Thursday, January 29, 2009

Viva la Taco Via

Don't worry, those of you who check out The View Across Town. I did mean to post this photo here today, even though I put it over there yesterday.

Betsy was kind enough to babysit me for a couple of hours last night between my school gigs. I live just far enough from school that I would have had about 10 minutes to sit down had I driven home after school and then returned for the 8th Grade Activities Fair. Betsy is a little closer, so we hung out for a while.

We couldn't decide what to do for dinner. We almost went to Chipotle. But then I thought - "Hey, we've been talking about Taco Via for a few weeks, let's go there." She lives pretty close.

We didn't get to go to Taco Via THAT much when I was a kid because it's over at 95th and Antioch, but I have vivid memories of eating there - the old-school menu boards, taco sauce in little cups, out of ketchup-ish dispensers, the logo that you see up there on the styrofoam cup. I remember going there with Mom sometimes - probably after shopping trips to Metcalf South or movies at the Glenwood (the real, cool Glenwood).

I'm glad at least the Taco Via hasn't changed. Can't say that for the other two.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Name, rank and serial number

Today the yearbook staff and I spent all day in the PAC (Performing Arts Center for the uninitiated) for group photos.

Instead of trying to cram all of the groups into 20-minute time periods on three different days, we scheduled the whole thing for one day, with 10-minute intervals in between. All of you who've attended your average, every day, run of the mill, All-American high schools probably remember this day.

It's the day that some of you loved because you were involved in every club on campus. So, you were in every photo during the day.

It's the day that some of you loved because you weren't involved in anything on campus (including your classes) so you were in every photo. You were that guy who randomly shows up to every group and writes "Hugh Jass" as your name. And yes, I am now that mean old witch of a teacher who calls you on it and tells you to get your Hugh Jass out of the photo.

It's the day that the yearbook staff loves because they get to miss all of their classes to help out, rounding up groups, names and generally keeping the peace.

It's the day that keeps me up at night, worrying that something, some tiny little thing, would go wrong. I didn't look at the clock last night, but I'm estimating that I lay awake for about two hours, trying desperately to quiet the mind and fall asleep. When I finally got up and checked the clock, it was 5:15. Fifteen minutes before my alarm was set.

I'm pretty sure that fifteen minutes was the only sleep I remember getting. Yes - I got up, checked the clock, and chose to go back to bed, instead of just getting up. When will I learn?

All that sleeplessness, and truly, the day went off without a hitch for the most part. The students were (mostly) cooperative. The students (mostly) followed simple directions. I did notice that I didn't have to use my "outside" voice as much during this photo day as I typically did at DHS. There, I used to have to use the microphone to get people's attention. Here, it wasn't that tough.

Probably the biggest snafu of the day was that the company photographer showed up about 30 minutes late. We shot the photos he missed using one of our cameras, and then got caught up fairly quickly once he made it.

Interestingly, in my brief teaching career, that's the second group picture day (out of five) that the photog has been late to. I think we're going to start telling them to be there an hour early, instead of 20 minutes.

The newspaper was scheduled to go to press at 5 this afternoon as well. Luckily, I have a wonderful newspaper staff that I can trust, and they were able to accomplish that goal with very little help from me. I can't decide if subs love or hate my room - the kids are in charge. It's really an easy gig for a substitute, but the kids say that a lot of times, the subs feel like they need to be "doing something."

It was a big day, gone off without a hitch. With a little help from two good pub staffs, a nice and businesslike photographer (except for that little tardy thing), four boxes of pizza and a box of Krispy Kremes, and a very helpful assistant principal, I can count this among the more successful group photo days I've experienced.

Now, about that yearbook deadline next week...

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Got a new DVR just in time but...

I still don't think it will help us Monday night. Used to, we could record "Chuck" on NBC, while simultaneously watching "How I Met Your Mother" and "The Big Bang Theory" on CBS. When you've got a DVR that can record one channel and still show another, no problem on a night like that.

Well, tomorrow night, when one of my favorite TV shows returns five months early, we'll be in serious TV crisis mode at the Chittum's.

TNT is bringing back "The Closer" starting tomorrow. Usually, it's the show that keeps me from getting bored over the summer, but for some reason, new episodes start this week. In addition, TNT is debuting a new show, with Tom Cavanagh and Eric McCormack, right after "The Closer." Looks like we'll be taping in the living room, and watching TV in the back bedroom so we can get to all three...I know, I know, it could be a lot worse. We could have REAL problems to worry about.

I really hope "Trust Me" is good, and makes it. I have loved Tom Cavanagh since he was on "Ed" and stuck with him for the wonderful but woefully short-lived "Love Monkey" on CBS. I wish I could find season DVDs of "Ed."

Last night at Betsy's might have been foreshadowing of this impending TV bonanza. Adam and I grabbed a bite at Five Guys Burgers and Fries (really stinkin' good if you haven't tried it yet), and headed to Betsy's to help her clear off her DVR. It was 90 percent full when we started watching. They were shows that we don't typically watch - "Psych" "Top Chef" and "CSI." All were great, but as you can see, I think I'd have to quit my job if we became devoted to any more shows!

That's no good.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Team in Training Round 2 Begins - Update and flash back



As I drove home from school tonight, I was chomping at the bit to get out and run since the thermometer in my car read 64. Sixty-four! Can you believe that?

After the last few weeks of single-digit temps, 64 was heavenly for a run. It was so nice to be able to get out and run without layering, stocking caps and all that junk.

I have officially launched my fundraising website for Team In Training. I hope to raise $4,100 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society before the race in June. Mitzi and I attended one of the first informational meetings last weekend, and the kickoff is in early February.

Every one of us knows someone affected by cancer, and any strides forward in research for Leukemia and its related diseases will hopefully someday help all who are dealing with cancer. Just in the last few years, my friends and family have dealt with cancer of varying types.

The mission of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and to improve the quality of life for patients and their families. Every five minutes, someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer. Every 10 minutes, someone dies from a blood cancer. LLS helps fund research, programs for patients and their families, and testing potential bone marrow donors.

My first marathon experience with Team in Training was life-changing. To see the enthusiasm, passion and devotion the TNT group has for the cause is inspiring. Training for and running the marathon is the least I can do to help patients and their families.

Every mile of every training run I was carrying the mental support of everyone who helped me on my journey. All of you who donated, all of you who took the time to say "Hey - how's that going?", all of you who sent your prayers - I couldn't have done it without you.

I'm asking for your help again. Please visit my fundraising page. You can donate online. I'll be updating both my TNT page as well as the blog with training updates and fundraising news.

When I returned from San Diego in 2006, I shared with all who supported my journey. Here is the letter from the end of the road:

HI EVERYONE!

I just wanted to send you a note to let you know that yes, I actually finally ran the San Diego Rock N Roll marathon on Sunday, June 4.

To answer the two most-asked questions right away:
1. Did you win? NO - I'm not from Kenya.
2. How long was it? 26.2 miles.

I finished with a time of 5 hours, 10 minutes, which was just about right on my estimate of the 5 hour range. The weather was perfect - overcast and about 65 degrees for the first 4.5 hours, and sunny for the last little bit.

Looking back, I think the marathon was the easy part. The training and fundraising for LLS was the tough part. Thank you to all of you for your mental and financial support throughout this process. They say you hit the wall when running a marathon, when you feel like you just can't go on. I never felt that. I had the support of all of you, and about 10,000 Team in Training spectators along the course. (My singlet had my name across the front, so people I didn't even know were cheering me on. It was like being a celebrity.)

At mile 22, as I passed zoo 2, a U2 cover band, playing "Pride (In the Name of Love)" I had my marathon moment. At that point, I KNEW I was going to finish that race. Dehydration set in as tears began streaming down my face. ;) It is one of my favorite songs, and about 100 yards past their stage, I finally spotted Adam there waiting for me. Later I asked if he saw me coming, and he said, "No, all I saw was this crazy girl running toward me crying." He thought for a moment that I was in pain. Nope, just overwhelmed. He ran with me for about a mile, then dropped off to meet me at the finish.

Again, as I crossed the finish line, I lost it. Some of you that are receiving this email have run a marathon before so you know that feeling. I think the tears and hyperventilation as I crossed were a mixture of elation, relief, exhaustion, pride, and love for all of the people along the way who told me I could do this. Hopefully, in my finish line photo, it looks mostly like a smile, but I'll probably look like a blubbering idiot!

With my TNT friend, Diana, I finished this race, walking only through the water stops. If you would have asked me six months ago if I would ever run 26 miles at a time, I would have said "Are you freakin' crazy?" But now I've done it, AND sat in a bathtub full of ice water for 15 minutes - that just might have been the worst part!

Thanks again for all of your support, and especially to those of you who have helped me raise $3,700 to help fight blood and bone cancers. With this race, the Kansas Chapter of TNT has now raised more than $1 million.

Have an awesome day, okay?!

> Love,
> Jill

Thanks for reading. Thanks for your support.

If you have any great fundraising ideas, let me know!

Monday, January 19, 2009

A somewhat productive vacation day

Looking back on today, it doesn't seem like I got that much done, but considering I sorted through an entire year of receipts and paperwork for taxes, I guess I accomplished something. Luckily, I had kept most of that stuff in one place, so I just had to go through and sort into piles.

Pretty sure it still took me almost two hours to get it done, though that time did include paying bills and sorting some other mail and paperwork.

Did a bunch of laundry (that's easy - it does itself while you do other things!), and knitted on the sweater for about two hours, too.

Spent some quality time with trainer Bob (a 25-minute cardiomax workout) and 30 minutes of Wii Fit. Mitzi and I have signed up for the Seattle Marathon with Team in Training, so I can't be sloughing off on the exercise when the going gets tough. Having the goal of the race day in mind really helps me focus and commit to training, rather than just doing it to stay in shape.

Hopefully in about two days, I'll have my Team in Training fundraising website up and running, and I'll put a link here. If you're not familiar with Team in Training, it's one of the biggest fundraisers for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. When I ran the San Diego marathon in 2006, I did that with Team in Training Kansas Chapter in Wichita. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The training is tough, the fundraising is scary, but it's a huge motivator to do it for such a good cause.

My fundraising goal for Seattle is $4,100. It'll be a challenge to raise $500 more than I did for the last race. In the next few days, watch for the donate link so you can be a part of it.

•••

Must go get ready for bed. I'd like to read for a bit before I fall asleep. Still working on "Friday Night Knitting Club: Knit Two." I hear the Wichita book club is reading "Revolutionary Road" and it sounds like it must be a good one - everyone's tweeting about it. Might have to add it to my list.

Tomorrow is newspaper late night. Somehow, I've got to fit in a 3.5 mile run. Guess I'll try to do it down in the fitness center before I come home from school.

Onward and upward.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Reunited...and it feels so good

Kickball team extraordinaire El Guapo got together last night for our end of season kickball team party. It was REALLY the end of season party, since the season ended, um, back in October.

Most weeks when we played, it was freezing-ass cold outside, so we were layered up like Randy in "A Christmas Story."

Why does this matter at this juncture?

Because when we got to the party last night, I hardly recognized anyone. No one was wearing stocking caps, sweats, gloves, and four coats. People look really different when their heads aren't covered, you know?

It's almost like we're Kickball Superheroes. Mild-mannered young professionals who sometimes enjoy playing Rock Band by day, but come Thursday nights, we jump into the phone booth and miraculously change into uniforms for kicking some kickball butt.

I enjoyed some really good homebrew, and Adam and I both got to eat smoked ribs and brisket.

And, as with any party of twenty- and thirty-somethings in 2009, after dinner, the Rock Band was fired up. Seriously, what did we do with ourselves before that game was invented?

Monday, January 12, 2009

You better recognize

Tonight we went to the girls basketball game at school. At halftime, the boys team members honored a teacher of their choosing. One of the newspaper photographers, Tom, chose me. It was very thoughtful, and fun to be there with the team and the other teachers. I can't remember exactly what was said about me because it's a little nerve-wracking being in front of people, but I do remember that it started with "She always pushes me to be my best" and that my classroom is a fun environment where everyone gets along and he enjoys being on newspaper. I wish I could have a copy of what he wrote. I should have had Betsy or Mitzi or Adam take notes! (But, they all did take photos. I had my own paparazzi going on.)

Above is one of the photos that Adam took. It's pretty funny, I think. I look TINY next to Tom (he's standing to my right). I don't think of myself as particularly short, but when you stand me up next to the tallest boy on the basketball team, I look damn short.

The game was a nice way to end a Monday night. Hopefully it will inspire me to do my best the rest of the week.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Side Project - The View Across Town

Some of you might have already found "The View Across Town" since it's been hanging out in my blogroll for a few days now.

Back in December, Betsy said "I have an idea for us. A new blog project."

I said, "Okay." I'm pretty much up for anything.

She had seen a blog called 3191: A Year of Mornings, done by two friends who live across the country from each other. Each day, each friend posted an image. It's interesting to look at the blog, some days the images are eerily similar, even though they're posted from far-flung friends. It's also a similar concept to Jaime's blog, 366 images, except Jaime's doing that all on her own.

Betsy and I just live across town from each other, and she's interested in working on honing her photography skills and getting more creative with photos. I also am looking forward to this project because it will force me to shoot photos every day. It will be tough, since I spend my working hours with students whose faces I'm not allowed to post to God and everybody on the innernets. (Silly privacy laws...) But, it has been fun so far.

Sometimes, the photos come from events (like Adam and Jayne's birthday dinner), or shopping trips with friends, but I'm guessing most of my photos will be from the daily minutia. Like the thing that jump starts me each morning, or things around the homestead.

This will be a good exercise for me. Even when I was making my living as a photographer, my strength wasn't in making quiet little photos. I have always been much more able to capture moments of people DOING things. This project will be something different. I can already tell it will be frustrating on some days. All of my photos will be taken with my Canon Digital Elph, or my iPhone. Sometimes I see something that would make a great photo, if only I had a telephoto lens, or the ability to keep the shutter open for much longer than either of those cameras will allow.

But, I must live as I teach. That camera is just a box that lets light in. Don't get all worked up because you're not carrying the same equipment as the guy next to you. (We have to repeat this over and over at summer photo workshops when kids say "But how can I ever make good photos with THIS?)

I hope that you'll add The View Across Town to your blog roll, and check us out each day. As always, comments are welcomed and encouraged. We like to know that someone out there somewhere is interested in all this stuff we put on the web.

Thanks to Betsy for wanting to do this, and to Jaime for being my inspiration for the project.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Back to school, back to school

I know that waking up this morning and heading to school is not the most exciting time for me. It IS hard to go back after such a nice break.

That said, I'm looking forward to seeing the kiddoes and hearing what all they did on their nice long break.

It's going to be a hard week this week, because I have two new classes (classes that change at semester) AND we have a pretty big yearbook deadline.

We'll meet the deadline. We'll meet the deadline.

We won't be stressed. We won't be stressed.

The new kids will be great. The classes will run just fine.

Repeat after me.

I received a few nice notes from students on the last day of first semester. I'm guessing they had to write them as part of their final in another class, but they are still pretty cool, and it's nice to be appreciated!







It sounds cliché but that really is why we do it. I think of all the life skills these kids learn from their teachers and the school environment, and it is a huge deal. In yearbook and newspaper alone, they are learning so much about what they'll be doing in any work environment as they get older.

Here's to a great spring semester!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Will this sweater win me $1,000?

I don't know, but I'm going to find out. (I hope.)

I bought some yarn the day after Christmas for $1.99 a skein. It just so happens it is Vanna's Choice yarn. Yep, you heard that right - the queen of spokesmodels (or letter turners) has her own line of Lion Brand yarn.

Lion and Michael's are co-sponsoring a contest for anything knit with Vanna's Choice yarn. The deadline is Feb. 1, so I better get knitting. I was going to knit the sweater for Adam anyway, so this just gives me a deadline date to shoot for.

In that photo, you're looking at the back. The front has a single cable that runs vertically from the bottom ribbing up to the crewneck. It's not the most exciting pattern, but I had chosen it and begun to work it up, when Mitzi sent me a link about the contest. I figured that you probably had to have your own original pattern, but the rules state that you can submit something from a pattern book, which is what I'm doing. Entries will be judged on creativity and workmanship, and there are 32 prizes.

We'll see what happens.

Here's a photo of my finished duct tape bag from the other night. It makes a great tote for lots of things. I used it to take my knitting project to Betsy's yesterday. The only change I'd make is to use stronger staples next time. I'll have to put them on the shopping list.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Visit to Salt Lake City - Guest Blogger Adam

I'm not much of a "blogger" but here it goes. Here are some pictures from my trip to Utah. They are pretty self-explanatory, but if you really need a commentary, I guess I can take a few minutes out of my busy schedule to explain each picture.

Here are the three Chittum "Men." I use that term loosely as there is really only one man here.

While we didn't get to go skiing, we did tempt fate by hiking at approximately 6000ft during an avalanche warning.

I thought I was in good shape, but I fell behind Joshua almost from the start, struggling just to put one foot in front of another. It was brutal but definitely worth it.

The Ochre Mountain range, as seen from my parents' apartment. They claim the mountains are about 30 miles away. The Wasatch Mountains are about a mile directly behind me.

Is it wrong that this is one of my Dad's favourite beers? Only in Utah!

Amazing! A city about the same size as Kansas City that has a light rail system that people actually use!

Yes, we were able to go to the Jazz game.

Yes, the seats were really close.

Yes, we had a good time.

No, we didn't get Carlos Boozer's autograph.

Here we have a bar built into a trolley car. It only has like 4 stools in there so you and your friends have to go in shifts to drink.

Joshua is neither 37-54" tall nor "toilet trained." He was unable to play...


Mom and Dad are very proud of their daughter-in-law, who makes up for their son. They are showing off the gifts she made for them.



This is my attempt at "real" photography, during our Christmas Eve candle-light service.


Less we forget about the Mormons and how they pretty much control everything that goes on in Utah, we did find at least one person willing to stand up for what is right. Joshua is the one in the blue jacket and sunglasses.

So visit to Salt Lake City was all that I'd hoped it would be and more. I'm really glad that I got to see my Mom and Dad. -Guest blogger Adam

Thursday, January 1, 2009

You will be traveling and coming into a fortune

Well, I will be, according to my Chinese food fortune tonight. Let's hope that speaks the truth for what will be happening in 2009 for me, and for you.

The year 2008 was a great one for us - a great "new" house, continuing to have good jobs in the sketchy economy, incredible friends, half marathon, lots of knitting, and family and friendily time.

Before bed tonight, I'll tack that fortune to my vision board, and see if "The Secret" can make it come true for me this year. Maybe I'll earn a fortune from Google Ads? Who knows.

Here's to another year of blogging, tweeting, living, knitting, crafting, laughing and loving.

Happy New Year to all - hope it's a wonderful one!
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