Long Weekend!

I usually don't have the Friday of President's Day off from school but I did this year. I have conferences this week and the next, so they added our make-up day to the already extended weekend. While I like it now, I might be grumbling about it later on.

On Friday I did some chores around the house. We took Carly in for a much needed haircut. The woman who cut her hair was named Carly and that kind of turned into a mini-theme for the day. We stopped in at Paul's school to say hi. We ate lunch at McDonalds and then picked up some stuff at Walmart.

One of the items we picked up was a second mat for Dance Dance Revolution for $20 - well worth it. Ellen and I played together for quite a while yesterday. It's nice to play at the same time and not have to sit around waiting for your turn. I've already told Paul that I want another DDR game for my birthday.

That night we went out to eat at Binsters in Hibbing. This place used to be the Old Howard, which back in its day was awesome, but then they got new owners and it went downhill and we stopped eating there. They reopened as Binsters this fall and it is really a good place to eat again. It's such an attractive restaurant too - old wooden booths, tin ceiling, cool bar. Paul had steak & shrimp. I had shrimp. It was all good. When the waitress came to give us menus she introduced herself as Carly. My Carly turned to me and gave me a look that said, "No way!!" It was funny.

Hat Fundraiser

I was in charge of a PTSA fundraiser a couple weeks ago. We ordered the hats from a company that recently started up. One of the owners attends the Thursday ECFE class and she works at Paul's school as a sign language interpretter. So she and I worked on this project together. We had orders for 138 hats and they came in last week. The kids were just thrilled with them and their parents thought they were cute. I've had a few people ask me about ordering more, so tomorrow I am letting kids know that we'll do a second round of orders and that they are due Thursday. We will not order any beyond that day. If I don't do it that way, I'm going to be ordering small numbers of hats for the next month. We made $3 on each hat, so it was a good money maker for us considering the short amount of time that went into it.

Carly was very excited about her hat - she even slept with it on. Her name is embroidered on the back. That was her favorite part. I'm looking into getting a couple in Eden Prairie colors.

Making Valentines

Carly's ECFE class is having a little Valentine party at our weekly class. She decided that she would rather make Valentines than buy them, which I thought was great. We needed a little project to do this weekend. I cut up the cardstock and showed her how to use the rubber stamps. For a five year old, she did a really nice job. When she was done she turned them over and signed her name on the backs of all of them. Little things like that show me that she's definitely ready for kindergarten next year.

Cold, Windy Weekend.

The weekend was pretty uneventful since it was so cold and windy. Our neighbor's flag was straight out and snapping all weekend. There is no reason to leave the house if you don't have to. I decided to put up a beach picture at the top of the blog in protest of this cold weather. I'd rather be there than here.

On Friday after school, I had a retirement party to attend. Our school secretary retired this week after 40 years with the district. She's a nice lady and lives less than two blocks from my house. I walk past her house all them time when it's not winter. I always stop and visit with her if she's out. I think our visits will be a bit longer now that I won't see her at work. Happy retirement, Celeste!

I did a couple exercise dvds over the weekend. I have been putting in extra effort since Christmas. Since I get three movies at a time from Netflix, I've been making a point to get one exercise dvd each week just to mix up the routine. The one I did today about killed me. I stepped on the scale today and I've lost 2 pounds since Christmas break without changing what I've been eating, so I think the effort has paid off.

We also had "Ferris Beuhler's Day Off" from Netflix. We watched it Saturday night. Ellen needs to be introduced to some of the "classics." She got a kick out of it. Paul and I enjoyed seeing it again too. When we finished it we immediately went to CNN to check for primary/caucus results.

This weekend we spent a lot of time watching election coverage on tv. Paul and I always pay attention, but since there is nothing else to watch on tv we know what every single network has to say about the Democratic race. I can never flip past a channel if Tim Russert is on. I don't really know what it says about me that Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough are the commentators that I enjoy the most after Tim. Paul jumped on the Obama bandwagon very early and he pulled me up there about two weeks ago. We're excited to see him doing well and hope that he has a good day on Tuesday as well.

We went to our local caucus last week thinking we'd be home in less than 15 minutes. We put in a full 90 minutes. In Keewatin they wouldn't let us vote and leave like they did everywhere else in the state. This was a social outing for many - an evening to discuss politics with people in your community. We didn't vote until after 7:30. There were 18 people at the meeting - 11 Hillary supporters and 7 for Barack. The guy running the meeting (who kept saying Arizona instead of Minnesota) wanted people to talk about the candidates they were supporting and why in case there were a few undecided in the room. A guy a couple rows up for me explained why he was supporting Obama and I agreed with everything he said, but I thought there was a little to add, so I spoke out for Barack Obama. I wasn't too nervous about it since Paul and I have been practicing in our living room for weeks. I don't usually do things like that. Kayla's mom, Laura, went with us. We had quite a few open slots for delegates to our county convention, so Laura and I are going to go. We figure it can't be worse than the 6 hours we spent watching Kayla and Ellen play volleyball one afternoon. At the end of the meeting they were talking about Al Franken and why he would be good for our state and the guy in charge said, "We have got to start electing people who will stand up for Arizona!" You're damn right!

I am really going to miss my boyfriend.

Tonight was the last episode of Friday Night Lights. I really hope this show will get picked up for a third season. As of tonight, there is absolutely nothing to watch on tv anymore. I have a feeling that I might really improve my Guitar Hero skills in the weeks to come. Since I'll be trapped in my house all weekend with -40 windchills, I'll write up a longer post tomorrow.

I'll be taking a few days off

Our computer is just slow and gradually getting worse. We're going to take it in for a tune up before it completely crashes on us.

Have a Super Tuesday!

For Dan

I drove uptown afterwork to get the mail and was surprised at how many cars were there. At first I was thinking there must be a meeting at the union hall. Then I saw Norm Coleman standing in front of the City Hall building and remembered that Keewatin Taconite was announcing a major expansion today. I guess Tim Pawlenty was there too. Since I had a Democratic post yesterday, I thought it would be fair to balance it out with a Republican post. I try to be like FOX News.

I wonder if Norm saw the Al Franken bumper sticker on the back of my jeep.