"What does that meeeeeeeaaaaan?"

I saw my share of whacky footage while I was working in news, but this one takes it to a 'ho 'notha leva'.



As a public relations professional, I admire her dedication to sticking to her talking points and plugging her website. I think she says "Matt Lauer was better!" at the very end.

Powdered PB and other random bits

I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my powdered peanut butter that I ordered last week from Bell Plantation. This was actually Paul's idea, but I must admit that I am intrigued. You mix this stuff with water, and apparently get a low-fat peanut butter, made from real peanuts and not much else. They also offer this product in a chocolate version.

I am also anxionsly waiting to hear back from a job interview that I had on Friday. I keep flip-flopping between thinking that I nailed it to thinking that I blew it. I'm supposed to hear something by Tuesday.

Paul had some family in town from Chicago this weekend who came over for lunch today. Paul made chicken and ribs and we spent the morning cleaning the house. Paul said that we need to get an HGTV show called "People Coming Over" that demonstrates ways to make your house presentable in 2 hours.

Cupcake Magic

So, I FINALLY got my letter of clearance for substitute teaching late last week and decided to up my chances of getting called in by placing a few bribes. I spent most of Thursday evening baking 4 dozen cupcakes and then drove around in the rain all day Friday delivering them to local schools where I introduced myself and gave them the cupcake bribe.

Well, it worked, because at 7:14 this morning my phone rang and it was a school calling for me to be in at 7:45. I guess they expect people to be out of bed and dressed or whatever by 7:15, but I was dead asleep. I jumped out of bed and into the shower, threw on some clothes (I'd already planned an outfit in my head) and drove to the school. I was assigned a 4th grade class.

The students were fine. A little chatty, but nothing horrible. We did quiet reading until the bell rang, then I called roll, then I taught Social Studies where I had the honor of teaching the children that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which happens to be one of the three things that I retained from my own 4th grade Social Studies. Then, we did Math, but I didn't have to teach them anything. They just did two worksheets. Then, they were "dispersed" to "Humanities" and I had a 45 minute break. When they got back, we took off for computer lab, where we had multiple technical (or possibly user) errors with no tech support. Some of the kids could never even log in. After that fiasco, we headed off the the "media center" where the librarian media specialist talked to them for half an hour about an atlas and then we went to lunch, which is when I realized that I was woefully unprepared. I hadn't brought anything to eat or any cash and in case you didn't know, the lunch lady doesn't take plastic. This reminded me of the time that I went to the laundr-o-mat with a credit card. So, I just sat there on my little attached-to-the-table stool and watched them eat- pizza, ice cream, chocolate milk- it actually looked good. After, lunch, I had another break because I wasn't on "recess duty, " but it was only 30 minutes, so I didn't have time to go get anything to eat off campus. When recess was over, they had "Reading and Writing" where I had them write a FULL PAGE WITHOUT SKIPPING LINES about what they were going to go over Spring Break. Then, much to my surprise, some other teacher lady showed up and taught them some grammar. She was the "linguistic specialist." Fine by me, but while she was jabbering about similes and metaphors, the fire alarm went off and I had to jump into action. Some kid thrust an "emergency bag" into my hands and sadly, I neglected to check a map, but we just followed the class next to us and ended up in the right place. I took role and every one was accounted for and the assistant principal came by and asked me if I was red or green and I told her that I didn't know what that meant. Ha. Apparently, green means that all your kids are there. So, after she told me that, I told her that I was green. Soon, the bell rang again and we went back to class. Then, we read a chapter in the Science book about ecosystems and answered some questions in the book and then, the day was over.

My mom was a teacher. She hated it and was constantly going on and on about how hard it was. My dad later became a teacher and he used to also torment her by saying that teaching was like "finding money." Based on this one experience, I'm going to have to side with my dad so far. It was a very easy day at work. Low stress. Not much thinking. Just a lot a patience and repeating yourself.

No REALLY ridiculous names as I had hoped. Nothing unpronounceable or with an unnecessary apostrophe.

ETA: I didn't mean to imply that being a teacher was easy. I can't imagine the stress and responsibility that comes with being an actual teacher. I realize being a substitute is basically just babysitting and not al all like being a real teacher.

219:The Show

I wrote a press release this morning for an upcoming art show to benefit Atlanta's homeless pets. AARF, the rescue that Douglas belongs to is having an art auction to raise funds for foster animals and for their spay and neuter program. "219" is for the 219 pets that are euthanized in Atlanta every day. To give you an idea of how many this is, Chicago only euthanizes 54 a day and that are only around 400 a year in San Fransisco.

For more information, visit the 219 page at AARF's web site.

Ultra Lime

We've spent the past two days painting Paul's office. After much deliberation, we decided on a lime green color. His office furniture is black and grey, so I wanted something that coordinates with that. He let me pick the color, which is a huge responsibility, and last night, I was kind of questioning it, but this morning after it's dried, I feel really good about it. It's also "inspired" by an old chair that one of our neighbors threw out and we snatched up. Yes, we're those kind of people.

But seriously, would you leave that on the curb? It makes me want to go knock on their door and ask to look through their house. We already have a set of 6 white tulip chairs that we purchased from our friend Leah. They belonged to her grandmother and she couldn't use them and had them in storage. We use them with our dining room table. I think we're at our quota for tulip chairs, but man, I love them. So beautiful.

I have several ideas for "art" on the cheap cheap for his office. He collects comic books, so I was thinking of framing some of them in black frames and putting them up. I looked up comic book frames and they are kind of pricey at $20 each, so I'll have to find an alternate solution if I go with this. He also has a collection of old toys- think 80s Transformer action figures- and I thought it would be cute to put some of those up on shelves. I also want to get some graphic black and white curtains for in there, but that might have to wait a while until the budget allows it (like when I get a job).

Oh, do I have a blog? I almost forgot.

Things have been really really slow. Strange how not having a job makes you a sort of hermit. I've been doing some good freelance work, but I am at the point where I actually miss having a real job. While the idea of wearing more than pajamas on a daily basis seems a little daunting right now, the thought of going to work where there are people to interact with seems exciting. Also, one of my freelance jobs has somewhat bolstered my confidence and I miss the feeling of a job well done.

I've signed up with a temp agency and I'm still working the substitute system which is very very complicated, so hopefully I'll be out of the house doing something soon.

On the positive side, I am achieving record scores on Facebook games. Eh... maybe that's not so positive.

CVS Deal Alert!

I was running low on three things today- toilet paper, laundry detergent and toothpaste, so I went to cvs.com and checked out my local flyer for deals and they had one custom made for my situation.

I got four tubes of toothpaste, two bottles of detergent and (this is the best part!) 9 rolls of toilet paper because they were out of the 6 packs.  The detergent and the toothpaste were already a good price and the toilet paper was just a bonus!  According to my receipt, I spent $23.48 and saved $18.49.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.