Birthday Update

Please notice the way I say "chocolate." My vowels are changing into all sorts of craziness. Anyhow, now presenting a quick video on my Birthday Eve.

Thank you everyone!

Birthday Weekend

Today marks the start of my birthday weekend. What I can say for sure is that RibFest is this weekend and Mar-boy and I will be going. The four day pass is like 10 dollars. Its at this beach park place on Lake Ontario. There's also talk of a cook out and a small hike to these waterfalls near mar-boy's house.

Tonight we're ordering in (togotaxi.com!!) and perhaps having a picnic near the pool. Its been really nice lately. For my birthday weekend I want to be able to sleep in and not do anything before noon. Mostly I just want to be low key. I received another card in the mail today from Mom and Dad- Thanks for the Wegman's card! I can't wait to go shopping! Happy Birthday to Me.

Really quick- I'd like to discuss the difference between BBQ and Cook Out. Kari and I have been debating this for weeks. The discussion has dragged out so long that our ITD intervened. I've been schooled in the ways of BBQ vs. Cook out. BBQ is like steaks and porks and things that are smothered in sauce. Cook out is all about the burgers and the hots. And Grilling? Grilling is for vegetables and fish. Why can't we just call everything BBQ? Dad's BBQing in the back- yea he's doing salmon and veggies. OR Dad's BBQing in the back- he's doing burgers and dogs. All the same thing.

Anyway. That's about it. Sorry I haven't posted much this week. Its end of the month and that means I have a ton of paperwork to finish. It is definitely getting easier. Next week I start assessing a consumer with my supervising therapist. That should be interesting. I read through this person's chart this afternoon to gain some information about this individual. Mar-boy is here now and we're off. more updates soon.

monday!

today was a great monday. Even the part about getting up at 4:30 to take my ma to the airport was great. She is already home and napping. I had great sessions today and a great update meeting. I had a chance to catch up with Julie a little bit which is always a blast.

I got home and found two birthday cards in my mailbox. One from my good friend from high school and the other from my godmother! They both were pleasant surprises that made my day. I have now been instructed by my godmother to go buy a little something at Wegmans. I love it. Consider it done.

I got home and hopped on my keyboard to just play for fun. It was fun. I'm looking forward to having a bit of dinner and reading some of my book. I am knee deep in monthly summaries already. My goal this week is to do as much as I can without making myself crazy before my long birthday weekend! That's the goal. Still not sure what we're going to do for my birthday. I realized that I haven't had a birthday at home in a few years. The past two have been celebrated in San Diego in a variety of ways- going out at midnight to grab food and drink when I turned 21 followed by a quick trip to Las Vegas (which turned out to be a bust- but that's another blog post for another time) and last year for 22 I celebrated like 8 times in the day- I was stuffed by the end of the evening. Hmm, my 19th birthday was in Boston- I went to visit my sissy. I'll add NY to my list this year (and hopefully Roller Derby, but who knows)! That's kinda cool.

Time to eat!

The Talent Showcase

Well.

What a day.

The talent showcase was certainly something else. Mar-boy's band was, of course, excellent. However there were some winners at this thing. First up was the Teen Klezmer orchestra: piano, drums, trombone, sax, trumpet, clarinet, flute, oboe, viola, cello and violin. The violinist was hilarious- he ended every song with a pose-- most often holding his bow straight up in the air. It was very triumphant. Jewish Rochester's answer to Hannah Montana did a number with Mar-boy's band. Below you'll find an audio clip of the song she does. She sounds good but she does sound like she's twelve.

Here's a clip for you, Julie. Just a suggestion for an opener for our own cabaret act... just please consider it.

The second clip here and the other high point was this duo that performed after the Jewish Chorale. The duo was something straight out of SNL- like the Pasadena Middle School Music Teachers meets Will Ferrell's Robert Goulet impression. The man did look a little like Goulet. They did a mesh of old and new world jewish tunes plus some broadway show tunes in there. In fact, this woman opened with Cabaret, as you can hear. How appropriate. The man is the cantor at that temple and the woman is his wife and the coordinator for the showcase. Very entertaining. We spent almost four hours there but we all agreed that we had a great time. Anna, the woman who invited us over for Seder in March, was there of course and gave me a big hug. She is such a lovely person. Anyhow, she said she had some cute pictures of me and mar-boy. So once I get those and if they pass the test, maybe I will post them up here.

After the showcase, we (Mom, Kari and I) came back here to mellow out before hitting the MEGA-WEGMANS. Mar-boy had to go meet up with his roommates because they are getting a puppy (tomorrow!). They had to go meet with the lady and prove they could provide a good home. He sent pictures to me later and this puppy is adorable. Patch is the same breed as a dog that used to patrol our neighborhood years ago. ANyhow, we took Mom to Wegmans. Grocery stores are a big thing in our family and funny enough my uncle called mom while we were there. He must have known. Wegmans was great- but definitely busy. You have to have a game plan and know how to drive defensively. Both mom and I were pretty exhausted by the time we came home, so we decided to stay in for dinner. We made the most excellent BLTs and salad. She has an early flight tomorrow morning, so I will definitely be up early. Maybe I'll have time to dry my hair and make pancakes for breakfast! Yahoo! It's been nice to have her here for the weekend. This week its back to the grind. its the last week of may session wise, so I have my end of the month summaries plus two reports to be working on. Ack! One day and report at a time. It will all be completed.

Today also marks the beginning of my birthday week. Please celebrate accordingly. I'm not sure what we're going to be doing this week and through the weekend but I know it will be fun. I found a couple of restaurants and that ice cream place that I want to try, so maybe we will do that. There may even be a roller derby bout happening- that would be an excellent birthday event. Enjoy the week. Three Day weekend coming up!!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Find out what it means to me.

Something interesting happened to me this evening. I'm kind of peeved about it. Mom and I went to Ruby Tuesday's for burgers before catching a movie. I opted for the salad bar before my burger arrived. I approached the salad bar and an older man and what looked like his mother were ahead of me at the salad bar. The man was helping the woman, holding her plate and putting the things she wanted on there. I was trying to decide what kind of lettuce I wanted when the man turned around and said, "Just wait, this will happen to you someday."

I was completely taken aback! He said that as if I was being impatient and rude about this woman taking her time trying to decide what she wanted (Lots of choices there! I totally understand). He said that without even knowing who I am. I'm not an impatient person when it comes to that. I'm not a rude person either. I wasn't tapping my foot or looking around exasperated or heavily sighing. I was mad because it seemed like this man judged me based on other "young" people. And that really pisses me off. That pisses me off in a couple of ways.

The first is that yes, there may be "young" people, or rather people around my age group that may act like that. There are many people around my age that just don't use common sense (in my own opinion). That drives me bonkers. The second way is that I'm not like those people. He had me grouped into that category without even talking to me or even looking at me twice. I was really put off by this experience. I sat down and told my mom the whole thing.

When Kari and I went to that Diversity training in February we did this exercise about this type of thing. We had to form a group based on some element of your identity. I chose to be in a group about "young people." We had to write down a few things separated into two categories: "Things you never want to hear people say about your group" and "Things you want people to know about your group." We had to write a few things down in each category as a group and share them with everyone. Some of things we never wanted to hear about young people is that we are all disrespectful and lazy which directly relates to how we want people to know that not all "young people" are like that and that we care about people of all walks of life and that we are ambitious, creative, and vibrant people. I was brought back to this discussion as soon as this guy made the assumption that I was somehow mad that I was behind them and that I should "just wait!" until I have to use a walker to get through the salad bar line. Eck. Makes me mad.

The other part of this is the resolution. I would have loved to go over to the table later and tell the guy that he didn't know me and to f- off. BUT, I didn't. In the Diversity workshop we talked about "Finding the Ouch." When someone makes a remark that is an "ouch" kind of thing, it usually comes from some sort of other circumstances (a humanistic view, indeed. I just read about this!). We have to put aside our own ouches and then think about why the other person made the remark. So in this case, I took care of my ouch by venting to my mother. Then I was able to think about why this guy said that. Can't be 100% sure and I could list all of my theories, but I won't. Anyhow, this whole thing has made me think twice about the whole "judging a book by its cover" cliche. So everyone knock it off. You may be causing ouches to people. That's all.

Mom and I saw Iron Man 2 tonight. It was good. I haven't seen the first one which I understand is way better, but we had a good time. There was this song during the credits that absolutely had my mom and I laughing out loud. But I won't give it away. We're back home now and getting ready for bed. We had a big day. The lilac festival was great. Its a cozy festival which only one big stage. The grounds they use are really interesting- made up of a bunch of levels. We did see a few lilac bushes. We were expecting to see more. But we did enjoy the music and the fair food- corn dogs (no Hot Dog on a Stick! That's a whole other blog post) and Abbott's custard. Abbott's custard is a local frozen custard/ice cream place that's big in Rochester. Mmm I had really amazing cookie dough ice cream and mom had a root beer float. Yumm. The weather held out all day.... we'll see what that means for tomorrow's trip to Wegmans and Mar-boy's gig at the Jewish Rochester Talent Showcase. Another big day. This weekend has gone by quickly, but I'm glad my ma came out for a visit. It's been a lot of fun so far!

Okay, I have to get my beauty sleep. I don't want to walk in to the temple tomorrow looking like a shikse.

Goodnight!

Mom in the ROC

My momma is in the ROC now. I picked her up on Thursday.

She came to work with me on Friday- you know, that bring your mother to work day. She dropped me off and explored the town around- had a great breakfast, just ask her. She stopped in the Wegmans there- she doesn't even know what's going to hit her when we go to the MEGA-WEGS in Pittsford. I am excited to take her there. I had a meeting in Newark yesterday afternoon so we got to take the thru-way to Newark and we toured my office and she got to try out the Somatron. After work we took a nice ride to Pittsford and walked around the cute historic downtown area along the Erie Canal. There's a little river/canal walk. There are cute shops and restaurants along the canal in that part of town. The weather was perfect yesterday so a ton of people were out walking, biking, eating ice cream. The pittsford crew was practicing too. We stopped in the Pittsford Community Library which is gorgeous. Two-story building, brick on the outside and modern on the inside. It has a great children section and a garden reading area. Its just on the water too and they have music programs on the weekends. We had a nice walk. AND I found a homemade-microcreamery ice cream shop. I can't wait to take MAR-boy there. He's an avid ice cream lover. We then met Kari and Mar-boy for dinner at this local italian place near my apartment. Oooh the food was good, everyone had a great time.

Today we are going to check out the lilac festival before it starts to rain. I am excited. It's a free festival with great entertainment and food (so I hear). Mar-boy is going to join us. He's excited because its "Country Day." We all know how much I love country. The Mega-Wegs is also on the agenda for today. I also need groceries. Gotta get moving. I still have one load of laundry to do! I'll try and take some pictures at the Lilac Festival today and post them later! Hope everyone is enjoying nice weather!

Another Letter..

Dear person who last used the dryer,

What the hell? Your laundry has been done for over 2 hours. Take your flipping laundry out. Because of you, not only did my clothes sit in the washer long after they were done but I had to overload the other vacant dryer with 2 loads of laundry. This is not courteous. Please set your timer or something to ensure that other people in the building can have clean clothes.

That's all.

What a Relief!

My midterm evaluation is done! Thank goodness. It went really well. My supervisors said that I'm in a really great place at this point in the internship and to keep up to good work!

Even though the evaluation didn't feel like a stressful thing, I am still relieved that its over. :)

I had great sessions today- tons of reports to do plus end of the month stuff coming up. I am one busy girl!

Glee night tonight. I think Mar-boy is coming over after his rehearsal. He has a gig on Sunday--- the Jewish Rochester Talent Showcase (The Kid's Klezmer group is on at 11:30!). I think Mom and I are going to go.

Mom arrives on Thursday. We're going to be busy. There's this canal-side area with shops and restaurants that I haven't been to yet, the Lilac Festival is in its last weekend, the Wegmans, and Mar-boy's gig. Its going to be a full weekend.

I'm going to go check the status of the washing machines. Apparently people like to do laundry during the week and not on the weekends. I never have any trouble with the washers and dryers on the weekends. Its a little ridiculous.

Okay, back to those washers!

Care Package Monday!

Today I received a box from my best friend Julie. Inside was a headband, extra hair ties (Thank goodness) and these awesome headphones. The headphones are ear-warmers. Its brilliant. The gift was intended for christmas and that cold weather, but what the hell... I'll turn up the A/C so I can wear them around my apartment. I love them. They are brilliant. She also sent some CDs that I can't wait to listen to AND an unfinished crossword puzzle. Does she know me or what?! Its a brilliant care package. Thank you Julie!! Unfortunately there was a cute candle that looked like a lamp (?)- but the lamp part broke in transit. Kind of a bummer, but the candle still smells good.

I've got to get back to work. I am putting the finishing touches on my midterm evaluations. I have my meeting with my ITD and supervisor tomorrow morning. I'm a little nervous, but I know that we will probably talk about the same things in the evaluation. Especially documentation. Anyways- back to work. I need to finish this and start some laundry.

Aside from that, today was a good day. I had good sessions today, I had a couple of clients cancel today. I have a few more reports to finish up this week and a possible in-service with the audiology department. That should be interesting!

Okay, back to work, dinner and laundry. Pressing on!

BTW- I've cleared it with my ITD. I will be returning home for the weekend July 23-25.

AND

only a few more days till Mom arrives! Woo hoo! I can't wait.

OMG WTF TOGOTAXI.COM

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!!!!

Kari is over. We are having a paperwork/bad movie Saturday kind of party and we were just deciding what we wanted for dinner. We decided to eat in because its a pajama party and neither of us wanted to go to extended efforts to look presentable. Kari really wanted sushi- so we were bummed that we had to pick something that delivered. I looked up the closest India place: Taste of India in Rochester --- yes reminiscent of the Taste of India in Buttonwillow (a favorite Bevilacqua landmark). To order from Taste of India, you have to order through this website togotaxi.com. I clicked on the link and lo and behold- a website dedicated to delivery food from local rochester restaurants- sushi, thai, italian, mexican, indian- you name it!

I may never cook again.

Kari and I ordered our sushi and its back to work- but not before I had to blog about this amazing discovery!!!!

YAYAYAY! Its Friday.

What a Friday its been! A few of my clients today were out for various reasons which was fine because my ITD called to say that she just found out about an update meeting for one of my guys over there. So I drove the 60 miles to make it for the meeting this afternoon. I'm glad I went because I found out a lot of good and valuable information. I have a lot to do this weekend in terms of paperwork and I was going to write some of my insights and things like that... but they are escaping me at the moment. oh well. my brain is fried.

Big news here in Rochester. Alec Baldwin mentioned Wegman's on Letterman last night. Apparently Mother Baldwin lives in Syracuse and when Alec asked if she wanted to move to California to be closer to family she said, "and leave Wegman's?"

That bit made the morning news today- channel 10 whec (nbc).

http://www.whec.com/news/stories/S1559707.shtml?cat=566

There's a video of the clip they showed on the news. I also heard two different radio stations talking about it. BIG NEWS. goodness. Everyone is atwitter about this.

No big plans for the weekend. Mar-boy is going home for a graduation party for a cousin or someone and I have a ton of paperwork to do. Kari might come over at someone for a paperwork party. Thrilling. We are two wild and crazy gals.

Almost Friday...

Phew. What a day. We had a person come to interview for the internship today, as well as sessions and trying to finish paperwork, PLUS it was clearly snack day. We had left over Mac and Betty White Cheddar Cheese for lunch, leftover Betty White Cake for dessert, then we needed some chocolate- I conveniently had some reeses peanut butter cups in my desk and then we needed something salty so we popped some popcorn. Our ITD was sort of impressed and sort of grossed out.

My sessions went well today. Kari and I were in a silly mood today- it must have been the sugar. Mar-boy came over tonight to watch "Life as a House." It was fantastic. The Last Song did it all wrong. I really enjoyed the movie.

Now I am ready for bed. Tomorrow is just a regular Friday. This weekend I have to do all of my midterm evaluation stuff and probably go to Wegmans. I do love my Wegmans trips.

News Flash!!

I forgot to mention:

Monday I came home and my heat was fixed!!! Whooooo hoooo. My apartment is always at a nice temperature! Its wonderful not having to roast as soon as I get home.

The guy who fixed my heat (the hot one) also fixed my smoke detector. Woo hoo!

Catching UP!

Monday:

Monday- I had a follow up meeting with my ITD about my intern blues and the issues I've been having with documentation. I have felt a lot better since then. Phew. She reassured me that I'm already quite a good music therapist and I'm experiencing growing pains as my skills are being refined. Eck. I am reminded that everything is a process. Personally, I hate that. It means that I have to go through it in order to be finished. Apparently I can't go from Point A. to Point Q. without going through the letters in between. Oh goody (insert sarcasm here). I'd like to skip all this crap. :)

I came home with a bad headache and was out by 7pm. no joke.

Tuesday

I had some great sessions and finished more paperwork. Already I was feeling a lot better about my work and documentation and all that nonsense. I still had my headache and had to reschedule with Mar-boy. I think we're going to do something tomorrow evening. I've decided on my case study. Every intern has to put together a presentation with session clips on one client from their caseload. I've finally decided on the client I want to highlight. This person is teaching me a lot about being a therapist and on the other side, this person is having a significant experience in music therapy.

I came home and had another horrible headache. So I went to bed at 8p.

Today! Wednesday

Kari was out sick today- so all of my afternoon sessions were canceled. It was a productive day. I am almost done with all of my reports for two meetings in the next few weeks. this weekend will be about my midterm self evaluation for my midterm eval on Tuesday. Whoa! its coming up quickly. Tomorrow someone is interviewing for the internship tomorrow so that means that we have to spend a fair amount of time out of the office and either practicing, reading or working on a computer. It will be perfect for starting my eval and finishing up those reports. I am looking forward to it.

That's all. I'm going to make a bit of dinner and put together some journals. Mom comes next week! I can't wait.

Betty White Recap and Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day!!

I hope all of the mothers and mother-like figures have a wonderful Sunday. I am thankful for all the Moms in my life, especially my mom mom. I'll be calling her today. I tried to find a great card for her all week but they didn't really have anything that screamed "mom." But I am excited that my mom will be here in two weeks to visit. I'm really looking forward to that. We're going to hit up Wegmans and the Lilac Festival and Mar-boy's gig with the klezmer band. So Happy Mothers Day, ma. I'll call later.

Betty White Day

As you may have read, I started my day rather early. I did get my shopping done at Wegmans and got all of the ingredients that I needed. I decided to make a dessert too. I cleaned up my apartment and dismantled the smoke detector. Then my boss from the SD Fair called to check in. She read my blog and decided that a call was in order. That certainly perked me up. I went to the office to tell them about my heat (finally!) All of the food was delicious. I made a white cake with white frosting that said "Thank You for Being a Friend, Betty White Day 2010" and the Macaroni in Betty White Cheddar Cheese was fantastic. Apparently Mar-boy is quite particular about his macaroni and cheese- which I didn't know until we were eating and he was telling me how he told his mother (who is a sassy susie homemaker, excellent cook and baker) that she didn't have to make her mac and cheese anymore. So, his remarks are high praises indeed.

Kari sent me a text yesterday afternoon. She wasn't feeling really well and wanted to stay home and just rest. So it was just Mar-boy and his friend J. for Betty White Day. We watched a ton of old Golden Girls episodes leading up to 11:29pm. The staying up late was the hardest part. We were really trying. We LOVED the SNL episode. It was amazing to see all the old female regular cast members and the characters like the NPR ladies and Sally O'Malley. We were definitely laughing out loud. What I didn't like (and I was definitely CRANKY by the end of the night- it was so late) was that there was a commercial after every single sketch!! what the hell. So the content was amazing but all the commercials really broke up the flow.

This morning, my apartment is surprisingly clean. The only thing that was really out of place was my coffee table. Mar-boy is about 6' tall and his friend J. is like 6'6" so they had to move my coffee table to accommodate longer legs. I am continuing the marathon today. I just put in another Golden Girls DVD to watch a few episodes- including my favorite Henny Penny episode.

Oh. A Smoke Detector development. Mar-boy and J looked at my smoke detector- the one that I took out of the wall yesterday morning. It turns out the one beeping was the one four feet away in my actual bedroom (not the hall). That one is easily taken apart to replace the battery. I'm relieved. Mostly because it wasn't going to beep and wake me up this morning.

That's all for today. I don't have any real plans other than just relaxing. Enjoy!

Seriously, Smoke Detector, Seriously??

I was fast asleep, enjoying my slumber.. so happy that I could sleep in this morning.

Then the world played a cruel joke on me.

My smoke detector BEEPSSSS loudly--- ear piercingly loud--- 3 times. Naturally, this freaks me out to the max. That's right, to the max. what the hell?! So I go back to bed thinking that it won't happen again- WRONG. It beeps again like 8 minutes later. I jumped out of bed, ran and got a chair from my kitchen table. to look at the smoke detector because I'm pretty certain this means it needs batteries. Well, I can't see the damn thing in the dark, so I turned the hall light on so I could see---the hall like is a ceiling lamp just above the smoke detector. I flipped the switch and felt like someone maced me in the eyes.... you know when you first turn a light on after your eyes have not adjusted to light. So the damn thing was beeping and then I couldn't see and then you can't take the cover off of the detector, but you can take it off the wall. wtf?!

So now I am wide awake- it is nearly 6:30am on a Saturday morning and I don't know about you, but I don't do well when I'm woken up by anything, especially on my day to sleep in. What does this mean? It means that Lauren = kinda cranky. Mar-boy already got a text about the whole thing and now he's probably rolling over and going back to sleep. Lucky.

Well now that I'm up, I guess I'll catch up on my TV programming that I missed during the week and start making my shopping list. I could probably go to Wegman's now and it would be perfect. I wonder if they have fresh brewed coffee at one of those stands in the morning. That would make everything better... Oh well.

Happy Saturday day me.

A Case of the Intern Blues

Yeah, I have a little case of the intern blues. I'm feeling a little homesick, my friends are graduating in the next week, and I can't seem to get my documentation to where I think it should be. I got an e mail about how I need to work harder to catch some silly stuff and that was enough to tip over my cup. So I officially had my first in-supervision meltdown. We worked through it and I have a journaling project to do this weekend to help process and get to the root and come up with some solutions. It's all good. And to make things better, Mar-boy made me dinner tonight and we rented a movie from the Redbox. I'm feeling zen for Betty White day tomorrow.

Mar-boy and I went to the local Walmart to find a Mothers Day card for his mother. He handled the Walmart outing like a champ. I like to look at all the really stupid stuff that I don't need and try to come up with reasons as to why I would need to purchase each item. Mar-boy kept me focused, although he did let me browse the 5.00 DVDs. I also like to point out everything in the store- which I didn't know I did until this evening. He didn't seem to mind. What a guy.

There is this amazing thunder/lightning storm happening right now. Its so beautiful to see the sky lit up. I've turned out all my lights and opened my blinds. It was really cool to see on my way home too. Tomorrow I think I've decided to make some Macaroni and Betty White Cheddar Cheese for our main dish. I love a good theme. Kari will be over at some point in the day and Mar-boy and his buddy will be here later in the afternoon/early evening. I haven't even picked out the Golden Girls episodes yet. Oy. I better get to bed!

Enjoy Betty White Day!!

RCRD

ROC City Roller Derby!!!!!

Home bout- Jun.12

They called themselves the "Rottenchesters" led by Captain Jessie Kaboom.

rocderby.com

Okay now I have to finish getting ready! have a great day everyone.

almost forgot....

The sunrise was amazing this morning. Ignore the Lowe's sign and look just beyond that.

Cinco de Mayo?

Hmm Cinco de Mayo isn't as big of a thing here as it is back home.

Kari and I celebrated at the ONE Mexican restaurant in Newark. We had margs and cheap food. All in all, a successful evening.

Yesterday was Dad's birthday- Happy Birthday Dad- love you. hope you have a good time celebrating tomorrow!

Today was a great day. We had an inservice day with our ITD and my ST. All of our sessions were canceled for the day. We discussed termination of services and non-inclusion reports (meaning, when you assess someone for music therapy and it is determined that they are not appropriate candidates for MT at this time). We got to watch another Nordoff-Robbins movie- "The Music Child" - which was interesting to see. I'm going to have to watch it again. There is so much happening in every scene that its difficult, nearly impossible, to absorb everything after one viewing. We also had another piano inservice on Classical Improvisation. Our ITD calls it: Improvisational Sight Reading---- can we come up with anything more perfect?! no. Improvisational Sight Reading- I love that. I love sight reading in general--- which in the music world, makes me sort of strange. No one really enjoys sight reading. Except for me, apparently. Anyhow. This idea of classical improvisation is looking at a piece of "classical" music --- serious art music.... not necessarily from the classical era-- and reducing a portion of it, taking it apart and then finding ways to reconstruct it. This means that I should be sight reading every day. I love that idea. The only way to get better at sight reading is to practice and do it constantly. I am looking forward to putting together a classical improvisation. We had to do a write up and whole thing about it. I am really excited.

We also watched this online seminar today on ethics and stuff put on by the State of New York.... kind of like "Live... from Albany.... its the Governor." NY is in the hole big time- huge deficit. In fact, we just got an e mail today saying that Furlough Days will begin in a couple of weeks for selected state workers. We're not sure how or if that will affect us. More on that as it comes.

Tonight I am looking forward to going to bed early and washing some dishes left over in my kitchen. Still getting ready for Betty White Day. We've expanded the menu to include Betty White Waffles which will embrace her likeness using various fruits and whipped cream and Pasta in (Betty) White sauce. Man, I love a good theme.

Its Glee Night

Tonight is Glee. Mar-boy is coming over to suffer through it with me. Its not that I think Glee is the greatest thing since sliced bread--- I enjoy it because I think its bad... Its like watching Grease 2 or Xanadu. I love it.

Last night Mar-boy came over for dinner. I hadn't seen him since last Tuesday's hockey game. It was nice to just hang out. We caught up on last week's episode of Glee. We didn't want to get behind or anything!

Work is kind of crazy right now. I started being observed by my ST for my midterm evaluation next week. NOt only do I have my midterm eval next week but I have TWO update meetings coming up and there never seems to be enough hours in the day nor the attention span to get all of this paper work done! My midterm evaluation requires I do a self and site evaluation-- add that to the paper work pile. Eck. So I feel like I'm drowning a little bit and really all I had time and energy left to do in the evening is be a blob in front of the tv, eat, and/or read. I wish I could read more--- I still have to get through this other book and on to the next one to discuss in the next few weeks! yikes. This week and weekend (aside from Saturday) is going to be about getting all the important stuff done. I know I have time- but its that build up that I use to drive myself crazy. :) Believe it or not, this whole build up thing has gotten a lot better since coming here.

I am trying to get all this stuff done this week because Saturday is Betty White Day. Saturday is the day the Betty White hosts SNL. Kari and I decided to make a day of it, complete with Betty White Russians, St. Olaf inspired snacks, and only the best episodes of Golden Girls hand picked by the resident Golden Girls expert: Me. Mar-boy I think is going to join us in the evening when he's done with all of this stuff. Kari is coming over, she's bringing her books so we can get our reading done and other miscellaneous work before settling into our Betty White Marathon.

Chipotle run for dinner!

My 100th Episode

You are seeing the result of "Mindless Fun Night." I couldn't think of a more appropriate picture for my 100th Episode! 100 blog posts since January... which means I've already been here for over 100 days. wow!

Kari and I had been talking about doing something fun this weekend. She sent me a text while I was scrubbing my apartment asking that we do something fun that required A/C. It was really muggy yesterday and her apartment doesn't have AC.

When she arrived (around 2 or so) she was telling me that our ITD instructed us to do something mindless and fun. We decided on grabbing some dinner, grabbing some dessert, and some adult beverages for games and movies. Turns out playing scrabble after enjoying a lovely bottle of wine can be extremely creative. We had to look up almost every word. BUT we accomplished our goal for relaxing fun. We went to a sushi place in the plaza near my apartment, then headed to Wegmans- found a cheesecake and then stumbled upon a 4-pack of Cannoli. we were sold. We played a few rounds of scrabble, enjoyed our wine and then put in Alice and Wonderland- the Disney animated classic. Both of us had never really played Scrabble before (Mar-boy encouraged me to purchase the game a couple of weeks ago) - we were proud of ourselves.

Anyhow- Today I need to get to my laundry and do a few errands, like buy a few groceries and deposit a check at the bank. I think I'm meeting Mar-boy and his parents for lunch today. I should probably check my phone as I'm still in pjs and on the couch.

It was nice to just hang out and get my home life back in order--- the last thing being laundry which will be done this afternoon. I took care of most of my to-do list this weekend and I did NO work. It felt amazing. Now I Love Lucy is on. This is shaping up to be a fantastic morning!