Clearly there are many things beyond my control. If you know me, I’ve clearly spent most of the past decade trying to control the few things that I can control. Whittling down the stream of consciousness to a mere three focuses – work, school, and exercise. That was a few years ago and these days – they are still a focus but not nearly as all-consuming as they once were. More and more I’m having to catch up and read and learn and generally increase the rate of information cramming – and I’m not even talking about the subjects they teach at school. I don’t know how I feel about things. We’ve said it before – but this blog has helped to remind us of everyday and stopped the constant rush of life passing by without us noticing. So I remember more. I remember part of what I was thinking or doing last week, two weeks or three months ago.

And I know I take many photos, and Leah’s always telling me to put the camera away, and I don’t – but there’s so much life that we capture while we’re living it and it’s just… I know that at some point I’ll probably fall out of the habit of keeping up with the photos and the blogging so religiously – and I’ll wish that I hadn’t ever stopped. So while we’re on a roll, while I’m on a roll, there’s no stopping. I’m still dealing with trying to keep the separation between showing our lives, protecting privacy/things that could come back to haunt later – while sharing something more meaningful than a steady list of ‘I did this, and then I did this, oh, and then that…”

And while I’m rambling and trying to spit something out – I suppose the summary is always simple. My summary to all of those printed thoughts up there is that I feel more aware, alive, and hungry for everything. To learn, to make stuff, to keep going with direction and purpose and knowing that it’s a real fight, a slight struggle to not get overwhelmed by work, by other people, by the insides of my head – life in general. And whereas I once spent my days distracting myself waiting for the weekend, waiting for the next job, waiting for something else to come along and change things… nevermind.

What did I do during all of those years that I can’t remember?

It’s okay. I’ve got other things to do.

Even though this is only a four day work week – it’s still Monday – so we’ll begin with something that makes us happy – Baklava! Honestly, I hadn’t ever eaten ANY baklava until… about 3 years ago when Leah’s grandparents? sent her some in the mail (well, you know, ordered it and had it delivered so it was still relatively fresh – and absolutely awesome.) Baklava has got to be in my top 10 ummm… dessert/pastry/type things ever. Seriously. Unfortunately, I could eat it for days. If by some unfortunate circumstance you’ve lived without ever having eaten any baklava – go and get some right now. Like RIGHT NOW.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we made our way to Ikea this past weekend. We bought a new sofa and a new bed/mattress. In the picture below, Leah’s pushing the Sofa and I’m pushing the bed frame parts. It was a good thing I had so much practice pushing our other sofa/bed combo to the curb the other day because I had to pull this down from the shelving and onto the cart since there were no Ikea reps around in sight. (On a completely side-note, I wasn’t sore or hurting at all after any of the furniture moving and hauling – and I normally would be all screwed up someplace, probably my back and shoulders area – except I’ve been doing workouts that mostly consist of running a lot, and using heavy kettlebells that they have my gym now. Ummmmmmm. Offtrack.)

These are Leah’s vegetarian Chiknuggets – which we ate at around 2am on Saturday night because she couldn’t sleep and was watching the 2nd season of Dexter (you have GOT to see this show) and I was attempting to work on some homework. Which brings me to another subject – how we don’t really have much actual FOOD inside of our fridge. It’s that weird situation where our fridge is FULL of stuff… but nothing to eat. We do have a large collection of condiments and parts – oh yeah, and of course Eggs… but not much real food.

Sunday morning? Belly of course! But I’ll spare you the latest pictures of the latest Nutella & Banana Panino sandwich. We also bought two Sunday papers for packing paper (and then realized that I could’ve just grabbed 4 or 5 of those ‘free’ papers like Creative Loafing or… Sunday Paper.

Looking back – it was a really, really long weekend – partly because we had the moving/packing/boxing job looming over us the whole time. We did get a whole lot done – about 3/4ths of the stuff and we even did yard work. Part of the problem is that I feel the need to box EVERYTHING. I mean almost EVERYTHING – and anything that’s not in a box… well, then it’s in a bag that we’re taking over and not having the movers bring over.

I just have this whole thing about having movers move anything that’s not big enough to be considered furniture, and stuff that’s not in a proper box that’s been taped closed. So that means I want to pack EVERYTHING in a proper box that can be taped shut and stacked. Other wise I feel it’s like… handing them a rolling cart full of loose items. I don’t know. Plus, we’re also trying to cut down on the time that the movers have to be there so the more ‘packed’ we are, the less ‘packing’ that actually has to go on when they get there – saving us money.

We ate a spot called ‘Tin Drum’ over in Sandy Springs this weekend and it was a good choice – not anything adventurous, but after our relatively terrible lunch at Saigon Cafe in Decatur… yeah, Tin Drum was awesome in comparison.

Penang chicken up above. Seriously. Lately I’ve been on this big um, ‘penang’ kick. It’s such a good flavor!… and I’m sure the coconut milk has relatively few calories right? I mean, like none. And fat? zero. Definitely. Well. Um. I guess I’ll take comfort in that it’s not ‘breaded and fried’ chicken right?

So. Work today. Homework. Yeah. Like every class, this latest one is really a bit of a struggle only because of the timing – but about half the time it’s really inconvenient anyways. I can’t not do the paper this week because it’s worth double the number of points of last week’s paper (which I did not due after the cost/benefit analysis of time vs. paper) so… this week’s paper, a MUST do. Hopefully I can knock it out relatively easy. Sometimes… it’s a real battle. Tonight? It’s the battle of me against the clothes.

At work, we’re gearing up for a kids’ talent show this summer to raise awareness and support for the agency and the children we serve. So, we’re busy e-mailing all the metro Atlanta schools to let them know about it so they can get the word out to the students and parents before school lets out for the year. Today I tackled Gwinnett County, and I stumbled across the website for my elementary school, Brookwood. And looking over the list of faculty, it was just so amazing to see SO many of the same teachers I grew up with still teaching at Brookwood. My third grade teacher is now the Assistant Principal, and the teacher that we would partner up with to watch Reading Rainbow and go on field trips with is now the Principal. A lot of the parapros (teacher’s aides) are now teachers, too.

I fired off an email to the principal and assistant principal… I’m sure they’ll remember me, especially considering that my mom taught at Brookwood for…hmm, at least 15 or 20 years. The teachers there are some of her best friends…they’ve known my mom almost as long as I have, and they are just such nice people. Truly wonderful, really the epitome of what an elementary school teacher should be. The enthusiasm, the gentleness, the ability to make learning fun. Looking back, I feel so lucky to have had such a great start to the world of education…I felt supported, allowed to explore, and most of all, I felt cared about. And not just cuz my mommy was a teacher…the other teachers genuinely cared about their students. We were their kids, too. They spent 5 days a week with us, and even more than the classroom lessons, I remember learning about how to be a good person.

I lucked out and had some awesome teachers that took the time to go over the intricacies of human dynamics. We learned how to work together, how to overlook our friends’ faults, how to respect everyone’s differences. These lessons were an active part of the daily classroom experience. We were encouraged to help each other, to “play nice”…when issues came up with kids being teased or feeling left out, they were addressed and made right.

I just hope my own kids get an experience as great as I did at school. There are SO many horror stories about apathetic or unethical teachers, extreme bullying, etc. these days. But…looking at the list of teachers at Brookwood and seeing so many of the teachers I came to know and love still spreading their special magic through the classrooms… I have some hope that there are still some great schools out there.