Midweek Date night

Very rarely, until recently, have Don and I had date night. We've had extremely busy schedules, and with growing boys, date nights seem to go by the wayside. With the boys almost grown, date nights have been more accessible. We have been able to do more together. Well Don and I had a mid-week date night. Don rode the train into the town where I work, then we drove to the Garfield Park Conservatory. They were having a spring flower show and I thought that might just be a good thing to help keep my mind off of my upcoming surgery.

The great thing about going here is that it's free. They suggest a donation, but it's not mandatory. They have a great palm house, fern house, the show garden, a children's garden, a sugar garden, succulent (desert) garden, and a houseplant garden. The palms were huge. The ferns and mosses were green and beautiful. Two of the gardens had pools in them with fish. The one garden still had Chilluly glass in the pool with large koi in it. Then at the end was a waterfall. Oh I could have sat there and just chilled out for hours. I actually told Don that would be a beautiful place for a hammock.

Anyway, here are a few photos.


This is the relaxing pool with the Chilluly glass.

They had beautiful hydrangas.

Spring was in the air.

They were said to have over 700 azelas.

How could you see this cactus and not laugh? We had to take a photo of it.

That was our date night. Not fun for all, but enjoyable for us. We went for pizza at Ledos and had salad and pizza. I gotta tell you, I'm not as young as I used to be because date night wore me out. Not used to being on the go from dawn to dark.

Weekends just aren't long enough

especially when the weather is great. I've finally spilled the beans to a few friends about the status of my health and that I've scheduled surgery. I keep feeling my throat and I think it's getting smaller, but people keep telling me to get it out. I am still having mixed emotions about it, but I still have a bit of time before the day.

I've got a lot coming up soon with parent-teacher conferences, report cards, and grading college papers while on spring break from the college this week. I've finally got my hair appointment rescheduled thatI had to cancel from a couple weeks ago to go have some medical tests. Don's off school this week and I've talked him into taking the train into the city where I week so we can go to the spring flower show at the Garfield Park Conservatory. I can only imagine how excited he is about it, but I know tulips, daffodils, crocus, 800 azaleas, and 400 hydrangias can only perk up my mood.

I've bunches of paper work to file and organize and it's supposed to be mostly rainy this week so maybe one evening-not Thursday, ER night- will be for filing and organizing.

This weekend I went to my friend's scrapbook day. She hosts a scrapbook day once a month and her husband fixes a great lunch. I actually met my goal of having my Texas album done. It was quite liberating to just go with the flow and not have any true rule other than 7x5 album. It probably has about 12 pages and was quite fun to work on. Hand journaling, some photos back to back, transparancies, laser cut paper, and notebookesque paper. No rules, just freedom to be creative. I've been working on theme albums lately to get them finished that worring about a lot of embellishments for each page. I am trying to decide whether or not to finish up some half-finished pages next, find, edit, and print some Oprah's favorite things pictures that I thought were lost, or begin on my Europe trip photo carousel. Just not too sure where to go.

I know I've got some time before I get to scrapbook again because I don't go on spring break until April 9. I just hope my spark of creativity doesn't leave before then.

Hope everyone who stops by has a wonderful week and hopes your weather is better than the rain predicted each day this week.

Too much going on

I've been quite busy and believe me nothing I want to happen. Truly, my mom says she doesn't think I could function properly unless I was busy. Today we were talking about the fact that as each day passes I get more and more grouchy. Today I said I should get out the "banana gun." Yes it's my private joke with a few teachers at school. The kids are getting really crazy at school and it's driving me nuts.

Maybe I should take you back for a bit of catch-up. Two weeks ago I found something growing on my throat. Inside, like the size of a large grape. I went to the doctor and had my thyroid checked since sometimes I feel just horribly run down. Everything came out clear and normal except this thing on my throat. Went for an ultrasound, and that ruled out that it wasn't my thyroid, but that sent me on for a CT scan. CT scan showed it wasn't a blood vessel and looked like a lymph node. That got me an appointment with the ENT. He was stumped and scoped my nose, sinus,and the inside of my throat looking for any indication of what could make this mass start to grow. Nothing points towards anything being wrong, except this mass growing on my throat. That then led to a biopsy. It's been the waiting on the results that is continually making me grouchy. I'm under way too much stress and it's hard not to think about it and whenever my phone rings I jump. I'm quite worried yet they keep saying it's new, nothing indicates there is any visual problem, you're young, so we expect it to not be cancer. But then again, the tests can come up inconclusive or negative, or positive. It's just not having anyone know how it got there, why it got there, and what it is caused from that is driving me nuts.

Then add in the fact that I've had very few planning periods away from the students last week and this week just is making me a bit overwhelmed with kid issues. It is just that some of them are back to their old tricks too. There are just too many days between now and spring break.

So add all of that along with teaching night school, having Doug home from school (it's great, but extra food needed here), and the giant fight that comes up next week with the high school about Brian. It's just incredible and I just am so sick and tired of dealing with issues that are just wrong.

So I'm just feeling overwhelmed, under appreciated, over worked, under paid, and worn out. I'm nervous about phone calls tomorrow. They said if I hadn't heard any results I should call on Friday. Of course when will that happen without any time away from the students? As a teacher, I totally hate Fridays.

I'm really feeling I could use some prayers and something to help destress myself. I need spring break!

Well now I hope you realize why I don't post too much because truly, there is too much going on.