Wagon Wheel, Minus Half the Lyrics

Ah...summer. I can't wait to meet you 10 days from now. 

                 

                                                                                        Love, Ensley. 

Sigh. Just in case this turns into the longest 10 days of my life, I packed up my bathing suits and one of my roommates and headed down to visit my friend Lindsay in Ocean Isle and Wilmington this weekend.

Ecstatic to have escaped the sticks

We sipped coffee while gazing at a golf course, churned through beach reads, and took frequent naps in the sunshine. At night we headed to Pelican's Landing before getting up the next morning and starting it all over again. 

A little pre-bar yoga. Good for the mind and liver. 

Heaven. 

Sunday we drove about an hour north to watch Lindsay's brother play in a volleyball tournament. Drinking beer while watching half naked men glisten with sweat? This is MY kind of sporting event. 

Unfortunately for Liza, either the beach bar was abnormally high or she's too young to be drinking:

Excuse me? Sir? Another beer down here?

In one of our first bad judgement calls of the weekend, we let the boys we were with decide which bar we were going to. All I need to say to describe it is this: the band that was playing was so beyond wasted that they flubbed the lyrics to Wagon Wheel. Yes. Wagon Wheel. That's practically the North Carolina state song. Rude. 

Seriously? Who forgets the lyrics to Wagon Wheel?

Luckily, I am easily distracted by good looking men who buy me beer:

Hey there friends

Or boy BFFs with Burt Reynolds-like chest hair.

Could. Not. Resist. (And yes, I knew this guy before I gave him a chest rub.)

It's back to reality this morning, tired but tan. If the next ten days of school go by as fast as the weekend did, I'll be one happy teacher. 

RHONJ: Field Day Gone Sour

I can't even express the endless enjoyment that Real Housewives of New Jersey brings me. Caroline's endless wisdom and low BS tolerance! Teresa's constant idiotic comments! Kathy Wakile's baked goods and kind words! And, most of all: Melissa Gorga's rocking body!

Seriously though. I'm willing to do whatever I need to do to look like this in short shorts. (Minus, uh, working out consistently or eating right, that is.)

Basically this week Jaqueline hosts a field day at her house, which Bravo may or may not have come up with as an easy way to:
a) get the entire cast in the same place, and
b) make someone mad enough to cry

Unfortunately the person that cried was Teresa's bratty 10 year old, mostly about the fact that she'd lost the three-legged race. Womp womp womp.

The playroom of melancholy

Seriously Gia? Your parents are Teresa and Joe. Buck up, because life holds WAAAY bigger problems for you at every turn.

Teresa was upset at the ladies because "if my 10 year old is asking for her mom, why wouldn't you come outside and get me?"

Um...maybe because she's 10 and perfectly capable of getting to you on her own. I'm pretty sure they weren't holding her hostage, though she did describe being inside with the other ladies as "torture". I wonder what word she would use to describe an average car ride with Teresa and Joe?

Despite the low IQs and temper tantrums, I can't help but be a bit envious of these women whose biggest stressor is which pool party they're going to that day, while I'm on the phone begging parents to believe that their child did, in fact, get an attitude with me and will probably be suspended. 

I guess I should just be glad that I don't teach Gia.

Lies of the American Teenager

Its seems that in the time between my teenage years and now there's been a shift in teenager/parent relationships.

As in, some parents actually believe the things their teenagers tell them these days, unlike mine did all those years ago.

Yesterday, after calling a mom and explaining that her daughter was putting her hand on her hip and giving me sass (save it, sister), I had to then listen to said daughter whine "I promise I wasn't getting an attitude mommmmmmmmyyyy."

Oh. Please.

The surprising part is that her mom actually fell for it. For realz?

"She said she didn't have an attitude", the mom politely explained to me over the phone.

My response? "Um, ma'am? I honestly have better things to do than to make up lies about 14 year olds, especially while I have a classroom full of students."

In the end, she believed me, but still. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm pretty sure my parents had an unspoken agreement that anything that came out of my mouth between the ages of 12 and 19 was a lie. And for the most part? They were right.

Funny how that works.

Hunker Down and Pray

17 days.

Seventeen days until my first year of teaching is O-V-E-R.

Things are calming down around here. End of Grade tests are being administered, final grades are being typed in, posters are being torn off the walls.

And I?  Haven't been doing much of anything.  (Especcciallly writing.)

The hours at school pass in some sort of foggy haze, in which I do paperwork, attempt to teach children something, and at some point a bell rings and they shuffle out to buses. Then I head home, zone in front of Real Housewives, and head upstairs to get lost in a book. Or two.

Rinse and repeat.

It's not half bad, really. But it's not that great, either.

After months and months of 70 hour weeks, I think I'm not quite sure WHAT to do with free time. Just like writing, once I get out of the habit of having free time...I'm not sure how to get back into it. If I made a list of things to blog about, it might look like this:

-going for a walk
-going to the grocery store
-Real Housewives
-The Bachelorette
-doing the dishes
-how early I go to sleep

Exciting, right? Nope.

While this is fine for recovery mode, it's not exactly the pattern with which I want to live my life. I've gotten out of the habit of writing. I hate that I'm counting down the days, but I am. I feel like I'm floating along until summer. It's not the kids, it's the fact that this year has been one big crazy, disorganized whirlwind and I'm ready for some calm. Or wine.

Do you ever feel like you're just going through the motions? How do I snap out of it?

RHONJ: Poker Face

I'm in one of those deliriously happy sort of moods that has nothing to do with real life and everything to do that Real Housewives of New Jersey and Real Housewives of Orange County are both currently showing on Bravo.

That's two hours of Real Housewives. Every. Single. Week.

I know some people ask themselves "why aren't there more hours in a day?" or "where does the time go?". Not me. I know exactly where it goes: directly from Bravo into my brain, where any relevant knowledge I once possessed is changed directly into useless facts about Gretchen Christine handbags or Fabulicious cookbooks. Wines by Wives anyone?

And I love it. 

I'll take Teresa's arms (but not her brain). Please and thank you. 

 The new season of RHONJ is less "new" than it is "let's rehash every word we said to each other last season", but I don't care. I'm 100% willing to admit I enjoy the Housewife fantasy of having a huge gourmet kitchen (complete with granite countertops for miles) and of not having to work, like, ever.

Why I have I been driving myself to the airport all these years when Albie Manzo could have been my escort? WHHHHHY?

So sure, they don't really have solid friendships and half of their husbands are criminals, but at least they're rich! Plus, my Southern heart is slightly horrified/fascinated by how much the NJ Housewives and Husbands swear around their children. (But really.)

This week, I loved the part where Teresa defended Joe's drunk driving record by saying somehthing along the lines of "mistakes are opportunities to learn". Um, Teresa? I think that quote applies more to situations like calling someone the wrong name at a party, not a state of inebriation that endangers the lives of others as well as your own. Just sayin'.  

To sum up Sunday's episode: Everyone's still realizing that Teresa's an idiot (did it honestly take you this long? You people worry me), everyone is still in awe of how much of an idiot Ashley is (duh), and Caroline's daughter wants to lose weight. The End.


(And yes. The episode was on Sunday and I'm posting about it on Friday. It's called TiVo people. And the fact that I go to bed at 9pm.)


Happy Friday ya'll!

Drink? Clink!

Despite the fact that I had gotten back from Spring Break all of...four days beforehand, I decided to hop back in the car and head down to North Myrtle Beach last weekend. (This was also a convenient excuse to not unpack my bags from Spring Break. Can we say efficiency?)

Good call. 

The four hour drive was totally worth it, especially since I was listening to the final Hunger Games books on audiobook rocking out to hardcore rap!

North Myrtle is more of a uh, family-oriented area. And by "family oriented", I mean "retirement community". They were also having a shag (as in the dance) convention during our stay, increasing the number of geriatrics to approximately 1,789,381.

Nothing like an empty dance floor to really let loose.

Friday night we scared impressed them all with our raunchy dance moves at the Spanish Galleon (oops), and may have pretended it was my Bachelorette party to get free drinks. (It worked. Thank you Erin's grandma for the beautiful heirloom ring that I borrowed in order to pawn free alcohol from rednecks.)

Saturday, we battled partly cloudy skies but were all too stubborn to go in until the thunder rolled and the heavens opened up. (We used this as an excuse to head to the j.crew outlet...ka-ching!)

Afterwards, we were sunburnt, tired, and out of money thanks to all those outlet bargains. The dreary weather was just the excuse we needed to bundle up, drink beer-garitas, and have girl talk until we went to bed at 11 long into the night. 

Despite my initial reservations about trying to save more money, my financial calculations went a little something like this: 

Two tanks of gas to get there and back? $75.00. 

One sweep through the j. crew outlet with my teacher discount? $41.82. 

Spending a weekend not thinking about teaching? Literally priceless.