Oh, the things I should be doing...

Before I forget to say anything, let me mention how lucky I am to work with the staff I do! I'm in no way best friends with all of them, but there are many kindred spirits that I have the privilege to learn from. Our final staff meeting of the year was pretty tough because we were saying goodbye to two awesome teachers. I will totally miss Michele Boor and Zach Barnes! Michele is leaving to become a foster mother and Zach is leaving to pursue the West Coast. I admire their passion.

So, once that was over, I began cleaning my classroom with Pandora humming in the background. That lasted for a while until I ran around to try and tie up some loose ends. I got off focus and decided to head home to prepare for the beach trip!

I came home to mow the lawn for my first time, ever. It wasn't so bad. Granted I only did about 1/5 of our lawn (what Jon didn't do...) At least I didn't hurt myself or the lawn mower. I proceeded to pack, do laundry and attempt a nap before getting Jon from work.

By 6:30 we were on the road. Brit, our British GPS, told us we'd be getting there by 9:30. The drive wasn't so bad. We jammed to the Weez. That's our Jersey trip cd. Yay for mp3 format! By 9:40 we were walking into Jeff's family's beach house. We were welcomed by Zach Barnes, Josh Bergstein, his friend Alley, Jared Campbell, Kevin Varano, Eric Samuelson, his husband Gary, Paul Delpriore and of course Jeff. Upon entering the house, Zach declared Jon and I the "coolest couple". He had no specifics or elaborations, but it was enough for me. After all, Zach himself was declared the "coolest person Deb Hines knows" earlier- with that title, he's allowed to declare "cool".

The night was pretty chill. I chatted with Gary about travels, watched a mean horse shoe game, an even meaner Super Scrabble game (Frothy) and rounded out my night with a puke fest in the bathroom. Having been blessed with the experience of food poisoning before, I immediately knew I was being visted again by the food poison devil. Ask Jon, he came out from the depths of my stomach to chat. I'm sorry, but I have to make light of an awful situation. If Jon hadn't been there, I don't know what I would have done! I'm such a baby for pain and he stayed with me throughout my entire vomit session. He held my hair back and assured me I wasn't going to die, although that took a lot of convincing. He's absolutely amazing. After just under 2 hours of that, I passed out. When I woke up, I honestly didn't know where I was. I was so dehydrated/exhausted/out of it, but felt slightly better. My stomach was uneasy and to my own stupidity thought eating something would help... Half an hour after that decision, I was back on the toilet holding on to the garbage can for dear life. After that, it was about every 20 minutes that I was purging. I told Jon I couldn't take it anymore and asked him to take me to the hospital.

On the 10 minute drive to the hospital I puked twice. At this point, it was nothing but bile. It was absolutely miserable. I could barely walk into the hospital, I had become so weak. Thankfully I waited only about 15 minutes from walking into the door until I was in a bed and hooked up to a drip to re-hydrate me. I didn't puke again once I got into the hospital, but I wasn't feeling better. I had to really concentrate on my breathing because whenever it got too shallow, nausea came on strong. Anytime I turned my head too fast or moved anything too quickly, the nausea began. Thankfully after about an hour of that, I was given an anti-nausea shot. After about another hour, the doctor came in and prodded around my intestines and noted something abnormal and called for a catscan. He thought it might have been diverticulosis (something undesirable with your intestines that my dad was diagnosed with a few months ago..) Again, God love my dear Jonathan. He sat by me the whole time and chatted with me or sat quietly, without complaint, as I slept. Which is what happened for hours before I actually got the catscan. A final hour until the doctor came in to reveal that nothing was wrong, my guts were just that swollen from the food poisoning. So, after 6 hours in the hospital, we head back to the beach house.

Once we arrived, we were greeted by lobsters that had taken over the bodies of my co-workers. While we were locked inside hospital walls, they were all taking in the lovely day at the beach. I was extremely bitter. :-) I re-matched Jeff in Guitar Hero and beat him by like 300 points. I am now 2 for 2. The group decided to head to mini-golf. The group now being Mitza, Jared, Kevin, Eric, Gary, Alley, Josh and Jeff (and Jon and I). We split up into 2 groups of 5. It was alright. I'm quite miserable at mini-golf. I didn't come in last place ONLY because Jared was drunk. I'll take it. After that we went to a most amazing ice cream place that served ice cream on waffles. Although I was cautioned by the nurse to eat soup and bread for 24 hours, I had to try this! Thankfully it didn't kill me.

We went back to the house to chat it up a bit before Jon and I left for home. We agreed to split the drive up 1 and 1/2 hours each. I told him to drive first, so he could just crash. Unfortunately he ended up driving 2 hours because we were on bridges and turnpikes. Thankfully we made it home by 2 AM. We both crashed.

He woke up at 7:20 AM to be at work by 8. I slept until 12:15... I woke up and got ready for my Aunt Sue's cookout. I wasn't looking forward to being surrounded by amazing food that I was told I couldn't eat. I resorted to tasting everything and making Jon finish it all off. :-) It was nice catching up with my cousin Heather. She lives such an amazing life with the military. She's one of the only reasons I have hope in our government. After some gabbing, we went home because poor Jon was exhausted. We got home and began preparations for our little Memorial Day picnic. He crashed soon after 9, but I stayed up until almost midnight being nosey on the Facebook and MySpace.

I slept with the living room windows open so it wouldn't be stuffy in there and before drifting off, my imagination lead me to people robbing us. Right after I drifted off, I heard clanking and because that was the last thing on my mind, I was sure our house was being broken into! Fierce and mighty in my yellow underwear, I jumped up and leaned out of my bedroom door and demanded to know who was there! Now, I don't think I'm a dumb person; logic just eludes me. Obviously, and if I had given the situation a mere second or two of honest thought, I could have concluded it was my cousin Billy, who lives downstairs. After he confirmed I was crazy and my heart stopped beating in my throat, I fell asleep.

I woke up at about 7:50 AM to begin picnic preparations. I had to run to the store and to school. I was so excited to buy chicken quarters for 79 cents/lb at Giant! I had done my research and that was the best deal in town. I take pride in being a frugal shopper. I did what I had to do and ended up back at home by about 9:30 AM to finish the preparations.

We had a nice turn out: Mom (Jon's and my soon-to-be), his brother stopped out, Nan, Tim, Nikki and Scott, Strauss, Rach, Zach Vogel, and Oliver. It was beautiful today. We sat outside until everyone but Strauss and Tim left (Nan and Oliver hadn't arrived yet), then went in to play Settlers of Catan (amazing game!). Tim and Jon were very close most of the game and Strauss and I were along for the ride. Then Strauss and Tim left, and Oliver and Nan came. Jon, Oliver and myself indulged in another game. This time around, I won! :-)

Everyone left and Jon and I decided to chill on the couch and watch Night at the Museum. It was cute. For what it was, with the intended audience in mind, I'd give it a solid 7.5/10. Great kid's movie. It had a surprisingly amazing cast. It was funny. I loved Rexy and Dexter. The few historical facts that were incorporated were cool. The only oddity to me in the whole thing (what does this say about me...) was how great the relationship was between Ben Stiller and his ex in the movie. Just too unnatural. Things should probably be that great between people, but the first scene where they were all together, I thought to myself, this had got to be his sister... How often do you see exes kiss each other in greeting?! So yeah, other than that... Cute. I'm glad the loser dad was able to prove himself to his son. Would have been nice if fantasy wasn't in the mix... and a more realistic means of redemption was sought, but be it far from me to attack fantasy. Speaking of which, I was told Stardust is great. That will be on my summer movie list!

I digress... a lot. I need to be working on goals for tomorrow's meeting. I'm stuck between two worlds. The world of summer and the world of wrapping up with the rest of the district. I hope to come to peace with this at 4 PM on Friday, June 5th after my last summer enrichment class ends and I'm heading to Philly to chill with my Beckster, then heading to New York/Canada to get Gram on Monday.

Baby is jamming out to Paramore's "Misery Business"... and I mean jamming. He even included a kick and a full 360 guitar arm strum, which is why he is the love of my life. :-)

Alright, off to do teachery things. :-)