Celebrating Life...

You wanna know what I'm reading?



This is what I'm reading!!! I've tried countless times to upload the stupid photo of this book in the little custom segment where you do that sort of thing, but nOOOOO. It never uploads there...so here. It is a weirdly great book.


I'm beginning to think in "issues" now, since I spent tonight printing off our September issue of the Middle School Happenings- the student newspaper of the Middle School. In it you will find such interesting articles as "My Summer Adventure," A book review of the book "Hoot", an article on new faculty faces around campus, and my personal favorite, an ad for the monster drawing contest for our Halloween issue! In this segment, you will be given several ideas from which to draw your monster, including a three headed monster, a two headed crab, or a 6 legged bulldog! I have the sweetest seventh grader with asbergers(sp?) who just cracks me up with stuff like this. Kids, gotta love 'em.

I am taking an exercise class twice a week, which is really exciting. I also spend two nights a week at a gymnastics gym in Franklin where our kids get to learn how to do all kinds of things they will later put in our very own Cirque du Soleil-like production in February (you should really come see it. It's AWESOME!).

A couple of weekends ago, we had a wedding on the beach in Wilmington.



We had a wonderful time with my family. It was a happy occasion, good weather, and bare feet. Sadly, we came home to the message that Brian's grandmother, who had suffered from a stroke the week before, was not doing well. She died the next Tuesday and we drove to Pennsylvania that weekend for a funeral.

A wedding, followed by a funeral.

On Sunday, we will visit with Marty and Roger Palmour, the parents of Julia. This was Brian's girlfriend from high school who was killed while biking during their senior year. It will be the 10th anniversary of her death...

...We have celebrated life in many different ways this month.

a smorgasboard...

I haven't really had a whole lot to blog about lately, except the start of school, which is still going well. I plan on taking my camera this week, so maybe I'll update this with a photo of my cherubims...

For now, here is a little randomness.

First is Brian's dad's new project, the Cobra kit car. He is building this car, see. First, he took a wrecked old mustang and stripped it of every useable thing. He has this shell of what will one day be an awesome..."roadster" I believe is the term. He has begun assembling everything and Brian has been helping when he can. This project would take most people at least an entire decade to complete, but I'll be willing to bet Brian's dad will finish before the summer. He's amazing.

Slightly less amazing, but equally bloggable, is our garden.

We have finally gotten something other than zucchini and squash..we now have a ton of roma tomatoes, green peppers, and these little orange peppers that I thought were yellow bell peppers, but I have no idea what they are, cucumbers, strawberries...let's see, oh, the corn rotted and had bugs all over it...bummer, but we only had two stalks come up anyway. This garden went through a lot. First, it's keepers were quite novice and considered it a practice garden anyway...second, we had a late freeze in April and a hail storm at the beginning of the summer that nearly wiped everything out. I'm still hoping for some beets to come up, but I think for now, I'm over gardening. Not that I don't love it, I'm just ready to do it better next time.

Enough about that...last, but not least, I have decided to share a photo of some friends of ours at our house. This is Amanda, Daniel, and April. We have now had two successful gatherings chez nous, and it has been a lot of fun. I hope for more!

And that brings me to conclude this random blog that I am hurrying to finish because I need to be in the library in a few minutes....hope all is well with everyone. I'll blog a little more soon...hey! we have a wedding this weekend at the beach! That should make for some nice blogging material....

Alright, alright. I have been trapped in a whiz of pre-planning and boarding school what not. I have had a WONDERFUL first two days of school. I tell you what, having the first year of teaching behind me make a HUGE difference! Brian and I (who teach the same eighth graders during the day) both came in with a very planned out classroom management idea that we have been teaching the kids and it is SO wonderful! I think this year is going to be a huge success. I truly feel like a teacher and not just a girl trying to get through an English class smoothly. My classroom is all organized and painted the way I want it. I love that my classroom is in an old house. It is really a neato situation. The kids are so great. I have been dealing with the fact that I really think I will see this group of kids through successfully, and realizing that I kinda let down the first group of kids. It is kind of bothering me because I keep having these great ideas of how to be successful in the classroom this year....stuff I just never thought about last year.

On a very positive note, Brian and I were so thrilled to see a student return to ninth grade, one that was just about to leave our school mid year and join the military - he was totally unmotivated and didn't want to be at Rabun Gap, and by the end he decided he wanted to stay, made a big turn-around and it's hard to explain, but it is just that feeling of having reached a kid who might not have otherwise been successful. I hope for that to happen more and more.

okay, well I'm rambling on and on and I have no exciting photos to share, so I'm going to go bed now. I'm glad and hopeful to be back in the blogger world as things settle down. I have enjoyed reading all of your wonderful blogs.

Much love to all!

Who Vacations in Arkansas, You Ask??

We do! In fact, we had a really lovely time. It is very pretty there. Our kayaking was short-lived.
The water was EXTREMELY low, but Dexter was able to swim along with us on the Mulberry River. He was so worn out. The views and hiking were spectacular, though and we enjoyed the exploration. We even came accross this beautiful clear stream where Brian is taking a picture of me from a cliff. Doesn't it look like I'm flying??



We followed our Arkansas vacation with a weekend in Birmingham, Alabama, where Brian became officially certified to scuba dive. I just hung out with Dexter and shopped...I wish I had taken this course with him though. The place where they got to do their check-out dive was this awesome old pit mine filled with crystal blue water...and they had a high dive! I LOVE high dives!!!
Instead, I got swoop bangs.


what do you think? This isn't a great picture, but I am enjoying their swoopiness!


....and i figured i should throw in a goofy picture of Brian....it seems necessary and i just think this is the perfect photo to publicize!
Alas, now we are back home and getting ready to trudge back to school again. Summer has been heavenly. I don't want it to end!!

On the road....

We're vacationing! I'm stealing a little internet as we came by this fascinating lodge this evening. Brian, Dexter, and I are camping in the Ozarks of Arkansas. It is just beautiful! We hiked today and have seen the sights from atop the beautiful mount magazine. Tomorrow we're off to find some rivers to paddle! Our fingers are crossed that there will be some water! We'll keep in touch!!

Weekend Trading Spaces with Lori!

This weekend, my best friend from high school came up to visit. We had a girls' weekend because Brian was in Atlanta taking a scuba certification course. We played trading spaces and did all kinds of painting projects, the biggest being painting our bedroom.

The room is now burnt orange...actually "earth tone," such a boring name considering how many fun names there are for paint. The wall hanging and pillow covers, as well as the shams and blanket at the bottom of the bed, are from India. My sister brought them back for us. It was really difficult to make everything work together. It still isn't finished, because I am going to change the curtains and we have picked out a bedspread that we will pick up Friday. I'm going to try and pull out more of the aqua from the wall hanging instead of the browns. It is dark and unique, but I like that it was pieced together with my sister's interesting elements from her life in India.

We also tackled some smaller projects like painting the hood above our stove. It has transformed from the harvest gold ugliness seen in the photo, to a really cool hammered metal. That was Lori's idea. I matched a few other things in the kitchen to it.

We crackle painted my bedside table, using a cool copper base coat, and painted a little dresser for our guest room black and did what they call "Shabby Chique" technique to it. When that room is finished, I'll give an updated photo.

Holy Zucchini!

today I visited the garden after a short weekend trip to atlanta. just before we left i checked the garden to see if anything needed to be picked. all of the zucchinis, which is all i seem to be producing very well, were pretty small. today i picked the above produce. look at the huge one! i've never seen such an enormous zucchini. i'm going to try a stuffed zucchini recipe with it.



the camera arrived today! these pictures are some of its very first. in my yearbook class at school, we name our cameras. Our main camera is named "Henry," so i think it will be appropriate for this camera to have a name also. Everyone, please make some suggestions.