Alone Time

Everyone who knows me knows that I don't do alone very well.  Maybe I will bury my head in the couch for a little while, but I usually want company while I do it.
For that reason, I have loved the last couple of weeks.  I get up and go to work every morning, start the coffee, put paper in the copier, and stand at the door to greet everyone as they walk in.  I'm surrounded by wonderful teachers all day and children who adore me (well, a few do, anyway.  None of them hate me yet, at least),  I get to make their copies and stand watching the rain with them.  And then I meet Leslie at the front door as school is getting out to have our mini party planet meeting, I put my group of kids on the bus, and drive home to Cricket and Jesse, and dinner and ice cream and Harry Potter, and it is fantastic.  Jesse says I'm a workaholic, but really I just love all my people and I want to spend time with them and do everything I can for them.
Also, James finally managed to make it up to see us!  He brought some MREs and his fake jeep (which just means its a funky color and isn't lifted or anything cool or whatever), and said he's just here for the free food.  I will say this: it is so nice to have someone really appreciate my cooking.  I love Jesse, and I know he loves and appreciates me and the fact that I cook for him, but no one will ever love my bread the way James does.  I baked a loaf today.  It came out of the crockpot around three, and was gone by 5:30; it only lasted that long because I told the boys they had to save some to have with dinner.  But I also promised french toast in the morning, so here I am, at 9:42 pm, with bread dough rising.  Still rising, I should say.  I say that because it has already risen for an hour before I realized that there was no yeast in it.  Niiiiice.  That's what I get for being distracted, talking to my mother's answering machine, while mixing it up.
And here I am.  This is the point of what I was saying!  All that about me not doing alone and all that jazz...here I am, in my apartment, at nearly 10 on a Saturday night, totally alone, and quite enjoying it!  It's crazy.  I left the boys at Charlie's to shoot pigs, dropped Cricket off at work at Party Planet, and came home to wait for her to get off.  I turned on some Netflix, started my (unleavened) bread, vacuumed, and did some yoga in my underwear.  Do you know how long it's been since I've been able to wander around my house in my underwear, much less do yoga in my living room in such a state?  I never, ever, ever, never thought that would be something that I would have any desire to do, and I apologize for all of you out there with vivid imaginations, but sometimes you just have to enjoy your alone time.  A whole year (sooooo much time....ha!) of marriage has taught me many things, and that is one of the most important, though more difficult for me to deal with.

Beach! Beach! Beach! Beach!

We finally made it to the beach!
Let me make a few statements.

1. I love the beach.
2. I had not been to the beach in over a year.
3. I miss the beach.
4. Texas beach is not like Oregon beach.

So from the beginning.  Thursday afternoon, as soon as Jesse got off work, we piled into the Tahoe, accompanied by a few duffel bags (apparently I packed enough for two weeks), an ice chest full of Mt. Dew and sandwiches, and a massive tupperware tub of caramel popcorn, and headed south.

I was told that Galveston is the place to go, so that's where we went.  It

is a 400 mile drive that we managed in about 7 hours.  We hopped into a muggy, salty smelling motel, and crashed.  The next morning we got up and drove around town looking at all the dirty water.  Jesse saw a dolphin, but I never did.  Oh well.  We found a lovely IHOP where Cricket got pooped on while waiting for a table.

Basically the pancakes (and brief dolphin sighting) were the best part of Galveston.  So we piled back intothe Tahoe, accompanied by a few duffel bags, and ice chest with a couple Mt. Dews, and a massive tupperware tub half full of caramel popcorn and headed further south, to Corpus Christi.  It turned into a very long drive.  Corpus Christi, however, was worth the 230 miles.  The water was much clearer, and it started to look like Jesse's dreams...white sand....blue water....lots of salt.

It was the first time I had ever been in a warm ocean!  I must say, I'm not much of a water person.  I mean, I love water, but salt water in my nose, and over my head, and picking me up and sweeping me out to sea...Not the best thing ever.  I think I snorted about half the ocean.  It's not super pleasant.  Jesse told me I have to be 'namaste with the ocean" and that I have to "fight the waves" which I feel is quite contradictory.  

So anyway.  That evening we trundled our way down to SPI, which was also nice, but way more crowded and way colder.  Jesse got grumpy because we decided to walk to Blackbeards for lunch and it was farther than we thought it was and I talked him out of taking the bus.  Oops.

He is also now slightly obsessed with skim boarding.  Apparently you can run up and down the beach and jump on your little board thing and you can skim along the edge or you can surf with it too.

Among other things, this trip has also inspired a need to move to Hawaii indefinitely, regardless of any consequences, like leaving jobs without warning.  I am a little bit afraid that I might come home one day and find the bags packed and Jesse ready to go.  So if you can't get a hold of us....try Yavette and Glen.

Bugs

I have been sadly lacking in the documentation area since Cricket got here, for which I apologize. It has been lovely having a sister again for the last week, to keep me company, and take out the trash, and things of that sort. We picked her up at DFW last Friday and then got very lost. Cricket and I were so busy chattering we didn't notice Jesse had been driving around in circles for an hour. Thankfully, we had stopped at Costco to do our shopping before we picked her up, so we didn't have many more stops to make.
While at Costco, as a side note, we only had half an hour before Cricket's plane landed, so Jesse and I split up in order to make better time. I heard him call me from down an aisle as I was booking it to the frozen chicken breasts, and, well, you know those Costco floors...my cart was pretty full by that time, so when I tried to stop, it kept going (object in motion acted upon by an insufficient force), and I got dragged behind it a few feet. Not embarrassing at all. A quick addition to the side note: we made it out of Costco in less than 30 minutes for less than $300. That must be a new record or something!
So anyway. We got Cricket, she didn't get lost anywhere in the massive Texas airports, and eventually we made it home to the shining city of Breckenridge.

For our anniversary that weekend, I had convinced (or coerced) Jesse to actually put on a nice shirt (he said it was a fat old man shirt) and take us out to dinner. His friends suggested the beehive, in Albany, run by these old Iranian brothers that are allegedly the best storytellers in Texas. Well let me just say one thing: small Texas towns do not have restaurants that are frequented by people in heels and pearls, escorted by handsome men in slacks. We were rather overdressed. But I don't really care. I like to get dressed up and go out on occasion, and it doesn't really matter whether we're the only people in the joint not wearing flannel and cowboy boots. The food was good, there were little roses on the tables, and the Iranian guy was quite nice and amusing. He even showed Cricket a magic trick; he drank wine out of a wine bottle without opening it. Very impressive, let me tell you. You'll have to ask her to show you sometime. Sometime in about 3 years, anyway.
They say the first year is the hardest...Jesse says if that's the case, we're set. Am I the only person that cherished a fantasy that at the one-year mark ever problem magically melts away? Well, if you count bed bugs as a problem, let me tell ya, first anniversary magic doesn't work on them. I honestly didn't realize that bed bugs were a legitimate thing. Like, I always assumed "don't let the bed bugs bite" referred to generic bugs that happen to be on your bed. It doesn't. Bed bugs are tiny, flat, nasty, black, blood sucking, ridiculously hearty, parasitic bugs that climb into your mattress and your carpet and your box spring and your clothes and your books, and reproduce and suck your blood and leave nasty little bite marks all over your body. We thought I was having an allergic reaction to something like pineapple or the carpet or something. Nope, it's bed bugs. Soooooo nasty. I really hope we get them dealt with and don't send then home with Cricket. We got the apartment sprayed a few days ago, and they have to come back again in two weeks. I haven't seen any, but I do still have a few bites....yick. Bed bugs are seriously nasty.

Anyhooooden. Cricket has been introduced to Party Planet and all its wonders., and is working with me this weekend. It's just the two of us, and it's been quite nice, if I do say so. I don't have to worry about the person I'm working with showing up late, or playing nasty music, or anything unpleasant like that.
Next weekend, however, we are planning on finally taking that trip to the beach! I can't wait. It will be lovely, and it will also be my last chance to take advantage of Jesse's 3-day weekend. I have three days of workshops starting Monday, and then all my I service begins the next Monday and from then on I am booked solid. I even put up a real calendar on the wall so that when Jesse doesn't see me for days at a time, he will know where I am. I do feel bad about leaving Cricket at home by herself all the time, but I suppose she will survive...she'll just get really good at forza so she can really kick my butt next time.

In short, our days are fairly uneventful.  The most exciting thing was getting my resistance bands and foam rollers in the mail, and getting attacked by Jesse and having our phones confiscated for trying to take pictures of him with elastic bands on his head.  I regret to inform you that he won.  It was quite the sight, I assure you.
There is currently a waterfall being dumped on my head because I am on my phone and not making dinner, so I bid you adieu.  I hope your hair is drier than mine.