My new job

The start of the school year always makes me think of the leaves changing colors into deep reds and oranges, apple cider, trees arching over sidewalks, and children lining up outside of school buses. Now, I know this visual is mostly in my head since we're in Texas and the trees usually turn from green to brown, but I still romanticize autumn anyway.

 Still, when I was a teacher, I could feel the electricity in the air as school began. The buzz of students in the hallways and the feeling that I was starting the year with a blank slate was just about the best part of my job.

I do miss it a little, and it was really strange not going back yesterday when all of my teacher friends were posting about their first days. BUT, I do feel so very fortunate that I can be home full-time with my buddy. We have the best time together, and I don't have to dole out any discipline (hey, she's only 7 months old) or grade anything EVER (hands-down the part of teaching I loathed the most). Now my days look quite a bit different than they did when I was in the classroom...

We go to breakfast at our neighborhood coffee shop a couple of times a week.

We experiment with different foods. (Prunes are a recent fave.)

We go to the Austin Children's Museum.

We work on crawling!

We dabble in Baby-Led Weaning. (Norah thinks shredded chicken is tasty.)

We swing at the park.

We read books.

We come up with silly games like "splash the water in the giant pot." Hey, she's easy.

My "new life" is pretty awesome, I have to say :)

Neighborhood Love

I haven't blogged in a while, and, to be honest, that's because it's so intimidating to try to go back and log everything! I've been jotting down N's milestones in her baby book and in my Google Docs, but am still trying to get actual post-dated blog entries together. Also, if you have a baby, you know how much you try to cram in while they're napping, and blogging doesn't always make the cut! So, in the meantime, I'm just going to start with where we are. It's easier that way, don't you think? Lately, we've been taking morning walks up to the coffee shop in our neighborhood, Russell's, and then moseying on over to our park. N LOVES to swing and ride down the slide with her mom. I'm so, so thankful that Jacob works from home so that we can take these leisurely morning walks together. I have a feeling that these will be some of our favorite memories of our neighborhood.

From the beginning

The day I found out I was pregnant (Thursday, May 5), I'd just woken up and had taken a pregnancy test. I was THRILLED when it read positive, but since Jacob was working out of town in Fairfield for a couple of days, I could only tell our dog, Izzy, who didn't share my enthusiasm. I managed to keep quiet for TWO WHOLE DAYS (which seemed like an eternity) since I didn't want to tell anyone before I told Jacob in person. I did call the doctor's office to set up my first appointment, had a mini-meltdown because I'd forgotten to take my prenatals a few times (and was convinced I'd deprived the baby of folic acid so OF COURSE she would have some problem), and then recovered after crying in the school parking lot. When I finally got a grip, I started planning how I'd tell J the news. I'd always thought it would be fun to tell him with a onesie embroidered with his company logo, so I immediately called a local embroidery shop (Hill Country Embroidery, if you ever need anything embroidered inexpensively!) and set everything up so that I could pick up the onesies the following afternoon on my way to Fairfield.

He was exhausted when I finally arrived at my parents' house that night, and I managed to sneak the onesie, wrapping paper, and gift box into the guest bedroom where we were staying, wrap the gift, and emerge without him ever opening an eye.

Needless to say, I didn't let him sleep long. I woke him up, gave him the box, and waited patiently
for him to open it. He was the happiest I've seen him since our wedding day :)

When I told my parents the following day -- by giving my mom a happy Grandmother's Day card :) -- they were ecstatic. In fact, my mom, who's normally pretty reserved, began jumping around, whooping, and dancing. It was awesome.

I'm back (Finally!) And a brief timeline.

Welcome back! I had all but abandoned this blog during my pregnancy, mostly because I was super-stressed with teaching and freaking out about all things pregnancy-related. I've got A LOT to catch up on, but here's the short version:

May 5, 2011: Found out I was pregnant (J was out of town so I had to keep this top-secret; so hard!)

May 6, 2011: Gave Jacob the big news!

May 7, 2011: Told my family, just in time for Mother's Day

August 14, 2011: Found out that Baby Young was a GIRL!

October 21, 2011: Gave her a name on my birthday: Norah Kingsley Young

November/December: Baby showers and getting everything all set up (nursery, classes, pediatrician, etc)

January 5, 2012: Welcomed Norah to the world!

January 5-April 15: Savored my sweet maternity leave. I go back to work on April 16 to finish out the school year, which will be tough since I've gotten used to spending my mornings and afternoons with my little buddy. I'm sure 6 weeks will fly by, though!

Budget Traveling

I am probably the last person to figure out priceline.com, but my sister recently got a nice hotel room in downtown Houston for $60 a night by bidding through the site. Since Mr. J and I are traveling to Denver/Cheyenne in a few weeks, I thought I'd give it a try.

Here's the thing, though: You can't be picky. You basically choose what kind of hotel you'd like (up to 4 stars), indicate the area of town where you'd like your hotel to be located, plug in your credit card number, and post your "bid" -- how much you'd be willing to pay per night for your hotel. Now, I know what you're thinking.... I'll just bid a ridiculously low number and just up my bid in $1 increments. Unfortunately, Priceline is on to you and your crafty tricks. You can only bid once a day, so if your bid is too low and isn't accepted, you're kicked off the site for 24 hours.

But, if your bid is accepted, you're good! Just remember, there's no backing out. You'll be charged and you'll have to be ok with wherever you end up. (But is that really that scary if you know you have a 4-star hotel booked? I don't think so.)

I knew we wanted to be near downtown Denver, so I checked that location, typed in my credit card number, and decided that $65 was a reasonable amount. Priceline then put me on hold while it scoured 4-star downtown Denver hotels that would accept my $65 a night bid. If no hotels in your area/star rating accept your price, then you have to re-bid a higher amount.

But after waiting just 30 seconds, I ended up with this:

It's a Hyatt in downtown Denver that's normally $150 a night -- score! Now I just have to figure out how to get a cheap flight and rental car...

How iTrimmed my iBill

This is how I feel every month (except with a slightly less old-school phone). Mr. J and I both have iPhones, which we agree are unnecessary but kind of awesome. For the past few months, our phone and internet bills have been out of control. Usually, I just sigh and vow to look at the bill later because I typically have some other pressing activity to attend to (grading, grading, more grading).

Now that it's summer, though, I no longer have that excuse. Yesterday, I spent 3 hours combing my cell phone bill, going to billshrink.com (LOVE!) and researching AT&T's plans. I quickly found that we have WAY too many "anytime" minutes that we never use, too many text messages that we never use, and a few features that.... we never use.

So after lots of research, I found a way to shave $100 off our bill each month. Woohoo! (And I know, crazy that it was ever that high in the first place.)

On to the internet.

Every time I'm watching tv, I see commercials for AT&T advertising $19.95 internet service. My internet service is $35, so I wondered what the deal was. After calling AT&T and asking about this (and threatening to switch internet providers), they graciously offered to give me the $19.95/month rate, too. Dave Ramsey would be proud :)

Anyway, I know you are in awe of how glamorous my summer days are, but I just wanted to let you know how simple it can be to save a nice chunk of change each month.

Rainbow Salad

I think most salads are boring. Seriously, who wants to eat iceberg lettuce with croutons covered in a depressing river of ranch? Not me. I do love vegetables, though, IF they have plenty of flavor. Here's a salad I improvised after a friend posted this recipe on Facebook; it came from the awesome food site Chocolate and Zucchini.

It's so good and has so many different colors and flavors that I look forward to lunch from the minute I get to school.

Rainbow Salad

Combine the following ingredients:

1/2 package of shredded carrots

3-4 small beets, chopped into small cubes

1/2 chopped green apple

3-4 scallions, diced

Then, drizzle olive oil and apple cider vinegar over the entire salad. Add about a half teaspoon of

Dijon mustard and toss all of the vegetables around in the mixture. Finish by sprinkling blue cheese crumbles over the top of the salad. Yum-O.