Back from Seattle-- Summer is SO over!

Here's a quick run down of our last week...

On Sunday, Grant preached in church. It was his second time in front of this crowd and it was great. You can listen to it here.

Summer officially ended on Monday August 6th when I went to my first PD of the month. On Mon/Tues I learned about how to be a coach for a new teacher. I haven't been paired up with a teacher yet, but as soon as someone is available at my school site or near by, I will be. Then I'll spend about 1 hour a week meeting with this new teacher and mentoring them through their first 2 years at the Castle.

On Tuesday night, Grant and I flew to Seattle for my second PD of the month. This time a 3.5 day conference about building a Professional Learning Community at my school. I was there with my principal and one other staff member and we learned many tools to help us come together as a staff by leaving our independent classroom kingdoms for some collaboration time, focus on learning (rather than teaching), use student data wisely, common assessments, and overall just being happier in our profession. (why do most teachers quit within the first 5 years of teaching?). In the evenings, Grant and I toured all around the city. We are officially undecided about whether Seattle will be the next place we want to live.

After the conference was done on Saturday, Grant and I rented a car and drove south to Tacoma for the night. We swung by an REI to get some fuel for our stove. We couldn't bring the fuel from home with us because 1) It wasn't in a container that was 3 oz or less and 2) It didn't fit into a quart size ziplock bag. (never mind the fact that it is flammable-- oh and did anyone really notice that Grant forgot to even take his quart sized ziplock bag full of less than 3 oz items out of his carry on bag? Nope!) We then drove to the Olympic National Park and spent a night in a rain forest. And get this, while we were there, it actually rained. I haven't seen rain in a few months so I was super excited. On Tuesday morning, we drove back the airport, returned the car and flew back home to Oakland.

On Tuesday night we had LIFE group at our house (a small group of folks from our church who get together weekly to check-in about current challenges and graces and then participate in a bible study on the weekly lectionary).

Wednesday our God son, Aaron, came over and the went shopping and finished teaching him to ride his bike. He is almost a pro now.

Thursday (today) brought me PD #3. This time I'm working with a group of Math Teachers who want to learn together about how to teach their students literacy skills. We've come together because we're tired of people teaching us techniques that work really well in English and Social Studies classes! Tomorrow will be more of the same.

Weekend... breathe... going to a wedding...

Next week I will be getting back into my classroom and arranging everything, spending time with my staff and finally getting my act together on all of those summer goals I wanted to accomplish.

In other non-professional development news, I recently got accepted into an Advanced Yoga Studies program at a local yoga studio. About 2 months ago, this was something I really wanted to do. Now I'm not so sure. I'll go to the first couple of classes and then decide.

That's that. Pictures will be coming soon. Grant and I shared a few memory cards in Seattle so we're currently trying to sort things out and then start processing them.

Recycling

There is a large pile of boxes in our dining room from the "recycling" that we do in our house. First, we buy a new toy (or are gifted a new toy from our parents). Usually this toy isn't new, but pre-owned. It arrives at our door in a box. It is unpacked with delight and all shipping contents are saved.

After some time has passed and technology has changed, we upgrade or trade-in. Much research is completed on ebay, craigslist, and other websites, and a new item of interest is decided upon for the trade-in. Then the search for the perfect buy commences. A while later UPS delivers a box to our door and the new pre-owned trade-in toy is played with and loved.

But, where does the box go? The box goes in a pile in the dining room where it will wait until it can be filled with the old toy that has just been sold. Thus the boxes get recycled. Lately there has been a glitch in the system. The number of new toys brought into the house has outgrown the number of old toys leaving the house, and along with my frustration level, the box pile has grown. There are packing peanuts escaping from plastic bags and statically attaching themselves to other objects.

It is no wonder that with the mess in our house we feel a little anxiety about the clutter. So what do we do about fixing this problem?

Find more closet space!

A few weekends ago, I was cleaning out the front closet in hopes of finding more stuff to put into the pile in the dining room for removal from the home. I found a large box full of candles. Many of the candles were 3/4 burned. They were not good enough to go to salvation army and I didn't want to throw them away, so I decided to be a little creative. Being that it is summer break for like 2 more days I had some time to kill on a Friday afternoon. And here was my adventure...

Step 1: Get the old wax out of the candle holders by placing into boiling water. Note: only use pots that you don't need, because the wax is hard to get out. I chose to use our old aluminum backpacking pots with the coating that is pealing off (into our food?).


Step 2: Pour wax into a second pot and add other wax from candles that were not in holders. Use low heat. Fish out all of the old wicks.


Step 3: Wash out the candle holders and place new wicks in the bottom.


Step 4: Pour in the wax and let it cool. Different temperatures of wax seem to make different patterns as it cools. I don't know the specifics, but something was definitely different about the wax used in the second layer of this jar candle. The top layer was liquid in this picture but dried as a dark blue.


Step 5: Cut the wicks down, admire your work, and take pictures! Oh, and don't forget to use the new candles or else they'll just sit in the closet again!

More Photos of the NIght

Sorry about the delay in posting some pictures. My computer is 94% back to normal operating conditions. Just this afternoon I had my first opportunity to look at some pictures on my computer (since I don't know how to speak macbook).

The three of us, Grant, Jane, and I went to Sunday night's destination of Jack London Square in Oakland, CA. (click on the links for more pictures of our adventures)



This is a part of the city, about 8 blocks total, located on the Oakland waterfront next to the Oakland port. It is across the estuary from Alameda Island. On clear nights you can see the Bay Bridge and the lights from SF. You can see the ships coming into port and the cranes lifting off the cargo. This is also the location for the Golden Gate Ferry across the bay and the Amtrak station.

We went around 8pm to try to catch some sunset light, but we were impaired again by the Giant Mass of Fog which swept in to cover the water and sun.

We were also disappointed by the lights around the square. Jack London Square must be the safest place in Oakland. It is so light we thought it was still daytime. We still had a good time together.

Night Photography by the Lake

While walking in the grass last night near the Lakeview Library in Oakland, the REM song, "Night Swimming" came into mind, especially the first verse.

Nightswimming deserves a quiet night.
The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago,
Turned around backwards so the windshield shows.
Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse.
Still, its so much clearer.
I forgot my shirt at the waters edge.
The moon is low tonight.


As I do with many songs, I tried to change a few words to make the lyrics match my current activity. One would never go swimming in Lake Merritt as it is pretty gross with pollution and bird crap. We were carrying our cameras and I played around with the words "Night shooting, deserves a quiet night." Although all we were doing was taking photographs, the reality of gun violence is too great here. In fact, after we got home last night, we were watching some KQED short videos and we thought that we had heard a gun shot somewhere in the neighborhood. With that event so fresh in my mind, I could not bring myself to title my post with such a saddening pun.

So where are the pictures that we took at night? Where are the streetlights? Where is the water's edge?

Well, happily and unfortunately, I'm currently in the middle of a reinstall of windows on my computer. My computer is now lightning fast with turning on and shutting down. But, I haven't installed any of the photo processing software and since I haven't learned macbook language yet, I can't use Grant's computer. You'll have to wait a few days to see my pictures from the evening, but for now you can feast on the photos taken by our very talented friend Jane. And if you want to see more of her work, check out her webpage: Kilmer Photography.

Mid-Week Warriors

I stumbled upon this site while reading a blog and found this picture quite funny. So funny that I called Grant over to see it. This joke has kept with us for over a week now so I thought I would share it with you. This joke followed us to Sonoma Valley this week.

For those of you not familiar with California geography, I live in Alameda County (home of cities like Berkeley and Oakland). Across the bay, to the west, is San Francisco County. Just to the north of SF, over the Golden Gate Bridge is Marin County, where there are crazy amounts of breast cancer. Then just north of that is Sonoma County. To the east of Sonoma is the more well known Napa County, but we don't go there because it's a little too "touristy".

The highlights of the trip for me were our visits to Gloria Ferrer Champagne Caves and Sonoma Coast State Beach.

We have visited this winery twice before, once with Grant’s parents and once with two friends of Grant from his time in India. We visited this winery first on our trip north through the valley on Tuesday. We rolled in around 11:30am and decided that this would be our lunch spot. Gloria Ferrer doesn’t do “tasting” for their champagnes. So you either buy it by the glass or bottle. Usually we get a bottle, but since it was just the two of us, we opted for glasses. Grant got the Royal Curve and I got the Rose Brut. This was the best lunch that we have shared in quite a while. We were both so relieved to be out of the city. We haven’t been under too much stress, unless you think the act of figuring out how to best fill your time while on summer break as stressful. Still, it was so nice to be on a mission, checking off another summer goal on my list.

On the second day of our trip, we drove about an hour west from the valley to the ocean and spent the next two days wandering along the coast taking pictures with our twin cameras (that’s a good topic for another post, maybe I tell you tomorrow). It is so strange the feelings that arise when I am by the ocean. I didn’t necessarily want to go in it, in fact most of the beaches in Northern California are not really safe for swimming. But, like snow, the ocean just seems to be a place I need to go every now and then to remind me how life is like outside my city boundaries.

No matter how much fun I have on these trips, by the last day, I’m always ready to come back home. As we were crossing the Richmond Bridge (across the northern part of the bay) about 25 minutes from Oakland, I found myself signing to myself, “oh I want to be back in my city by the bay, whoa, oh, ohhhh.” Who can name that reference?

More picture of the trip can be found here.

In the Garden

I love this time of the summer when the fruit are actually changing colors and getting ready to be eaten. Click on the picture for more from our patio garden.

I'm Back

Well, sort of. You know how these things go. I've been having lots of trouble doing some things on the internet. Some websites have become such a great pest that I don't even try logging in to them very ofter because I get soooo frustrated. These include yahoo groups, myspace, and xanga. Each requires several presses of F5 to get anywhere. Yes this might just be our internet service (which I'm not sure where it comes from... somewhere in our apartment building)... or it might be some weird setting within firefox that I don't know how to fix... or it just might be my computer's own moral judgments about which websites are acceptable for my eyes (thank you, my loving lati610). So my xanga account is useless. And, most of the people that I subscribed to on xanga aren't blogging anymore, so I'm out. It's over (use the teen girl squad voice) there, but starting again here. More updates to come, well, sort of, you know how these things go.

The Big Weekend Report

The play by play run down of a very fulfilling and exciting couple of days!

I’m not feeling sentences right now, so this is more like a list

Friday: Slept in till 8:30 because it was a day off!! Sucked in my lower abs for an hour while my friend Marisa taught her Friday Pilates class (I was very excited that I got to go), met with my awesome Pastor at church for an hour about some work that I’ll be doing for the next 6 months while our other pastor is on sabbatical, came home and ate, checked email, drove two friends to the BART station (they’re in MI right now for two weddings), knocked on Jenn and Craig’s door for our planned evening movie watching but Jenn was too tired, being pregnant and all, so I went home (two doors down the hallway) and watched “The 40 Year Old Virgin” all by myself and ate my popcorn. Grant called around 10pm and I burst into tears because he told me that he was on his way home- a day early, he arrived just after midnight.

Saturday: Got a phone call at 3:30am from Craig asking for some Mylanta and Benadryl for Jenn who was exhausted from not sleeping and thought she was having gas pains from the chili they ate for dinner. Woke up around 9am with Grant by my side (a change from the previous 5 mornings). Headed out to the farmer’s market and knocked on our neighbor’s door to see if they wanted anything, they were in labor, so their answer was no. As we stepped out of the building, tears beaded in my eyes. Today was my dad’s birthday, and now it will be someone else’s birthday and someone’s anniversary. We walked down to the farmer’s market, our favorite Saturday activity, and found that the pluots are in season, and so are the cherries… soooooo yummmmy. Sat on some grass and munched on the cherries while we listened to live music and people watched. Came back around 12:30 and the neighbor’s car was gone so we guessed they were at the hospital, giving birth. At 2pm we attended the wedding of our church’s music director, sat with a bunch of friends for church and had a blast. Came home, checked on our neighbor’s kitties and borrowed a movie from them to watch in the evening. At 10pm we got a call to tell us that the delivery went well and that the world had a new baby boy to take care of.

Sunday: Sung in the choir at church, it was a light service, I’m guessing because it was memorial day. Shared the news with our church community of the birth, came home and enjoyed my husband who had been gone for a week. We started planning our summer backpacking trip to Desolation Wilderness and started making some phone calls to see who else was interested. Are any of you interested? One person who was very interested was Rebecca. Who ended up calling Jenn and got us a visitation approval. We drove the 3 minutes to the hospital and within moments were holding a newborn. Yeah for miracles. Like a little kid, I looked at Jenn and said, “Wow, that thing was inside you,”

Monday: Memorial Day Meditation Retreat (1/2 day) in our home, where Grant and I woke at 6am and followed a strict schedule, with a Treo programmed to play a chime at the appropriate times.

6am: sun salutations (a series of yoga poses)

6:15: sitting meditation/centering prayer

6:45: walking meditation

7:00: breakfast (in silence)

7:30: cleaning activity (Grant did the bathroom… thank you, thank you!)

8:00: sitting meditation

8:30: walking meditation

8:45: reading scripture, book, and journaling

9:30: sitting meditation

10:00: snack on brownies made last night and debrief.

I’ll have to write another time about my observations from doing this retreat.

I then went to another pilates class taught by my friend Marisa, went to lunch with another friend Paul, came home and started on my school work, got distracted and started to write this blog, and eventually got back to my school work. Yeah for 12 more school days with students. 16 more working days until summer vacation!

Anniversary Present

For my third anniversary of being married to Grant, I asked my mom to send me some flowers… the kind with the bulbs still attached. And she did. Unfortunately, UPS and I had a hard time hooking up and the box took almost 2 weeks to get into the apartment. It visited the apartment building daily for about a week and then finally Grant was home one day to let the box into the door.

So imagine a bunch of plants wrapped in wet newspaper, put into a black plastic bag, and stuck in a cardboard box for two weeks. What would it be like to open such a box? I’ll give you a hint. It has something to do with slime. We had to open the box outside because it stunk so badly. I had to use the hose outside wash the decomposing newspaper and plant matter off of the stocks. I then planted what remained into the pots I had prepared beforehand, watered them, and waited. About a week later, there was no change. About a week after that, however, I came outside to find growth! Check it out. (hyperlink to flickr)

In addition to those future beauties, I have planted the typical crop of tomato plants. (hyperlink to flickr) Amazingly, the strawberry plants from last year survived my abuse and lack of watering. Back in April, I “fluffed” the soil, by that I mean I dug up the plant, worked in some new soil and fertilizer, and then replaced the plant. Now we’ll be enjoying strawberries (hyperlink to flickr) all summer.

Growing food at home is great, but it’s not enough to feed us. Going to the farmer’s market for fresh produce has really spoiled us but it has also taught us some lessons about appreciating each season of the year. Once the tomatoes stopped at the farmer’s market in the late fall, the ones at the store were just not as appetizing. I almost felt bad expecting a tomato forced to grow at the wrong time of year, in a hot house, to meet my expectations. As a result, I’ve gone almost 5 months without any tomatoes! I don’t even have a craving for them because I know that it will be worth the wait for fresh tomatoes in July. When the grapefruit hit its peak back in March, I was in heaven. But now that they’re not in season anymore, I can’t stand grapefruit again.

I understand that we live in a country where we feel that we are entitled to have whatever we want, when we want it, including food. Why else would we have these massive grocery stores with the never changing produce sections? But what a difference it has made to me to know that I will enjoy something so much more because I have waited for it to come at its own time. And it is then, and only then, that I will know how it was meant to be, instead of how I would have demanded it be. Isn’t that so much better?

Guilty!

I woke up this morning after a much better night of sleep, although my throat was dry and my nose was wet, just like usual. My goal for my day off was to relax, be introspective, discover the meaning of life and my true vocation. After a short mediation, a crunchy breakfast and doing the dishes, I decided to visit the mold. It pretty much consumed the rest of my morning.

In other news, I walked down to Lakeshore Ave with my favorite pregnant lady. She wondered why my car was in the garage so she knocked on my door. I was thrilled by the invitation to leave my moldy bedroom. We were on a mission for a pedicure and manicure. Not for me, just for her. While I waited, I stopped by a cute little consignment shop, Maribels’s, highly recommended by two good friends and found a cute little top. Sorry, no picture yet.