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*sigh* I am living last year over again. I was working in my classroom this weekend and my laptop died on Saturday. It’s doing the same thing it did the last time, so that means opening it up and cleaning it out, but there’s no time for that.

On Sunday I was walking around school barefoot when my foot started doing that pain/itchy thing again. After the pain went away I kept feeling like I had something stuck to the bottom of my foot – like a ball of tape or something. I wiped my feet and realized it was a bulge of blood under my skin. *jibblie*

Lloyd wouldn’t pick up his phone to hear me complain about it, so I took lots of pictures. Sorry.

I should look at the rest of last year’s posts so I can tell my future.

I learned something about epoxy today.

This is the ‘work weekend’ before the school year starts up again, and it’s been very, very productive. We closed on Friday so that we could get things cleaned up, and we had four college students do just a ton of work. As a result, I’m getting to some projects that I’ve put off for a really long time.

One of them is our staff ‘welcome’ board in the entryway. I didn’t take a ‘before’ picture but it is basically a frame that is permanently mounted to the wall. You remove a side of the frame and slide out the plexiglass, then put whatever you want behind it and reassemble the whole thing. I had staff pictures attached to a piece of paper with names and matting, blah blah blah. It looked alright but we have college students who come and go and changing the photos is a thorn in my side.

I had an idea. Why not get some of those acrylic frames where you can just slip photos in and out? Genius! After patting myself on the back, I took two weeks to remember to look up a place that would sell those, then another two weeks to order them, then didn’t notice the e-mail from the company that said they didn’t sell the model I ordered, re-ordered them, then they finally arrived.

Woo-hoo! Let’s get this party started!

I bought some epoxy to glue the acrylic to the acrylic. If you don’t know about epoxy, it comes in two separate tubes and you mix them up to form a mighty super-adhesive. It’s rather dangerous. First I used some little one-shot things that made just enough epoxy for one frame, and I loved them. I didn’t have 18, though, so I had to buy a big tube. I mixed up the whole thing, dabbed it on three frames, hung them up, dabbed three more, hung them up, then went to dab and the epoxy in the cup had solidified and was HOT. Dang.

I need more epoxy.

Whew. That was a long boring story, wasn’t it? To make up for it, why don’t you read that last big paragraph again and substitute the word ‘elephant’ for ‘epoxy’. That’ll make up for it.

So, apparently I am getting stupider and stupider as the days go by. I realized that I had not sent several e-mails because instead of hitting ‘send’ I was hitting the ‘back to the rest of your e-mails’ button. The extra-dumb thing is that after I realized it and sent a couple apology e-mails, I am still doing it.

Another dumb thing? Twice in the past three days I have gotten out of my truck without stomping on the emergency brake, as it my useless habit. (Sidebar: I just spelled ‘habit’ with two r’s and spellcheck corrected me. Why isn’t it habbit? Why isn’t it rabit? Sorry. Back to the story.) The problem is that I had also had forgotten to put it in gear. It wasn’t a problem when it was just rolling a bit as I got out in a parking lot, but it was a problem when I slow-motion-rear-ended Lloyd’s car in our driveway. Oops.

I’ve felt a bit scattered lately.

We all know that I am about as brave as a mouse, right? I abhor conflict. (Well, real-life conflict, anyway. I am all about reality t.v. conflict, and am more-than-slightly ashamed to say that I will watch anything that the Bravo channel puts in front of me, with The Real Housewives of New York/New Jersey being at the top. It is total trash television but it requires zero thought on my part and I get to observe the culture of rich bratty conflict. It fascinates me.)

Anyway, back to my non-brave life. I was in Lincoln Thursday night shopping for some supplies for the upcoming teacher workdays, and as I was finishing up checking out at Menard’s, the sweet older cashier asked the larger older man (think ‘Grumpy Santa’) behind me if he found everything alright, and he said, “No. Your store is very unfriendly to disabled people. I’ve been walking all over this d*mn store because you don’t offer scooters and I can’t find a d*mn thing. I’ll take my business to Home Depot….” She said something about people usually bringing their own scooters and handed me my receipt. I made a point to look her in the eye and say a commiserating “Thank you” and left.

It rankled.

It’s the same kind of thing when people are rude to the waiter/waitress because the food is bad. It is not their fault – they just brought it to you. Even if the service is bad, be civil. This man probably had a legitimate complaint – he was quite large and with all that walking around – I imagine that his joints were killing him. However, cursing in front of a cashier just made him look stupid and mean. He could have gone to customer service and talked to a manager with rational words and something might actually get done.

Anyway, I got in my truck and felt bad, so I thought I’d be chicken-y brave and say something to him. I pulled up to the exit just as he got out and told him (nicely, because I teach preschool) that I knew he felt crabby, but he just swore at a nice lady who didn’t deserve it.

Big surprise: He said he didn’t swear at her, then told me it was none of my d*mn business, and as we parted ways he called, “And I don’t give a d*mn what you think.”

I had conflict shakes for the next five minutes, but I’m glad I said something.

Pray for them both, will you?

A couple of weeks ago I was actually semi-social and went to a murder mystery dinner with Annette and Beth. It was based on the Brady Bunch and featured two actors who played almost every part, with some help from the audience. It was entertaining, and now I know about murder mystery dinner solutions: Don’t over-think them. The actors know you’ve had a glass or two of wine and aren’t doing your best sleuthing.

I’m not here to talk about the acting, though. I want to talk about The Beans. We were served salad, meat, bread, cupcakes and The Beans. I don’t know exactly how they made them, but I have never inhaled green beans like these before. I’m a big Green Bean Casserole fan, but that doesn’t hold a candle to these.

I’m not one of those people who is great at discerning ingredients just by tasting, but I could see green beans and tomatoes (thank you, eyesight) and guessed that there was some sort of meat used as a flavoring agent – probably ham.

Well, it seemed like a good time to experiment. I bought the beans (french-cut style, la-de-da) and diced tomatoes (pre-seasoned with onions and garlic), and looked for some smokey ham. All they had were hocks, but that seems right. Don’t those luscious down-home recipes all include a ham hock? “Ham hock” – it sounds so southern, so…. American!

I threw it all in the crock pot with a fair amount of pepper and let it simmer all day. They tasted fine for supper, but they were even better the next day after they sat in the fridge and got all hock-y.

Then I wondered, “What exactly is a hock, anyway?”

Google google google. Discover discover discover. Gag gag gag.

They were still good, though.

Yay! I finally got my blood donor card in the mail so now I know my blood type. I couldn’t stand all my friends saying, (read this out loud with your upper lip scrunched up close to your nose so you can really hear the attitude. That’s how I heard it.) “I’m A+! Of course I am! I’m a teacher.” Then they would throw things at me. (I’m certain that’s how it went down.)

Well, teacher pals, take this: I’m O positive! Woo-hooooo!!! That means I’m a lifesaver! I can give blood to practically anyone! As the flyer that came with my card says:

As a Type O donor, you should feel even more special. Since more than half of the blood needed nationwide is Type O, you can help save more lives in more ways than any other blood type, especially Type A+, which is the kind that only your teacher friends have.

I’m looking at you, Brad, Beth and Lloyd. My common blood could save your teacher life someday. You’ll have to share the one measly donation I made, though.