A life in progress

It is 11am on Saturday and I already feel like I've done so much! I woke up at my normal Saturday time: about 745am.  I don't like getting up at 745am, but I do it for a reason.  After throwing on whichever clean, semi-matching clothes are near me, brushing my hair and teeth and putting in my contacts (sometimes), I walk across the street to Chaparral High School to participate in my weekly produce co-op. I grew up in a world of farms and gardens, fresh and home-jarred fruits and freshly baked bread.  I do not have a farm, I don't even have a yard in which to plant a garden.  Besides, I live in Las Vegas.  We can't keep geraniums alive outside during July and August; I don't see veggies making it. I also decided that I don't really have the patience for baking my own bread.  I've tried it and I'm actually pretty good at it, but I have to block out an entire day on my calendar.  Something like "the cable guy is coming between 9am and 3pm today,...

Ok, I'll be honest, I don't actually work in coal mines.  I think coal mines would be safer  :) On Friday, I went back to work after a month of recovery - actually about 2 weeks of recovery and two weeks of hanging out bored silly.  Now, I've been working for three days and it almost feels like three months.  I'm so tired! My day consists of teaching seven classes, five different titles to approximately 120 total students.  Other teachers reading this are thinking "well, 120 students in one day isn't that many, I have 250!"  This is true, I used to be in a "regular" school with hundreds of students under my wing.  Two years ago, I switched gears and now teach at a specialized school.  Normally, specialized implies gifted students, or those focused on arts, culinary programs, etc.  I WISH that was the case.  I work at a specialized school for students that haven't figured out that the rules of civilized society also apply to them....

Today I had two doctor's appointments.  Early-ish this morning, I got up and went to have some lab work done.  It has been 30 days since my kidney donation and the doctors needed some follow up labs to make sure that my remaining kidney is doing its job as required.  What would normally be a simple trip to Quest turned into an enormous pain in the ass. I had made an appointment to go at 830am.  Since Mike managed to take both his and my keys to work this morning, I got there at about 835, after digging around for my spare keys.  I will grant that I was late, but that should not mean that what would typically be a 10-15 minute appointment should turn into an hour-long headache.  I spent much of that time standing in line waiting for the guy to take my appointment slip.  Instead of letting people check in (there is an appointment line and a walk-in line), he was calling names off of his appointment sheet, which meant that even though I was third in lin...

Today, I'm going to tell you about Lily. She even has glowing eyes in this picture.  That's not even a mistake or camera-glare.  That's Lily's true evil shining though.  I will grant that most of us say lovely things about our dogs and talk about how they are life-long companions with hearts made out of marshmallows.  Nope, not Lily.  Spawn of the Devil. From a young age, Lily was always very different from Paris (shown here with a bad haircut and a look for horror on his face that I'm capturing said haircut on film).  Paris is a snuggle-whore to the nth degree, mellow and an amazing dog.  Because he was so amazing, and also lonely, I got Lily.  It seemed like a good idea. But, where Paris was mellow and laid back, Lily was that kid that ate too much ice cream before bed.    She ran and jumped and barked and whined all the time.  I thought "ok, she's a puppy, she'll outgrow it."  I was right.  She outgrew cra...