My life as I know it

I am not normally a morning person. I don't roll out of bed with a "let's take on the day" attitude. I don't wake up wanting to sing and whistle and celebrate the fact that I'm awake. I usually prefer silence and solidarity in the morning. It isn't until I've gotten ready and driven 40 minutes to work that I am finally ready to be social and get on with my day. Today, however, I woke up with a lot of energy, relatively speaking. I still snoozed the alarm clock but only 4 times as opposed to 8. I knew I was heading in for a 12 hour day and I was ready to "take it on." After I was finished getting ready (we're talking hair, make up, skirt, the whole nine yards - not normally part of my every day routine, either), I grabbed my phone and was about to walk out the door when I noticed several missed calls, a few voicemails and a text message saying the school was closed for the day due to a broken water pipe. If I would have found this inform...

No, I'm not mocking prayer. I believe a couple who prays together stays together too, but honestly, in my brief 15 months of marriage and five-year relationship with Pat, I have learned this much: assembling furniture and putting up tents are two of the very most challenging situations for our relationship. I don't blame either of us for this fact, I blame the people in China who build the furniture and I blame the people in America who claim they "tested all the parts" and who write those poor excuses for assembly instructions. The old adage, "a picture speaks a thousand words" does not hold true with assembly manuals, in my humble opinion. You may think your little picture with screws, arrows and parts are clear and concise, but we strongly disagree! I should point out, that Pat did the majority of the heavy lifting with this project. I was only called downstairs when the manual said "assistance required," (which ironically were the only word...

At the faculty and staff orientation last week, our new principal and assistant principal announced that faculty and staff could wear the uniform polos and khaki pants on Fridays and the school would be providing us with the first polo! I was really excited about this. One less day I have to stand staring aimlessly into my closet in the morning, when my brain isn't functioning well anyway, while I try to decide what to wear that day. I was so excited that I went and paid the $20 to buy a second polo (in my favorite aqua blue) so that I could rotate between the two polos each Friday. Today we had a pep rally at the school so we were allowed to wear our polos on Thursday (in addition to tomorrow). When I woke up this morning, there was no time wasted on figuring out what to wear. I was excited! That is, until I got dressed. When I was looking at myself in the mirror with my polo shirt tucked into my khakis, something just didn't feel right but I couldn't quite put my finger...

I cannot believe that Dexter season five starts one month from Sunday! We do not even have the Showtime channel, but I am confident that we will by September 26th when the season premiers. There is no way we can read everyone's facebook status updates and hear how everyone is so excited about the show and not be able to watch it ourselves. PLUS, we just got our new 52" LED Sharp TV. Can you imagine watching Dexter in 52" of high definition? I can't! If you're a Dexter junkie like we are (thanks to my dad and and Jill), you may enjoy watching the season 5 trailer below.

Easy Roasted Red Pepper Hummus Ingredients 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained 1/3 cup tahini 1/3 cup lemon juice 1/2 cup roasted red peppers 1/4 teaspoon dried basil Directions In an electric food processor, combine garlic, garbanzo beans, tahini, and lemon juice. Process until the mixture is smooth. Add roasted peppers and basil; process until the peppers are finely chopped. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer hummus to small bowl, cover and chill until you are ready to serve. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So my new recipe for this week (I know, I've taken a few weeks off) was hummus. I'm not sure how or why I decided I wanted ...

Play-by-play of the evening at the Robinson household. 5:00 PM: I call Pat on my way home from work. We discuss our plan for dinner and our excitement to actually eat dinner at a decent time since we weren't working out. 5:30 PM: Pat arrives home from work to find a #2 accident in Grady's crate (re-read Oops I crapped my crate again for a refresher of what this is like) 5:40 PM: I am almost in car accident following old woman going 30 MPH while merging onto busy, rush hour highway 5:45 PM: Pat finishes cleaning up Grady's crate accident 5:50 PM: I arrive home and show Pat the birthday gift I got for Leann. I place the box on the dining room table. 5:55 PM: Pat fires up grill to start cooking turkey sausage for the quiche 5:56 PM: Pat realizes we are out of propane 6:00 PM: Pat runs to home depot to get propane, the grocery store to get a missing ingredient for the hummus I was making and to HH Gregg to pick up our back ordered TV stand 6:10 PM: Pat is in ch...

Stating the obvious here, but I decided to give my blog a face lift. I have had the same look and feel of my blog for over 5 years and I thought it was time for a change. You may notice that I also decided to change the title of my blog. Don't get me wrong, I still love that old Calvin and Hobbes quote, but I didn't think it accurately described what I do in this blog. I'm not sure that I can accurately describe what I do on this blog either, but what I can say is that it is my own (often exaggerated) interpretation of my life. My life as I know it . I hope that you like the new look and title! It almost seems a bit too sophisticated for my often very unsophisticated topics. Oh well. That's my life!

1. Swim with dolphins 2. Go whale watching 3. Visit Hawaii 4. Visit the Grand Canyon 5. Visit Italy 6. Visit Ireland 7. Visit Australia 8. Win the lottery so I can take all of the above trips 9. Master the art of caring when it matters and not caring when it doesn't (and learning to know the difference) 10. Have a family 11. Celebrate a 50th anniversary with Pat 12. Train Grady (or another dog if necessary) to be a therapy dog to take to hospitals and/or nursing homes 13. Find meaningful work that also makes me happy 14. Write/Publish a book

Today would have been my brother’s 24th birthday. It’s so hard for me to believe he would be that old. I can’t really imagine him being any older than the six year-old boy I remember (the way he looks in this picture is the way I remember him). I wonder if he would be tall, no one in our family is very tall. I wonder if his hair would still be blonde or if it would look more like a dirty blonde or light brown like mine. I wonder where he would have gone to college and what he would have majored in. I wonder if he would have a girlfriend and if I would like her. On his birthday seven years ago, I went and got this tatoo on my lower back in his memory. Today I wanted to do something in his honor again. So taking Mark's advice of "living like you're dying" and in honor of my brother's life being far too short, I decided to make my very own bucket list. In my mind, I’ve had a few things I knew I would like to do before I kick the bucket, but I’ve never formally made ...

Do you remember the Saturday Night Live skit, Oops I Crapped My Pants ? It was always a favorite of mine and I still enjoy it to this day. Check it out if you've never seen it, it will be worth your time. Pat beat me home from work today, as I was at a hair appointment until 6:30 p.m. When I pulled into our driveway, I immediately noticed the bottom, plastic part of Grady's crate in our driveway. Next I saw the puddles of soapy water and my clean, wet dog. Oops, Grady must have crapped his crate (again). We've been through this song and dance more times than I can count over the last year. You walk in the back door and the smell hits you like a freight train. Next you have to figure out whether or not it's all over him and whether or not he can walk out of the crate or if you have to carry him out of the crate (which is no longer an option for me since he now weighs over 60 pounds). We've been watching his movements for the past few days, waiting for the weddin...

So I have been feeling really guilty (thanks to my Mom) about how many plastic bottles Pat and I go through in a week ( Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!). Please note, we recycle each and every one of these plastic bottles. I make sure to bring my empty bottles home from work each day to recycle them since the school doesn’t recycle plastic. That being said, we do go through a lot, especially me. I take a Lipton Lemon Iced Tea in a plastic bottle with me to work every day. I buy a 12 pack of these teas about every other week. My mom and Mark saw some special on TV about how much plastic the country as a whole goes through, and ever since then it has been my mom's personal mission to make sure I am not one of the citizens contributing to this problem. She has brought it up several times and each time I remind her that I do recycle them. It appeases her for the moment but the next time I see them, they bring it...

The last words out of Pat's mouth before we left for the grocery store were, "Did you dog proof the house?" We both walked back into the house to give it one more look. We moved anything made of paper off of the kitchen and dining room tables, we learned the hard way that moving paper into the middle of the tables isn't enough. He has long legs and he knows how to use them. Funny thing is, we have NEVER witnessed him jumping on the counter or our tables. He's at least smart enough not to do it in front of us. We made sure to close the doors to the bedrooms, we all know what he does with socks and underwear. We closed the doors to the bathrooms to prevent him from getting in the trash or the toilet (and he has done both). Finally, we shut the door to the basement just in case he could find any trouble down there. Feeling quite comfortable with the condition of the house, we left Grady alone while we headed for the grocery store. Neither of us really wanted to go....

I knew this day was coming. I've been hearing about it for months. I believe Pat started his countdown for football season in June. Actually, who am I kidding. Pat started his football countdown the day after the super bowl. Despite his constant reminders and countdowns, however, football season sneaks up on me each and every year. With the blink of an eye, summer is over and Pat is preparing for his fantasy football draft event. Speaking of the fantasy football event, that is where Pat is at this very moment. Pat is what I would like to call somewhat of a bedtime drill sergeant. He likes to be in bed by 10 and asleep by 10:30 on work nights. No exceptions. UNLESS... something important comes up, like tonight for example. His fantasy football draft event started at 6:45 PM. It is currently 10:53 PM and he is still not home. This is how it all starts... But let's be honest here. I knew what I was getting myself into. Pat and I started dating in the fall. Our first conversation r...

Is there an appropriate amount of nicknames you can have for your pet? Or maybe a better question would be, how many nicknames is too many? I was just thinking about all of the different names I/we (but mostly me) call our dog, Grady, and there are a lot! I wonder if it gets confusing for him? Maybe that is why he only listens to me half of the time - because I only call him by his real name half of the time (actually, that's being generous. I probably call him by his real name much less than half of the time). Here are the different names I call my dog: Grady Grady Mac Grady Mac Robinson (his full, birth given name) Grady Boy Big Boy Buddy Mr. Fluffy (name given to him by kid at the vet) Fluffy Fluffer Mr. Fluffer Mr. Fluffer Pants Mr. Fluffer Pants Head Mr. Fluffer Head Fluffer Fluff (spin off of Flavor Flav) Stretcher Bear (I used to say this every time he stretched, now he stretches just to hear me say it) Wow, as I was typing these I started to get emba...

This has always been one of my favorite lyrics from the song, "She will be loved" by Maroon 5. Anyway, I thought it was fitting to describe the highs and lows I often experience in life and happen to be coming out of one of the lows right now. It's funny how as you grow up, you learn things about yourself and really get to know yourself on an intimate level. I would say at age 27, I'm still in the early stages of "getting to know myself" but I have definitely come a long way. It's not just about getting to know yourself, though. I think it's about getting to know yourself and getting to know this big world we live in, in order to be able to put yourself, your problems and your world into perspective. Nothing about me is larger than life so how could my problems possibly be? Many years ago, my lows were much more frequent than my highs and the lows were really low. So much so that I took medication to keep myself on an even keel. Before the medication...

You wanted to see the burnt bread that caused so much ruckus at the Robinson household so here you go. I believe it was the sandwich on the right that, moments after this photo was taken, caused me to lose my tooth. Okay, let's be honest. Of course it wasn't the bread's fault that I was negligent and let it burn. And it certainly wasn't the bread who said, "Hey you. Yeah, you with the thousands of dollars worth of dental work. Sink those money pits right into me and find out if I'm really as burnt as I look." No, I can assure you that's not how it happened. If the bread really did start talking to me, there's no way I would have ever bit into it and I never would have lost my tooth. So, maybe it was the bread's fault after all. Just in case you would like to give this recipe a try, you can find it here: Grilled double cheese and bacon sandwiches .