Teri Parris Ford's Blog

I passed!

After school today I took and passed the Google Certified Educator Level 1 exam. There is a level 2 class and test in the spring but I'll wait until next year since I have my national license to work on next. I went into the exam having NOT studied but relied on my real world experience in the the classroom. 

My work day was pretty boring. I lent my truck to Erika so she could go out and purchase a new desk. She needed a better working situation at home. She wanted to take Jessi and Moni's room and make it an office but I wouldn't let her as there was plenty of room for her to put a desk in there without having to get rid of the beds (that's what she was hoping for). I'd like to think Jessi and Moni will still come home occasionally. I know it will be seldom though. Still once a year, they'll need a place to sleep!

I took my truck to get an oil change and check up during my lunch. I got my tires rotated and changed an air filter and nothing else is wrong with my truck. In other words, I don't need a new car.  Oh well. I'll keep saving. 

I went to yoga after school. I realized I hadn't eaten lunch but went anyway. I came home and had left over chicken and salad for dinner. Monika sent a couple of messages. It looks like she's doing well!! Today she was at Point Lobos planting native plants.

I love my vacuum and lamp!

After work I came home and was excited to use my new vacuum.. I couldn't do much vacuuming last yesterday because it needed 5 hours to charge fully. I filled the canister with so much hair several times, it made me wonder how long my old vacuum wasn't working for. I vacuumed Balt's dog bed and filled the canister completely. I am also enjoying my new lamp.

My Monday was pretty full, with a lunch meeting, and an after school department meeting. I felt like it was a productive day but I made a student cry today which wasn't nice. She told me she hated my class and luckily for her there's only 1 week left of it. It kind of surprised me and I tried to be nice afterward. I have posted instructions and a video on how to do the assignment and when I asked if she had looked at the instructions, she said no and claimed she hated google classroom! Well, of course she was frustrated!  I spell everything out for my students pretty clearly and give pretensions and offer videos for support so it's pretty frustrating for me to have a student fall apart in frustration not understanding how to do a project because she refuses to look at instructions. I wasn't sure how to deal with the situation. It's certainly not nice to hear a kid tell you how much they hate your class while bawling their head off. I probably should have gone to yoga tonight but I watched Conan Obrian on Netflix instead.

Vacuum and Lamp

I went to team training at 9am and then after a shower went to Costco. I purchased a new Dyson vacuum with a $100 instant savings sale. It was still $300, which was about twice as much as the cheapest vacuum Costco sold. It's cordless and I'm hoping worth the investment. I also purchased a new lamp to set next to my couch. I'd love to purchase a new couch but with 3 cats who use the arms on my old couches as scratch boards, there's no sense. By 1pm I was home, with a fire raging and my slippers on. I finished Netfilx's Tidying Up show which has a lot of folks tidying up and donating they junk. 

Marvel-ous Saturday

Balt got me up at 5am. For the first time a very long time he actually wanted to go for a walk, so at 6am we went for a long walk. I hate that it's so dark. The freezing cold wouldn't be so bad if the sun was shining. I went grocery shopping at 7am and was doing yoga at 9am. By noon I had showered and had made lunch. I watched Captain America Civil War, chatted with my mom, enjoyed a big fire and talked with Jim. I did some major cleaning upstairs and laundry. I sorted socks and tried to fix my vacuum cleaner (I think the engine burned out).  I ended the night with Avenger's infinity war. 

The Week is Over

It was a long week back and seems like winter break a couple weeks ago already, not just last week. I am back to swing of things and working out. My 6am morning team training time was good. I treated myself to lunch out today but brought it back to work so that I could start work on the yearbook class pages. I asked all the kids to get photos of their work groups this week. I didn't finish but I got a great start and the kids love that the only pages I do is their pages. I actually work on all the pages, but as minimally as possible. After school I came home and made a fire and watched tv with Balt. Erika and her girlfriend made dinner and watched some news with me. I finished the night with a movie on HBO, 

Thursday

It was a pretty boring day. I had an editors meeting at lunch and worked on yearbook prep, as well grading and getting things ready for next week which will be the last week of the semester. After school I went to yoga and then came home and made quesadillas for Erika and me for dinner. I'm in bed early tonight.

I didn't take any photos today so I took a screenshot of my snap-chat story from this morning. While we don't have any snow on the ground, it's very cold; still not as cold as January typically has been in the past. I'm fine with the lack of frigid below zero stuff for sure!

Mid Week

I got up at 4:45am this morning and went to my team training at 6am. I worked out so hard that I felt pretty sick at the end and got my heart rate up into the orange zone for almost a minute (which is so hard for me to do). The problem with working out so hard is that I get really hungry. I ate half my lunch before lunch. I had a meeting a lunch, so ate the other half after lunch but went home eager for dinner. I had 2 hamburger patties for dinner and made brownies for a meeting tomorrow. 

It was a very calm day, kids working. At the end of the day, while we are all just waiting for the bell to ring, we have great conversations and I think it's funny that they like it when I take their picture. They like it more when I give them snacks. 

Schooled

There are only 8 days left of this semesters with finals to follow. With the new year comes the slippery slope to the end of the school year. My seniors are getting excited. We got a proof of the yearbook cover today and kids were very excited to see our ideas come to life. Kids worked a little more today. As the semester runs out of time, kids either step it up or fall off altogether. 

After school I went home and built a fire. I watched Eighth Grade on Amazon. Someone in my family rented it and I got the notification that it was available for 48 hours. I cozied up with Balt and watched it. It was actually kind of uncomfortable-- it was too realistic. I had theory at one time; who you really are forever is the you, you became in 8th grade. The cool kids stay cool forever and the dorks feel like dorks forever. As an older adult, I'm not so sure anymore. That 8th grader I was, wasn't as fat as she thought she was and she wasn't as ugly as she seemed to think she was. I see photos of myself in 8th grade and I wish I could tell that girl how absolutely beautiful she was! I would have sounded exactly like my mom at that time though. Weird. The movie ends with a special moment with the Eighth Grader's parent. I think our parents play a very difficult role during those awkward years, while pushed away and ignored, they are often the only voice of reason during a very unreasonable time of life.

Monday Monday

It was a short schedule but still a very long day. I have newspaper club on Mondays at lunch and a department meeting after school. It was a good day but tiring as well. After work I went into Anytime Fitness for a body composition analysis, so after 2 month, I've gained body fat and lost muscle mass. It was very frustrating. I know quitting won't help but it feels like 2 weeks of vacation not only undid any work I may have done, but maybe I'm not really making any progress working out at all. The coach told me to use heavier weights while working out-- ei; work harder. It's all so frustrating, but I have to keep working even without making progress. It's not supposed to be easy.

The last day of Winter Break

I didn't do much today. My plan to get in a workout did not pan out. I made it to a yoga class and helped Erika out on the grand opening of the east side yoga studio. I took a long bath and made a big fire. I still don't have any internet, so after an episode of Monk on tv, I pulled out Fellowship of the Ring and watched the extended version on bluray. I called my mom and talked with Monika for a bit. Erika came home sick which means the TDS tech will have someone home tomorrow afterall. Hopefully I'll come home from work tomorrow and have internet at last!

I worked out!

I got back into the gym this morning! I went in at 9am for a team training time and got one of the best workouts ever. After showering I went in for a haircut and then went to the grocery store for a couple of items (tea and tissues) and purchased a couple of lottery tickets (just in case). I made a lettuce and ham sandwich for lunch. I have lost 4 of the 5 pounds I gained over vacation, so I'm almost back to square one and back to my old goal of losing 10 pounds! It never ends.

This afternoon Melissa came over and of course, I forgot to get a photo of us. We caught up with life and talked about our plan to renew our national license this year! We've got until May to get it done. I'm so glad we are doing it together.

No Internet All Day

It took a while for me to notice that my internet was down but then it just kind of drove me nuts. Luckily I have my cell phone that works without WiFi and I can use it as a hotspot. Because of where I live, I'm stuck with the company TDS. I don't have options, so when it's slow or busted, there's not a lot I can do. At least I'm not paying all that much -- $77 month for service that isn't premium. On the other hand, my phone almost never has a problem with service. I use AT&T but pay about $300 a month (give or take $50 depending on extra charges like roaming, traveling packages, etc). I'm a believer in you get what you pay for and I'd probably pay a lot more for home internet if it meant better service. I've got the highest speed they offer. You'd think I lived out on a farm but I'm in some weird inbetween land. 

Anyway, my day was full of deep cleaning-- drapes and carpets, moping and vacuuming. I finished my 2018 album (using the hotspot) and watched tv (with the antenna). I made a chicken for lunch. I'm doing a high protein diet and already lost half the weight I gained over vacation. I finished the day with a hot yoga class and then a hot shower. I'm ready for bed!

Cleaning up

I did laundry and enjoyed an early morning fire with coffee and news. I went to a 10am hot yoga class that my body needed quite badly. Long drives have a way of making everything stiff and the yoga lubricates my joints like nothing else. I went grocery shopping at Costco and then came home to pack Christmas away. I burned the tree branches and tossed the stump. If I had an electric saw I could cut the stump down to fit into my fireplace. The day was full of stuff to do. After my 2 weeks away with treats and eating out, I only gained 5 pounds. While I didn't fast, I ate very little. I'd like to get those pounds off before I go back to work. As much as I love to travel, coming home it always wonderful. I can tell Balt is really happy to be home too.

In Transit Back...

I left late in the morning on New Year's Day because Jim had to work and I was eager to get home with some time to transition back. I needed to have at least the weekend to prep for back to work but a couple days more would be even better. I had originally planned to stay until Thursday but once I found out Jim had to work on New Year's, that was all the excuse I needed to get going. As much as I wanted to spend time with him, I didn't want to spend time alone in a hotel room.

I must really like driving? I take so many of these long drives here and there every year. 12 days ago I left for a 20 hour drive to Corpus Christi, which was fairly pleasant. I left yesterday for a 23 hour drive from El Paso to Madison through New Mexico and Kansas. The New Mexico was a route I'd never gone through before but Kansas? I' ve done that and it's worse than Nebraska, plus there was construction. I ended up in Greensburg for the night because I was too drowsy to make it to Wichita. Since there aren't any nice rest stops on the 54, I thought stopping a small, cheap looking motel would be okay. It was so shady that Balt had a hard time getting to sleep. He kept barking at noises and stayed up past midnight staring out the window. I passed out with all my clothes on and was glad we weren't next to anyone to complain about his barking. He finally settled down at 1am. My alarm woke us both up at 6am and I was on my way. I had McDonalds for breakfast and Taco Bell for lunch, a pack of Starburst for dinner. Tomorrow the holidays are over and I'm on a diet.

Happy New Years!

Say goodbye to 2018

Balt got me up at 6:30am. I decided to do a load of laundry here at the hotel while I waited for Jim. I spent the morning working on my annual, going through photos and creating pages on Shutterfly. Every year I spend a few days during vacation working on scrapbooks. I love it so much more now that the process is digital. All the mess of paper, tape and printing photos is long gone. 

Jim joined me for a free hotel breakfast and we enjoyed a leisure morning with news, chit chat and time on computers. We ran some errands this afternoon and made a few phone calls to family. I walked Balt and then we went to an early dinner at a highly rated restaurant right next to our hotel. 

2018 was a great year for Jim and I but I'm glad to see it over and I'm eager for 2019! Life is comfortable, but I'll be excited to see Jim back from his military duty at the end of this new year. I'm excited to see Jessi and Monika's career progress. There's lots of travel to be done and I'm excited to find where next year takes me!

 

Just Relax

The alarm went off at 3:30am to take Monika to the airport to catch a 5am flight  back to LA. I came back to my hotel room and slept until 7am. Jim came over for breakfast and the two of us spent the day just relaxing. We decided to visit the AT&T store to get him added to my plan but because of his deployment,AT&T offered us a 25% discount but we needed to be under his plan! So after being a customer with AT&T since the 90's, I closed my account and we started a new one with Jim as head. Of course that process took hours and then Erika had issues with her phone that I could not fix because I didn't have access to the new accoun, but it's all worth it to save about $75 a month. 

We went to Chili's again for dinner (our second time in El Paso, but it's a place Jim likes). We watched news programs and the Office. Jim has physical fitness test at 5am in the morning tomorrow, so he left before 9pm when the gate closes and went to bed early. No photos were take all day but here's a photo of one of the views here in El Paso!

Cold Day in El Paso

We woke to a blanket of snow. Balt let me sleep in until after 7am. My morning walk with him was very brief. Jim joined me for the hotel's free breakfast. Once Monika woke up, she joined us as well. We went exploring through El Paso but everything downtown looked closed. We ended up at a Barnes and Noble. We went to Andale's for lunch (#2 on Yelp-- the #1 place was packed.). Instead of going out to a movie we went back to the hotel, turned the heat up and watched a movie. 

I'm guessing El Paso is a much nicer place to visit when it's not freezing but I'm here for the company, not the sights!

El Paso, TX

I woke up early to do a load of laundry and walk Balt. Monika slept in. I sat on a couch in the lobby of the hotel with Balt waiting for laundry to dry and Monika to wake up and read the paper until Balt got impatient. We finally got out on the road to El Paso. Jim had duty until 12:30pm, so in the mean time Monika and I went shopping. She had a few exchanges to do and needed to find a few items for her coming job in January. We met up with Jim at a Starbucks and then went to Chili's for lunch. He showed us around Ft. Bliss and finished the night with  movie in my hotel room. We are at the Town Place Suites near the base, which is also near the airport. It was a nice afternoon but wet and cold.