is it mid-November all ready?

I am writing this post while I put off writing study guides for my students' final exams so it must be. Granted the first final exams fall a month from yesterday and none of my students have an exam until a month from sunday but who am I to crush the spirit of a student who just wants to do well. (don't actually answer that...especially if you are one of the aforementioned students because then you are likely to say "the one who takes special joy in crushing the spirit of children in the name of learning" even though this 100% is not so, even though it may seem that way at times)

The temperatures have fallen....perhaps for keeps this time which means I get to show off my newly crafted/procured hats....I will take this moment to show them off here as well...and apparently burgundy is my favorite color this year

I opened the bottom drawer of sweaters freeing the wool ones from their moth proof vacuum bags, fluffing them to snuggly proportions.

I have had not 1 but 4 snowflake mornings where my car greets me with a snowflake on the dashboard warning me to beware of ice.

I have been scouting christmas crafts as a way to channel my holiday cheer all while struggling to resist the desire to buy those oh-so-cute penguin mugs at Target because I believe in Thanksgiving and believe that it too deserves it's 15 min of fame.

and people have been willing to show us apartments for our Jan 15th move in date. The idea of which was apparently outlandish a mere month and a half ago. more on the great apartment hunt/disaster/fill-in-adjective-here-once-all-shakes-out in hopefully a couple days.

in other words yes, it IS mid-november. and the blog has been neglected for 2 weeks.THIS is what happens to Teacher Ams.

p.s. i wish teacher ams made real money so I could afford to buy art at holiday gatherings like this

flash flood watch: my bedroom

reason number 557 why we are counting down the days till the end of the year.

when it rains our bedroom floods.

all the rain from the roof falls on our window

which floods the window well EVEN with the storm windows closed.

and since the inside wall is lower than the outside wall, the water enters the room.

it's supposed to rain tonight....here's hoping those sounds that sounded like steps on the roof were in fact steps on the roof, and drains being unclogged. if not Im going to have to invest in more towels.

when the power goes out.....I clean.

last friday it rained.

naturally it follows that the power would go out.

naturally it follows that I'd don my headlamp and start cleaning.

first I washed dishes.

then I made my bathroom sparkle.

then I jumped on the el headed downtown for another type of cleaning. where I cleaned up in the game about books against the english major/english teacher claires.

Air Conditioning - 2 years in the waiting

this afternoon we took the plunge...with a little shove from nick's parents and procured a window air conditioning unit.

Nick's dad is staying here the next two nights, nick's mom saturday night, it's supposed to be in the 80's this weekend. they proposed joint b-day present. NOW. coincidence. I THINK NOT.

so we picked one...took a field trip to home depot to purchase it...and then the boys had air conditioning installation fun all afternoon.

it is now deliciously cool...thanks to 10,000 BTUs per hour and a little peer pressure.

anyone else see a problem here?

I spend my free time counting down the days till we get to move out of our current apt and scouring the craig's list postings for new abodes.

most of the time I find places I like that will be rented long before my lease is up, or filter through 18 posts for the same apartment posted on the same day, or wonder how a place that looks as nice as the photos be going for so cheep but then notice no location is listed which screams not a place I want to live.

but every once in awhile I come across something that makes me scratch my head and say "humm..." I leave you with one of these. the floor plan of a place that looks great.....if you only want access to your kitchen and closet.

thunderstoms: the good and the bad

the good: kitten snuggles. yes I may be profiteering from her fear, but she was super cute



the bad: rain apparently pours into our bedroom window even when it is closed. cool apartment building, cool




on a side note...this is blog number 3 for the day...clearly Im putting off work.

why I dont like to do laundry

when I tell people that I haven't done laundry for 3 weeks they get a little disturbed. when I explain how I have to carry my clothes out in the cold past several building to make it to the laundry room in the other building, they seem to be a little less disgusted with me.

but today I was reminded why I really try to prolong the time between trips to the laundry room.

other people.

thank you stranger lady who took our clothing out of the dryer for us when it was done because we were literally 2 minutes late getting there.

thank you for taking our our clothes which were clearly wet, and putting your clothes into the dryer before we got there so we couldn't restart the dryer.

thank you for not only touching my clothes with your stranger hands but for dropping my clean underwear on the ground.

thank you for reminding me why nick face and I always hate each other by the time we are done with laundry because this time we were united in our hatred of you.

thank you for letting me hang up all of dripping wet clothes because you had clothes in all 5 dryers.

and thank you for forcing me do what I like even less....ironing because all of my school clothes are damp and wrinkled.

BEAUTIFUL bookshelf

Nick told me I could buy a new DVD shelf or I could only buy DVDs. well now I still cant bring myself to spend $20 to buy the movie on blu-ray when I can spend $5 to buy it on DVD. yes I am missing out on the crisp HD brilliance that comes along with blu-ray. but really if the DVD costs $5 is there much HD brilliance am I missing out on much?

needless to say if Im too cheap to buy movies on blu-ray I'm certainly too cheap to pay $159 for a DVD shelf capable of holding our expanding collection. and thus construction was underway. a trip to the local crafty bever along with our with our sketch in hand we managed to sweet talk our way into preimum pine for the price of common pine. (our little secret with the wood guy)

some sanding (ok a lot of sanding and all done by nick) some staining (again done by nick) and some drilling and hammering. and here we have it our furniture building careers have begun.