Hi everyone! Didja miss me?

Man, it's been a long time! I miss you all. I suppose I could come out of my funk for a little while and let you in on my life.

The visit with the in-laws was great. (Granted it was almost a month ago...) It was nice to have family here and spend time with them. Gerald's mom and I went to the Farmer's Market, and I found some yum honey and I rekindled my love for fresh pineapple. I'll never eat the canned junk again! We ate at a Brasilian Steakhouse where they cart around meat-on-a-stick and let you stuff your gills with a carnivore's delight. Lamb is my new favorite fancy-meat! We may attempt to grill some for Monday. We'll see...

Hmm, what else? My cousin's coming in town next week. She's going through training w/ Glaxo in RTP to be a drug rep. She'll be here for almost a month. It'll be great seeing her, even if she's going to be super busy when she's here.

We've got a new director at work now. That brings our count up to 3 DE's with a kid-count of about 160. I'm in charge of switching our Study Skills students over to the updated program, and I've done a little of it so far; just hafta do the rest on Monday (maybe tomorrow afternoon?). I'll be the one to train new teachers on the program, etc. I'm excited for it. We've all been looking forward to this program since the early part of last year.

I've started pilates classes! The exercises look alot easier to execute than they really are. I suppose if I were smaller (less mass; take up less space) it would be much easier to move my body through space. I'll get there eventually. So far I've had 2 classes; one tower and one mat, and both of them KICKED MY BUTT. Well, my abs and back really. I'm enjoying the work and I know I'm doing something good for my body. EVERYONE should do pilates!

I've been really blue lately. Today marked yet another day I stayed inside my house watching Trading Spaces. I don't know why, but I'm VERY reluctant to reach out to anyone in our neighborhood. There are plenty of people to meet and make friends with. I really don't think I've been this shy before. I know when we first moved to NYC I was petrified of going out of the apartment because it felt like people were looking at me thinking "She doesn't belong here. She's new to this." I guess I don't want to feel that way in my own neighborhood. I tried making friends with our next-door neighbor (the one we bought the house from), and I like her. It's difficult to connect with her though because she's a single mom who's super-duper busy! Then there's the young almost-married couple across the street. Gerald chatted with him one day and we've both spoken to the girl; it's rumored that they give great parties in the summer, so I'm hoping for an invite there.

I guess I just hafta get off my tushie and do some work to this house, then invite people over. But what are we going to say, "Hi, I don't know you, but please come to our house and be our friends..." I don't think that works, really. I don't know.

*sigh*

So if I can't have my back-home friends (and that includes NYC), I can always count on my Friends, right? Chandler just got new glasses, even though nobody noticed, and Phoebe and Monica are trying to figure out Phoebe's grandmother's recipe for chocolate chip cookies. (It's an old FRENCH recipe.... tee hee!) I haven't seen Rachel or Joey recently. They must be out on Joey's Mr. Beaumont.

I'm a sick person.

Some pics of my family

Mama's birthday was a hit!
Cheryl, Mama, Missy, David, and Granny


Mama, Joey, and Cheryl

Chris, Mawmaw Kitty, Aunt Sherry, Daddy, and Nanny
(Dad, his mom, and his sisters) day-before-Easter

A couple of pics

The clematis vine growing at my mailbox. It's beautiful!

It's a FROG on a BLOG!

A visitor was peeping thru my front-door window. I was on the phone with Casey and I told her I'd post the pic for her. I just now gave her my blog address; I don't know why I hadn't before. Sheesh! I'm a goofball.

I've pulled up pictures from our Arkansas trip. All of them are from the trip to the Old Mill. In my case it was TRULY a trip. 2 steps into the place and I fall flat on my bum. It made a very nasty bruise, and the outline of it is still there now. Almost like a little coffee-table ring. I need a coaster for my tushie! ;-) (tuchie, tushey, tooshie?)

I miss my people! All of them! Mama's Surprise 50th birthday was this weekend, and I couldn't go, airline tickets being what they are. I only found out about the party 2nd week in April. It would've been nice to know sooner so I could plan for it. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. I'll see her in August. YIPPEEE!

I'm looking forward to our first set of company coming in next week. The in-laws will be in town for a seminar, and they're extending their trip to spend time with us. They'll be the first to see our new home, and I'm really excited. Nobody but the neighbors (slash-former-residents) have seen the house, and, even though it's not nearly "ready" to show, I'm eager for company, if you can't tell! ;-)

I need to play with those pics more. I'll post them soon. I promise.

We got furniture! Well, we have the promise of furniture to come. 8-10 weeks is a long way to wait, but I figure since we've survived since 2/28 without it, what's a couple more months?

We were just out and about this Friday, hitting Big Lots, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. when we decided to just "pop in" and see what Thomasville had. Apparently both of our stars were in alignment or something because Gerald and I, for the first time, wholly agreed on a sofa and chairs. We walked out about 2 hours later, a little poorer but much happier! :-D

The sofa is a sage-y, moss-y green color, and the chairs are a chocolate brown leather. At first I was skeptical that we could fit a sofa and 2 chairs in our living room, but now I'm pretty sure we can do it. I've also started plugging our dimensions into my cad program, so pretty soon you all *might* be able to see a 3-D image of what our house looks like. Granted, it might be AFTER everyone winds up visiting and seeing the real-live house. It'll be nice to see a virtual mock-up of a room with our furniture. Lots easier than physically moving the furniture.

UPDATE:

We (meaning I) gave up searching for the current coffee pot. I broke down and bought a new one. I'm a sick, sad individual.... We still have boxes everywhere, but now we've got our bookcases upstairs, and we'll haul a load of books at a time up the stairs to the guest room. Still haven't finished painting the computer room.

my workplace, in the news!

http://www.nbc17.com/trianglewishes/8190281/detail.html

I've had trouble pulling up the video in mozilla and IE, so maybe my resident geeks will figure it out and let the world know.
Trevonna, the girl in the story, is one of my students. COOL!!