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17 noviembre Happy ThanksgivingI have yet to decide what I'm doing for Thanksgiving. I guess for most people it's a given that you would spend time with family. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate my family. I live one block away from my parents and sister. My brother lives just a couple of miles away. I see them pretty often...but in short, (and separate) manageable visits. When we gather together for the holidays, things just don't go well. Some of my family members just don't know how to behave when at a holiday celebration. This makes the other family members very tense and anxious. The combo of bad behavior and tense anxiety is a recipe for a very bitter tasting holiday. I'm tempted to opt out of the family dinner like I did last year. It turned out to be a very good choice. random Saturday thoughtsMy weekend in Minneapolis was fun. Of course, my friend and I spent most of the weekend chatting and catching up. I did make a quick trip to the Mall of America on Monday and strangely, it was practically deserted. One could roam freely without being inconvenienced by throngs of people and squealing children. Other activities on my trip included eating at a Malaysian restaurant and also a Vietnamese restaurant. Both had delicious food. I'm going to have to search out a Malaysian place in Chicago. There has to be one somewhere. After my long weekend I came home to sad news. My family's dog, Jasmine, was very ill and had to be put to sleep. She was my dog originally. I rescued her about 14 years ago. Dogs were not allowed in my apartment, so I gave her to my parents. Jasmine was diagnosed with bone cancer about a year ago, but had been doing well with medication for a year after her diagnosis. Last week she took to the couch and refused to eat. It was time to let her go. Now that my beloved farmer's market across the street is closed for the winter, I'm left to find a different activity for Saturday mornings. Usually Saturday morning is my favorite time of the week, but I am a bit tired today. I went out with a friend last night and came home past midnight. I woke up to banging at my back door at 8:30 am. The porches in my building are being rebuilt. I've been listening to loud hammering for a couple of days now. It sure will be nice to have a new porch for next summer. I take great pride in my flower garden on my porch, which I refer to as my urban oasis. About 2 months ago I was ordered by the building management to remove everything from the porch because it was being torn down and rebuilt. My porch garden was in full bloom with flowers and herbs. I begrudgingly exiled my flower boxes to my parents' house. (I couldn't bear to throw them out.) Go figure, my new porch did not get started until a couple of days ago. I destroyed my urban oasis for nothing. It could have held out until the frost last week. I'm already thinking about how next year's garden will look on my shiny new porch. That's something to look forward to. 08 noviembre off to a good start todayToday is report card pick-up day from noon- 6 pm. I got to sleep in until 7:30, which is quite a luxury. This year we launched a new computer-generated report card. The responsibility for generating and printing report cards fell to me and the other technology coordinator at my school. You would think that a computer-generated report card would make everyone's life easier, however the process has turned out to be quite involved and full of glitches. Our elementary school (k-6) is up to almost 1600 kids- a record high for the school. We usually hover in the low 1500's. That is a lot of report cards. The parents had the choice of requesting the report card in English, Spanish or Polish, which makes things even more complicated. This week has been a stressful one. I will be glad to have it behind me. This weekend I'm going to visit my best friend in Minneapolis. That's something to look forward to. She's having a pre-Thanksgiving/ housewarming party. I haven't seen her in a few months. I hesitated at first to spend the money on the airfare to MN...but then I thought to myself, how many best friends do I have? As it is, I only see her a few times a year. I have Monday off for Veteran's Day, so I get to stay and hang out for 3 days. I need to do some clothes shopping so maybe we'll visit the Mall of America. That place is crazy big. It's like a maze. The stores just never end. There are kids running all over and it's loud. Maybe I won't go to the mall afterall... it doesn't seem very appealing anymore. |
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