nothing to do!!!

i have to celebrate!!! after nights and nights of being booked solid with things to do... tonight, the girls and i have NOTHING to do... nothing... what a lovely thought.

now, we have some choices here. we could go out somewhere....the mills or the mall. we could do some minor, unnecessary shopping. we could even go to a movie or play putt putt golf!

or we could stay home and just chill. that is a lovely thought, too. the girls could play on the wii or their ds' or the computer. we could make popcorn (for them, not me) and watch a movie.

gosh...the possibilities are endless! i guess i will wait til i get home and see what the girls are up for. there is always the chance that one or all of them might have too much homework to do much else. we shall see.....

either way, it is such a free, glorious feeling at the moment for someone who has been scheduled to death!

Shamrock Shakes

i love winter. hopefully the weather we are having right now will last well into march. i love cold weather for as long as humanly possible. but there are a few things about spring that i truly adore...and the first to come to my world this year is in the title of this little blog. the lovely, minty, green, delicious, and briefly available.... shamrock shake!

i had my first shamrock shake of this season on sunday. the girls and i were doing our shopping and i promised them i would stop at mcd's for ice cream. i was not planning to get anything until i saw the sign that greeted me.... shamrock shakes are available!!! joy! joy! joy!

interestingly, as we approached the counter, i realized i knew the person who was to wait on us! it was one of my former students. when i ordered the ice cream for the girls and then the shake for myself, he told me a little trick he likes to do.... he adds a little of the hot fudge sauce to his. he claimed it makes it taste just like a peppermint patty!

i think i will need to test this little gem of information. if you beat me to the test, please be sure to let me know what you think. in the meantime, i am going to enjoy the rest of my green lovliness <3

i have been knitting.....

unlike my normal break that i take after christmas, where the yarn and needles go into hibernation until i am ready to begin stock-piling things in the summer, i have not yet stopped knitting! i have continued to make more purses and am on a major sock kick!

it is crazy how much people love the hand-knitted sock. i actually don't care for the way they feel, but i LOVE the joy it brings to my friends and family. it is also a fairly quick project. i can finish a pair in about two days, if i have a couple hours of knitting time each day.

one of my dear friends online, cheri, had made a comment about a pair of socks i made for louisa...she said she had always wanted hand knitted socks. well, duh... of course i had to make her some!!!! i sent them off to her, via another friend, and here was cheri's reaction:

dear katho--you will think I'm kidding, but I am seriously in love with these socks ::kisses socks::(hey don't judge me!) Now I need to know how much you charge because I am so going to want a few pair. ♥ you!!!

isn't that just the best reaction???? she also posted the picture of her feet in the socks that you see above. the result of her posting said picture is that i have had NUMEROUS requests for socks! i have spent some time researching what is the normal asking price and have now set my price for socks. I guess if it is acceptable by the askers, i'll be knitting socks for a while! :::grin:::

ramblings

ya know, i try not to make this blog a place to complain. i prefer that it be stories and things that i hope to remember someday. but today, i'm going to vent. so if you are not one who enjoys reading vents, check back next time ;)

so i dated this person for about four months, from october to december. he seemed like a great, loving, sweet and friendly person. then he went psycho. at one point, some mysterious 'friend' hacked my laptop, email and facebook accounts. that friend then shared all kinds of information with this person i was dating. he, in turn, flipped out. after my head stopped spinning, and i thought that was all resolved (he SWORE it was not him) we continued on our merry way of dating. unfortunately, that did not last long until he showed his true colors.

he was controlling, and really just plain mean. he continued to harass me via emails for a while because i refused to get back with him. (yeah, cause calling me the c*&% word is a great way to show me how much you love me!) i ended up filing a police report, but then it seemed he had given up. of course, it didn't hurt that i changed my phone number and blocked all emails from him.

HA

i got an email on valentine's day. interestingly enough, it was somehow sent to me from my own email account. it was titled 'reminder' and it said that i should do three things.... first, call my ex and tell him i love him. next, apologize for being a jerk. finally, get a sitter and do something nice for said ex.

um... yeah. no. now, i gotta say that i lost all patience at that point. i replied to his email address, calling him very specific curse words and telling him to leave me alone. *sigh* i probably just fed his need for attention and acknowledged that he got to me. oh well.....

so my vent is that i don't understand why some people are just assholes. i mean, really... why keep bugging me? why not move on? why not leave me alone?

oh, and if you are wondering about how he managed to send me an email from my account... the lovely peoples at yahoo investigated and explained to me that he changed the 'to' and 'from' parts, but did not actually access my account. they said this is a common issue that they are facing.

i suppose i need to visit the police again. wouldn't it just be easier if he'd move along and find something else to do with his time?

ok, vent is now over. back to my regular blogging :D

snow! snow! snow!

well, they were not exaggerating. actually, they underestimated the snow fall. we ended up with almost 2 feet of snow! yesterday the girls went out in it to shovel and to play. i managed to not actually leave the house except to step on the porch to take pictures. other than that, i stayed inside and in my pjs.

today i attempted to dig my car out of its snow-shell. after working for about a half-hour, two of mia's classmates...sam and tyler...walked by. i asked them if they wanted to dig my car out for me. they said, "How much?" I said, "How much do you want?" of course, in my mind, i was thinking $20.....but when sam said, "$2?" i quickly countered with "$5 each" and went running home to get their shovels...

soph heard of my offer and quickly suited up! the three of them made very quick work of the job. in the meantime, i sent louisa down to uni-mart to get change for a $20. she was back just in time! i managed to climb into my car and start it up... left it running while they finished up the back.

now i am ABLE to get out... but don't necessarily want or need to. well, i want to...but don't need to! i can see how cabin fever can quickly settle in when it is not possible to get out.

so back to my knitting i will return. basketball games have been canceled for three days in a row. we have nothing we have to do... the superbowl is on tonight. dunno if i will watch or not, since the steelers are not in it. i guess i'll root for whomever is winning :D

snow's a comin....

the forecast for the pittsburgh area is 8-12" of snow by tomorrow evening. farther east, the forecast jumps up to 20"+.... i must admit i love snow, and i am not in the least sad to hear it is coming our way. no, i'm not crazy. i just hate to be hot!

i was able to run to the store last night after the girls were asleep. kyle came over and hung out while i ran to the 24-hour walmart. this meant i could replenish our supply of the all-important toilet paper (we were down to half of a roll!), as well as food and snacks.

the girls' basketball games have been canceled for the evening, but they are still on for tomorrow. that's fine with me. i can handle making my way through snow in the daylight. it is doing that in the dark that ruffles my feathers a bit.

tomorrow is picture day for the basketball teams. that is always fun...with all the kids in their team shirts and mass chaos all around. i suppose i will just take my knitting and park myself on the bleacher somewhere for the day.

as for tonight, i think some movies and snuggling is in order. my girlsies are excellent snugglers, by the way.

February! February? Really? Wow....

where on earth has this year gone already? an entire month gone...it will be new year's eve again before we know it! i am not sure what makes time fly so quickly. i could guess part of it is working so much and being busy. i remember when i was young and spent day after day of doing very little and lazing around, time practically stood still. now that it is a life of go go go and rush rush rush, time flies!

today my little 'hoopty' car is in the shop. it is being inspected, tuned up, new rear breaks, blah blah blah... all the stuff that is due to be done. and i am sure it will cost quite a bit. i was discussing my car with my students today. the reason i call it 'hoopty' is because that is the urban word for POS... beater... junky car. the thing is, it is also in great shape, runs great, has awesome gas mileage and is likely to last for at least a couple more years. oh, and it's paid for! that, alone, makes it worth keeping for as long as humanly possible!

it's pretty funny, to me, how my students are. i dunno...but this group of kids is just more proof that i am in the right place at the right time. they are good kids, who want to do more with their lives than sit at home and watch tv. they want to go on to school, or at least find a job that will be better than 'flippin burgers' (their words). i can be honest with them, i can tease them...but they also know i mean business.

today one of my students got in trouble for saying the 'f' word. yes, i use it...most people do. but the lesson is that it is not an appopriate word for a classroom or workplace. some bad habits need to be broken sooner rather than later. so he had to go online and research where that word comes from.

a second student said the 'f' word, so i told her she had to write an essay about the other words she could use instead of it, when speaking. i realize that it is part of their 'culture' or environment or whatever you want to say. however, it's also my job to raise the expectations for them... to teach them when it is and is not ok to say words like that. so if i ignore it and rationalize that they don't know better, then i am not doing my job.

my students are making me proud, too. i am so impressed with their motivation to work and better themselves. i can't imagine having to do what most of them do... taking buses or walking to get to class. it would have been much easier to stay in bed. it would have been very tempting to shut the alarm off and go back to sleep. but these kids don't. they come every day and i am so proud.

personally, i'd be hard-pressed to get out of bed if i had as much going against me as they do. i have always been blessed with an incredible support system of people...family and friends...who motivate me. some of my students have no one. can you imagine?

ok...so back to time flying. yup, it's the fact that my classroom is packed full and i am going non-stop that time is a-flying. give me a few quiet weeks of no students...and i might tell you time is dragging and i'm bored. i might... hmmm.... actually... that doesn't sound so bad LOL ;)