The One with the Wednesday Ramblings

I'm back for another round of Wednesday ramblings.

• Today was literally the biggest waste of a professional day ever.  I mean who the frig needed to hear about how to renew our teaching licenses when almost every one of us has been here for numerous years?!  Completely useless day.

• I packed my teacher bag this afternoon when I got home.  It was my first step in facing the reality of going back.

• This brings me to my second reality facing activity - packing my lunch.  I'm already sick of it!  Good thing we order out on Fridays, so I only need to pack one lunch this week.

• I have yet to pick out my first day of school outfit.  I went shopping yesterday but didn't find anything that I liked.  I think I may just wear a tank dress I have from Target because it will hopefully help keep me cool in my classroom.  The temperature is on par with the 10th circle of hell.

• Another good thing about only having two days of school this week is I only have to wear real grown-up clothes for one day this week.  Not only is Friday order lunch day, but it's also wear jeans to school day.  Although jeans are significantly more real-clothes-like than I have worn all summer.

• This whole post is school related so far.  Even I'm bored.

• Have you checked out my friend Elyse's blog yet?  She is also part of the super sucky awesome club IF and she wrote a post last week about pink toilet seats, Starbucks, and full moons.  It was thoroughly enjoyable to read, even if combined it all caused her to have a semi-breakdown.  Love her lots!

• Max requires Hubs to play throw the tennis ball every.single.night.  No matter how tired and sound asleep Max is before Hubs sits down on the couch after showering, he will wake up, find one of the dozens of tennis balls that litter my living room, and demand to be played with.

• One of my best friends is ready to have her baby any day now.  Even with everything that is happening with us, I am beyond excited for her and her husband.  I cannot wait to meet her baby and visit with them very soon.  I'm crossing my fingers it will be sometime this weekend!

• I have no fun pictures to share in this post.  Sorry, I'm a little sucks-at-life lately.

• I have to get my DVR organized for the new fall shows.  I usually tape a whole boatload of them and then try them out for an episode or two.  Then I narrow it down to the ones I want to commit to.

Alright peeps, I'm off to "Be still like vegetables.  Lay like broccoli" (Pretty Woman, anyone?) on my couch where I will inevitably fall asleep at an in-the-8's time and be woken up by either a dog tongue on my face or Hubs hitting my foot telling me to get into bed and sleep.

Be on the lookout for a post about the first day of school soon.  And I promise there will be pictures in the next post.

The One with the Wednesday Ramblings

So I think I'm going to start a new weekly post that will just be random thoughts/ideas/ramblings about things that are going on with us and may or may not have anything to do with IF.  We'll see how it goes and hopefully it will become a regular post.

• I started reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  I'm only a few chapters in and I'm definitely already hooked.  It's got suspense, wit, and some really interesting psychological observations.  I definitely recommend checking it out.

Original image from here.

• We had some people over this past weekend and I tried out some new recipes from Pinterest I had been looking forward to experimenting with.  Want to know what I made?  Okay, good, because I'm sharing anyway.
• I made this Loaded Baked Potato Salad.  Let me start out by saying that I loathe potato salad.  I find it completely disgusting.  That being said, this particular form of potato salad intrigued me and it's now my new go-to cookout recipe.  I ended up changing a few things.  I used a little more sour cream and mayo because it was too dry after it sat for a while.  I also added a little celery salt instead of regular salt.  It was a big hit!
• I decided we needed a second salad and did this Roasted Garlic Pasta Salad.  I pretty much followed the recipe, but would change a few things for next time.  It made a ton of salad, so I would definitely cut the recipe in half next time.  I refused to "roast" garlic in the microwave, so I spent the extra time doing it in the oven.  I think it could have used a little more ricotta.  I did put it some garlic powder because the garlic taste wasn't strong enough for me (but I put garlic in everything, so if that's not your thing, leave it out).

This was the only thing I remembered to snap a quick picture of before it got gobbled up!


• One last one.  I whipped up this Sun-Dried Tomato Spread.  OMG...it was fabulous!  Horrible for you, but fabulous!  Learned a few things on this one too.  Do not buy the sun-dried tomatoes in oil.  It made this yummy dip way too greasy, even for greasy-loving Hubs.  There is a ton of cheese in this dip, so you can definitely cut some out.  Also doesn't need as much cream cheese and mayo.  Next time, I'll probably use less of both.

• Can we talk about my obsession with Pinterest?  I mean, I know this is not news for anyone, but I could spend hours finding new recipes, projects, and clothes.  There's a pretty good chance I won't make, do, or buy most of the things I pin, but a girl can dream right?  Although I really am going to do this iPhone cuteness because it appears to just include printing and cutting which even I can handle at this point.

• I have managed to drag myself out of my funk from a few days ago.  I'm not being Negative Nancy or Positive Patsy.  I'm somewhere in between the two...we'll call her Realistic Reba.  This could really go either way and I have realized there's not a damn thing I can do about it.  I'm (im)patiently waiting for beta day and praying like crazy that we get good news.  If not, we will be okay and figure out what the next step is.  It is beyond my control at this point and even my type-A personality has realized it.

• This is what a full IVF calendar looks like.  And this only goes through last Saturday and doesn't even include this past week.

Remember when it looked like this?  Feels like ages ago.

• School starts next week.  Where the hell did summer go?!  My classroom is pretty much ready to go, but I'm going to head there for a little bit later this morning to sharpen some pencils and check my class list again...there will inevitably be a new kid or two that will cause me to have to re-alphabatize everything.  Grrrr!

• While I am mourning the loss of summer, my fall freak flag is just about ready to fly.  
• There's a good chance my next nail color will be this...

Original image from here.

• I am craving candy corn like crazy (despite my hatred for Halloween...more on that at some point in the future).  This Candy Corn Bark will be making an appearance in our house very soon.
• Oh and how could I forget about my favorite Starbucks winter drink?! But I refuse to pay their exorbitant prices for what amounts to a lot of water with some flavor thrown in, so I was ecstatic when I found this recipe on Pinterest (again with the Pinterest addiction).  It's for Caramel Apple Cider in the crock pot.  Sign me up!
• And we all know that fall is followed immediately by the start of the Christmas obsession.  I skip right over Halloween and Thanksgiving (aka the disgusting stuffing holiday) and move right to the ornaments and pine tree smell.  Can.not.wait.

• I leave you with a few of my favorite quotes from my Pinterest Board.

Original image from here.

Original image from here.

And one last one that is way too true...

Original image from here.

Off to sweat in my classroom for a bit.  

Happy Wednesday!