This post was written over the course of like 3 days

• There is a teacher at Isaac's school that I see every day walking in in the morning who is ridiculously, hugely pregnant. The odd thing is, she spoke on the little intro to kindergarten day last May and she looked ready to pop then. It's weird.
• It hardly rained all summer here but this week it has rained almost every day. I don't mind though. My lawn could sure the water. This year I don't do recess with either of my grades, so I avoid the dreaded indoor recess.
• This an interesting article.
• I did kickboxing tonight at the gym. I loved it in college but I haven't done it since. It felt awesome to put a pair of boxing gloves on and wail away on a punching bag. Highly therapeutic after a somewhat stressful few days at work. Although my upper back and shoulders are already burning.
• Isaac is so ridiculously excited to homework. It's adorable. I hope it lasts.

It's that time of year again...

The leaves are starting to turn gold and red...

There is a crisp feeling in the night air...

And everytime you turn around....

You run into one of these:

I don't know if they have them out west or in the south.

But in Pennsylvania the stinkbugs are everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE.

**shudder**

USA #1

I love him, love him, love him. Can't wait for his rally in Washington...

whippin out the sewing machine

The directions for blogger's mobile photo uploader thing are kind of confusing. I haven't had too much luck with it yet. I can be really slow with that kind of stuff though. Anyways, here are some crappy cellphone pictures of my latest crafting adventures. I'm on a banners kick lately. It started off with this cheerful happy birthday one. My house is the most centrally located and has the biggest kitchen, we tend to have celebratory birthday dinners here. Occasionally, I try to be domestic and decorate. Last year I made a really cute paper happy birthday banner for my brother's birthday. It didn't store well though and got kind of crumped and I thought it would make more sense to have a fabric one handy. I just followed the tutorial I found here. I didn't bother using the tiny iron to press open the seams though. I don't have a tiny iron and I find ironing seams open to be extremely tedious. Anyways, there are also cute tutorials for other variations found here and here.

I don't think my poor quality pictures do justice to their utter adorableness, if I do say so myself and they are wicked easy to make.

I just picked up some fun fat quarters for the little pennants, some bias tape, some wunder under. The letters I cut from an old pair of jeans.

I decided I was so happy with the way that came out, I bought some fallish fat quarters and made one for fall. Then I made two more for gifts.

I don't even have a mantle. My brother helped me put up this shelf which serves as sort of a makeshift mantle between two of my windows.

Hopefully next time I am out in Lancaster I can pick up some little pumpkins or something to beef up the mantle a little.

weird

OKay. I remember my mom reading this book to me when I was young.

But I have never read it to Issy.

Why?

Because I think it's a little creepy. Especially the part at around 6:44 when she climibing into her son's room with a ladder.

anyone know?

Is there a way to upload photos directly to blogger that you take on your cellphone? Just wondering.

random work thoughts

Today at work one of my coworkers randomly said to "You are appreciated. Don't think you're not. I say it all the time."

I was so caught off guard.

Because, well, let's face it, teaching special ed in a high poverty area isn't exactly a job where people are showering you with praise or recognizing all the things you do. It's sad when it's actually jarring that someone tells you that you are doing an okay job and that they appreciate you. I guess this is partially because I think the loudest negative voice is my own. I have an unfortunate habit of looking at the best version of other people and comparing it to the worst version of myself. It's an inaccurate measuring stick.

I need to work on that.

And I need to make more of an effort to tell my coworkers that they are appreciated. And my students. And my family.

another friend takes the plunge

Whew! I just returned from the Jersey beach (it was sort of Mid-Jersey [Monmouth area] so I don't think it qualifies for the term Jersey Shore, which is a South Jersey thing). My randomly assigned freshman year roommate/good friend was getting married and it was a lovely ceremony and a very fun time. It was the first time I have been a ceremony actually on the beach. It's always such a contrast to go to a non-LDS wedding when you are used to culture hall receptions and 6 week long engagements. By any standards, it was a very elegant and lovely wedding. Here's their wedding announcement.

I did what I love to do at weddings: ate good food and danced like crazy. They had a great live band and everyone was getting down, old and young. Nicole had provided flip flops for everyone to wear during the ceremony and they came in handy for dancing as well. Leopard print stilettos are good for looks but not for long haul. Good times.

Of course, because it's me, I got nailed on my way down for talking on my cellphone and driving. I got off with a warning but still ended up with a parking ticket before the weekend was over. I left my car overnight near the beach where the ceremony was held and evidently there is no parking between 3 am and 5am. Oops. They didn't even give me a ticket, just a notice telling me when my courtdate is, so I'm going to have to call tomorrow and try to get that straightened out. This is my life.

So this should be my last "big thing" for a while. I'm looking forward to some weekends at home. What did you do this weekend?

more fun candids

Most of these were taken by my Uncle Darsono..

Waiting....

And waiting.... How cute are my mom and her sister with their grandsons?

We were instructed by the photographer to show some leg. Um... no.

And this about summed up his attitude for most of the time after they came out of the temple. He would hardly be in any pictures. (Also, he refused to wear black socks because they are "so ugly". But you couldn't tell when he was standing.)

He wouldn't look up at the camera.

No matter how much I tried to coax.

This is how he spent most of the time during the wedding party photographing.

This picture cracks me up. Clearly we are dancing with each other but we are both staring off into different directions.

This was during the recieving line (slightly out of order here, sorry).

My bestest friend.

My folks can get down.

Tom was cutting a rug too.

warning: If you see me IRL I may rip your head off

Ugh. PMS + lack of sleep + too much work + overwhelming mommy guilt has turned me into a rather miserable person the past few days. I'm fairly sure even my own parents are screening their calls from me at this point. I'm only one person who is just spread too thin. I fell asleep face down on the couch for 30 minutes today at around 7 o'clock. So much for Zumba. I just can't make it. Anyways, Isaac's dad just got screamed at for insinuating that I wasn't putting forth an effort to get Isaac into a fall soccer program (backstory, I totally dropped the ball on sign-ups for his normal league, and it is too late for him to play. I have been scouring the internet, making phone calls etc, but everything is full, is for toddlers or is waaaaaaaaaaay too expensive. Now his dad wants me to go over to the fields of his old league and just linger around asking people if he can play. I'm not going to do that. I feel HORRIBLE about missing sign ups but when it really comes down to it, he will play in the spring and if he misses one season of soccer is it really the end of the world? No, it is not.). Anyways, I ended up just straight up psychotically screamed at him about how come it's always up to me to figure this stuff out and he could just drive over here and linger around the soccer fields like a creeper if it's so freakin important to him and it's so easy for him to be critical when I am the one that does 98% of the parenting. He was being nagging and irritating, that was certainly not an appropriate response. He even said to me "If I was screaming at you the way you are talking to me how would you feel?" and I had to admit I would hang up on him.

My cavity is killing me. I MUST call and schedule my root canal I have been in denial about needing all summer now. It is to the point where the entire side of my head is radiating pain almost all of the time, which is certainly not helping my irritability. Tomorrow is back to school night (for me as a teacher, not me as a parent). 13 hours of work. Ugh, enough said.

I haven't seen my friends or done anything social in several weeks due to wedding mania. This weekend I will be out of town again for my old college roommate Nicole's wedding in New York. That puts me out of town something like 5 out of the last 6 weekends.

I'm out of cat food.

My sink is filled with dishes and I am always out of clean spoons.

I have nothing creative to pack for lunch.

And poor Isaac. What I really need to do is slow down and make time to give him my complete and undivided attention. To stop hurrying him along rushing him in and out of clothes and in and out of the car and shuffling him from babysitter to babysitter. It's too much.

Anyways, I will end the whine-fest now. I'm going to forget the pile of work I brought home with me and just go to bed early. Yes my life is an out of control carousel but everything is harder to deal with when you are exhausted and lonely.

shocker

So today at church the bishop's counselor pulls me aside and asks to talk to me. Of course, he wants to give me a calling. It might be nice to have one, since I have been in the ward for about a year and a half now. I have had almost every calling in the RS except president so I was thinking maybe something in there. Part of me was expecting something in the primary since I teach elementary school, and since our primary has several children with autism.

Guess what they asked me to do?

Young Single Adult rep.

First of all, I don't even know what that calling really is. All I knew was that I had to clarify that it was definitely the YOUNG singles. I'm having no part of Single Adult activities. I did accept of course. Maybe it is just my ridiculous cynicism, but I feel like this is yet another validation that I will never have any kind of identity at church beyond "unmarried". It's frustrating.

I want a coin belt...

Found this online video (can't imbed it sorry). It is the same routine that we do in my Zumba class but no one in my class wears cool coin belts. No fair!

we have...

a kindergartener in the house!

I couldn't get him up this morning. Suddenly it hit him and he sat straight up and was like "It's my kindergartn day!" He was so excited to head off. He shouted to the cat in the window as I made him pose for this picture, "Bye Cody!! I'm a big kindergarten boy. I'm going to learn to read today and when I come home I will read you a story!"

He wasn't too talkative about his day but it seems like he enjoyed himself.

I decided to be a kiss up mom and we whipped this up yesterday for his teacher:

I used a template and the directions found here. It was super easy and quite cute, if I do say so myself. I'm definitely going to keep it in mind for my secret Santa this year at school. All in all I declare the first day of kindergarten A SUCCESS!

wedding emotions post-mortem

The photos

I stole the above picture from my Aunt Kathy's facebook and some random ones below from the photographers facebook page. I didn't take a single picture and so I will have to collect them from around.

(yes that's totally me in the front... and I totally caught it... and we totally planned it)

I keep sitting down to try to blog about the whirlwind that was my sister's wedding (parts 1 and 2), but nothing really wants to come. Honestly, the entire thing made me terribly emotional and it's hard to begin to try to put those emotions into words but here goes.

Thoughts on stuff beyond the actual wedding

(disclaimer, I really do love Drew and his family really is wonderful. These are my own issues...)

I know you are supposed to think about a wedding not as losing a sister but as gaining a brother. Drew is a lovely person and I am excited that he is now a part of our family. But I feel (irrationally, I will admit) sad about Jenny becoming a part of their family. Does that make sense? It's no secret that I hate the fact that my sister lives across the country and only is able to come home for like two weeks a year. It's hard to not have her around for the big stuff (graduations, Isaac's birth) and the stuff like birthday dinners or family get togethers, or just to hang out with. Last summer she lived with me for part of the summer, the longest she has come home for since she left for college, and it was the best summer ever. Anyways, especially at the North Carolina reception I found myself terribly anxious as the realization hit me that she now has obligations to another family too, and the time we spend together will likely be even less. For every two weeks of vacation, one week will likely be spent in North Carolina. *Sigh*

Blending two families can be hard. His family was really all about the mixing it up with our family with copious Harlos/Stephenson bonding and togetherness. I'm not going to lie, that's not how my family rolls and in some ways (in my head) it just felt a bit like an invasion; a little too familiar. It felt uncomfortable to hear Drew's parents describing Jenny's life to people as a slideshow of snapshots from her childhood flashed on a tv screen at their reception, or to hear his aunt knowlingly say "Jennifer doesn't eat chocolate". I just wanted to scream out "You don't even know her!!!" I know, it makes no sense.

I guess I have an irrational fear that every future encounter with my sister with have to include 2923 of her in-laws vying for her attention, or be limited to one little encounter a year; that somehow her getting married has forever altered the relationship I have with her as my sister. I cried and cried in the car when we left North Carolina. (Actually, I started crying when we said our good-byes at a breakfast with the extended Harlos family, in front of everyone... which was awkward. It was all of these emotions that I have been trying to describe and they just all hit me and then to have to say good-bye in front of everyone and not know when I will even see her again and it just call came out in ugly sobs and huge tears).

Incidently, it feels very selfish to even write about this, like I am making my sister's wedding all about me or something. I promise I recognized that the wedding was all about her and I did my best to get along with everyone and mix and mingle with the in-laws.

So anyways, I'm aware that I sound like total crazy person. I know this is a natural part of life and growing up. I do. But it's hard. Anyone else out there ever felt this way? You can comment anonymously if you'd rather. I'm thinking I can't be alone in having trouble adjusting with the change in family dynamics brought on by a marriage. But who knows.

Quickly

• I survived the wedding-- part 1 at least. Next weekend will be about 17 hours in the car with my parents for the North Carolina reception. Assuming that a hurricane doesn't cancel it.
• I would post a picture but I didn't take a single one. Maybe some of my relatives will send a few my way so I can share how awesomely tan I was (oh and I guess you might want to see my sister too).
• In the midst of wedding madness school has started again and I went from having a completely open and empty schedule to once again being stretched entirely too thin. I feel like I am doing a half-assed job at everything, namely: my job, keeping up the house, and being a decent mom. I still have a dufflebag at the foot of my bed that has not been unpacked from the shore, I've seen Isaac awake this week for probably a grand total of 4 hours, and I realized tonight I never registered him for soccer and now all the areas leagues are closed. I seriously cried when I realized that. I'll get my life together in a little bit, but the beginning of the school year always makes me feel like I am going to die.

Exhaustion, extreme heat, loneliness and guilt are getting the better of me. I'll be back in, like, a week or two.