Just Another Day

I got to be the special guest in my sister’s Kindergarten classroom today. Several little ones read their story “Tag” to me, and then I got to visit with them during snack time. The real reason I was there, however, was to watch their Christmas program. The holiday macarena was the real show stopper; of course, all the songs and poems were good. Dad, Mom, and myself are heading up to Ape’s Babbit program today.

I convinced everyone that it was a good night to go to the Landing for dinner. (This after promises of my home-cooked meals this week.) It was a good decision, though. We were the only ones in the dining room, so it was almost like being at home. Gram and Gramp joined us.

April and I went in to Steve’s to help undecorate the house. He and Nels are leaving today, so there was no use having a bunch of Christmas stuff up. Trisha ended up out there as well, and then she jumped in our car and came out to spend the night. We spent an uneventfull hour and a half searching for a gift for her dad, but shipping was outrageous. (Well, it is the Wednesday before Christmas!)

Lo surprised us and was at home last night. She’s heading out again after work tonight. So begins Christmas.

I have to go do some work now. It’s been unbelievably tough to be motivated to do my work here. It feels too much like vacation!

I spent a couple of hours getting my hair done this morning. Yep, HOURS! If it weren’t Trisha doing my hair I’d never have the patience. She always does such a nice job though, and I don’t have to make any decisions.

I’ve been answering the phone, “Buddy the Elf, what’s your favorite color?” all day. (In case you couldn’t have guessed, it’s from my favorite movie. Anyway, I did it tonight and it was my sister’s boss calling. He laughed, but it’s still pretty embarrassing. I may no longer have a shot at working in this district. 😉

Dad and I helped decorate Gram & Gramp’s tree this evening. It looks good. Grandpa was sure to re-place any ornaments that just didn’t look right. Grandma’s busy knitting.

I made chicken and wild rice for dinner tonight. We all gave it a B-. The chicken was pre-marinated, and that was the part that tasted a little off. Nice to have a chance to cook some different things, though.

Tomorrow’s agenda looks pretty quiet. I’m working on getting our slides scanned in so we have a digital copy. Its time consuming!

Christmas is less than 6 days away!

It’s been a lazy day at the Aune residence! There’s nothing like a day to just lay around and watch movies. I finished Dad’s stocking today and am now on to Aprils.

Yesterday we all decorated the tree and Christmasized the house – complete with fiber optic wreath! 🙂 Decorating the tree was lots of fun, because we all were here to do it. Dad headed to Maki’s for the annual Christmas sausage making, and April and I headed to Virginia. We shopped a bit and stopped by to see Stacy and Dylan. Dylan’s gotten to be such a big boy. Laura boycotted the shopping trip – as she always does!

This morning we watched Elf. I’m glad the rest of my family is as amused by that movie as I am. We’re all about the Christmas spirit here. I suppose I’ll have to throw It’s a Wonderful Life in early this week and make Dad watch it with me.

Time to get back to doing nothing!

I’m once again wasting time at an airport. This time is MSP. I am so close to home, but I have to waste 6 hours! Ugh. I ended up catching an early flight from Boston, but they can’t get me up to Duluth earlier. So… hanging out at the airport it is. I’ve purchased some real no-thinker magazines as well as internet service. I’m going to be broke!

A woman took my window seat on the flight from Boston. There was a little eye rolling, but ultimately, I just sat in her aisle seat. The whole point of a window seat for me is to catch up on some rest. If you want a window seat, request a window seat – or – go on-line and pick a window seat. People are annoying on airplanes.

We had a “final” this morning for our Reading Edge training. How long has it been since I had a final????

Oh, I’ll leave you with a little story about vocabulary development. One of the trainers shared a conversation he heard two first year old boys having at a school he supports down south. The first boy whispered, “We found a condom on the patio.” The second boy asked in a similarly secretive whisper, “What’s a patio?” True story.

How does a 30 year old get attacked by a stray cat? Any answers, Lo? 😉

I went to a beautiful mall last night. I’ve learned not to take shopping for granted after living in remote AK. I just enjoy being around the sights and sounds of the mall. I’m still not a great shopper – I grab a bunch of stuff and then talk myself out of it. The only purchase I made last night was a $15 sweatshirt. I couldn’t pass up the idea of a comfy top to fly home in today.

HOME. What a sweet word. I can’t wait to get there, and hopefully I will today! The weather out here is frightful. It doesn’t look like it’s a whole lot better in MN. Hopefully it clears up. I had really wanted to get to the airport early and go standby on an earlier flight – but I’m afriad, now, it’ll all be booked.

Can you believe that this is the last weekend before Christmas? I hate that I haven’t really had a chance to jump into the Christmas spirit! Hopefully we’ll go tree hunting tomorrow and get the house decked out.

I’m going to post a few pictures of my San Francisco trip. Check them out if you’re interested.

Happy Friday!

Sounds like a lot of the Christmas gifts I ordered have arrived back at my dad’s. I can’t wait to see what I ordered… it can be something of a guessing game when using the internet.

How many of you have not heard my speel about ebates? You’ll notice I’ve linked ebates to the right. It’s a sweet deal, everyone! You shop at different online sites (target, old navy, apple, etc.), and ebates tracks how much you spend and sends you a rebate check every 3 months. You really ought to check it out – and be sure to put me in as your reference! 😉 (elaune@hotmail.com) It’s free and it works!

I’m pretty wiped out this evening. We headed out to the mall 15 minutes after we finished training today. Instead, we ended up at dinner, then Barnes and Noble, and no mall. I can’t say I was devastated. Dinner was great. Got a chance to learn a lot (maybe more than I wanted) about several of my cross-country colleagues.

I talked to Lo tonight. She’s stuck out at my dad’s… perhaps new tires are in order for her car? She’s being keeper of my presents until I get home. NO SNOOPING! I also got a great voicemail from April. Voicemails should always be left in the form of a song. 🙂

Still haven’t had a chance to talk to Bill. The 4 hour time difference is crazy!

We’re off to another middle school tomorrow. I can’t wait! After yesterday I was ready to move to the east coast at the possibility of a job. I hope tomorrow looks similar.

11 days ’til Christmas. Remember, Santa’s watching!

Tonight’s dinner was served by Chili’s. It was tasty, and tonight it was nice to visit with some other people. Sometimes after a day spent with the same people I don’t feel like hanging out after work. This is a nice group, though.

I hope you have had a chance to check out the pictures I added to the gallery. You can click on the link to the right of this entry titled “Erin’s Pictures” to see shots of my family. Over Christmas I plan to get the camera out and really start sharing.

We observed different middle school classes today, and it was awesome. For those of you who don’t know a lot about Success For All, we ask our schools to use every available resource for teaching reading. This helps maintain smaller reading class sizes and the ability for children to be taught at their instructional level. I could go on and on about this, but the point I’m trying to make is that if you’re a Math teacher who works in an SFA school, you’ll probably be teaching reading. Anyway, there were some amazing out-of-content area teachers.

I missed Bill’s call last night; I was sleeping. He found out he gets to go to Mac World, so that’s exciting news. Mac World is in January in San Francisco. All the biggest Mac nerds will be there! 🙂 I use the term nerd in the most endearing way. It’s certainly not an insult, as I wear a shirt that says geek on it proudly.

I am totally procrastinating on tonight’s homework. I am supposed to be ready to present a 60 minute lesson for training the Reading Edge tomorrow. I don’t think it’ll be that difficult, though I know I need to prep it. Unfortunately, I also have this feeling that we’re not really going to train it – so why should I put a lot of effort into it right now? I know, that’s bad. Still, I can fall back on the reason that I didn’t get it done is because I was out to dinner with the person in charge of this training and my area manager. It’s about who you know not what you know, right? 😉

Ape found part of her Christmas present from me. She’s always been the one who snoops around and knows everything she’s getting. I’m sure this year I just left it out in my hurry to get packed for this week. Drat. She doesn’t know 1/2 of it, though, and she seems to like the 1st. Lo’s in Rochester, I guess, so no worry of her finding presents. I’m starting to think that Lo and I could compete for most flexible schedule. Well, we should be realistic – Dad’s right in that game.

I guess Katie’s come down with some terrible bug – complete with fever and all the icky stuff. She’s trying to get through finals week before heading home for Christmas. I hope she gets some “well” time to enjoy the holiday season at college. Christmas was always my favorite time at BSU.

Once again, for those of you in the Cook area this next week – I’d love to grab a coffee and a quick visit. (Melissa – coffee would be the perfect solution to a limited amount of time!) Can’t wait to hear more about your lives! [I’m begining to think EVERYONE should have a blog so I can keep up with you… don’t tell Bill! 😉 ]

Well, it’s time for another night at the Residence Inn here in Boston-Andover, Massachusettes. Today was actually pretty good. There are some really nice people in my training, and the day went quickly. That’s good news!

Tomorrow we’ll be spending the morning at a middle school observing teachers using the Reading Edge program. It will be nice to see a non-bush school doing SFA. Hopefully it’ll help me support the development of skills (teachers and students) in the schools I support.

Life on the road is not extremely exciting. After a full day of work, no one is exceptionally excited about doing anything afterwards. I grabbed a quick bite down in the lobby rather than heading out for dinner. We’ve got some reading to do for homework tonight, so I guess I’ll need to get started on that. What I’d really like to do is take a nap… but then I won’t sleep tonight.

Time to go read!

I’m back in Minnesota, and as you can imagine, I’m loving it.

Today was Laura’s shower. It went really well, and Lo ended up with a ton of great accessories! Unfortunately, a slide into the ditch put the guest of honor next to last to arrive to her own shower. She was safe and sound, though, so that’s all that counts.

Got to see Mom and Grandma P at the shower. I also

got a chance to see my former roomie, Laura, which was an added bonus to this short stop at home. It’s always so difficult to coordinate schedules as everyone heads home to visit family… I’m probably the biggest hermit of the crowd when it comes from leaving my house at breaks! So – though it was a brief visit, and we barely got a chance to talk, it was good.

I’m trying to get Grandma A back into knitting. We spent a little time reviewing the knit stitch, and I’ve assigned her a scarf to complete before I return Friday.

Dad, Lo, Ape, and I hung out with G & G, had a great venison dinner, played along with wheel of fortune, and simply goofed off. What a perfect day.

So, I’m just “chillin’ at the Holiday Inn”. For real! 😉 The past day and a half of work has been really good. These things are good for me. They boost me up after spending so much time working by myself. A job really loses something when you don’t have co-workers to get to know, visit with, etc. On the other hand, you don’t have to deal with the same crazies every day either. 😀

Yesterday Dennis picked Terri and me up from the San Fransisco airport. We got a wonderful car tour and got to stop and take some pictures of the golden gate bridge. (Unfortunately, I don’t travel with a camera, so I’ll have to have Dennis e-mail the pictures. Then maybe I can post them!)

So, we did a lot of talking and listening today. There are eleven of us here: 7 consultants, 3 area managers, and the foundation’s vice president for the west side of the country. There are a lot of different styles of people, but the type “A” personality seems to be common amongst the majority. I wouldn’t group myself in that category.

Tonight we went to a mexican restaraunt and sat on the 3 walled patio. They had space heaters hanging up above – they were completely necessary – and I just couldn’t get over the fact that it’s December 8. Living in California wouldn’t work for me. Where’s winter? It’s a beautiful break, though! Anyway, my manager, our V.P., and I shared a bowl of sangria at dinner. The menu was a bit confusing, and we figured we were getting a pitcher, but it was an actual big bowl with 2 1/2 foot long straws. Pretty sweet – and good sangria – right out of wine country!

I scored a wonderful white elephant gift. I got a cookie cookbook, a jar of fancy jam, a smelly thing for your outlet, and a little pack of coffee. I have to tell you, though, the snowman cheese plate with boots and mitten spreaders I brought was the most coveted gift. It got stolen 4 times – the record of the night! 😉

Tomorrow we start at 8. 🙁 We’re supposed to be problem solving a school, and I didn’t really know what to look for. So, I’m kinda hoping we skip over mine or do it in small groups. We’re done around noon and then back to the airport I go. I’m going to get on nwa.com right now and see if I can choose any better seating.

More to come!