deep sigh

do you ever have that feeling when you awake in the morning that things are not going to go as planned? i don't know why i felt it this morning when i got up and the whole ride to school. i just had a hunch, i think.
today was a meeting with the math coordinator. not a meeting for everyone. a meeting for me. i knew from the tone of his email (that i saw he sent on sunday afternoon) requesting a conversation after school that it would not be my best shining moment.
essentially, what has happened is my personal life has caught up with my work life. this is a not a good thing. the way that (to quote phoebe) i've been "all chaotic and twirly and not in a good way" is apparently reflecting in my teaching. he said he's worried about my teaching this year and doesn't feel that i'm as engaged, organized, and planned as i was last year. coming from quite possibly the nicest man in the entire world, that's a pretty huge insult.
i've always been able to separate my personal life from my work life, but it's becoming painfully clear that i'm not able to do that anymore. my students and their parents are the ones that caused him to think this way, too... i can't even blame it on his wrong perceptions.
i feel sad today that my students are the ones suffering from my inability to get my sh!t together (for lack of a better term).
today is a day where i sigh deeply.

in an effort to make this blog less serious, i'm attaching a picture of myself in a clown suit, headbanging.

golden hour

today's golden hour was amazing. i took a photo of some leaves, but i felt like i had to catch the color on skin, so i took a pretty weak self-portrait, seeing as how it was just me and the dogs and they don't show much skin. it's cold out and i've got a sniffle, so don't mind the red nose










it is so amazing to me how a little end of day sunshine puts a new spin on everything

feeling a little left out

perhaps it's time for me to post a picture of one of the little girls in my life, too.


this is chloe. she'll be 1 next week. the boy and i are like 5th in line to be godparents to her and her big sister. so basically, if the whole family (siblings included) kicks it except for the kids, then we get them. i guess that's kind of a morbid thing to wish for. :)

this was taken at the buddy walk in denver

when chloe smiles, her mouth becomes a giant O. it's the cutest thing

this past week

this past week was pretty good overall. i'd like to share...

what i'm going through right now is a strange process. i haven't really talked about it much, because it's kind of a tough thing for me to deal with and even to describe. i guess what's happening now (and i still can't find a good way to describe it) is basically causing me to question everything and pull away from people. this has not been an easy thing for me to do. which relationships are real? who is someone that i want in my life for less selfish reasons than just my pathetic need to feel validated? i've been rethinking every friendship and otherwise that i've had for the last 15 years, basically reducing myself to a self-loathing over-analytical loner. for lack of better words, methinks. i've even cut some people out entirely.
okay so this sounds a little dark, but it's not... it's good for me. those people that i cut out were unhealthy for me, and my knowing them stemmed almost entirely from my neediness and my destructive behavior. what i want to say about the last week is that i've seen some old friends that i haven't seen in a long time and in my mind i had clouded my perception of them (along with pretty much everyone i know) so badly that i didn't know which end was up. what i rediscovered is that these people are amazing, inspirational, beautiful people. it's really nice to have all of them in my life. they're safe, and they're warm, and seeing them made me realize that they're really important to me for all the right reasons. i feel thankful and i feel loved. these are good things.

okay, enough mushiness.

so it's snowboard season NOW. breck opens this weekend. keystone, a-basin, copper... they're all already open. my drive to work is exquisite in the mornings sometimes. the reddish brown foothills nearly obscuring the view of those beautiful white caps... breathtaking. pikes peak sits at the southern end of the mountains where the foothills look so flat, you'd think the range was ending. but rising up above them, pikes peak is enormous and majestic, dwarfing everything else in sight. on clear mornings i can see the sun rising and reflecting red light on those shiny white peaks. it's one of the only reasons i enjoy being up before sunrise. :) maybe the only one.

in the interest of suggestions...
i am planning a series of things for my hubby as he approaches his 30th birthday rapidly. i'm looking for suggestions for fun things to do in NYC at night on the saturday of thanksgiving before a nice dinner out. so far i've got "go to rockafeller center". anything else for me?

without any further delay i'm headed home to sulk about my observation today, which went about as badly as i could have nightmared about. maybe it's time for an early retirement. i'll keep wishin ;-)

ciao