Wedded Bliss and other stuff...

On Tuesday H and I marked 36 years of wedded bliss.

In the past he has surprised me with a red rose to commemorate each year and a white rose for the year to come. Last year that was 35 red roses and one white so 36 roses! Thirty-six roses aren't cheap! I love the tradition but with the price of roses we talked and decided to just forgo the tradition this year and go out to dinner instead. I still bought him a loving and thoughtful card (of course) and he still surprised me, but with just two perfect roses, one red and one white.

They still look beautiful a week later and I'm still enjoying them. We decided on a simple dinner at Outback Steakhouse since it was a work night and we wanted to be home early. It was perfect. Two beautiful steaks, grilled shrimp, baked potato and salad, good company and a crackpot waiter. He did gift us with a decadent dessert (Thunder Down Under) which was very nice. A good time was had by all! :-)

Last week was also my first week of teaching both in the two schools I travel to and my home school. It was a busy and interesting week. I find myself working longer hours, at least at this point, just to try to keep up to speed. The teacher and other aide have been doing this for a few years so they have their jobs down pat. I'm still functioning on a learning curve, trying to learn new things or even sometimes just figuring out what I'm supposed to be learning. I can't really blame the teacher for not giving me much direction, which she doesn't, because she would if I asked. I do find myself asking her if she thinks I'm doing ok when it would be nice if she would just tell me I am without my having to ask. I really just want to know what she thinks, I'm not fishing for compliments. I really do love the job but I still have one dilemma, a huge one, that hasn't been resolved yet. I'm trying to be patient and not freak out about it but it's something which will make me very unhappy if it isn't resolved in my favor. It's one of those deals where you either suck it up and take the beating they are giving you or quit on principal and become much poorer for it. What to do? Right now I'm just waiting, praying and hoping it will be resolved in my favor.

We had bowling Friday night and it was not pretty. Try as we might, and we did try, we lost all 4 points. The team we were bowling against had pre-bowled and let's just say they were having a superb day. One of the men bowlers is our dear friend, Mark, and he is a fantastic bowler, always (or nearly always) bowling in the 200's. His male partner has an average of 120, the same as mine right now, and that man bowled a 226! I have never bowled a 226 in my entire life. It was unbeatable. Their second game gave them an 800+ series and their third was even better with a 900+ series. We had a chance to take the last game but just couldn't hold it together. The really sad part was that one of the games they beat us by almost 200 pins. That has never happened to us before, ever. So sad for us. So now we are still at 1 point. Not looking good for us. We pre-bowled this morning for the next time since Bill knows he's going to have to work and I will be visiting my sweet little Quinn and family and Howard and Judy wouldn't have much hope of taking any points with just the two of them. We bowled pretty well today but of course won't know what happened until we bowl again in about a month. Today I was happy that I was able to bowl my average all 3 games. That's progress!

Yesterday was a rainy, cold day. H even turned the fireplace on in the afternoon to take the chill out of the air. Just about the time it was drying out a little and I was considering taking the pups to the park, it started raining again. :-( Today was cloudy mixed with a little bit of sun at times, so I was able to take them for a little while this afternoon though the ground was pretty wet and soggy. They had a great time though. They were giving it their all today and there were a couple spills. Zoe jumped up once and came down in a rolling spin. Charlie walked away from his catch limping but soon got over it after a little TLC.



After bowling this morning I headed out to Kohl's. I had a 30% off coupon that I couldn't say no to. I've only had one other 30% off coupon and that was 3+ years ago. They just don't come along that often and since I needed a few things anyway I decided to use it. Not only did I get 30% off my total I also earned $30 in Kohl's cash which I have a couple weeks to spend. Now, if I can just remember to do it!

That's about it for this week. I've enjoyed sitting in our new "office" to use the computer. I can look out the front window during the day and at night I find myself looking at this picture, a lot. It's one of my very favorite pictures of the kids when they were little. We had just moved to Michigan and were celebrating our first Christmas and had gone to a professional photographer for this picture. Scott was just 1, Tyler 4 and Amber about 9. Such a sweet photo. I just wanted to share.


Have a good week!