Lose it!

While I was at Crop A Ganza a couple weeks ago, Kat told me about a new app she downloaded for her iPhone, called Lose It. It's a food and exercise tracker that you can use on the iPhone like a food journal.

I am not one to carry around a paper calendar, or notebook or journal with me everywhere I go, and that's one reason the iPhone is such a great tool for me. I always have my calendar and a way to make notes anywhere. So, I might actually get into this Lose It app.

Since I was sick last week, I didn't exercise AT ALL. Starting to feel a bit doughy around the edges. I've never been someone who has major weight issues - I'd just like for my clothes to not be tight...

And, since I'm training for a marathon, I'm not going to be cutting major calories any time soon - need some of that food for fuel.

But, I like Lose It because you can track what you eat and drink, and you can add whatever exercise you do, and it lets you know how many calories you consumed, and what you have left in your budget for the day. You set a goal weight/date, and it gives you options like "I want to lose a pound a week" or "1/2 pound a week" or "maintain" etc.

There are a lot of brand-name supermarket foods and restaurant foods that you can choose from, with calorie information already entered, or you can enter your own foods. Since Adam cooks at home a lot, I'm entering information based off the Nutrition Facts label, and the app stores the info, so I'll always have those to choose from in the future.

Now, obviously, it's at best, a guesstimate of caloric content, etc., but it's still pretty motivating to look and see how many calories you have left for the day, or the fact that running 3.5 miles means I've added 300 calories back IN to my budget. It does make me see how much of a difference exercise can make in your daily life.

I like that I can pick and choose from foods already entered, and that I'm not having to do this with pencil and paper. I've been using it for just about a week now. Check back with me in a few months to see if I've stuck with it!

And, no, no one from Lose It paid me to say anything about their app, I promise!

•••

I did managed to get a run in this afternoon. I was dreading it since I haven't worked out for a week, but it felt really good. Mitzi came over and we ran around the neighborhood together. So, I feel like I'm back to making progress on the marathon training front.

In fundraising news, I've raised almost $1,900 so far! Just got donations today from Terri Wenzel, Thane Chastain and the Barbieri family! We are planning a silent auction to raise money, so if you know of anyone who would be willing to donate items, pass their names along to me...


Back to Biggest Loser.

The Books page

I've been reading a lot more lately than I usually do during school. I got started right before Christmas break when Adam brought home a book from the library for me. Since he was being so thoughtful, I figured I better make the time and effort to read it, especially since it was vacation time.

So, I read "In the Land of No Right Angles."
Then, I read "Friday Night Knitting Club: Knit Two."

I was excited about FNKC, because I had really liked the first one. Granted, we were still living in the pink house in Wichita when I read it, so I probably don't remember it that well. But, it was given to me by a wonderful former student, and I truly enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, the second one didn't live up to my opinion of the first. I feel like it was a little bit forced. Things just seemed to work out so magically and easily, and the language felt a little stilted to me. It's too bad, since I was looking forward to reading it, and it was given to me by my good friend Kat. (It's like I feel guilty if I don't like a book someone has taken time to choose for me. But it's not their faults - they didn't write the books!)

Then, I started to read "A Spot of Bother" by Mark Haddon. Again, I had really enjoyed his earlier book, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time."

But I couldn't get past page 13 of this one. It was like pulling teeth. I don't usually give up on books. It feels like losing.

So, now I've moved on to "Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair" by Laurie Perry. She's one of the bloggers I check regularly over at Crazy Aunt Purl, so I'm thinking I'll enjoy her book, even though I'm only ONE of the things she mentions in the title.

PLEASE GOD, I HOPE EVERYONE CHOSE "Covered in Cat Hair" as the one I am. 'Cause that's the one that fits.

Started it last night at bedtime, and I can already tell it's probably going to keep me up later than I should be staying up.

In fact, I need to get off this darn computer and get ready for bed so I can read a little bit.


•••

TNT Update: Went to the official Kick-Off tonight. You should have seen our team - there's a ton of people on it! I've been psyched since I decided to do this again, but the Kick-Off made it even more clear what I'm about to undertake again. To see so many people with such a passion for doing good and helping others is pretty damn cool.

I'll have to run six miles on the treadmill this weekend at the Park City Best Western since I'll be at Crop A Ganza. I think Mitzi is a little upset that she has to do the first group training on her own. I'll be sad that I'm missing the group run, but happy to be a CAG.

Don't forget to donate here.

The most productive Sunday in a long time

Man, we did a lot today. Nothing huge (except lunch with Denise, Jaime, Lexi and Denise's sister Annie), but lots of little stuff.

I started the day making French toast for breakfast. It's sort of my weekend morning thing. If I'm not getting up early to go run, and I have some time, I'll make French toast if we have eggs. Today's bread wasn't stale yet, though, so it wasn't my greatest FT effort.

After breakfast, Adam and I speed-cleaned the house. I knew that Jaime and Denise would want to see the place and all the work we've done, so we picked up and vacuumed and all that good stuff. We're definitely keeping a little bit cleaner house these days, because I feel like it took less time to do the somebody's-coming-over-hurry-up-and-clean bit.

I love having the house clean, but I hate housework. So, we're not really great at it, unless we have to be. Especially during the school year. The last thing I want to do after school or on weekends is clean!

I mean, sheesh.

We had a great visit with the Wichita crew. It's been way too long since I've seen them.

After lunch, I headed over to Mom's, dropped off the rent, then went and paid the insurance bill, then went to the car wash. My car actually looks like a black car again, not some weird dusty, salty grey color any more! And, I didn't even have to wait in line.

We've been (and still are) watching the Super Bowl. While all of that has been going on, I got my snail mail letter written for Team in Training. The letter is written, the donor form ready, the envelopes addressed. I did have to make an Office Depot run for toner. Nice that my printer was free, but I paid almost $40 for toner cartridges today. Boo. Good news, though, is that I'm up to $295 in donations. If you look at my website you can't really tell that yet, since a couple of the donations were cash ones, but they'll be on there soon. Don't be left out - donate today! (A little public service announcement...)

Hopefully, I can stop tomorrow after school and get copies made, so that we can have the letters ready to send out by Tuesday or Wednesday. Last night, via Twitter, I asked Ashton Kutcher to donate to the cause. Wonder if he will. He and Demi are busy being celebs at the Super Bowl this weekend, so I might have to retweet that some other time...What's the worst that could happen? I don't get a donation from him. Figured it was worth a shot!

After the letter extravaganza, I went through six month worth of photos on my laptop, to pick out new ones I want for Crop A Ganza. I'll upload those tomorrow so I can pick them up Wednedsay on my way home from work. I love being able to upload digital photos to the photo center - so freakin' convenient.

I even knit a few rows on a pair of socks I'm working on for Adam. Can't work on the sweater while watching football. I'm working on the sleeves right now, and there's too much counting and keeping track of stuff involved.

Whoop - time out - Steelers just won.

I'm only at school four days this week. Taking a personal day Friday so I can get to Wichita early for Crop A Ganza. Looking forward to it!

After all this post-game junk is over, I'm watching "The Office" then I'm off to bed. It's a school night after all.

Previously Unreleased - 2008 Photos

These photos are a selection of my iPhoto library since the Great Laptop Crash of August 2008. I wasn't as religious with the blogging as I wanted to be, so a lot of these photos should have shown up throughout the year, but didn't.

Our aluminum tree.

Thanksgiving Break. (Adam pretty much does this every weekend morning, though.)

Sushi lunch in St. Louis

St. Mary's Mountain and Church, Altus, Ark. Thanksgiving Day

Helping out the neighborhood squirrel population

Adam and I breaking in Rock Band at Mom and Dad's

Adam playing the drums later that night at our house
(for some reason, I love the look on his face)

Waterfire on the Plaza.

Checking progress on a knit in the van on the way to Arkansas.

Kyle modeling (?) his new hat knitted by his mama

The line when we went to vote after school one day

My Thanksgiving dinner at St. Mary's

Kasie wins a pooping reindeer during Christmas bingo

Visit from L means a trip to the park

Jayne was all smiles, hopped up on pain meds after surgery

Why do cats always pick the clean laundry?

How'd you get up there?

Emma's lion

First big snow of the season

Friday night at Blanc Burger

The "other" cat in our lives, Betty

This is what happens when you play too much Rock Band

I love the look on Lauryn's face in this photo

Can't go wrong with a tiny shopping cart.

This post might serve as a bit of a preview for a project Betsy had an idea for. We're working to get it off the ground. I'll keep you posted on that.

All of these photos were taken either with the iPhone, or my Canon Digital Elph. Looks like the blog might be more interesting if I posted these THROUGHOUT the year, eh?

Happy New Year's Eve, everybody! Have fun and be safe.

See you in 2009.

A purty girl dancin' to jug band music and a mess o' mama's barbeque

I've seen two references to this in the last couple of days, so I thought it must be a sign that I need tor write about it. Kat said she thinks "Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas" is a depressing Jim Henson movie, but it's one of my all-time favorites. I could watch it (and "A Christmas Story") over and over each year.

I haven't seen Emmet Otter's all the way through in a long time (don't have it on DVD), but I remember watching it with my dad when I was a kid. Seems like Dad was always willing to take me to Muppets movies or sit through them with me when I was little. I can still sing a lot of the songs from Emmett's.

One of my Facebook friends posted a seven-minute blooper reel from the movie, and it's pretty funny. The crazy thing is that the boards shown in the clip say March of 1977. I had no idea the movie was that old. That's older than I am!

What struck me as I watched it was how lifelike the Muppets truly are, even in bloopers, and even as I, Jill the 31-year-old, watch them. Henson truly was a master, and to this day, I love the Muppets. "Fraggle Rock" was my getting-ready-for-school show every morning back in the day. I'd turn it on HBO, and sing along with the theme song, and watch Wembley, Gobo, Red (loved her!), Boober, Doc, the Trash Heap, the whole she-bang.

I want to know - is this a result of my age? Was I just a part of the right generation, the one that got to watch the Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock, along with Sesame Street? I'm sure I watched a lot of Sesame Street when I was a kid, but I just don't remember it as fondly as I do the others.

Here's a little piece of the Jug Band. If you haven't seen it, you should add it to your Christmas movies list. And, all you parents out there, watch it with your munchkins!

Quick trip down and back

Last weekend I had to go to the KSPA winter meeting in Wichita. I'm happy to attend the meeting, because I get to see my journalism teacher friends that I don't see very often.

I'm also happy to go because I get to visit my Wichita family. Adam and I drove down Friday night after school. We didn't get to Derby until about 8:30, but we did get to see Kyle and Noah just before bedtime. Of course we were glad to see them, but right before bedtime probably isn't the best time to visit a 3-year-old...

We need to learn to time that better, so we don't get the K-Man all riled up before he's supposed to be going to bed.

After the meeting on Saturday morning, Amy dropped me off at Jeff and Kat's so I could visit with them for a little while, too. I really need three-day weekends to go to Wichita, so we can actually see everyone we want to visit.

After we sat inside and visited for a bit, Jeff headed outside to get some yardwork done, and we went out to provide moral support and take Haley for a walk. L decided she needed a little ride on the mower.

I was already looking forward to Christmas break, but now I'm really anxious for it. The weekend trip provided just a taste of hanging with friends, and I'll have some more time to do so during the holiday. Maybe Amy and I can actually get some knitting time...

Even though we don't get a lot of time together, it's still all quality time. I'm so glad that even though we don't live in Wichita anymore, we are able to stay friends with our tribe.

Still here

We got back from Arkansas about 8 p.m. yesterday. Adam and Joshua were out at a Grateful Dead tribute show (yuck - the only thing worse than listening to the Dead play one song for 50 minutes is listening to a fake band do it!), so I settled in and watched a few TV shows from the DVR.

Along the way, I worked some more on the knitted Christmas extravaganza. Three gifts are done, much more to go. Thank God for Wool-Ease thick and quick yarn. It might not be the most expensive or boutique yarn, but it knits up quickly, feels good and will keep the recipients warm on the coldest of days.

I decided to stay out of the Black Friday craziness this year. Since we've got no kids to shop for, there's no reason for us to get out for great deals on toys. Adam did go out early this morning for some thing we need. Home Depot and Kohl's got our money this morning. Mom went to a few places. She called to see if I wanted to go, but I wasn't up for it. I would have gone along for the ride, but I was worried about how long we'd be out, and I wanted to keep working on my term paper.

I rolled out of bed at about 8 and went to work. I'm up to nine pages now, and I'm confident that I'll get it done by deadline. Some people might say "Why don't you just sit down and finish it, so it's not hanging over your head?" Trust me, I would if I could. After a few hours of work on it, though, the words start to swim on the screen, and I'm afraid I'm repeating myself. I think it's better to break it up into small chunks.

That's pretty much where I've been the last week - if you've been looking for blog updates and haven't seen them. Much too busy to do much more that tweet about what I'm doing.

Amy and her family are in town, so we're going out to lunch and to do some knitting this afternoon. It'll be good to see her - it's been a long time. I think I'll take the rest of today off from the paper. We want to get out our Christmas decorations and put that stuff up. I feel like if we don't do it this weekend, we won't do it at all!

So much to do, so little time.

Twitterlicious

I've gone to the dark side. I'm now officially tweeting, along with the Wichita contingent, on Twitter.

I didn't blog from St. Louis since the Internet wasn't readily available, but I was tweeting pretty consistently. Twitter has been called "micro-blogging." That's what it's like for me. I have to figure out how to say what I want to say in less than 140 characters.

You'll notice that there is a feed from my Twitter site on the right side of my blog. So, if you feel like you've gone too long between fixes of Chittum blogs, chances are you can read the news down there. If I don't have the time or inclination to write a full-blown blog, I just might post a tweet.

Betsy says lots of Etsyians are using Twitter as a marketing tool, but I don't want to be a Twitter spammer. Would that be a Spitter?

I'm working on Christmas presents, getting caught up on grading, and keeping my head above water for the next week, until Thanksgiving break. Almost. There.

•••

Here's a funny from my J1 class today.

We are studying editorial cartoons, and the meaning and symbolism behind them. One of the students chose a cartoon about Obama's inaugural ball. In the cartoon, Obama staffers are saying they have everything they need for the soiree, but they need to know what to feed the "multitudes." The other guy answers back, "He said all he'd need is five loaves and two fish."

So, the kids starting discussing the Biblical allusion in the cartoon, and the fact that some people believe that Barack is the second coming. Some kids got it right away, some didn't. So, one girl explained it for everyone, and it was so cute - she said:

"You know, there's that one scene in the Bible where Barack Obama says he can..."

It was just a slip, but we all got a good laugh out of it. If there was a quote wall for J1 like there is for newspaper, that one'd be in the hall of fame.

TAG - I'm it.

I've been tagged in a game of random-blog-tagging that's making the rounds of the Wichita blogging nation. This is my 457th post, and it's the first time I've ever been tagged in a game like this.

I was tagged by Lori, a cool chick that I miss working with!

Here are the rules:

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Post the rules on your blog.
• Write 6 random things about yourself.
• Tag 6-ish people at the end of your post.
• Let each person know he/she has been tagged.
• Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

1. As a child, I was incredibly lucky. I won the most random contests. Unfortunately, this has not translated into mega millions lottery winnings in my adult life. Sometime around second grade, I won a contest on KFKF radio to be an honorary ball girl at the Harlem Globetrotters basketball game at Kemper Arena. I have an autographed basketball from the team, circa the Curly Neal and Sweet Lou days. I got to sit on the bench with the team. I don't remember much about it. I also won a trip to Disney World when I was in fifth grade - all expenses paid, for the whole family. And, any time there was a door prize drawing, I won it. Not so much anymore. We have door prize drawings at our faculty meetings every month and I haven't won one in a year and a half.

2. Even though we've totally remodeled my grandparents' house, so much so that it looks like a completely different house, I still sometimes go where things were in "their house." For example, this morning, I needed to throw something in the trash, and I went to do it under the sink. Our trash can is in the corner, but it was always under the sink when Grandma and Grandpa lived here. Also, I always go to the old silverware drawer, and open it, before I remember that we keep our silverware in another drawer. Old habits die hard.

3. In high school, I was named 1995 Kansas High School Journalist of the Year, and I got second place at the national level. I could have gone to San Francisco to accept my award at the national convention, but I didn't. I was stage managing the spring play, and it was the same week. Couldn't miss it and all the rehearsals. Denise was also a Kansas JOY, and I belive she, too, took 2nd at nationals.

4. I'm a Mac, and I have been since 1991. Trudging home (on the school bus) with a Mac Classic and the database list of the entire student body of Shawnee Mission North High School, sitting at my parents' kitchen table, working on mugs pages and index pages, I forged an indelible bond with the Macintosh. Today, Adam and I own: one MacBook, one old iMac, one U2 iPod, one old white iPod Shuffle, a new clip version iPod Shuffle, an iPod Nano and an iPhone. We have officially been assimilated. I've been through two hard-drive crashes (one on the laptop, one on the desktop) and I'm still loyal.

5. I'm a little preoccupied with state football playoffs right now. BV is steaming toward the championship game, as is Derby. One of my former students plays football for Derby right now (he's a senior), and one of my current newspaper students plays on our team. I might have to ask my mom to sew me a long-sleeve T-shirt that is a mix of the two schools' colors if they meet in the championship. Each team only has to win one more game to set up a face off.

6. Pauly Shore kissed me in an elevator once, and I have the picture to prove it. One day at school, one of my students asked me "Is that your husband?" when she saw the photo.

I tag:
Amy
Cary
Kim
Betsy
Mitzi
Candice

You're it. Let's see what you guys can come up with...

And I ran, I ran so far away - Kansas City Half-Marathon

Dark and early Saturday morning, Mitzi, Stacey and I headed down to Crown Center for the Waddell and Reed KC Half-Marathon. It was about 42 degrees when we left the house, so we were all layered up.

The race started at 7, and it was still dark and pretty darn cold. As soon as the sun came up, it warmed up a tiny bit, but was still chilly.

Stacey was the first of us to cross the finish line, at around 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Adam and the kids waited near the finish line to see us as we came around the last corner. There was quite a crowd.


The photo below shows some Randy Randoms coming around the corner. Adam tried to get a photo of me, but he had forgotten our camera, so he was using Eugene's, and it shut itself off right as I came around the corner.

That's fine by me, because they'll be professional photos online in a few days, but Adam was pretty upset that the camera pooped out.

There's Stacey coming around the corner. I was 10 minutes behind her. I was shooting for a finish at 2 hours and 30 minutes, but I finished at 2 hours and 20 minutes. I ran with Mitzi until about mile six, and then I went on ahead, to see how I could do. The route was great - scenic, weather was perfect, and I felt good as I kept up a pretty good pace for me.

When I got home, I uploaded my data to Nikeplus.com, and it said that one of my last miles was 8:09. That's really fast for me. Usually, on a long race, I'm somewhere between 10 and 11 minute miles.

Mitzi was 10 minutes behind me, looking strong as she finished. My legs are a little sore today, but not as bad as the day after I ran the full marathon. The worst part of the race was AFTER the finish line. I crossed the line, had to find an open spot to get the chip cut off my shoe, and then came to a dead stop in a giant crowd of runners who were waiting for food. The crowd wasn't moving at all. I had to get out of the mess, so I found an opening in the railing and just walked back up to where Adam and Eugene and the kids were. My belly was saying "I'm hungry" but my legs were saying "If you stand still, we start cramping, so keep moving."

Logistically, the end of the race wasn't set up very well. Too much of a bottleneck. I won't let that spoil the day, though, because the race itself was one of my best running experiences.

So glad I did it.

Early Halloween Fun

Since we had the Jenkins-Lardi clan in town, we decided to go ahead and carve pumpkins for Halloween. It was a nice relaxing activity after a day that started pretty early.


Here are a few photos of our finished products:

That's Eugene's on the left, and Adam's on the right.

We had a couple of stencil and pumpkin-carving tool kits, so it was a little more highbrow than the pumpkin carving days of yore, when we just stuck sharp knives in the pumpkins and hoped for the best.

Mine is on the left (Adam said it looks like it's high), Genevieve's in the middle, and Stacey's is on the right.

He's a little intense, eh?

Josh and Stacey do their thing.

Eug gets ready to work on his. He used a really cool stencil of a skeleton face.

Once we got them all fixed up, we took them outside for a test light - they all looked great. Thankfully, no neighborhood houligans came along long last night and smashed them. They might be moldy before Oct. 31 rolls around, but we'll see.

It's Half-Marathon Week

Saturday morning we're running the half. Sunday Mitzi and I ran 10 miles, and I didn't feel like I was dying at the end. It makes me think back to when I trained for the marathon in 2006.

When we got up around 8 or 9 miles back then, I seriously thought I would die from the running. Not so much anymore. Yes, 10 was hard, and it took us a while, but we did it, and I didn't feel like I was dying at the end. The weather was perfect too. Please - everyone pray that Saturday morning will be sunny and about 65 degrees.

I think on Saturday morning, part of me will feel like I'm missing out by not running the full. I'll want to be with all the "cool" kids who are doing it. (Of course, this feeling will go away around mile 11 when I realize I'm only 2 miles from finishing!).

We're going to check out the Expo and pick up our packets on Thursday night. I'm getting pretty excited - I'm ready to do it.

If I've been a little neglectful of the blog lately, running is a big part of that, and school is really keeping me busy. I'm taking a master's class, in addition to my regular teaching duties. Kat and L visited this weekend. I've got photos to post, but that will have to wait til the end of this week, I'm guessing.

We had our first yearbook worknight of the year tonight. Almost everyone showed up. The only ones who weren't there were the ones who had games tonight. We've got a great crew this year - lots of really good sophomores who I think will become dedicated yearbook nerds by the time they're seniors. And three boys this year instead of one! We've tripled the male enrollment! Yearbook always seems to attract the female crowd more than the males, but newspaper stays fairly even.

We'll be 40 pages ahead by the first deadline - sending all the senior ads in at once. It'll be nice to have that cushion built in.

Visit from the little people, take 1

Yes, these photos are from Labor Day weekend, so I probably should have posted them before now, but as my friend Kat is now fond of saying: "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."

There you go.

Stacey brought Josh and Genevieve up for the weekend since it was a three-dayer. They arrived on Saturday, and got to go to Science City. Then, we pretty much chilled. We visited two of the three parks that are within five blocks of our house.

Pretty sure they liked the parks, but I'm guessing the walking-to-the-park part wasn't a huge hit. When we left the house Sunday morning, it was cool and cloudy, and within the hour we were at the playground, the sun came out and clouds burned off, so it was pretty warm on the walk home.

We had to do popsicles outside. No melty-melty on the new floors!


Saturday night we took Stacey and the kids to the T-Bones game. That's the first ball game I've attended in KC in a long time that actually had decent attendance. The park was almost full. We got really lucky - the weather was amazing that night.

We only made it through about four innings. I guess the whole "raised by Canadians" thing means Josh is a little more into hockey than baseball. He was pretty non-plussed by the whole deal, except for the dollar dogs and cotton candy!

(I'm sure at this point, Stacey would appreciate it if I include a disclaimer: Though it seems like her kids eat sugary junk all the time if you look at these photos, they so do not!)

I'm so glad they were able to come up here - it's nice to be able to spend time with friends we don't get to see anymore, and have it still feel the same way it always did, when we saw them every Friday night, practically.

•••

Look for Visit from the little people, take 2, in the coming weeks. Allegedly, we'll have an Amy/Noah visit sometime soon, and Kat and L will be making an appearance in October...

Foiled by the weather, again?

See: this.

And this.

No, it wasn't a snow day that kept us from working on Friday. But it was the weather.

I was all set to stay until about 5:30, get my desk cleaned off, get some grading done, get my ducks in a row for Monday. The newspaper editor was going over a few last minute pieces, since we ship on Tuesday afternoon.

About 4:30, we heard the ominous words, "Students and staff still in the building..." I thought it would be a warning that the fire alarms were being tested, and not to worry about the alarms. Nope, it was a tornado warning, so we all had to go to the basement locker rooms.

I had no idea the weather was that bad. I have no windows in my room, so once 7:45 a.m. hits, I'm clueless as to weather patterns until I leave in the evening. All I knew what that I was supposed to wait for a call from Adam, who would be picking me up a little after 5 p.m.

I don't know if you've been in any basement locker rooms lately, but the fact that they make such great tornado shelters means there is not one tiny bit of cellular service. I waited down there for a while, and finally went upstairs to call. It was crazy - the volleyball team, the freshman and sophomore football players, coaches, a few other teachers still crazy enough to be there at 5 on a Friday, and the administrators. After about 20 minutes, parents started to trickle in to pick up their kids. That was the only way students got to leave - they had to have a parent pick them up, since we're responsible for their well-being while at school.

My room and computer lab is a tornado shelter - any time we have a drill, a few classes come in to wait it out with my students. I guess it only works that way, though, when the building is full, since you can't fit 1,500 people in the locker rooms. (And you wouldn't want to - they're stinky enough already!)

The other teachers were ribbing me a little bit because as I left my room, I grabbed my keys, water bottle, and one of our point and shoot digital cameras. I knew there'd either be yearbook pictures to be made, or news photos to be made if the weather got really bad.

"Always the journalist!" They said.

As the newspaper editor and I were standing around all the other kids in the locker room, we were talking about how that event would be a perfect candidate for a news update on our website that we hope will be live by the end of the week.

Our first league football game of the season was also cancelled last night - rescheduled for 11 a.m. today. It's still a constant rain outside, so I wonder if it'll get pushed off again.

Adam and I grabbed some dinner and went over to eat with Dad. There's a basement there, but not at our house. This is good and bad - no great shelter, but like Adam said last night, at least we don't have to worry about our basement flooding. I looked at the photos on Kansas.com today, and I can't believe all the water down there. I know that our little house in College Hill wouldn't necessarily be UNDER water, but I'm sure there's some water in the basement right now.

Here's to all my friends in Doodah - I hope you're all dry, and okay, and Turn Around, Don't Drown!

She's trying, she's really trying

A note from my friend Amy, over at Pens and Needles:

Anyone who has kindly linked to my blog from theirs, could you please change your links to this address: http://web.me.com/adevault

or, try this link. Then, bookmark it!

There can me no "www" and there can be no ".mac" and there can be no "my blog."

The .mac part is because of the switch to MobileMe, and the my blog part is because I finally figured out why when someone RSSed to my blog, it listed it as "My Blog" and not "Pens & Needles." But when I changed that name, it changed the address. So sorry for the trouble.

Amy

•••

So let's see what she's been up to (besides pulling her hair out over the MobileMe change.

What's new with the Chittums?

The Repubs might have postponed/altered events at their shindig earlier this week because of the storm, but not the Chittums.

We just returned from a 4-mile run in a steady rain. According to all the meteorologists, even here in KC we're feeling the after-effects of Gustav, so I'll assume they're right and that's what we ran through tonight.

By the time we got back, our clothes were soaked and my hair was dripping, but the cool rain was a nice change from the 90-degree temps plus humidity that Stacey and I ran through Monday morning.

Friday and Saturday of Labor Day weekend, we finally got completely out of and cleaned out the ol' Dunes apartment. What does that mean?

No more Spitness Center.
No more stupid neighbors staying up until 3 a.m. right outside our door.
No more landscapers cutting the grass at 7 a.m. on summer weekdays.
No more living in a place that smells like a smoking hotel room.

We're pretty satisfied with that particular turn of events. It's nice to be a one-household family again. You'd think that would mean we got a lot done here over the long weekend. Hmmm, not really. We took it easy with some visitors instead.

I've got some photos to post, but I'm lazy and still haven't reloaded Photoshop on my laptop since it crashed. I'll get to those, probably this weekend.

Stacey brought the kids up and we went to the T-Bones game Saturday night. It was beautiful! The weather was perfect, the ballpark was nice, and there was a huge crowd! It's what minor league baseball could be in Wichita if people would get off their butts and go to games once in a while. It was also dollar night, so we enjoyed some dollar dogs, dollar waters and dollar peanuts.

Definitely had to partake in some dollar Tums when we got home.

With the kids, we played some Wii, took them to play at both of our neighborhood parks, and did a little shopping. It was a good weekend all around. Once they were tucked safely in the car headed back to Doodah, we did some yardwork.

Adam cut the grass, and I worked to clear out our tomato patch. So far this year, I've harvested a bunch of chocolate cherry tomatoes (an heirloom variety that are great snacks), but no regular tomatoes. Maybe our last stab at cleaning and restaking the plants will yield a few fruit before the end of the summer.

(I have photos of those too, guess you'll just have to wait!)

I think that's enough random junk for now. Go check out Betsy's blog to see the project she worked on over the weekend.

Kickball double-header tomorrow night. I'm sure they'll be a few good stories out of that, considering last week, I showed up for my first game with the new team and surprise! There was TJ, Amy's husband, playing on the same team! And, since our team is called El Guapo, we had some pretty fly Mexican music playing the whole game. I think I could probably start a whole new blog just about kickball stuff if I really put my mind to it!

Bedtime.

Two worlds collide

Today Trina and Bonnie stopped in to see me, since Bonnie had to bring Trina up to Lawrence. It was great timing, because they got to school during my supervision/editor's hour, when I only have two students in my room. We had lots of time to talk while I cut up contact forms for Back To School Night tonight.

Trina actually stopped by once before, so she has been to the new digs. She even did a bunch of lab aide work for me (made a bulletin board, made some drawer labels, stuff like that). Today, we just talked.

Hopefully next time they're in town, it'll be on a weekend, or during the evening, so we can go out to dinner or something, and have more time together. These two were two of the three editors from my final year at Derby, and two of the three who went to the Nashville convention with Amy and I. Bonnie, Trina and Sami are a huge part of my early advising days. If I can have kids like them every year, my job will be cake!

That, and, oh yeah, they were a part of the best practical joke I've ever been partly responsible for. When it's not the end of the fourth day of school, the end of Back To School night, I'll see if I can dig back through the blog and find the post about that joke. Or, maybe one of them would like to tell the story?

I'll probably regret this, but...

Does this guy look familiar?


I can do this because I no longer live in the same town, so I know he won't drive to my house to kick my ass for doing this.


And in the category of "It's A Small World After All" here is a photo of Betsy, a student in the Yearbook section of camp, circa 1998. If you look in the bottom right corner, you'll see that her instructor for the week was my high school journalism adviser, Becky Lucas.

Betsy looks EXACTLY THE SAME to me. Some people just age well, I guess. Maybe Betsy and I were destined to become friends eventually.

We're done with the Kedzie Krier, so it's off for a walk to Aggieville for some ice cream as their reward. It's not as hot today as it has been the last few days, so I don't think we lose any students to heat stroke on the walk down.

REUNITED!

Well, after 11 months apart, Gracie is part of the family again. (I hope no Dunes people read this blog, since we're not paying their exhorbitant pet rent for the next three weeks. )

As always with her, she returned on her own terms, and on her own time schedule. I am not a dog person at all, but the pickup of Gracie made me wish she was a dog for just a few minutes. When you say "Come here, puppy!" dogs will usually do that.

Traumatized cats will not. She had holed herself up in between the basement floor joists and the underside of the bathtub of the house where she was staying. I brought the secret weapon - a can of tuna. She was so freaked out that even the kitty crack didn't get her out of the basement.

So, instead of bringing her home Wednesday night, I had to drive back to Derby from Newton, and wait to get a phone call that she had come out of her hidey hole so I could go back and pick her up. Yes, I was a little pissed, but, the good news is - I actually got to go to book club since it was the same night.

Of course, I hadn't brought any clothes or anything for an overnight stay, so I had to run by Target and get a clean shirt, toothbrush, etc.

Even though there's a lot of bad news swirling around the ol' Eagle these days, book club was as boisterous as ever. Jaime and Bonnie even do-see-do'ed for a few minutes. Amy hosted, and she had a great turnout, so I got to see so many people and get caught up. Sounds like the book was a bust, so I'm glad I didn't read it. I've got to get back on the e-mailing list though, so I can keep up with what the club is reading.

Of course, the one book club I actually get to come to, Kat didn't make it. So, I didn't get to see her.

•••

We're leaving this afternoon for a weekend campout/float trip. TheChittumFiles will be shuttered for a couple of days. Lack of wi-fi in Noel, Mo., and lack of a waterproof laptop will keep me from constant updates. I won't be taking the camera in the canoe (last time Dad and I canoed, we totally wiped out, so I don't trust electronics in the canoes!), but I'll have plenty of photos from the campsite, I'm sure.

•••

Camping trip also means that we'll be able to take a little break from the Extreme Home Makeover. When we come back, Monday we paint. Everything is primed and ready. They'll definitely be some new photos when all that color is added.

Work in progress

Despite the break for hot-dog dressing, work continues at the house. Slowly but surely, we're making progress.

Here's the laundry room. We've got to paint the trim white, and the doors white. On Monday, Nebraska Furniture Mart will be delivering our new washer-dryer. I think the laundry room will be the first room in the house to be completely finished.


Here's a couple of photos of the kitchen, now that the walls have been skim-coated. They're pretty much ready to paint at this point. We're still trying to decide on a color.

You might remember photos of the walls after we scraped the wall paper. If you remember those, you can definitely see progress in the above photo.

Above is the back bedroom. It's now painted the same color as the laundry room, I just didn't shoot a photo while it was still light enough outside to take advantage of the window light. You'll have to wait for this weekend for the latest photos of that room.

Tonight, we taped all the windows in the front room, so it's ready for Adam to prime tomorrow, while I'm off boot-camping and getting the car fixed and doing a couple of school-related errands. Oh yeah, I'm also getting my eyes checked by the sister of the Best Blogger Ever!

Our tiniest visitor so far popped in for a minute this weekend. Noah and his mommy stopped in to have a look around on Sunday afternoon. Darn that Noah - we didn't get ANY work out of him! ;-)

Just kidding! We were so happy to see them both.