Living on Concrete

Today has been a huge improvement upon yesterday.  It was awesome waking up this morning with a three day weekend to look forward to.  And honestly, yesterday wasn't terrible, although I know it may have come across that way.  I was just being your typical over-emotional female, but I'm over it now.  Work was crazy-busy, mainly because I'm losing all of my prep periods due to the Top Turkey competition.  We also had a renaissance rally, which always adds chaos to an otherwise normal day.  I was part of a "flash mob," in which we surprised the students with a short dance.  It was only about a minute long, but it was pretty funny.  My students couldn't believe it when their own teacher was suddenly in a crowd of thirty people, doing a synchronized dance (we rehearsed it the week before).  It was like being in a scene from a bad musical.    

Last night we went over to Becky's house for small group and had our usual fun.  Becky made a delicious potato cheese soup that has me feeling inspired to try cooking up some soups myself.  I absolutely love soup in winter--I literally crave it every day.  That and hot tea.  Clint's sister (Moo) bought me some cinnamon tea for my birthday--the really good stuff--and it is so delicious.  Soup, hot tea, and bubble baths...those are the things about winter I love the most.  Well that, and Christmas.

Today I got to see Jewls!  It was very last minute.  Jewls had texted me yesterday letting me know that she was going to be in the desert, and wanted to know if I wanted to meet up with her.  Unfortunately I didn't have my phone on me and didn't get her message until late this morning, but we still managed to pull together a visit.  We met at a mutual friend's house who happens to live less than five minutes away from me.  It was so awesome to see her!  We all just hung out and chit-chatted, and I discovered that cranberry-apple juice mixed with sangria is insanely delicious.  I also got to cuddle with Seth again.  Damn I love that kid.  My only complaint about our visit is I had to leave much earlier than I actually wanted.  But as I drove home, I told myself that two hours was a whole lot better than nothing at all; especially since I woke up this morning having no clue I'd get even that much.

When I got home, Clint had stripped all the carpet out of our living room and hallway.  We've been installing new flooring (this was my birthday present), and as of now, Elijah's room and the office are done.  Now we're finally on the main part of the house, which means about two weeks of living on concrete.  Oh, we also repainted our office last week.  Clint wanted "Asian", so I came up with the color scheme, but the colors came out much bolder than I had envisioned in my head.  As I was painting the walls, I was thinking, "Crap, this is going to end up looking like ketchup and mustard walls."  And even though that might have been partially true, it all came together in the end, and now I really love this little room.  In person, it is so warm and cheery.  Here are some pics:

Admittedly the desk is still pretty cluttered...

 

 The new floors (they look better in person--camera dulled them out)

It's sort of fun living on concrete right now.  It feels like we're staying in a house that's still under construction.  When I was a little girl, my grandparents built their house from scratch, and Shannon and I used to live with them on the weekends.  We'd all sleep in their motor home, which they had parked on their lot.  At one point, the house was finally dry-walled, and we actually were able to stay inside the house.  I remember my grandpa used to barbecue our dinner right in the living room, over the concrete.  And we would watch TV...on the concrete.  Shan and I also used to tear through the entire house on our Big Wheels (remember those?).  Living on concrete right now reminds me of those happy days.  The only downfall is I'm stuck wearing slippers everywhere I walk, because the ground is so cold.