So these things happened today...

First, autocorrect on my phone decided it wanted to show off just how well it knows me. 

{Sidenote: Sometimes I don't know a student's name so I have to write down other characteristics that will help me identify their photo later. It's weird, but it works.} 

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In a moment of idiocy late Wednesday night, I decided to see what my engagement ring looked like on my right hand. Note to self: when the ring doesn't go on easily, YOU STOP TRYING TO GET THE RING ON YOUR FINGER. 

After trying almost every trick I could find via Google (except one that I just couldn't bring myself to do) and my finger swelling by the minute, the only option was left was to have an experienced jeweler cut it off. Props to my friend Ruth for a.) assisting me with all the various tricks I tried, b.) laughing at/with me as I cried over how sad and ridiculous was my predicament, and c.) pointing me to a reputable jeweler.

Absolutely breaks my heart still, but it will be back together and good as new by Tuesday. Very painful lesson to learn...

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After I got home from work, I was doing a little tidying up around the house when I heard Knox's nails scratch across the hardword floor and saw the storm door fly open. Turns out that a storm door  which doesn't quite latch on its own and stray cats wandering within Knox's line of sight is the perfect combo for him to practice his fifty yard dash. No lie, that dog was out the door, across the street, and up a tree in four seconds flat! 

I watched in amazement as he climbed the tree in our neighbor's yard trying to get to that cat. He perched there for a moment but when he realized just how high he was he jumped back down. The neighbors saw it too and came out howling with laughter. 

Once I got Knox back to our house, I went back over to chat and ended up coming home with two pounds of smoked barbecue, a bagful of fresh peppers from their back yard, a recipe for apple spice cake, and an invitation to come back over and learn some impressive cake decorating methods.

Retired neighbors are the best.

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We ended the night with a spontaneous double date with Jordan and Lindsay.

 {October Photo a Day, 12  - Outstanding menu on the table}

While I do have some suggestions for them in terms of ambiance (spring for real candles, guys, the battery powered tea lights are lame), I can heartily recommend the food and beer!

Delicious dinner, excellent company and two hilarious episodes of "Modern Family" was pretty much the perfect way to end this eventful day.

 To make the end of the day even sweeter, I'm looking at the start of a three day weekend. Hooray!

Postcard From Home

Dear Mom & Dad,

I have had such a good time this week with my new aunts & uncles! We've been on some very eventful walks & I've been eating ALL my food ( cause I know you worry about me). I've tried really hard to stay disciplined with my commands. Although, I did try to follow uncle Gabe into the bedroom once... but as SOON as he saw me I turned around & left. I've missed you sooo much. Can't wait to see you!

xoxoxo,
Knox

(A big ol' THANK YOU to our sweet friends, Lindsay & Jordan and Brittany & Gabe, for taking such good care of our pup this week. And thank you to Brittany for helping Knox write this postcard!)

"Sun is shining. Weather is sweet. Make you wanna move your dancing feet." -Bob Marley

It has been three summers since I had a Teacher Summertime. There's a difference, you know. Summers in and of themselves are pretty wonderful what with swimming and watermelon and cookouts and trips to the beach {if you're lucky.} But a Teaching Summertime? That's a summer where you can do all those things and more twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for two and a half straight months and still earn a paycheck.

I didn't know it then, but it could be just for that reason alone that I went into teaching.

It's taken me a solid month to adjust to having a Teacher Summertime and I'm only just now getting the hang of it. Finally running again {hello, two month break after the half-marathon} but as I told some friends last night, I'm back to the phase of convincing my body that running is fun. My brain knows that it is and there are still those songs that, when they pop up in my iPod, remind me of the joy of finding strength in my legs and the sheer delight of racing through downtown Chattanooga. Yes, my brain knows it but all my body and my lungs can register at the moment is the sweltering humidity that lies here in the valley. Forget the whole "southern women glisten" crap. There's nothing but sweat on me by the time I'm done, dripping from forehead to chin to ground as I stretch out muscles struggling to recognize what three miles feels like.

And after a rather surprising spiritual desert in the midst of a blessing greater than I could have imagined, I'm finding my way back to the lap of my Abba. Settling into my summertime means space to listen, to think, to pray, to relish a study of this most appropriate book, Ruth. I'm a sucker for that one, it being my middle name and all. Even better has been to do a study that crawls through the verses, carefully uncovering nuggets of truth. In the uncovering, I'm realizing there's a tangible thread weaving from the Scriptures to what my heart and my spirit has been been trying to tell me. Be still...listen....do the most with where you are right now...be flexible...wait. So I am. 

Then there's this whole stay-at-home-wife gig. Temporary as it may be, it's a really great gig! I never knew I could find such delight in having time to clean, just to do those weekly chores that during the school year can be neglected for {oh, this is so embarrassing} weeks at a time. I still don't have the menu planning thing down but there needs to be some room for improvement, right? It's a gift to clean and do laundry and mop floors and vacuum in the most delightful housewifey way. A way that I know speaks love to my beloved and makes his end of day that much brighter. 

I'm finding time for meeting folks for lunch, quick road trips to new cities where old friends now reside, two hour jaunts at a random poolside {hour for the front, hour for the back and I'm done!}, an hour or so at Greenlife to read or write, and walks or evening games of fetch with Knox. There's finally time to explore some parts of Chattanooga that I haven't yet. Time to make multiple trips to Sweet CeCe's or listen to award winning musicians by the Tennessee River or watch movies in the park. Time to read new books or reread other favorite blocks of word candy.

Time.

Yes, my summertime has been just lovely and it's not done yet. 

Out & About

One of my favorite things about my cell phone is that it has a camera that takes fairly decent pictures. I usually don't make it out of Walmart without taking a picture of some wacko item  they're selling. I've been known to sneak pictures of people wearing ridiculous outfits or, as you'll see soon, myself in ridiculous outfits. 

I finally uploaded over a hundred pictures from my phone to my computer today and thought I'd share some choice ones with y'all. It might give you a snapshot {tee hee!} of what my days have been like in the last few months...

A glorious after-school-hallelujah-it's-Friday treat! And Sandra Bullock? One classy dame.

My Mother's Day gift to my Marmee. A fabulous excuse to break out my boxes of ribbon and paper! There's this awesome store/warehouse here in Chatt {Southeastern Salvage} that sells these market baskets in all sorts of colors and a giraffe and zebra print. I bought a giraffe print basket for myself and I think I can safely say it's made me one of the sassiest green shoppers at our local Walmart.

My friend Sarah and I saw these beauties {the shoes, not my feet} at Belk's and they were marked somewhere around $85. I spotted them a week later at this fabulous discount shoe store for $25! I didn't get them then because, honestly, the chance of my attending a formal event anytime soon was about as likely as the chance that someone might convince the entire Lohan family to quietly slip into oblivion. But part of my sister's graduation from OTS {more on that in a bit} is a formal dinner and these would be FANTASTIC with the dress I'm wearing. Hmmmmm...

Me and my pup. Summer evening. Tennis ball chasing for him = happy, happy dog.

Just Say No...to the romper. {Lordamercy, the things I do for this blog.}

I spotted this the other week at Southeastern Salvage and I'm wondering if I couldn't somehow paint something like this myself. A ghetto version, for sure, but it would be cheaper than buying this one. Or maybe this is just a vision of what I'd like a room in our someday house to look like. 

An absolutely delicious summer evening on the shore of the Tennessee River getting ready to hear Sheryl Crowe at Riverbend.

Now I am all for a big ol' hat but this was a little much, even for me.

The next time I randomly come across a hundred bucks, I am going right back to the West Elm store and getting eight place settings of these lovelies. I am so ready for fresh, crisp white in our kitchen!

My sister decided to make being an Air Force officer her career and has been kicking butt at Officer's Training School since April. She graduates on July 20th and I can't think of a better reason to slog through Alabama humidity than to watch her be commissioned! 

Unless it's to wear a sassy pair of shoes at the formal dinner the night before. 

We'll call it a draw.

And my little dog, too.

I had no idea how having a dog would change everything. Three years ago today, it started with this little munchkin snuggling into the crook of my neck.

Oh, puppy love! That delicious puppy breath, those chunky paws, that wet puppy nose and his unbelievably soft ears. I was a goner.

You know what else was gone? Sleeping in for the next six months. Casually leaving shoes and socks lying around. Leaving anything casually lying around. Heading out of town on a whim. My ability to ignore dog poop. A chunk of our budget consumed by Knox’s addiction to rawhide {beef flavored only, please.}

But in the three years that Knox has been a part of our life, he has been everything that I imagined having a dog would be. He is ridiculously loving even when I am not so loveable to him. He is faithful beyond all reason, always wanting to be around me {which Jason cannot stand!}. He is still the best little snuggle bunny in the world and firmly believes that he still fits in my lap. He has his tricks down solid and will jump up to offer fist bumps to the words, “Go Heels!” or “Go Vols!” but remains firmly on the ground when he hears the words, “Go Duke!”

Smartest boy EVER.

And then there’s the whole meeting us at the door thing. It doesn’t matter if we’ve been gone for twenty minutes or six hours, Knox is always overjoyed to see us. It’s a little ridiculous sometimes, really. I mean, I’m cool and all but I just went to the car to get the second load of groceries.

I think my favorite part of the Knoxster is the endearing little habit he’s picked up in the last year of demonstrating his dissatisfaction, irritation or otherwise disgruntledness by moaning and grunting at us. Seriously. Often he will settle in for a nap in whatever room we’re occupying and if the volume level goes up even a little, he moans a deep moan to let us know we need to be quiet. When he’s been obnoxious or naughty and we give the command, “Chair!” he goes to the chair but as he’s laying down he lets out a grumbling grunt. It’s his way of being a total teenager.

Punk.

And have I mentioned that he audibly burps? Oh, yeah. He’s gracious enough to wait until he’s just laid his adorable face on your knee and then he lets it rip. No shame, no embarrassment, just lets it all out.

Ruuude.

But he’s mine all mine. He’s my Knox, the Bubba, Mopey Moperson, Monster.

Glad you’re here, freckle face, love you to pieces…

Cynicism. It’s what’s for dinner.

They called for snow. “Massive storm coming in from the west,” they said. They waxed eloquent about the high pressure and low pressure fronts. They used their bright graphics and catchy slogans and assured us that we needed to prepare. “Head to the store now!” they said.

Ha.

I scoffed. I mocked them. Because the last time they said all that? Nada. A few flakes and one day of missed school for not much more than maybe a quarter of an inch of some stuff that didn’t even stick around for the afternoon sunshine.

So I didn’t make a trip to the grocery store {or Walmart, as the case may be. The one near the foot of the mountain is just fabulous, in case you were wondering.} I didn’t stock up on milk or bread or anything, really. I spoke in patronizing tones to my kids when they eagerly speculated about an early start to the weekend in the form of a snow day. I won’t lie, I hurled insults at the perky weather channel meteorologists. I giggled when Nashville { a mere two hours from us} went ahead and cancelled school the night before when the temperatures had hovered in the 50’s all day and not a drop of precipitation in sight.

Cut to today at 11:30 a.m. and my headmaster whispering to us as we entered the lunchroom, “We’re dismissing early at 1 p.m.”

Huh. Hmm. All righty then.

I gathered my kids back in the classroom, broke the joyous news to them and started the Friday packing up process. And then what to my cynical eye should appear but snowflakes. SNOWFLAKES. Falling slowly at first and then faster and faster. Before I knew it, it looked like this…

Not bad, right? And it was melting as soon as it hit the ground. So while I was a little worried and figured I’d better stock up on a few essentials, I didn’t exactly speed over to Wally World. Actually, I couldn’t have done that even if I wanted to because the fine drivers of Chattanooga interpreted snow melting on the ground as OH DEAR LORD, I NEED TO GO TWENTY MILES AN HOUR! THE MOISTURE! THE MOISTURE! Eventually, Jason and I met up, moseyed through the aisles, all the while planning to head over to Sarah and Kyle’s for dinner.

And then we walked outside and hit the roads only to find this…

Awesome. For the record, I did not take these while driving. Jason and I started out in separate cars but it became clear pretty quick that my Honda Accord didn’t have a chance when it came to getting up the hills around The Shore House. So we left mine safely {I hope} stowed away in a parking lot and proceeded to spend the next hour and a half trying to drive what should have been two miles to our house. In Jason’s 4-Runner, we were fine. That thing took a steep curving hill like it was just another sunny day in Chatt. And Jason? Never broke a sweat. Love that man.

So dinner plans cancelled, I watched Knox romp in the snow…

…took an evening stroll with my love and my freckle-faced monster in the falling snow…

 

…and ate a heaping plate of oven baked cheese fries. Hey, walking through four inches of snow will make a girl hungry.

Truly, I am giddy with delight and surprise over the afternoon’s turn of events. See? Cynicism pays off after all. Hoping you and yours are warm and snuggly tonight!

Daylight Savings Time

Here is what I know about it.

Forgetting to set my alarm clock back was the best move I could have made. Because waking up and then realizing I had another hour to go back to sleep? Bonus.

Driving down the mountain in the sunrise and not the dark of early morning is delightful. And yet, all that extra light hasn’t seemed to improve the driving skills of my fellow morning commuters. Two lanes to merge, people, two lanes.

Darkness falling around 6:30 p.m. has given me a whole new motivation for getting my daily workout in before that happens. Squeeze in a run through downtown Chattanooga before my counseling session? Yes, please.

Knox does not need to adjust to the extra hour nor will he wake me up any earlier to be let outside. According to the rest of my friends, this is not true of their small children. This is when being Lulu and not Mommy seriously pays off.

And you? Anything to add to the list?

Autumn’s best of cheer…

Honestly, nothing else could phase me now.

{I’m coming out of blog sabbatical because this occurrence was too crazy to NOT blog.}

After taking Knox to play up at the softball fields, I came home to a voicemail from my across the street neighbors. They had noticed that one of the forty feet tall oak trees in front of my house was leaning noticeably more than the day before. We’ve had quite a bit of rain which apparently had softened the ground enough that this deep rooted tree was losing its grip.

I headed outside with my flashlight and began to peek around. Y’all, the root system was almost halfway out of the ground. I called my landlord to make him aware and then settled in for the night, peeking out every so often to check the slant of the tree. You see, if it was going to fall it was going to head towards the left corner of the house. Aka, the bedroom.

Awesome.

Too anxious to go to bed, I stayed up until past midnight. Around 12:30 a.m., I decided to trust that God wasn’t going to let a tree crash into the house causing the roof to cave in on top of me. Ten minutes after climbing into bed I heard the telltale crackle of a tree heading for the ground.

I don’t think I have ever moved so fast in my life as I did when I bolted out of that bed and into the living room. Once I realized the roof was still intact {the tree missed it by two feet}, I had to giggle at myself and the speed of my “escape".” Knox was totally chill through the whole thing. Figures. Let a three year old little girl walk by and he goes ballistic. A giant tree falls in our yard and he could care less. Dork.

Behold, my new lawn ornament…

I’m pretty sure Knox was hoping there was a squirrel nest nestled somewhere in there.

He was sadly disappointed.

A gracious God, angels watching over me…I’ve never felt more safe and secure.

This post is also known as “Too tired to write a real post so I pulled out the ol’ Facebook tagging/forward thing.”

Three names I go by:

1. Leslie {pronounced “Lez-lee”, my mom insists she meant for my name to be pronounced with a z.}

2. Leslie Ruth

3. Lulu. That’s what all my friends’ kids call me.

Three jobs I’ve had in my life:

1. Frozen yogurt girl at Zack’s Yogurt on Robinhood Road in Winston-Salem, NC

2. Peanut brittle maker at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri

3. Teacher, aka BEST JOB EVER

Three places I’ve lived:

1. Long Island, New York

2. Abilene, Texas

3. The wonderful, the beautiful, the one and only southeast {I couldn’t pick between TN & NC}

Three favorite drinks:

1. Shirley Temples

2. Caffeine free Diet Coke.

3. My husband’s version of sweet tea. It is suh-weet.

Three television shows I watch:

1. Grey’s Anatomy

2. Army Wives

3. Will & Grace. Over and over and over again.

Three of my favorite foods:

1. We’ve discussed the power of macaroni & cheese already.

2. Bananas

3. Krispy Kreme donuts {not that I’ve had one in almost three months}

Three of my favorite restaurants:

1. Macaroni Gril

2. Wendy’s

3. Panera

Three things I couldn’t live without:

1. My husband

2. My sister

3. My Marmee

Three things I can’t stand:

1. People who smack their lips while eating. SERIOUSLY.

2. Teachers who refuse to delight in their students

3. When Carolina loses to Duke in basketball

Three things I’m decent at:

1. Making my dog happy

2. Writing: notes, blog posts…maybe one day a novel?

3. Conveying passion and excitement to my students

Three things I’m looking forward to this weekend:

1. Beth Moore’s simulcast. A church in Amy Beth’s town is showing it!

2. A long workout on the Riverwalk

3. Writing a weekly letter to someone I love very much

Three things I’m addicted to:

1. Reading blogs

2. Collecting cute/sassy/chic stationery

3. Bags of any and all kind. Purses, tote bags, laptop bags…you name it, I’ll want it.

The First Day

Oh, my friends, it was a good one. A really good one.

But first, can I please tell you what time my body woke me up this morning just rarin’ to go? FOUR A.M. What the heck? That has never happened to me before. Usually my pre-first day of school jitters/hyperness has me completely unable to go to sleep the night before. Not this time. I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and then BAM. Four stinking a.m. I’ve often said that it’s just rude when my body wakes me up mere minutes before my alarm is set to go off. But two hours?! That’s just spiteful.

Even with the false alarm, I got off to school in the most organized fashion that I ever have. I’ve discovered that due to my commute off the mountain and over to the school {about thirty minutes, which passes quickly} it is going to be essential for me to prep everything the night before. I’m talking lunch packed, outfit picked, school bags already in the car.

Oh…wait. You say that’s just part of being a responsible adult? Well, looks like I’ve finally arrived.

The day with my kiddos went swimmingly. Schedule was followed, transitions were smooth and children were attentive. Success! I have to confess that there was part of me that wondered if I would remember how to do this. I think my horrible experiences substituting had me spooked. Lo and behold, this time around teaching was just like riding a bike. Once I stepped to the front of the room, it all came back. The tone, “the look” {you know the one- it would snap you back to obedience but quick}, the directions, the routines, it was all there. It feels so good to be a teacher again!

I came home ready to take Knox for a walk. We had gotten to the top of our street when I spotted the storm clouds and the rain started to fall. Back we went. Twenty minutes later the sky was clear once again so we headed out a second time. We didn’t even make it to the top of the driveway before it started raining. Sigh.

Have you ever promised your energetic dog the thing they want most in the world only to rip it away from them? Twice? I imagine it’s like offering your toddler a giant bowl of ice cream, dipping the spoon in, getting it to their lips and then BAM. It’s gone. The wailing that follows is something akin to Knox’s moans and groans as he laid on the floor by the front door looking longingly towards the street.

After dinner the sky was clear and I thought we’d try one more time. A half mile from our house the sky opened up. OF COURSE. Thankfully, we were just around the corner from our friends’ home and they gladly took in one sopping wet dog and his owner. And my across the street neighbor called to ask if we were ok and did she need to come get us because she had her boots and raincoat on, ready to come to our rescue. I am seriously blessed in the neighbor department, no?

And with that, I’m going to wrap up this glorious day. If you’re needing one more moment of zen, might I suggest that you head over to my friend Leslie Sloan’s blog? You really won’t want to miss the video tidbit she has waiting for you.

{P.S. If you’ve left me a comment or sent me an email over the last few weeks, please know that I’ll be responding to you this weekend. The back to school craziness consumed me but my inbox is now at 260 and as a girl who likes to keep it around twenty, that is seriously stressing me out. Maybe I should have tackled some of those emails this morning. Because did I mention I woke up at FOUR a.m.? Yes? Ok.}

Oddly enough, 26 miles looks amazingly doable right about now.

I am not sure I could be more tired than I am right now. Oh, wait. Yes I could. Check back with me on Wednesday after the first day of school!

Seriously, the last time I remember being this tired was after completing my one and only marathon. Only this time, instead of a Tiffany’s necklace as my finishing medal, I have a finished classroom! Wanna see?

{By the way, I promise I’m not going to do videos every post for the next nine months. But it is just so dang convenient right now when I can barely keep my eyes open, the resentment from my under exercised dog is palpable and I’ve basically had to go back and respell every word in this post thus far. The video? IT IS MY FRIEND.}

Praise be, tomorrow is a very laidback day for us teachers. I plan on getting some errands completed, beefing up on the math curriculum and putting final touches on things around the classroom.

And yes, I will exercise both the dog and myself. Because seriously? The glares that dog is shooting me rival a disgruntled teenager’s.

Finding Knox

Oh, y’all left me some fantastic post suggestions! I’ll start at the beginning, a very good place to start {name that movie.} Well, actually a little after the beginning that Tiffany requested. The very first beginning for Jason and I has already been written about on a {short-lived} blog penned by Jason himself. Basically, I went up to Windy Gap to visit Lynn Barclay who was on assignment there for the month of June. I arrived on a Tuesday evening midway through dinner. Lynn took me over to meet the rest of the assigned team, Jason shook my hand and the rest is history…You can read about how things progressed here and here.

Anyway, this post is all about finding Knox, as requested by Rebecca Jo.

I didn’t really grow up with a dog as a pet. We were more cat people. Our family had two brief stints with dogs but that’s another post in itself. My point is that I never really had a dog in that picturesque sense of a buddy, a pal, a girl’s best friend. And oh, how I wanted one! I wanted one all through college, I wanted one after college and briefly flirted with the idea of getting a miniature something in my mid twenties. I might have even harbored fantasies of carrying around said miniature dog in a purse. Just call me Paris Hilton.

Cut to January of 2007, Jason and I had been married for about five months, had recently moved to Abilene, TX and were settled in a house with a legitimate fenced in back yard. Uh huh, you see where this is going, right? The yearnings and the longings for a dog of our very own started. You could find me in the pet section of Books a Million {Abilene didn’t and still doesn’t have a Barnes & Noble, curses!}, online poring over dog breeds trying to find just the right one for us, on the phone with my dog owning friends getting the scoop on all things doggy. I was serious. Jason will tell you that he knew I was really serious about getting a dog when my desktop background was a picture of some puppies.

Who knew that all it took was changing the picture on my laptop screen? Sucker.

In early February, Jason finally agreed to getting a puppy but asked that we wait until after Sarah Jo & John’s wedding in March so that we could give crate training and such our complete and undivided attention. I rejoiced and all was right with the world.

On February 14th, completely unbeknownst to me, Jason went to the Abilene Animal Shelter to look at puppies as a Valentine’s Day present for me. And here’s what he found. Behold, the first ever picture of our freckle faced monster.

See our little guy in the middle of the pile? Believe it or not, those were his siblings. The mother was a Border Collie who had been brought in to the shelter while she was still pregnant. Judging from the looks of the litter, mama was a ho. I’m just sayin’, is all!

Jason didn’t come home that night with Knox. While he thought he would be pretty great for us {and had our friend Molly’s assurance that I would love him}, he knew that being part of the picking process was important to me. So instead, he came home with a dog bed and you can find my reaction to it here.

Jason showed me the picture of the possible puppy on his cell phone and I promptly declared him adorable and perfect and mine. He assured me that we could go look at him the next morning before work and that if I wanted him, we would get him. That night, after getting ready for bed, I walked into our bedroom only to see a giant round lump where Jason should be. That’s right, Jason was in our bed with the dog bed as well. The reason? “If I’m going to be this dog’s Alpha Dog then my scent needs to be the predominant one.” He was actually right, I just wasn’t anticipating sharing my romantic Valentine’s night with a dog bed.

In talking about getting a dog, we had already determined that if it was a boy we would name it Knox, short for Knoxville- home to the Tennessee Volunteers. I suggested Hill as a middle name, short for Chapel Hill- home to my Tarheels. And the adorable golden puppy had a name, Knox Hill Petree.

The next morning we headed down to the shelter and I watched our puppy carefully as he interacted with his brothers and sisters. I knew that I needed to be watching for aggressive or passive behavior and I was delighted to see the latter. When I finally picked him up, he nuzzled down into my shoulder. And. I. Was. Done. Fifteen minutes later, Knox Hill was ours.

And then we didn’t get to sleep late for the next six months. We loved him anyway.