An Annual Review, One Year Ago!

 Cora in Tokyo's Narita Airport, awaiting our flight to Beijing.

 The view from the Novotel...

 On our way to see the Great Wall!  These photos have not been seen before...well, I'm pretty sure I haven't shown them before.

You can look forward to some more tonight.

It is so hard to believe it has been a year!

What I should be doing

I should be in the shower.  I should be getting dressed.
I should be making a lunch and cleaning up all that's messed.
I should be getting ready for my workday that soon begins.
I should be getting ready to kick the children in their shins.
Instead, I'm here with my computer,
surfing blogs, shopping for a daughter-muter.
Looking for ways to improve my golf game,
searching for the meaning of my name.
Blogging and writing and tapping away,
when I really should just great the new day.

Thanks to the Bean for putting me in a rhyming mood.

Good weekend, Bad Weekend

You know how TV shows show a good cop and a bad cop?  We have had a good weekend and a bad weekend!  Chloe was an angel yesterday and most of today, but night night time was hard tonight.  She screamed like a banshee.  Got herself all sweaty and everything.  She didn't get much of a nap.  She got up several times after we put her down the first time.  We tried several different tactics to bring sleep without screaming.  Finally, I offered her a book and she asked for the "Napping House."  I gladly fulfilled the request and, for now, she is quiet.

We bought a bamboo steamer this weekend.  Friday night, really.  Last night we made dim sum...or some version.  Cora made the dough.  They were awesome.  You can go to her blog to see more pictures.

 Chloe loves to help, and for three days in a row demanded a tutu.  This morning's request went un-fulfilled.

We started to go to Target, but ended up in the Tri-Cities, where we did some shopping akin to what we used to do PC (Pre-Chloe) and Chloe was a trooper!  It was a good day.  We met up with Cora's sister and had lunch and then we were off to home.  I smoked some cheese tonight and I think it turned out ok!

Finally the Gremlin is in bed and at least quiet if not asleep.  Hurray!

My first week teaching went well.  I had butterflies the first morning, but fell into a routine and I feel the other teachers are going to take me under their wing if I need it.  Good to know there is support.  I've gotten some good advice and I have heard some fun things.

My old kids in the Science class miss me.  The "New guy is too mean!"  Maybe I was too nice...or had given up.  When I walked in on Tuesday, I made them copy down my rules and then told them a little about me.  Then we went on to have a mini-lesson.  Since then we seem to have gotten off on the right foot and the haven't even tried getting the bad habits that my former class had.

I've given some lectures:  Why are we studying missionaries in the Northwest anyway?  And some advice of my own:  "Don't make a girl mad.  If you make a guy mad, he'll punch you in the shoulder.  If you make a girl mad, she'll reach down into your soul and tear something out and you'll never be the same."  And I have had my first parent come in to talk to the principal:  I was discussing how language changes and use the King James Bible compared to bibles printed in modern language to illustrate, since we were discussing missionaries.  Apparently one of the children deemed that I was disrespecting the King James Version.  My fellow teachers laughed and said it was because I was new...No problem, nothing abnormal.  GOOD!

It's nice to hear my old kids in the hall try to get my attention just so the can wave or say hi.  My new kids don't seem to have had any trouble adjusting, so, as long as I keep my nose clean and stay on top of things, it should be fine!

Despite the Chloe-fits, it was an excellent weekend!

More Chloe-Crack

 Here's another Chloe fix...you guys are addicts.

We went to gym class tonight.  Because my lower back was bothering me, Cora went out on the floor with her.  She is awesome...well, both of them are.  This is what Chloe wore...isn't she stinking adorable?

Good Golly!

Some people have mentioned that I haven't been posting as many pictures of Chloe as they think I ought to.  Yes, she is adorable.  No, I don't want to share...just kidding.  I am going to share, but you're going to get all the bad shots...who am I kidding?  There are no bad shots.

 Below she is still wearing some of dinner on parts of her face...we cleaned her up shortly after, but when I turned my camera sideways, she thought she ought to follow its lead!

On New Years Eve we made egg roles.

 Chloe approved.

I hope the Chloe update has met with success!!

It's Over, Dang It!

 Break is over.  Yeah, that blows.  No more standing in the house in the morning and wondering what hurricane came through in the minutes between now and the time it was clean.

This barn is located just across the road from the Buena Airport.  This side looks almost exactly like the other side of this barn.  As you can see in the first picture there is a corral behind it.  Now it is amongst apple, plum/prune, and pear orchards.  I shot these last week just after sunrise.  Go on over and see Tricia's Barn Charm.  I'm late posting, but better late than never.

I begin a new position today, one that I hope to have last until the end of the school year.  It is a Pacific Northwest History position at a local HS.  This is what I'm certified for.  I love history.  But, I have not taught history for quite awhile.  I always get stuck in elementary classrooms or for the past few months, Science.  I'm more than a little nervous, but I will survive the day, hell, I shoot from the hip everyday and I'm comfortable with that, so going into my subject area SHOULD be a relaxing idea...ah, well.

Chloe has been growing and learning and just becoming a little girl.  We have been having conversations as her language abilities shoot into fast forward.  She isn't using a lot of words strung together, but she is improving!  She reminds us to put our coats on before going outside.  If someone sneezes of coughs, chances are, she will walk off to a box of Kleenex and bring you a tissue.  She loves playing in her kitchen and at her princess vanity.  She loves it when we get on the floor and play with her.

Last night I had her in stitches, laughing hard over the things I was trying to put in her shape box.  You know where you match the square to go in the square hole and the circle for the...well, you get the idea.  So does Chloe.  Well, I had been trying to put them in the wrong holes and she was showing me the right ones, then I reached for one of her new rain boots and you would have thought that i was the height of comic humor when I tried to put the boot through the much to small holes.  Her giggle is worth its weight in platinum.  The kid is awesome!

Don't forget to go to Barn Charm!

Books

Kindle.  It's one of my favorite things.  Who knew a little electronic device that does nothing more than show text would be one of my favorite things?  I never imagined.  When we got Cora one a little over a year ago, I thought it would be an interesting gadget, but nothing that would truly be useful.  How wrong I was.  She bought one for me for my birthday in March.  I have read more in the past year because of that little device than I would have otherwise, and I LIKE reading.

It may be the ease of reading that it allows.  Perhaps it is because we can both read the same book at the same time.  Or, it could be that you can put more than one book on it and it is such a small package.  I seem to recall paperbacks being harder to work with.  If you finished one, you had to wait until the next time you visited the book store.  We no longer have a decent books store in Yakima so I am glad I don't have to go visit one for my books.  All I have to do is turn on my Kindle's wireless and buy a book.  No trip to town, just instant gratification.

Cora started reading what is called Urban Fantasy.  It is a genre very close to Sci-Fi and Fantasy, yet it grounds itself in the present and in seemingly recognizable places, then it adds a dark monster, like a werelion, a vampire, or a faery.  All-in-all, I never imagined I'd enjoy reading them, since they seem to carry a feminine feel to them.  Far from that, though, these are fun books to read.  There's slicing and dicing and knocking down the back guys with shear might!  There's villains with devious plans, only to be foiled by the hero/heroine.  There's plenty of humor.  They are just plain good books.  They aren't Shakespeare, but honestly, I was never fond of him, nor much of the other "classics."

I still buy most of my history books in paper form (it just seems right), but for the day-to-day, get-myself-away-from-whatever-problem-I-have-at-the-moment, these books completely and totally rock.

The fact that we have been reading the same books, mostly concurrently, adds a lot to our relationship and our ability to communicate with each other since we share so much.  We can make references to the stories we're reading and know what the other is talking about.  It's that sharing that strengthens our relationship that much more.  Usually one of us is ahead of the other, since it is hard to read at the exact same rate, so we are forever asking where the other is.  It is natural for us to answer the other using a percentage, since that is the way our devices measure the books we read.    

I can think of no better way to enter the new year but reading together, as we have so many years previous, except, now we are reading the same books and using Kindles.  Does this sound like a sales pitch for Kindle?  Probably, but, it's true.  We both enjoy our Kindles far more than we imagined.

What have we been reading?

*Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews

*Dark Fever series by Karen Marie Moning

*Night Huntress series by Jeaniene Frost

*Jane Yellowrock series by Faith Hunter