I'm off to Vegas

Today I leave for Vegas for Arbonne's national training celebration. I AM SO EXCITED I CAN'T STAND IT!! Last year I had a total blast at NTC, so I can't wait to attend this year's training. I'll post all about it next weekend. Everyone have a great week and I'll talk to you soon. Love ya!

I'm a winner

I've been a member of the HB Chamber of Commerce now for about 7 months. I attend luncheons and breakfasts as often as I can. And at every event I attend I hope to win a raffle prize. Well, this morning was my lucky day. I won the 50/50 raffle, which is the best one to win because it's money. I walked out of there today with an extra $114! Yippee! And I know exactly what I'm going to do with my winnings. Bet you're thinking it has something to do with baby. Nope, I'm putting that money toward my collections for the Cancer Relay for Life. What better way to spend that money than donate it to the cause that I am most passionate about right now. I am also pledging all my Arbonne commissions from the 15th of April to the end of May to my collection efforts for the Relay for Life. Afterall, one of the reasons why I am doing Arbonne is so that I may have more financial flexibility to donate to causes that are important to me, and cancer research is definitely tops on my list.

Why I am scared for the future of America?

I've been meaning to blog about my students this semester, but after yesterday's class I have two perfect reasons why we should all be scared for the future of America. Incident #1: I was going over the schedule for the rest of the semester and pointed out that I need to cancel class on the 25th. (I'll be in Vegas for NTC.) I reminded them that since they are working on an essay that week, to use their time wisely and asked what they can do that day even though class will be canceled. My wonderful white boy hip-hopper yelled out, "Get drunk." Of course, I had to rip him a new one. I told him to grow up and act like an adult. "This is college and the completely inappropriate context for such stupid comments," I said as a few classmates chuckled as I continued to berate the moron. This is the same student who has come to a composition course 3 times without a writing utensil. The same student who told me he had no idea what the phrase popular (or pop) culture meant. This is also the same student I believe is having somebody else write his out-of-class essays for him because he has failed both the inclass essays due to a lack of basic writing skills, such as how to write a complete sentence. Yes, a genius in the making.

Incident #2: We were discussing the essays they read for homework on the subject of free speech and censorship, a challenging topic for students who cannot think critically, but I can't stand not reading something intellectually stimulating. A student had brought up parental advisory stickers on CDs. I asked if anyone in class knew what woman was influential in getting the stickers on CDs. I then said, "Wait. Let me back up for a minute and ask you who Al Gore is?" The class went silent. My other brainiac blurted out, "I have no idea who that is." I looked at him in amazement. He then said, "Oh wait. Didn't he make that stupid movie?" I couldn't help but laugh in order to cover my sadness. Somebody else a bit more in touch said, "Oh yeah. He made that movie about the environment." I complimented the student for knowing that much at least, but then asked, "What was Al Gore known for prior to making An Inconvenient Truth?" And the crowd went silent. Finally, one of the girls said questioningly, "Wasn't he the Vice President?" I was so proud of her and told her I was thrilled she knew who Al Gore was. I mean really, it wasn't all that long ago that Clinton and Gore were in office and even more recently that he ran for president himself. I am appalled by the lack of what I consider basic American knowledge from most of these students. Hence, why I am scared for the future of America and why I need to take a break from teaching. I don't know if I have less patience or students have grown dumber over the past 6 years, but I just can't do it any more.

What a weekend

This past weekend flew by with all we had going on. It started off great when I went to see Grindhouse Friday day with Jason and the crew. I was looking forward to seeing the newest Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double-header and wasn't disappointed. I recommend this one only to those who like gory, violent, over-the-top, cheesy action films. I loved the Rodriguez one more with all it's insane violence and zombie attacks, and I usually hate zombie type movies. Friday night got better with Mike and Nina coming down for dinner. I haven't seen Nina in awhile, so it was great to catch up. We had a lively dinner discussion about relationships and marriage. Then Shawn's high school friend Marco met up with us. Nina and I ended up crashing about 11:30. I woke up when Shawn finally made his way to bed at 4:am. It never fails when Marco comes to town that the guys have to stay up super late playing games. They are the most competitive bunch I've ever known.

Saturday started with Shawn getting up and going to work for a few hours while I graded essays. We went to Thai Swan for dinner. Yummy! Thanks Jason for introducing us to this great place. The highlight of Saturday though came during the day when I was grading essays. I started feeling the oddest "jerks" in my lower abdomen. At first I thought it was my ligaments stretching as the doctor had told me it's normal to get shooting pains in my sides once in awhile, but then I noticed these were different from the stretching pains I had gotten before. I am almost certain these new jerks as I like to call them are from the baby moving. Yep, I think I've finally started feeling the little baby doing somersaults, kickboxing, and anything else he/she feels like doing to send mommy into twitches. It is seriously the strangest feeling I've ever had. I'm scared of what it'll feel like next once baby starts really kicking and punching me. Oh the joys of motherhood.

Sunday morning Shawn and Mike when golfing, which was good since I had to finish grading the essays. Plus, Shawn worked 61 hours last week, so I encouraged him to get out and do something fun. We went to Barb and Ed's for Easter dinner later on. It was a great feast as usual. It was a blast watching Avery do her first Easter egg hunt. I'll have Shawn post the pictures on our website in a couple of days. The sad part of the hunt though was every time Avery picked up an egg she shook it and said empty. She doesn't need any candy yet (the girl is already an Energizer bunny), so the little one will have to wait until next year to get goodies in her eggs.

This week starts my insane schedule for the rest of the month with Arbonne events, school, Chamber of Commerce events, Relay for Life meetings, family visiting from out of town, Greg and Tracy's shower, and the thing I'm most looking forward to Arbonne's National Training Celebration in Las Vegas. It truly is the party of the year and I can't wait!

Booo it's Sunday night

I hate Sunday nights because it means Shawn has to go back to his crummy job. Right now he's working on this huge project that has become the bane of our existence, especially since the deadline is fast approaching and his team is struggling. It doesn't help that he's lost a couple people on his team. I've already been warned that he will be working until 8 and 9 many nights in April. Oh joy. I felt bad that he even had to go into work today. Poor honey.

On to some good news: I had my second doctor visit on Friday and Shawn went with me. We got to hear the heartbeat!! It was so awesome. I couldn't believe how fast baby's heart was beating, which the doctor said is a good sign. She said it was 156, which I've been told 150 and up is good. I had a couple questions for her, and then we were out of there in no time. My next appointment is May 1st. The doctor did tell me that she will need to send me out for an anatomical ultrasound after that to find out the sex of the baby, so it will probably be awhile before I can start decorating the nursery. Bummer! I so want to decorate now, but I've promised I'll wait until we know if we are having a boy or a girl. I'm leaning toward zoo animal or sea animal themed so far.

We did make tremendous steps towards cleaning out the clutter in the apartment. The guest room is getting emptied for when it's time to get the nursery started. On Saturday, we had a family garage sale at Thane and Kristi's house with Barb and Ed, my mom, and cousin Lisa all participating. It was the biggest garage sale I've ever participated in, and the shocker is we all did great. I'd say combined we got close to making $1000, which I think is amazing for a garage sale. I knew Shawn and I would do well since we had two tv's, a set of speakers, a CD/receiver/tape deck set (which I bought in high school and still works well), lots of books, and a ton of clothes. I told Shawn with the money we made we could buy a crib. He said he was thinking about buying an X-Box for the bedroom. What a funny guy!

Then after a long day at the sale, we cleaned up and went to Jason's BBQ to celebrate his new apartment and Kristi's birthday tomorrow. It was so great to get to hang out with Jason and the gang. I've been so busy with Arbonne, baby, and school stuff that I haven't been able to hang out much lately. I recently told Jason that I felt bad that I've been so busy and he agreed that it's all my fault. He's so nice. Ha ha. I must say this is my favorite apartment of Jason's and I love the way he's decorated. He has a ton of framed artwork and it's all displayed nicely throughout the place. I was excited that he even had the photo of him and Kat Von D from Miami Ink up on the wall. (I love the TLC show Miami Ink.) Plus last night I got to hold Chris and Eetung's 4 month old boy, William. He is so adorable I could eat him up. I even got him to talk to me a bit. I couldn't get enough of him. I am so ready to be a mom.

Today was a catch up day with some house work and school stuff. Then I went shopping with Elizabeth and Kristi later in the afternoon. Let's just say Kristi is a bad influence cuz she made me buy two things at Old Navy that weren't on sale. (I have no will power some times when it comes to cute clothes.) I bought some really cute maternity things though, and with the stuff Lisa gave me on Saturday, I've got an adorable maternity wardrobe going now. Plus, we've got Arbonne's annual National Training Celebration coming up in 3 weeks, so I've got to get some new things to wear to that. It's in Vegas this year, so I have to look like a cute pregnant mommy. I then couldn't resist the shoe store and walked out of there with 4 new pairs. I do love shoes. I just wish I could do high heels, but as uncoordinated as I am and with pregnancy on top of it, I decided to go for safer bets. I realized with all the events going on this summer, it was a good idea to invest in a couple new outfits and shoes, which made me feel better walking out of the mall with 5 big bags in hand. Guess there goes all the earnings from the garage sale.