Sunday, September 5, 2010

Brief Recap

I didn't forget about my blog.  I promise.  I have just been insanely busy setting up for school.  My classroom was in perfect condition after my mom and I left it and now...well it is still functional.  I've spent the past week and a half doing nothing but school stuff.  I've gone to numerous classes, meetings, functions, even a bus tour of the county.  I've been given chocolate, pens, pencils, highlighters, bags, and other random things such as a pizza cutter welcoming me to the county.  I've been spoiled.  When the kids come not bearing gifts, I will probably lash out at them. 

I am sorry but I did not take pictures of my classroom.  I was going to but was way too busy.  On Friday night, I thought about it but I had to leave for my nephew's thirteenth birthday party.  Literally, I'd been carrying my camera around since Wednesday but I was too busy to take any pictures.

Also, the class sizes are much smaller than I anticipated.  Didn't I tell you that my mother would inevitably be right and we wouldn't need all of those desks?  A part of me is excited that I will have smaller classes and then another part of me is slightly annoyed.  How does my mother know everything?

I haven't even seen Warren enough to write anything about him.  Well on Friday, he did send me a text while I was at work asking me if we had any wrapping paper.  I said if we did then it would be in the Christmas closet but I wasn't sure.  He texted me back to ask why I didn't just go look in the closet and let him know.  Does he think that everytime I go to "work" I am really just hiding in one of our spare guest bedrooms for 8 plus hours?

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Is that mold or spaghetti?

Today, I drove back up to the apartment complex for a pre-inspection.  Ideally, I was going to wipe down a few counters and the inspector was going to tell me how brilliant the apartment looked.  What really happened?  I realized how very much work I had to do and that I was the only person going to do it.

Warren and I drove up there on Sunday to clean the apartment.  When we got up there, he said he didn't feel like cleaning and we just ate at the California Tortilla Kitchen with one of my friends.  Since we were supposed to clean, I wasn't wearing the greatest of outfits and Warren told me that I was wearing the most white trash outfit I own.  That's really saying something considering the shorts I just wore to Bloom.

But I digress...I know I am not the best housekeeper in the world.  If I invite you over, the place will be clean but if you come over unexpectedly, no promises.  Plus, cleaning consists of nothing more than disinfectant wipes.  I hate the smell of chemicals and I don't trust those Method products.  They smell good but I don't think they actually clean anything.  Oh, and using a disinfectant wipe is so much less work than using a cleaner.  I figure if I've disinfected then it must be clean.  Right?  If the answer is no, please don't post on my blog and tell me otherwise.  Ignorance really is bliss.  Oh wait, so back to me not being the best housekeeper in the world.  Well, I really started looking at my appliances/cabinets etc and EW.

In one of the corners under a cabinet, I found some stringy things.  I actually asked myself, "Is this spaghetti or mold?"  The spider that had spun a web around the aforementioned ick did not seem to know the answer either. 

I also learned that just using the scrubbing bubbles toilet wand with disposable wipes does not clean everything.  I won't describe that in detail but I think you get my drift.

As I was moving the ironing board to my husband's SUV, the ironing board slipped from my hand and propped itself up.  I had to call my husband at work to ask how to put it down.  Literally, I had no idea.  I have never used an ironing board.  Once I had one of those miniature ones that Bed Bath and Beyond sells for dorms but mostly, I got it because it was cute.  I also had a little purple iron go with it.  And by "go with it," I mean coordinate with the board, not like actually iron with.  Typically, I iron by spraying things down with Downy Wrinkle Releaser then throwing them in the dryer.  When that inevitably doesn't work, I say a couple swear words then wear the clothes anyway.  I tell myself that the wrinkles will fall out during wear.  I wonder who taught me this lie?  I believe it wholeheartedly though.

Anyway, I decided that I didn't want to drive in rush hour traffic so I headed home around 3:30.  I still hit some traffic but the drive was bearable.  I have another appointment tomorrow with the inspector and this is the real final inspection.  I still have more work to do but hopefully, it will be quick and painless.  Am I lying to myself again?

My mother, unmatched desks, and bulletin boards-oh my!

I know I made it sound like in the first post that I have no job.  I simply eat bon bons and lay on the couch.  Well first of all, I have never tried bon bons so I am not sure if I would enjoy them.  I hear bon bons are chocolate however, so it is a distinct possibility that I would like them.  Secondly, I am more likely to sleep on the couch (or read) than simply just lay on the couch.  Get it right.  I actually have my Master's Degree in Education but have never taught.  This will be my first year.  All of our married life, I have been at school.  Only once did I work full time in a school as an Instructional Assistant so basically Warren has supported me.  I can't tell you how annoying it is to feel like Lucy asking Ricky for money. Every time Warren questions what I've spent the day doing or why I have bought another book/turtleneck (my fave!), I just hear Ricky saying, "Lucy, you've got a lotta splainin to do."

This is my first classroom so it's the first time I've ever had to put one together.  My mother, the 5'2 1/2" Energizer bunny came with me to get it all done.  I have gone to my classroom on numerous occasions only to feel overwhelmed and leave.  I knew if my mom came then we would get things done. 

The man who had my classroom before felt compelled to leave almost everything in the room.  Seeing as how I am lazy and scatterbrained, my plan was to leave everything as it was and hope one day he'd pick it up.  I just figured I could put things around his stuff.  My mother on the hand was completely disgusted by his leftover items and immediately hit the trashcan.  As she was throwing his coffee cups away, I asked what if he came back. 

"Just say you broke it."

"All of them?"

She didn't say anything as more personal items fell into the trashcan.

I also inherited a set of cubbies from him which I was excited about.  However, my mom managed to lift the cubby up by herself (seriously, she is a freak of nature sometime) but then it broke.  The bottom of it fell out and left on the floor was plywood and old nails.  In her barefoot feet, she kept jumping the bottom and saying it wasn't safe to have that in the classroom.  Meanwhile, I was yelling at her to get away from the nails.  I am fairly certain she must have stepped on several but never blinked an eye.  I am telling you, my mother is part supernatural or something.

We set up the desks just how I wanted to as well.  I wanted rows of two.  This gives students the opportunity to work individually but also in pairs.  I don't mind students discussing their work and I am careful to move about the room and listen to all conversations.  My mother kept pulling out all of the desks that did not match.  She kept saying there was no way I would need 28 desks.  I kept trying to pull aside the broken desks to prevent kids from sitting in there and being distracted.  My mother on the hand said, "No, the kids are all going to want matching desks!  How would you feel if you were that one kid who felt like they didn't belong because its desk didn't match?'  I looked at her like she was crazy.

"Um, probably wouldn't think about it.  Wait, did this happen to you?"

"Well, it would upset me!  I would have hated it as a kid and it's all I would have thought about!"

The light colored desk (all of the others were dark) is still sitting pushed against a wall right below a Percy Jackson poster.  I guess now the kid who feels bad about having the unmatched desk will think it's cool to have his/her very own poster.

Decorating was another could be-but it was too funny-to become a disaster.  My mom would look at my choices and say things like, "You think THAT looks good?"  or "Well, you're in charge.  For once."

My favorite was when we created the bulletin board.  My mom kept putting it off and putting it off.  Finally, she decided she was brave enough to tackle it.  I took her into the teacher lounge for paper and she was like, "Wait, there's already paper big enough for your bulletin board?  That makes it so much easier!"

My bulletin board, by the way, looks Mexican.  The background is yellow and the border is rainbow colored.  I thought it looked like a Crayola box but Mom said it looked gay friendly.  She stepped back though and said, "It looks Mexican!"  It actually does look like the ponchos draped across Mexican restaurants.  I hope my kids get that I am their English teacher and not their Spanish teacher.  Oh well, it least it looks like my class will be a continual fiesta.  Ole!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Getting Dirty in the Kitchen




Today, one of the grossest things possible happened to me. I spilled raw chicken juice on my beautiful hardwood floors.

I hate raw meat.  I think it is possibly the most disgusting thing in the world.  When I was in college, I used to buy fruits and vegetables and then go to the drive thru at Wendys for a burger so I wouldn't have to touch raw meat.  My roommates thought I was simply an idiot in the kitchen (dumb yes, idiot is stretching it) but there was a method to my madness.  Now as a wife, I have to touch meat (and this is not a double entendre by the way).

Even though raw red meat is weird and resembles baby gerbils, I prefer it to raw chicken meat.  Chicken meat is that weird mix of white, beige, and red.  It forms that placental goo on the bottom of the styrofoam that I try to avoid while tearing off the plastic.  Every time I touch it, I feel like I am going to some sort of flesh eating disease.

I have tried several brands to remedy this situation.  Perdue has a bag of individually packaged boneless breasts but they are terribly expensive.  Sometimes, Bloom has a sale (Buy 1 Get 1 Free) but the chicken has gone bad by the time it is marked down.  Omaha Steaks sells pre-cooked breasts that aren't too pricey when bought with a coupon from Valpack but don't taste very good.  I do recommend buying the red meats though because they are quite tasty.  Anyway, I tried the Target brand (why this seemed like a good idea is unknown even to me) which was in a large bag.  As I pulled the chicken out, I saw that the each piece was frozen but not wrapped.  Ignoring my concern of contamination, I laid them on a plate and stuck the plate in the fridge.  I am sure I broke some sort of health code with that but I wanted to touch them as little as possible.  I opened the fridge this morning after my orientation, and the plate was a puddle of chicken mess.  I knew pulling the chicken out without spilling would be difficult but I tried...and inevitably failed.  It spilled onto the bottom of the fridge and ran onto the wood floor.  Frantically, I ran around the house searching for my disinfecting wipes (which a) are probably one of my favorite things in the world and b) were found by my husband this afternoon in the bedroom...why would I put them there?) but never found them so I was forced to use papertowels and Palmolive.  I threw a towel on top of the mess and the towel is still lying on the floor.  I am afraid to look.

I made spaghetti tonight (with chicken which I think is weird but Warren seems to prefer to ground meat) and spilled sauce everywhere.  Guess what?  I didn't have any towels to clean them up with.  While swearing under my breath about not having anything to clean with, Warren asked me, "Why did you try to dump the sauce from the pan into the bowl?  That wasn't smart."

"Really?  You know what really wasn't smart?  Telling me that while I am cooking your dinner and spilling shit all over the counter and the floor while I don't have any papertowels."

He did acknowledge that that comment was really stupid.  Then he smiled and said, "You know what is smart?  In fact, the smartest thing I ever did?  Marry you."

"Good save," I told him.  "Now shut up and eat your damn dinner."

Monday, August 16, 2010

Finders' Weepers, Losers...just annoy me

We are officially moved into our house, but we aren't really unpacked.  There are still a lot of bags, suitcases, plastic tubs/bins, and well pretty much crap, just strewn about.  This morning, I will be going to our apartment to pack up the last bit of crap that makes me wonder why we're packing it and not throwing it away.  In fact, there are several boxes in my house full of things we just had to bring.  No one seems to know why.

Last night, I was watching the David Hasselhoff Roast when Warren came out of the bedroom.

"Anne?  Where's the pillowcases?"
"I don't know."
"Well, you're the last person who had them."

Okay first of all, I don't actually know who the last person who had them was.  Secondly, there are about 4 pillows in the guest bedroom that he could have used, I was comfortable, and finally he finds stuff for me and not the other way around.

"No, really.  Where are the pillowcases?"

Annoyed, I exclaimed, "Really?  I have no idea."

He finally found the pillowcase and went to bed.

This morning, Warren couldn't find pants for work.  He mentioned it to me and I murmured something sleepily then covered my head with my blanket.  He came in again and I feigned sleep so he'd leave me alone.  Finally, he turned on the lights and threw the blankets off of me. 

"You need to get up!  I can't find my pants!"

Normally, I would have laughed at someone missing their pants.  Instead, I yelled something about finding my glasses and stomped into the next room.

I found a pile of pants in his new closet. 

"No, that's only a few pairs.  I want to find all of my pants.  I don't know where any of my jeans are."

Call me crazy but I only wear one pair of pants at one time.  Additionally, all of his pants look the same (khaki) so it's not like he was looking for a specific pair of pants to go match a top.  He just wanted to find his pants.  As in all of them.  He eventually found them in a suitcase he'd packed that I didn't even know about.

I realized it was trash day and as I was pushing the trashcan down the driveway, I stopped to pick up some beer bottles left by our neighbors.  I also picked up a blowpop and a plastic bottle leftover from a kid's drink.

My life has progressed from my mother (Queen of Efficiency) keeping track of my things, to me calling Warren to ask where I left my keys (while we were dating and didn't even live together), to Warren getting mad at me daily for losing my keys/cell phone/purse, and now to a new era.  I am officially a finder.  Or at least, people expect me to find things. 

I'd rather watch David Hasselhoff.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Why is your side table so big?

We have been in our new home since Thursday.  Well, I stayed here on Friday night and Warren went back to our apartment on Friday night to pick up the Uhaul and bring our furniture with my brothers and nephews.  They did not get here until dinner time.  I, in the mean time, stayed behind and waited for the Comcast man who was supposed to arrive between 11-2.  He got here at 4. I was pissed because I knew that Warren would want to know exactly what the Comcast man said and all the Comcast man said was, "Sign here." 

My mother came to spend the day with me and she followed the Comcast man's every move.  She questioned all of his decisions and demanded extra cable.  My mother is 5'2" (and a half she'd add) and is scary in her elastic Lee jeans.  I can feel her disappointment in me even when she's nowhere near.  She always comes up with solutions for me which I think are stupid and inevitably she is right.  It's so annoying but secretly, I am in awe of this power.  Is it possible that I will one day attain these skills?  Is there in fact some sort of mother's handbook that is passed through generations that makes mothers know everything?  Will I get my hand on this book sometime or will I continue to make poor choices and live with the results?

Finally, we moved in the furniture at about 8:30.  Our living space is much tinier than we had anticipated and our coffee table is now a rather large side table.  My husband loves that table and I love the fact that it is no longer the monstrousity in the middle of the room.  The coffee table was a gift from his grandmother last Christmas.  It was a gift to both of us, but really to Warren because I never actually liked it.  I nodded in agreement when Warren ecstatically pointed out the collection from Crate and Barrel.  I didn't expect that he'd ever mention it again but then only a few months later, there it was wrapped in Christmas paper.  He's already mentioned that we need to buy the matching side table, move the tv and get a new tv stand so that we can put our coffee table in the middle of the room.  I can hardly wait.

My mother came over again today to help set up the house.  I really didn't know where I wanted to put anything and Warren has a lot of opinions.  I really let him come up with the plans because sometimes it's just easier.  Even though the discussion was where my clothes should go, I was stuck relying on my mother and Warren.  I haven't really made decisions like that since college when I just left all of my clothes in plastic bins.  Is it weird that I don't actually like furniture?  I am trying to appreciate it but I just don't.  My parents don't understand why I prefer Ikea to real furniture but the truth is, real furniture is just expensive and brings me no excitement.  I'd rather spend money on something else.  Anything else.  Finally, my mother just said she was going to leave.  I felt like crap and apologized.  Warren was yelling in the other room where to put things and Mom kept asking more questions.  I felt closed in and shut down...only to feel like I was the one at fault.  I often keep my mouth shut so I don't say anything that will hurt others' feelings but then my silence hurts them.  It makes me feel angry that they get upset when I was thinking of their feelings all along.

Well, the house is kind of coming together.  Our bedroom is almost done.  Both bathrooms are finished.  That leaves the guest bedroom and the junk room.  The junk room will be an actual room soon-office then nursery but for now, it's covered in junk.  I have no idea how all of our things fit into a one bedroom apartment for so long. 

I don't even know if I still like anything we own.  I'd kind of like to burn everything and start from scratch.  But then that would mean shopping for furniture.  And we'd probably just buy that entire collection from Crate and Barrel.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Crap, I'm a Grown Up

Obviously, this is my first post.  It seemed like a good time to start since my husband and I just bought a house.  This blog is about living life as a married twenty something who constantly wonders how to be a grown up and also why her husband is just so weird.  If our life was compared to a sitcom then it would definitely be Everyone Loves Raymond.  I hope my blog is funnier and I apologize profusely if it isn't.  Luckily, this blog won't constantly run in reruns and take over your television set at least five times a week. 

The characters in this blog will be myself (Annie) and my husband Warren.  Neither of these are our real names but I need to change them to protect us and our sanity.  I have a big mouth and I need to stay away from the inevitable TMI that could ruin our marriage.  Besides, Warren is quite sensitive.  Sometimes, I wonder why I am the man in the relationship.  See?  It's starting already.  As mentioned, we just bought a house so this blog will cover the trials and tribulations of homeownership.  But mostly, it will discuss the modern marriage.

Speaking of modern marriage, I only call myself Semidomestic because really I don't know what I am doing.  I now have a house so I assume that makes me domesticated by default.  The other day Warren said to me, "Why do you want to be a housewife?  You hate to cook and clean."  He makes a good point.  I do hate all of those things.  Let me stop here to say that if you're looking to this blog as being a place to recommend the latest in Etsy macrame blankets or whatever then this is not the blog for you.  I hate home made things.  I hate leftovers.  I even hate eating things from my own pantry because I feel like it's just some crap I found lying around the house.  Doesn't sound too appealing when you look at it from that perspective; does it?  Warren, on the other hand, thinks that soup or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a wonderful meal.  You'd think that would make me happy because he sounds so easy to please, but really?  Soup from a can?  Am I sick?  Because that's the only time I ever ate that greasy noodle soup with small squares of "chicken" in it.

I am not a snob, I promise.  I am just opinionated.  The really funny thing is that between my husband and me, he's the one who is high maintenance.  I am going to end this blog here so I don't go on and on and get boring.  Besides, I have a lot of packing and moving to do tomorrow while Warren is at work.  He packed up his car and then told me I could pack anything I wanted in my car and take it to the house.  Oh goody, he gave me permission for manual labor.  What a doll.  This reminds me, you will not hear me refer to him as DH for Darling Hubby or whatever those Knot girls call their men.  I've read those posts and they make me want to barf.  I especially loved one in which a girl was angry that her fiance went to a strip club.  All of the women who responded said, "Well, I know that really must have hurt.  I don't know from experience though because DH and I both think strip clubs are disgusting."  How convenient that every single one of them were marrying/married to men who didn't like strip clubs. 

This is why I want to write my blog.  To be honest.  To tell what it's really like to be married.  Sometimes, I feel like the worst wife in the world because I don't know what the hell I am doing.  The first month we were married, I cried in the closet because he arranges his polo shirts by color and I will never, ever remember to do that.  Or even care to do that.  Just care enough to cry about it.