The Boxer Rules the World

Last week, Matt took Duke on a hike near our house. He went up to the winery I work at that's about a mile from the house. There are trails that go through the vineyards and apple orchards. He took one and ended up finding a place to take this picture. Kennewick doesn't have much to offer for "views", so this is about as good as it gets.
Still kind of a cool picture if you ask me.

I'm Hungry?

I took this picture today for two reasons. First, this fridge is in one of the break rooms at our district office where I have my math class at night. It has a lock on it along with a sign threatening you with your life. I'm pretty sure this fridge must be the location of the long lost bulk ranch dressing recipe that I've been trying to get since college. That's the only thing I can imagine would be so sacred. Second, I realized I need this fridge/locking system at home to curb my late night snacking. I need a personal assistant/trainer to open it only to get my breakfast and lunch before school and then to cook only healthy dinners. Lock goes back on and I'm not allowed back in until morning. Who needs diet books?

Really?

I took this picture at the Ritzville ZIPS today. I thought it was hilarious. Who could have been so rough on the pumps that they had to have this sign made? I mean, their Tarter Sauce is good, but there's no reason to get that excited!

This is me and a friend of mine at school. We're trying to be bad asses right now because we're being driven around on the school's Gator which is usually used by Security and Administrators. We hopped on with Security one day because we were too lazy to walk to our portables. It was my first time on the Gator....I cherish my 15 second ride.

My sister surprised me and came down on Friday night. After meeting me at the Football field where I was "putting in my time" working the first football game of the year, we ended the night at Ice Harbor. Ice Harbor is a brewery in Kennewick that I like to go to because it's old and near the railroad tracks. Two things that remind me of my house in Spokane, old and near the tracks. Anyway, Kira bought her first PIG full of beer which holds over 2 gallons of beer. We did our best to drink as much as possible over the weekend!

Bread Ties and Meat Trays continued

So, I wrote about my closet hoarding problem at the end of the school year. Today, I want to announce that my gut feelings were right. When I opened the door to my portable, guess what I was missing? My desk. Yes, one of the only things I did NOT surplus was gone. Basically, I painstakingly made the decision to get rid of stuff and they didn't take it. And some of the stuff I wanted to keep, was moved out! WTF!! Luckily, I turned my hoarding skills into overdrive and found myself another desk and a newer computer chair (hope no one notices it gone from the front office).

Back to Reality

As I walked to my car this morning to make my trip to Pasco, I could just smell SCHOOL in the air. The air is cooler and the air just smells different. The summer is over and fall is coming. School is starting and my lazy days of summer are over. I can't complain, though. Most people hardly get time off from their jobs. Now that I'm done complaining, I'm really looking forward to going back to school. I have my own room for the first time and will have a lot of the same students, which always helps.

"Math Rocks", or something like that...

Geometry class is over! My 3rd summer of "Math Camp" has been completed. I was only almost in tears 2 out of the 9 days, which isn't too bad for me. The tears were related to the people I was sitting with for the day of work. Here's a little background...we have to draw a card upon arrival. The card corresponds to the table we sit at for the day. At these tables, we work on group math problems, talk about our reading assignments, talk about our homework or other mathematical concepts. It has taken 3 years for me to break out of my math-phobic shell that I have lived in since my early elementary years. The tears were related to people who were at my table who would say things like, "This is easy", or "I taught this in 6th grade last year" when given a math problem. Do you know how those comments can affect a 31 year old woman who doesn't understand how to solve the problem? Ouch....major ouch. Thank goodness for our trainer, Patty, who is sensitive to my phobia. Her teaching practices inspire me to no end. I love how she picks me up in her mathematical arms and says it's going to be OK (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Finally, it's here! The reunion...oh wait, did anyone read this article? There's no talk about them reuniting for a show or anything. They just reunited them for a People cover and a lame article. Maybe if they would have included Screech and Mr. Belding, the article would have been juicier!

Kira, Jenny, and I went up for our annual trip to Newman Lake to stay at Staci's. We had a great time and Staci only had us sign the Accidental Death and Dismemberment waiver once this time! Of course, Staci's the best hostess and we had a great time. Here is a snapshot of my sister and I. Kira's looking pretty buff...

Here is a picture of what I have been doing for the last 4 days. I'm part of a group of teachers in the district who meet a few times a year to learn how to teach math. To learn how to teach math, we have to do math. This is my 3rd year and I really don't have many complaints except for that my summer ends early. This sounds lame as I have summer's off and shouldn't be so spoiled. I do get paid for it and have met some great friends from the deal, so life isn't so bad. If anything, I have learned a lot about myself as a student, hence the picture that was taken during class when cell phones were NOT allowed. :-)

All the Evidence I Need

We just returned home from a one-night stay at a historic hotel in downtown Walla Walla. We had a great time walking around the downtown area checking out all the little restaurants and wine bars. I loved seeing restaurants with outside seating, which reminded me of Europe. You can spend a day on foot wine tasting, but we didn't do that this time. We had dinner at a great, little Pizzeria where we shared a Stromboli and Calzone (very romantic?). The trip was a nice, little getaway being only an hour away from our house. In true Matt and Whitney fashion, here is the only picture we took. An overly exposed picture of the Stromboli!

Happy Birthday to Duke! He's 4 today...we celebrated by giving him a German sausage. He ate it and then wondered where his beer was as our other dog receives 1/2 a beer on HER birthday.

First Camping Trip of the Summer

Here are a couple pictures from our camping trip. We found a beautiful spot that we plan to go to again at the end of July. My sister met us and we had a great time. Loved spending time with Matt and can't wait to go back!

Whitney Needs Therapy

We’ve had a lot going on in the last couple months, so I was looking forward to hanging out with Matt this weekend. We didn’t have a lot planned, just dinner with some friends and we planned to hit a new wine bar. As the weekend got closer, things started to add up and Matt knew that he needed to get his Dad’s father’s day present to my Mother In Law (MIL) before she left town back to Lynden. Matt was tired Friday and I kind of talked him out of going shopping cause it was like 95 degrees. I then uttered the words, “I’ll just get up with you in the morning and we’ll go shopping then”. Bad idea. Matt regularly wakes up at 2am now for his 4am-12pm shift at work. I also didn’t know at the time that we were to meet my MIL at 7am for breakfast and that the shopping journey needed to happen BEFORE 7am. Matt set his alarm and I drug myself out of bed, threw my hair back and put on some dirty clothes. I was NOT in a good mood. It took all the self-control I had to not ask to stop at two different Starbucks on the way to Walmart because I knew we were in a time crunch. Maybe I should have. When we got to Walmart (before 6am), Matt couldn’t find what he wanted to get them (he realized he never got his Mom anything for Mother’s day so he had to get two presents now). We walked the entire store and he couldn’t find the gift. He then said that we could try Home Depot. Of course, I’m trying to convince him to get his Mom some flowers and for him to grab a bottle of Whiskey for his Dad. Matt did not like these ideas. I continued to say rude comments with bad tone. I can’t let it go, so I go into a big one about how he waited to find this ONE specific thing. Home Depot is a dud. Now it’s time to pass another Starbucks to hit Lowes-across town. They do not have the gift. We drive across the street and the stores are closed. Where do we end up? Back at Lowes where we buy flowers for his Mom (my original idea). Next stop, our home to get his Dad some whiskey (my original idea). I thought I’d document this occasion with a couple pictures.
Later in the day after I had caffeine and wine in my system, Matt and I talked about our morning. I told him that things would have gone much better if he would have said, “We’re going to hit Walmart after we stop at Starbucks for you”. Matt is a fast learner. This morning when he woke me up before 6am to head to Cheney, he said, “If you get up and get going, we can stop by Starbucks”. Major improvement! Hey…don’t they say the first 50 years of marriage are the hardest?

School's Out for Summer

Matt and I hit the last day of school kegger. This was the 2nd time in a couple months that I've been to a party with an adult pinata. Fun times...

Bread Ties and Meat Trays

Well, another school year has ended. I realized that I have now been in the business since the year 2000. This year, I had to pack up my classroom and prepare to move out to a portable. Today someone asked me, "What's a portable". I had to tell them that my portable is basically a double-wide trailer, cut in half. Wow, I never looked at it this way. There are a couple downsides to moving out to the portable farm, but I'll still be near my buddies and may be able to slip in a little late every now and then. From this moving/packing experience, I once again learned that 1. I do not like change and 2. I am a closet hoarder. I know someone who hoards things like the Styrofoam trays holding that nice, juicy steak you buy and Costco. This person also holds on to plastic sacks, bread ties, 80's earrings, t-shirt ties from the early 90's, and at least three boxes of home shopping orders per week. All of this is only the tip of the iceberg. Where I'm going with this is that I had a hard time getting rid of stuff during this move. I was also horrified to see that almost all the furniture and file cabinets we have been using for three years are being surplussed (which I learned is that they're taking it all to the dump). I was horribly offended because all of this stuff can STILL BE USED (hoarder). Next, I went into my portable and was asked what I wanted to keep and what I wanted surplussed. If you ask me, everything can be used. After being mocked a little by Jenny and the lady doing inventory, I decided to let go of two file cabinets that did not have all their working drawers. I also let go of about twenty five 1970's style plastic yellow and orange chairs. I'm pretty sure I could "use" this stuff, but realized I just had to let it go. If I don't, I'll soon be storing my Styrofoam meat trays and plastic bread ties in the broken file cabinets. :-)

"Saved by the Bell" Reunion

So Jimmy Fallon is trying to convince all the members from Saved by the Bell to come on to his show for a reunion. I'm lovin' this! So far, it looks like Zach and A.C Slater are in....

Gripes 2009

So I attended Pasco High's graduation on Saturday. One thing I know for sure (picture Oprah's voice right now) is that PHS is famous for having graduations that last only 1 hour. Keep in mind, there are over 500 graduates and they get this thing done in an hour. I think my high school graduation class of 150 had a longer ceremony. Anyway, this was a big day for Pasco, so there were just a ton of people (7,000) in attendance. I had to push and shove my way to the stair way so I could get down to my "saved" seats, thanks to Jenny and Sarah. Once we got to our seats, it started to rain which is a big deal to us here in the Tri-Cities. It doesn't rain here. You should have seen it, people started to run up the stadium stairs for cover. It's like we are all made of sugar down here. I knew we were trapped and that really the storm would last 5 minutes (which it did), so we rode it out. My most cherished moment of the ceremony was not seeing my students walk across the stage to get their diplomas, but observing the biggest jerk I've seen in a long time sit/stand in front of us. Not only did he stand in our way so we could not see the stage, he gave my friend a dirty look and took his time to sit down after being asked nicely to sit down. After he returned from running away from the rain, he used two graduation programs to dry off his seat and then threw the wet programs at my friends feet behind him. And...to top it off, this guy was carrying around a milk jug full of water! What the heck? I've only seen body builders do this and he sure didn't look like one. Did he really need to bring it into graduation? Can't wait until next year!

Manners

I have been wanting to talk about this for a long time. As a teacher, I try to teach my students common manners such as please, thank you, how are you doing today, opening a door, etc. Every morning I walk into school with my hands full. How many times do you think a high school student has 1. opened the door for me or 2. held the door open for me when they see me coming? The answer is in 3 years, 1 kid has held the door open for me and 0 kids have made the effort to open the door for me. I am going to continue my informal study to see if my data holds true. I will report back. In the meantime, I will continue to open the door while trying not to spill my hot coffee on myself or drop something.

Introducing Whitdogg

Ok, because I know you all are just sitting on the edge of you seats waiting to see or hear about what I'm doing.....well, now you can keep up with my less-than exciting life. I have a lot of complaints, and since I think Matt's tired of hearing about them....this could be my sounding board.