I just want to say

I love Lost. Ohsoverymuch.

Many people may disagree. Well, f. y'all. Ha!

...Seriously, though. I had my doubts for awhile, and it does chap my ass a bit that you can't take your eyes off the screen for even a split second or you will miss some things that mightbethelifealteringmisingpiecetotheevergrowingpuzzle.

But oooooh baby I love it!

I love Batmanuel's eyeliner.











I love Locke's tiger stripe scar.












I love Jack's crazy moutnainman beard.











So...uh... I've got to love something other than their insane makeup, right??

Ahh, yes. Two words: Ben Linus.

SNOW DAY!!!

I love - and loathe - mid-week snow days. Ohhhh the sleeping in! Ohhhh... the make-up days and screw-ups to my lesson plans!...

I think we only have two snow days built into the year left - or is it only one? It needs to start getting warmer, y'all. Stat. Winter is overrated.


At least HoboDave loves the snow:






OperationGetKnockedUp:Take2 has commenced, and we are currently in the waiting stage. I have no idea what will happen in a week or so - I won't be surprised by pregnancy or the lack thereof at this point. And, oddly enough, I'm okay with that.

(I say that now, but wait until I am crying in the frigid faculty bathroom in between classes.)

*Sigh.*

Anew

It was sunny today. Sunny and 39 degrees!!!! Coming from someone who's seen literally over 100 inches of snow fall on her front lawn this season, complete with temperatures so cold this past week that Drew's car wouldn't even START, this is a major heat wave!! I needed sunglasses!! I saw water running down the street! I could actually see some of the sidewalk/grass/rooftops! Dave didn't need his sweater and actually walked around the block without trying to run back home! I began gratuitously overusing exclamation points to display my enthusiasm! Amazing how my mood is instantly elevated with just a few minutes of vitamin D.

This is especially amusing to me, as my North Carolinnny-dwelling sibs are currently blanketed with snow. Raleigh has, predictably, been shut down for the past couple of days, and naturally, everyone has gone crazy. No rest for the vets, though - and I mean the animal kind, not the fighting kind - so SistervonYounger has been sliding her non-4-wheel-drive to work anyway. Suckaaa!

As of today, the new semester has officially started. I am looking forward to my new students in my two semester electives, and refreshing things with my year-long English classes. New - or revamped rules. New seating charts. New hall pass policy. New configuration of students (This is not really a good thing, as I keep getting all the upper-level dropouts in my low-level classes, yet no one will take MY failing upper-level students! ha. No, really. And a whole truckload of "reformed" students fresh off the Alternative Education track. Woo for public education!). A new start.

Drew has restarted the renovations on our back bedroom... AKA the future nursery. This is one of the few rooms we have left to finish in the house, and was pursued with vigor for a few months.... then suddenly became a project that was unceremoniously dumped the second we found out I had miscarried. Healing is apparent here.

Speaking of which, I was just ruminating a bit about how far I've come emotionally in the past month or two - sure, I've had the choice mini-breakdown here and there, usually at any major holiday or birthday, etc. - but overall, I can safely say I am healed. Not over it. Not by a long shot. The scar is still there. I think of it daily. [I would have been 23 weeks yesterday, as a matter of fact.] It is dark, and ugly, and jagged. Every once in a while, the scar sends phantom pains to my heart. But passed are the days where I would sob at the gas station...or in my classroom... or in the shower... or in the car on the way to work...

...you get the idea.

Yes. I am feeling hopeful and ready to begin anew.


[PS- The links to flickr pics - etc. - are obviously not to my own albums, or even to the area in which I live. Just appealing to those visual learners.]

All Good Things...

...are surely coming to an end.

My wonderful, long-winded, lazy, nonproductive, hilarious, fulfilling, emotional, devastating, long-anticipated Christmas Break (my tiny school district does not care about such things as being Politically Correct - it's Christmas and Easter breaks all the way, baby!) is over.

Finito.
[Etcetera.]

I did NOT do as much grading as I should have, and I only have myself to blame. Who the crap sets aside piles of grading to complete over a less-than-two-week break?! And the MOTHER of all breaks at that?! (....aside from the TRUE MotherofAllBreaks: Summer vaca. But that does not require grading, nor is it something I will gloat about to the masses of non-teachers.... though I see that 2.5-month hiatus as totally justified.... but that is a rantyrave I will save for another day.)

I did, however, get the following done over the last twelve days:

* Spent some much-needed QT with my family... not as much with Drew's, but as 90% of them live in the same town as us, I am not heartbroken over this fact. In fact.... oh, nevermind. I am sure I will get to that some other day. [Dun dun dunnnnnnn!]

* Bought clothing en masse on an I'mBoredLet'sGetOutofThisTinyTown&SpendSomeMoney binge. The buyer's remorse has not yet set in. I'm hoping that means I am allowing myself to splurge a bit since we didn't spend a lot on each other this Christmas.... More likely, I think I really just don't give a crap. ha!

* Brought home - from TheSistervonYounger's House - an adorable yet feisty homeless-looking terrier mix aptly named Dave by my new brudder-in-law. Any little progress the cats have made in the last week in terms of not doing a throw up jr. as a result of their unmitigated terror has been regularly squelched by his attempts to bum rush them the second he sees them walking across the room. Poor Mr. Pancakes and Lion-O.

* Saved ~$150 in cash toward my beloved Sony Reader... because I'm doing this the pre-job, old-fashioned way reminiscent of one's allowance: not involving my husband in this (other than his eye-rolling at me stuffing bills into my sock drawer and stealing his loose change as savings methods); not using the bank accounts or credit cards. It'll be nice. It's a very "I don't have thousands of dollars I pay out yearly to various utilities and college loan officers [etcetcetc]; I just have pocket change" way of imagining my life. Nice.

* Planned all of my classes for the entire month of January. If you have picked up anything of my sense of procrastination (a-la-blogging instead of finishing that grading I'm whining about not completing), you will understand what an unusual event this is.... I am typically planned a week in advance, max (other than the "Oh yeah, we are reading To Kill a Mockingbird in Occ 9 and starting the research project in Ac 12 next" vague sort of planning). Yes, even I can pleasantly surprise myself from time to time.

* Fooled myself into believing I was pregnant again - though there was little reason to believe it in way of timing... I'd say I didn't really care, but I would be, of course, a lying liar. Devastated is more the word. And for some reason I am translating it into a fear of never being able to get pregnant again. I am sure the irrational terror welling inside me every time I think of getting pregnant, staying pregnant, underlying causes for problems, etc., are with me to stay until I have our child laying in my arms. ( - And then a whole NEW set of irrational fears surface, right?!)
Bleh. I know we were supposed to have waited 2-3 cycles anyway, and it would have been foolish economically, as we just took out a short-term disability plan that won't even COUNT if I get pregnant before January 1st.... but.
....So.... in a couple weeks: let the games begin! Hopefully this will all work out okay (taken in whatever context you want).
[Ew. Sorry for that visual, All of You.]

..... Uh.... I'm sure I've done other things, most notably sleeping a hell of a lot. Which just happens to be one of my favorite things to do, so I am in no way complaining!

Hello, 2009 (whom I really do not completely greet until school is back in session)! Let's bring some (in the words of me, about 10 years ago) awesomely bangin' things this way in the next 361 days!

Beautiful Things.

A sampling of the amazing talent one can view any day of the week on Flickr.com. This particular set was acquired when typing in "beautiful things."


I couldn't agree more.

[All photos are hyperlinked to their original URL - I claim no responsibility for taking any of the above pictures - I am simply a fan and thought they deserved a shoutout!]

A bit of shameless addition of my own is in the form of the Dawson's Creek opening below. It's really not an ode. Oh lord I'm not that sad. Or perhaps the fact that I referenced it at all proves I am, in fact, that sadly pathetic. Okay maybe I am.

Playing with Filters. August 2008. HomeAwayFromHome [Nags Head NC].

Weepy.

I have been crying all damn day. I have no idea why.

The cats are not getting along with Hobo Dave [dog], so I have cried several times today.
I didn't feel like eating anything we have for lunch today; I stood there and cried.
I cried when I tried to start lesson planning for next month, and whined out loud when I attempted to grade some poorly written papers. Granted - I would have whined at that no matter what, but......ha. Anyway.
I remembered meanly yelling at my mother for a really stupid reason on Saturday, and it of course brought tears to my eyes. In fact, I sobbed on the phone when my sadness drove me to call and apologize to her. Again.
And the most pathetic of all: tears - literal tears, not just moisture - clouded my vision at the end of watching G.D. POCAHONTAS. Oh yes, the Disney version.

Shoot me now.


So uh.... What. The. Fug. I rarely cry at all. PMS? A slight glimmer of hope is rising in the "Am I pregnant??" portion of my brain, especially since that was a MAJOR symptom when I was pregnant before. I would cry at everything. And nothing.

As of ahora, I am trying not to read too much into it. I am going to be really freaking pissed (ha) if I get my period tomorrow or something.


.....and I'm sure everyone wants to know that.

Now if only I had an extra $300...

My newest obsession.

Lah-lah-lah-lah-lah-lah-lah-lah-looove means...

I love YOUUUUUUUUU

Holy Wind Batman!!

[Whiny.]

So yesterday we returned: for the previous five days, we'd taken a hiatus from reality by cramming ourselves into my parents' house with six of my closest siblings, their spouses, and offspring...ahh yes, and my parents. And five, sometimes seven, rambunctious dogs roaming free. And a moany alien cat. And some good old fashioned guilt served with a side of awkward sibling rivalry! Woo!

No, really: it was a good time. Family is family, imperfect but necessary as water to me. I am too far away from them, yet stressed when in their presence. It is a tricky dance full of complex steps - a jab on someone's weight being not as high as theirs, an overly elaborate apology for snapping at someone who was rude to your spoiled child. The feeling of immense closeness yet of polite distance as guests constantly at odds with one another.

It may be a totally different story if this weren't the third house my parents have lived in since I've left for college.

I should be pregnant. Twenty weeks in one day, as a matter of fact. We told our respective parents. Tears and hugs abounded. We began remodeling the nursery. Carpet pulled up, plaster stripped. I moved into my in-laws' home when we feared lead exposure. Andrew's demented (literally, not used in the manner a twelve-year-old boy might use) grandmother walked in on me showering. We bought crib bedding. Sage green toile. I began exclusively wearing maternity pants or the ever-classy Bella-band/unbuttoned pants combination. Damn were those things comfortable.

I should be pregnant, but I am not. As of October 28, I am no longer part of the club. The Pregnant Ladies' Club. The Swollen Feet, Varicose Vein, Pimple-Ensconced Club. The With Child, Preggo, Expecting Club. You get it.

I am better now than I was before, but by no means best.

At times I feel inadequate. What had I done wrong? Why did I produce an inadequate egg (if it was, in fact, on "my side" of the equation)?

Other times, I feel jealous, angry, and frustrated. I work in an environment where I see immature, irresponsible teenage girls get pregnant at the drop of a hat. Co-workers I knew who got pregnant after me have now surpassed how far along I was. We were ready: emotionally, financially, every-ly. Didn't we deserve that baby?

Christmas was hard - it consisted of my one and only niece displaying her parade of gifts from an array of relatives for two hours while we smiled and nodded, feigning interest in Another Barbie and One More Adorable Pair of Tights. I didn't want anything more than what I received - my gifts were heartfelt and definitely appreciated, and will be loved. I just couldn't help thinking of the fact that it was going to be such a different Christmas this year for me, for all of us.

I would have been halfway done. Halfway through the pregnancy. Visibly showing.

Bleh.


And now we have brought home the World's Most Chilled Out Twelve-Pound Dog, yet my cats are depressed, terrified, and morbidly unhappy. They won't even come upstairs. The dog hasn't even barked at them.

I can't even keep my pets happy. If I am such an inadequate pet owner, how will I ever be an adequate mother?

Double bleh.

Testing the waters...

Hi.

...We'll see how this goes.