The backs of the kittens 

Me holding Liesel for a picture 

Fibby looks like she's trying to eat the quilt, but she's not. 

Fibby and Tyco 

Liesel 

Kittens with chapstick so you can see how big they are. 

Bad, lazy, Anna

So, I've neglected the computer and my blog (and other people's blogs) the past week. I've been tired and sleepy and the cable was out all Saturday (which sucks a whole lot.
I'll update later and I'll have pictures of my classroom.

Liesel crying on the floor. 

Waffles eating out of Ben's hand. 

Kittens on the futon 

Kittens crawling 

The kittens crawling away from one another on top of the futon (2 weeks old). 

The kittens at two weeks sleeping on the floor 

This is why Toby sleeps so much, she was trained by Karel. 

Boondocks

So, everyone is aware that Rick James died like last Friday at the age of 56 of "natural causes" (or, as Ben suggested, "cocaine is a natural cause."). Now, I missed out on the whole Rick James popularity when he was a part of pop culture the first time, and I know him mostly from his retellings of events with Charlie Murphy on the Chapell Show.
The Boondocks is a comic strip found in the Washington Post and has some of the most astute jokes on the whole page. It is usually good for a "funny cuz it's true" laugh. Monday and Tuesday were particularly entertaining.

Little Baby Leopard kitten snoozing. 

A close up of the babies huddling like they always do. 

Babies at four days old. 

Movies

So, I bought Flight of the Naviagator on DVD yesterday. (I also bought Princess Diaries and Alice in Wonderland, but those aren't nearly as exciting.) I love Flight of the Navigator, it's a childhood classic.

Kitten Sexes

Orange kitten is male, the other two are girls.

Violently Ill

Made a decisions about where I'm going to teach. I accepted the position at Whitman. Yeah, I know I had said Poe earlier, but I hadn't committed to anything. I was talking to the assistant principal at Whitman and I just totally knew that it was the place I needed to be.
But I still hate rejecting people.

Best Week ever

So, I spent the weekend with Ben at Hershey Park, I got two job offers, and one of my cats had kittens.

The three little babies cuddling up in a ball. The orange one is funny. It likes to eat from the very last row of nipples and when Waffles moves it gets confused. The most timid one if the leopard gecko looking one. 

The three kittens on their first day. 

Army of Kittens

I don't know if three qualifies as an army, but Ben got a mini-assult team of kittens today. It turns out that Waffles was pregnant and had babies last night in the drawer under the futon. She had four kittens, but one of them died. The dead one was white with cream colored markings on its back. But there are still three live ones. One is white with patches or orange tabby markings on it, one is like spots of orange, brown, and black (it looks like a leopard gecko or a really cute gila monster), and the other one has dark brownish tabby markings with a white band under it's neck.
They are so cute. My mom woke me up at 7 this morning and told me to come downstairs. Waking up to kittens is the best thing in the world.
Waffles is nursing them now. Yay! Kittens! I'll have pictures later.

This is Mommy Waffles and one of the kittens nursing. It's the kitten that looks like a leopard gecko. 

Thoughts about hurricanes

If I live in an area that regularly gets hit by hurricanes (or threatened by hurricanes), I'm getting real storm shutters so I don't have to board up my windows. Wait, if I live on the Southern East coast I'm getting real storm shutters. And I'm evacuating. Hurricanes are scary.

Job decision

So, I think I might take the job with Poe. It's seventh grade instead of eight, it's closer to home by about fifteen minutes (and twenty less minutes on the beltway), the school seems to focus on arts and multiple intelligences more, and the building was prettier. I've just got to stop feeling guilty about not taking Whitman's offer.
Oh well, I still have like another day to make my final decision. Hopefully Fairfax Human Resources will give me a contract soon, or at least let me know what I need to do.

Funny how things work out

So, less than a week ago I was in tears because I hadn't had any job offers or even interviews. Now, six days later, I have two job offers and have to choose between two schools at which I would enjoy working. There's no gut instinct telling me which one to choose and can't logic it out either. Stupid having to make decisions.

Waffles Mystery Solved

So, Waffles may have been in the house all yesterday. I lost track of her this morning after she ran into her room. I watched the door all morning and never saw her leave. I went to go play with her and I couldn't find her. I decided that I had to look everywhere in the room to find her hiding space. I thought she might have wedged herself underneath the futon, and she had, in a way. I pulled out the drawers under the futon to see all the way to the back, and what did I find? Waffles sleeping in the drawer under the futon. She's a weird cat.

Waffles has returned

So, I wake up this morning and my mom tells me that Waffles is back in her room, sleeping in her box, and waiting to be fed. This is excellent. However, if she did manage to escape and get outside, then we probably have a pregnant cat on our hands. Anyone want kittens in about two months?
My phone interview last night went well, so I should be hearing from Fairfax human resources again soon to complete my application process. Woo hoo!

Fairfax

So, I was getting ready to take a nap, when I get a phone call from another Assistant Principal at another Fairfax middle school. I have another interview with a different school tomorrow at three. Yipee! I think another interview would be good to help me gain some more perspective on the job I am in the running for at Whitman. Besides, it's always good to have choices.
On a bad note, we can't find Waffles. We've looked through the entire house and cannot find her. There is a lot of noise outside since the people are still installing the siding. Hopefully she'll turn up around food time this evening. I hope she hasn't gotten outside and run away. That would be sad.

Busy Three Days

So, here's an update from the past three days.
Part 1 - Hershey Park
Ben was nice and let me sleep in very late on Saturday. He actually got up before me and had laid in bed for an hour when I finally got up at 11. After our late start and my breakfast of left over egg foo young from the massive amounts of Chinese food we ordered Friday night, we headed out to Hershey Park. It was a beautiful day on Saturday at the park. The weather was perfect, so there were a bazillion and one people there. We had to wait in line at least an hour to go on any ride, so it was less fun. We spent some time at the little zoo there staring at prairie dogs and talking about Harry Potter books because Ben and I are huge animal loving nerds. We left the park around nine and headed back to Wormleysburg to our hotel. It's hard going from a family that won't stay in anything less than a four star hotel to a barely two star hotel. I hate being young and poor. I worked on my portfolio for about an hour and a half Saturday night while we watched Most Extreme Challenge. Ben fell asleep way before me and I let him sleep since his nocturnal recharging time as been horribly interrupted by insomnia.
Sunday we got up earlier and checked out of our hotel. The park was much less crowded at ten than it was all day on Saturday. We started our day off in the Hershey chocolate factory tour. It is small and not as interesting as a factory tour should be, but they do give you free chocolate at the end of the ride. Mmmm...fresh Hershey bars. Then we went into the park and rode fantastic roller coasters in rapid succession. We went on the Storm Runner (the ride that made us wait two hours to ride on Saturday) twice. The second time we rode in the front. It was fun. Then we went on the Wildcat (an awesome wooden coaster that happened to break down and strand riders at the top of the hill right before we got on it on Saturday) and the Lightning Race twice. Then we went on lots more roller coasters and ate some food. We went to the zoo again and spent another hour there staring at falcons, eagles, wolves, and prairie dogs. Ben named them Mortimer, Ezmerelda, and Throchmore. It's cute, we both like animals. We left the park kinda early and went to eat at Red Robin where Ben was a good boy and ate the extra fries that I didn't want. Then we drove home and I got home and slept.
Monday
Today was interview day. I spent the morning furiously putting together a portfolio that no one wanted to see. It took me over an hour to get to Whitman in Alexandria (which is really in the Fairfax school district). I got a little lost, but eventually found the school. The interview went very well and the principal and assistant principal told me they were interested in hiring me and took me on a tour of the building and had me talk to the student support specialist to talk about the nitty gritty details of scheduling and the students I'll be teaching. They are looking to put me in the spot on an eight grade team with a GT section. They only have two GT sections in the entire eight grade, so it's neat that I might get to teach one. From the questions I've gotten from principal and asst. Principal, I think these GT kids might be a big handful. One of the recurring questions was, how do you keep the GT kids from not taking over your class? My answer, put them in their place with an assignment designed to be over their head. As long as they don't find something horribly wrong with my references or the Fairfax Human Resources doesn't hate me, I think I have a job offer. That's good.
I've decided that if I don't move closer to Fairfax, I'm going to get a new car. I refuse to commute an hour in good traffic on the beltway in a manual. I can't image commuting on the beltway everyday with horrible traffic having to clutch all the time. Also, my car's gas mileage is waning with its age, so I want a car I won't have to fill up every four days. My life would just be easier if Ben got a job in Virginia and we could move there together.

Hershey Park

Was wonderful. I had lots of fun and I love Ben. Yay for vacations alone as a couple.

More to come later, but I'm exhausted.

Insert Hugest and Most Annoying Smiley Face Here

So, I got up from my nap today to answer the phone, and it was one of the administrators of Walt Whitman Middle School is Fairfax asking me to come in today for an interview. Seeing as that was not possible since I am leaving for Hershey Park in a few hours, I scheduled one for Monday. Wahoo!
Fuck MCPS and their not doing anything with my application, and yay Fairfax!

Ear update

So, it turns out that I do have the beginnings of an ear infection. Now I'm on more antibiotics. Stupid antibiotics make me nauseous.
Chilling at home and doing some laundry and thinking about what to wear this weekend at the amusement park. No swimming for me because I don't need to make my ear infection worse than it already is.

Kickass weather

Hershey Park is going to kick ass because it's going to actually be cold outside. Well, if you think the upper 70's is cold... But this is way better than the hotter than hot heat advisory day we spent earlier this summer at King's Dominion. I was planning on how many tank tops to take to the park, but now I need to reassess my clothing choices.
Also, who thought that Keanu Reeves would be good in a Shakespeare movie? Why did they put him in Much Ado About Nothing?
Karel leaves for Houston today. She's going to spend five days with Jason. He's 22. He graduated this year. He has a job working for Exxon. At least he's not working for the NRA, then he'd really be the devil. My sister is dating someone older than me. That's weird. Again, my all women college experience has skewed my perception of guys my age. When I met him, I thought he was way older than me, when really, he's not that much older. I have a hard time meeting guys my own age because I'm not used to meeting new men my age after spending the majority of my college career around women.
Wow, that's rambly. I think I need to go back to sleep when I get back from the doctor.

Dr. Appointment tomorrow

I've had a burst of productivity today. I've picked up Hershey Park tickets, made a doctor appointment for 11:00 am tomorrow, had mommy write a check for two more months of storage, and worked on my portfolio. I'm the queen of getting things done. Well, not really. I also looked up other jobs I could do, but had no luck. How do you apply to be an open source person for the CIA, anyway? I think it would be a great job for me. I'd read newspapers, watch television from other countries, and watch people to look for trends or ill feelings in other countries. It would be like analyzing literature and TV all the time! How great would that be? I'll tell you, really great.

Weekend vacation

This weekend, I'm going to Hershey Park with Ben. I purchased tickets from the rec department. They were very inexpensive, I'm talking $21 a tickets. That's cheaper than getting them from the military, AAA, or any other place I looked at. Buying two tickets at that cheap of a price was even cheaper than any other two day deals. Also, we can get in free at 7:30 pm on Friday by showing our ticket for the next day. That's pretty cool. That's like three days of fun!
Yay for weekend getaway!
Also, ear is acting funny. I'm calling Kaiser to see if I should come in to get it checked out. I'm not sure if it's an infection of some sort or just me being paranoid. It could have come at a better time because I could have just waited until I knew for sure that something was wrong. Wait, it's period time and I'm having ear problems.... humm...these two things seem to coincide very frequently.
Oh well, all that's left to do now is find a job.

End of Swim Team! (Revised)

Today was my last swim team responsibility. All stars went well, both the relays and the individuals. The kids yesterday in relays did fantastically. The kids today did wonderfully; Ethan and Jessie both cut time in all their events. It was a fun day.
However, now I think I'm getting sick since I'm done with working. Stupid body thinking it can get sick.
Also, I went to Ben's family reunion today for a couple of hours, okay, like an hour and a half. (revised story of first date). It was just like our first date. First, Ben fought off ten ninjas who were trying to accost me. They circled him and made threatening gestures to show off their ninja skills. Ben was not fooled by this bravado and took out his fork-chucks skewering eight of them beyond recognition. The final two were so frightened and shamed after he pinned them to the wall with his forks and pulled out his massive penis. The ninjas killed themselves out of shame because they were unable to compete with his enormous manhood. With the ninjas gone, we were able to attend his family reunion in peace and play Jesus checkers and Noah's Ark bingo.
*Five years ago we went to the same reunion as our first date. This is not the most fantastically romantic first date, and everyone I tell this to laughs. Ben says he's going to have to come up with a better story to tell our children when they ask about our first date. I think it's kinda cute.