Saturday morning check in

Yes, I know this is posting on Sunday morning, but I'm writing it on Saturday, so there.

Originally I was going to call this "Teachers in Tights" (see the next paragraph) but then I decided to write a brain dump instead.

This spring our faculty is putting on a parallel musical to the one the kids are doing.  We are doing "Once Upon a Mattress", which I feel like I've seen, but don't recall a lot about.  I started watching this on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfHDRIYtAxM and then didn't finish, so I'll get back to you on that.  I'll be one of those characters in the background...not a major character.  I'm sure I'll have some exciting stories about participating in this event...stay tuned. We had our first read through on Friday and it went well--there are lots of talented folks at my school.  I sat with the choir director and one of our tech guys, as well as my good friend who retired last year and came back just to sing with us.  We all had a lovely time humming along to the "chorus" parts and laughing at the main actors lines.  Should be a good show.  For those of you who are local (or who have a driving desire to see me in a high school play), I'll make sure you get details later.  I'll be the one in the back.

Mr. Ranch and the kids left at 5:30 this morning to go skiing.  They are going to one of the resorts where they eat lunch "on the mountain".  I got up about 5 to tell them to have a good day and The Boy had a melt-down because I wasn't coming with them (he better be growing, because these melt-downs are killing me...).  I said, "um...you guys eat lunch on the mountain and I usually fall asleep in the car...do you really just want to watch me sleep in the car? Really?"  He was eventually pacified by my statement that I'd go to the library and get him some more books.  Excellent.  So I went back to bed, intending to get up at 6 and walk...and hit my snooze 9 times...so I got up at 7, walked on the wii, broke up a couple dog fights, and now am enjoying some Starbucks Mocha coffee (on sale and $3 off coupon last weekend and Mr. Ranch hates it...so today, while he is gone, is a good day to brew it).

We potentially have a real offer on the townhouse... cross your fingers, say a prayer, whatever you are willing to do that it works out.  I am really tired of being a landlord...lately the tiny benefits have been outweighing the detriments.  We've had a couple of other offers in the last few weeks--I think two, both really low for what we want to sell for and low for the market, as well as asking for a lot of closing costs.  The townhouse two doors down from ours (which is nearly identical, except it has "new" counter tops) allegedly sold last week and the current offer on ours is very similar to their selling price.

My school finally had our annual holiday party yesterday.  Since we have finals after winter break, having a party before winter break is challenging--lots of folks live far enough away that we don't want to go back to the school neighborhood for an evening party and after 3 is tricky for those of us with kids.  Since last week was finals week we were able to start about 2 (students left at noon) and end by 4...taco bar followed by cake, some door prizes (I didn't win this time, but once I won a Santa night light and once an school t-shirt). The Ranch Children actually had a half day as well, so Mr. Ranch picked them up, took them to Jimmy John's for lunch and then let them watch the Great Muppet Caper while he got an oil change.  By the time I got home about 5, they had dealt with this year's Christmas tree, cut up last years for firewood, filled, run, emptied and filled the dishwasher and started dinner...whoo hoo!  Of course, I just found a machete on the patio table...weird...whatever. Maybe I should go to office parties more often.

 Thanks to all of you on Facebook who gave me ideas for future blogs...like I said though, some are a bit intellectual for me (after all, this is a blog about "nothing", right?) but there are a couple possibilities.

Hope you all have a lovely holiday weekend and that you get to sleep in for MLK day!