Unemployment

In October I quit my job of three years to complete an internship and finish my master's program. I loved this job and since everything was so hectic when I left (already in the middle of the student teaching internship) I wasn't able to wrap things up with all of the people I had been working with. People I worked with in different states probably think I just dropped off the face of the earth -- well, I'm sure they know now since there is someone else in my old position! Anyway, the whole thing was a whirlwind. So, imagine the relief on December 8th when I finished everything! What in the world would I do with myself?

Week 1-2

Pre-Christmas festivities and fun. Plenty of time to decorate, cook, and celebrate! These first few weeks Tyler was in awe of me. I think he actually said, "Wow, those purple lines under your eyes are gone!" And it was true! I had been running too hard since May and this down time was much needed.

Week 3!

Snowy Christmas and travel to the O'Connors annual gathering of the extended family where many competitions and activities are carried out. For example, my father-in-law chooses a book for his children, nieces, and nephews to read each year by the next Christmas. When we gather, we have a test on the book! It may sound like a downer, but everyone loves it. Tyler wins the most. This year's test was on Lassie Come Home which is about the original Lassie in Scotland -- and there is no Timmy! European Lassie. We have also read The Jungle Book, To Kill a Mockingbird (I won that year), All Quiet on the Western Front, and next year we are reading Goodbye, Mr. Chips. I hear it is wonderfully sad.

Week 4 +-- After the holidays, I realized how much time I had. I applied to substitute at schools around town and have been tutoring some neighborhood kids.

We went to Vegas and to Phoenix for the National Championship game. I believe this trip further indoctrinated me into the O'Connor family. My first true roadtrip with them. Driving from Vegas to Phoenix is a 5-hour drive for the non-adventure lover. That is why our bright blue mini van took the 8-hour option down Historic Route 66... where we took a lot of pictures:

I am on top of an Arizona boulder!

It was worth every minute: World Champs!

(accd to Tyler)

Pros of Unemployment:

1. Spontaneous travel

2. Reminding myself how to cook

3. The world is my oyster!

4. Re-organization of my life

5. Time to reflect on the whirlwind that was 2010 -- so I don't forget it!

6. I met my mailwoman and my garbage men!

7. I am here when people need to come by the house for various reasons.

Cons of Unemployment:

1. No tengo dinero!

That is the only one, but it is a biggie!

Actually, #2. is missing the day to day interaction with co-workers/students/etc.

So, 2 cons.

I am enjoying this time, but will have a refreshed mindset towards work when I am back in the "employed" category on the nightly news statistics.

____________________________

"Better watch out for those man-eating jackrabbits and that killer cacti..."

A Quick Visit

Tyler took me to New York with him earlier this week. While he had a conference to attend, I had time to revisit some of my favorite places. I don't have any pictures from the trip, so I am inserting old NYC pics.

We arrived late Tuesday afternoon and headed straight to The Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien hotel. A perfect late afternoon snack!

with Cecil, Tricia, and Christine at The Burger Joint -- May 2005

On Tuesday night, Tyler and I went to see Memphis, the 2010 Tony-awarding winning show for Best Musical. The singing by the lead female, Felicia, was amazing. The man playing Felicia's brother was a graduate of Alabama State! I said hello to him after the show. It always blows my mind how the stars of these shows simply change into everyday clothes and walk out the stage door into the crowded streets where they blend right in! I think that must be the life. You are a huge star, but really not many people recognize you. Stardom + the freedom to go to the grocery in peace = a win-win!

I spent Wednesday morning visiting a friend and her new baby boy in Brooklyn: a new experience for me. Her neighborhood rocked and I know she must love it there.

Driving Miss Daisy is a play running on Broadway ("a strictly limited engagement"). On Wednesday morning, I may or may not have been watching Kathie Lee and Hoda while they interviewed James Earl Jones, who stars in the show with Vanessa Redgrave. That afternoon I stood in the TKTS line and landed 3 tickets to see it that night! Tricia joined us and we LOVED it. I usually don't see the plays on Broadway, and I never see shows with big name actors in them -- just because tickets are so hard to come by. This was in the top three shows I have seen. There were only 3 cast members (Daisy, Hoke, and Bully) and it ran an hour and a half with no intermission. It was wonderful.

If you are going to NY before April 9th - or you live there!- go see it! I waited 30 min. in the Times Square TKTS line anxiously wondering if I would be able to get tickets until I realized everyone around me was buying tickets to Phantom and Mamma Mia! Perfect.

So, anyway -- highly recommend. Late supper at Joe Allen's and then our trip was almost over.

I managed to get a bit of shopping in on Thursday morning: new gloves from Saks, a white shirt for spring, and a mug from the Met gift shop to replace the one I lost years ago!

A quick trip -- but always worth it. Arrived home to an ice storm that I was not expecting and am convinced that icy weather is following me!

Tyler's visit to NYC, December 2004

While I was away...

These cute couples tied the knot:
I don't know how I don't have a picture of Thomas and Kelly at their wedding.

Both weddings were very special to us! We have since had our first holiday season with two new sisters-in-law which was great. I have been the only girl for so long, it is awesome to have someone who appreciates your Christmas presents aside from the person giving them to you! I really could have used Kelly last year when I received a vacuum cleaner (the best vacuum ever) and Tyler's brothers thought I was crazy to be so happy about it. At my parents house, the boys always laugh because if one opens something you can predict the other will have the same thing or a variation of it shortly. This year, I looked at John when Laura and I opened a few similar items... it's nice to have someone to be excited with. So, thanks to Laura and Kelly for making Christmas even more special!

Also, while I was away... I finally finished the Master's program in Secondary Education. It took quite a while, so I am glad to have that behind me. To complete the degree, I had to survive 15 weeks with 110 6th graders - a challenging, but rewarding, adventure!

Here is a very abbreviated year-in-review. Our camera's screen gave out on us around May and is currently being repaired, so photos are few and far between for 2010:

January Trip to Savannah-

February snow before the green house was painted-

March -- Hank, who doesn't make the blog much.

April engagement festivities

5 year anniversary in May

June - Kelly & Thomas's wedding

August - Laura & John's wedding

September - October football-

November - Hey, I went hunting!

December - SEC Championship game

2010: A good year!

2010

Hello from Tyler's office!

Hey, first blog post of 2010.

Since the last post, we have one brother married and another waiting in the wings (13 days).
I sat down to relax yesterday and realized we have been going so fast that our dog is huge, we have only double stuf oreos in our kitchen and the heat is drying up my plants... oh, and the laundry.

Instead of working on all of that, we have been running errands: dog food (still only oreos for us) and 3 new books - Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil, Loving Frank... and one by Lisa See - can't remember title.

August is just around the corner and I will be finishing up my master's degree this fall. The 5th YEAR program that took me 5 years to complete...

Maybe the new schedule will lend itself to blogging more frequently.

We'll see!

Love is in the Air!

Here is a post I started before Christmas, but never had the pictures!

Christmas came early this year with two engagements! My brother and brother-in-law are both getting married this coming summer to two wonderful girls. Merry Christmas to me!

John & Laura:

I still don't have a picture of Thomas & Kelly, but they are also precious! When I figure out how to work the new camera I will be able to add much more current pictures.

Last week I went to New York with Tyler to see friends and check out the old neighborhood.

We saw Jersey Boys, which we have been trying to see since 2006, and loved it!

Here are some happy thoughts to fight today's bitter cold:

1. LOST Returned! Hurrah. For any fans of this show, I highly recommend the commentary on www.ew.com to help unravel the mysteries.

2. I stumbled across some old tapes from jr. high/high school and then had the awesome realization that... I have a tape player in my car! Mariah Carey's Musicbox and I have recently become reacquainted. Amazing.

3. The Olympics! Ha. Is anyone excited about the Vancouver games? NBC is really forcing it on the Today Show right now. Maybe once they get started... I do usually like the figure skating.

4. All of this cold may lead to snow on Friday -- so that would be nice. If it's going to be this cold, I like to have something exciting happen weather-wise to justify it.

Happy early Valentine's Day!

Good Things

Here is a list of good things that have happened since the last post, May 8th -- oops!
(in no particular order)

1. The Return of the Web.
Our internet connection is back up at home which means more frequent posts to follow.

2. HANK.
In October we welcomed a precious German shorthaired pointer into our home! Today Hank is about 10 weeks old and a little more than 15 lbs. He is crazy and we love him. Even though he sleeps at my feet as I type, just an hour ago I thought he would never settle down.

3. Nan.
My grandmother moved to Birmingham in August. Having her around more often is the best. We are fortunate to have both of our grandmothers here now. Very happy about that!

4. Castle.
Woo! I love this show with Nathan Fillion (the dr. from the movie Waitress with Keri Russell). In the show he is a murder mystery writer who bases a character around a female who he has to hang around constantly to "research." It is highly entertaining to me. They drop a lot of one line quips and multiple literary, grammatical, and writing jokes. Silly.

5. Christmas music.
It is delightful to get in the car and hear "songs of the season." If you have XM or sirius radio you can listen to the Holly or Holiday Traditions channel... plus, Magic 96 on the regular radio. Perfect!

I am sleepy so this is the last thing for now:
6. Cooler weather brings fires to our den and hot chocolate after work! Coming home and fixing a warm mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream on the top makes a perfect segway from the workday into the nighttime.

There are many more good things that have happened and this exercise was perfect for this pre-Thanksgiving week. We have had a lot of not so great things from Auburn football to illness, but how encouraging it is to think that I could make this list go on and on of all the blessings, big & small, that we have had since May.

Good night!

Surprise!

I posted!

Ha!

True story: I cut off my internet at home... very sad day. So, as much as I didn't update this blog before, now I will probably be even worse! However, I do love this little web world for keeping up with everyone else and for a quick outlet to share pictures/info. with my out-of-town family! So I am keeping the blog, but don't harass me for not posting because I can't post at home now and I should not post while I am at work - yikes.

Since the last blog... I had a birthday (27!) - loads of fun surrounded by much celebration, by me.
Tyler went out of town on several fun trips and I worked on finishing up my last grad school class! I have many book recommendations if anyone is interested in reading "Young Adult" Literature. I loved my class, but really wanted to do well, so I had to work hard and that was not so much fun.

Spent one weekend writing 14 pages and taking a standardized test. YUCK.

Afterwards, I let Tyler proofread the paper while I took a breather outside. Suddenly, a flush from the bushes behind me released a throng of little birds flying for their lives and followed by the shadow of a huge hawk. Two poor birds crashed right into our den windows - BAM! BAM!
It was terrible!

THEN, the hawk came back to take his prey. Very sad, but at least nature ran it's course and I did not have to pick up the dead little birdies. Discovery channel in my own backyard.

That hawk was intense and I recommend that you take cover if you ever see one because he will hunt you down and find you with his beady supersonic sight eyeballs.



The week after that the O'Connors came back in town! We had a fun and busy weekend running around and catching up. They left, I took my final - got my paper back (yeah!) and finished class!

Here are some pop culture shout outs for any of you readers of this not-so-frequently updated blog:

1. Did you cry over Allison being kicked off of American Idol this week? Surprisingly, yes, I did. I don't know what it was - that final performance just got to me... Cr-ri-iiii -y Baaaaaaaaby.
That is me, I guess.

2. LOST fans... How is Sawyer going to get off of that sub?! Serious tension going on in there... Here are some guesses - not even theories: a) White time travel shriek occurs and pops the 3 of them 5 min. into the future where Jack and Sayiid await, b) Squabble in the sub - Kate busts Sawyer out of hand cuffs - Leaves Juliet to return to US circa 1977 (yikes), or c) Sub starts to leave, but gets called back because "LaFleur" is the only one who can fix something with the security system ... and so they are all there and that is why Alpert claims to have seen them all die. Probably none of these are right.

3. Twilight people: Have you seen the new journals they are coming out with? Seriously. I enjoyed the adventure into vampire world in these books, but I think it's overkill now. What girl needs to be doodling in her vampire journal? I don't know. Too much for me. Each one represents a different book of the series and boasts "famous" quotes from the particular installment. Cheese central.

4. I know I had some other thoughts, but I am not able to recall them at the present time.

5. Oh! I remembered one: I took a gamble on a Snuggie purchase as a thank you gift and it seems to be a hit! I recommend and I think Marg. and A would agree! Random, yes. But I do think that we will all look back at 2009 one day and call it the "Year of the Snuggie (invasion)"


Back to work! Until we meet again...