Which left upstairs bathroom sink?

I was saying something to Cas about the master bathroom and the sink on the left of our two-sink vanity. I tried to be specific. I said, "the left bathroom sink." Then it occurred to me that I hadn't been specific enough. If I added "upstairs," there still may be confusion. I would have to have said the left sink in the master bathroom. The upstairs also has a guest bathroom with a two-sink vanity.

I was already aware that we had scored a pretty fancy house, but that's when it occurred to me that we may, in fact, be yuppies. I asked as much. "Oh my God- are we yuppies?" 

Cas emphatically said no. He said, "We're not yuppies. We just stole their house." 

See? This is why we make sense. 

Lime daisy

It's newspaper weekend. Hoofbeat weekend, in fact. I've been quite busy, and so has Cas. We did take a break on Saturday night to have dinner at the same restaurant we went to for my birthday with his family.

This time, Cas and I had a few margaritas each, and for extra fun, one of mine came with what our waiter called a lime daisy. Behold: 

That's just too cool. I had worked on newspaper pages the whole day, so the beverages were just in time. 

Today, I started my morning with more work on the paper, stopping to head to mom and dad's house (where I graded some stuff). Cas and I went out at dinner time to redeem a Groupon for a Greek restaurant. It was fantastic. 

Later on, I remembered having read on some social media outlet that there was supposed to be a super moon tonight. I said something to Cas about it, and he said that he thought there was to be an eclipse. Turns out we were both right, and we stepped out into the backyard just in time to catch the tail end of the eclipse of the super moon. Not a bad way to wrap up the busy weekend. We briefly relaxed and stargazed. Not too shabby. 

Diamond Dave

Last night Cas and I went out to a concert. Chad, Becky, Jerone and Julie were there, and we all saw the legendary Van Halen.

Van Halen first rose to fame with singer David Lee Roth at the helm. After some- let's call them creative differences- the band lost David and gained Sammy Hagar. The band lost my appreciation that point, too. I stopped calling it Van Halen, and started calling it Van Hagar. 

Evidently, there was a third lead singer after Sammy. I know this only because I read it on Wikipedia. I'm sure he paled in comparison to David Lee Roth, as well. 

When I heard that Van Halen would be touring with diamond Dave, I immediately found the ticket prices, and purchased four of them. I knew that would be a perfect outing for Cas's birthday.

Turns out I was right. We got to Gexa Energy Pavillion, which I still call Starplex, just in time to hit the bathroom and catch the very first song. It was amazing. As predicted, they ended with a combination- a real one-two punch- of Panama then Jump. I don't think they had any other choice.

If you're talking about the Diamond Dave years of Van Halen, Jump and Panama were the biggest hits. Of course, there were others. Running With the Devil, Hot for Teacher and many more. 

I specifically enjoyed hot for teacher, because after 30 years, it has developed special meaning for me and my teacher boyfriend. Maybe I'm sentimental... 

I'm about to start my day at work, and I'm totally exhausted. Worth it, though. 

I mean- look at that crowd. Many of my fellow Dallasites agree: 

Pranksters

Today marks two months since Cas and I signed the papers and bought our house.  We're both pretty happy- no buyer's remorse here.  I love the place.  He loves the place.  Heck, we even had my parents over for his birthday.

But, let's back up...  On Saturday, we went over to his mom and Step-Dave's house.  I have named his mom's boyfriend Step-Dave.  Not quite a stepdad, because the two of them aren't married, but close.  He's pretty much a grandfather to Zoey.  I think he's as much a grandfather to that little girl as anyone could be.  So, he's Step-Dave.  We had a pretty good time over there, and we hung around to play a game after Chad and Becky had to take Zoey home.

On Sunday, my parents were headed this way to celebrate.  It was a pretty elaborate mom-prank, actually.  She had commented early on that in most of our photos, Cas is wearing a green polo shirt.  I can now verify (since we share a closet) that he has at least three green polo shirts.

It's become a running gag.  My folks were due to arrive at two, and at about 1:45, Cas announced that he needed to "get into uniform."  He meant a green polo shirt.  He even emerged downstairs with a green polo under his green polo.  Pretty clever, Mr. Dunlap.

When my dad, my mom, my brother and my sister in law came, they were all wearing...  green polo shirts.  I had one stashed in the downstairs bathroom.  I insisted that Cas answer the door- I had been working in the kitchen in a tank top, and I said I had to throw on a proper shirt.  He answered to find four people on the porch step in green polo shirts.  I came around the corner in mine.  Win.

I had also left these buttons in our mailbox for my folks to wear:

Also a win.  We had food and good times, and my folks left at the right moment for Cas to actually get some work done in the evening.  

It's a regular work day today, but tomorrow, we have our Van Halen tickets.  That is going to either be completely, spectacularly cool or totally disappointing.  My hope is for the former.  We shall see.  

Let the weekend begin

It was a pretty good Friday, as it turns out.  Somehow, in their complete lack of wisdom, though, the guidance counselors added a 33rd student to my second period speech class.  There are now three students each day who cannot participate in class fully.  It's remarkable how dumb that is.  I asked my evaluator on Wednesday which kids I shouldn't teach.  It's not something I feel qualified do decide, so I would like the administration (or better yet, the genius who put 33 kids in a room with 30 computers) to decide which three kids should not learn the same things the same way as the rest of the class.  Just tell me which kids deserve a lesser learning experience, and I will stop teaching them.

Okay- rant done.  I always feel like I should add html tags to signal the start and end of a rant, but to my knowledge, there are none for that specific task.  I want there to be, though.  < rant > and < /rant > would be great signifiers that the speaker is finna go off.  Besides my class period of unusual size, I had a great Friday.  After school, I went straight home.  As is my custom, I called my mother, and this time, she had Jeff on the phone.  He was driving from Florida to South Carolina, so he had some time to kill.  When I did get home, Cas was here already.  We got ourselves ready and headed out the the Pocket Sandwich Theater.  I had booked us tickets to The Bride of Frankenstein, and it was just about as silly as you would suspect.  Here is the good doctor, Igor and The Creature dancing with some corpses:

I am up early today because we have another charity pick up scheduled this morning.  This time, it's the Ronald McDonald House.  So far, I think we've handed boxes of things to the Make a Wish people, the Leukemia Society, a local bunch that helps homeless children and another group who tries to tackle early childhood education.  We got a card for an animal shelter, but I prefer to help humans.  We may have one or two more donations to put together before we're 100% settled in to the place, but we'll get there when we get there, and not this weekend.  

This weekend is for Cas' birthday.  I gave him my present last night.  In addition to the Van Halen tickets and the Pocket Sandwich show, he now has a new gym bag and a new gym shirt/shorts combo.  Of all the zillion garments he's sifted through, he had no spare gym stuff- and that is something he actually may want more of.  He seemed pretty happy about the stuff.  

Today, we head over to Jeanne's house.  She has to make the famed chicken crepes for her kid.  We're supposed to have a swim prior to that.  I suppose I should probably get moving- many things to do before we swim and eat crepes.  

All sales final

Wednesday was college T shirt day, but I wore my very favorite red blouse. I had to- it's pretty much my lucky shirt. (I also forgot about college shirt day)

The red blouse is lucky, though. I wore it on my first date with Cas, and that seems to have worked out pretty well. I look good in red, and that particular shirt walks the line between casual and dressy pretty well. It goes with slacks or jeans or whatever. It's lucky.

I had my meeting with Mr. Friedman on Wednesday. No more suspense- I got the distinguished teacher recognition rating. I'm in the Proficient II category. That means I get my first actual raise in years. They've done some piddly cost of living adjustments, but nothing truly substantive. 

That was the news I was after. My goal was Proficient II. I met my goal. Hooray. 

Thursday morning, I stopped by the house on Modella for the last time. It was a pretty great feeling. Here's my last selfie there:

Walking away. Makes sense. Alejandro met up with me at the title company at a quarter 'til 5 yesterday, and I signed my old house away. I have no further claim on it. I only live in one place, now, and I only have my name attached to one mortgage. Thank God. Now, all I have to do is go and have a Friday at work. I've been trying to remain low-key about the rating and subsequent raise in pay, since not everyone who applied for the advanced rating received it- but I'm pretty happy. 

After work, the three-day celebration of Cas' birthday kicks off. I got us tickets to the Pocket Sandwich Theater show tonight. Let's do this. 

No photos, please...

Yesterday was the first meeting of the WT White photography club for this year Larry Young is a professional photographer. He is also a parent of a student who is in my second period class this year.

The meeting went well. We moved through everything we needed to accomplish at a pretty good clip, and we ran a quick contest. 15 minutes to take your best photo and get it on screen in my room. Everyone votes. Best photo gets a $5 Starbucks gift card. 

It was pretty great- and we also picked a T Shirt. 

I think it looks pretty, but then again, it's my design... 

The rest of this week will give me some information I desperately need. I should find out the results of my evaluation. I should also know the closing date for my house on Modella very soon.

With any luck, by the Friday, I should know about having a raise in pay, and I should have the check in my hand from selling the house on Modella. Seems like a pretty good week to me, and it ends with Cas's birthday.

I am going into work right now to have a department meeting. This afternoon, I should meet with my evaluator. Hopefully this is the day that he tells me what my rating was from last year's evaluation. Then, I will know if I get the raise or not. Only time will tell.

Everything must go

By the end of this week, I will hopefully have a lot less stuff and a lot more money. I won't count on anything until the cash is in my hand or the checks clear, but I should be selling my motorcycle in a few hours. I also get paid on Tuesday. Oh, and the closing for Modella should be Thursday. I'm starting this week with two houses and two vehicles. I'm ending it with one of each.

The Triumph is in Dad's shop. My buyer came by yesterday to take a look. He will be back at 9am with cash in hand. Here they were checking it out:

Bike guys. It took them no time to start talking at a vocabulary level I just didn't understand. No matter- the bike will be well cared for with its new owner. 

I'm looking for a downloadable bill of sale right now. After I print one of those, I'm off to mom and dad's house. 

This is the one I have chosen

That's what one of us will say when the other is very silly.  If he makes a bad pun and I roll my eyes, I will then say, "This is the one I have chosen."  If I make an un-funny mamma joke or find the most inappropriate moment to utter the phrase, that's what she said, he will say, "This is the one I have chosen."

It's sort of an admission that, while the person the speaker is looking at is entirely goofy, the speaker is not without blame.  It was a choice we both made.  On purpose.

But the one I have chosen is pretty great.  When he got back from his lock-in thing yesterday morning, he went almost directly to bed.  When he woke up again, he made his way to the kitchen.  I had left a note:

Next summer, we have a plan to go to Australia and New Zealand, and on Thursday (since there is a very good liquor store between the house and the football field) I picked up an Australian wine and a New Zealand wine.  

After school, Cas met me and some of my work colleagues for happy hour.  When we got back home, he added a third piece to the counter top note.   

See?  This is the one I have chosen.  Of course, from there, we made dumb references to didgeridoos all evening.  Because we're so adulting.  

Right now, I am trying to decide if I am getting sick or not.  My throat feels a little dry and scratchy, but it could be nothing.  Not sure.  Holly has her Mimosas and Triplets party today.  I want to head over there and give her a present.  I also want to say hello to Brad and Sue while they're in town, but maybe I should stay away from the three-month-old infants.  I'll have a cup of tea and see how I feel.  I'll decide what I should didgeridoo in a while...

Yay! Sportsball!

This week has totally kicked my butt. I think what happens when they give you a day off is that the universe tries to extract the lost work hours from your other four days. On Tuesday, I spent my only class period off covering for another teacher. On Wednesday, I spent that time meeting with a parent. Today, I covered a class again. I legitimately haven't had time to reply to the simplest emails.

On Tuesday night, I headed over to my parents' house. Cas had parent night at his school, and over in Richardson, dad had my motorcycle repaired and ready to put on Craigslist. I've had one serious potential buyer so far. 

Tonight, I went to a football game. I stuck around for the halftime show and headed out. I was chosen as a favorite teacher today by a kid in my third period who is on the football team. This means I get a jersey. I'm number 82 tonight. The kid who handed me the jersey was very nonchalant about it. He walked up with the jersey in his hand, shoved it into my hands, and said, "Here. I picked you." 

It was sweet, if a little awkward. The jersey was pretty musty smelling, and it looked strange when I put it on over my dress, but I sported it off and on all day. 

I actually took it home and hosed it down with a better smell before heading out to the game. I'm just home, now. The boys were winning with a score of something like 36-0 when I left. Good enough. 

Cas is at an overnight retreat/lock in for his school, so I actually won't see him until tomorrow after work. It's going to be strange sleeping in this house without him. I've actually never done that before. First time for everything. 

Bus driver, MOVE THAT BUS!

Yesterday, we went on the wine bus.  I saw a great Groupon a while back for a bus tour of area wineries.  I was just going to get it for me and Cas, but he suggested we invite Dan and Laurie to go with us.  We finally scheduled it for yesterday, so it happened that our wine bus trip was on Laurie's birthday.  Serendipity.

We started out at Coal Vines, which is a pretty fancy restaurant in uptown.  There was a "family style" meal, meaning we had to share with each other and a few strangers.  No matter, though.  We ate plenty.  After the meal, we all got on to a bus that would take us to three wineries.  The first one was honestly a disappointment.  We were crammed into a tiny room, and some inept guy (he broke a cork off in a wine bottle- rookie move...) poured some pretty bad wine, one ounce at a time into the glasses of the 52 people who were sardine-packed into a small room.  After that, he poured three other pretty bad wines into our glasses.  None of the wines was good, and the crowd in the room made it feel like he was the slowest wine-pourer alive.

Here we are, between sips:

And, of course, our traveling companions:

After we left there, we got back on the bus.  The next stop was about 75 miles from the restaurant where we began, in a town called Alvord.  There are, evidently, a pair of vineyards in Alvord, and the first one we went to was called Brushy Creek.  

This is the dude who makes wine there:

Just shy of Lucy and Ethel smashing grapes with no shoes on, Cas and I did take a turn at some more sophisticated squishing:

We went to another place in Alvord after that, but this time, we had a bottle of wine to enjoy on the bus.  I kind of wish the wine at the first place wasn't so bad- It would have been nice to have a bottle with for the long trip out to Alvord.  We picked up a bottle at Brushy Creek, though, and we had a small glass each on the way to Marker Cellars winery.  

Their wines were the best ones of the trip, and it was the place we left with a box full of our purchases.  They also happened to have the most reasonable prices of any place we visited.  

The bus ride on the way back was entertaining.  One girl in her early twenties fell down at Brushy Creek, and the ride back showed the rest of the bus that her group of friends was pretty much on par with her level of sobriety.  The twenty-somethings were walking around with the plastic bag from the inside of a box of wine and opening the spigot up over the mouth of whomever would say yes.  They offered some to me and Cas.  We said no.  They offered some to Danny and Laurie.  They declined.  They were a little obnoxious and a little entertaining, but who makes it through their twenties without being some part obnoxious and some part entertainment for others?  

Overall, though, it was a pretty nice day.  I hope Laurie had a good birthday.  I certainly had a good time celebrating it.  Of course, we have to head to Richardson today.  Mom made cake.  Must have cake.  

Finally

This week has been pretty jam-packed, and I am still staring down a to-do list with almost nothing crossed off.  Everything will work out, though, so I am genuinely not worried.

On Monday, I turned 41.  On Tuesday, I had a meeting before school.  I had another meeting before school on Wednesday.  Thursday was the first morning I was able to get anything done at work before the children arrived, and I prefer to knock out a few tasks at my desk before the day begins.  It just helps me get prepared and organized.  I guess I have just been feeling like I can't get things accomplished in any kind of a reasonable time frame lately.  Here's an example- I cut off my hair for a Locks of Love donation on August 10.  I finally had a stamp, a padded envelope and a printed copy of the donation form all together on Thursday.  It almost took a month to mail it off.

I have some actual school work to do over the weekend, but I am not touching any of it this morning.  Instead, I am getting ready to celebrate Laurie's birthday.  We booked our trip on the wine bus for today.  It's a party bus, from what I can gather, that drives around to different wineries and does tastings.  It really sounds like a good time.  I was going to buy the Groupon just for two, but we got a trip on the bus for four, and we're going with Dan and Laurie.  It's Labor Day weekend right now, so we have three days off.  I am looking forward to the wine bus, but I am also pretty happy about the prospect of napping all Monday afternoon.  

You're older than you've ever been

My very favorite song to play on birthdays is They Might Be Giants' Older.  It has a chorus that seems so birthday-appropriate:

You're older than you've ever been
And now, you're even older
And now, you're even older
And now, you're even older
You're older than you've ever been
And now, you're even older
And now, you're older still

So uplifting.

But I have been quite properly birthday-ed over the past three days.  On Saturday, Jeanne decided to Birthday me.  She and Dave arrived at the La Hacienda near our house with Zoey.  Chad and Becky had apparently been enjoying some kid-free time.  We had a lovely afternoon and enjoyed some really tasty Mexican food.  I will attempt to remember in the future, though, that they make their soft tacos on small, corn tortillas.  Though I have no ill will toward soft corn tortillas, I would have preferred literally any other type of tortilla over those.  Live and learn.

Here's Uncle Cas doing what he loves:

On Sunday, we stopped by Holly's house on the way to my parents' house.  Cas had not yet met the triplets, and it was high time.  He got a pretty good dose of baby, too.  He held all three of them, and when it came time to feed the kids, he got to feed Beau.  Holly calls Beau the bottle butcher, because he is a pretty efficient consumer.  The feeding was pretty straightforward for Cas and Beau, but the burp would not come.  Beau was a little grumpy after that.  It wasn't anything Cas did, but you could see he was a tad distressed.  When he continued the grumpiness for his mom and his Aunt Kris, Cas saw that it was clearly just what Beau was feeling, and had nothing to do with his baby-holding techniques.

After that, we went to my parents' house for a while.  It was a good time.  There was some Sonny Bryan's BBQ and homemade bread.  We had cake, and somehow, dad found me some lactose free ice cream.  It was pretty darn good.

I had a great weekend, and on Monday, when my actual birthday happened, I had a great day, too.  I left work almost with the kids and decided not to stop by Modella.  I just went straight home- and I got there before five.  It was pretty amazing.

Cas came home and took me out for some sushi.  We hadn't had sushi in quite some time, so it was a nice change.  He got me a sailing adventure for my birthday- we're going to do a bit of a lake trip, and the whole thing is my present.  Sounds pretty badass...  He did well.  Now, I have to figure out what to do for his birthday...