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.