First day reflections

Today was the first day back at school.  Wow.  It's going to be a difficult year.  3 of my 4 classes are very full.  I felt weak today at the end of the day.  I likened it to the first day after practice or conditioning for a sport - my body was so out of whack.  Ryan and I go to the gym in the morning and I'm so glad we do because I simply have no desire to go later in the day.  Ryan was so sweet too.  He put a little "good luck/I'll be praying for you" card in my bag last night and I didn't find it until after the school day.  He made me dinner tonight and let me veg and listened to me go on and on about my students.  What a great man.  I do love him.

I will be having my surgery next Wednesday.  I met the doc last week and it should be a fairly low risk operation.  I'm gonna have a nice 7-8 inch scar on my leg.  I will be out of school for about 3 days and I'm not too happy about leaving my new kids with a sub for that long.  Ryan, the trooper, is going to be with me at the med center that day and i'm sure we'll get plenty of documentation.  Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts.

Picturama

Trying to get caught up on the semi-recent pictures.  Enjoy!

Rivercats game.  Grass seats are terrific!

I love when Ryan does these cool color pictures.

Love this guy!  

We were at Target and found these little workbooks for a soon-to-be-married couple.  How well do you know your bride/groom?  We pulled some banana chairs off the shelf, sat down, and tried to figure out how well we knew each other.

Doing, I mean, playing speed.  We were both a little rusty.

Outside of the Sacramento Music Circus.  We saw "The Sound of Music."  It was so cool.

Free Slurpee Day at 7-11

Doing the TA! with Daffy and Bugs at Magic Mountain.

Lara's baby Kira doing her Marla Hooch face.

Ryan showing off his domestic cookie making skills.

We found hideous, yet patriotic, clothes at D.I. and decided to wear them for the July 4th party at Arf's.  What this picture doesn't show is the skirt I made.  It was the cute part of the outfit.

The hot, sexy, power couple.

Kiss the cook!  OK!

News

In the words of one Arnold "Governator" Schwarzenegger: "It's not a tumor."  Ok, well it is actually.  In the past week I've received two pieces of news, both that were very surprising.

I've had a bump on my leg for the last 4 years or so.  If you're a close friend or family member, you know where it is and what it feels like - kind of creepy.  I'd asked doctors about it in the past only to receive an, "Oh, it's probably nothing.  If it's not bothering you, then i wouldn't worry about it."  Nice advice from the medical profession.  The weird thing about this bump is that while it is hard to the touch, it's warm.  It doesn't hurt, doesn't have funky coloring, but it's warm.  So a little over a month ago Ryan and I went to a skin cancer screening.  I had a mole on my foot that looked a little questionable and that's mainly what I was concerned about.  As the doctor was giving me the once over, she saw the bump on my leg and axed about it.  I told her I had no clue what it was and that previous doctors had said to not worry about it.  She seemed intrigued by it, poked and prodded at it, and then suggested that I come back in 1) to get the questionable mole removed and 2) to get samples of the bump so we could figure out what it was.  So last Thursday I got a call from her informing me that it is a tumor and that it is cancerous.  She said to not freak out, but once you hear the c-word, it's hard not to.  I didn't really freak out, but it did sit on my mind for awhile.  She called the next day and gave me more info on it, telling me that it's a rare type of tumor.  Oh great!  Having something "rare" is not what anybody really wants.  She said the common name for it was Evan's Tumor.  Try googling that.  Not much will come up.  That's how rare it is.  She proceeded to inform me that once they're removed they have a low recurrence rate and that they generally don't spread.  She also told me that she was kind of passing the torch onto a doctor at a medical center - someone that had a bit more exposure to "those" types of cancer.  I would much rather have someone that knew more about this, so I was totally fine with being passed on.  I'll go in next week for a consultation and hopefully have surgery not long after to get it removed.  While it shouldn't be a big deal, prayers would be appreciated.

The other news, not so monumental, is that I'll be teaching juniors this year instead of freshmen.  I found this out yesterday.  I had been excited to teach little freshmen again especially since I'd be able to recycle a lot of the material I'd gathered last year.  I've heard a lot of maturation (that's kind of a weird word when you say it outloud) goes on in between the sophomore and junior year - we'll see if that's true.  I'm excited for the challenge and look forward to having a bit older group.  I do have to start over with material and curriculum, but all should be well.  

I have a lot of pictures I want to put up, but I don't have the time right now.  Please check back soon.

Summertime fun

Long naps in the afternoon = late nights.  I took a rather long nap earlier today and while I was still somewhat tired afterwards, I certainly didn't think I'd be up until after 2:oo and blogging.  Truth is I just caught up on reading others' blogs and felt the need to update ours.  It's been an enjoyable summer and I'm sad to see it coming to a close.  Yes, I realize it's not even mid-July yet, but I have one more week of doing nothing school related.  I have inservice beginning on the 23rd and then we start up again on the 4th.  I got bored enough, about 3 weeks into vacation, that I decided to go work somewhere.  I was also spending too much money and figured that getting a job would not only keep me from spending money, but would actually give me money.  So, I went back to the office where I worked before I began teaching.  Being there for 3 weeks helped me to realize why I left it in the first place.  This past friday was my last day (not as festivious as my first last day) and I could feel my brain starting to turn to mush again.  It made me grateful for my freshmen.

Any-hoo, the pictures below highlight a couple of things Ryan and I have done this summer.  At the end of June I had a mole removed from my foot (seriously thought about posting the pictures of my stitches) and had a sampling taken from a mysterious bump on my leg.  Lucky for me they were on the same appendage.  Otherwise it could have made for some seriously funny gait issues.  Results of the bump have yet to come in.  Having surgery (yes, I know mole removal is not really surgery, but you should have seen how she cut into my foot - I had 9 stitches!) on one's foot and leg makes it nearly impossible to get around comfortably and gimp-less.  Sitting on a couch does me no good.  It's nice at first that I have that time to sit there and read, but after an hour or two, I feel the need to be doing something else.  So, due in part to my cabin fever, we decided to take a trip - a road trip.  We went to a farmer's market that Saturday morning and bought ingredients for salsa (this was after the tomato scare).  We chopped up some salsa, grabbed a few other items (catch phrase in the car is a lot of fun), filled up the tank and headed up I-5.  We decided that we would stop if we saw something interesting or got tired or hungry or both.  We thought we'd be getting away from the smoky skies we'd been having, but we just drove into more of it.  We stopped in Orland (known for their olives) for a little break and olive tasting.  Later on we stopped in Willows for lunch.  We'd brought a picnic and wanted to find a nice park to stop at.  Couldn't find one so we found a church instead.  They're always nicely taken care of.  We both really liked the feel of Willows.  It's a cute little town and has some colorful locals.

Here's us enjoying our picnic.

After the stop in Willows, we continued on our way up I-5.  We decided to go to Redding.  My best friend's mom lives in Redding and I hadn't seen her in years.  I had a phone number for her and called.  The machine was a generic, "No one is here to take your call right now."  I didn't even know if that number was still good.  I did know that she worked at Lowe's and that if she wasn't there, I might be able to get some info on her.  We finally found the Lowe's, despite a local's wrong directions and proceeded to the kitchen creating section.  Lucky for me I knew which department she worked in. Lowe (ha ha) and behold, she was there.  She looked at me for a good 10 seconds before she realized who it was.  She had a client there at the time, but we made arrangements to meet up later for dinner.  Ryan and I went to the movies and saw Wall*e.  It was so cute.  And check this link out for something interesting on it.  Apparently this movie has been on Pixar's mind for over a decade.  The popcorn we got at that movie was some of the best movie popcorn we've ever had.  Meeting up with Mama Fiack was a lot of fun.  We were able to fix a broken souvenir of hers and eat lots of yummy watermelon.  We barely stayed awake for the drive home.  

I saw this leaf on the way in to work and thought it looked cool.

We also "enjoyed" a trip to the beach with the fam.  My brother Aaron came out from Texas for a visit and so he and Ryan finally got to meet.  He was the last family member Ryan had to meet.  Now, I use the term "enjoy" loosely because, well, I don't know how well it really was enjoyed.  As with almost every trip we take to the beach (we go to the same place every summer), we forget how much colder it is on the coast.  The wind whipped us around and as you can see Ryan is wrapped in a towel above.  Two seconds before this picture, I had two towels and a blanket wrapped around me.  The water was nowhere near an enjoyable temperature.  Why do we subject ourselves to this year in and year out?  It did warm up a little bit later and  I think almost everyone came home a little bit pinker than they arrived.  My foot surgery was still tender and not only did I have to quasi-hobble around on it, I had to be careful about sand getting in it.  I couldn't run and play as I am wont to do on the beach.  Ryan and I were able to take a long walk down the beach and I still feel bad that he didn't get to climb the ridge like he wanted to.

It has been a good summer so far.  Ryan and I have had a lot of laughs and a lot of memories.  He is so wonderful.  We have a fun trip planned for this coming week, but I'll keep you in suspense (and to actually make sure it happens) before I tell you about it.  No updates on a wedding date, but stay tuned.

There's one person that I think has what it takes to get things done.  Wanna know who?

Check this out...

Daddy-O

On the second Saturday of every month, downtown Sacramento has what they call "Sacramento Second Saturday."  Pretty creative, I know.  It's one day a month where downtown shops are open later and local artists get to show off their stuff.  Ryan and I decided to check it out since we'd heard positive things about it.  We went in and out of a lot of shops, but nothing really caught our attention.  Wait, there was that one bra exhibit.  That was pretty neat.  Anyway, this outdoor art show is on two main streets in downtown Sac.  There are some little shops on the side streets which we didn't want to neglect so we checked those out as well.   One of the side street shops we went into advertised itself as a "Music and Radio Museum."  We are fans of both music and radio so we went inside.  The walls were covered with old concert posters and other promotional items.  Radio is special to me because it's the medium through which my parents met.  Yes, it's true.  Whether you think it's Tesla or Marconi who invented the radio, I'll let you decide.  Either way, I have someone to thank for bringing my parents together.  Anyway, my dad used to work for KXOA in his younger days.  He was a DJ when DJs used to actually know about the music they were playing.  It wasn't all run by computers in those days.  So the "Music and Radio Museum" we went into is also a recording studio by day.  We walked into one of the small recording studio rooms and lying on the desk I saw a binder of sorts flipped open and the letters KXOA jumped out at me.  Underneath those letters I saw old pictures of their DJs.  I put 2 and 2 together and went on a hunt for my dad's pictures.  With the help of one Tom Buck, we located a picture of rockin' DJ Dick Lawrence.  That was my dad's radio name.  Mr. Tom Buck remembered my dad when he was on the radio and shared a couple anecdotes with us.  So, down below you can see the picture of my dad when he was in his heyday.  What a hottie.

There are four links in the above post.  Do they show up?  I'm afraid that they don't.  Please let me know.  Thanks!

Saturday School

If you've never watched the above Bugs Bunny cartoon, please do yourself a favor and watch it now.  It is one of my all-time favorites.  Yesterday Ryan and I drove up to Hooterville to spend Father's Day with the fam.  Unfortunately, we arrived after all the festivities had died down.  I am endowing my old lappy upon my dad and as a test to see how slow/quick the internet was on it, i began looking for cartoons on YouTube.  I found this one.  It wasn't until after I watched it that I realized how smart the people behind the cartoons are.  If you were to compare this cartoon with something that kids watch on TV today, I'm sure you'd find more dialogue in today's cartoons.  What I appreciate about this cartoon, and most of the cartoons from my day, is that there wasn't much dialogue, but there was a lot of classical music.  There are studies, blah blah blah, about the impact and influence of classical music.  I love that these cartoons had classical music in them and that that music played such a large part in the stories.   

I was hoping this post would come out sounding a bit more intelligent and intellectual.  I'm going to guess that the current time (almost 1:00 AM) may have something to do with it.  I took an extra long nap late in the day and sleep isn't coming so quickly tonight.