Goodbye, Summertime

So goodbye summer, but not adios to the heat. Yesterday it was 100˚ during recess at 2:20. Many of the students as well as teachers did their best imitation of cattle in nearby pastures, finding a tree that would offer a spot of shade from the unrelenting Texas sun. What I wouldn't give for a late October cool front right about now. Or some mild English weather. 

It's hard to believe summer is officially over. The new 7th grader and I returned to classes Monday. Right now I'm in survival mode, madly paddling to keep my head above water. It's the triple whammy of new campus, new grade and new curriculum. I'm enjoying the first two aspects of my return to teaching, but the third (science) not so much. It's hard to fake a love of something that doesn't particularly interest you in any way, shape or fashion. But alas, I'll persevere and hope for a change of subjects in 2015 when sixth grade makes the move from top of the elementary pile to low man on the totem pole in our middle schools. My dream job is social studies or English.

Before I officially started inservice on August 19, I spent the week before that in Columbia, South Carolina, getting the coed moved into her dorm. It only took $2,000 plus four separate trips to both Bed, Bath and Beyond as well as Target to get her dorm essentials. Our daughter and her roomie opted to loft their beds and have a surprising amount of floor space for a TV stand, futon and fridge/microwave. 

In the first pic is an exterior shot of the daughter's coed dorm. She's on the second of three floors, so it was a do-able hike for me since the husband didn't accompany us. And wasn't that wily of him to dodge what turned out to be a rather gut wrenching event for this momma that has never been particularly sentimental. In the bottom pic is the South Carolina statehouse, located just a couple blocks off campus. I found it to be a more manageable Austin, minus the drag worms and hippies.

Here is a shot of the coed at Wal-Mart, where we picked up important things like toothpaste and deodorant. Our local Wally World store carries the University of Texas and Texas A&M team items. The stores in South Carolina are all about the USC Gamecocks and Clemson Tigers. However, in Columbia it's mostly about the garnet and black - Go Cocks!

We paid to fly four large suitcases to Columbia with the coed's wardrobe and cosmetics. And thus we did our part to support South Carolina's economy by purchasing everything from pillows to makeup remover wipes to hangers in Columbia. Below you see the teen loading up her dorm chest of drawers with clothes.

Above is a pic of the historic horseshoe at the center of the USC campus. Everything was so green, explained by the fact that Columbia receives the same amount of annual rainfall as Houston. The highs there were lower than you'll find at this time of year in the Texas hill country, but it's much more humid in Columbia. The horseshoe is where the coed attended bid day on Sunday. After more than a week of sorority rush events, she pledged Zeta Tau Alpha. In the pic below, she's the brunette in the middle with white shorts and her cellphone peeping from the back pocket. And this is why we carry insurance on her phone - one pop out of her pocket away from a shattered screen or easy access thievery.

On the trip home by myself, I sniffled through airports in three states as I backtracked our flight path through Atlanta. As soon as I arrived back in Texas, I threw myself into school prep and that has kept me from moping around wondering what the newly fledged chick is doing. We've fallen into a family routine that seems to bump along just fine without her, as if she has been away at college for years. But then I'll catch myself wondering what she wants to eat for supper. Or if she needs me to buy her anything at Wal-Mart when I swing by there after school... and then I find myself missing her all over again. They grow up and get out and life goes on for everyone. And that is exactly what happened.

Pardon Our Dust

And pardon the boxes, packing paper and stuff stacked most everywhere. The sea container was delivered Monday. Thus far we've unpacked/put away about 3/4 of its contents. Several of the rooms are more or less done, minus pics on the walls. Probably the worst part of the house is the very front, where the formal dining and husband's office are located. 

Due to a certain family member's hoarding tendencies (cough, cough, the husband), we were up to our eyeballs in boxes of books. After a good cull, we donated eight boxes of books to the town library. And when we found more boxes of books in the garage, we ended up with another four boxes of books that also need to be dropped off for donation.

The husband's secretary is moving, so she's taking some of the boxes and packing materials off our hands. The rest of it is living on the back porch until the moving company returns to pick it up on Tuesday. That's our deadline - we have until then to get everything unpacked/shuffled to where it needs to be.

Forget Calgon taking me away. I picked up the ingredients for margaritas at the grocery store when I unearthed the blender in a storage box. Now I just need to stop off at the liquor store for some tequila as well as triple sec and then I'll be all set. 

Shining Moment... and forehead!

Yesterday the sea container arrived and was unloaded. By 9:00 last night, I was so sore and tired that I could barely move from going up and down the stairs to note placement of furniture and begin a bit of unpacking. We spent today doing some serious unpacking and put away enough stuff to furnish the whole neighborhood... or so it seemed. We donated eight boxes of books to the local library and have four more to take to them tomorrow. I've also collected several items to take to the local thrift shop. I swear I'm not going to buy another piece of home or Christmas decor unless a tornado wipes our property off the map. The husband overhead me and asked to get that in writing. But seriously - I look around at all of our stuff and am just flabbergasted. 

This morning, I had to go up to the district's administration office for new employee paperwork. It was all about making sure I've turned in my required documents and getting enrolled with medical, dental, AD&D, life insurance, etc. Since the girls and I are covered through my husband's work, it didn't take long to decline everything. However, the one thing that did happen which I wasn't expecting was getting my district ID badge. Of course, that involved taking my pic. I jokingly asked the badge lady if she had an edit button on her computer to help me out a bit.

Honestly, anything after that is going to be an improvement. I was wearing a bright pink exercise shirt and some black stretchy lycra workout shorts. Not one bit of makeup. And my hair pulled back into a ponytail because I knew I was coming straight home to wrangle boxes. It's a good thing my 6th graders don't know what a mugshot is - or most of them, anyway - because they would no doubt liken my employee pic to one. 

Metal Mouth

This morning, the 7th grader spent 1.5 hrs at the orthodontist's office to kick off the process of straightening up her jack o' lantern grin. She put a lot of forethought into the selection of turquoise and purple bands, something we didn't get to do when I wore braces about the time Noah was building some big ship out in his backyard. We had no choice - just an ugly gray color. 

Our resident brace face was excited for the first couple hours after she emerged ready to set off the airport's metal detector, posting pics for her friends to see and running her tongue around her mouth to check out how they felt. We zipped over to the local Chinese restaurant to get her some wonton soup. This was more of an anticipatory move because she had taken some ibuprofen right before the appointment and felt fine.

It's almost 5:00 pm and she has piled up in front of the TV with a pillow and blanket after popping a couple more ibuprofen because her mouth is sore. No pain, no beautiful smiley gain. 

The Last Leg

I've about decided I'm getting too old for this moving business. And it's especially fun to do in Texas' July heat. Seriously - tired of toting and shifting and carting stuff either up or down the stairs. The new carpet was finally installed yesterday. The storage pod was unloaded today. The good news regarding the pod is that there were only two casualties - a barstool and floor lamp. The bad news is that the bulk of the pod's contents were just shifted to the garage since the sea container doesn't arrive until next Wednesday. I can't put out lamps, place decor and hang pictures until the furniture gets where it's supposed to be. I will be so terribly glad when the final leg of our repatriating is finished.

And on a totally separate note - today the husband and I celebrated 20 years of marital bliss, AKA the day he didn't run fast enough or far enough from the altar to escape my clutches. Some days it seems like we've been married a few months, while other times it seems like two centuries. I decided long ago he's a keeper and I'm danged lucky to have him. He's a great husband, father, son and all around good person. He loves me despite my many faults. And I adore him even though he thinks a 55" TV screen located a mere 8ish feet from the sofa looks just right and totally appropriate for the space. 

Tinkle Toes

Yesterday I took Ollie to the vet for his canine influenza booster. Dogs here in the US should never catch a thing because it seems there is a shot or pill for every possible malady. He was also getting a bath because the husband hasn't attached the hand sprayer to the tub spigot yet. And so the first time I bathed him here in Texas, it was a plastic cup affair that took forever, with me bent over the bath tub trying to get the beast's dense coat completely soap free.

I attended a little school get together early in the afternoon at a team member's house to meet some of the ladies at my new campus and didn't make it back into town to fetch Ollie until a bit after 4:00. When they brought him out to me in the reception area, he was dancing a jig and I knew why. He has this bad habit of not going potty in unfamiliar places. I figured his bladder was about to burst.

As soon as he cleared the vet clinic doors and walked onto the grassy area, he squatted to tinkle. And tinkle. And tinkle some more. And with such a strong stream that he hosed down his front paw with doggie pee-pee. Great... now his foot reeks of urine. Since I didn't have a towel in the car and refused to stand around until his tinkle soaked foot dried, I put him in the front passenger seat floor board. By the time I got around to the driver's door, he had hopped up onto the seat, walked across the console and had his pee paw on the driver door to look out at me through the glass.

Lovely - wet little piddle tracks all over my less than a month old leather seats in the first luxury vehicle I've ever owned, the one I'm afraid of getting dirty or dinged. One of the girls recently got a floor mat dirty and I just about lost it. So long new car smell. Once we were home, I busted out the premoistened bleach towelettes and wiped down the areas where he tracked pee in the car. From now on, I may have to borrow the husband's truck to get Mr. Shy Bladder home from the vet.

The Fun Continues

It's hard to believe we've been back in Texas less than three weeks. Thus far we've visited the dentist and orthodontist. Tomorrow the 7th grader gets two permanent teeth pulled in preparation for her braces to go on July 25. She has never been one to suffer in silence and I imagine we won't get stoic from her over the course of the next couple weeks where her mouth is concerned.

The coed has spent her little bit of summer depleting our bank account. She has been busy registering for college classes, ordering a loft for her dorm room, purchasing her bedding and getting a new retainer since her old one no longer fits. She never wore it at night as instructed by her ortho, allowing her teeth to shift so that it no longer fits. That's 4K for a beautiful smile I refuse to see thrown down the drain and so I ponied up for a new one to keep her teeth from doing too much moving.

Around lunchtime today, I finished painting a third room in the house. The carpet should arrive later this week and I wanted to get all of the rooms painted before the new bedroom flooring gets installed. The husband's portable shed thingy he just HAD to have will be installed Friday. That means we get to spend our weekend loading up a trailer at the in-law's house where we have things stored and bring them over to our house. In the almost 100˚July heat. I'm thinking dehydrated with a capital DUH, as in why didn't we move home in the fall or winter to avoid this incredibly hot weather. 

This time two years ago, we were headed to Barcelona for a bit of touring with Texas friends before we set sail on a cruise in the Mediterranean. I could use a bit of European weather, culture and relaxation right about now. Below is a pic I took in La Boqueria, Barcelona's large public market that dates back to the middle ages. I would definitely enjoy a cool and refreshing fruit drink right about now.