...Summer is fleeting...

I'll do my my beach update soon. I have to mentally prepare myself for all of the time it takes to get all the pictures over here in blogger. It was a lovely week at the beach and so fun to have my sister and brother in law in town for as long as they were. It was so sad to say goodbye to them again. Anyways, here's one of our groups shots on the roof deck:

While we were down at the beach one of my cats had a bad health scare. Cody Pablo (the cat with 9 lives) had a urinary tract infection which is a very dangerous thing for a male cat. I lost a day at the beach to drive back and take him to the vet. Fortuneatly, he didn't have to be hospitalized and after I dropped about 100 bucks i don't have on prescription food and meds but he survived. My dad keeps telling he that Cody is more trouble than he's worth (which I know is true) but I like to keep him around.

Isaac and I have been watching some movies that I loved as a kid. It's funny how much he loves making microwave popcorn, and snuggling up together on the couch. Sometimes I get so obsessed with planning the big, grand things for him to do, but he really is satisfied with the simple things. We have seen Sandlot, Rookie of the Year, Robin Hood, Pete's Dragon, and The Muppets Take Manhatten.

So I had this wacky thing on my head that I thought was ringworm (I know-- SO gross). It wasn't going away with ringworm cream and so they referred me to a dermatologist. She thought it might be, like, an out of control mole and removed a little piece of it. Turns out, it is an "atypical nevus" that was "moderately" concerning. Last week I went and had a piece of my scalp the size of a nickel removed and a ton of stitches. Next week I go back in to have the stitches removed and a full body exam for any other troubling moles. They already identified another one on my scalp that I will be having removed in a few weeks. It was a little bit scary, because a girl I knew in college just recently died of melanoma. I'm glad, at least, that hearing about her gave me an increased awareness of the risks and a better push to get things checked out. I'm glad to be dealing with it since people with atypical nevus have a much higher risk of developing melanoma. It's scary. But anyways, enough about gross health issues.

I'm pretty excited for the weekend. Isaac's dad is meeting up with me at some place that sells super cheap tires and he is replacing a few of mine tomorrow. This is long overdue. It's been raining lately and I've been slipping and sliding all over the place in the puddles on my bald tires. It sounds a tad on the shady side, but at this point, I am so broke, I'll get tires from a shady place if I don't have to pay for them. After that Isaac is going with his dad for the weekend. I'm not sure what I will get into, but I will definitely be heading to my parents for a bit to help out around the house and to visit my friend Nicole, who will also be in town.

I still have another week of summer vacation left before I have to head back to school for inservices and stuff. I've popped in a few times this week to get the room together. It's going to be a really interesting year since we have lost so many services and things with the government cuts. Sometimes it's just hard to work in an impoverished area in a place with so few resources. My sister and I were commiserating about this on the phone tonight. Well, that's about it for right now. Things are going well more or less.

Franklin Square

We just returned from our big week at the shore, and I will be blogging about that soon. My sister came out a few days before the beach and we had a fun day together. I have a bucket list of things in the city I want to see and do, and Jenny is always game for crossing them of the list when she is town. This year I planned a walking mural tour of the city, which was awesome, but had us trekking all over the city. Thank goodness it was somewhat overcast that day. We had some time to kill before it started, so we decided to play the mini-golf course in Franklin Square, which I LOVE! Each hole is some kind of Philadelphia Landmark.

The Liberty Bell Chinatown Boathouse Row (see the little rowboats in the water?) The Art Museum (this one made me laugh because the plaque talked about how this was the building from Rocky and home to masterpieces. I love how "home to masterpieces" comes second!)

Love Park

Center City

Ben Franklin Bridge (I'm on the Jersey Side)

Elfreth's Alley

Congress Hall (I think that is the official name).

I would definitely recommend the mural tour and the the mini-golf for out of town guests who are visiting the city.

you make me wanna staple bacon to my face, then remove it with a pitchfork

I decided this summer that I wasn't going to turn down any invitations and it's led to some interesting opportunities (I went rock climbing, scored some tix to the DMB Caravan). So when my dad approached me about joining him for a Weird Al concert in Lancaster, I figured, why not? I'm by no means an avid fan, but I had a few of his albums when I was a kid and of course I recognized a lot of the music he parodies. He was definitely entertaining and put on an energetic show. Now I can say that I have seen Weird Al sing "Amish Paradise" in Lancaster County (which feels like a bucket list item for an uber-nerd). He did all of his big hits: Fat, White and Nerdy, Perform this Way, that endless Star Wars song to the tune of American Pie. It was actually a pretty intense show with back up dancers and tons of costume changes. He was definitely funny and is a talented accordian player. I'm not sure I would ever catch him again, but it was definitely an experience; thanks for inviting me Dad!

Summer update

I haven't blogged in a while. I've had a lot of computer issues, and my sister has been in town. Now I'm enjoying some quality vacation time for a week with my family at the Jersey Shore. I'm blogging this from a chaise lounge on the porch with a cool, salty ocean breeze blowing on me. As close to heaven as you can get.

Here are some pictures from my parent's camera I finally got around to grabbing from them. I'm stealing internet from the motel across the street, which makes uploading these pictures a little slow, but I've got nothing but time on my hand currently, so it works.

Here is one of Isaac taken at swim lessons. He has been doing a great job with swim lessons, overcoming a rocky first time.

These pictures are from the Sturgis Pretzel Factory in Lancaster. We got to tour this really old pretzel factory and try our hand at making our own soft pretzels.

We've also been spending some quality time at the Oregon Dairy in Lancaster as well. They have yummy icecream, some animals to check out and a big playground.

Weekend Wrap Up

What a great weekend!

Baking brownies.

Finally packing up all of the 4th of July/Americana decorations

Isaac's dad randomly taking him for the day/night Saturday

Finally buying him some new summer pajamas-- which he needed desperately.

Rock climbing at the Philadelphia Rock Gym with Jami

Then Zwahlen's icecream-- it had been been too long-- sooo delicious....

Great haul from the Phoenixville Goodwill:

brand new drying rack, H and M purse still with tags, Banana Republic shirts

Sitting around in Becca's backyard talking and playing with the dog

Getting mosquito bites

Coveting her rainbarrel

Riding around town in the "family mobile" (her dark green Mini-Cooper)

Getting free stuff everywhere we went that night because we were out with this guy (her hubby)

Free plate of breads and cheeses? Yes please!

20 dollars randomly comped off dinner at Tria? Yes please!

Belting out show tunes and oldies at a piano bar and starting a chorusline at Tavern on Camac.

Highlight of the night was the pianist busting out "Bad Romance" and then going straight from that to "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music.

Watching Sandlot with Isaac and being so thrilled that he liked it (You're killing me Smalls)

Texting all weekend with Nicole, a good friend I don't talk to nearly enough

Michael Jackson experience Redboxed-- so fun

Interesting church discussions this week

Planning a few fun things to do with JENNIFER when she flies in this week!

A healthy dinner with lots of veggies.

Life is good. =)

Rain drops on roses....

So I was just at my friend Becca's over the weekend. She and her husband had just gotten back from a workshop on making a rainbarrel a lot like the one pictured below. I'm so jealous!

I want one. Then maybe I would actually bother to water the poor tree in my yard.

ready to pay the price

*Sigh*. So it looks like I am going back to grad school again.

Long story (somewhat) short, I graduated from good ole Widener with a Master's of Special Ed, highly qualified to elementary education. As I interviewed for jobs it became very clear that the fact that I didn't hold a certification in elementary education was a huge strike against me, which is kind of infuriating to discover you are barely qualified after you have paid thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to get your degree.

I eventually did get hired in my current district. It has always been in the back of my mind to get to get back to work on my cert (see last year's goal list at the top of this page). This year when I watched some of my peers be laid off or cut to part time as our lovely Governor slashed funding to public education, it hit me that if I were to be laid off it would be impossible to go up against huge pools of applicants who were all more qualified than me. I would end up making hoagies at Wawa or ringing people up at Sears for the rest of my life. So this summer I got serious about getting back to grad school and just in the nick of time, as I found out that all of the certification requirements are changing very soon. I need to take 6 classes in the next year so get my stuff together before all the certification requirements change in the state of PA. Otherwise, I will have to take 11 classes under the new certification qualifications. Which was a little different than what I had pictured in my head (maybe taking one or two online courses and sitting for another PRAXIS exam).

I'm not going to lie, I had a pretty big breakdown about this. In order to qualify for financial aid loans I would need to take at least two classes in the spring semester, three in the summer and one next fall. If you were with me back in the Myspace blog days, you would remember that I am no stranger to working fulltime, doing grad school fulltime and juggling being a mom. It's not impossible. I have done it, but the tradeoff isI pretty much had no money, no life, no friends, my mother was Isaac's primary caretaker instead of me, and I was constantly under a high level of stress. The thought of going back to that lifestyle, without even the support of living with my parents was completely overwhelming. Not to mention the thought of taking out more loans to pay for it all had me panicked, as I already have an overwhelming amount of debt relating to school costs. I just really thought that chapter of my life was closed and the thought of going back to that pretty much caused me to totally fall apart.

Anyways, enough blathering on and on about this. As I do whenever I make a major financial decision, I asked my dad for his take on it and he helped me brainstorm some other solutions. I had forgotten to factor in tuition reimbursement, and when you take that into account my work will pay for a considerable amount of the cost, which means that I can take the first two classes one at a time, instead of doubling up. I will can do the bulk of the work during the summer when I am doing nothing anyways and I will only have to take out loans for three classes instead of six. This makes me feel better about things.

I have a friend whose dad is very into Indian Astrology and a few years ago he did a reading for me based on my birthdate, time and location. He reported that I would eventually find a lot of success in my career, but that I would have to struggle against many obstacles before I found that success. Anyways, I don't know how exactly you define "success" as a public school teacher anyways. I just feel like I have taken the long way around over and over when it comes to being a financially independent real live grown up and it's frustrating. It would just be nice to be be on top of the bills, maybe have something in the savings account, and not have something like having a fuel pump be a total financial crisis.

Anyways, I had all of this kind of stuff floating in my head when I was biking along the River Trail earlier in the week. This plaque was on one of the benches along the way.

And actually, that quote sort of helped me refocus.