Baskets & Blooms

Last night I was thankful to have won a ticket at school to attend the Basket and Blooms event put on by our local schools. I got to hang out with Kristin, laugh a lot, eat food... yep. Lots of fun!

Except we had to wait a long time for all the baskets to be called. So we got a little squirrely.

And there was this lady who didn't win a basket, but she almost did. 

All night she had the saddest face we have ever seen. So we made our own faces:

And then I won a basket with $215 worth of gifts cards! 

Good night, good friends, good winnins' 

I took a risk by planting my garden:

And 2 1/2 weeks later?

They're still alive! Little flowers are peeping up, the cukes have taken over everything and need to be staked, and nothing has died. 

I think gardening is my new favorite.

Yes, I'm behind.

I'm behind updating like woah. Yes, I did some cool things over the past week. But I've been busy and procrastinating and now I'll have to continue putting off talking about last weeks events (and Amy's wedding day!) for just a little while longer.

So today on the way home I shamelessly ogled at a car accident while waiting at the light. The lady seemed okay, but they were in the process of cutting her jeans off. I know I should have looked away, but I just couldn't; I mean, I was right there next to her. And I was really scared for her, not only cause of the accident, but hoping that when they cut her jeans off in front of all the coming-home-from-work traffic, she was wearing nice panties. Turns out she had on Spanx, (which I was really relieved for her.)

Now, hopefully at this point you don't think I'm too much of a terrible creeper person for sharing this on my blog, but it made me think of words of wisdom shared by my Granny when I was a little girl:

"Always make sure you are wearing attractive, clean panties because you never know what terrible accident could happen to you where you'd end up in the hospital, and you wouldn't want to be totally embarrassed in front of the doctors and nurses."

Now, although I was 7, I remember thinking, "If someone has to cut off my pants because of a terrible injury, would I even care?"

But today, I'll admit Granny might be right.

If that's ever me lying on the side of the road, I hope I'm wearing choice panties.

Food Confessions

When I get home from school I crave an everything bagel with olive oil and tony c's seasoning. This is a habit that has to stop if I have any hopes of looking good in a bikini by this summer. But the problem is, if there are bagels in the pantry, they'll get eaten. Sometimes twice a day. It's bad- I know! 

I just can't help it.

Solution?

Don't buy bagels. 

So instead I ate this (just one:)

and this:

with my friend on the couch.

Reeeelaxing Weekend

This past week was kind of yuck. I was draggin' by Friday and might have shed a few tears of exhaustion. I knew that the weekend needed to be full of... absolutely nothing. And so it was!

I had a lovely time at Hilary's baby shower, watched mindless TV, went to the beach, and the Rhythm and Ribs festival. Here's what I got before the phone died:

Best mullet ever

 I've always wanted to see the invention of human hamster balls! FINALLY!

 Hello, friend.

Will you help us?

Look at these cutie-pies, featured on our region's homepage:

Manatee Region

Yep, those are my kiddos. 

They put their reputations out on a limb in order to participate in Odyssey of the Mind. 

They brave the strange, questioning looks they receive from peers and family when performing their ridiculous skit inside the human body.

They then patiently explain what the heck they just performed.

They diligently show up for practices, enduring hot glue burns, paint stains on every article of clothing they own, and my frustrated cries when paint ends up on the school's carpet... again.  

We've powered through at least 166 hours of meetings together. 

And why do I do it? Because when you have a kid say to you, 

"Finally I feel like I belong!"

or you sit in a row of seats, holding hands with a bunch of 12 year olds and your eyes squeezed shut, 

praying for your name to be called at the awards ceremony,

... you know you've found your current life's purpose.

My kiddos whom I've spent the last 2 years with have the opportunity to compete at the University of Maryland against other kids from all over the world. 

When asked if they'd like to buddy up with a team from a different country, they excitedly volunteered and started discussing what Florida gifts they could offer.

They're certainly somethin' special!

To get to the World Finals we have to raise a loooooooooooota money in a *short* amount of time. 

We simply can't afford to do it on our own.

Would you consider helping send them to the competition?

ANYTHING will be MUCH appreciated.

We've got some work to do :)

I spent the majority of the day whining about how tired I was. It's been quite a week for us teachers... one of the longest of all time, in fact. I had full intentions to come home and sleep for the entire afternoon.

I'm sure glad I didn't.

I would have missed out on this spectacle: 

And a gagillion free samples at Kilwins. And helping Kristin pick out sweet glasses that are astronomically priced. And some new good book titles that I added to the 'books i need to read before i die' list. And the best present ever for Piper Jayne. And Annie's famous guacamole. 

Tomorrow is Friday (collective sigh of relief)

Meet the new kids on the block!

Meet Marc Antony and J-Lo. They are celebrity tomatoes.

Next to the celebrities are David (cherry tomatoes) and Goliath (Goliath tomatoes)

 In the middle are the cukes, Walter, Larry, Flannigan, and Gerald.

 This is Don Juan. He is a jalapeno.

 Next to him is a random pepper, El Bandito, who was supposed to be a green bell pepper. I guess we'll just have to wait and find out his true identity.

 The last of the peppers is Pedro who is a red pepper. 

(I don't even like peppers, except for japalenos. Why did I get so many? Not sure.) 

This little guy's name is Bailey Basil. Annie nearly killed him when she refused to water him. He lost most of his body, but had one tiny limb left. We'll see how he does in his new environment.

So far, so good. Let's see if they can last long enough to produce veggies!

I've been seriously slacking.

I guess I just got behind with procrastinating updating from Amy's wedding, then the whole crazy week afterwards and now this crazy week. I've been a little information-overload-overwhelmed, what with figuring out the logistics of taking a carload of kids out of state to a competition. Not as easy as I thought. Can you just ask people for donations and disperse it evenly? Apparently not. There's tons of paperwork to be done, and I am NOT one for paperwork.
      But hey. Who's complaining? I get an amazing opportunity to take kiddos on the experience of their lives. No complaints here.

And in other news, my garden finally got planted:

Rewind back to last Saturday. We woke up refreshed and ready to continue celebrating with a lovely bridal brunch at the gorgeous house her parents had rented for the weekend. Hopefully Kelly & I weren't too crazy for Amy's mother-in-law, who's a bit on the conservative side....

Later on we helped Amy organize and prepare everything for the wedding. That girl is seriously talented. She ordered tons of flowers wholesale and had the vision to create her own bouquets (which were BEAUTIFUL!) She'd been collecting fun vases and chubby birds from various places for months; it was our job to label which tables each would go on. 

And we might have taken frequent breaks to hit up the trampoline...

The day's events went by smoothly and without any stress. Everything was completed without any complications and we were ready for the wedding!

World Finals?!

Parents asked, "Do you think our kids have a chance?" I answered, "Honestly, not really. I mean, their skit is great and I know they've put a lot of work into it, but the caliber of teams at the state level are an entire different ballgame. We'll be lucky if they even place above 10th out of the 20 teams."

Time to eat your own words, coach.

They shone up on that stage as if they were born to be in front of a large audience.

They nailed the hands-on problem solving task and came out whopping and jumping for joy.

And when the emcee at the awards ceremony did not announce our names for 5th, 4th, or 3rd place, I thought, "There's no way...."As we sat there holding hands, eyes squeezed shut, praying for a ticket to World finals, I gave it up to God and knew that if we were going to be invited to perform at the University of Maryland, He would provide the funds to get us there. 

Our name was called for a second place! We ran screaming down the UCF arena to the stage where we shook the hands of judges and the founder of Odyssey of the Mind. I bear hugged two of the directors for the state of Florida, one who is a close friend of the family and the other, my former Odyssey of the Mind coach from 6th grade. 

Life certainly comes full circle, and I'm blessed to have had the opportunity to have spent this year with truly amazing teenagers. 

Time for crazy fundraising and my first trip to World and Washington DC!

Rehearsal!

What started out as a peaceful day got a little hectic.

Ames and I went to get our nails done:

But  they started mine first. And didn't start hers until an hour and a half later... and only had an hour until we were supposed to be at the rehearsal. So we all kind of started to stress out. 

Finally we ran to the parking lot at 1:50.

I realized I didn't have my wallet. Amy's freaking out by now.

Kel ran to Annie's car to see if it was in there. Then she ran in the nail place, found it and brought it all out, where the tip i was going to leave for the lady dumped all over the parking lot. 

Kel jumped into the car. I promptly spilled cheese and crackers all over the place. I'm surprised Amy wasn't in tears by this point; she held it in well.

We got there, I shut the door on my leg...

and it was a beautiful day for a rehearsal!

Then Kel fell into a hole. I guess you had to be there, but it was pretty hilarious.

And we got back to the house Amy's family was staying at... 

and Kelly left her purse at the rehearsal.

Amy didn't want to talk to us for a little bit. 

Wonderful rehearsal dinner that night!

...and CRASHED that night (might have thrown a fit demanding to go to sleep...) 

Bachelorette!

     So I'm really bad at thinking back on what went on over an extended period of time. And anything prior to the current day = extended... but I will do my best to try to remember the fun events from this weekend!
     On Thursday Kelly flew in from Melb and we promptly went to the Flying Biscuit for some amazing cheesy grits and cinnamon sugar biscuits. Mmmmmm. Mind you we haven't seen our best friend since Christmas of '09.

When we got back we kicked Amy out to run errands so we could decorate her house for the bachelorette. We ended up creating Prince Paul that fit with the 'Little Mermaid' theme. Paul is a Georgia fan, hence the Gators shirt and jean shorts.

All fancied up and ready to go... to the gay bar! Best. Time. Ever. Especially the drag show. But no pictures of that belong here on the blog...