My Love, My Life

I am not someone who likes Valentine's Day. Not even a little bit. I figure that if he likes you, he should be showering you with love everyday. This year is my second Valentine's with Stuart. Last year, he spoiled me rotten. He got third row tickets to the ballet, bought me a yummy romantic dinner (the sure fire way to any Cambria's heart), and gave me my favorite band's new album. "Well, Cambria, what did you get Stuart?" Nothing. Not one thing. I told him I hated Valentine's and that he wouldn't get anything and I made good on my word, and I felt like the biggest jerk ever.
This year I did not make the same mistake. I got Stuart some new slippers. Again, as always, he spoiled me. . . and I am just fine with that, because really, he makes it feel like everyday is Valentine's Day.
I have never known any person to be so completely loving and self-giving as my wonderful husband is to me. I often feel completely undeserving and beyond grateful that he chose me. Although, Sawyer said to him in the car the other day that "[he] made a good choice in [me]."
Here is the very first picture that was taken of Stuart and I. Don't we look like sappily in love? I kind of think we were.


I love my husband, I love my life.

I Am the Proudest Aunt Alive!

On Tuesday night, I became an aunt. I can't tell you how excited I am about it! Little Mason Tyler Kingsford came into this world at 9:15 p.m. 7 lbs. 11 oz, 20 1/2 inches with beautiful dark hair and is perfect. Grammie and Opa (my parents) and Grandma and Grandpa (Tyler's parents) and myself were all there in the waiting room and got to share in Emilie and Tyler's joy moments after Mason's birth. It was truly a joyous occasion and made my grateful for my wonderful family. The only thing that would have been better is if Stuart and Sawyer would have been there, but they had gone home so Sawyer could get some much needed sleep.
Here are some pictures of my beautiful nephew! I swear I won't spoil you too much, Buddy.



And here's one with the proudest Grammie of all!

Clarity

This week at school has been rough. A situation happened that I got stuck in the middle of that made me realize that it really, truly is time for me to look for a new school next year. I don't know if I'm bored, tired of driving 1 hour a day (YES!), tired of middle school, or if I need new challenges, but this situation made my forthcoming decision all the easier.
Seriously, why do adults act like middle school kids? And interestingly, this week. . .my middle school kids have been acting like adults. In that regard, it's been awesome.
This situation, which as you can figure out now, I'm not going to go into in detail has made me somewhat depressed and pretty disgruntled at school, but yesterday something happened. On my way out, I ran into one of the seasoned teachers at school who has sort of taken me in under his wise wing since day one. He asked how I was, and I said okay. Then he asked how my hubby and son were. .. .And I knew that my demeanor changed in that question.
I said, awesome.
He said, that is great. You know, if you have a peaceful and fun home, that's all you need. You can make it through this job, you can make it through anything. I love going home. It's the only place where everything else doesn't matter.
He went on to tell me that he had spotted me one time out in public and had watched me with my husband and Sawyer, whose hand was wrapped around mine, and told me how close we all looked.
I almost cried.
I drove home in a quiet manner and really thought about what my wise, old friend had told me. It is so true. If you have the people you love surrounding you each day, nothing else in the world matters. You really can get through anything. Work, money, co-workers (grrrr), materialism, none of that matters when you are at home.
What a relief to know at work today, that nothing that happens to me here will have to affect me, or can creep into my peaceful home.
I've said it once and I'll say it again, I am blessed.

New Year's-Boo Year's

It's New Year's. . . .six days ago. Every year I say I'm going to do all these things tat I never end up doing. This year, the only resolution that I made (with my awesome husband) was to not eat out very much. We eat out ALL the time. WAAAAY too much. Every time the end of the month comes and we wonder where all the money's gone, we just have to look at your checking account. SICK! Wendy's, McDonalds, Iggy's, Cafe Rio, Paradise, Rio Grande, Squatters, more McDonald's, Subway, more Cafe Rio, Barbacoa, etc. Incredible! So, Stuart and I decided that we really need to get a handle on this whole thing and start eating things in our house, WOW, did you know that I have perfectly edible food in my pantry? Neither did I.
To celebrate our new found goal, we dined out at a cheap restaurant. . . . . .

Baby steps.

GO UTES!

Oh the happy smile on my face when the Utes won on Friday and proved everyone wrong. Take that all you doubters, all you nay-sayers. Only undefeated team in the country. YAY!

D is for. . .

In case you were not aware, the letter D is a letter riddled with misconceptions about it. Poor D. In another world, maybe D could have stood for Divine, Delicious, or Delightful. . .not so in the world of middle school.
In middle school, D is nothing but the slightly more sophisticated version of its feeble-minded moronic cousin, F.
Well, as it happens, my students actually do think about things some time. God bless some of my students, but if they can think about some of the randomness that spews from their brains, you would think they could remember to turn in their homework. sigh. Nonetheless, a student had a conversation with my class and I yesterday that, although arbitrary, made my heart light.
Student: Ms. Demke, what does D stand for?
Before I could answer, three students in class supplied the answer.
Student 1: Dumb
Student 2: Dreadful
Student 3: Doom
The last one concerns me most. Doom? I guess that sums it up about right.
By the way, in case you were wondering, in the American Grading system, D doesn't stand for anything that starts with a D. It stands for Poor.

Twilight, more like. . .Dumblight

So I finally saw it. I finally saw the Twilight movie last night. As an avid fan of the books, except for Breaking Dawn, that book can suck it (but that's another story), I was more than wary of seeing the movie. In fact, I haven't wanted to see this movie at all. But curiosity in humans is something that one just cannot avoid, therefore my poor husband (God bless him) and I went to sit through 2 hours of mediocrity.
Right away I knew I wasn't going to like this movie when Edward stutters talking to Bella the first time. Now, we are talking about a person who is 85 years old, is supposed to be strikingly beautiful and have all the confidence that his long years have provided him (so much so, that I have heard grown women admit that they are desperately in love with him, compare "real" men to him, and even devote "parties" to this teenage-fantasy. . .creepy). Believe me, Edward does not stutter. If he does, he is just another teenager, like the kids in my class, who are desperately bad at talking to the opposite sex.
And then of course, there is his hair. Luke Perry would be angered to know that Edward has stolen his Beverly Hillsesque hair-do and is using it to promote bad cinematic art. . oh wait, did Luke Perry ever star anything cinematically good? "Buffy?" . . no. "8 Seconds?" I never saw, but I'm going to guess no. And of course, for as much and as guilty as some us are for making 90210 a part of our weekly lives for many years, let's face it. Dylan and the gang don't exactly scream Shakespeare. Edward's hair could have starred in its own movie, it was so big.
Back to topic though. Edward and Bella's "love" story is about as believable as honesty in poltics. As believable as Amy Winehouse's sobriety. As believable as Cambrias having fun in the snow. . .you get the point. What Meyer would originally have her readers believe that Bella and Edward have a deep-seeded love for one another, enough that even grown women are engrossed with, is nothing but a pale and contrived mockery of the emotion itself. This movie couldn't have been worse if it had had song-and-dance numbers intermixed, and believe me, my husband made one up in the car, and it was bad.
To make matters worse, not only are Edward and Bella lack-lusterly in love five minutes after their laughable meeting, the make-up decisions made to depict the vampires, make this already bad script as comical as Edward's "I'm going to kill you, Bella" look. (He and Jasper look almost constipated through the first part of movie).

Here's the first quarter of the movie.

Bella: That's weird, those kids over there are so beautiful.
Audience: Don't you mean pale and creepy-looking?. . Is that flour on their faces?
Bella: That boy over there has stolen my heart already.
Audience: Um, Bella, he's glaring at you and has weird manicured eye-brows and strange, unnaturally pale skin.
Bella: He's different and an outsider, just like me!
Audience: Bella, you are like the most popular girl in school and have been in school for five seconds.
Bella: I love him! Even though he seems to despise me for no reason at all.
Audience: What?!

It was bad. Very bad indeed. The movie has sort of cured me (as well as Breaking Dawn, lousy, most-disappointing book EVER) of my Twilight obsessions, some although they were. I have even told students that next quarter, they cannot hand in any Twilight book reports. I haven't seen that sad a looks since Bella screamed at Edward from her hospital bed telling him she couldn't live without him since she had decided to make him her life since their meeting three days ago.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr.