… that I don’t have to listen 24-7 to that snortling phlegm thing that men do. It’s just at work… and during my Saturday morning class. Seriously, can we get some researchers on this? I need that noise to stop.

… for the many margaritas and fabulous conversations I had with friends past week.

… that I finished my dress & shrug for tomorrow night’s shindig two weeks early. I’ve barely had any time since to get any work done.

… for Mr. Sketch Scented markers, which made a fun art project even better.

… for the brilliant idea (if I do say so myself) to completely rework my course syllabus so to first semester instead of second. Sixth grade Social Studies is incredibly boring, but the first semester is slightly more interesting. (Still, every time I look at the standards, I feel sorry for 6th graders. And I already feel bad for them. Life sucks. And then we throw Ancient World History and Geography on top of it. Poor, poor babies. Go hug a 6th grader, if you know any.)

… for the downtown Macy’s that is still open, defying economic projections. A girl needs to be able to buy pantyhose sometimes, and the selection at Walgreens and the skyway stores is not acceptable. Also, they have frozen yogurt (3rd floor), chocolate-vanilla twist.

… we got news this week that our budget request was included in the governor’s budget, which is awesome for one reason (and not the one you think). Mainly, it means that he understands the value of our program (and the additional federal dollars we pull down). It doesn’t mean, however, that we’re actually going to get that money, or that there won’t be layoffs that affect me, or that my salary won’t get cut. But it means we’re valued. That’s something.

… for the tens of thousands of Wisconsinites who are fighting for labor right now. Seriously? We’re going to un-do 80 years of workers’ rights? (It’s not about salaries, or retirement fund contributions, or health benefits. It’s about destroying collective bargaining rights.)

… for the brave women (and men!) who have called attention to the disgusting issue of rape in the military.

… for the fabulous weather we’ve been having this week. I have worn a skirt every day this week to work (except for yesterday, when I wore a dress). Tomorrow I’m celebrating jeans day, but since we’ve got that shindig after work and I’ll be wearing a dress, I think that counts as 5 straight days of dressing up without slacks. I’m contemplating whether or not I could pull that off for a month (workdays only, Fridays excluded, of course).

I spent the majority of last night with a margarita in my hand, and somehow have absolutely nothing to talk about now. Well, unless you want to hear my rant on rape in the military or being state worker / teacher. I’m assuming you don’t. I can tell you that the strawberry margarita at Bar Abilene is vastly superior to the raspberry one, at least right now (strawberries are particularly good right around V-day, so I don’t want to mislead you if you try one out in, say, mid-April). If you want to try both, definitely do the raspberry one first, as it is much more sour, and it’s easier to go from sour to sweet than the reverse (in my opinion). Also, the Ancho Diablo Chocolate Cake is not all that fab, but the molten lava cake that I had last time wasn’t on the menu. Or… whatever it was.

So, obviously, I had a lovely evening with . Before that, and I discovered that he does not like Reuben sandwiches. Alas. I guess the rest of the supplies (because you can’t buy ingredients for 2 Reuben sandwiches, you have to buy ingredients for a dozen Reuben sandwiches) will have to be consumed by yours truly. Bummer.

When I got home, we watched the last half of “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” which we have seen before, and thoroughly enjoyed it. We should probably buy that one.

And then I went to bed.

No arts & crafts time today at work – I forgot my crayons and colored pencils. Again. Might need to write it on my hand or something.

I have concluded that I need to make green tea ice cream again (which I apparently didn’t blog about back in September 2009, but… things did not go well due to certain laws of physics and then some overcompensating, but I’m willing to try again), and also hummus. I don’t really have time for this, but it’s nice to have an idea in case I get an itch to create food.

I’ve spent some time this week making posters for some work celebrations. I printed out the words in fancy fonts, and then used our ever-dwindling supply of carbon paper (it only took one sheet per poster, and had I know I needed to do the second one, I could have saved it and used just one) to trace the letters onto the foam core board. Then I traced them with a black Sharpie. Hopefully tomorrow I will remember to bring in my colored pencils and crayons (I forgot today) and will get those babies colored in. I threatened to use glitter, but I don’t think the cleaning people would appreciate that much.

There is absolutely nothing going on worth telling you all about (including the above “story”). The cabinets are assembled, but we discerned that we need to put a quick coat of poly on the unpainted surfaces to protect them from water, so we’ve stalled out (at least until we go buy some spray poly). I spent the rest of the weekend doing homework (so that I would have most of this week free from homework, and it worked!). Oh, and I got a tiny bit of sewing done on ‘s quilt – not even enough for a picture, but it at least a small amount of progress.

I did get my muslin for Butterick 4132 completed (at least to the point that muslins can be completed) – just one tiny little adjustment to the back. I didn’t hem it or finish the side slits, because after trying it on, I realized that it was never going to be worn in public, so why bother. After noting the small change on the pattern, I tossed the muslin. It felt strangely good to do so. I would have preferred the muslin be wearable, but since the fabric was purchased so long ago as to consider it free, it’s OK that it wasn’t. Last night I got the same shirt cut out of the floral fabric bought for this purpose. I cut out sleeves, too – we’ll see how those go. The big complaint people seem to have about them is how wide they are; in the pattern’s defense, they are supposed to be bell sleeves. I think I’ll figure out a different way to attach the front to the back at the shoulders, because my muslin turned out a bit wonky, but otherwise things went OK. Now I need to figure out how to finish my seams – that fabric is going to fray if I don’t do something. I want to do French seams, but can’t figure out how to work that with the side slits. I also need to do something for the facing edges – the pattern just has you do a zigzag stitch (or use a serger, which I don’t have), and that won’t work for the long term. I’m thinking hem facing (or flexi-tape, or whatever you want to call it) in the lightest weight I can find it. It’s either that or a rolled hem, using my special machine foot, but I’m not sure I’m up to the that task (finicky fabric + rolled hem?).

My only homework left for the week is to learn more about the Chinese Empire. Goodness, the information I’ve found so far is bo-ring. I might have to give up my love of 6th graders, because 6th grade Social Studies is just awful. Plus, it involves map skills, which are not really my thing. Speaking of which, I need to contact the school to see if I can get those 40 hours arranged. Sigh. I do not care for this part of the program – I realize the importance of making connections, etc, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

We spent Valentine’s Day at home, watching a romantic comedy that turned out to be not very romantic (funny, yes, but the girl doesn’t get the guy in the end, which seems to remove it from the “romantic comedy” genre in my opinion). Nothing special, but nice to just relax for a while.

Tonight I have plans with (for table-side crafted guacamole); I had such a wonderful time with last Friday that we’ve decided we need to do it again, and soon. Shopping, specifically, is what I’m referring to. Neither of us do that very often, and then kind of go crazy when we’re together. We figure that if we do it more often, we won’t buy as much. That sounds logical, right?

Tomorrow we plan on going to BMO to look at (and hopefully purchase) trim for the basement (the non-baseboard trim, that is). Ooh, exciting.

Nothing much to report. Lots of creative ideas floating around in my head, but no time to do anything about them. Class last night was better than last week – for the most part I avoided discussion with the two patronizing women. Thought I’d be productive and call on my way back to my car, then call on the way home, and then talk to for the rest of the drive and for a bit after. But, someone was feeling chatty, and I was still on the phone with him when I got home. Of course, then I was tired, and it was late, so… no more phone calls. But, you know, I thought about you two!

Wednesday night we got the three bottom cabinets assembled. They’re currently sitting in our bedroom – it was easier to assemble them upstairs. We’ll have to assemble the two larger ones downstairs, though, since they’ll be too heavy to carry down the stairs (OK, we could technically do it, but why put that extra strain on ourselves?). We are still in need of a tiny little part before we can assemble those, and then we can move on to installation. It’s going to be so awesome – you have no idea. I feel like we’ll have multiple empty closets once we’re all done, we’re adding so much storage.

I think you all should be proud of me. Last night I got a homework assignment back and received 15/20 on it. And I totally didn’t freak out. Not even in my head. That’s what we call “personal growth.”

It’s warming up! It was 16* last time I checked… and snowing. Of course it was. Hopefully the last of the snow will melt off the roof this weekend. I have never cared about the amount of snow on a roof until this house. If the additions (that are the cause of the odd valleys in our roof where lots of the snow gathers) weren’t so awesome, I’d wish our house were different. As it is, I love our house, so we’re just going to have to cope with its eccentricities.

I’m not asking for much, really. Just the chance to feel well-rested by Sunday night. Oh well.

Saturday morning’s class was good, and I managed to get all of my reading homework done by the time the Super Bowl was over. We only got one coat of poly on the cabinet pieces on Saturday, due to a “joys of home ownership” issue, so the cabinets didn’t get assembled on Sunday. We did get the other two coats of poly on, though, so we can assemble this week if I get my papers written. The “issue” was photographed for your amusement, but I was running late this morning and forgot to grab the memory card from the camera, so the story will have to wait.

I also got a muslin cut out for Butterick 4132, using some random white shiny fabric I found in my “home dec fabrics” drawer. I am not sure what it was leftover from – perhaps curtains for – but I had two-ish yards that was only 30″ or so wide. Normally I wouldn’t make a muslin of a shirt, since they’re pretty straight forward and I don’t have to grade sizes, but since the fabric I purchased to make this up in was a bit pricier than I would have liked (to coordinate with my navy skirt), and slippery, I thought it would be best to sample this one. It’s only 3 pieces (front, back, back facing) – 4 if I was doing the sleeves, but I ran out of fabric, unless you think sheer purple would look good…. The front and back pieces are huge, since they’re bias-cut (and therefore not cut on the fold). I had to do some piecing of the fabric to even get them to fit. It should still whip up pretty quickly – hopefully by Friday (again, if I can get my papers written).

I may or may not be grumpy for the next two weeks. In a moment of wisdom, I thought it would be nice to try to lose a tiny bit of that winter-hibernation weight before ‘s company party (for which I made the grey dress and cream shrug). The party happens to be two weeks from last Friday, and I happened to decide this… last night. So that doesn’t really give me much time, but at least it means I won’t suffer for long, right? I learned last Spring that I could be successful at calorie restriction for about a month before cheating became a far-too-regular occurrence. Two weeks I should be able to handle… hopefully. I think I’ll be drinking a lot of water.

But, for now, I need to get my head into the game. I have to write up a class syllabus, five classroom rules, and a student interview… before Thursday. The student interview only needs to be tweaked, the class syllabus is supposed to be (ideally) a page, and the five classroom rules shouldn’t be too bad. The last two just take a lot of thought and careful wording.