Here's March!

Best book of March: Killing Kennedy.  I had never really understood the whole Kennedy mystique quite the way that a lot of people from my parents' generation understood it, but after reading (okay, listening to) this book, I finally began to understand.  Well written, giving background on the Kennedy family as well as talking about the day he died, I loved this non-fiction. (Side note, Manhunt, about the search for John Wilkes Booth was the other great book of the month.) 

March 1: The scene is set, and the tea party is ready to go for tomorrow to celebrate the then Aimee Meier.  

March 2: Tea party ladies.  All sorts of fun people had gotten together to celebrate Aimee and I was just glad the whole shindig was finally over!

March 3: Momma Meier was still in town and ready to help Aimee work on the bunting in our living room after all the festivities were over for the weekend. 

March 4: Bunting has arrived in our house! Aimee wasn't entirely certain how she was going to use it or how much she was going to need, but it was certainly enough to string around our living room a few times! 

March 5: Tyson's Corner for research.  I was actually in the mall executive offices (which I didn't really know existed) tonight to talk to them about snow removal, and since we were expecting a snow storm overnight/tomorrow, I stopped by a few stores and asked what they were expecting that to mean tomorrow.  

March 6: Snow had come! And it was finally, finally producing a snow day (which was the first non-rain day off I'd had since working for Fairfax County). 

March 7: George Mason is getting ready for graduation--after purchasing my cap and gown I also picked up my tickets so that Mom and Dad would be able to come to my ceremony on Saturday morning. 

March 8: Welcome to North Carolina.  I had been accused of taking pictures in my car while driving too often, so I decided to be responsible and have Molly, my navigator on our way to down to see E-beth, take the picture of the "Welcome to North Carolina" sign.  Which produced a worse picture than any I've ever taken while driving. 

March 9: One of the stops on the best, most detailed tour of Chapel Hill possible was the old well, which is still currently working.  Perfect picture, too bad the game against Duke later was as far from perfect as possible. 

March 10: Anybody want to go to a wedding? Our invitations all showed up in the mail today :) 

March 11: Meg Squared Monday--Megan and I were getting in the groove of going to our Small Group together on Monday nights at DC Metro church, and we were loving the Andy Stanley series "The New Rules of Love, Sex, and Dating." 

March 12: Disgustingly gray morning on my way to work.  I think.  This road doesn't actually look as familiar to me as I would expect it to, but I can't imagine where else it would be.  The funny part was how lovely and sunny it turned out to be later in the day. 

March 13: Library of Congress.  Okay, don't tell, because you aren't allowed to take pictures here.  But I turned the front camera on my phone and silently laid it down and took a picture straight up.  It didn't hurt anyone or anything, I promise.  And it's just sooooo pretty. 

March 14: After several months of working on it, I finally finished the sweater I had been hand-making.  It wasn't as perfect as I would've wished, but it was an accomplishment none the less. 

March 15: Delivery! I had purchased a subscription to The Washington Post on Living Social for about $13 for 6 months of Sunday deliveries.  That seemed reasonable because I thought I could actually read the paper once a week.  I had signed up though and then was upgraded for free to everyday.  I couldn't really pass that up, and the next thing I knew, first thing in the morning this was here on my doorstep. 

March 17: The thing I was most frustrated about in working for Banana Republic occasionally was the amount of good basketball I ended up missing.  It seemed like inevitably when there was a game I really wanted to watch, I had to work.  So on St. Patrick's Day, which also happened to be the day of the ACC Championship, I had to work.  I put this shirt on over my dress until the last second when I had to clock in on my shift.  (It didn't help--they lost to Miami.) 

March 19: Picture of kids.  Sorry.

March 20: I loved the Shannon wanted to (or was at least very willing to) fill out brackets when it was NCAA Tournament time.  I only freaked her out a little by secretly taking this picture while she filled in her teams :) 

March 21: I don't care that most people think this coat looks completely ridiculous.  I know that the hood is kind of obnoxious.  It keeps me so unbelievably warm and as a coat fits me so well that I'm going to keep wearing it on cold days. 

March 22: Okay, so we put up the March Madness basketball game on the Smart Board.  I was lunch time and it was totally optional for the kids to come watch. 

March 23: So the most popular choice of what to do on the first day of Spring break is probably not to get up before sunrise and take pictures, but I was sort of thinking there would be some cherry blossoms.  But unfortunately it had been so cold out that I was a few weeks early.  But this city is still beautiful.  

March 24: Harrisonburg for a cloudy Sunday with Jess and Robin and Loretta.  I went with the little Smith family to take the L-dog for a walk in the park with some of her doggie friends!

March 25: Snowy Monday.  This is the single time I've been bummed about a snow day.  We had off all week anyway, but Shenandoah County didn't.  The whole reason I had come so late in the weekend was so that I could go to Central on Monday, say hi to a few people, and then go to the Northern Campus Middle School to go see my old principal, Chris.  And so the snow day meant none of that happened. 

March 26: My printer is finally working again! Okay, it's not like it's really a miracle or anything, it's that I finally stopped being such a cheap skate and bought ink for it. 

March 27: I had to stay in Northern Virginia for a few days this week because I had class even though we were off work.  This particular class, Teaching the Reading of Literature had done a really cool activity with a graphic novel.  Tracing a picture and then writing about what we had done, in order to slow down our reading of this almost wordless book.  

March 28: Bath time toys.  A sure sign that Timmy is staying with Mom and Dad during the hectic Holy Week schedule that Ab and Ben have. 

March 29: I was helping Mom babysit Mr. Timothy and we went out to play outside a few times even though it was pretty chilly for the end of March.  Tim was all suited up in his plaid jacket, hat, and mittens!

March 30: It was a little warmer today so Tim and I didn't need to dress quite as warmly as we had been yesterday.  We did some Easter egg hunts and kicked around a huge blue ball to the joy of Timothy as he squealed with laughter when we ran after it.  

March 31: Easter Sunday Tim.  He was all dressed up and ready to go to not only our church service but also for our lovely Easter dinner when Abby and Ben were finally done with their most hectic church week. 

February portion of 365

Best Book of February: HHhH: This is a sort of strange book written about one of the leaders of Nazi Germany, but novelized and includes a narrator who explores things personally while "writing." I'm not entirely certain if the narrator is the author, but regardless, this slightly strange concept of writing was something I really loved.  Five stars.  

February 1: Winter weather on our bushes looks like winter blooms.  

February 2:  I remember this Saturday distinctly--it was one of the first totally free days I'd had in a long time (and stay tuned to find out when my next one would show up) and I was watching basketball.  Indiana was playing someone in Game Day and I had the totally dorky plan to watch it and shred for a few hours.  

February 3: Super Bowl fun times at Jade and Kevin's house with the yummiest Bar-B-Que Pizza I'd had in a long time :) And fun times with friends, even in the midst of a black out at the game was a good thing!

February 4: Tortilla soup yumminess.  Sometimes I want to just be a chef.  Okay, I guess a cook since I don't want to go to culinary school.  

February 5:  I got this in the mail and immediately thought of Jade, Janali, and our time together there during college.  I so wanted to go back and Jade texted back that we could go :) But in the end, I would be in St. Maarten (I think) when the concert happened.  But I still want to go back. 

February 6: This is one of the weirdest and probably worst pictures I took this year.  I was pumped to find these hair pins that Jessica got me years ago for my birthday.  They'd been semi-lost for some time and I'd recently found them again, and in the dark GMU parking garage, I put them back in and then took this pic. 

February 7: Today is Aimee's 28th birthday and she is most totally Instagraimee.  So for her birthday today, I did 28 reasons why she is amazing.  Every single one of them is true. 

February 8: Time to head out to dinner for Aim's birthday.  Tim made it super special by inviting several people without telling Aimee and we had a great time eating delicious Mexican food and chatting before going back to the house for dessert! 

February 9: This was the mall that Aim and I didn't usually visit--why go anywhere but Tyson's? But they don't have a Charming Charlie at Tyson's like they do here so we made the trip.  And lo and behold, we found out it was also the Chinese New Year and they were parading a dragon through as we happened to be walking through the mall.

February 10:  The main reason I've started being interested in getting the Washington Post lately is to get back to doing crossword puzzles.  When I lived in ShenCo I used to get the paper at the school and do them while I supervised ISS somedays.  I wasn't doing too well though this first time back at it. 

February 11: It looks like a frigid wintery day, but in fact it was pretty warm (near 60) but from my car in the Mason parking lot looking at the weak sunlight, it seemed like it should be more traditionally freezing outside. 

February 12: I take the Beltway to work everyday and in almost two years of taking it for a few miles, I'd never run into a problem.  Until today.  The nice thing is that in this area, they're pretty used to having people call in that they're stuck in traffic and I didn't end up being too terribly late. 

February 13: This was part of the letter writing campaign of the second graders.  Even though the rest of the year I would end up there a lot with them, at this point I'd barely been in their classes at all.  So I was a little surprised to get this lovely note. 

February 14: It was a Valentine's Day full of loveliness and love.  I was blown away by the present of flowers from Ash and Jake, plus I'd also gotten a card from Jade and two notes from former students about how much they'd loved my class.  Feeling more loved than most :) 

 February 15: We were celebrating Megan's birthday old school style.  It was time to watch Win a Date with Tad Hamilton.  Not old school? The movie like huge screen we watched it on :)

February 16: The trip to Richmond to see Katie and Lauren was so amazingly lovely.  I was pumped that Ash came down too, but she was (understandably) a little tired.  At this point McCully wasn't really visible from the outside but he was making his future momma pretty tired.  Katie and Lauren and I stayed up later talking before we finally called it a night. 

February 17: I hadn't expected to end up in this store, but we were right near it and Ash wanted to get some maternity clothes ahead of the game--and not by herself.  So even though I wasn't sure how much help I would be, we went in and picked her out some things while she wore the baby bump that McCully wasn't producing quite yet. 

February 18: I wasn't sure what was wrong with my car, but there were way too many lights coming on on the dash when I started it and then rumbled a few feet to take chances.  I took advantage of the free towing service AAA gave me and the day off work to have it towed in the early afternoon.

February 19: A storm is rolling in as Aimee took me to pick up my car.  The fortunate thing is that it wasn't too serious a problem-- a mouse had chewed through some things.  I was just super grateful it hadn't cropped up as a problem in Richmond a few days earlier. 

 
February 20: I'm enough of a nerd to really like the arty way this picture looks even though I know it's really just the bubbles in my carbonated water as it's just a little bit open.  I'm addicted to the stuff now, even though it took quite awhile.

February 21: I love this city, especially at this time of day.  It didn't matter that it was freezing outside, I was pumped because we were going to the Library of Congress as a class to become official researchers and learn exactly how to use the vast resources that the library offered.  The biggest (and prettiest) library in the world? Yes, please. 

 February 22: The thing I did for Shannon and Amanda (more Shannon than anyone) that I liked the least but did because it kept me fresh--grading reading response journals.  Even a huge stack like this...

February 23: I made a huge sacrifice and left my house, left watching a Carolina game, early to go to Gaithersburg and watch Eli for Chrissy and Andy for the evening.  Jade came to help baby-sit so it was an evening with lots of people who I love.  P.S. Eli ended up with crazy hair after his bath :) 

 February 24: This was a fun afternoon with Sarah as we got things together for Aimee's bridal shower.  I was in charge of making pink puffs out of tissue paper and I think they turned out pretty well :)

 February 25: Quinoa, feta, cucumber salad.   Yup, there are also tomatoes in there.  I'm not sure if there's anything else in there beside a little olive oil dressing, but I know it was yummy.

 February 26: I recognize this is a totally ridiculous picture of me, but I was pretty pumped to get my new Warby Parker frames, thanks to the gift card that Andrew and Jackie had gotten me for Christmas :)

 February 27: This used to be my go-to parking lot and gym my first semester of grad school.  It was a smaller gym and sometimes I ran into Paul Hewitt as he was coming out of the basketball court gym.  But I started using the other gym for different reasons, although this torn up parking lot wasn't exactly enticing me back...

February 28: Last of the month--this was an assembly that I was pleasantly surprised with.  These acrobats were pretty amazing and I think Shannon and I were more impressed with the amount of core strength it required than the kids were :)