Back to Retail

I found out the other day that tomorrow will be my last day at TWYLA because they ended up not having any openings right now. While this is sad and scary for Casey and I, we have faith that this is all part of God's plan for us. Until I find a new job I will be working at Ann Taylor Loft at the mall. I haven't worked retail in quite a while, but it should be fun.

Thursday, Friday, HAPPY DAYS, Saturday- What a day!

The end of this week and this weekend were both bittersweet. One one hand I had a great weekend with friends and on the other I found out that I will be unemployed at the end of this upcoming week. Luckily, tomorrow I am going to Conroe to have my subsitute teaching orientation so hopefully I will be able to sub as often as possible. I am also going tomorrow to submit a few applications at some retail places in the mall as well as a few child care facilities since that's what I've been doing all summer. Being unemployed is going to be super weird because I literally haven't been unemployed since I was 14 or 15. I have held at least one job for the past 10 years - crazy huh? Anyway, the weekend was a mix of fun and bad news, but here's the good stuff!

Thursday night, I went to happy hour at Baker's Street with a few of the girls and we had a blast catching up. Since our Bunko group has pretty much dissolved, I don't see those girls often enough. I finally met the elusive Stephanie Perez (she moved to Nacogdoches around the same time I started going to Bunko) and she was super sweet! Okay for this next part I need to give you a little backstory - when we went to Lake Conroe a weekend or two ago our friend Eric was part of the group. For some reason while we were riding around in the boat I decided that he would be a perfect match for Kelli and proceeded to tell him this. You know me - "matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match!" Anyway so I told him all about Kelli and he seemed interested. I told Kelli about him and she seemed interested, but the thing I didn't think about was - how was I going to get them to meet? Well fate worked this one out for me because while we were at Baker's St. in walks Eric! He had an appointment with his financial advisor, but ended up coming to our table for the rest of the night to hang out. He and Kelli seemed to be hitting it off so I invited him to come kayaking with us on Saturday (yesterday) and he was all about it! YAY! Not only would he get to hang out with Kelli and get to know her, but we would now have a guy to help us load and unload the kayaks! That my friends is a WIN WIN situation! I left fairly early because I have to get my beauty rest, but apparently Eric stayed up there and walked our group of girls to their cars - how gentlemanly!

Eric and Kelli and I

The girls!

On Friday I came to school with my bathing suit on - super ready for Splash day! Maggie and Gena had talked me into allowing the kids to dunk me in the dunking booth for our last Splash Day celebration! The kids had a blast dunking me and were chanting "DUNK MS. SARAH! DUNK MS. SARAH!" - sooo funny! Unfortunately the dunking booth that the rental company gave us was really crummy and broke after two or three dunks. That was a bummer, but we quickly distracted the kiddos with snow cones and all was right in the world. Here are a few pics from Splash Day!







Friday night Casey and I went to Mario's Mexican Restaurant and I did something that I haven't done in a month - I ate carbs! Not too many, but I did have several tortilla chips and one regular tortilla for my fajita. It was delicious but I was regretting it the next day. I promptly went back to full Atkin's mode Saturday! Speaking of Saturday- mine ROCKED!

Casey and I got up at around 7:30 on Saturday morning and started getting stuff done around the house. We had let the lawn grow for 3 weeks so it took Casey like 3 hours to mow - ouch! While he was mowing I went on a bike ride and let's just say - I had forgotten how hard biking is and what a good workout it is! Even though I'm up to running 2 miles straight, I couldn't even pedal for 1 mile straight and my legs were BURNING! I biked for about 30 minutes and called it quits because I had bigger and better things to move on to- KAYAKING! Since I knew Casey was going out of town on Saturday around lunch time I had arranged to borrow Chris and Jessica's kayak so Kelli could take her first venture out in a kayak. Luckily we had run into Eric so he was there to guide us around the lake and help us with loading and unloading. We spent a leisurely 2 hours floating around in Lake Woodlands and checking things out. I surprisingly didn't even get sunburned! After we got back to the shore we ate lunch at Northshore park and I stupidly fed one of the ducks and had an army of other ducks descend upon our picnic table. We were able to shoo them away, but those little guys are persistent to say the least! Although Kelli was hesitant about kayaking at first she got the hang of it and was leading us for most of the day - we had so much fun!

Kelli paddling away and Eric taking a break

Kelli and I

You give a guy a camera and he takes pictures of his feet? Typical - lol.

Kelli paddling over by the waterway apartments

Saturday night was a ton of fun - Adriane, Kelli (and her Chihuahua Jackson!), Jessica, and I had a good ol' fashioned Slumber Party at my house! The girls came over and I made enchiladas and we sat around snacking on delicious HEB queso and then later - cupcakes with super cute ocean inspired rings attached to them! What can I say - I work at a preschool and I take whatever leftover pastries that are offered to me. We had over 100 extra cupcakes after Splash Day celebration! After dinner we sat out on the back porch and watched the dogs go crazy chasing each other - let's just say they slept like babies that night! We finally came inside and rented "17 Again" - yes that's correct, the one with Zac Efron - lol. It was cute, but SUPER cheesy - what should I have expected though right? After that we all spread out on the ginormous bed we made using the couch and our air mattress - it was a sweet sleeping arrangement because there was plenty of room for all of us to stretch out AND the dogs got to snuggle with us too!

Our sweet bed/fort setup!

Our awesome friendship rings that we got from the cupcakes!

Saturday night was super fun - we are definitely going ot start doing that on a regular basis!

Well I gotta go now - Casey is installing more memory on my computer- yay!!

Weight Loss Weeks 4 & 5

Week 4 photos

Oops! I forgot to post last week! Okay so not much changed last week except I went up a pound, but I'm still running in the morning and I still feel really good. I'm still on the diet (oh and my Dad still is too! YAY!) and loving it although I have had a few small cheats. It's weird, but for some reason I'm craving sweets WAY more than I'm craving my normal savory carb treats (bread, tortillas, chips, pasta). I think because I cheated once and got sugar back into my system that now it's wanting it every day so I'm going to have to work on that. I've definitely lost some inches and for that I'm very thankful. As for working out - I've been trying to lift weights and I've been continuing my morning runs, but I'm just not seeing results fast enough. I think I'm going to have to start working out twice a day or at least lifting more often and for longer periods of time. I'm becoming a lot happier with my fitness level and my endurance is definitely getting better. Yesterday morning I ran 2 miles straight for the first time in my adult life. This is a huge feat for me because I have asthma and have been trying for a month to get my lungs to allow me to run for longer than 5 minutes.

Week Six photos

Kind of sad...

I've been kind of sad for the past few days because I have a feeling that I won't be employed with a district anytime in the near future. I've found out that a lot of districts don't want to hire ACP teachers (the program I am in) because it's simply too much work for them and a lot of them have been burned by hiring ACP teachers. I'm just getting really tired of being broke, but at the same time I know that God has a plan for me and that everything happens for a reason. I'm trying to be patient, I really am... it's just tough right now. The funny thing is that I'm most concerned about not being able to provide my family with a good Christmas for the 2nd year in a row- I hate not being able to buy gifts for everyone. Please just try to keep me in your prayers because I really need it right now. I know there are other people out there that are in a much worse position than me and I'm very thankful for what I have, but I would really like to have a normal job making normal money again. Also - thanks to everyone who has been there for me through everything this year - I really appreciate it.

Last Field Trip :(

Today was the last field trip of the summer at TWYLA, which means summer is almost over! This morning we went to Northshore Park in The Woodlands and played kickball, played on the playground, fed the ducks, and the girls even put together the "Thriller" dance and put on a show for everyone! I somehow got suckered into it:

Yeah I'm sure it was hilarious - especially since I don't know the dance that they made up- this was the only part I knew!! Today my mission was to take as many pictures as possible of the kids because I really miss taking artistic photos and kids are such a great subject! Here are a few of my faves:

Maggie (I call her Maggie Mae)

Rianna on the monkey bars

Seth on the slide - this might be my favorite!

Mackenzie -my mini-me! She looks SO much like i did when I was a kid!

Jordan climbing

That's all I have to report today! I will have to update my weight loss for this week and last week tomorrow!

Yay for college friends!

This weekend one of my best friends from college came in from Chicago. PATRICK!! I have known Patrick since my senior year in high school (16 years old) and we were best friends all through college. We were perpetual neighbors- everytime one of us moved, the other moved too. We lived two doors down from each other at Pecan Park Apts in Nacogdoches, then we both moved into our fraternity/sorority houses, then back to Pecan Park. Patrick has been like a big brother to me for years so it was definitely nice seeing him. We realized we hadn't seen each other in 2 years! Patrick is currently living in Chicago and working on his Ph.D. in Mathematics- he will soon be Dr. Sugrue - crazy!!

Friday night Patrick & Janette (another friend from college who picked Patrick up from the airport) got to our house at around 9:30 and we hung out for a few minutes before heading out to Fox & Hound to meet up with one of Casey's best friends & room mate from college - Craig Falloure. Craig is currently in the Army and living in the Dallas area so we definitely don't get to see him as often as we like. I just found out he is dating an awesome girl that I met a few months ago - her name is Lauren and she went to SFA too and is best friends with Mary Surkein. We ended up talking so much and having so much fun that we didn't take any pictures together! I couldn't believe it - I DIDN'T take pictures! Here's one picture I took of Patrick before completely forgetting my camera existed:

The class said "I'm a Texan" - so fitting. Can't wait for you to move back here Dr. Sugrue!

Saturday morning we woke up and I made breakfast and we hung out around the house and on the patio until around 1:00 when Patrick and his sister Megan headed downtown to check into their hotel. They got to go to the Green Day concert - I was so jealous! My iPhone died on Friday night some time so I had to take it up to the mall to get it fixed. I found out that the sim card on iPhones really doesn't store any information so they sent me home to back up my phone before bringing it back. Saturday night I wasn't feeling too well so we ended up not going out with Craig and Lauren again as originally planned. :( On Sunday we got up and hung out for a while before going to the mall to exchange my iPhone and some stuff that Casey had bought on Saturday that didn't fit. We've decided that Dillards and Macy's are our new favorite stores, because they are constantly having sales. Why pay full price at expensive stores like Banana Republic (which I still love) when you can go to Dillards and they ALWAYS have 50% off sales. That's my mini-rant for the day. Today is Hawaiian day at TWYLA so I am decked out in my hula skirt and lei headband. I love theme days! Pictures to come - if I remember!!

Sunday on the lake

This weekend was super laid back, but also had some excitement in the mix! A nice change of pace considering it seems like Casey and I are always busy and our weekends always seemed to be planned out before they get here. Friday night Casey and I relaxed and went to bed super early which was nice. On Saturday morning we got up and Casey went on a run with me and Riley (which never happens) so that was a nice change of pace (no pun intended). After running and breakfast we did some work around the house and finally finished putting the rocks up for the other flower bed on the side of the house. In the next week or two we're going to finally get mulch and finish that project. We then set out to run some errands and ate lunch at one of my favorite spots - Genghis Grill. I loooooooooove eating there especially now that I'm on this diet! We went to Lakeshore to look around at some teaching supplies but unfortunately I still don't have a job so I have no idea what grade I will be teaching so I have no idea what kind of things I will be needing. Bummer! After that we ran a few more errands we decided to run by Wal Mart so I could pick up a tomato plant for the Topsy Turvy tomato thing that my mom got me. As we were walking through the lawn and garden section we saw some awesome patio furniture on sale for $250 (down from $600) and couldn't resist. We have been looking for patio furniture for a year now and we finally found a set that was totally our style AND on sale - craziness! Looks like I'm on a roll with the awesome sales! We had to go pick up the truck at the house before we could go back and get it but we were so excited we did that immediately and then went home and Casey put it together while I worked on assignments. Here it is:

There's another chair on the other side, but you get the idea!

It's weird - we kind of feel like real adults now. We have a completely furnished house AND patio furniture. YAY!! We spent the rest of the night relaxing which was definitely needed after this busy day!

On Sunday we went to the lake with Graham, Krystal, Chris, and Marc Jones (Eric). Graham and his brother own a boat together so we went out on the boat and went kneeboarding and tubing. I FINALLY got up on the kneeboard after 7 or 8 tries and boy did that feel good. I am SOOOOOOO bruised up now it's not even funny and I can barely walk today. Although it was overcast I definitely got a little color which was nice. We were both exhausted when we got home but it definitely made for a nice Sunday. Here are some pics:

Krystal and I on the boat with Graham ruining our picture! :)

Ducks!

Getting the boat ready

We had a fantastic time hanging out with everyone and it was definitely a good workout! Yay for summer weekends!