August, already!

Ok, I know I said that I was bored and ready for school... but I TAKE IT BACK!  I only have 1 official week of summer left.  3 weeks until school starts, but 1 of those I have a class and the other week is in-service, so those don't count as summer break.  Yikes!  I have so much to do in that week!  (including getting a tan...)
School registration was this week and rumor has it 1st grade teachers are going to have about 28 students in their tiny classrooms.  AWESOME.  And there is a fairly large chuck of last years kindergartners who have not registered.  EVEN MORE AWESOME.  Cross your fingers/pray/I don't care what you do, that we add another 1st grade class.  I'm sorry, but 28 students (with NO aide help) in a 1st grade classroom is ridiculous.  I was told that if those numbers stay that high, they might hire a part time aide to help with reading.  1 aide for 6 teachers.  If each teacher gives the aide their 2 lowest students, that's 12 students for an intervention... not effective.
I'm done ranting now.
 Here's my update from last time.
1. Most days I've done a few things from my to-do list.  Some days I did nothing but watch the Kardashians.  Eh, thus is life.
2.  I don't miss those people I've deleted from facebook.  Actually, this is the 2nd time I've thought of them.  The first was when I was informed of some gossip.  See!  I don't need to be annoyed with them on Facebook to still hear gossip about them.  Fabulous.
3. Our Financial Freeze, went...okay.  Mid month we got to move(!) upstairs.  No more wet floors, lack of AC, wiggly toilet, toilet that doesn't flush, black mold, and cat poop outside our windows!  WOOHOO!  But because of that little move we ended up spending.  We had a friend help us move furniture, so it only seemed fair that we take him out to dinner.  Then we needed a few things for the new place, like a bed frame finally, and a really wanted an actual desk.  Ok, those were wants, but it was the perfect time to make those purchases.  We found both for less than $40 total.  Not bad.  We also had a hot mess of a kitchen for a few days, so we did more eating out than we wanted to, but when you've been moving all day, and the counters and sink are full of random stuff, cooking is not a high priority.  I'd say the whole month we spent about $150 on the move, eating out, and picking up the few necessities for the fridge.  Not too bad.  We're going to try it again in September. This may be hard for me, since I'm spending so much on things for my classroom...
4. I mailed out 3 boxes of clothes and I don't even remember what was in each of them.  That's how attached I was to those clothes.  Still working on getting rid of clothing though.  I have been doing a lot of sewing this summer and next on my list is a bag made of old t-shirts that I don't want to part with.  The college shirts hold a lot of good memories despite the fact that they are getting too small and most have holes in them, so they are getting repurposed.  I hope I don't screw it all up....
5. As far as eating healthier, I go in spurts.  I'll do really good, then eat junk.  It's hard!  But I have been running and working out more, and have lost almost 10lbs since the beginning of summer!  YES!  The hard part is going to be keeping it off during the school year.  I am going to have a lot of fruits and veggies prepped in advance otherwise I'm going to eat junk - like the candy in my classroom prize box.  Whoops.

In other news, my mom and Earl were here for a week at the end of July.  It was great to see them and we made the best of our time together even though there isn't much to do here.
That's about all I have for today.  It's time for me to get busy at school.
Hasta la pasta.

Some Self Realizations

This summer has given me MORE than enough time to sit and ponder life.  In all of my ponders I have discovered some things about myself.  Here they are:
1. I am lazier than I wish to admit.
2. There are some people on Facebook that annoy the shit out of me.  And I'm pretty sure they annoy me more in real life.
3. I have an obsession with shopping.
4. I have WAY too much stuff.  (and it's all just, stuff.)
5. I need to improve my health.

So what am I going to do about it?
1. I am going to force myself to get at least 3 things on my to-do list done every day.  Don't worry, the to-do list is continually growing.  I'm going to work up to more things.
2. Delete those people.  Will I miss their 5 selfies a day?  Most definitely not.
3. See below*
4. I am going to start selling, donating, and re purposing some of my stuff.  I have an unnecessary amount of clothing, I HAVE to get rid of some of it.  
5. Obviously going to start working out more frequently (my gym is only $10 a month!) and eating healthier.  Dylan and I are signed up for the Color Run in August and I'd like to not embarrass myself.

*Something we are doing for the month of July is a Financial Freeze.  That means that we do not get to spend any money the rest of the month of July (with a very slim few exceptions).  We have more than enough food in our pantry and freezer to get us through the month, our meals might be interesting but we're going to do it!  We decided to start after our trip to Oregon, because well, that wouldn't have worked so well.  But we did give ourselves a budget on our trip (first time that happened) and we managed to come home with money still in our pockets!
I got the idea for the freeze here: http://www.livingwellspendingless.com/  She has some wonderful pointers and great advice.  I really love her blog.  (Check out her 40 hanger closet too, that's my goal.)
This freeze is really solidifying my unhealthy desire to spend money.  It's day 2 and all I want to do is go buy something!  And of course I don't need anything!  I love the idea of saving money but yet I have such a hard time doing it.  I hope that by not spending for the rest of the month that it will help break this incredibly unhealthy desire.  (I'm really hoping that it does not fuel the fire.)
Another reason for this freeze is that we both really want to move to Oregon but want to have a nice nest egg saved. (And our credit cards payed off)  We traveled to Oregon this past week and we were able to travel around a good chunk of the state, and we both fell in love.  So we are giving Burley another year and in that year we are planning on saving as much as possible.  If this freeze goes well, we will probably do it a few more times.  I'll keep you posted.

Here's fun pictures of our trip to hold you over until next time.

Life Recently

Once again it's been a long time.  My bad.  Here's a quick recap of the past 6 months.

We did some backcountry snowboarding.

We popped into Sun Valley where I injured myself and couldn't ride the 2nd day.  Boo!

I made an impulsive trip to see this woman.

We went to Downtown Disney with this sister.

Dylan and I made a weekend trip to Bozeman.

My birthday at the Hogle Zoo in SLC.  Where I was the only female under 30 without a child in tow.

 

Popped over to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain where I got to see this building under snow.

And I had to stop myself from offering to help a guy dig another building out of the snow.

He would have thought I was a total weirdo.

Ruckus went on his first boat ride.

I got to see this sister!

And now here we are, all caught up.  It's officially summer, thank goodness.  The weather is finally warm and I am finally on break.  I was supposed to have a class this week but our car decided to start leaking fluid yesterday morning, so I couldn't drive to Twin Falls and if I were to miss a day of class, I wouldn't get credit for the class, so I get this week FREE!  

I've decided since it's summer and I'm home by myself that I am setting some goals for myself.

1. Work out daily.  I love that my gym is only $10 a month!

2. Cook/Bake more. 

3. Keep the house clean.  This is something that we struggle at, and now I have no excuse not to keep it clean.

4. Get rid of STUFF.  We have so much STUFF.  I hate it, but yet have such a hard time parting with it.  We moved into our small 2 bedroom from a studio and immediately started filling in all the empty spaces with just STUFF.  I'm much worse about it than Dylan is, but my goal is to slowly (but consistently) keep things moving OUT of our house and to not let more things IN. 

Whenever I talk about that, I always get the overwhelming urge to go shopping.  It's disgusting.

Well there you go.  I'm going to try to stay on top of this over the summer, but you've all heard that before. 

Rozzy, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and all that in between.

Hey All!
I didn't realize how fast time went... whoops!

First and foremost.  We got a cat!  We (I) had been wanting a cat for a long time and Dylan told me not until we move to the lower 48.  Well... here we are!  We went into the pet store to get some dog treats for Ruckus and came out with a kitten.  Whoops!  :)  His name was Clarence, which we did not like.  So while in the car we started brainstorming names and when we came up with the name Rozzy (inspired by my Rossignol snowboard) he started meowing whenever we would say it.  So it stuck!  He fits in so well with our little family and a super social guy, which we discovered over Christmas.  He's pretty awesome.  Except when he attacks my feet.

This past September Brandon and Jessie came and visited for a week or so.  We got Rozzy after their departure to help fill the void in our hearts.  We had a great time hanging out, going apple picking, and took an awesome camping trip to the Boise National Forest to explore some hot springs.  We ended up camping on a fabulous mid-September weekend and had a beautiful day laying in the sun, on the "beach" next to a freezing cold river, with hot springs all around us.  AWESOME!  We drank an entire box of wine, improvised in our cooking, and I got a late sunburn.  Woo!

Doritos in place of salt?  Why not!

 The beach where I napped and burnt.

Even Ruckus was getting in on slapping the wine bag.

Alright, between Brandon and Jessie leaving, adopting a cat (who was a rescue, might I add) and Thanksgiving time, not much happened.  Dylan and I went to work, came home, watched t.v. and slept.  So we'll fast forward to Thanksgiving.

We decided to head to St. George Utah to visit Skyler and Hanna for Thanksgiving.  We had a great weekend cooking a delicious Thanksgiving dinner (we all helped...)

Dylan looked so nice in his apron.

Taking a photo break!

The Feast!

and Friday we went to Zion National Park.  Zion was beyond breathtaking.  I had never seen anything like it before and I felt like I walked around with my mouth hanging open the majority of the time.

at Zion

The pictures are beautiful, but still don't do it justice.

One of the little pools we hiked to (Hanna and I were NOT in appropriate footwear...)

After Thanksgiving we pretty much did nothing but wait for Christmas.  We were finally able to go home for Christmas this year, first time since we moved to Alaska.  It was so great to be home for the holidays. We had wonderful weather for the drive to Illinois and back.  We drove straight through to Illinois right after I got out of work on Friday, which was exhausting but well worth it.  On the way home we had to stop at a hotel and sleep for a few hours.

Being home for Christmas was so wonderful. It was SO good seeing our families and friends.  The first night home was probably one of the most fun, running around Mt. Morris and Oregon with people we hadn't seen in years.  Great memories (too bad I didn't take a single picture the entire trip.  WTF!)  I ate nothing but candy and cookies and fast food and drank nothing but alcohol.  Which repaid me by adding 8pounds to the scale.  Jeez, why aren't the best foods calorie free? 

This was taken on New Years and I feel like it sums up the trip quite nicely.

There are talks of another trip to Illinois this summer.  I know this will be possible for me, but not sure if Dylan will be able to join. :/

Now that we are home the weather has turned apocalyptic.  Just kidding.  It's just a little snow storm with wicked high winds.  The storm was supposed to roll in early Thursday morning but came an hour too late.  So I trudged through the snow (in my 4-wheel drive vehicle) to school and got sent home at 1:30!  Then found out last night that today would be a snow day!  How excellent!   So you can thank this snow day for an update.  You may have to wait until the next snow day for another one... :)

Peace and love