Yes, I am still alive!

Boy it sure has been awhile! It seems I don't have a spare minute to do anything anymore! I know that this time of the year, the days are getting shorter but this is ridiculous! I think the second hands on clocks throughout the world have actually sped up, causing little Lee Annie to have to operate her life at warp speed. It seems that I get up at 5:30, rush to get ready, drive about 80 to get to work, run my little cart room to room, do errands after work, drive about 80 to get home, eat, watch TV, go to bed just to get up and do it all over again. I do manage to get in a run/hike out in the woods every now and then, which is such a wonderful diversion. Keeping up the exercise routine in this weather is quite a challenge.
My classes are going fine, which is a good thing. Enjoyed driving my Benz on all those sunny days and top down days always make you feel good. Dennis is still stressing over his rip-off of an adventure race. Unfair scoring makes Dennis hate adventure racing! I don't know what he'll get into next. Maybe he can just race me around the yard! A guaranteed win and all for free! haha
Looking forward to Thanksgiving break and getting some rest! Oh, and the little foxes have decided to return for evening snacks along with our deer, who are regulars. It's apples and grapes on the menu this evening!
'til next time!

It's FRIDAY! (gosh, I'm tired!)

It's been awhile since I have blogged, hasn't it?? So what's new? Here's a list:

1. I am now 44. I like even numbers better, so it's OK. Some kid asked me if I was 49 today and said I looked old. (May the fleas of a thousand camels infest his armpits....)
2. I got a rockin new fridge for my birthday that has french doors (it says "oui oui" when I open them, ha) and the freezer is on the bottom. Two gorillas delivered it last Friday at 7:30 pm. I'm sure they had a part in "Deliverance".
3. Swine flu seems to have passed somewhat. We now have a teacher with it though, and still a few absent.
4. Saw "Where the Wild Things Are" on my birthday Tuesday and they must have been high on drugs when they wrote it. But then again, hard to make a full length film out of a 14 page book........about big fuzzy monsters and a kid in a rabbit suit.........
5. Ran/hiked 3 miles yesterday evening and it was great being outside in the woods. Cookie dog went with me. She makes a good running partner because she never complains and she only stops to bite her butt once in a while....you know, fleas.....she will also go anywhere I want to go without discussing the pros and cons of that decision. She just knows she likes to go. Period......

Guess that about sums up my exciting life at this point. Time to go rest now!

Just another manic Monday!

Where, oh where, did the weekend go??? We went to Lake Vesuvius on Sunday so Dennis could practice canoeing with his adventure race team! Only we had to go at 9 am which meant lots of cold fog. Dennis said he felt funny with all them sitting up so high, so he squatted in front and looks like he has no legs! Yikes! haha Anyway, after we paddled for about an hour, we ran the trail for a couple of miles which was a major accomplishment for me. I have practiced my running skills and heaven knows, I am no runner, but peer pressure is a great motivator and I stuck with them. Dennis turned around at the finish and said "Where's Lee Ann?" as he searched the trail far behind us and then I stuck my head out from behind Kent and said "I'm right here!" (Was that shock and disbelief I saw on his face as he realized I hadn't been left in the dust? I think so! Oh, Dennis of little faith! haha) And today my thigh muscles are scolding me for my running efforts! Better enjoy the outdoors while I can. November first will be the end of evening fun times for a while (sigh). But at least I might be able to actually see where I am driving in the mornings again. I hate driving to work in the dark. It's so wrong. Speaking of work, we are still fighting the Swine Flu. Lots of kids out with it. Might as well lick a door knob and get it over with.......Hope the rest of the week goes well! 'til next time! And remember, you can click on the photos above to enlarge!

YAYYYY weekends!!!!

Today sure did fly by! Unlike this past work week which seemed to go on forever! In fact, there must have been some sort of celestial event or cosmic happening that made it so because I could have sworn it last about 10 days instead of 5. We got our first case of swine flu at school too. Nice. I think I will just put my head in a fish bowl for the next 5 months. They can preach "hand washing" 'til the cows come home but it just isn't happening in the world of elementary school children! If every child spent the required 20-30 seconds scrubbing their hands in the couple of sinks available, it would take our school community of approximately 300 children 2.5 hours to wash all those hands twice a day for a grand total of 5 hours every day! Here's another little fact to make you weak in the knees: During a sneeze, water, air, mucous, and pathogens leave a person's body at about 100mph. One sneeze can carry 100,000 germs. We're dooomed. I even caught one of my first graders licking his entire desktop..........sheesh.......

But today was fun! Dennis and I spent about 3 hours with little buddy Cookie-dog out in the woods clearing more bike trails. We rode our mountain bikes and some of the hills were so steep I had to push my 30 lb bike up them but when you could ride, it was just awesome! Cookie stayed with us the whole time, when she wasn't chasing some critter around in the weeds. We came back home and ate some left over chili and cornbread and I even fixed Cookie some because I knew she had to be tired and hungry too. I actually fell asleep for about a half an hour then we walked to the mailbox, came back , mowed grass, raked leaves and cleaned up the yard a bit. Dennis had to clean the carb on my push mower because it kept trying to die. The idle was really off and it would surge then die, surge then die but now it's back to it's old self. Still crappy, but at least it doesn't sound like it's going to quit every 10 seconds!!!! Busy day and my old knee is feeling it. I forgot to wear my Mueller knee band so now I have one of those Icy Hot bandages on it and I hope that will help it. One more day and then it's back to the grind!!!

No rain today! YAY!

Check out those waves!

Dennis takin' a break!

What are these crazy things?!

Dennis and I decided to go paddling today at Yatesville Lake. He had seen a bald eagle there last weekend when he was riding bikes and was hoping to get a better picture of it today. I guess the eagle didn't hang around long because all we saw were some buzzards, crows, herons, king fishers, wood peckers, and wild turkeys! Busy day in the bird world, I guess! There were lots of big, fast boats out on the water today which made for some big, fast wave action which was fun. Everybody wanting to get out before the weather turns cooler. Hard to believe it will be October in three days. Got a picture of some really cool bright orange berries hanging from a purple/burgundy seed pod on the bank of the lake. If anyone can identify it, let me know. We only saw a couple of plants like this. I searched on the internet under "bright orange berries" and it kept coming up marijuana. Well....it is rural Kentucky...!hahaha I guess it's back to the grind tomorrow. We did the grass mowed this evening. Hope I don't have to do that too many times more. That rain made it grow about six inches overnight! I did get in my 3 miles in the rain yesterday evening so no one can call me a fair weather excerciser! My neighbors probably thought I was nuts and I didn't go down "chihuahua row" just because I didn't want to bother the doggies. Dennis had potato soup on the stove when I got back. Yes, it was from a can and it was quite good! Progresso, I think it was. Have a great week! 'til next time!

The days keep flying by.........!

Hard to believe that there are just two more weeks before the end of the first six weeks at school! It's almost time to start my Halloween lessons with the kids and summer is officially over - way boo hiss. Where on earth does the time go? I know that running the halls of Ona on my "art cart" have sped up time to warp speed because that's about how fast I am moving during the day! I had to give up my job as "sys. op." after two weeks because I was just killing myself trying to do it all. Everyone said they hated to see me quit because I was so helpful but the cart thing and taking care of 124 computers, printers, smart boards, and elmos was taking a toll on my sanity. I would wake up at 2 am and lay awake for an hour or two. My jaw was feeling like I had chewed a wad of bubble gum all night and I was forgetting stuff at work! Tooooo much. Another teacher said she had tried it at her previous school and quit after two weeks which made me feel better. I lasted 4. I told them I would still help them...... I am such a sucker........! haha
I went out this evening for my run/walk and almost got in 4 miles in about 45 minutes. It would have been faster but I had to take time to stop and pet 6 neighborhood dogs on the way! One was a little ankle biter on what we have dubbed "chihuahua row". There are about 3 or 4 of those little terrors that just delight in barking at me no matter how I try to tiptoe by. He is INSIDE a trailer. He must have some kind of dog psychic ability because there will be no sign of him and just when I think I've snuck by, he'll run to the end of the trailer and poke his nose through the curtains at the window and bark his head off! And he goes on the whole time I am on the road. Even when I am totally out of sight! I think he could hear a cockroach cough through a cinderblock wall.The rest are pretty friendly, thank goodness. I was good and sweaty when I got back. The last dog encounter was near my house. A teeny white fluffy dog that it soooo cute but will follow you to the moon. I saw it and turned and sprinted back to the house at the end of my run. I thought I was going to lose him and he would head back home. I ran up on my deck, breathless and about to pass out, turned around and there it came trotting up the steps behind me, wagging it's tail as if to say, "Gee, that's was a fun little run. Now what are we going to do?" I will really be glad when the gnats and the humidity are gone too!

Long time, no blog!

Where does the time go?? Work certainly takes up most of that time! (Need more days off!) Dennis and I went to Lake Hope State Park in McArthur, Ohio yesterday for some mountian biking fun. We started on a trail called Copperhead, which should have given me some idea of the difficulty to come! Lots of tight turns through trees, some downhills, uphill climbs, log crossings,etc. You really had to think about every move you made or you would go flying into a tree or over the side of the hill! Like I told Dennis, there could have been a herd of elephants off the side of the trail and I would never have seen them I was so focused! It was challenging to say the least! After a little over 2 miles of this we came to a trail intersection and we decided to take the Bobcat trail. My kinda' trail! It reminded of my dirt biking days where you could just cruise through the woods and enjoy the ride. Of course, this was mainly the beginning of the trail and it got trickier towards the end of the trail. It took you down next to the creek for awhile and well, what goes down must come up! Also a challenge but you got some nice rests between which I liked! We ended up doing about 7.5 miles on those trails then headed back to Athens to ride the Hockhocking Adena Trail (6 miles). Dennis asked the guy at the bike shop when we first got there about the mountain bike trail at Sells Park there and we had to try that first. I pushed my bike more than I rode it and told Dennis there was no way after what we had just done! So we loaded up the bikes again, and headed to the Adena bike path. After that, we went to Chipotle to eat chicken burritos which were the size and weight of a brick, but were very tasty! A really great day and I came back with only one scrape on the back of my calf (peddle bite mark!)!