Should I or no...

Yes, I let the DVR record Grey's last night. I thought at the end of last season I wouldn't start watching it again because I was FED UP.

I'm going to watch the season premiere tonight, since I'm home without anything else to do, but I need to decide whether or not I'll stick it out for another season.

I don't think I can take Meredith and Derek's crap any more. I'm over it.

Plus, I love "My Name is Earl" and I noticed that it didn't record last night because I had too many shows set.

We're going to Manhattan for the KSU game again tomorrow. This will be a weekend from hell. I've got to write two papers for my grad school class, and grade a BUNCH of stuff.

I think I'll try to work on the papers on the way to the game. Mom and Dad are driving, so that'll be two hours of time I COULD spend on work. The grading will have to wait until Sunday. Bets and Mitzi and I will be having the second annual (okay, the first was just last week) PANERA GRADEFEST '08 on Sunday. You might think we wouldn't get anything done when we're all three there together, but we get a lot more done there than we do when we're alone at our respective houses. No TV to distract, no random housework to distract.

It's like it makes you want to get in, get the grading done, get out.

I'm going to watch Grey's now - don't want to be up all night long.

PS - Can't believe I almost forgot...We got a new piece of Wii equipment...be on the lookout for a possible Wii Movie post part two in the next week or so!

I thought these were something you DIDN'T want!

As a high-school teacher, muffin tops are something I see on an all-too-frequent basis. I'm guessing that eating THESE Muffin Tops probably causes THOSE muffin tops.

Consumers must have realized it as well, since the cereal is on sale for 75 cents at Big Lots.

Betsy and Mitzi and I went to Big Lots last weekend, because Bets had a crafting 911 - she needed more red or purple beads for her college gameday earrings. We were working on some craft projects and we didn't want to stop right in the middle.

Thank God the new house is just a two-minute drive to Big Lots...You can't just run in and out of Big Lots, so of course we looked around at all the big lots. I should have kept my camera out the whole time. I think I could've written a story using photos from the store.

Hmmmmm. Maybe if I get desperate for blog content one of these days, I'll try that.

File this under: Friggin' idiot (Ike MRE fraud)

Someone on the J Teacher listserv sent this story by e-mail to us today:

Baytown teacher stocks up on free MREs, stirs up cyberworld. Here's an excerpt:

Michelle Homer / KHOU.com

Jacki Steinhauer is one of the lucky ones. She has no damage at her Deer Park home, she has power and she doesn't have to work since her school is closed.

"Life is great after a hurricane when nothing really happened to your house!" Steinhauer says in her blog, "The Secret Life of an Uninteresting Teacher."

The most recent entries brag about all of the free MREs she's been eating -- MREs that are meant for hurricane victims who have no food because they have no power. Some of those victims have no homes.

The teacher has it down to a science, according to her blog: "I got Schlotsky's today for lunch and went again to the courthouse in Baytown to get my water, ice, and food. This time, there were different meals, but hopefully as good as the others. Then, i came home, emptied my trunk and then headed off for the Deer Park POD (Point of Delivery)."

"I think that I am falling in love with MREs. They are pretty darn good. I went around 5:30 to go get more MREs and actually got another box of real MREs, water, and ice," Steinhauer wrote on Wednesday. "Right now, I have five cases of water, two 20 pound bags of ice, four 10 pound bags of ice, and four boxes of MREs."

While stocking her pantry and frig with taxpayer-funded freebies, Steinhauer has become quite the MRE connoisseur.

Seriously?

Nothing like this little heart-warmer to restore your faith in the goodness of humankind.

I hate that she's a teacher. Being a teacher has nothing to do with her acting like a jackass, stealing from those who really need help right now, and being stupid enough to post it for the world to see, but there will be other jackasses out there who will somehow turn this story into a "All teachers are idiots, we pay teachers too much...insert other ridiculous anti-education rhetoric here rant."

When the TV station first contacted her, she told them she didn't have a job - even though on her blog post it said "This is great. I don't have school and getting free food!"

One of the forum commenters probably said it best - karma will come back to bite this woman in the butt in a big way one of these days.

Somebody's got a case of the Mondays - on Tuesday

Sadly, I watched the season finale of "The Closer" tonight. However, as I type this, I'm watching "Biggest Loser: Families" so I guess I'll still have some TV to watch...Summer shows are ending, fall should be starting straight away. I might have to watch tonight's "Closer" ep again this weekend. I know Betsy watches, and hasn't seen it yet, so I can't talk about it - don't want to spoil it. Anybody else see it?

Ah, the life of a schoolteacher - can't go out on school nights, must stay home and plan/grade papers/rest/watch TV. Good times.

Yes, I'm a day behind on "The Closer" - it aired last night. I fell asleep at 8 p.m. on the couch last night, and slept straight through until 5:30 this morning, except for the minute it took me to get off the couch, stop by the bathroom, wash my face, and crawl into bed.

Today we put the September issue of the paper to bed. During our first hour of newspaper (I teach two classes of newspaper) FOUR students were absent! I think we've been hit by the plague or something! One's home with strep, and I'm sure the other ones are in a similar state. Considering they've all been sharing keyboards and mouses (mice?) while working on pages this week, it's not surprising that we're all getting sick. I had to visit the school nurse this morning, for some cold medicine, since I forgot to bring my own.

She told me it was a good thing I got all that sleep last night - might help me fend off all the junk. I hope she's right!

All the sleep and the Sudafed must have done something for me, because I felt fine by the end of the day. Helped the editor get the pages FTPed to the printer, made it to my hair appointment on time, ran 4.5 miles, had Taco Tuesday at Margarita's, watched "The Closer" and now I'm blogging. I got an awful lot accomplished today, even when slightly under the weather. Maybe "The Secret" is actually working for me...

I'll be thinking "K-State crushes Louisville" all night tonight in my dreams so that I can use the law of attraction to the Cats advantage.

Nothing like a little Wildcat football in the middle of the week - gives you something to look forward to.

•••
Sunday was Adam and Jill domestic bliss day - shopped for a few things we still need for the house, and FINally got a mirror hung up in the bathroom.

Yes, Eagle Eyes, you can still see a drywall patch up there by the light, and the trim and beadboard still had to be painted, but the bathroom sure does look more like a bathroom these days.

The next two pics aren't the most exciting things on the planet, but I've got to show some love for my mom, who made our cool new curtains for the laundry room.


Notice how I very smartly shot these photos so you can't see the piles of dirty clothes on the floor. And no, we don't normally keep a drill on the ironing board, but we had just finished hanging up the curtain rods.


Laundry isn't my favorite chore, but at least when I have to spend QT with the ironing board, the room is cheery!

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!

Is she trying to take over the ChittumFiles?

(Photo by guest blogger, Adam)

Maybe Gracie is trying to tell me something?

Am I spending too much time on my computer?

I'm certainly not spending too much time blogging, lately. I think it's too much time doing work for my grad school class, lesson planning, grading, etc. Oh, and a tiny bit of Etsy last weekend. Betsy and I posted some tags, and I renewed a few items that have been on for a while but haven't sold.

Oh wait, I've been told I'm not supposed to talk about Betsy on here as much...

This photo actually reminds me a little bit of one of my favorite blogs, Crazy Aunt Purl. She's always posting photos of her cats, lying in weird places, or with funny things in the frames with them just by chance.

If you start seeing posts about the latest flavors of Cat Chow, or Whiskas, you'll know whose to blame.