Wow!

I'm slacking in this thing bad! To make things worse, the curse of the broken camera has touched about the home of Picosita. There are a few options out there for me to get the situation taken care of, but it's all up in the air.
Here's a list.

1) Today is "Super Tuesday" and because my stupid self is STILL registered in a city 5 hours away, I can't vote in the democratic or GOP primary. This isn't the worst thing that could happen actually. You see, I haven't throughly educated myself on all things political when it comes to the candidates, and what I know, I don't like. This way my "things to study list" narrows down from four candidates (plus Ron Paul) to two. Don't get me wrong, ideally there seems to be a couple of strong candidates, but it's hard to believe anything they say.

2) Tomorrow I'm helping administer a mock TAKS test to the 6th graders while the 7th and 8th take the real thing. As an educator I'm really up in arms about the TAKS test. For those of you non-Texans, the TAKS test is an assessment that determines whether you have the knowledge you need in the core subjects to move onto the next grade. In other words, you can work your tail off in school, have your daily grades and major projects cover any lower test scores - but if you take the TAKS and fail, you don't pass. There are opportunities to re-take, but test anxiety seems to be a growing issue in our schools. What licks my hide is I'll be in my room with the same kids ALL day which will begin to grow on my nerves seeing how they're not even art students. I'll survive, if anything, it'll be an easy day, right?

3) I've just discovered my baked chicken with stuffing is raw. What's up with that? I make it a ton of times, followed procedure, and I have raw chicken for dinner.

4) I've become quite the fan of online Guitar Hero. I'm not too bad, and have been playing for a couple of months. Recently we decided to hook the PS3 up online and have been battling pimple-faced, prebubesent teens to the Kaiser Chief's "Ruby," and Pearl Jam's "Even Flow." I've even dabbled in Call of Duty Four - Modern Warfare, and just achieved my first air strike.

5) I stayed after school an extra hour and a half helping a tear-filled student find her purse containing her ipod. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the first part of my evening, but her mom said she couldn't go home until she found it. We never found it, but mom opened the door.

6) I've had an altercation with who I consider(ed?) a close friend. The jury is still out but I'm getting too old for this type of stuff. It's hard to let things go, and even harder to always second guess your choices - especially when it comes to confrontation. But aren't the best friends the ones you can be 100% honest with? I'd like to think so, but not everyone feels the same way.

7) Edited out. Thank you.

8) My dog is pooping everywhere, but I love him so much. I think this was the best thing we could've done to get ready for a baby. It was time, I needed someone else to love ad take care of. I miss him when I'm not with him, and the little guy is wonderful addition to our family.

9) Also edited.

10) I feel like I need to have a #10. Hmmm. This can be a wildcard entry. Oh, I know, a random picture from my wedding. This photo shows a framed picture I kept with me on my wedding day. It was an old photo of my grandfather, probably from the late 40's or 50's. He's the one that would call me "Pequena pero picosa" which I've turned in Picosita. There you go, a little bit of history for you.

Where I've Been

A couple of weeks ago we found ourselves not wanting to not cook one night, so we went out, not knowing what we were in the mood for. Fast food? Restaurant? Mexican? Italian? It can get annoying trying to agree, but we came across this pizza place we would go to as kids back home. The one in our hometown has been closed for several years so it was surprising for us to find one about 5 minutes from our new place here. We decided to give it a try. We should've turned around when we walked in. You see, Crystal's Pizza was always a fun time, but now I wonder if it was only appealing as a child? What started as a nostalgic trip back into our childhood past turned into us thoroughly inspecting dry, been-out-all-day pizza, and looking over our shoulder. Of course I'm exaggerating, but not about the food. But it was borderline creepy. Once I Googled the place, I found I wasn't the only one that felt this way as you can see here. I was sad about it. I remember having a birthday party at Crystal's when I was younger, and going there was always a treat. It doesn't seem like much has changed with the decor, a cartoon room, a creepy Victorian area, a long hallway that leads into the restaurant, and a case of antique porcelain dolls that have always made me feel slightly oogy, but it's different now, and pretty disappointing.




I've baked. Yep, that's right, all this, AND I'm a baker??? Pshaw! I needed an excuse to wear this uber-cute apron mayne!



I've learned that my fear of driving on unfamiliar highways is a thing in the past. I remember when we first moved to this area. I was coming from a limited driving past that only involved short roads, and a loop that took 15 minutes to complete. My first time into this area I was pulled over and given a speeding ticket for going 15 miles/hr over the speed limit because I was so nervous about hitting rush hour. I have no idea how I was able to even to push the pedal when all I could remember was my foot shaking, and my heart racing. Once the move was complete, finding my way around Dallas and Fort Worth became second nature to me. Now I know where most of the major highways and interstate go, and Map Questing a new, unfamiliar destination is almost entertaining. It's kind of empowering actually.



So now, besides volunteering to be backstage police for our school play....


...hanging out with hottest new mommy in Tejas...


...and frequenting high school soccer games...


...I now find myself fighting with a two month old weenie dog for my Steve Madden ballet flats.



AKC registered, miniture piebald dachshund $250
Crate, food, snacks, toys and extras at Pet-Co $184
Insane Pet deposit $400

Waking up at 3 in the morning to a puppy dry humping the blanket your grandmother gave you?

Priceless.

That's me, my life, in a nutshell, lately.

New addition!

We get "Romo" tomorrow!

Adventures in Paper Beading

This was a fun one. We covered jewelry making as an art (which I'm still at odds with) and decided to try out paper beads. We rolled strips of magazines around pencils and q-tips (with the ends cut off), glued them tight, and lightly varnished. Some of the girls used an iridescent varnish which really gave the appearance of an actual manufactured bead. These pics really don't give the actual end results justice.

I need to buy a better camera.

Obscure Pic 1

So since I began an "In The Car" series I decided to go with a new series featuring rather random, pointless type photos. These photos may not have a story to go along with the image, because sometimes an image just speaks for itself.

This photo is one I took at a wedding a couple of years ago. I'm not Catholic, but there's something about Catholic churches and imagery that I am fascinated with. I went to a mass today in memory of my husband's late grandfather, and the church reminded me of the one in the photo.

Okay, so this image kind of has a story...but random nonetheless.

Happy early Ash Wednesday. Shout out to all my Catholic peeps.

I'm So Mean

I caught a kid shootin' craps in class the other day, so I confiscate his dice. After I told him he could only get them after school I came up with the idea to paint them pink and sprinkle them with glitter. Knowing he would try to clean it off, I luckily had some varnish lying around...he shouldn't have brought his dice to school anyway.


Not the best paint job ever..but I was actually short on time.

Foggy View

So I drove to Wichita Falls this weekend, just a day trip for a soccer tourney, and the fog was horrible! Our early game was delayed because of it actually. After 9:45 or so, it lifted and turned out to be a beautiful day. They won both of their games, and everyone was happy. Ironically, every game I've gone to has resulted in a win, and their only losses were games I couldn't attend. We'll see how it plays out from here on...