This week

Wow, what interesting titles I come up with for this blog:)

Anyways, Matt has been out of town for work all week (should be home any minute!) and you would of thought that I was terrified of being alone with all the plans I made. Tuesday night, I had a great evening with Sonia in Decatur, Tuesday night was a fun dinner with "The Allison/Alyson/Alisons" and "The Lara/Lauras" in the Highlands. Then, last night was a doozy! Sushi with Allie and Sarah, then I joined a group of girls at Rosa Mexicana at Atlantic Station before going to see the "Sex and the City Movie" at 12:01am. That's right: You heard me right...a movie a midnight on a Thursday. They had 2 theaters playing at this time and believe me when I tell you our theater (we had a group of eight) was packed full. It was amazing and the movie was just awesome...even better than I expected or could of imagined. Yes, it was a little long (you especially feel that when it's 3am and the movie's wrapping up!) but SO worth it. Getting out of the parking lot at Atlantic Station was terrible and so I wasn't in bed until almost 4am....which means I am DRAGGING today...:( Oh well, it's my fault.

Have all my final stuff for my class due Monday, but I'm almost done, so hopefully this weekend will be pretty relaxing. Hope yours is great!

Cheesy music

I see myself as having pretty good taste in music. However, for as long as I've chosen music on my own to listen to, I have made somewhat random choices. For instance, I was discovering and listening to REM at the same time still listening to Debbie Gibson and NKOTB. While I don't generally like most of the 'popular' music on the radio, I tend to always 'allow' myself at least one guilty pleasure song at a time to love and listen to obsessively.

I think this really accelerated when I was living in Ireland and loved the fact that radio stations there played such a random mix of music- U2 one minute, the Outkast, then some cheesy all-girl British group. I really got into some of these British pop singers (I watched the original show that inspired American Idol), and so now I tend to gravitate towards British pop artists that are played here. I am totally obsessed with Leona Lewis's song "Bleeding Love" (you must listen to it, if you have not heard it before) and bought it on itunes recently. I only buy the one song, which is the great thing about itunes. I am also loving Natasha Bedingfield's new song, "Pocket Full of Sunshine" (adding of course to the 2 songs that I already own). These are the songs I make playlists with to help pump me up when I am writing a paper (and this tends to be when I make those impulsive purchases on itunes:)

This is all to Matt's chagrin, since we now keep all of our music together on my new Mac....This is why he manually adds songs to his ipod - so he doesn't have "Sexy Back" on his ipod and ruin his music cred:) However, I get great pleasure that one of my guilty pleasure artists Kate Nash is now on Matt's ipod and he likes her! Matt introduces me to a lot of new music (most of which I like), even though I feel like I had good taste before I met him and I refuse to like something just because he does:)

I should add, just to up my music cred, that there are lots of new good albums out by less radio-popular artists...Old 97s, REM, Kathleen Edwards, Decemberists, Radiohead...if you're looking for new music to get into.

Bread...

The few days were fine. When I'm holed up at home it's easy not to miss all the other stuff out there to eat. Sitting in a restaurant with friends last night made it HARD not to eat any carbs...and we're going out again tonight....AH!!! When ice cream and chips&salsa are your favorite foods, the idea of no carbs is tough!

Fresh starts

A new semester is always a time I use to clean out the clutter and refocus. After turning in grades a week or so ago, I cleaned the whole house and did some closet organization. The IRA conference and then a school retreat was a nice professional refresher as well last week. On Monday, I completely cleaned out all my files and shelves in my office at school and feel like I finally know everything I have!

Monday was the first day of a new semester- Maymester. I'm taking a class that meets 3 days a week on campus and 2 days online. Won't be too bad, just lots of work crammed into 3 weeks. I'm also trying to plan the new class I am teaching this summer and fall, along with getting 2 articles out to hopefully be published (I really need to be published at this point...lots of pressure).

On Monday, I also started the South Beach diet. I have tried it in the past, but saw a new edition of the book had come out with more recipes and flexibility. After loading up at the grocery store on fresh veggies, lean meat and dairy, I cooked for at least 3 hours Sunday night trying to get some things prepared. Last night, Matt made me a dessert from the book after I botched it Sunday night. So far, so good. The first two weeks are the hardest with all the restrictions, especially when trying to think about going out to eat and with all the time it takes to shop and cook. I feel good about making good decisions for myself though, so I am positive. Change is good.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers reading this, especially of course to my own mom Jane and my mother in law, Joann. We will see my mom later today at my parent's house, but we are sending a big hug out to CA today to Joann.

Speaking of moms, Cathy just sent me a photo of her new baby Berkeley in the outfit I sent her. Isn't she SO cute? I know my mom with her love/obsession with babies at least will enjoy the picture, so here's one of your presents mom:)-

A weekend!

This weekend was a good one. I did absolutely NO school work, which was a real treat. I have officially finished the semester, so this weekend was all about hanging out and seeing friends. I attended a graduation party for my students from last year who finished the 2nd year of our program on Friday. Saturday night we went to our friends Sam and Sonia's house to enjoy a very tasty early Cinco de Mayo-themed dinner. Today was our friend Blythe's baby shower. I was interrogated by the the host (our friend Sarah)'s daughter Lilly who is 3 about why I was not yet a mommy:) It really was a fun afternoon.

Matt's making some very good smelling pasta, and I'm sure that afterwards will involve some Wii playing. Yes, we got a Wii last week....it is fun (all except for Guitar Hero which I hate!), but I am afraid it will become addictive.

Tomorrow starts a busy week- the IRA conference in town and the first week our new group of students start.
Have a good week!

I should give multiple choice exams...

Then, I wouldn't be spending full days reading and re-reading projects and lesson plans, trying to figure out how many points to deduct from each part of the rubric. Ah! Today, I finally turned in my last class assignment and so now the real fun begins- grading and finishing up these darn classes that I teach.

Other than that, we saw 2 cute movies recently- "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Baby Mama"...both very, very silly but the perfect distraction. Matt made some tasty pasta tonight and I spent some time with my sis today getting a mani/pedi (I've found I'm a better grader when I enjoy looking at my nails:)

This week is pretty busy- Still have class Tuesday night, 2 graduation parties for students in our program, a possible court appearance from the accident, and finishing grading! Next week is the International Reading Association's national convention here in Atlanta and I am presenting along with my adviser, so we also have to finish up our presentation! However, I am looking forward to having a 'real' weekend next weekend- dinner at the Levine house and Blythe's baby shower should be great.

Friday was Matt's cousin Alex's 4th birthday (also known as our adorable ringbearer). I don't think he reads our blog:) but happy birthday anyways Alex! We are sad that we couldn't celebrate with him in person, but we send a few of our favorite books that we hope he enjoys.

Hope all is well with everyone!