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Saturday, February 19, 2011

Poop Duty

or poop doodie, you may say.

I am going to admit something that is not something that I am proud of, as I feel that I am a very devoted pet owner. Al and I have been awful about poop scooping this winter. Ever since it got freezing cold, we kind of quit taking the time to pick it up. This week, all the snow melted and we were shocked and dismayed at what we saw!

Poop. Everywhere.

Granted there are a few other dogs living in our apartment building, but Mila has very distinctive...ahem...waste. She's a big dog, what can I say? I knew our laziness was all to blame for this minefield of crap!

So...I spent about 30 minutes this beautiful Saturday morning on poop duty. It was an interesting way to kick off the day!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Umm...

WARNING: If you are offended by harsh language,you may not find this funny...

My students just finished reading the book My Bloody Life by Reymundo Sanchez as part of a project we're running called Project Citizen, in which the students are identifying school and community issues and brainstorming/planning out potential solutions. They've been identifying majorly concerning topics such as gang activity, teen pregnancy, homelessness, etc. and I've been impressed with their efforts overall.

However, I was grading quizzes over the book tonight and came across this...


Wow. There aren't even words except...wow.

Monday, February 14, 2011

My Valentine

This is my and Al's first and only Valentine's Day as an engaged couple. We don't make a huge deal out of V-Day usually, but definitely wanted to do something special this year.

I received flowers at work from my husband-to-be, which is always one of my favorite things.

I know this is probably not the most flattering thing to tell you about myself, but I love getting flowers at work in front of other people! It lets me be all bragadocious without having to say anything. Obviously, the thing that I like to boast about the most is my wonderful fiance, so getting flowers from him is awesome. :)

Because Al has really been interested in the show Mad Money lately and has been studying up on the stock market and the economy, I bought him Jim Cramer's Memoir, Confessions of a Street Addict and another book by the same author called Getting Back to Even about economic recovery. Al was excited about the new reading material, but I have to admit, I always struggle with gift-buying for Al. Of course, he's always excited about and appreciative of whatever I get for him, but I hardly ever come across a gift idea that I think will get that shocked and amazed reaction. I'm still working on it!

We decided on Silvercreek for dinner, partly because it's delicious and partly because Al's awesome boss, Ryan treated him to a gift certificate. Although we caved and did presents, we still had to be a little thrifty now that the wedding is only months away. I was a smidge disappointed that they had created an abbreviated Valentine's Day menu that didn't include their amazing calamari appetizer. :/ Instead we ordered a shrimp, mango, crab, and avocado appetizer...ick. Not my fav. However, I did order the petite filet, which was delicious! I also had a fantastic glass of not-too-expensive wine-Silver Ridge Pinot Noir. I am now on the hunt for this bottle so that Al and I can relax with a few glasses at home! :)


Due to the fact that my fiance was still a bit under the weather, we ended our evening with dinner. Because eating is one of my very favorite things, I was totally okay with this! All in all, it was an excellent Valentine's Day-and my last as Lisa Monteer!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Happy '30th' Coco!

Colleen turned 31 this week, and because she didn't get to have a big celebration for her 30th last year, Kim decided to plan a nice weekend outing for us girls.

We met up at El Toro for dinner and (alcoholic) drinks first, where I met (and consumed) perhaps the biggest margarita I have ever come into contact with.


Actually, that's a lie. There's a bigger size that El Toro offers, and I've had many a run-in with it. ;) Don't judge!

Colleen had some delicious cheesy Mexican goodness, then got her party hat on...


and her party shades...


and then she was gifted by the El Toro staff with some party Flan...


Wait, what? Maybe not so much.

The girls then made their way to C-Street to do some booty-shakin'. Kim, Coco, and I haven't been out dancing together since September, so we definitely made the most of it and had a blast!

Even Al and Kim's fiance Ryan realized how much fun we were having and showed up to cut a rug with us. 


It was definitely a great night, filled with lots of laughs and some wonderful bonding time. Happy birthday Coco!

Wedding & Reception Information

I've sent each of our wedding guests the link to my blog so that they can keep up-to-date with any important announcements about our wedding. Please don't feel obligated to read all of my self-involved, random posts. ;)

Friday, February 11, 2011

Invitations

Invitations have arrived and will be mailed out by end of next week! This was an AWESOME Friday surprise!

New 'Do

One good thing about teaching is the occasional confidence boost when you come in with a new look. I got a new cut and color yesterday after school and walked in feeling pretty snazzy today. Everywhere I went, the students would stop, mouths agape, and say something along the lines of, "Oh. my. God. I LOVE your HAIR!"

This was all well and good until seventh period when I was starting class and a student asked, "Is that a wig?" Nice.

Piggy-Back

Autocorrect Part Two

Glad I caught that one! ;)

Friday, February 4, 2011

Marquette's New Addition

My sister, Katy went off to school at Marquette last August and I got my first opportunity to visit her this weekend. Despite the crazy snowstorm this week, the roads were pretty clear down here in Champaign by Friday, so I decided to make the trip up to Milwaukee.

I left on Friday after school and spent the night at my mom's house, just hanging with her and my brother, Ty. We had a very casual night: Panera for dinner and lots of chatting and being silly. The next morning, after taking Ty to get his allergy shots and dropping him off for golf lessons, my mom and I went to pick up Katy's bridesmaid dress (yay!) and stopped at Starbucks for breakfast. After that, Mom helped me with my FAFSA, and sent me on my merry way to Milwaukee. I love these short little visits with my mom...it makes me feel like I live at home again! :)      

I got to Milwaukee early Saturday afternoon, and Katy took me on a tour of the campus. She studies Engineering/Math there, so she showed me where all those classes are held, then took me by the library and some of the other dorms. She also took me by some of the cool landmarks: the Joan of Arc Chapel and the 'Toilet Paper Jesus'-a statue that looks as if JC is covered in tp.



We had lunch in her dorm after that (memories!) and decided to take the bus to see a movie downtown. I have to rave for a moment-we went to the Landmark Oriental Theatre in downtown Milwaukee. This was the coolest experience and made the movie so much better! It's a smallish theater only showing a few hand-picked movies at a time. Katy and I chose Blue Valentine, a movie that I've been wanting to see since it came out.

I asked the bored ticket-taker to our picture in this awesome location, though he seemed to think it was old news...


and we headed into the movie. Much to my delight, it was even better inside! As we waited for the movie to start, we were treated to the musical stylings of a man playing the organ! SO COOL!



No flash photography was allowed though, so alas, I was unable to capture any good photos of the bronze statues laid into the walls and ornate high ceilings.

However, that didn't stop me from trying...





I have to take a moment to say that one of my pet peeves is when you very nicely ask someone to take your picture and they either act as if you're a total weirdo for being excited about something you're doing or you're way too annoying to deal with. Perfect example: our engagement. Note to the guy who took our first picture as an engaged couple-before you act like we're loonies for being excited that we just got engaged, how about you put some shoes on for your walk outside? Thanks.

Luckily, we ran into a very nice lady on our way upstairs to the bathroom who was willing to take a great picture of us!


Random rant tangent (rangent, if you will) aside, Katy and I had a fantastic time during our visit. We finished out the night by eating Q'Doba and watching Batman in her dorm, then passing out on the lofted bed and futon  in her dorm room. My 25-year-old self had almost forgotten what it was like to sleep in a good ol' bunkbed!

Lots of bonding was had on this trip and I have to say just one more time how proud I am of my little sis. She is so super smart and is doing great in her classes. She also tutors high school students right now as part of the prep for the teaching program she's in, and plays flanker and prop on the Marquette Rugby Team. Not to mention the fact that she's totally independent and so mature for an 18-year-old. And also, whoa. I cannot believe that my baby sister is 18!

Snow-My-Gosh!

February began with a bang! Actually, it was a blizzard, but whatevs. These are the days when I am super excited that I chose to be a teacher!

Monday (a.k.a. one of the worst teaching days of my life) Night:
District #118 calls a snow (freezing rain, to be more precise) day for the next day at around 9pm...awesome!
I make the most of my evening by staying up late and reading the book that I'm currently obsessed with.

Tuesday: 
Woke up at 7am to take Mila out and realized that the ground was hard. This was not fluffy snowball fight snow at all. In fact, I believe that if you had the bright idea to have a snowball fight in this inclement weather, you'd likely bust up somebody's face. Spend the rest of the day hanging around the house, doing who knows what? I felt so aimless, but in a good way! At around 5pm, I met up with Al at the WalMart around the corner (after scraping the sheet of ice off my car for 25 minutes) to pick up some much needed blizzard supplies. While at WalMart, D118 actually called a second snow day for Wednesday! SCORE! I enjoyed another late night watching the Real Housewives reunion I had been saving on the DVR and lots of delish food a la Alejandro!

Wednesday: 
Al gets to stay home today too! WOOT! We did a whole lot of nothin' all day and it was glorious! Much to both of our surprise, I get yet another call from D118 at around 9pm canceling school yet again. So amazing!

Thursday:
Quite productive day. The whole rest of the world was back to normal, so I took the opportunity to check some long-term goals off of my to-do list. It was so nice to get ahead of the game a little today.

Friday, it was back to work and time to re-enter the normal world. That is, the normal world of two-day work weeks. However, for the people who get so incredibly bitter at us teachers for our '9-month work years' (haha, won't even argue with that...that's a whole other blog post!), I will comfort you with the fact that my students were AWFUL on Monday and Friday and I barely made it out of this week with my head still screwed on strait! The snow days certainly helped. Can we sign up early for a week like this again next year?