Shut-My EyeLand

Get it? Like "Shutter Island?" Haha, I even crack myself up sometimes! :) You can guess from the title of this post if I liked the movie or not. Are you done guessing? Well, the correct answer is "I was not a fan." I thought it was going to be scary and exciting and amazing. In my opinion (it's my blog, so I get to state my opinion, but if you want to add yours, I highly encourage that, in the comment section!) the movie was long and boring. There, I said it. I didn't like it. I was so disappointed because it's Leo (Zac's #1 man crush!), and Scorcese, and did I mention Leonardo DiCaprio? Anyways, it really felt short if you ask me. Apparently I nodded off for a short bit (hence the title of the post) and even snored a little. Hellooo...I never do that in movies...that should say something! So, if you are thinking about going, just know it will be long, you have to think hard (kinda) and it's not very exciting. That's all.
Also, we rented "My Life in Ruins" which was just asking for brutality, but it was every bit as lame as I thought it would be. Zac fell asleep for that one. I don't blame him...he'd been up all day in the sun at this year's first track meet. His boys did okay but not great, but it was a rally hard meet, so he was fine with their performance.
Okay, and just to be fair, because it's bugging him, Zac liked Shutter Island. So did my friend Audree, who even posted this very long review of it, which also has lots of spoilers. Her review is fun to read though, and me kinda feel like I should have liked it. Oh well.

Childhood Favorite Movies

My sister texted me awhile ago. She told me she was watching the Olympics and bobsledding was on, which reminded her of one of our favorite childhood memories, Cool Runnings. That made me start thinking about some of our other favorites. I guess I just had fun looking at old trailers and whatnot, so thought I'd share some of our faves with you. Did you watch some of these? What did I leave off? What did YOU love to watch? Enjoy...
(the title of the movie has a link to a youtube video)

Cool Runnings "Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme. Get on up, it's bobsled time!"

The Princess Bride "As you wish..."

Kindergarten Cop "Maybe it's a tumor!"

Troop Beverly Hills "We don't need no stinkin' patches!"

Rocketeer

Curly Sue

The Sandlot

Ladybugs

Wild Hearts Can't be Broken


The Witches

Hocus Pocus

Forever Young

Polly This is the African-American version of the classic Pollyanna. Mom must've recorded it off of TV, we loved watching it! It has some major stars in it too! :)

¡Vamos a España!

It's official! We're going to Spain! After lots of discussion, a few disagreements, online research, mind-changing, some stress, and lots of excitement, we have booked our airline tickets to Spain!! I will spare you all the boring details, but it was quite a hassle, and I was starting to think we weren't meant to take this trip. But I just got off the phone with Iberian Airlines and we are GOOD TO GO! I already received the confirmation email and all of our reservation info!!
We are leaving Tuesday, June 8th and return Wednesday, June 16th. We are flying roundtrip to and from Granada, although we make stops in Madrid coming and going. I'm not sure we will have time to leave the airport, but at least we'll get to see the city from the plane! :)
I wish we could go all over Spain, but after lots of talk (and more and more talk) we decided we just don't have the money and flexibility to do that, so we are focusing on Southern Spain. Andalucia, Seville, Cordoba, Malaga, etc. Zac and I are a great team because I am the dreamer who wants to be gone all summer and would spend every penny we have and then some, and Zac is the realist who is good about budgeting and being smart about things. We balance each other out. This is the first major trip we've planned together, and I will say it is somewhat stressful and includes alot of sacrifice. For example, I've always wanted to go to a bullfight, and although Zac has no personal desire to, he will because I want to. On the flipside, I'm not much of a beach person, but Zac wants to spend a day on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and I'm fine with that. This is an experience for both of us, so we want to make sure we each get out of it what we want, and get to do it with our best friend the whole time. :) Cheesy, I know, but it's true!
It is going to be such a fun trip, I'm so excited I could squeal. My fingers are doing little dances right now, as my brain is trying to tell them to type! Yay...it's really and finally happening!!! :)

Back on the 'roids

In case you were ever wondering if injecting one little dose of prednisone (a steroid) has the same affect as taking large doses orally (in pill form), IT DOES! When I was sick in high school I had to take prednisone all the time, and the shot I got for my sinus infection is making me feel a little too much like I did in high school:
-hungry
-emotional
-can't sleep at night
-kinda like my heart will beat through my chest
-did I mention emotional!!
-did I mention hungry?
-puffy cheeks! (I can't believe one shot can do that, because they never got puffy until I was on high doses for a period of time when I was in high school, but they are a little rounder than usual!)
I know the symptoms could be way worse, because I've been there too, but this is still not fun. At least I'm feeling better, so it kinda feels worth it. I guess.
So that's a boring post, but what else am I supposed to do at 4:30am? At least I'm not eating, because believe me, the thought crossed my mind. haha
PS-In GOOD NEWS...It has been 8 days since I've had any Dr. Pepper or any soda at all, for that matter! No carbonation whatsoever. I do miss it, but I'm past the point of "needing" it, and I'm not getting headaches anymore like I was the first few days. Isn't that scary to think that there is something that if I don't have it will make me feel bad? Addiction much? Every year at Lent I say I'm going to give them up altogether, since I've already gone through the 6 week withdrawal period, but then I have one on Easter, and that leads to another random one later in the week, and I think "well I'll drink occasionally, just as a treat" and then the next thing I know I'm back on one a day. Ugh, so no promises this year....we will see what happens. :) In the meantime, Go me! :)

Sinuses Schminuses

Most of you follow me on facebook, so you already know that I'm sick. This is my second sinus infection (the first being less than a month ago) and the doc gave me two shots and sent me home with a handful of medicine samples and two prescriptions. I think it's safe to say she's drug happy, but I will try whatever works.
Nothing too exciting to write about today, but if I was an author for the SAT, I would definitely include the analogy CVS is to Walgreens, as Wal-Mart is to Target. (inferior, that is) I went to CVS because I had two coupons for Rite Aid (which CVS accepts) that if you turn in a prescription you get a $25 gift card. So I went there to get the $50 in gift cards, but it was almost not even worth it. The two times I have been there, it took over an hour to fill two simple prescriptions. Very frustrating. And the main thing is, no one wants to hang out at a drug store with a bunch of other sickies anytime, but when you already feel bad and want to go home, an hour feels like five hours. Anyways, I bought some mascara, a birthday card for my friend, and a Starbucks Mocha drink (ya know, the glass bottles that taste so good, and nothing like coffee, which is the only reason I like them) and I still have $40 left in gift money there. Nice!
We have a field trip tomorrow. We are going to a Special Olympics event, and those are always SO awesome and warm and fuzzy. It is a basketball "individual skills" workshop, and the kids are looking forward to it. I hope I'm feeling better...these kids keep me SO busy on fieldtrip days! Dang...that reminds me that I have to bring a sack lunch and I have nothing to pack. I always cook easy mac or a frozen dinner or (sometimes) buy the plate lunch at school, so I don't have any sandwich type stuff. Hmm...I'll get creative.
Zac's first track meet is Saturday...I hope the weather is somewhat pleasant! I won't be staying long if it's not, and I really want to stay the whole time, so SUN PLEASE COME OUT!!!! Kthxbye!
PS-This commercial completely caught me on a good day and I laughed out loud. Then I rewound it, and laughed again. Haha, not sure why, but see if you like it too. :)

kind of a deep post

This morning we headed to McKinney (an hour away) to go to church with my cousins, and have lunch with them. I had been to their church a few times, but Zac never had. We have had a hard time finding a church that we like because we both prefer a traditional service (choir, organ, hymnals) as compared to a praise style, but we want an open-minded congregation and pastor. We were both raised Methodist, but all the Methodist churches we've tried close to home are either a praise style service or the congregation is filled with all old people and we didn't quite fit in. Anyways, I've loved Ellen and Amy's church the times I've gone, so I wanted Zac to go. It was a great service today. I enjoyed what he preached about while I was there, but the more it marinates within me, the more I like it. He was talking about Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness and being constantly tempted by Satan. (This was also a pep talk for me about resisting temptation, since I gave up Dr. Pepper for Lent and have been miserable and having headaches and wanting to give in, but I haven't.) Anyways, at one point in the scripture the devil quotes the bible. The preacher said "there are many 'bible quoting devils' today, who take scripture and twist it how they want to, and pray on the most vulnerable groups." I think that is so true and it was so cool to hear a minister say so. Living in an extremely conservative town, it is hard to hear people say "I'm a republican because I'm a Christian." What are you trying to say about me...that I'm not a good Christian because I don't consider myself a Republican? It's frustrating to me. You can be a Christian and still have different political opinions. The main thing that bothers me I think, is that people use being a Christian as an excuse for being close-minded. I think the whole point of Christianity is to LOVE your neighbor, even if the neighbor is not exactly like you, and even if they make different choices, and even if they choose a different lifestyle or religion. It is not our job to judge and it's not our job to try to use the bible to condemn a certain group, just because we don't agree with them. This is getting kind of heavy, and I meant to just talk about how much I loved their church. We really wish it was not an hour away, or we would join for sure! We are still going to try to visit as often as possible though. Anyhow, after lunch we all went to eat at Jason's Deli...yum! It was so good to see my family and chat about work and life and the kids and sports and everything else we always blab about. :) When we got home from McKinney we took a long nap and then took Molly to a local park since it was such a gorgeous day. We'd never been to this one, and ended up walking around for abut an hour and a half. Molser loved it.

Another page for the book...

(the book that I'm going to write about being a special ed teacher)
Last semester, since I was not only an aide, but a "student teacher" as well, I took over the science curriculum and have taught that since the beginning of the year. We've done some cool units, such as fossils, plate tectonics, and recycling, and we are about to start life cycles. We ordered some stuff to help bring the lesson to life for the kids. Literally! We got a box delivered today that said "open immediately" and I was so excited that it was our science materials. The box had two vials of large red ants (with neon orange "Caution:Ants Bite!" stickers everywhere), and two cups with ten butterfly larvae. The butterflies will become caterpillars, then chrysalis, and then butterflies. (but you probably already knew that). The ants are for an ant farm, and we will discuss living in a community, etc. Okay, I am really drawing this out, so I'll just get to the good part...I carefully opened the first vial of ants and successfully dumped them all into the first ant farm. It was a little stressful. but not too bad. When it was time to put the second vial into that "farm" I dropped the vial and 40 huge ants started crawling all over the place. Luckily most of the kids were in reading, and only three were in the room at the time. I was doing it on a countertop, and two other teachers came to help, so we saved about half of them back (by scooping them up into the vials and then dumping them in their new farm home). Unfortunately lots of them walked right off the counter onto the floor and had to be stepped on. We were worried about them getting away before we could scoop them up, and as much as we sit on the floor in our class, we certainly did not want ants infesting our room. My blood pressure was through the roof and I was squeamishly trying to get everything under control. It was a mess but we laughed soo soo much. One of my coworkers get bitten on the pinky and it hurt really badly. She said it hurt much worse than a normal ant bite. I felt so bad!
Anyways, I always say it, but I love my job. Every single day is a new adventure and it never gets old. I can't think of a better way to spend 8 hours a day than caring for and teaching these kiddos. :)

Completely Unrelated

Probably boring, and most certainly random, but here we go...
1. I'm enjoying American Idol, and I think it's cool that there have been SO many people from Texas on. My favorite show these days though, is Modern Family. If you don't watch it, I recommend you start. Just go to Hulu and start from the beginning...it's so entertaining, you'll be caught up before you know it! :)
2. I love my job. I love the kids. I don't love how much emotional baggage I bring home every day. My students have rough home lives and it's so unfair. I cried tonight, just thinking about what one girl is going through. I would love to say more but legally I can't. Just trust me...it's unfortunate. I have been trying to quit thinking about it since 4:00 this afternoon and have not been able to distract myself for more than ten minutes at a time without thinking about it again.
3. We had a LOT of snow last week. Stacy spent the night. We met Ramsi and Bez for lunch the next day. It was the most fun I've had in a long time. I love laughing with friends! Here are a few pics...





4. Mock TAKS testing this week at our school means fieldtrips for us. Today we toured HEB (sounds weird, but it was really neat...we learned all about produce, seafood, the bakery ladies showed them how they make roses and other icing creations, visited the pharmacy, etc) and then went out to eat at Chili's. Tomorrow we are going to the Rainforest Cafe in Grapevine. The staff give our students a tour and talk about all the different animals and rainforest, then we eat. Should be fun!
5. I am really picky about shampoo and conditioner. I used "Dumb Blonde" by BedHead for the longest. I loved it at first but then it really dried my hair out. My stylist said that it actually puts too much protein in the hair, which helps to a point, then damages. I didn't know that and had been using it exclusively for like two years. Whoops! Anyways, after that I wanted to silken up my hair so I switched to my childhood fave Pantene Pro-V. The regular kind weighed my hair down too much, so I got the Volume one, but it made my hair frizzy and fly all over the place. Next bottle was Garnier Fructis, but it made my hair kinda oily. Anyways, I tell you all this because I FINALLY FOUND THE BEST STUFF and you will never believe what it is. Herbal Essence. I use the Body Envy type (which is for volume) and it is the perfect concoction for me. The other exciting thing about this, it is cheap...really cheap. One of my coworkers asked what I'd been doing different to my hair and I told I her I switched shampoo and she said I was the third person she'd talked to that was obsessed with this brand/type. She switched too and she loves it just as much as I do! :) More than you ever wanted to know, right? hah
6. Zac and I feel weighed down with some pretty hefty decisions. Say a little prayer for us to get through this semi-stressful time, and that we make the best decision. Please also be thinking of Zac as he is dealing with some work-related stress, and also awaits for the scores from his state principal exam. Thanks!

Love in a list

I am the type of person who loves Valentine's Day. I loved the idea of it and what it symbolizes even when I was single, and of course I love it as a married woman. I am a hopeless romantic, and I like all the traditional (and not so traditional) gestures of romance. One year I told Zac that I didn't want to eat out at one of our normal restaurants, so he got super creative and took me to an Indian restaurant called Ararat. Zac and I are very boring eaters, so we did not enjoy the lamb or hummus or whatever else it was they served us, but we will never forget the magic show, the man swallowing swords, or the slew of belly dancers. Although we had to drive through Whataburger on the way home, the fact he researched and was so proud of picking this "anti-Zac" place made the night so special...and memorable! :) The night could have been so awful (since the place was quite strange, and we thought the food was gross) but we love to laugh about the time we tried to be adventurous.

In honor of Valentine's day, a day to celebrate love, here are the
Top Ten Reasons I Love and Adore My husband Zac

10. He cares about others more than himself, and constantly puts others first.
9. He loves kids and can't wait to be a Dad. I'm not sure which of us has baby fever more.
8. He has goals and is ambitious. He doesn't want to just be a principal, he wants to be a hard working principal that teachers and students both respect. He wants to actually make a school a better place.
7. He continues to surprise me. Remember that secret birthday party he planned for me this year?
6. He has an amazing family, who treats me as if I have been one of them all along. I am so grateful that the man I chose has a family I am also proud to have married into.
5. He's funny. He makes me (and others) laugh on a daily basis. He has the best sense of humor.
4. He is humble and never takes credit when he deserves it, but instead lets other's get the glory.
3. His students and athletes adore him. He touches lives. He makes a positive impact on hundreds of kids a year. He is a role model that teenagers look up to and admire.
2. He is thoughtful and spoils me more than I deserve. He makes me feel protected, cared for, and safe. He is my care taker.
1. Zac makes me feel special, loved, beautiful, and smart. On the days that my self-esteem is running low, he fills my tank back up again. He completes me. I am a very grateful woman.

Selena singing Selena!?

Disney starlet Selena Gomez performed at the San Antonio Rodeo this weekend and (how appropriate!) performed a song by the original Selena (Quintanilla), Bidi Bidi Bom Bom. One of my fave Selena songs!!! Enjoy...

Sister Time

Last weekend I went to Katy to spend a few days with my sis and her family, and to host a shower for her. It was a quick trip, and I would have loved to spend much more time with them, but it was a blast and a much needed visit. Liz is an amazing mom and impresses me with all she can juggle. Owen is still as perfect as I remembered him, and Madeline is so smart and fun. I'm such a lucky Aunt!! The shower was beautiful and the food was delish. We had bellinis, which was a treat, and I got to pop my first bottle of champagne! :) Here are a few pics from the weekend...

Liz and her shower hostesses (her sis-in-law Anne, and Breck)
Madeline and two of her cute cousins. I can't wait until she has a cousin on MY side! :)
I rode from Dallas to Houston with Liz's college roomie Jen. It was a lot of fun, and gave both of us some company in the car. Here she is with Liz at the shower.
Mom and cutie Owen in the outfit we gave him for Christmas ;)

Madeline and I went shopping at Katy Mills on Saturday morning. She was such a trooper. We got kind of lost and ended up walking A LOT. I carried her as much as I could, but I had a purse and bags and it was so hard, so she volunteered to walk even though her legs were very tired. hehe, what a sweetie! :) Last but not least, check out this cute video of Madeline on the phone with Zac, singing to him that there are seven continents. (He has high school kids who can't name them, but this three year old can!) Have I ever mentioned that she is a genius? I'm not even saying that because I'm her aunt. She really is gifted!