End of year 3!

Today was the last day of school in my 3rd year of being a school counselor!! Wow, I both can't believe it's already been three years and then again it REALLY FEELS like three years. I've been in my career for as long as I was in graduate school now!

Per tradition, I colored my hair PINK! Love my summer hair-do!

You can't really tell in the photo, but my shirt says, "Dear parents, Tag... you're it!!! Love, teachers."

On my way to school, I saw my dad driving the crew truck back to the airport. Hey, Dad!

He was sweet enough to stop by the school and bring hot chocolate and chai tea (hot chocolate for the secretaries and my favorite chai tea for me!) and a cake to the school! So sweet! 

 I had to run away really quick to help hand out attendance awards at the talent show (the parts I got to see were fabulous!).

The day went by quickly. This was the first year I came close to crying when I said goodbye to some of my kiddos, especially one of my 5th graders. Hoo boy...

Ended the day with the traditional water fight (okay... the teachers spray the kids with water guns as they leave... it's not really a "fight" since it's pretty much one sided). I decided last night around 7pm that I did, in fact, need a new water gun so I headed to Target and got a pack of 3 to share. They were fabulous! My favorite part is when the parents drive their car around, roll the back windows down, and honk their horn to get us to spray the kids in the backseat. The kids laugh and scream while they try to get the windows to roll back up (of course the parents have it locked from the driver seat)!

Worked on cleaning out cabinets after kiddos left and then went out to hang with some coworkers. Got home around 6:30 and I immediately knew that my lovely padre had stopped by earlier in the day: my guard goose was on the wrong side of the door.

Oh no...

Came in and, yes, my padre had come over. He took all of the stuffed animals that I have hidden in my office (to prevent Missy from STEALING them) and laid them all out on my stairs.

Dad... no.

What a fabulous way to end my third year! I really feel like this year I have really come into my own as a school counselor. My first year was ROUGH, second year was tough, and while there were definitely hard days (I got bit by my first kid! Milestone!), I feel like I've started to really proactively DO my job rather than always just reacting. Go me! *high five*

Here's to many more!

Well, at least I have muddy buddies, now...

Today I had an unintentional cooking adventure. I did not set out to have an adventure, but adventure found me.

Muddy buddies. I assumed this was going to an easy thing to make. I finally mastered melting chocolate around Thanksgiving last year (it had eluded me for a long time) and that is the hardest part of making muddy buddies.

I think it went wrong when I tried to use a... "creative" double boiler.

I thought I had a double boiler, but it turned out a don't. What I DO have is a steamer and a microwaveable bowl. At first I was going to just balance the bowl in my smaller pot, but the bowl was too small (it fell in) so I had the bright idea to put the bowl IN THE STEAMER. Boom! Perfect!

And it worked great! Melted that butter, chocolate, and peanut butter into a melty deliciousness.

I realized I had a problem when it came time to pour the chocolate onto the chex.

How do I get the bowl out of the steamer?

I couldn't just grab it (it was just boiling for, like ten minutes). So I decided to wrap my hands in a towel and pull it out.

That is when things went horribly, horribly wrong.

As I was fanangling the bowl out of the steamer, I flipped the bowl sideways, spilling chocolate into the steamer which is a bit like a strainer.

As you know, strainers are well known for their ability to NOT contain liquid. This is also true for melted chocolate. I hurriedly carried the dripping strainer over to the chex and threw it in (some of the chex might be a little more crushed than one might hope) before grabbing the bowl and doing the same.

Here are some pictures of the resulting mess:

Not pictured are my sleeves, the pot holder that was in between me and the chex, my pants, my apron, and (somehow?) my hair. You also can't really tell, but there's a nice mess on the floor, as well.

But now I have muddy buddies for our road trip tomorrow!

That doesn't look to appetizing, let's look inside the bag.

That looks more tasty.

The Great Dryer Fixing Adventure

I have a confession to make:

I HATE doing laundry.

Nearly every part of it. Sorting (cuz I totally do that and don't just wash everything on cold... that would be dumb), remembering to move it to the dryer, putting it away (as opposed to simply pulling out choice items (socks, underwear) from the dryer or laundry basket)... I hate it.

I was disgusted last year when I bought my washer and dryer and spent so much money to do my least favorite chore. However, one of the teachers at school pointed out that I just spent that money in order to do that chore at home (in my pajamas was implied).

A few weeks ago I noticed my towels weren't dry when I went to take them out of the dryer. Rude! So I ran it again and they came out dry, but they were all linty. The heck? I mentioned it to my dad and he said that I probably had a lint ball in the right angle where the dryer vent goes into the wall. He used the right technical words, but what I heard was, "Blah blah blah, you have a big ball of lint in your wall." Cool, cool. That's just AWESOME.

He then tells me that I need to pull out my dryer, remove the dryer vent hose and stick my vacuum in the wall to get the lint out. Well, I am SO not motivated to do this. At this point I was pretty stocked up on clean clothes and towels so I was just like, "Meh, I'll do it when I do it."

Then my capris got too dirty to wear. So I'll wear sweat pants, no biggie! If I have to go someplace, I'll put on a skirt.

Ran out of socks. Whatever. It's summer time. Flip flops all the way!!

No more towels. I can use a beach towel for the shower and a kitchen towel as a hand towel...

Ok, underwear is where I draw the line.

Which brings us to today. Of course, at this point, my parents are in Arizona (where it is COOLER than in Portland... rude) so there's no begging my dad to come out and help me. Psh, whatever. I'm a grown woman who don't need no man/dad to fix things in my house!

I decided to take a break from working in my mom's craft house (the organization of which is my part time summer job this summer in lieu of actual employment). The plan was to spend a lazy morning snuggling with Missy and watching TV, eat lunch, and then fix the dryer, start some laundry, and do my weekly vacuuming of ALL THE CAT HAIR.

But The Dryer had other plans.

The first problem I encountered was easily fixed. I couldn't pull the dryer out because the door to the laundry closet was in the way. Ok. Easy fix. Take the door off the track and we're in. Unhook the silver thing, vacuum it all. Notice the floor is dirty, vacuum that, too (so domestic and clean... go me).

Then the real fun started.

I discovered that the farthest I could pull the dryer out in and still have the dryer vent hose connected to the dryer AND the wall, left little room for me to scoot behind the dryer. Like, none.

No way my booty can fit through that

Ok. So, I need to climb over the washer. Gonna need some help with this. I get my stool, set it on top of the dryer for easy access, pull the dryer back, hook all the stuff up, maneuver said stool behind the dryer, and climb out.

Now... how to reach the stool...

Maybe if I got a stick...

Well that didn't work. Not that I really thought it would, but it was worth a shot. Laying over the top of my washer (now putting foot prints on the wall next to it) and bracing my other hand on top of the back of the dryer, I managed to lean down and grab the stool. Unfortunately, in the process of trying to awkwardly maneuver the stool over the power cord, I managed to knock the silver tube out of the wall.

I might have said a few choice words at this point that would not have been work appropriate.

Got a second, smaller stool (which is kind of old... made by my grandpa when they were first married). Climbed back over the washer, fixed up the vent hose, climbed out, "gracefully" fished out the smaller stool. Tada!! I did it!

"Hallelujah" chorus plays in the distance...

Texted my dad annoyed pictures of the process and came back to push the dryer back in. MISSY YOU AREN'T HELPING.

I then examined my vacuum and saw that there wasn't very much lint in there after all that vacuuming which left me still concerned about there being lint in my wall. So I texted my dad and he suggested running the dryer and going out to see if the flaps of the dryer vent were opening outside. I throw a few clean clothes in the dryer and press the on button....

Nothing.

Check the door, check the settings. 

Click, click.

NOTHING.

I climb on top of the dryer (once again getting out my stool) and look behind it.

HOW?! HOW DID IT COME UNPLUGGED WHEN I PUSHED IT BACK IN!!??!?

Get the stools out again, crawl over the washer, plug it in (knock the stupid vent thing off again and have to maneuver that back into place), crawl out, push it in, and yay! It turns on!

Unfortunately, the vent wasn't opening. Rude.

After setting up the ladder and carrying up the vacuum, I find the reason it won't open: the paint. THE PAINT ON THE VENT IS STICKING TO ITSELF AND KEEPING ITSELF CLOSED. Oh my gosh. 

I unstick it and vacuum out the bits of lint that had built up and now the dryer vent works. Yay. I can do my least favorite chore again. I'm so happy.

 After all that, I have to admit I am not very motivated to vacuum. And since Mandy and I are going out tomorrow rather than her coming over, I'm even less motivated to vacuum right now. So I think I will whine dramatically about this on my blog, re-watch a Romeo and Juliet musical on Youtube, and draw.

DAMMIT MISSY YOU STILL AREN'T HELPING!!!
 

Update from Missy

So, apparently Jen doesn't take care of her blogging duties anymore (talk about lazy) so I'm going to take this chance to give you an update of my new house.

Jen moved in around October (though you wouldn't know it because her last house update was in August after she had ripped out the floor downstairs) but I didn't move in until November.

Rude.

THEN she took me BACK to the old house for a week while she went on vacation for Thanksgiving and she didn't even give me any leftovers.

DOUBLE RUDE.

Whatever.

Here's a bunch of pictures to tour the house.

First up, we got the view from the front door. I'm not allowed outside. Jen talks about a "harness" and "when it's not raining."

When you walk in, you see the staircase to your left. Nice new, soft carpet. Not worth ripping up, though.

Here's the view from the top of the stairs. Below you can see my Waiting Window where I sit and wait for Jen to get her butt home from wherever it is she goes all day so she can get back to giving me scratches and food.

 Ooof... I'm old... nearly 17 years old. Stairs are tough. Give me a minute.

To the right of the stairs you got the Noise Closet where Jen washes her clothes and the Best Room with the Best Bed.

This is the Best Bed. Jen usually kicks me out of this room.

I'm not a model. The camera just went off.

There's a bathroom in the Big Room, too.

Outside the Big Room is another bathroom.

This curtain doesn't keep me out of the tub.

 But I don't care enough to try right now.

 Down the hall from the bathroom (you can kind of see the door on the right edge of the picture) are two extra bedrooms for me.

 The room on the left is my room with my bed. Jen calls it a "Guest Room."

 Fun fact: I've learned how to open the closet doors!

To the right is also my room, but sometimes I'll let Jen sit in the chair and use the computer.

Another closet for me to open!

Here's the view from my second room. In the back are the stairs.

That's done. Downstairs again...

 Here's the view from the front door down the long a** hallway.

Pictures on the wall.

Down the hall on the left is a Tiny Door with shoes and other random stuff and a Big Door with a bathroom.

Jen sticks my litter box in the garage (storage and cat area). She used to just leave the door open but now I have my own small door. It's too annoying to open myself, so she rigged it so it stays open by itself. Nice. She closes it at night and makes me sleep in the garage, though. 

Moving down the hall you have the living room on the right...

... and the kitchen on the left. I'm too old to jump on the counters, which Jen likes. You can also kind of see the door to the balcony. I found out last week that I actually CAN fit through the bars on the balcony! And Jen thought I would be too fat... so much for letting me out there unsupervised in the summer!

There's a little bed in the corner. Jen pretends this is my bed. Cute.

Another view of the kitchen. Sometimes there are surprise snacks on the floor.

And this is the couch where I spend most of the day. Time not spent snuggling and getting scratches is time wasted.

So, yep. That's my new house. It's pretty nice. I like it. I get lots time to snuggle with Jen.


*Originally this was just going to be pics of the new place, Missy kept getting in ALL OF THE PICTURES. Then I remembered how one of the librarians at school use to write her new years family letter from the point of view of her cat so I thought I'd try it out. Missy is laying across my arms as I type this so I think it's appropriate.