Grampie

Love you, Grampie.

Packages

I know everyone does, but I really really like getting packages in the mail. I remember being super excited at getting a package when I was about ten. My parents weren't sure what it was, and when I opened it, it was my allergy medicine that my dad had bought online in bulk. I was still excited.

For Easter this year, my mom sent Johnny and me these rabbits from Laura Little's candy and fudge store. When I was younger, my grandma would get these for all of the grandkids every year. I always got a special white chocolate one because I didn't really like milk chocolate. We haven't had them since she passed away, so it was a really fun surprise.

And then, when we got home from North Carolina for Easter, I had ANOTHER package waiting for me at home. Good old Katie sent me this cute cupcake dish towel from Anthropologie and a cupcake cookbook from the Primrose Bakery in London. I think I'll just keep moving houses so I can keep getting sweet house warming presents.

One of my fun small memories at Wheaton is walking down to the Beamer Center after lunch or dinner in Saga and slowly rounding the corner of the mailboxes. I had the coordinates of my box programed into my head and could see the orange or blue pack slip from tens of feet away. After checking my box one day, I was behind a kid with a really long skinny box. I overheard him saying to his friend, "I meant to send it to my parents' house! Do you think anyone will notice that it's a shotgun?" Oops.

Spring Break

I've been catching a lot of flack for saying I'm bored on Spring Break. It's not that I have nothing to do (make a quilt, grade senior papers, plan lessons and units, do the dishes, do the laundry, etc), I just want to have fun things to do. So yesterday I decided to make a few things.

Still using the frozen berries until it gets warmer, but I digress. I made a berry crisp, and let me tell you, I have tried tens of different crisp recipes, and this one has consistently been my favorite.

Next, I decided to use the KitchenAid to make sugar cookies for Easter. A little known fact is that this is not the actual mixer that I received as a gift for my wedding. That one decided to turn itself on high speed in the middle of the night when it was supposed to be turned off. KitchenAid brought us a new one.

I made some Easter Bunny cookies last night and gave them to our neighbors. I saved a few for us. I'm just looking at the tupperware now, and I'm pretty sure Johnny had one/two for breakfast.

Other fun things that we've been doing include hanging out with the kids I babysit here. On Saturday night, Johnny and I babysat the nine year old and twin six year olds, and we all decided to go out to dinner. The highlight of the meal was not the grilled cheese but instead feeling Johnny's new haircut every five minutes and laughing hysterically. When we got back to their house, Johnny was hanging out with boy twin six year old in his room, and Johnny commented that he thought it was nice that boy twin six year old had a picture of his older sister in his room. Boy twin six year old looked at it and said, "Well...she was born first...so we wanted to tell her, 'Congratulations!'"

I don't remember my siblings having congratulatory pictures of me in their rooms.

The Laundromat

So apparently there are these places in cities called Laundromats. They are for people who don't have washing machines/people who have washing machines and dryers but the guy who remodeled their houses didn't set up the laundry in a way that the machines could actually be hooked up.

I went to this Laundromat place today and was immediately taken back to freshmen year of college when I had to search through all my pockets for enough quarters to wash my clothes. This time I came up with about seven dollars worth. That will only get me two loads.

Is anyone a plumber who thinks they can hook up my gas dryer and install a gas shut off valve? I'd be forever grateful.

And We're Back

Spring cleaning! House, classroom, and blog. In defense of my long sabbatical, I thought I would sum up my last few months in a list of reasons why I wasn't posting. These aren't really in any particular order.

10. Johnny Came Home!

After four months of training in Augusta, GA, Johnny finally came home to Philly. Though he surely enjoyed eating various forms of fried potatoes in the Army cafeteria and living in an Army hotel room, I think he's happy to be back.

9. New School

No, my school is not on a beach, but we did take a retreat to the Jersey Shore during the first month of school. My kids are funny, respectful, and think I'm 28. Gotta love them. Pictured here is Melissa, school counselor extraordinaire. Melissa is my Ikea-loving, advice-giving, dinner-cooking friend who kept me company when Johnny was gone.

8. Abscess Removal

Fortunately for you, there's no picture for this one. I woke up one day with a giant boil on my leg. After it turned black, I decided to go to the nurse practitioner who promptly sent me to the emergency room where some lady cut it open. Most painful thing I've ever experienced...but don't worry, Johnny was getting free coffee from Wawa at the time psycho doctor was rinsing my boil ridden leg off with a hose.

7. The Holidays

For Thanksgiving this year (I go by school years, not real years) we went home to Kansas, and for Christmas we went home to North Carolina. The trip to Kansas was filled with Oklahoma Joe's barbecue, mimosas with good, old high school girls, and Settlers with the boys. The trip to NC was filled with dancing with the Wii, baking McDonald family cookies, and opening presents. It actually ended early because of a snow, yes snow storm that came through Christmas night. Johnny and I left early to beat the weather.

6. Trip to Paris

So after 14 years of taking French in school, I finally got to go try it out in Paris. Johnny and I went over my Christmas break and did everything; I mean everything. Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, Arc de Triumphe, Hotel des Invalides, Napoleon's Tomb, Versailles, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Conciergerie, Hotel de Ville, Sainte Chapelle (forgive the lack of accent marks). And through it all, the ironic thing was that Johnny, with his six months of French in high school, was able to communicate just as well as I was with pointing and saying, "Oui." Good thing I didn't try for the French AP exam.

5. Two Year Anniversary

We got to celebrate our two year anniversary in Paris. I am so blessed to have someone who I love, who I enjoy spending time with, and who will tell me every little thing about the place that we are visiting. Note the travel guide in his left hand.

4. Netflix

I will admit that part of the reason I have been lax in posting is Johnny's and my obsession with Netflix. Whether it's Watch Instantly or getting movies on DVD in the mail, I just love the ability to watch hour upon hour of shows I'd never even heard of before. We've demolished Arrested Development, Bones, Law and Order SVU, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Sopranos, just to name a few. This obsession can be partially explained by a conversation that two of my students had with each other.

Student A: Do the teachers here have a collective Netflix account or something because they all have it.

Student B: No. They're just poor and can't afford cable.

And so it goes.

3. Bought a New House

And we decided to buy a house. It's a quaint (doublespeak for tiny) two bedroom, two bathroom row home with a basement. I had Johnny paint the entire downstairs Gecko Green. He's been calling it the Rain Forest Cafe.

2. Little Shop of Horrors

One of the biggest parts of this year was directing Little Shop of Horrors at my high school. The kids were great, and our school's art teacher helped us built all the plants. We actually made a profit, and some of the kids follow me around singing, "Little shop, little shop of Hutson..." Instant hit.

1. Little Shop of Horrors Cast Party

Saturday night after our last show, Johnny and I had the cast and crew over for the cast party at our house. We fit something like twenty teenagers into our tiny living room and kitchen. They played Apples to Apples, made s'mores in the back "yard," and watched Little Shop the movie. A few tater tots, meat balls, and chips and dip later, we got everybody home by 1:30 am.