All Good Things Come to an End

It’s true; they do.  Case in point: we’re back from the beach.  And even though it’s good to be back and settled, we did not want to leave St. George and, more specifically, our family.  Even though it was grey and rainy the last few days, we weren’t ready for our vacation to end.  And, like we always do, Dave and I drove away from St. George saying that we really should take advantage of our close proximity to the island more often.  Maybe we’ll actually listen to ourselves this time.

But, the good thing about all good things ending is that the reverse is also true: all bad things come to an end.  Case in point: this is the last week of my summer class (hooray!).  I have some really great students in this class, but I’m really just sick of them.  And I’m sure they’re sick of me.  My disdain for this class isn’t helped by the handful of really annoying, frustrating students in there.  For example, their critical essays are due today.  I just (4 hours before class starts) got an email from a student apologizing for the crappy paper he is about to turn in.  Seriously?  Why?  Why on earth would you choose to prejudice your instructor against your paper?  Why admit your faults?  And this is only the tip of the iceberg for strange behavior from this class. So, I can’t wait for it to be done.

Plus, a good thing gets to begin this week.  My adorable nephew is starting kindergarten in the next few weeks.  It’s unbelievably hard to imagine that he’s old enough to be in school, but I’m excited for him.  Don’t get me wrong, school often has fewer  ups than it has downs (like all of middle school), but it’s an exciting adventure that he’s embarking on.  I hope that he falls in love with learning and, specifically, with reading, and gets to have hundreds of amazing experiences.  I’m so proud of him already!

So good things end, but bad things end, too, and even better, good things begin.  Not too bad a way to start a week.

And with that, I’ll leave you with some pictures from our vacation:

 

(Edited to correct the timing.)

I Know You’re Jealous

Because this is where I’ve been since Sunday:

Oh yeah, you’re jealous now.  Dave and I are on vacation with his family at St. George Island.  Oh man, I love this place.  There’s nothing better than being able to wake up and walk onto the beach every morning.  First thing this morning I walked out to see that it was lightly raining but there was the most beautiful rainbow that stretched from one side of the island to the other. Nice.

Unfortunately, after seeing that rainbow, I had to turn back inside and get ready to head back to Tallahassee.  Though I found a way to get out of teaching three days this week, I’m back in work mode today and tomorrow.  So my vacation is interrupted.  But I get to look forward to heading back to the beach tomorrow.  And when I get back from vacation on Sunday I will only have one more week of teaching this summer class that is starting to weigh on my nerves.  This vacation could not have come at a better time.

And luckily Potter came back to Tally to keep my company for the night.  But, don’t worry, Potter left his mark on the beach:

Of course he still refuses to get in the ocean.  Instead, he perches on the edge of the beach, looking like he’s just about to bust he wants to follow us into the water so badly.  But at the last minute he always turns around and satisfies himself with watching from afar:

Luckily he loves the beach.  He just snuggles down in a shady spot, walks between the five of us to make sure we’re all enjoying ourselves, and lays down to get some sun.  Right now he’s resting up so that he can get back to it tomorrow.  Actually, that’s what I’m doing, too.

I love vacation.

Do You Twitter?

Because I don’t.  

I just can’t get behind it. It’s not that I’m opposed tweeting on twitter per se. I just can’t fathom that anyone would want to read it.  I still can’t believe people read my blog.  I’m really just not the interesting. For instance, this is what my twitter tweets would have looked like today:

about 8 hours ago: Just graded a student’s prospectus.  I dread having to grade the essay that comes from this.

about 8 hours, 5 minutes ago: Tired of grading prospectuses.  Procrastinating by checking the same 5 web sites I check all day long.

about 8 hours, 10 minutes ago: Graded another prospectus.  This one was slightly less nauseating.

about 8 hours, 15 minutes ago: Procrastinating by folding laundry.

And repeat ad nauseam.  How can that possibly entertaining?

Plus I think that twitter reminds me too much of AIM away messages, and I seriously overdid it on AIM during the year and a half that Dave and I spend at separate colleges and then separate continents.  I really got tired of knowing when my friends were in the shower or at the gym, not too mention the seriously TMI updates. So I burnt out on telling people the minutiae or my life.  Even facebook status updates are a stretch for me.

Another good reason I don’t twitter? I’ll make you jealous. This is my weekend twitter:

about 3 hours ago: Class over.  Vacation beings!

in about 16 hours: The fam gets here!

in about 40 hours: Headed to St. George Island where I will refuse to think about anything school related. Beach, ocean, and sleeping late, here I come!

See, it’s best I don’t twitter.

From Beach to Bust(ed)

This Saturday I headed to Destin to visit my friend, Katie, who was vacationing there with her in-laws.  The day was perfect for the drive and I made good time, until I got off of I-10 that is.  At that point I became one of seemingly hundreds of people driving into Destin, with just as many driving out.  It was a tedious 40 miles.  But it was well worth it when I got to my destination and got to see my 6-months-pregnant friend.  I so miss being around people like Katie who know me so well.  

I especially miss going shopping with them, which is exactly what Katie and I did.  We headed to the outlet malls where I found some pretty daggum good deals, for both Dave and myself.  But perhaps the most fun was shopping for baby clothes for Maddy (the yet-to-arrive Williams baby); it’s nice being able to shop for tiny, adorable clothes but not being the one spending money on it!

After out shopping extravaganza, we headed to the beach with Bryan’s family, where we just relaxed, conversed, and of course took the requisite photo:

After watching some parents being cited for allowing their underage daughters to drink on the beach and seeing two catamarans (one of which Katie and crew had been on the previous day) fall over and have to be towed in, we headed in to get ready for dinner.  Bryan’s sweet family (really, they were amazingly kind to me – even letting me crash on their couch!) then treated me to dinner at a fantastic seafood restaurant, after which I demonstrated my consistently mediocre putt-putting skills.  The night ended with late-night girl talk (also something I seriously miss).

In the morning, the Williams families headed home and I met another long lost friend, my best friend from high school, Amy, for breakfast.  It was so good catching up with Amy, and I even got to see her family, which was one of my second families throughout high school.  It was a much needed reunion.

Unfortunately, the reunion ended and I had to head home to a stack of papers waiting to be graded.  But as always, my darling husband rescued me from my undesired task and whisked me to the movies, where we saw Dark Knight.  It was very good and, despite my skepticism at the reviews surrounding Heath Ledger’s performance, he truly stole the movie and made it more than just a comic book movie. 

When we got back, though, there was no escaping from the grading, which has basically been my life for the last couple of days.  The process culminated today when I was forced to confront a plagiarizer.  More than any thing else, plagiarizers infuriate me.  It’s such a stupid mistake! Luckily she took it well and now I get to concentrate on my next trip to the beach.  This Sunday we get to head to St. George Island with our Altmaier clan.  I can’t wait!  Let’s hope I don’t have to bust any more students in the meantime.

Western Weekend

This past weekend Dave, Potter, and I headed to Bowling Green to spend some quality time with our Kentucky friends. Though we came back exhausted (and way behind in school work/grading in my case), it was well worth it.

When we got the BG on Friday, we just hung out with the Kickerts (who we were staying with) and went out to eat for some yummy Hibachi cuisine. Saturday was our big day, which we mostly spent at Western’s homecoming. I practically spent the whole tailgating time running all over campus, trying to see as many friends as I could. It was great! I saw more fabulous people than I could have possibly hoped for. I did, however, chicken out of the second half of the football game. It was too darn cold! And we lost, which is no fun.

On Sunday we went to Ben and Beth’s church, and then Amy Cate (yay!) drove up from Nashville to hang out with us.  We attempted a trip to Jackson’s Orchard, but some nasty rain thwarted our efforts.  We did get to buy some yummy Apple Pies and cider, though, so it wasn’t a wasted trip.  After Amy left, I got to visit with Jen (yay!) and my sister, followed by some really enjoyable Is Special at Puerto’s (yum!).

And that was the gist of the weekend, interspersed with some doggy playtime, Settlers of Catan, girl talk, and plain ol’ hanging out.  It was a really wonderful (and much needed) weekend.  Here’s some highlights:

Shiloh and Potter played A LOT of tug over the weekend.

We got hang out with Leslie at tailgating!

I got to pick on my little sister:)

The Martins (with baby #2 on the way), the Altmaiers, and the Kickerts.  These are definitely two families I wish I got to see more of!

All in all, it was a REALLY great weekend.  It started off what promises to be a great holiday season.  Next week I get to see my family and then just a month later we get to spend a whole week with our Altmaier family.  I can’t wait for all of it!

Country Roots

Growing up in Somerset there were two decent radio stations: country or oldies. So, naturally, I listened to country a lot growing up. Though there’s still some country I like, I don’t listen to it on the radio very often because they always play the same songs, most of which I don’t enjoy. So I stick to country on cd. But, for some reason beyond my understanding, when the fall weather rolled into town, I started wanting to listen to country music, on the radio no less.

When I turned on our local country station I learned that Garth Brooks, one of my three all time favorite, will forever love country artists (the other two being Reba McEntire and the Dixie Chicks), has an Ultimate Hits collection coming out in November. To promote the cd (which has three new songs on it), he was going to have one concert in Kansas City. It was promoted as being “One Artist. One Place. One Time Only.” or something like that. Well, the concert sold out in something like 5 minutes. So they added another concert, and then another, and another, until they finally capped it at nine concerts (all in Kansas City within a one week time frame), which sold out in a combined hour and a half. Crazy, huh?

Well our local radio station got two tickets and, of course, is doing a give-away with the tickets and an all-expense paid trip to Kansas City. It was an easy give-away, just call in when you hear a Garth song, be the thirteenth caller, and you win the cd and are entered into the drawing for the tickets. So, I program the station’s number into my phone and turn on the radio Monday morning (the contest runs this Monday through Friday; the drawing will be this Friday). When I hear the (new) Garth song I call in, double fisting it with my cell phone and home phone. Sure enough I get through on our home phone, which is notoriously staticy. So I can barely hear the DJ. Eventually I hear him say, “So, Kelly, what’s your last name?” And, a bit confused, I tell him my name’s Catherine. He’s fine with that and takes down all my info, tells me I’ve won the cd (which won’t be out until November) and am entered into the drawing for Friday. I’m ecstatic. Ecstatic! I would LOVE to see Garth in concert.

So I get off the phone and walk into the kitchen, where the radio is still on. All of a sudden I hear the recording of them telling the caller they’re the 13th caller and the screaming ensues…except it’s not me. It’s some girl named Kelly. She’s very happy, but I’m very confused. I call the station to find out what’s what, but they’re not answering the phone (probably because they assume I’m some obnoxious girl still trying to be the 13th caller). So I look up the station’s office number and call it, where I eventually find out that somehow, after being told she was the winner, Kelly hung up or got cut off and I seemed to have been patched through. So they have my information but not hers. But, generous country station that they are, they’re going to go ahead and give us both the cd and enter us both into the drawing (if she calls back to give them her information). So not only do I get a free cd and maybe a free trip to see Garth, but I didn’t have to be broadcast on the radio like a screaming idiot:) It really works out pretty well for me.

I will, of course, let you know if I win, in which case I will end up being the screaming idiot on the radio.