Looking forward to . . .

Watching the Grammys while plowing through senior mid term exams. My big win predictions for the night: Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift with possibly some Kings of Leon mixed in there

This weekend I will be . . .

* working on a custom order for my shop

* taking a punch and pound class

*in a correcting coma. I have 80 mid term exams to correct each of which takes approximately 20 minutes to correct. Note to future self: do not put so many short answers on next text. I also have a lot of end of the semester grading-catching up to do.Our grades are due on Thursday and my goal is to be caught up by Monday.

*cleaning/organizing/throwing out as much stuff as possible

*making the most of the few hours my hunny doesn't have to work this weekend

Have a wonderful weekend!

*picture taken outside of Trader Joes Monday night

Sticks and Stones

One of the first things that you learn as a high school teacher is not to let anything a student says to you both you. It is very important to have good self esteem because most teenagers (at least at my school) lack a filter. Some of the things that I have had students tell me - very nonchalantly - "Mrs. T - do you even brush your hair" (this was on a day that I did not straighten my hair - it is naturally thick and curly) "Mrs. T you don't have any makeup on do you? Why not? - you look dead". "Mrs T you look like a secretary today." Now none of this is every said to be mean or malicious - for the most part I have a really good relationship with my students. Some of them even think they are helping when they offer me advice on how to wear my hair or tell me to use the hair product that they use that gives their hair that beautiful shine (translation greasiness) and for everything rude thing said I get about 10 compliments. Today, during a review for our final, one of my seniors asked me "Mrs. T, did you go to a party last night? Your eyes look like you went to a party" All of these comments simply add amusement to my day! Thankfully, my sense of self does not coming merely from who I am but from WHOSE I am.

Confessions Part 1

My husband is a better cleaner then I. Of course, I do it about 10 times more often BUT when he does it my husband is fabulous. I have cleaning ADHD - I tend move room to room to room doing one area at a time - I might start in the kitchen and clean the dishes and then move to the bathrooms and clean the sink and then do a load of laundry and then put away papers in the living room and then head back to kitchen to clean the stove. My husband will stay in one area and work on that until everything is clean and sorted before moving on. He has a unique schedule at work where he work 5 days, has 5 days off, works 2 days and then has 2 days off. He was off this Wednesday through Sunday and did amazing things around our house. Our home improvements from the past 5 days include but are not limited to:

*rearranging all of the furniture in our living and dining rooms completely opening up house and creating more space

*purchasing and painting a table that folds out from the wall in our kitchen. This cleaned up the room by allowing us to get ride of this rolling cabinet in there that housed a strange collection of canned goods, plastics bags and our Kitchen Aide

*sanding, painting, and reinstalling our bedroom and closet doors

* throwing away at least 5 bags of things that we no longer need

*organizing the 'office' so it can actually start functioning as an office

*cleaning our bedroom, kitchen, and bathrooms

We both love the feeling of going to bed on Sunday nights with a clean house and lunches made and starting the work week off on a good foot and a day of gorgeous sunshine here in San Diego after 5 days of rain helps too!

1 Cold Rainy Day + Slow Cooked BBQ Chicken = Coming home to a warm and delicious smelling house

My husband does not like any type of chicken that involves a bone but sometimes I just cannot resist the excellent prices so I just slow cook the chicken for 8 hours so it falls off of the bone! We both had a late night last and there's nothing like coming home to a meal that has been simmering in the crock pot all day

Now and Then

Housewife: whether negative or positive we all have an image that comes to mind when we hear the word housewife. The term/idea has changed over the years - in the 50s and 60s June Cleaver was the epitome of domesticity: beautifully dressed with an immaculate home and delicious dinner ready every night. She never appeared tired or overwhelmed. In the 70s and 80s there was more of a movement towards working outside of the home and by the 90s there was an air of disdain (among some) for those who chose home over career. I'd like to think that in the 2000s we saw a shift away from the dramatic discrepancy between home and work. Women realized that we can have and do it all and that there is no shame in wanting both a successful career and a deep sense of pride in creating and maintaining a home. As we enter a new decade my goal is that during this time I find that balance between caring for my home and my husband and loving my work and the children I teach and do not lost myself in either but rather define myself though both.