Punch List

It's been a long time since I put together a punch list, but there has been a lot of stuff going on lately that I've been wanting to share.

1. I finally made myself take a step back from my work. After writing about feeling overwhelmed, I realized that I HAD to find some me time!

2. Some of that me time included our first and second Orioles games of the year. Yes, we definitely went on Friday night. Then we couldn't help but go again Tuesday night. Thanks Oriole Park and Camden Yards for having $6 tickets on Fridays for student ID night (yes, I totally still use my college ID even though it's been two years since I finished my master's degree. I like to call it the teacher discount.) And thanks again for having $9 Tuesday Bargain Night tickets. I love baseball season and there is nothing better than relaxing on a beautiful summer evening at a baseball game. And if you're from Baltimore and didn't know about these awesome discounts, you're welcome.

3. This weekend we also spent an afternoon hiking in Patapsco Valley State Park. It was great to get out of the city and hike. Hiking is one of my favorite things to do outdoors.

4. We finally got the tennis rackets back out and have been heading to Patterson Park to play tennis. I love having the park right around the corner from our house!

5. We planned our summer road trip out west!!!! I am beyond excited about this one! (Hence all of the exclamation points). We're planning on going to the Badlands, then on to Yellowstone, and finally Grand Tetons. If Andrew has enough vacation time, we may squeeze in a few extra days and go to Rocky Mountain National Park as well. I'm so excited to revisit some of my favorite National Parks, and for Andrew it will be a first. I'm positive that he's going to be in awe of these beautiful, beautiful places. I mean how can you not be in awe of things like this:

6. 20 more school days til summer break! Yes, the countdown has definitely begun.

7. One of my graduation cards made it in the Etsy Finds email yesterday! Yippee!

8. Our next home project will involve painting our bedroom. We're hoping to get that done this coming weekend. I really need to update you all on our half bath and my studio space. There have been lots of changes and I keep forgetting to write about them.

9. Tomorrow night is going to be awesome. I have a surprise planned for Andrew and he has no clue what we are doing. I'll have to keep it a secret too with you guys in case he happens to read this. I'll let you know how it went down. My only clue to you is that it has something to do with one of my recent blog posts. ;)

That's it for now guys! What have you been up to lately? Anything you're super excited about these days?

Punch List

It's been a while since I've done a Wednesday punch list, and there are plenty of things to mention.

1. Yesterday I actually had FUN teaching for the first time in a long time. Many of you know that I've been feeling burned out and struggle to make it fun for myself. I taught my eighth graders a U.S. History lesson about pre-American Revolution happenings and we drank tea, paid our taxes to the king with Skittles, started a rebellion, and still got work done.

2. I am officially hooked. I read The Hunger Games (almost the entire thing) while sitting in jury duty last week. I'm on to Catching Fire at this point. I'll have to figure out what to do about the third book since I don't have a classroom copy that I can steal to bring home. In other news, my school's PTA has ordered a classroom set for me so that we can use it as our next novel! I know my kids will love it, so I'm quite excited about this! And that is saying a lot since I'm usually the first to bash these types of trilogies.

3. Speaking of books. One thing I promised myself this year was that I made time for myself to read. So far, I've been able to stick to that. I'm proud to say, so far in this new year, I've spent more time with a book in my hand than time in front of the tv. I'm not going to lie, Andrew and I were becoming Storage Wars addicts. Now we've been using the free on demand feature and catching up on our shows on Friday nights. Perfect too because it cuts out a large portion of the ads, saving us even more time from being in front of the tv!

4. Andrew's parents gave us a home brew kit for Christmas. We're both love really good beer and had been wanting to try home brewing for a while. We're really looking forward to giving a go. It could definitely have potential for a pretty awesome hobby. Andrew already has plans for me to design beer labels for our brews.

5. You may have seen me tweet about this already, but I'm incredibly excited about the reception for one of my latest Valentine's cards. In one short week, the card has had 11 sales, over 100 favorites, and over 700 views. I would be lying if I weren't to say I am overwhelmed by the response. I know a lot of Etsy shops have this sort of thing happen on a daily basis and it may not seem like a big deal to those people, but for me it's a sign that I can do this! Or that I can accomplish all of my goals!

6. The Steelers lost in the playoffs on Sunday night. I was bummed, but it's just sports so I got over it pretty quickly. Is it bad, though, that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself in those 3 extra hours each Sunday? :)

7. Remember my post about boots earlier this fall? Well, I'm pretty sure Andrew's mom is pretty awesome because being the sneaky person she is, she bought me the Free People socks featured in the post for me as a Christmas gift. And if that wasn't sneaky enough, she also stalked my Etsy favorites and bought my fave t-shirt from Blonde Peacock. She's one incredibly thoughtful and sneaky Christmas shopper!

8. After the holidays, we are now loaded up with a year's supply of chocolate. Good chocolate too. I'd estimate we have nearly 100 Lindor truffles, several delicious chocolate bars, plus a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember at the moment. One piece of chocolate per night after dinner for dessert. That's how we made it through the stash last year.

9. Every night at about 9:30, Lilah and Finn wrestle. They wrestle and play for a good half hour. We call it Wrestlemania Time. Never before have I seen a cat and dog get along so well and it makes me smile each time.

10. In the coming weeks, I'm hoping to introduce a super fun social experiment Andrew and I brainstormed in our car ride home from Cleveland. I don't want to say a whole lot about it just yet, but it has to do with mail and will involve some of my cards. I'll be sure to fill you all in. Stay tuned in the event you'd like to participate! :)

A Few Things...

I am noticeably more busy these days. I say noticeably because my posts are becoming more few and far between than they had been a month ago. After a delayed start of school this week due to power outages caused by Hurricane Irene, we're finally back in full swing as school started Wednesday. Since I've missed my punch list the last two Wednesday due to back to school events, I thought I'd stop by to share a few thing on this Saturday afternoon that I've been super excited about recently.

We've been making an effort to put to use the few vases we have. On a weekend trip to the grocery or farmer's market, we've made the point to pick up a small bouquet of flowers. Having the bright flowers certainly add some color and fun to the house.

The few days after the hurricane brought very temperate weather and lots of sun. With highs in the 70s last week, we were able to enjoy having all of the windows in the house wide open with lots of fresh breeze through the house. We weren't the only ones that enjoyed it-- Lilah loves sitting by the front window especially when it's open and smelling all of those smells she picks up with her nose.

Three days into the school year I can already say I am so excited to be teaching Social Studies again. Day three of teaching and I showed my students some photos of the Anasazi cliff dwellings in New Mexico at Bandelier National Monument. Some of them were legitimately excited about it just because I was excited to tell them about my own experience there. And teaching a skill like main idea didn't seem so dull to me considering I had the Social Studies aspect there. Thank goodness!

I've been working on becoming a morning person. How? By getting up at 6am and arriving at school by 7:45 instead of 8:45, the latest time I am allowed to arrive as the school day starts at 9. Three days in a row I've made it by 7:45. I'm quite proud of myself. The new schedule-- wake up at 6am and do yoga for half an hour (which also entails lots of love and morning greetings from Finn while doing yoga and can be a bit tricky). Coffee and breakfast for about 20 minutes and then off too the shower to get ready and out the door by 7:35. I have to admit, the yoga helps me wake up and by the time I get to school I feel ready to start the day instead of feeling overly groggy.

Weekend plans? Head to my aunt and uncle's place tonight for dinner. Tomorrow, walk down to the Inner Harbor to see if we can spot some car racing action. The Grand Prix has made its way to Baltimore this weekend and while I have some major qualms with the whole thing (and we're talking MAJOR as in who has the right to cut down 130 full grown trees from our downtown without resident permission?!) I still get back to my Indiana roots and wouldn't mind seeing, and hearing for that matter, a few Indy cars.

Hope you're all enjoying a long holiday weekend and that you all have plenty of opportunity for relaxation!

Punch List

1. I love August because it is usually chock full of concerts. We kicked the month off last night with a Steely Dan concert at Merriweather Post Pavilion. I grew up in front of a record player and would often be spinning Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic.



2. On Monday, I had one of the best finds ever! Rachel from RWKrafts had suggested going to Marshalls to look for paper and cardstock. Sure enough, I found four huge stacks of DCWV cardstock! Each of the stacks were $6 or less! You know my obsession with paper, so I was super excited!

3. Speaking of paper, I recently received a shipment of cardstock from the French Paper Co. I am super excited to be using this paper. I bought the 110lb smart white cardstock. I've already used it to print some greeting cards and I am really happy with the quality!

4. Summer is nearing an end (19 days until I need to report back to school) and we're still not done with the backyard. We went to another paver store last Friday morning and found something that we like that isn't nearly as expensive as what I'd originally liked from the other stone store.

5. Despite summer coming closer to an end, it seems that it is just getting into full swing for us. We finally put up our lantern lights outside on the first floor deck. Fortunately, in Baltimore the weather stays nice until November so we should be able to enjoy them for a while yet!

6. Last week was super busy-- dinner with friends on Wednesday night, ice cream on Thursday night to celebrate a friend who had just finished taking the bar exam. An impromptu night out on Friday with friends of ours that live a few blocks down. Fun, but busy! Phew!

7. After our super busy week, Saturday was a laid back day. We ended it by getting take out from Chaps Pit Beef-- a seriously awesome place you need to check out if you're ever in Baltimore. I had an open faced beef sandwich with fries, both which were drenched in gravy. Yum! We ate on the roof top deck and listened to a blues show on our favorite radio station that comes on Saturday nights. The blues got us talking and ensued in an evening adventure to Fells Point to try to find the movie Blues Brothers 2000 at The Soundgarden because Andrew had never seen it. No luck. It wasn't on Netflix streaming either, so we finally found we could rent it for three bucks on iTunes. Not the best movie in the world, but definitely entertaining and a stellar line-up of blues performers.



8. I caved. Last weekend while at Target to pick up a few things I bought some supplies for school. I knew that if I didn't get my dollar packs of Crayola markers now, there wouldn't be any left when I actually wanted to go back to school shopping. I recently saw a statistic that said that in the year 2011, teachers spent on average $631 from their own pocket on school supplies. Sad, but true. I usually spend about that much... ugh.

9. With only a few weeks left of summer break, I've been dying to get out and do some traveling. Unfortunately, we didn't plan any trips for this summer because we're saving money and Andrew is saving vacation days for two bigger trips in the next year and a half. Next summer we're planning on a road trip out west for two weeks and the following Christmas (or maybe Spring Break 2013 depending on timing) we're planning on meeting my parents in southern France for about 10 days. It's a trip we've been talking about and planning for quite some time. But I still want to get out and about, so I'm thinking of planning a few day trips for the next two weekends instead.

10. My summer indulgence has been Honest Tea. They are all organic bottle iced teas of all sorts of flavor varieties. I was first introduced to these at my mom's bakery quite some time ago-- she would sell them along with her lunches and such. Recently I discovered them at a few of the grocery stores I frequent, so they have been my little treat for the summer. My current favorite flavor is Pearfect White Tea.

What have you been indulging in this summer?

Punch List

1. By now I am sure you can tell that I'm ecstatic that summer vacay has arrived! I think teachers enjoy it more than any student ever could!

2. My goal this week is to try three new recipes. So far I've made one, with the next coming today. Monday night I cooked up these fantastic taco stuffed shells that were ridiculously tasty!

3. Two summers ago, a few co-workers and I had a photography challenge called The Daily Dose Picture Post. The four of us decided that in order to keep our photography skills fresh we would use our summer vacation to post one photo a day until the beginning of school. This challenge inspired me to do the same sort of thing, but this time with design. Today marks the first day of my Design a Day Challenge I wrote about yesterday, so stay tuned later today for the first design I've got in store to share!

4. With the arrival of our first time homebuyer's tax credit, we have looked to our trusty list of items to purchase or save for. Aside for saving money for travel and other various things, the first item was a new set of cookware. Say hello to my new set of Le Creuset pots and pans (and I splurged and got bakeware too!) in Caribbean blue!

5. There is nothing more refreshing and tasty on a summer morning than iced coffee! I've been enjoying quite a few of those over the past few days.

6. I've started my summer reading and the first book I will be reading is Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. One of my students read this YA book and was in love with it so I'm taking his recommendation! What are you reading this summer?

7. I call this little list "Punch List" because I'm constantly making punch lists of my own. Summer is a great time for all of those catch up projects. Next in store-- rehabbing a couple sets of plantation shutters I found at the architectural salvage yard.

8. Speaking of projects, our cedar fence is coming along quite nicely!

9. I'm trying to get back into my yoga routine. This summer is all about relaxing, but not getting too lazy!

10. The latest thing I've been trying to convince Andrew on for our back yard is to take out the lower deck and install Moroccan cement tiles in its place for a beautiful outdoor courtyard feel. We'll see how that goes over with architect Andrew.