell I was thinking and that Trout is the name of a fish not a human. So, that is what I feel about her name.

With the names that my family has decided to name my child, I am better off visiting the baby name generator site if I need advice. According to the genie, Colton Moses just seems to float off the tongue. What do you think? Maxim, Trout, or Colton? Or do I need to purchase a book?

Cartoon Hot

Being the wonderful teacher that I am, I not only teach the students academics, but I aim to teach them life and social skills. Today we took some time to read about and discuss a difficult situation (for a ten year old). 

We gathered in the back of the room, for what some would call a class meeting. Each child got a copy of a student magazine that had the particular "sticky situation" we were going to discuss today. The situation was certainly a difficult one. It asks you to imagine you are only allowed to invite four friends on your birthday adventure. One of your friends, that you did not invite, asks you why you did not invite her. 

There were mostly good, thoughtful responses. One girl responded that she would tell the friend to, "get out of my life!" She needed a reminder that this was a friend and that that really isn't a nice thing to say even if she wasn't a friend. But, rather than focusing on the one negative response, the most reasonable to me was: "I would tell them I could only invite four friends and that I would invite them next year."

Most kids gave a response similar to this one. Then I called on a little boy one might describe as, odd. He  took the cartoon photo into consideration when giving his answer. 

He rationed that he would not be in this situation in the first place. He would have definitely invited this particular friend because, well, look at her, she's hot! 

I wasn't quite sure how to respond, but I didn't really need to say anything. His classmates simply pointed out that he was talking about a cartoon. Regardless of that fact, the kid is ten. Should he be thinking about hotness yet? Well, we all had a good laugh about. 

After class, this boy made a point to explain himself to me. "You may think it's weird that I said a cartoon girl is hot, but I'm just a weird kid." Touche, little buddy, touche. 

Pelted

Shea and I left for our afternoon run, beneath partly sunny skies and at a milk 45 degrees. It felt good. Eventually, I noticed that it had started to rain.

It was funny, because this rain felt different. I have run in the rain many times, in fact, it is one of my favorite times to run. However, today it just felt different. Not that it wasn't enjoyable, but it kind of hurt. Without thinking, I figured I must be running super fast. My amazing speed must be causing the rain to hit my face with extra force. So, I simply put my head down and continued running at my fast clip.

Then, like something had fallen from the sky with the answer, I noticed that small white balls were bouncing not only off of the ground, but my shoulders as well. Of course, that was the answer. It wasn't rain at all, I wasn't running any faster than normal, I was simply running, face first, into hail.

My boy didn't seem to mind, so we continued on our way to the park. Knowing that there wouldn't be any children out in the park, playing in the hail, I brought Shea to the nicely fenced in playground area. 

We ran around like idiots having a blast, as per usual. While doing so, I realized that it was quite a nice evening. In fact it was beautiful, even with hail pelting off my face. Gotta love mother nature! 

Walker Please

Jeff is training for a marathon. He is working really hard and has built up his stamina from the man who begged for red lights on a two mile run to the 18 miles he had to run yesterday. He's not thrilled about doing it, but he does it.

Jeff's Red Light Loving

Jeff has a 4.5 miles route that he runs around campus. A simple four times around, and bingo, you've got your 18 miles. Since this was the longest run Jeff has had to go on thus far, I told him that I would meet him for the last lap. 

The good thing, it was a beautiful day and the loop has some nice scenery. However, from Jeff's point of view, the scenery isn't as nice the fourth time around. 

When we finally finished and began to walk, poor Jeff was having difficulty just doing that. He debated taking the elevator to go down one story to get his clothes. He didn't, but it took quite a while for him to get down the stairs. 

Beyond that, in the past few months, I have noticed that if Jeff runs more than, say, eight miles on a given day, he is as good as a chopped liver for the rest of the day. I certainly expected the twenty miles to cripple him for the remainder of the day. I pictured it going somewhat like this: laying on the couch watching basketball, dozing off for a while, and then ordering dinner due to being too tired to go out. 

You can imagine my surprise when he said he wanted to go out for dinner. We could watch the games at the restaurant. Of course, I was all over this, however somewhat reluctant that that was really going to happen. 

We did make it out. Jeff, barely, but he did. Thank goodness the back steps have a railing, and thank goodness I picked him up right at the walkway. As Jeff hobbled into the restaurant, an old lady with a walker cut us off, beating us to the door. We got there in time to both eat her dust and hold the door for her. While doing so, Jeff had his most honest moment, as he blurted out, "I sure could use one of those right now!" 

There was no doubt about it that I was thinking the same thing. Lucky for Jeff, today he wasn't walking quite like an 80 year old! 

Welcome to the 21st Century

We live in a great time. A time when I don't have to make an ultimate decision about what to watch on television. I'm not big into watching TV. Many days you can stop by and find me doing whatever around the house with the TV not even turned on. But, when there's something I want to watch, you better have no doubt that there is a conflict with something else I'd like to watch.

With March Madness underway, basically everything takes a back seat. From here you can turn between the four channels carrying games and chose whichever is at a more crucial moment. There are, of course, a few games that I want to see every moment of. Of these, BYU is included, for I have quite the fandom for Jimmer.

So, last night, with Jimmer's BYU game tipping off at 7:30, I had some issues with a non-basketball related broadcast that I wanted to watch.  A few in a lifetime opportunity in which my little cousin, Ryan, would be on ESPNU, as her nationally ranked #2 softball team played against the #1 team in the country. Like I said, this kind of thing doesn't happen everyday, although, with Ryan being a freshman, she will definitely have a few more games on ESPNU.

I had a hard decision to make, until I realized that I am living in the 21st century. All I had to do was DVR Ryan's game. I chose to put her game on hold, because there undoubtedly would be BYU updates constantly running across the bottom of the screen. I'd hate to ruin the outcome for myself.

And with that, my dilemna was solved. I did find myself flipping to Ryan's game during commercials, but it seemed as though it was usually between pitches. Another major plus of DVR, you can fast-forward through all the idle time. Turns a softball game into a fast-paced  occasion!

Madness

It's a beautiful time of year: March Madness! I love everything about it, except one minute detail. I hate the fact that non-fans come out of the woodwork and are all gung-ho NCAA basketball for the next few weeks.

I find that most of the people coming out of nowhere are those pretending to be diehard Duke fans. While I am not obsessed, I am sorry to say that I check my facebook page everyday. I am a person who has very little to get upset about in life. So, in order to allow myself to get worked up every once in a while, I check two people in particular's pages. This is where I get my anger fits, since my day to day life does not supply me an outlet for anger.

As luck may have it, both of these people whose comments anger me, have come out of hibernation from last March, to cheer on their once a year beloved Dukies. You better believe they would never be one of those. They probably aren't even sure that Duke is Blue.

Don't misconstrue my message. I am not a Duke fan. Quite the opposite actually. However, I can out-duke both of these falsified Duke fans. I am sure that I can answer more questions correctly about Duke, as well as the fact that I've undoubtedly been to more Duke games than them. And, the sad thing, I've only been to one.

Please ignore the Duke shirt. It was a deal...wear a Duke shirt, get second row ticket to #1 and #2 game. 

What all of this reminds me of is one year during the NCAA tournament. I would say it had to be 2003. I was watching a Duke tournament game and it was in the final seconds. Timeouts were being called as it was a tie game. At this exact time, one of my friends at the time, one of the self described, hard-core Duke fan called. 

I couldn't help but call her out on it. I asked her if she was watching the game, which to me, it seemed obvious that she was not! But, of course, she said she was. So, then, quite bluntly, I asked her, "then why the HELL are you calling me right now?" 

She giggled it off and then I simply hung up on her. Amazing that I even had friends. But, when it comes down to it, I just don't appreciate people pretending they are something they are not, especially when it interrupts my basketball!

Thursday or Friday

I was expected to be a St. Patty's day baby. I'm glad I wasn't. For one, I wouldn't want to share my birthday with a semi-holiday. And, secondly, I don't really like the Irish. All they do is get drunk, red, and annoying, from my experiences with Irish people anyways.

So, as luck may have it, I decided to make my big exit a day late. This means that Friday is my birthday. Awesome, I am just huge on birthdays. They mean so much to me.

If there is anyone out there apt to forget a date, it is my father. It's just who he is. He knows it and has been working on. Hence, the conversation we had on the phone today. He recited his schedule for the remainder of the week for me, specifically noting that tomorrow is March 17th and then Friday is March 18th, which just happens to be my birthday. I guess saying it aloud and repeating makes him remember things better.

Later, I spoke to my mother. She had a lot to say about this and then. She informed me to look for a package that she had sent out on Monday. It should be here tomorrow or Friday. When she went to hang up, she told me to have a great birthday tomorrow and that she would call later in the afternoon. 

Interesting huh? The woman who gave birth to me does not quite remember the day I was born. Yes, she was close, only a day off, but sometimes close doesn't count. I informed that even my father knows my birthday isn't tomorrow. 

Oh well. Does that mean he loves me more? If that's the case, Nick must love me the most. He sent me my birthday gift a week early!

Jeopardy!

I have been a little mindless lately. I will be the first to admit it. However, there are certain things I vividly remember from last night.

I remember sitting on the floor playing with Shea, while Jeff sat on the couch. We had Jeopardy! on the television, something I often have on, listen to, and attempt to answer questions, but don't necessarily "watch." I don't watch because there isn't much action to see, and I am usually doing other things like playing with Shea or jump roping. What I remember so well from last night, is Jeff pointing out in the Double Jeopardy round, that the woman leading the show had been way in the negatives. She made a huge comeback and was now way ahead of everybody else. So far ahead that she could bet just about anything on Final Jeopardy and not worry about losing.

There was no doubt that this woman made an exceptional run. Exceptional enough for Jeff and I to be impressed, but not enough for me to pay attention to this woman's name or face. 

This afternoon, speaking to my parents on the phone, I was asked an odd question. My father brought up a name from way in my past. My past being about 4th and 5th grade. This woman from my past had mentioned to one of my father's co-workers that she knew me. This, the same woman that had won some big bucks on Jeopardy! last night. The same woman that would be vying for more winnings tonight. 

I told my father it was ridiculous, he must have his information wrong. I get excited when I see someone on Jeopardy! from within a 200 miles radius of where I live. I think I would notice if I actually knew someone on the show. 

So tonight, with vested interest, I really "watched" Jeopardy! Sure enough, there she was, a Mrs. Lori Cain from Altamont, New York. My religious education teacher from 4th and 5th grade. 

Don't believe me? Check it out!

Now, I was always a good student in school. Did my work correctly, was well behaved, quiet, never caused trouble. However, religious ed. was a different story for me. My buddy, Mark, and I were the only ones from our school in Mrs. Cain's class. For some reason, we let all our demons out during her class. Ironic, isn't it? I haven't figured out why to this day, blame it on the long days, blame it on the fact that we would have rather been playing baseball or basketball or pogs, or blame it on the fact that we may have had a little crush on each other. Either way, Mrs. Cain was the poor recipient of our bad behavior. In fact, I remember a few times, being sent out in the hall. Yup, that's right, kicked out of religion class. 

Turns out Mrs. Cain is an awfully smart woman. Smart enough to win a pretty penny on Jeopardy!, and certainly smart enough for me to gain something from her in religion class. But,  I didn't because I was too busy making her life miserable. The misery of Alicia continued for Mrs. Cain tonight, as I watched intently, rooting for her, jinxing her to a loss. 

Sorry Mrs. Cain, for then and now! 

Wake Up Call

This morning I made a big mistake. As I was fumbling through the darkness, in hopes of not waking Jeff up, I woke someone else up. Someone hundreds of miles away.

In those early morning hours, I use my multi-purpose iPhone as a flash light. For the first time ever, ehhh, OK, for the first time since my "home button" broke ( Home Button Failure ), my iPhone let me down. Unknowingly, while keeping my phone on for extra light, my finger slipped into my call log. Here, in my call log, was my wonderful, understanding brother-in-law, Jonathan. My finger, of course, hit the button and dialed up big Jon at approximately 5:30 a.m.

As soon as it happened, I realized and hit the End Call button. Damn button was frozen. I hit it repeatedly, feeling more and more nervous with each hit. "Oh my God," I was saying out loud at this point. "Please, oh my God." When I finally got the call to end, it had already rang for a good, solid year and a half. Immediately following my hang up, Jonathan called back. All I could say was, "I'm so sorry. I hit the wrong button. I'm so sorry." And, I genuinely meant it! I felt horrible all day long thinking about how I had alarm clocked Jonathan this morning. 

When I got home from work I got a chance to speak to Jonathan while he was actually awake and aware. The real person I needed to be apologizing to was Lauren, Jonathan's fiance. A saint prior to this little happening, a patron saint after. Poor Lauren thought something was wrong when I called at 5:30 a.m., as I figured they would have, and woke up completely. Awoken completely, she could not fall back to sleep. So, rather than going back to sleep, she did what any patron saint would do and baked blueberry muffins for breakfast. 

So, while a 5:30 a.m. phone call seemingly sucked on the outside, it greatly benefitted Jonathan in the end. I think rather than the incessant apologizing I've been doing, he should be thanking me. No call, no blueberry muffins! 

Flash Back

This past week was spirit week at school. Really, nothing is better. It is fun for the kids, they definitely get into it. It is also great for teachers, as we get to wear very relaxed year each day.

One of the days was 80's day. It's no doubt that the kids, who certainly game clad in 80's attire, had their parents put their outfits together. Well, having been very young in the 80's I wasn't sure about what to wear. I was nearly late to school that morning, as I put changed my outfit 900 times. When I got there, my outfit was accepted as 80'sish.

It's really hard not to feel silly in that muck and guck.

What's even harder than trying not to feel silly in this outfit, was trying to keep some composure while reciting a newly learned math song about fractions. Can you picture it:

Numerator Up

Denominator Down

We can do fractions all around the town

At least I had the kids, in their atari jackets, doing the same thing. Makes you feel a little less silly. 

Oh Boy...

Yesterday was a big day for us. We had a doctor's appointment and were going in expecting to find out the sex of my little friend who is making me fat. Since most people simply ask you to tell them, and I don't like to do anything the normal way, we decided to send the picture. Each picture we sent was prefaced by something along the lines of, "what do you think?"

So, what do you think?

We thought it was pretty obvious. In fact, we both saw it while the doctor was performing the sonogram talking about this and that. 

When we showed my mother, she knew right away. When we showed my brother-in-laws they had some quite entertaining comments, but they too, knew right away. Then, we sent the picture to my dear brother, Nick. Nick's response was not witty or correct. It was in fact, boy or girl? 

Ummm, take a look. I don't care if you don't know much about babies, another unknowing response I got, look at the picture. There are two adorable little legs that will carry my baby boy and his giant family jewels around. 

I couldn't be happier with the results. Boys, unlike girls, don't frighten me after the age of twelve. 

Babies Having Babies

As my pants get tighter, I know that I will soon be needing maternity clothes. So, today, my mother and I did a little maternity shopping. I envisioned us having a ball, toting around bags of bought items, frolicking through the mall arm in arm, and running up the down escalator just for fun. While the scene wasn't quite that,  it was certainly fun, for the most part.

The fun that we have together is had no matter what we are doing. But, with the anticipation of August, it made it a little more exciting. That is, until we walked into Motherhood Maternity. A store that was highly recommended by a friend for their friendliness, wonderful service, and fashionable clothing. Yea, ok.

I don't know if it was because we were in a different mall, because it was a different day, or because this Motherhood Maternity store decided to staff Cruella DeVille at this particular store. The old hag walked up to us and immediately asked, "Are you buying a gift for someone?" I guess I should have been taken that as a compliment, and I might have even basked in the glory of the comment for a mere one second. Then, when my mother told her that we were shopping for me, the grumpy grape gave a sad, disappointed look. Her wrinkly face screamed, "ughhh, babies having babies!" 

I wanted to punch her in her face, but instead I laughed it off. We both knew exactly what her look was for. Apparently she has never heard of a baby face! She did not say another word to us as we browsed the store half-heartedly. I certainly wasn't going to buy anything here now and allow her to get any sort off commission of us. 

I simply decided that I would make this woman even more mad. Since I work in a school, I decided to shout across the store to my mother, "Hey Mom, do you think this outfit would be good for school?" Stupid lady didn't know I was a teacher, so of course she assumed I was a student. Sucker!

Badly Timed Phone Call

With my new teaching job has come some sacrifices. The hardest one for me has definitely giving up my anytime rise time. My new school day begins an hour earlier than it did in New York. Therefore, I must get up earlier. In terms of morning hours, quite a bit earlier. Five-thirty a.m. to be exact.

I have always firmly believed that no one should have to wake up prior to 7 a.m. It seems very inhumane to me. So, 5:30 a.m. is absolutely preposterous.

To compensate for my early rise time, I have been trying to go to bed earlier. My nightly goal is to be in bed by 10 p.m. I am sometimes an overachiever and get up there by 9:30, but most nights I make it bed about 10-10:30.

Last night I happened to get there right at my target time. I was blessed with a night where I fall right asleep. Only to be awoken out of a nice slumber to the sound of my cell phone ringing. I could have answered the phone and screamed a mean, inappropriate comment for waking me up. But, I took the high road and ignored the call altogether.

This morning, when 5:30 a.m. rolled around, I remembered what had happened last night. I felt it would only be fair for me to call this person who had woken me up and return the favor. With phone in hand and an evil sneer on my face, I brought up the friend's number that had called me. As I went to push it, I chickened out. It was too mean. I can think of all the mean things in the world to do to people, but I can't actually do them.

At lunch time, I simply texted this person that with my new rise time, phone calls past 9:30 are not appreciated. I warned that next time I would be glad to provide an early morning wake up call. Next time, yes, next time I will be mean!

Looking Forward!

Tomorrow is jeans day at school. Tomorrow night, Shea will be reunited with his favorite person to follow around, my mother, as she is making a trip out for the week.. Then, on Monday we find out whether the life swimming around in my stomach has a pickle or not.

Looking forward to the next several days. Be excited!

Philly Sheen

Who wouldn't be proud to live in Ohio? The state of Ohio has eight laughable professional sports team, our big Lake Erie has brown water and toxic fish, Lebron James basically sh*t on the state in an hour long special this past summer. Add crappy weather and minimal sunshine, I can't see why the world's population doesn't live here.

Then, my lovely husband, and Daniel Tosh, led me to this glorious youtube video:

Please do watch....it is well worth it!

 The lovely place this lovely man is campaigning for office in is only about forty five minutes away from us here in the big C-land. I've always felt pretty safe with where we live in Cleveland. However, now, knowing that that crazy, psycho man is within in an hour, I feel a little uneasy walking the streets with my dog. 

He seems to be on some sort of drug. Some may say it's crack or cocaine. But me, I'm guessing Phil is on something called Charlie Sheen.