Anyone hiring?

Well our ac is messed up again, the downstairs unit is not working... it'll turn on and then turn off and then turn back on again and it couldn't cool the area down at all.  We have been sleeping upstairs in the "man cave" on the fold-out couch, we had slept in the guest room but the bed is so small that I suggested we sleep on the couch where we have much more room.  I can't wait until we can sleep in our bed again!  I have a hard time sleeping anywhere but there.

This past weekend we went to one of T's friends "bayhouse" and spent the day fishing and crabbing, well I didn't do either but the guys did.  I just watched them and got a little too much sun, stupid spray sun block.  While we there, Izzie was at the in-laws swimming the day away.  She loves the pool!  I love the pool too because it tires Izzie out and she lets us sleep in.  We got home pretty late on Saturday evening and we were all worn out.

I have decided to start looking for other jobs other than teaching, I know I shouldn't but I have pretty much given up on all the teaching positions I see except for the possibility to work at my friends school in Alief.  I really do hope that it works out and I'll teach there but I know there's a big chance that I won't teach this year.  We really need some extra money now so I've been applying here and there, I'd love to either work as an admin assistant (somewhere local) or at a gym or fitness center (again somewhere local).  I'd love to work in the fitness arena since I really enjoy fitness and learning healthy ways.  I hope that something works out for me, I really want to help out us and our bank account... I told T that when I get a job I'll buy him some Blue Bell ice-cream, right now it's sandwiches, soup, homemade pizza, breakfast for dinner, maybe pasta, and that's pretty much all we eat... I hate it!  I can't wait until I can cook real meals again!

What's for dinner?: Grilled cheese and soup (ha!)

Smack smack... I wanna smack you!

How annoying is it to go to a class where a fellow student thinks they are the teacher??  I paid to go to a class to learn from the teacher, not another student.  I am currently in an ESL test prep class and it's really distracting when other students interrupt the teacher and add their two cents to the lesson.  Sometimes extra tips or advice is great but when it's constant and not really helpful those students make me want to slap them!  Another annoying this is when people bring extra crunchy food to class, I don't care if you bring food since it's during dinner anyways and hey I get hungry too but please don't bring a big bag of chips and then crunch them with your mouth open!  Gosh, this class is more annoying than helpful.  I think I paid $100 for study tips and a packet of paper (I'm thankful for the packets), they try to help us by giving us acronyms to remember information but I would just rather them teach us the information we actually need to know instead of just the shortcuts.  Ok... complaint over with for now.

Onto running, I have not felt really motivated to run longer distances than 2 miles.  It's so stinking hot outside that I just want to get back inside.  Today I didn't even really feel like running so I went for a 20 minute walk followed by a 10 minute run, so I guess it was good that I got some running in?  I think for right now while I'm in class and studying for my ESL supplemental test I'll continue with the 2 mile runs but maybe add some 3 mile runs on the weekend.  In July I'll try to pick up my distances.

What's for dinner?:  Going over to a friend's house for dinner, yey social interaction!!

Baton Rouge wedding, Cajun food, Busy weekend

This past weekend we drove over to Baton Rouge for a wedding.  The lovely couple getting married was our friends from college.  T met the groom through his ME major and had many classes with him.  We all our good friends now and meet up occasionally, they live in Houston.  We were asked to be a part of the wedding, as gift bearers, and it was quite an honor.  On Friday night we went to the rehearsal and practiced our very "important" parts and then went to the rehearsal dinner for some good cajun food.

At the rehearsal dinner:

With the lovely soon to be married couple:

The next morning we woke up early and ran around the LSU lakes, which I had never done in college since I had never really ran before.  After running we went to CC's (Community Coffee) for some good coffee, we have missed CC's since we moved to Houston but we do get big bags of their breakfast blend coffee beans and make it fresh every day.  The wedding was at 11:30 so we got their around 11 and were ready for our parts.  It was the first wedding we had been to besides our own, yes we are pretty unexperienced in the wedding department.  The bride was beautiful and so was the wedding.  The reception was at a place called Oak Lodge and was really nice.  The food was amazing, the cake was white with vanilla icing and a raspberry filling (I think it was raspberry) and it was delicious!  T and I shared a piece of each cake, though I ate most of them... I couldn't stop!  T and I danced some slow dances and it was incredibly romantic.  Memories of our wedding came back to the both of us.  That evening we went to dinner at Chimes, possibly our favorite place in Baton Rouge, and had food and drinks with some LSU friends.

Us before the wedding, geez T looks creepy:

The almost newlyweds:

Us with the newlyweds:

Blowing some bubbles:

The newlyweds off to their honeymoon:

The next morning I met up with some girl friends at CC's and we chatted for a little bit.  Talking with my friends made me want to move back to Baton Rouge, it was so nice to just pick up where we left off and just talk.  As we left Baton Rouge we ate lunch at Cane's, sooooo good!  There is one about 30 minutes away from us here in Katy but in Baton Rouge they are all over the place.  We drove over to Kingwood to pick up Izzie, who stayed with T's family, and finally headed home.  It was nice to be away for the weekend but it was also really nice to be home.

Last night I went to my first ESL prep class in Houston.  The teacher was pretty good, a little confusing at times but there was another woman in the class who kept thinking she was the teacher... interrupting, repeating what the teacher said, trying to finish the teacher's sentences, and adding her two cents... annoying!!  Today I went to the library and picked up a study book that has a little section on the ESL supplemental but really anything will help.  I hope that being ESL certified will help in the hiring process.  I could really use a job right now.  We aren't struggling financially but I think if my unemployment continues for much longer we might be in trouble.

Onto happier things... running... today while I was running I was just thinking how great running is, minus the gear, running outdoors is free.  Free things = happiness.  I am going to be working on running longer distances and building stamina.  The furthest I have run has been 3.1 miles.  I'd love to find parks to run in with Izzie (and hopefully T).

What's for dinner?: Grilled cheese and soup (a common occurrence in our household lately)

Staying Positive and the dreadful job search

I have tried very hard to not let the job search get me down.  Mostly, I have not succeeded in that.  Recently, I have been doing better.  I have had 3 part time jobs since I graduated college (August 2008) and sometimes I feel like a complete failure.  But then I remember to be grateful to be married to a wonderful man who is lucky (in this economy) to have a great job that provides financial support for our little family.  Every time I get down on myself I just think about how it would feel for both of us to be job-less or homeless and again remember how lucky we are.  I know that I could try harder or be more persistent with my job search but that has been hard for me to do.

After I went to the Katy ISD job fair, I was really down about it but after a few days I picked myself back up and decided to not give up.  I may or  may not teach in the Fall and I am okay with that.  I am constantly sending out my resume, whenever I see a new job post on Katy's site I send it out.  My friend gave my resume to her principal and told me to continuously "bug" her (I won't get annoying, I hope!) so I sent her an email today to remind her about me.

I have committed myself to using coupons, finding where the lowest prices are, and getting great deals for groceries... I guess you could say it's my job for now!

Now for nostalgic and happy purposes... some Izzie photos (she is 10 months old now)

The day we first met Izzie:

Already Daddy's little girl:

First day at home:

So little:

So little, it's ridiculous:

Halloween, I was cruel, she was cute:

Ready to go shopping, or run away and chew up this bag.  Either way, cute!:

I know, I know... cruel again.  But luckily she is too big for this and she likes to eat any form of doggy clothing.:

Blurry, but this is the face I get when I ask her "Are you ready to go on a walk?"  Hahahaha!:

She use to barely fill up a corner of this bed, now she fills it up just nicely:

Swimming like a big girl!:

P.S. I just got an email from the principal written about above, and it said "Thanks for your interest in _____ Elementary, I will keep you in mind."  I don't know if that is to stop me from my emails, maybe I "bugged" her too much!  Oh well, at least she responded to my email this time!  There is hope!

What's for dinner?: Soup and grilled cheese

Job fair, mulching, and crawfish

What a weekend!  T had Friday off and spent most of the day at the dmv getting a new license since his had expired on his birthday.  When he got home we went out to get flowers for our front yard.  We got azaleas, a mum, some weird pointy flowers, and red crimsons.  T planted them while Izzie and I relaxed.

On Saturday I went to the teacher job fair in Katy, there were 2,700 people for only 400 jobs... so I'm not expecting much out of that.  Besides, I think that Katy schools are only looking for people with experience.  I totally understand why they want people with experience it just stinks for those of us who are wanting to gain experience but aren't given the chance to do so.  My saving grace was my friend who I met at ACT, she teaches in Alief and asked me to send her my resume if I'd like to teach at her school.  I had already applied last Fall when she got the job there because I knew we could help each other get through our first year.  Even though the school is not in a great area, having a friend there would make teaching 10x better anywhere.  I sent her my resume and I really hope to get a positive response!!

When I got home from the job fair, T was hacking away at a leftover tree stump in our back yard.  He finally got the stump out of the ground and he/I was so proud.

It took a few hours but T taught that stump who's boss, haha!!

After he was done with the stump we started putting mulch down in the front yard.  T had 6 yards of black mulch delivered and they dumped it on our driveway, which makes sense but what doesn't make sense is that T didn't get his car of the garage before they came.  Luckily I had been out (at the job fair) so we had my car to use for the weekend.  Anyways, we put down mulch around a couple trees and then got ready to go to a crawfish boil fundraiser for a contractor who T works with.  On the way home from the fundraiser we stopped at KFC for dinner.  I haven't had KFC since I was in middle school.  I got the grilled chicken breast with a biscuit, mac'n'cheese, and green beans... it was so delicious!!  T got the grilled double down with mashed potatoes, and his dinner was pretty good as well.  A little bit after dinner we went outside to lay down more mulch.  We got two more trees done.

On Sunday, we went to the early church service and came home to lay down more mulch before heading off to Kingwood.  We finished the front yard and next weekend we will start putting down rocks around the trees.  After finishing the front yard we got ready to go to Kingwood.  We brought Izzie with us and took her to the in-laws house.  The plans were to swim with her for a little bit and then head off to one of T's friends house for another crawfish boil.  Well, Izzie did not want to go swimming at least not by force.

We went to the crawfish boil and hung out with T's friends.  It was a beautiful day outside.  The food was good and we had fun.  After a couple hours there we went back to the in-laws house and to our surprise Izzie had been swimming!  So they showed us her swimming abilities, she'd step down on the first step and kinda swat the water.  Then she'd start moving her front arms as if she were getting her motor ready, it was hilarious.  She would finally get her whole body in the pool and she swam!  It was so dang cute and funny.  She isn't a graceful swimmer yet but hey it was pretty good for her first day.  When she didn't have a ball in her mouth and she was swimming she'd splash the water around and eat it while it was in the air.  What a cutie-pa-tootie!

After watching Izzie swim for a while we ate dinner over at the in-laws, we had fajitas, roasted potatoes, and steamed spinach.  It was delicious!!  We got home around 8 and watched tv for a couple hours and went to bed a bit early since we were pooped from the busy weekend.  Izzie slept in the car, when we got home, all night, and napped throughout the day on Monday... swimming made her tired!

Yesterday, Izzie and lounged around (as usual), went for a walk, and got cornered by a dog.  The other dog was a pit-bull and it kinda scared me because I don't know the dog and don't know if it's aggressive or not.  It followed us and her and Izzie kept on trying to sniff each other, finally its owner came and got her.  I was not happy.  I don't like it when unfamiliar dogs come up to us, it makes me nervous.

Oh and a very embarrassing thing happened to me yesterday, a spam email (about viagra) was sent from my email account to every single person I've ever emailed.  I don't know how it happened but I changed my password and sent out a warning/apology email to everyone.  Yeah that email was sent to recruiters from surrounding school districts, old bosses, old co-workers, family, friends, and college/act friends.  So embarrassing!!  After T got home we continued laying down mulch, this time we did the back yard. We have one tree area left but first it has to be weeded and cleaned.  While T was shoveling mulch he got two offers on the leftovers.  T was able to shovel enough of the mulch to be able to get his car out (he had to take mine to work yesterday).  We finally ate dinner at 8:40, quite a late one, and then watched Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  We have a love/hate relationship with that show, we love watching it but then we get hungry at which point we hate it.

Today I have a hair appointment at 1:30 followed by grocery shopping.  I haven't gotten my hair cut since November and it's pretty long.  I never really know what kind of hair cut I want and sometimes that works out and sometimes not so much.  The lady I'll be seeing today is good so I'm not worried about the outcome.  After T gets home from work we'll finish laying down the mulch, thank goodness!!

What's for dinner?: Crab Primavera pasta and salad.

What am I reading?: From Dead to Worse

Truu confessions

This weekend is the Katy ISD job fair and I will be joining the insanity.  I've heard from multiple people how crazy it is, I am trying to prepare myself for it.  I have already updated my resume and tried to revamp it so it is more appealing to the schools.  I really hope that I get something in Katy and start teaching this Fall, if not I'll have to take a new test because mine will be out of date for the 2011-2012 school year.  Until this week I was staying positive about everything but yesterday my negative thoughts came in, I just have to push them out and I know that if teaching is what I should be doing it'll happen for me.

Izzie is doing better, her poopy has gotten a little better and she isn't pooping in the house at all hours of the night.  I bought some anti-diarrhea dog medicine and it seems to be working.  Right now she just had a freak-out because the doorbell on a tv show rang and she thought it was ours, this led to barking and walking around the house like a crazy dog.  I was just talking to T about this last night and I wonder if she'd ever be aggressive or would she ever attack someone to protect us.  I have never seen her be aggressive and I don't ever want to be in a situation where we need her protection but I just wonder if she'd bark and then lick the person to death!

Last night for dinner we had baked chicken parmesan, roasted squash, and whole grain pasta.  The baked chicken parm was pretty dang tasty, the breading was a piece of whole grain bread and pine nuts all crushed and split among 4 chicken breasts.  So, you dipped each piece of chicken in egg/water mixture then in the bread/pine-nut mixture.  Put it in the oven at 425 for 10 minutes, pull it out and flip the chicken, put marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese on top and bake it for another 5-10 minutes.  The roasted squash was not so good but hey we tried a new vegetable and can keep on looking for some new options.  Tonight we are eating the leftovers, yum!!

Oh and last thing, I found this website (via the Rachael Ray show) and it is hilarious... I almost peed myself laughing... it's www.truuconfessions.com, get ready for some laughter!

What's for dinner?:  Leftover baked chicken parm, whole grain pasta, and salad.

Bad blogger

I have been a bad blogger, it's been almost a month since my last post!  I guess I have been distracted.

T's birthday was the 18th; we both had dentist appointments (fun stuff) on his birthday and met his parents for lunch downtown by our old apartment.  After we got home from that he spent the rest of the afternoon putting on a new faucet in our half bath, I think it was a tie between that and putting his desk together a year ago for the most "angry"words I've heard him use during a task.  Izzie and I just stayed out of his way!  That following Saturday we had a crawfish boil for his birthday and his friends/coworkers came over for it.  It was a miserable day outside and we had to do it in the garage, I mostly stayed inside the house because it was too cold and Izzie kept on escaping to our neighbors' yards.  I made jambalaya for the party as well and all but one serving was eaten, it was pretty good!  We had fruit, salad, cupcakes, and ice-cream as well.  I was pretty proud of T for his crawfish boiling since it was his first time to be in charge of it.  I'm not really good at peeling crawfish so I don't really eat that many but T and some friends peeled some for me and they were good.

On the 22nd I drove to Slidell to see my family for a couple days, T went to Aledo for work and I didn't want to spend 4 days alone like I had been doing for the past couple of weeks.  Our house can get pretty lonely and I don't really interact with people since I don't work and don't really know that many people out here.  So Izzie and I drove over to Slidell on Monday, I think it was almost a 7 hour drive for me!  I was exhausted when we got there.  Izzie was supposed to stay in the back seat area of the car and we even tried to make a barricade with her kennel but she escaped to the front seat and sat up there with me.  She was either sitting in the seat, laying in the seat with her head either on my leg or on the gear shift... which caused some going into neutral while on the highway, or laying on the floor of the car (most ideal situation).  It was quite an interesting ride.

While at my parent's house: I met my grandma for lunch with my mom, watched Izzie and my parent's dog go wild (Izzie is a lab and my parent's dog is a westie and Izzie is really submissive to him when she first sees him and then they play rough with biting and wrestling.), went to basketball practice with my youngest brother, had nice family dinners, watched tv, and didn't read a single bit of my book that I brought with me.  The only bad thing was that at our home Izzie sleeps with us (which is pretty funny because we were really gung ho about her not sleeping with us when we first got her) but at my parents house she has to sleep in her kennel which doesn't work for her.  She barked for 30 minutes at night and then I just went downstairs and slept on the couch with her.  I felt awful because my family has to get up early for school/work but Izzie was barking and not going to stop so I sucked it up and slept on the couch.  Luckily, my dad is a super early bird and woke up around 3/4 every night and would come downstairs and let me go sleep upstairs for a couple hours.  He and the dogs would be awake so early that I thought Izzie would take a long afternoon nap, no such luck!  For the drive home I bought a new harness for Izzie (she had chewed through the last one) and my mom and I worked hard to secure the kennel as a barricade.  The kennel didn't budge, not one bit.  BUT Izzie managed to chew a little piece off the harness and then shimmied her way out of it.  I couldn't see what she was doing so I snapped pictures with my phone behind me.  Here is her escape:

Seatbelt extender in between her legs:

I thought she was ok here, turns out she was chewing on the harness at this time:

I think her foot is caught in the seatbelt extender here:

Again her foot is caught:

And now the harness is at her butt and hind legs area:

And almost off:

Harness is off and she has jumped over the kennel and now sleeping on the floor in the front:

And now helping me drive, actually this was ok because she couldn't move the gear shift down it was not ok when she slept a different way because she could push it up and into neutral:

Oh goodness, she is a booger!  But we love our little girl!  Who couldn't love this face?:

I have started running again.  I haven't been able to run the whole time I've been out but I am training myself to get back into it.  Last fall I did the couch to 5K app on my phone and that thing worked!  I was able to run a 5K and did run in one on Thanksgiving.  I loved the way I felt after every run.  I have a new 5K to look forward to:  Astros Race for the Penant 5K on May 29th, I have no doubts that I can run a 5K by then.

Another new development, I have decided to try again with getting a teaching position.  Last year I completed my alternative certification too late and was looking for a job right around the time school was starting and no luck.  So I am starting on time this year, on April 24th there is a job fair for Katy ISD and I will be there!  I've been told to be there early because it gets packed, I surely hope I get something this year.  If I could choose which grade to teach it would be 3rd or 4th grade.  We will see how it goes!

The only other update I can think of is that my family visited us for Easter.  It was so nice to have them here, I was lonely after they left because it was too quiet!  We had a great time.  On Friday night we pasta for dinner and my youngest brother and I played scrabble slam... that game is fun!  On Saturday we had T's family over for an early Easter dinner, we grilled and had a nice casual dinner.  On Sunday, after church we had leftovers.  For dinner we ordered pizza.  I know we didn't have your traditional Easter holiday meal but I already cooked Thanksgiving last year!!  (With my mom's help though!)  I don't know when the next time we'll have another big family holiday at our house, having both families over was kinda chaotic and made me anxious/nervous.

So we are updated up to this weekend.  Last night we went over to our friends house in Sugarland and brought Izzie.  She was active the whole time we were there and went straight to bed when we got home and is still sleeping right now.

I am going to try and update my blog more often so I don't have to write essays like this one!  Today looks like a lazy Saturday for us, even though it was supposed to be filled with yard work.  Ok, that is all!!

What's for dinner?:  Either chili or sloppy joes

What am I reading?:  All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris