The Nile–#67, go to new restaurants

Today we went to eat lunch at a new restaurant called The Nile. It serves Ethiopian food, and you eat with your hands and bread instead of utensils. It was fantastic, I would definitely go back. Erin, Jeremy, and I all got a combination plate, where you can try five different dishes. We got chicken, two beef dishes, lamb, and a potato stew and enjoyed them all. The food is spicy but more flavorful spicy than hot spicy. They give you pieces of spongy tortilla-ish bread called injera that you use to scoop up the food and eat it, which is fun.

Digital Scrapbooking and Photoshop fun!

My whole weekend was spent discovering photoshop. It is definitely my new favorite thing. Finally, I can make my own headers, I can try digital scrapbooking, and I can make my own designs rather than searching the web for them.

In the beginning of the weekend I spent time learning about digital scrapbooking. The Shabby Princess site is all you really need to get started. She has a tutorial that not only tells you how to do your first layout in photoshop, but also has a video where she steps you through each part and you can see what she is doing on the screen. It was amazingly helpful for someone who is brand new to photoshop. On top of that, she has the best digital kits by far.

There were several other places that I found free downloadable digital scrapbooking kits. Many sites offer one or two things for free each week, so it was nice to find several in one spot.

Simply Clean Digi Scraps

Painted Pixels

Scrappy Pony

After the tutorials helped me to figure out the basics, I made some beginning layouts and some headers. I really got into the headers, so expect the header to be changing pretty often.

Another new love of mine is the brushes in photoshop. Nothing makes you feel artistic like essentially stamping someone else’s creation all over your layout. My absolute favorite brushes are the Seishido brushes. They are amazing. They remind me of many of the holiday stamps you would see for scrapbooking. Other places I found brushes that I liked are:

PS Brushes

Seishido’s Holiday Brushes

Here are the layouts I did this weekend. Love those polka-dots!

95. watch 15 new movies from the AFI list

This weekend I watched two new movies from the AFI Top 100 list. I like this goal because it forces me to watch movies I probably otherwise wouldn’t watch, but that I end up enjoying when I do watch them.

The first movie I watched was The Graduate. It’s always interesting to watch the movie that you know you have seen references to, because then other things start to make sense. (Of course, Jeremy is always there to explain what episode of the Simpsons referenced each movie, which is always helpful. And if you don’t have your own personal Jeremy at home, you can check out the reference and the linked scene here.)

We also watched Fargo. As I was trying to ease my way into movies that weren’t romantic comedies (figuring that The Graduate fits loosely in that category) I think I picked Fargo because my head was confusing it with the tv series Northern Exposure. Of course, the two are totally different things. Once I got over that, I really enjoyed the movie. But, I must be the most culturally illiterate person on the planet–I had NO idea that the wood chipper scene was in this movie, so I had a very girly-screechy reaction when I finally saw it. I could have gone my whole life though happily without seeing that, but overall I still liked the movie.

Joe’s Inn–#67, go to ten new restaurants

Tonight Jeremy and I went to Joe’s Inn. One new restaurant down, nine to go! It was a really nice place, and we would definitely go back there again. It’s so close to his place that we are able to walk there, which is nice. They have a variety of spaghetti, and some other Italian dishes, but not a full selection like some other Italian restaurants. We both had spaghetti and it was very good. They give you enough food to feed a small army, so we both took doggie boxes home and plan to hole up in the house tomorrow when it snows and eat the rest of our spaghetti.

We were also pleased because there was no wait for a table even though we went at prime time on a Friday night. So many of the Fan restaurants are so crowded that finding one that seems normal is exciting. All in all, this restaurant will definitely join the repetoire of the ones we rotate to.

The Blog Addiction

Most people know that I read pretty many blogs every day. I spend more time on the computer than I do watching TV on the average weeknight (although often I do both, I’m fabulously coordinated like that!). On the blogroll to the right, I listed only a few of the more general blogs I read that I thought other people might be interested in…but, I really read many more (much dorkier) blogs in addition to those each day.

To keep up with all of my dorkiness, I have enlisted the help of bloglines. When I started using bloglines my enthusiasm knew no end, but now that its been a part of my life for some time now, its fallen to the “taken for granted” side of things. But that doesn’t mean the love isn’t still there! Here’s what I like about it:

• it keeps all of my blogs in one spot (no more searching through bookmarks)
• it keeps track of the new posts that I haven’t read, so I don’t spend time looking at sites that haven’t been updated
• I can share my list or keep it private (see link below)
• I can access my list anywhere, so I don’t have to be on my own computer to get a hit of cute animals, bad fashion, or life hacking tips
• I can read the info through the blog reader and avoid any advertisements (though this is sometimes a disadvantage and you have to click on the blog title to get to a video or something)

I do need to weed out some of the links to blogs that have begun to annoy me, or are just taking up space. It’s been on my to do list for some time, but is one of those things that is just not important enough to beat out other things that need to be done to actually get completed at any point. Mainly I read stuff about finances, productivity, and random writers that amuse me. So, here is my blog list, complete with some random ones I don’t really read anymore.

Risawahoo’s Bloglines

Oh, and PS…no late opening, although it did snow ALL DAY until almost dismissal time. It’s nearly impossible to keep kids working when it is snowing…although I can’t really blame them, its hard for me too.  Something about snow kicks in my “must read a book in bed with hot chocolate” instinct.

A plea for inside-out PJs

All little kids know that wearing your pajamas inside out increases your chances of a snow day…let’s hope that the combined charms of exposed seams and tags will bring the winter weather our way. I’m really wanting at least a late opening or SOMETHING as we haven’t had any snow days this year, and very few last year. That pretty much guarantees that it will be very cold and rainy and miserable–and that when I wake up and anxiously listen to the radio there will be plenty of counties that are delayed or out, but they will skip over mine. Let’s hope that I’m wrong, and that we have some really icy roads to keep us at home.

My ideal snow day involves lots of napping, daytime television involving: decorating, babies, families with too many babies, and real estate (or all of the above.) Plus, I could get things done around the house (watch those Joe’s Goals lines shoot up!) and play with my new card making supplies. I need to stop thinking about this, because when I end up going in on time I’ll be so grumpy that all my snow day hopes and dreams were crushed.

#69 Use Joe’s Goals for two months

I’ve been using Joe’s Goals off and on for about a month and a half. As an elementary school teacher, I think the desire to earn smiley faces is ingrained in me, but like everything else, my attention span with this does not always last much longer than a week or two. So, I’m going to attempt to update Joe’s Goals every day to see if I can make it a habit. And by updating it, hopefully it will remind me about the various other things I’m working on that I’m using Joe’s Goals to track.

Here are some of the things that I like about Joe’s Goals:

• Simple interface
• Tracks your chain of how long you have done something (kind of like the site that tracks your Seinfeldian chain which I read about on Lifehacker)
• Allows you to “weigh” activities so some things get more points than others (this encourages me to do things I don’t like like laundry and cleaning my bathroom)
• Lets you subtract points for things you are trying not to do

I put my Joe’s Goals “badge” on the side of the page, so that everyone can see if I’m losing interest and sucking at stuff. (My new theory is public accountability is the way to go!) You can see that I’ve not been doing anything with it recently. My general goal is to get 4 points a day.

#20 learn some italian to get around Italy

After last weekend with my college girlfriends, I’m able to move forward on being able to say really odd things in Italian. Anna kindly brought me her Italy resources she acquired before her trip with Mike last summer. She brought me (drum roll!!!) the Rosetta Stone for Italian. I am super excited about this program, especially given the high recommendation from Sean, and the fact that I’m not the one shelling out the $200. Maybe there is something good about being one of the last people in my friend group to travel to Europe. We forgot one CD, so I haven’t been able to use it yet, but I’m looking forward to it.

Anna also had a CD with basic Italian phrases. Listening to this makes me understand how little kids can’t figure out when words end or when they are just one really long multisyllabic word. When I listen to it, its really hard to tell when one word ends and the other begins. It just sounds like one big mumbo jumbo.

Anna also brought me the sparknotes flashcards for Italian words. And, I will be driving to work learning the Italian words for all sorts of basic things most kids learn in preschool. If I can’t say “where is the bathroom?” in Italian by the end of this, then I’m too stupid to be traveling anyway.

Jackson the Super Baby!

This weekend we went to Kristen and Josh’s fancy new house to visit them and play with Jackson. Jackson is the most perfect baby ever created and we love him to death. He does nothing but smile (due to his superb parenting, I’m sure). This may be the last picture of the Ed School Girls and offspring when there is only one baby. Baby Ellington (sometimes referred to as Little Erin, although Meg is trying to convince people the name starts with a J, we all know the truth) will be here soon!

Jackson the Super Baby crafts his plan to save the world! He thinks the little squeaky ducky will be an excellent accomplice. Since he is the most handsome, intelligent, strong little boy ever created it should be a cinch.

Me bonding with Jackson The Super Baby. It was nearly impossible to leave him with his actual parents. The only thing that got us through was Jefferson The Super Dog waiting at home. Sometimes life gets tricky when you are surrounded by super-ness.

NBCT pondering

Yesterday I went to the county information meeting on National Board Certification. To become board certified, you have to prepare a portfolio (video tapes, kids work, and writing) that proves you are a good teacher and then you also take a test. It is supposed to be a very difficult process, with tons of writing, silly hoops you have to jump through as far as formatting, and take tons of time. The speakers said to consider the process to be the same as taking on another part time job. The benefit is that it is a big deal, but also that you get paid more for the years your certification is current.

I have definitely decided this is something that I want to do, but the big question is when. You need to have 3 years of experience to be eligible, but they said they “strongly encourage” having at least 5 years of experience because they (“they” being the professional development coordinator and the teachers who have just gone through the process) believe it makes it easier to complete some of the tasks. This year is my fourth year of teaching.

So I have pretty much decided that I’m going to wait one more year before I try to start the process. This summer my roommates and I will move to separate places after living together for five years. That will be a huge change, and there is a good chance I’ll end up having to move again in November. So that’s two big changes right there that would make life stressful even without a ton of extra work. My type A-ness is wanting to do it anyway, but there is really no reason waiting one more year would make a difference. Although that year may be stressful too, doing it a year when I know for sure things will be changing seems silly. (If it sounds like I’m still trying to talk myself into it, its because I am, a bit. I’ve spent the past year thinking I would do this next year so it requires a bit of an adjustment.)

It seems like all the other 101 blogs are completing things left and right, whereas I am in the midst of goals, or deciding to postpone starting them. Oh well, I guess I’m the tortoise and not the hare.