August 28, 2008
The Candy
This was our house at the beginning of this week:
This was Tuesday night:
We arrived last night at our house to find that many things had been delivered. I felt like a kid at Christmas. My jacuzzi tub was sitting in my garage along with my staircases.
My windows and doors are just waiting to be installed, skylights too. My front door, with the satin nickel sidelights (picture above), looks so cool. The box containing the soffit pieces and the boxes with my window heads are all there. Even some of the door levers have been delivered.
Inside, we found we were under a roof. While Mr. BBM and I checked that everything was straight and as it should be, the girls stood in the dining room window area and serenaded the neighborhood. I think Lil C is starting to get it, that this will really become our home soon.
The framing crew worked hard today to finish building the roof. Tar paper is installed on a third of the house and it won’t be long before our shingles are being delivered. It’s exciting. It’s like the jewelry of the house, the candy for the new homeowners; and I am getting more and more excited every day.
On an unrelated note, I have remained in the top 12 for the Hot Blogger Calendar contest and I want to thank all of you so much for all of your votes. Voting continues until August 31st, so if you haven’t yet voted, please go throw another one in my direction, because every calendar needs a picture of a girl in a gi.
August 26, 2008
Freshman are Freshman are Freshman
I arrived this morning on campus shaking like a leaf. I was the exact same way on my first day of teaching high school freshman many years ago. My class started at 8 a.m. and I was approaching the classroom at 7:50 a.m. this morning. Because my schedule was switched only days ago, my room was also changed. I walked right past my room because it was full. That class had to already be in progress, right? No one is going to be at least 10 minutes early to an 8 a.m. class right?
Wrong.
I walked past the room, stopped and walked backwards and peeked in. I walked in completely dazed and confused and said, "Are you all here for Composition class?" They nodded in agreement.
"What?!? Didn’t anyone tell you people that when you have an 8 a.m. college course, you’re supposed to arrive at 7:59 a.m.?"
They laughed and looked at me like I was nuts. If I made it to my 8 a.m. classes in college, it was with seconds to spare and only because I had slept in my clothes the night before. I shared that little piece of knowledge with them and then went searching for another table and more chairs. I have 24 students in this writing class. I’m going to have a lot of papers to grade.
By the time they were half way through their departmental assessment exam, I was feeling more relaxed. I allowed them to leave as soon as they were done and then prepared for my next course, which is a speech class. This class is smaller with only 19 students. I have many student athletes and some very interesting other students as well. The composition course will be a challenge to teach because of the subject manner. Making bibliographies interesting is next to impossible. The speech course’s challenges will come more from the students.
I had one guy try to sleep through the syllabus stuff. I called him out and he was bright eyed after that. I had another interesting young man who has been home-schooled his entire life. This is his first time in a classroom. My friend, Renovation Girl, told me that going back to teaching is like riding a bike and I think she is right. It felt mostly natural and I think it will be a good semester. It’s funny though. College freshman are just like 9th grade freshman, but in bigger packages. I thought they’d seem so grown up, but they’re just kids.
Either that or I’m getting older. Let’s go with the "just kids" scenario.
I’m hoping that the nerves I had today will be gone on Thursday when I go back for the second class. I’m also hoping that getting up that early starts to suck less. I am so not a morning person.
On another subject entirely, I haven’t been able to kick much butt or even pretend to since having ACL surgery. But apparently there are enough of you who want to support a woman making a fashion statement in a gi. I’m in the top 12 as of right now over at Hotbloggercalendar.com. I’m shocked, flattered, and realizing that you, my fantastic readers, totally rock (Like I didn’t already know this long ago). So, if you haven’t voted yet, please go cast your vote for me; and thanks a million to those who have already gone to cast a vote for women kicking butt in the martial arts everywhere. I think I need to start selling t-shirts that say "Girls in gi’s are hot."
And while I’m on the subject of "hot". . . there’s a hot new martial arts blog that I know you’ll want to check out. Ikigaiway.com is a site for all martial artists, written by a very dear friend and teacher of mine. His insights into the martial arts are always interesting and thought provoking. His blog header is reason alone to go and check him out (Hello, may I please have the name and number of your designer???). So when you get sick and tired of waiting for me to actually talk about something martial arts related, go and visit Ikigai. Tell him BBM sent you!
August 25, 2008
Time to Breathe
I barely have time to breathe lately, much less blog. On Friday, I received a phone call from the Department Chair at the college where I will begin teaching tomorrow. Before Friday, I was supposed to teach two Composition/Research classes in the afternoon. She left me a message asking me to switch to the morning. She also said she’d like me to have one Composition/Research course and pick up a Speech course as well.
This schedule allows me to be finished teaching by 10:50 a.m. each day that I’m on campus. It’s a pretty nice schedule which means that I can pick Big I up from school every day. Plus, I’ve always wanted to teach a speech course. I’ve done a lot of public speaking and I always thought it would be a fun course to teach.
So, I said yes to two preps and very early morning classes.
Instead of spending my last weekend relaxing, I spent hours each day planning and writing my syllabus. To say that I was stressed and overwhelmed would be a gross understatement. Because I spent my entire weekend planning, I managed to get onto campus today, make copies, and get some other things done. I am ready for the first week of teaching. Since I start at 8 a.m., I will need coffee though to be really sure I’m ready.
In other news, I think we’re getting our roof trusses today. I’ll post pictures later if the guys actually get them up.
Also, Big I had her first day of school today. Keep your fingers crossed that when I pick her up in a little while, she’s a happy girl.
And finally, today is voting day. While I could care less if I win or not, receiving a sucktastic number of votes is not at all cool. There are some ladies who are already rocking the vote count over there and I think all martial artists and fans of those who sometimes write about martial arts should stand up and say, "Yes! A girl can be hot while being completely covered up and wearing baggy pants in a gi!" So go and vote for me! A vote for me is a vote for girls who’ve said no to spandex everywhere!
August 21, 2008
And Then There Was a House
Yesterday I walked through my front door entrance and joyfully gazed at all of my downstairs rooms. Those guys move fast. There was not a doubt in my mind that as of tonight, I will have at least a second floor and I was right. It is finally feeling real.
I walked with the girls through all of the framed up rooms and imagined where I’d place my furniture. It’s going to be so much fun from here on out. The basement isn’t really my thing. The actual rooms are so much more exciting.
The girls wandered through with me for a while until they got sick of me telling them to please not fall through the hole into the basement where we have yet to get stairs. Then they decided to jump on a piece of plywood for a while, careful to avoid the discarded half of a hot-dog and the other trash that I’m hoping will get put in a trash can instead of just buried in our yard. I actually spent some time picking some of it up and throwing it away. When there’s a trash can in your front yard, and a dumpter directly in front of your house in the street, there’s just no excuse for that.
While they may not be the cleanest bunch of dudes, they are certainly hard working. They were already hard at work at 7:45 a.m. yesterday morning and they were still there at 4:15 p.m. after Big I had her "meet the teacher" social at her new school.
I think she’s feeling a little better about school and I know that I am as well. Her teacher is a veteran and seems very nice. From the other kids and parents, we learned that she loves art and she’s the only teacher in the school that has an actual piano in her room. Apparently she likes to sing as well. While we were standing there, another little girl came up to the teacher to meet her and I instantly recognized her and her Mom.
Her Mom was my Sunday school teacher many years ago and her daughter played with Big I at Vacation Bible School last summer. Although they didn’t remember each other, the fact that they are in the same classroom made me so happy. After we talked for a while, the Mom introduced Big I to another little girl who seems like a real sweetheart as well. It was such a relief for me to know that she’ll know two kids when she shows up next week for class. Although she’s still a bit apprehensive, I have a strong feeling that she’s going to really like her new school.
Now, without further delay, I give you the BBM house as it stands as of yesterday (we didn’t get pictures tonight because it was dark by the time we could have gone with a camera. We’ll go back in the morning). . .
This is the view from my front door. Straight ahead is the family room, to the left the dining room, to the right the living room, straight back and to the right is the office and straight back and to the left is the kitchen, laundry room, powder room (not visible in this shot). . .
This is a view of the family room from the kitchen area. The family room, with its high ceilings, gas fireplace, quarter round windows and skylights is my FAVORITE room in the house.
And here is the view from the front. Tomorrow, I’m betting I’ll be able to show you our second floor.
On another completely unrelated note, I found that my blog was being linked from HotBloggerCalendar.com tonight. Apparently I’ve been nominated to be on a hot blogger calendar? Who knew that something like this even existed; and more importantly how the heck did I get on that list? I must look way better on this blog than I do in person. Cool. While I have no expectation of winning a spot, I would like to thank the anonymous person who nominated me. So, if you’d like to fess up, I’ll thank you properly. It was very sweet, even if you do stay anonymous.
I also desperately need to fill up a spot in my fantasy football league. The draft is tomorrow night. Interested? If so, email me asap!
August 20, 2008
Early Morning Meeting
Last night we arrived at our house to find most of a first floor. It was so exciting! Although the floor wasn’t completely finished, I kept putting Lil C in different areas and telling her "Now you’re in the kitchen," "Now you’re in the laundry room," "Now you’re in the family room." She giggled like crazy and thought that was great fun (Pictures of the progress to come this week!). You always know you’re on the right path when you get the "do it again Mommy" request.
The only thing we weren’t happy about was the placement of our Bilco steps down into the basement. On the plans, it says they are supposed to only stick out from the house 5 feet. In reality, they stick out 8.5 feet. They hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that we ordered an extra deep basement. There are only 11 feet on the side of our house until the next property AND it slopes big time down from the neighbor’s yard.
Mr. BBM and I spent much of last night trying to figure out how we would have to launch things down into the basement from a ramp starting in our neighbor’s yard. We also discussed a wet spot we found in the stone in our basement (the floor has not been poured yet-thank God for that). I won’t go into the details. I’ll just tell you that Mr. BBM discovered that the guys who are framing our house are also using a certain corner of our basement to pee-pee.
Not.
At.
All.
Cool.
So, we met with the Supervisor and Site Foreman early this morning. In case you were wondering what kind of person can think clearly at 7:45 a.m.??? Construction guys can.
The supervisor made some suggestions that I didn’t like. I countered with telling them we really need the area directly out from the Bilco entrance to be flat, not sloped like he proposed. So, he’s going to give us a retaining wall that slopes down on either side. I think it’s a good solution, not a perfect one, but one that will work. He also walked us around our lot and showed us how he’s going to grade it. We’re going to have a very nice flat backyard. I’m very happy about that.
As the framing crew listened to their music and kept working, I asked the supervisor if he minded if I brought up a more "delicate" issue. I asked him if he could please have a porta-potty placed in front of our house. There is one on the street, but it’s kind of a long walk. I understand the guys have to go, but you know, not in my basement. While I understand that they haven’t yet poured the foundation, I don’t want to go into my basement and think about man pee in the corner. I explained in vivid detail as to what we found and his reaction was very similar to mine.
"That’s not right," he said. "I’ll take care of that."
I then mentioned my concern that the guys would be angry I said something and therefore screw up my house. He told me not to worry about that. I wish I could post a picture of the supervisor, because if you could see what he looks like, you would totally believe that he’s taking care of it too. I truly have nothing to worry about. Even the framing guy who looks like one of the guys from ZZ Top will be afraid.
As we were leaving, he walked back over to the crew and gave them the business. Hopefully that will be the end of them doing their "business" in my basement.
***There are some new reviews up at The BBM Review. Check out the Noodleboro reviews for a chance to win one of the games yourself!
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