EZ's

When I first moved to Austin in 2003, I lived fairly far from the UT campus. Occasionally I would shake up my driving route and drive south on Lamar. When I did that, I was always grossed out as I drove by "EZ's Diner".
It looked like a dive and the marquee reading "pizza, burgers and more" did little to convince me that I was missing out on anything. Anytime I saw cars in the parking lot I'd wonder WHO on earth would eat there?? So gross.
In time, I found out. My best friend,Erin. She and I wanted to go eat somewhere and she suggested EZ's, to which I said, "YOU eat there??" I knew Erin to be of discriminating taste and have not a small amount of class so I was obviously shocked but, decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.
I'm sure you know where I am going with this... EZ's is now my FAVORITE restaurant. Yes, yes, I learned a valuable lesson that day. "Don't judge a book by it's cover" for if you do you might miss out on it's fantastic alamo bowl, amazing calzone trio, delectable basil chicken pasta with foccacia bread so incredible it makes one want to cry, or the out of this world, so delicious it should have shrines built in its honor, chocolate shake (made with Blue Bell ice cream of course).
When Nathan and I moved to Utah back in '06, I had to be put on suicide watch when the reality of an EZ's free existence awaited me. Surely a life without the basil chicken pasta and a chocolate shake was not much of a life at all! :)
Our time in the Salt Lake area turned out to be just a mere 10 months. The move was long and arduous. Traveling in a moving van does not make for a speedy getaway. We arrived in Austin on a Sunday. The hottest Sunday that was ever created in the history of all mankind. We had to move the contents of our van into a storage unit because the van was to be returned that very day. Our new house was still not quite ours so we were in this horrible transitional state. Being that it was Sunday, we were also reluctant to call any friends for help with the moving because we knew they'd be at church and so forth. In short, moving into the storage unit was a heinous experience. Eventually we made it to our hotel and cleaned up. The question of where to eat was no question at all.
Nathan and I ordered enough food for a family of 10. Not only had we worked up quite an appetite, but this was a reunion meal with EZ's. It's very rare, and very special. As we looked at each other across the table, he with a mouthful of cheese fries and I with whipped cream from my shake on my top lip, we knew we were home.

The Queen Bee

Last week I went through this terrible phase where my work life is concerned. I was so unhappy and I wanted to leave my job forever. Then all of a sudden, this past Monday all of that left and it has been a terrific week. I am not hating waking up, and dreading the drive to work. I am back to having a good time with my class and enjoying the funny things my students do.

I suppose to ensure that I keep up this good feeling, God inspired one of my students to write me the following letter to. I'll keep out the spelling mistakes because it's very difficult to decipher to the untrained eye. Also, my class mascot is The Bees.

"My teacher Mrs. Baumeister has two dogs. They're very fat. They're fat as a pig. (*sidenote, I've been teaching the class about similes. It's good to see it in use!)
They're fluffy as a cat. They sleep all day, unless you say treat. They eat like a fox eating something dead on the ground. (*also, we're currently doing a poetry unit. I wrote a poem about my dogs and read it to the class. I mentioned a bit about them... it's interesting what she then inferred from my information)
Mrs. Baumeister her bees work very hard. They won't stop until they get some honey from the queen of all. Mrs. Baumeister the greatest queen and teacher of all the teachers in this school."

Don't worry. I won't let it go to my head. On an unrelated note though, I would prefer to be addressed as Your Majesty from now on. :)

Christmas

I was a little worried about how Christmas would go this year. Coming from a large family, I have just gotten used to having quite a few siblings to share the holiday with.
However, this year was different because I only had one other sibling home for the holidays. Of course spouses plus mom and dad were there.
I am happy to report though that Christmas was still awesome! I had a great time with my family as well as Nathan's. In fact the two families got together twice (Christmas eve party and joint birthday party).

Some highlights and memorable moments include:
shopping with dad (never got to shop with mom, don't know how that happened!)
shopping with in laws and Sherry
Christmas Eve party
Christmas morning breakfast/gift opening
shooting guns at the gun range
being awesome at shooting guns ;) By awesome I mean I hit my target a few times.
birthday dinner at Costa Messa (I didn't misspell Messa, the restaurant did)
birthday dessert and rock band party
Nathan trying to play the didgeridoo
Spending time with some old friends
Going to see Sherlock Holmes with the family
home made cinammon rolls
Taco Zarape

In short, it was a great holiday. Pictures will have to wait a litle while. They were taken by my brother and I haven't recieved any as of yet.

What's Utah got that I don't?!

This week I lost another friend to Utah. In case you don't keep up with my personal life ;) that makes three of my best girlfriends now living among the Wasatch mountains. Now I realize that circumstances may lead people to less than ideal places. Even Nathan and I had a brief stint up there. But honestly, enough is enough. For my good friends and family living in Utah due to "circumstances" I think I'll just take a moment to remind you of reasons you may want to give yourself a timeline to get out, aka the cons to living in Utah. Now in the interest of fair and balanced reporting, I'll also include a pros list.

pros: Cafe Rio,great skiing, LDS church HQ
cons: eateries like Taco Time and Taco Bueno, winters that go on FOREVER, Utah drivers, Judgey McJudgertons, inversion, the smell of cows, backcombing (aka-teasing) hair is considered a good fashion for ladies,and of course a surprising number of people who consider any place outside of Utah the "mission field". I mean really.

By the way, this is one of the images that came up when I googled "Utah hair"


After reading this I highly suggest you sit down and create your exit strategy. No one is saying it must be immediate, but really, how long can you live in a place where people thought it was a great idea to build houses on sand. (If you don't know what I'm referring to, drive by the point of the mountain. Literally the houses were built on SAND!!)

I'll be here to help every step of the way. You may also need some suggestions on where to relocate. I'd be happy to help on that front as well.

All in a days work

For better or for worse, the following are just a few of the routine things that occur during a regular workday for me.

Must report by 7:10 a.m.
check email
make copies
must make sure to use the bathroom before the kids arrive, otherwise I'll be outta luck for a while.
Kids arrive....
answer questions about the assignment, the homework from yesterday about whether I like transformers or pokemon or webkinz etc.
tell kids to get back to work
help a student with the math assignment while keeping mental note of who is on task, off task, in the room, at the bathroom, in the library, at the nurse and/or at the office
tell kids to get back to work
start the lesson
teach my heart out
give an assignment after asking if ANYONE has any questions before starting the assignment
pass out assignment because no one had questions!
give all the kids who now rush at me with the assignment and all their questions the stink eye
I tell them to sit back down and figure it out. I've usually already answered their question and if they "had been listening (they) would already know what to do"
REPEAT THE LAST 6 ITEMS ALL DAY LONG
get a hug (repeat approx. 20 times during the day)
take away a student's toy due to playing with it during instruction
take same student's eraser due to playing with it during instruction
take same student's pencil due to playing with it during instruction
take same student's string due to playing with it during instruction
take same student's paperclip due to playing with it during instruction
(repeat approx. 20 times during the day)
have a total of about 10 minutes of conversation with an adult
sit down
grade papers
go home
:)

Back in the Day

Over the Thanksgiving Break (for which I had one week of vacation...teaching aint all bad);) I was looking at a store advertisement with my three year old niece Katie.

I was almost shocked at how young the desire for a toy starts. I guess I just don't have any recollections of wanting a toy so bad that young. When we got to the doll page she audibly gasped (so cute!) and pointed at a doll and told me, "I want that!"

When I was about seven I would have killed for a Magic Nursery Baby. Watch the following clip to see why...


Awesome. I know.
If I remember correctly Santa wasn't able to give it to me at Christmas because he had run out of them by the time he got to our house. So after checking in SEVERAL stores in the days following Christmas I finally got my beloved toy.
It may very well have been the most exciting day of my life up to that point.
Once I found out my doll was in fact a girl, I filled in her "birth certificate". I think I named her Mitsy. How 90s.

Funk

It's not that I don't want to write... I've just been in a funk.
I just thought I'd get back on here to spur the desire to write. It's kind of like my going back to the gym... even if it was just to sit in the steam room or hot tub. Hey, at least it got me there. And I've been pretty good at getting back there ever since.

Don't worry. There is method to my madness (usually).
More to come-