D. Linquent

Alright. I've been seriously delinquent. This weekend will be a blogging weekend. I promise. I have loads of pictures and a smaller load of stories. I've entered my second trimester and almost miraculously regained my energy, so I have not one legitimate excuse for not blogging. I wonder if any of you still check this blog, it's been so little for so long. I also have some major catching up to do reading-wise. I've just been absent from the blog world for too long. Check back soon...

quick update

Well September is certainly flying by, and I have yet to write a new post. Things are going well at school. I think having a year in a Middle School has helped make things very calm and orderly in my classroom. Classroom management, organization, curriculum, enjoying the kids, and on and on are all very much "clicking" so far. I flew through the first three weeks of school without a problem. I had energy. This week...not as much. I'll be starting 11 weeks on Friday (roughly--who knows for sure?) and it seems that maybe I didn't get off as easy as I thought over the last few weeks. The first trimester woes might be giving it their big final punch as I approach my second trimester---which everyone says will be a breeze.

I have Fall fever big time. I've made some soups and a roast (for the first time). I am loving the slow-cooker, and can't believe I didn't use it sooner.

Kids are going to be coming in for class any minute, so this slightly dull post will have to come to a close.

No good titles come to mind.

I started a blog for my classroom.  I started it on August 24th.  Until now, no one has been told about this secret blog.  This blog can be found  here.  Feel free to check it out and make nice comments for the kids to (eventually) read.  Right now it just has some stuff from last year, but hopefully I'll hold up my end of the deal (really the only person that has an "end" of the deal to hold up) and continue posting art from students this year.  

AHhhh...I can finally talk freely about being prego.  Never before has debilitating fatigue, constipation, moodiness,the almost constant feeling of a full bladder,  queasiness, and heartburn ever been so enjoyable. Honestly, these have been my happy reminders of the great things going on inside me.  In fact, this past week I started feeling fine, which equals the feeling of not being pregnant, so seeing another ultrasound picture of our baby that currently resembles a little frog, was very reassuring.

I'm 29 now.  I was thinking today that I'd love to try and do some memorable things in these last months of being a twenty-something.  Please give me suggestions.  So far I have:

-Make another person.

-Cook a good roast, or something that sounds equally impossible to me.

-Travel somewhere internationally that I've never been (in a sense this could be easy considering the international travel I've done includes: Mexico and Texas.)

And so far, that's what I've come up with.  Granted, I've not given it much thought.  Instead I thought I'd first ask for other people to think of things.  My doctor says I can't do any activity above 10,000 feet--so no mountain climbing suggestions.  Plus I did some of this in my 5th or 6th week not knowing I shouldn't.  Maybe completing your list will become my goal. Unless no one comments, then this will all be a failure.  If you're private (Sonya) and want to secretly tell me a suggestion, email me: brookemduffy@yahoo.com or send me a message on facebook--Brooke Knipp.  I'm serious.  Add some memories I wouldn't have thought of to my life this next year, please.

Alright, WE'RE back...

SURPRISE!!!  (to some of you...)  Meet Baby.  Baby is moving along at 8 weeks now.  We could not be any more excited than we already are.  8 weeks means a suggested due date of April 10th.  

When we were in Iowa for that week over the summer, I felt really queasy the whole time and blamed the Iowa humidity.  Once we got back to CO I kept feeling queasy and finally took a test (unbeknownst to Gabe) the day before my birthday.  I did so just to prove to myself that I wasn't pregnant--the month before we had had a disappointing negative test when all symptoms pointed to prego.  So I didn't want to get my hopes up, I strictly wanted to dash them before they grew at all.  But when I looked at the test, obviously it was positive.  I surprised Gabe that morning before he'd even gotten out of bed or put on his glasses.  The man really can't see without them, so he had no idea what I was holding in front of his face at first.

So now I've got a little babe the size of a kidney bean, with all of its organs already developed. This week and next we'll be working on fingers and toes (no more webbed pads for us), and I think eyelids.  So that's the huge news from our home!  

We are planning on finding out if we're having a boy or a girl--we should know the middle of November.  And we won't be telling you the names we've picked--and they've been picked. Sorry, you'll just have to be surprised and act like you like it once the baby is born! :)

This is the most miraculous thing I've ever been a part of.  I can't believe it doesn't take 3 years for a couple of cells to grow into an actual human being.  When I look online and in the books at how much is happening with the bun (in the oven) every week --I am amazed every time.  I'm just sittin' on the couch watching Friends, eating more cheese and all the while our baby is busy becoming complete--growing a spleen, fingernails, ears, a BRAIN.  If you ever forget how amazing God is, think about that.  I know I do.  

Also, I started back to school with kids this past week.  It was actually fantastic.  I really felt peaceful about everything.  My classes seem to be great and I really feel like I've got a much better handle on the whole middle school thing now with one year under my belt.  

So that's all for now.  We've waited to make a public announcement until all family was told. So hopefully I'll be back to blogging more often now that the word is out.  School and babies have been holding a monopoly on most of my thoughts, so I haven't been able to blog in awhile.  But now you know!

Stray-ayyynge.

So yesterday I went to Banks'.  It's a teacher supply store in...not a great area of town.  I traveled up and down the many aisles turning my nose up at most of the young-kid-friendly merchandise to clutter a classroom.  Middle schoolers don't appreciate a sign telling them to have a sunshiny day and that they're special in every way.  Great for little kids, not for the grown up middle schoolers of today.  I still spent $130 when it was all said and done, however.

The strange part of this story happened once I stepped out of the store.  I could barely hear myself think as I walked to my car, due to the foul rap "song" that was BLARING out the windows of the mini-van parked two spots away from me.  I won't go into detail, let's just say that the lyrics were not what you would call "honoring" to women.  I began loading my $130 of goods into my car all the while snarling to myself about how horrific the lyrics were.  So of course I had to send an ever so slightly disapproving look to the young man in the passenger seat of the mini-van as I got into my car.  As I did this, I happened to notice two car seats in the middle and back row seats of the mini-van!  AND they had children in them!  I slam my car door mumbling to myself all sorts of indignant admonishments.  Then to top it all off, the frail grandmotherly school teacher that had been behind me in line exited the store.  I held the brake long enough to make sure some woman-hater didn't knock her over for kicks, when SHE GOT INTO THE DRIVER'S SEAT OF THE MINI-VAN!!!  

I don't even know what to say.

Happy Birthday, Kristi!

H A P P Y    B I R T H D A Y,   K R I S T I ! ! ! !  We hope you 

have a wonderful day and can't wait to celebrate with you in a 

couple days...

TOO MANY to choose from!

Over my birthday while we were down in the Springs, and then yesterday also, I got to take a zillion pictures of beautiful Janae for her senior pics.  We ended up with SO many great ones, these are just a fraction of my favorites.  The first one isn't for real, it was toward the end of our "session"  and Janae had to focus to look this 'over it'.  A split second after the camera snapped she lost her straight/attitude face and started laughing.  But I ended up liking it, so, without further ado...

Need to fix the color on this one a little:

birthday asparagus

Despite Chrissie's political objections regarding Ted Turner opening a Montana-themed restaurant, we chose to meet at Ted's Montana Grill (is that even the correct name?) last night for my belated birthday celebration.   Here is a picture of Chrissie, Amanda and I:

Here is a picture of Mark, Eric, and Gabe.  Eric made this face while the flash was going off and I didn't discover it until looking back through the pictures.  I think Gabe is chewing, that or he just looks funny in this picture.

Then Sean and Lexi arrived. We were team white shirt:

Gabe and I got to the restaurant about 45 minutes early to reserve a table and then went across the street where I ate a cheeseburger and onion rings.  I was too hungry to wait.  When we met up with everyone at Ted's, we ordered a couple of appetizers to share and later on I decided that a side of asparagus (on the menu) was just what I wanted.  This is exactly as it was when the waitress delivered it to our table:
These fancy restaurants are all about the presentation.

Thanks to those of you that were able to make it.  We had a great time and hope you did, too. Lots of laughing, as usual.  We missed those of you that couldn't make it, but there will be another birthday or something to celebrate soon, I'm sure.

It's 6:44 in the morning and I've been awake for over an hour.  Strange.

jettisoning and the wall that will never be

It seems I was storing quite a bit of stuff at Granny's house, so because we had driven to Iowa, my mom and I went through it and packed up six boxes for me to take home with us.  It's truly amazing the amount of insignificant rubbish I thought important enough to save at some point.

Once we got home I decided to clean out the basement to organize and eliminate more of my meaningless possessions.  It feels SOOOOO good to be rid of so much stuff that was cluttering my life.  Just because it wasn't in clear view, does not mean that it wasn't cluttering my mind/life.  It was very freeing to take account and reorganize. 

BEFORE:  

AFTER:

That's it!  And the top bin is still empty.  About a third of the boxes in the before picture are empty, but still, it's incredible to me to see how much condensing and discarding was possible. I even got all of our Christmas decorations/ornaments into the green containers.  One container is Gabe's memorabilia, and the other four are mine.  Disproportionate, I know, but still worlds better than before.

Here are the after pictures of a white wall I painted in one of our school's girls' bathrooms just before going to Iowa.  I spent five hours creating a mural I thought girls would really enjoy. Our school beautification committee wanted to brighten up the bathrooms, among other things. The principal agreed to pay me to come in and do some painting.  But thanks to district policies this is now the before picture to a newly painted white wall.  Just like every other wall in our building.  Five hours for nothing.  Kids will never even know this was here.  Bummer, huh?

things you shouldn't do when you can't see:

I got my hair cut like three weeks ago?  I've told a few of you this story already, so feel free to skip today's post.  

I'd been growing my hair out for awhile and finally decided it was just too stringy and frustrating to continue, so the decision to actually pay another person to cut it was made.  

I walked into a semi-stylish salon I'd passed countless times.  I walked in, asked if I could make an appointment and the lady said she could cut my hair immediately.  (Clearly because my hair was looking that desperate.)  I followed her across the salon to her own private hair-cutting room.  I thought, "Wow, she must be advanced or something to have her own room."   So I explain what I have in mind and her cell phone rings.  She tells me she has to take it, whatever, I'm not in any hurry.  She talks for a good three minutes, while I sit and peruse the room. There are photographs of quilts stuck to the mirror in front of me, an enormous quilt hanging on the wall behind me, a few framed pictures of different cats on the table to my right, and a few other less memorable things cluttering the space around me.  She finally ends the call and explains that she'd had a bunch of cancellations for the day and had called  many of her other clients to see if they would come in for a trim, that call had been one of them returning her call.  I asked her if she had made the quilts.  YES!  Followed by a good ten minute explanation of her hopes of bartering the one behind me with the owners of a cabin in the mountains she wants to stay at off and on for life.  She gives me the first business card of the day--related to her quilting.

Hair-cutting finally commences.  She tells me how it's so hard to meet good men at her age (late 40's?), so she's begun internet dating.  This led to quite a few stories of "interesting" men, as well as interesting stories about strange men.  

A half an hour later, she's stopped to answer her phone about three more times and I'm left to look at myself in the mirror fully aware of the a-w-f-u-l haircut I'm being given.  She dries and styles and I say it's not quite what I was going for, so she happily re-wets my hair and gives it another go.  

It's at about this point she decides to mention she recently had unsuccessful lasix surgery on her eyes and really can't see very well.

Oh.

Kind of wish I'd know this an hour ago.

I pay someone to cut my hair like once every two years.  Of course I happen to get the woman who CAN'T SEE.

At this point I start making excuses for her, like how my hair has all of these cowlicks that make it difficult to cut. Blah. Blah. Blah.  Why do I do this?  The woman admitted she can't see. How is this my fault?

I start pointing out uneven places and making suggestions.  She started following my directions and three dry-style-rewet-dry-style-rewets later, I had a haircut that I really like.  

At some point she stopped again to "introduce" me to her cats.  A couple of minutes of learning about their different personalities and quirks, she resumes the haircut.

Before I left she shuffled through a drawer and pulled out three more business cards for her mani-pedi services, chair massage services and something else.  Then I followed her out to the front desk.  

She told the lady what to charge and chatted me up for a couple of minutes while the transaction was going through.  Then she thanked me for my patience (this was nearly two hours after I'd walked in the door), gave me a big hug, tilted her head and said, "Thanks, Amber."

Ohhhhhhh, you're so welcome.  I tipped her very well because A) I'm not sure how much longer this career choice will sustain her, and B) Amber will never be going there for a haircut again.