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The title of this post adequately sums up my feelings on the following:

•        The business of work the past three weeks

•        The glorious, glorious advent of Spring! Trees are starting to be green and some even have lots of leaves and blossoms ♥

Grades were due two weeks ago and it felt like one thing after another came up at work. Things are still pretty intense, actually, but I think that’s just part of the territory of March during the school year. Our spring break looms ahead, not for several weeks, but it’s still coming up thankfully. 

We had quite a bit of fun back at the old corral the past three weeks also. Mardi gras was celebrated, we had our Irish-American dinner, I saw Maeve(!), we sent out Save the Dates (yay!) and planned a bit more of the wedding. Spirit week happened at work/school, which made dressing professionally this morning pleasantly mundane.

The running has been kind of hit or miss, mostly hit recently though, which is nice. After a long run a few weeks ago on the embarcadero in San Francisco we ran right past Nancy Pelosi, which was quite a thrill. That same day we drove to and hiked at the Marin Headlands which was beautiful. 

Some students had these awesome nails so I asked about them and I got ddirected to Tar-jhay for purchasing and I'm loooooving them, though M says that they’re merely another example of how I’m more like an adolescent girl than someone my age…oh well I don’t care they’re fun yay yay yay!

I’m on the couch watching Seinfeld and hoping that M will make me two grilled cheese sandwiches with cheddar and a bit of mustard smeared on the bread, though I have a sneaky suspicion I will have to make that sammy myself. Speaking of, tomorrow is the guy’s birthday (Happy Birthday Sweetie!) and I’m so excited to take him out to Henry’s Hi-Life for dinner, the very same place I celebrated my birthday 4 years ago and he surprised me at. 

This has been quite the stream of consciousness and that’s ok with me. I’m pretty tired from seeing Maeve last night since I'm old and am not used to going out with people and fun stuff like that and I'm enjoying some un-structured time. I’ll have some pictures up soon from those parties and hiking. My computer, sadly, is slowing down quite a bit these days and uploading and then importing to photobucket takes forever, something I’m not entirely up to right now.

Anyhoo, happy almost middle of the week!

 

Musings

This was my weekend last weekend and unfortunately it’s shaping up to be this weekend as well ;/ Oh well, such is the life of a teacher…

I’ve been keeping busy with grading piles like this one and trying to run (though not wanting to since it’s not sunny and beautiful out) and making lunch at night and laundry and dishes and some wedding planning and yeah, that might be it. I was thinking today about how nice it is to write out things at the end of the day and that I miss blogging so regularly but honestly, the school year and its schedule and flow just zap the life out of me; I can’t even imagine how people with kids do it!

M and I are on a plan to be ready for a half marathon in early May, but I’ve been quite naughty about giving into the warm couch after school instead of going out to run; and we live in the Bay Area- I obviously need to remember those cold Minnesota college days a bit more and realize that our weather ain’t no thang. The race is this and looks beautiful and fun. I think we’re going to do the Bay to Breakers later in May as well. I did it once in high school before I really liked running the way I do now and have wanted to do it for quite a while as a grown up. Plus, there are constantly rumors that it’s the last year and it’s getting too rowdy and etc. so I’d like to do it if there’s any truth to the rumors.

My grandmother is making bread pudding and there’s cinnamon in it so the whole house smells like Ikea (from their cinnamon buns) which reminds me that it’s been well over a year since my last visit and that it’s high time for another. M detests the Swedish superstore but my dear aunty loves it, so maybe in a few weeks we shall sojourn.

As it’s been alluded to, M and I are indeed tying the knot. It will happen in September and I’m getting more and more excited about the blessed day. I ordered the STDs (save-the-dates) yesterday and have actually had my dress since November. The months ahead will bring us quite a bit of planning, I fear, but this is a once in a lifetime experience and there’s no one else I’d rather share it with than my sweetie so I’m going to enjoy every minute up until…forever!

Love day was lovely. I wore a hot pink sweater and we ordered pizza (a big treat!) and watched the first night of Watson’s Jeopardy run which was kind of a disappointment. The first two days just had too many interruptions about how amazing Watson is and how he was made, etc., instead of good old Jeopardy questions. The third day was better though I certainly finished those episodes with a wary feeling of technology and a fear of machines being too smart.

We ate at my school’s annual crab feed since the last time I posted and it was dee-lish with melted butter on top. Per usual, we did not win the raffle, but much fun was had by all. Tomorrow night is another feed at a one of the Catholic Churches, but this time it’s polenta and it’s a smaller event so here’s to crossing those fingers for the raffle (we did win our tv here last year, but that was a TOTAL anomaly)! 

Late in January I completed another year of my life. It was a pretty and sunny day and we celebrated by having lunch at Gayle's (gorgonzola blue cheese mac & cheese: MAJOR YUM) and then my good ole (not in age, though) pops gave into my requests for his famous dry rub smoked ribs and it was SOOOO good. The evening was topped off with a purple princess cake from Gayle's and it was just a nice way to kick off a new and very special (cue wedding march) year. By the way, for those of you who think that a princess cake is something involved with Disney, please read here and here and know that it is actually European in lineage and yummy and great and has nothing to do with Ariel (not that she's my favorite princess or anything like that), though I have nothing against the Disney girls.

Prinsesstårta!

M and our friend E and I went on a neat hike to Alamere Falls in Bolinas to visit their waterfalls and then M took me on a different hike to see different waterfalls to celebrate my special day. More on that later. There is a nap to take and a Friday evening to enjoy.

Happy weekend!

Shady's Back!

Or I am, I guess. Well, I let work and the holidays get the better of me and have hopefully lived to learn my lesson. All of a sudden today I found myself "thinking in blog", which is when my thoughts run how a blog post would run, and then I got nostalgic for the time when I was a blogger (or at least tried to be one; ha!) and realized that I miss the catharsis of writing about my days for the .5 people who read this (me) and that I've been remiss and that and that and that so anyway here I am.

Since November: the holidays happened and we went to Hawaii (why didn't we just stay there?!?!), the semester ended, the new semester began, I finished 27 years of living (and began a 28th), we planned a bit of wedding, the dog barked a lot, some running was done, fish tacos were made (delish!), we saw not one but TWO local waterfalls, Michael fractured one of his pinky fingers, we ate a princess cake, we had our first (and probably only) wedding caterer/restaurant tasting (which was like 16 courses), and and and and...

So, I'll try to put up some pictures of the aforementioned events and post more regularly. My computer is a bit antiquated (slow) so many of the pictures I'd like to post are still being loaded into iPhoto (I am not owning up to not putting any new pictures in since, oh, like, September) so hopefully it will work itself out and there will be some visuals in the next few days.

Until then, happy almost hump-day!