What if.....

you were buying a new car; which one would you pick?

Lexus IS350

Volvo S40

Porsche Cayenne

BMW 335

How to buy a new car?

I keep going back and forth about when the right time is to buy a new car. In this recession that we are in, it seems like waiting might be better, so as not to spend money. So, do you wait until the car is no longer drivable? What about when it hits 100,000 miles? How old should it be? 5 years? 10 years? I wish there was a secret way to know, like a special formula that you plug in all the numbers and the answer would come out as keep or buy. Wouldn’t that be nice?!

Curtains

For awhile now, I have been trying to decide how to change the curtains in the family room in our house and yesterday I found the answser. While at Anthropologie I saw these great, kind of antique looking knobs. The plan is to put one knob on each of the top corners of the window and drape some fabric over them for curtains. Now, I'll I need to do is find the fabric. If all goes well, I'll post a picture when I do it, but knowing me, it will be done sometime around June or July because that's when everything gets done around here!

Weddings, Weddings, Weddings

The boy and I are going to be attending a wedding in late October in Missouri, which I am guessing means some pretty cold weather (especially for a Florida girl). I think I will probably need a dress with sleeves (which is actually pretty hard to find...it seems like sleeveless is now year round). I found this adorable dress in the JCrew catalog, however think it's not dressy enough. So, it's back to the drawing boards for me. If you find any cute dresses with sleeves, let me know!

Bathroom Break??

The school year is officially one week underway and I am feeling extremely incapable overwhelmed. I am not sure if it’s because it’s the beginning of the school year, a new set of students, my new aide, or if it’s just me. But this post isn’t supposed to be about the beginning of school blues; it’s supposed to be about my new aide. This is the first aide that I have had (I went through three last school year) that is way much older than my mother, is SUPER serious, and treats everyone, including me, like a 4 year old. Today was a perfect example of this, here was the conversation:
Aide: Do you need a bathroom break?
Me: No (thinking if I needed to go to the bathroom, I would let you know and go)
Aide: Are you sure you don’t need to go to the bathroom?
Me: Yes, I am sure (I am definitely old enough to know when I need to go to the bathroom by now)
Aide: Well then, do you think it would be okay if I went to the resource room to punch out these circles for you, I might be gone a little while?
Me: That would be fine

Apparently she doesn’t know about the iron bladder that teachers develop…it comes with the job!

First Day

There is a fairly large learning curve when it comes to going back to school again each year. They are trying to figure you out and you are trying to figure them out. Therefore, many of my students right now are testing out the waters to see what they can get away with and what my limits are. So today while my students were at centers, I went to the board and started to write table washers on it to remind me to assign that task to some of my students before lunch, when one of my students came walking up to me and the conversation went something like this: “Are you writing someone’s name on the board?” “No” “Oh, well I don’t know you very well yet and so I wasn’t sure what you look like when you get mean.” I wanted to look at her and say “When I get mad, you will know it, you won’t have to ask!” but instead I just smiled and said that I wasn’t upset. She’ll probably figure it out sooner rather than later, especially since they seem to have forgotten how to raise their hands. I am starting to wish I had my old class back, I already had them trained!

Appropriate?

I bought this dress at Ann Taylor Loft to wear to the upcoming Open House at school this week and am now second guessing myself. It's super cute and fits perfectly, I am just wondering if it's appropriate (it's not that short on me, it comes down to my knees). The bad thing is that if I don't wear it, then I am not sure what else I could wear, and it's going to create a domino effect, which means that I probably should wear it. What a mess!

Not Funny?

After going to China, about 90% of the jokes that come out of our mouths pertain in some way to something that happened in China (don’t worry, it will start slowing down the longer we are away, then start back up right before we leave again), which makes it really hard to be around other people because most of the time when we make a China joke and we start cracking up and the other people around us are looking at us like we are a little weird. It’s even funnier when I go to make a China joke and the boy isn’t around to laugh and I end up laughing all by myself. So, in order to alleviate those interestingly awkward moments I have come up with two solutions a) all of my friends are going to have to go to China with us next year or b) all of our friends are going to have to avoid us for at least a month or two after we get back.

Cousins???

There is always a lot of pressure to buy my nieces a good birthday present that they are really going to like (because there’s lots of competition for their affection). So, logically I asked her what she really wanted to get and got the same answer that I usually get when I ask her a question “I don’t know” with a little shrug. That was when the whole conversation went downhill, because her dad whispers into her ear “tell her you want a cousin”. Not only did everyone bust out laughing, but all the girls turned bright red since they now know where cousins come from, which made the whole thing even more embarrassing. Therefore, if I ever do get pregnant I won’t even be able to look at them when I tell them. It will be mortifying! Adopting is definitely looking pretty good right now!

A New Favorite

Being a Florida girl you rarely find me in anything but flip flops, flip flops, and more flip flops. In fact, besides running shoes and crocs, I only own one pair of shoes that are close toed. And since a girl can never have too many shoes (they always fit, even if you are having a fat day) I am always looking for a new pair. So, last night when I saw these shoes I just had to have them. They are nice enough to wear to work, versatile, really comfortable (which is a necessity when you are a teacher and are on your feet all day) and to top it off, they were on sale! What’s not to love?!

Beautiful

After last summer I knew that I had a love for China, I love everything about it, the bad smells, the people, the crazy traffic, the interesting (and sometimes awful) cuisine, and the list goes on. I thought it would be great to live there (by the way, the president of the university offered the boy a job…wouldn’t that be crazy?) and now, after going to an orphanage in Mengzi I think it would be wonderful to adopt a baby from China (preferably while living there). The minute she was in my arms something inside me wanted to just take her home and love her, because I knew in my heart that there was the possibility that no one ever would do that. She was just beautiful and to top it off the whole time I held her she held onto my thumb (you can see it at the bottom of the picture). It was incredible.

Now all I need to do is convince the boy!

Snapping out of it...

My week in a nutshell: drink lots of coffee to stay awake during the daytime here (night in China), go to school and work, talk about China to anyone who will listen (including myself), go to Target and get things for school, and walk around in a foggy haze. With all that being said, I would go back in a heart beat. Teacher training week starts on Monday, so hopefully I am a little more adjusted by then.

Absolutely Amazing

One of the coolest things I did in China (besides walk a mile of the Great Wall) is get my nails painted; although they don’t do the full out pedicure (they only paint) the end result is amazing. Each nail is hand painted with exact precision, if not, they start the nail over and forty-five minutes later, you have a work of art. It’s going to be a rough day here in the Jones household when I have to take the polish off my toes, so hopefully it won’t be any time soon.

Flat Tire

It is daytime right now in China, therefore, I am not tired at all, and wide wake at 3:00 in the morning. So, I have decided to share my first funny China story with you. I will be sharing them as they come to me since writing them all down at once would make for an enormously long and probably extremely boring entry.

In China there are no real rules for driving/traffic. There are lines, but no one stays in them, there are lights but people often run them, there are speed limits, but most go much slower because of the insanity of the traffic there as well as the number of potholes and other road hazards including people, cows, dogs, and the list goes on.

About a week and a half into our trip we take a supposedly four hour (it really took about five and a half) road trip down to Mengzi (pronounced Mungza) with eight of us stuffed into this SUV that no American rental company would ever be allowed to rent out. Everything started out great as we embarked into the great unknown of the Chinese highways, until....we got a flat tire, then figured out that the jack was broken. Unable to understand Chinese and no triple A and no gas stations in sight, we frantically tried to wave down cars. Finally two different Chinese men stop one on a scooter (which wouldn’t have a jack) and the other in a three wheeled car thing (it’s hard to describe, they are odd looking, and are smaller than a Smart Car) with no jack. So what happened? The man in the three wheeled car went and got 4 friends, jammed them into his little automobile along with 5 big bricks (I am surprised the thing moved with all them in it), the men picked up the SUV put the bricks under it, helped change the tire, picked up the car again removed the bricks and were on their way.

It was one of those things that would only happen in China.