Camping

Here is what I know about myself: when I decide upon a new hobby, I dive in headfirst.

I have been talking about wanting to go camping for months! We had intentions of planning a trip last fall, but by the time we got around to really thinking about it, it was already around the holidays and everyone was busy, then it got too cold. Well, for whatever reason, on Sunday we got to talking about it again. Since we had nothing else to do we took a trip to Academy and I ended up buying quite a bit.

I bought two tents (one 3 person, one 4 person ... it was a really good deal and they are great tents so I got both so more friends could come), and a sleeping bag (Tony bought one too). We came home, set up the tent in the living room, and planned a trip for this coming weekend with some friends.

We got so excited about the trip that we ended up back at Academy to buy more stuff. Let's not even talk about how much stuff I got. Let's just say that I'm pretty much a hardcore camper now. I justified all these purchases because this stuff will last for years and years. Maybe someday I'll take my family camping :) hehe

Plus, T and I are already planning multiple trips with different groups of friends over the next few months so at least I'll get my money's worth out of that.

I'm SO excited!!!

*edit* Last night we MAY have set up camp in the backyard to test out all the new stuff. We spent a number of hours hanging out in the tent in the middle of the yard (I'm sure the neighbors thought we were nuts) before deciding it would be best to get a good night's sleep since it was only Monday and heading inside to sleep. So fun! So excited!

no snow "snow day"

I'm so sad to report that Houston did not get ANY snow yesterday! The weatherman should really not get my hopes up with predictions such as "3-5 inches of snow" when all we're going to get is ice. Oh well, can't complain too much because school was cancelled and I have a nice unplanned three day weekend.

I started off my long weekend in true college throwback fashion: drinking. Fortunately, this time I already knew school was cancelled the next day, unlike that time in college where we ended up having to get up and go to school hungover haha! I hung out with Michelle and the boys and played drinking games with wine. Let me just tell you, wine is a bad thing to play a drinking game with. Oh goodness haha.

Yesterday the roads were apparently icy (though the ones outside my house looked just fine) so I spent most of the day inside. What better time to bust out a sewing project! I'm not sure who reads this, so I'm not going to post pictures of what I made yet, but when it's finished in the next week, and I give it away, then I'll post some pics. It's cute, I'll say that!

After cutting fabric for what felt like years, I spent a few hours sewing and got the majority of the thing put together. YAY! Since we'd been cooped up in the house all day Tony and I decided to go to Armadillo Palace for dinner, drinks, and live music. I invited a number of friends to come with us, but unfortunately when we got there we found out the band was cancelled and they would be closing early. Bummer. I let the friends know not to worry about meeting us there, we had dinner, and then left. We ended up stopping by blockbuster on the way home and renting a movie to watch the rest of the night.

All in all, a good no snow "snow day" .... though I'm still quite disappointed that I didn't get to see any real snow!! Oh well, maybe next year.

School Cancelled!

This just in: NO SCHOOL TOMORROW!!!

WHOOP!

I've got the bubbly ready (mimosas for breakfast? I think so!) and a project I can work on all day. YAY! :)

Early Release

Early dismissal today! Woo Hoo!! T and I had a conversation last night about all the schools who were already announcing either a late start or an early dismissal for today. I was telling him that while the district might cancel school for Friday, there was little or no chance that they would let us start school today, and then change the dismissal time. Looks like I was wrong.

At 10:15 my student teacher got an email from her child's teacher at another Fort Bend School letting her know they would be having an early dismissal and she needed to make arrangements to have her child picked up at that time. We had yet to hear anything so we stormed the front office to find out what Pat knew. At that point, she knew nothing, but within minutes of us asking she got the email saying we were going to have an early release.

This set about the most ridiculously crazy afternoon. We had to call the parents of any child who was a walker to see how they wanted their kids to go home, and those who normally go to extended day as it was cancelled for the afternoon. First grade chose to put on Toy Story 3 and let the kids watch while we all made phone calls haha.

We started letting the kids go at 1:45 and were done by 2:15 (school normally gets out right at 3:10 so this was a good bit early). I was home cuddling with my kitten by the time school would normally get out.

The district has now said they will put out word of what will happen tomorrow by 8pm tonight. I can't imagine that they will tell us we have school as the weather is only going to get worse from here on out. Regardless, I left out stuff for a sub as my 30 minute drive will just not be happening if it is icy at all.

Yay for having the afternoon off! We'll see what they say about tomorrow in a few hours ...

waiting for snow

I counted the "bridge may ice in cold weather" signs on my way home from work today. There were 20. I think I'll be staying home on Friday, whether school is cancelled or not. I got my self a sewing project today in preparation haha

chance of snow

Looking at the weather forecast for the rest of the week, it seems likely we will see some snow in Houston on Friday (um yay!). Today at work they were updating the phone tree in the event that there is inclement weather on Friday, and then after school we had a meeting about it. If school is cancelled, it won't be until 5am and we are not to rely on what the news says, but only if someone from the phone tree calls us. However, if school is not cancelled, and we live far away and cannot get to work, they are not going to be overly concerned. We will have to put it in as an absence and use a day but they won't freak out about subs etc.

On my way home I started thinking about this. To get to work I take the Westpark Toll. The majority of this road is an elevated overpass so it is going to freeze over extremely quickly. I had never noticed before, but literally every few hundred feet is another sign saying "watch for ice on road during cold weather". If I remember, I will try and count how many there actually were on my way to work tomorrow (it was sort of a ridiculous amount haha).

Looking at the weather on my phone app, it appears that Thursday night there is a 50% chance of sleet and snow, and the low is 24 degrees. Then on Friday there is a 50% chance of snow and sleet most of the day. I'm thinking I may not be working on Friday regardless. At the very least I'll be leaving out sub work for the kids the night before just in case. Pretty sure if those conditions pan out, I will not be driving the 30 minutes to work that day haha. Guess we will see.

*keeping my fingers crossed for some snow!*

"Mrs. Mac is fat"

I had lunch duty today and stepped out for a minute to use the restroom. When I came back in one little boy in my class was sitting at the table SOBBING! I went over and asked what was wrong but he couldn't even get words out. Finally the little boy sitting next to him informs me, "he's upset because he called Mrs. Mac fat and we told on him". I informed him that it is not nice to say things like that and walked away. He can cry all he wants, we don't call people (especially teachers) fat!

Well, he literally sits at his table and just cries the entire lunch. I'm talking uncontrollable sobbing (mind you this is like the sweetest little boy in the world so he is crying because he is so upset and not that he got in trouble). Finally, my teammate decides she can't let his day be ruined so she goes over to talk to him about it (she's the one he called fat). She asks him to come talk to her and as soon as he walks over to her he grips on to her in the HUGEST hug and just cries all over her shoulder. They had a talk, and he went back to his table while drying up his tears. She had a huge wet spot all over her shirt from his sweet little tears. Poor kid was devestated. Fortunately for him, Coleen didn't care. She said she told him "well sweetheart, of course it's true, but ladies don't like for people to say that to them anyway" and laughed.

too darn funny.