July 2007 - Posts
It feels as if our weekend flew by so fast! I'm always a little sad when Mondays arrive in the summer time because that means Peter is back to work, and I'm at home by myself.
Friday night we had our "Date Night" and saw:
I now pronounce you Chuck & Larry
It was better than I thought it would be - this was Peter's pick - it was funny but definitely had a lot of stupid humor.
We had planned to go out to dinner at this cute, local place called "Mom's Kitchen" but it didn't appear to be open even though we arrived an hour or so before their posted closing time. I hope its not closed permanently. That seems to happen to places we like.
Saturday we went to the bookstore and did some reading, had lunch at Moe's - totally yummy - and saw another movie:
Hairspray
This was actually really good - I thought all the actors did a great job with the singing and dancing and seeing John Travolta as a woman wasn't as completely weird as I thought it was going to be.
Dinner was Hawaiian pizza courtesy of Acme. Haha. Tasty.
Sunday we had a pretty busy day. Woke up pretty early and had breakfast at Panera Bread, where we read the newspaper and surfed the Internet until around 11. Then we drove up route 202 to have lunch at Jimmy Johns - our absolute most favorite hot dog place. From there we drove up to the King of Prussia mall to do some window shopping and walking around. I found the cutest terry dress (can't seem to find a picture online) at Juicy Couture - but even on sale it was still $99 plus PA tax - which is really steep in my opinion to wear essentially a bath towel. I found something similar on Victoria's Secret's website but was hoping to find some sort of good coupon code, or at least have free shipping. If I ordered today, it wouldn't arrive until August 6th possibly which is too late for our trip. That kind of defeats the purchase of the order, since I want to wear the dress on the boat.
Well, it's already almost 10AM and I need to get some work done before having lunch for Peter. So far, I've gone grocery shopping and put that away, but have a bunch more things to do:
Off to get some stuff done!
It's already 3 PM and I feel like I've gotten a lot accomplished today! I started out the day by dropping Peter off at work and going to the gym for a workout. Did just about an hour - which is longer than usual, and came home to start playing with all my new software.
First, I had to set up my workspace in the study:
How geeky is that right? I've got my Tablet PC running with my e-mail, FeedDemon, etc..., and am running everything else on the big Dell. Oh, and can't forget my coffee!
Even Jasmine enjoys the setup:
She's as happy as can be sitting in my lap while I work.
Peter introduced me to Lynda.com which is online computer training. It is absolutely awesome! There a short video clips that show you how to do just about anything in many different software applications. As I have CS3 on the brain right now, I started off by checking out the free videos offered for the Fireworks CS3 Essential Training. After watching the Introduction, What's New, and The Interface free segments, I decided to plunk the $25 a month down to unlock everything else. $25 a month for everything really isn't that bad. I intend to use my classroom budget for a yearly subscription next month. After watching just about 30 minutes of clips I feel as if I could actually play around in Fireworks with some success! There are 22 chapters of clips, and I've watched the first 3. I hope to have the rest watched by mid-week so I can move on to Photoshop or Flash.
Peter surprised me with Subway for lunch - complete with yummy Vault drink - that should wake me up a bit!
Two textbook samples arrived in the mail for me today from Thomson Learning:
First impression: I'm not sure what I think about these because they feel so flimsy! The covers are literally paper - my kids will rip that up in like two days! I'm going to have to look for a hard bound option for sure - even if it is more expensive. I'm too burned out from staring at the computers today to even open them up. Maybe tomorrow.
Off to get ready for tonight - we're having a movie date!
With the help of my tech guy, I was able to get myself on the Dell. Evidently the other tech guy was supposed to have me log on before I left, but didn't so my info. wasn't on the system. That's taken care of now.
I've installed the following CS3 programs: Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash. Can you guess which one I'm playing with first? Yup, Photoshop. What fun, and how fast! Amazing.
It takes 25 seconds from pushing the power button to getting to the log on screen. This feels faster than with my Tablet, but as I've never counted before, I'll have to do so to compare.
I can't get any further because it's not accepting any log on combination I can think of. AHHH!!!!
I've e-mailed my tech guy for HELP!
I finished up teaching summer camp today. It's funny, but every year after I've finished teaching summer camp, I'm reminded of why I will never teach middle school - the maturity level is so different from high school students. That's not to say that my kids can't act silly or immature, but definitely much less than the typical middle school-er.
I picked up my new work toy today:
It's a Dell Latitude 620. I'm mostly excited about getting it simply so I can download the 30 day trials of the Adobe Creative Suite Software that I need to practice on until I can get the unlock codes from work. I definitely did not want to put all that software on my Tablet PC.
I think it would die if I did that.
So, I've spent the afternoon downloading trials of CS3 Software including: Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks. I think I'd like to play with Lightroom some more as well (I played with the beta this past spring.), but I'm not sure if my work purchased that so I'm going to hold off on that for now. No point in using it and then not being able to continue.
Two things I definitely need to get: a new laptop case - the black Dell one is functional but UGLY and huge for 5'2 me AND a laptop sticker to cover up the yucky serial code sticker the tech department so conveniently placed in the middle of the lid. Eww and Yuck.
As far as laptop cases go, I'm not sure what I'm looking for. Something girly with lots of pockets. For stickers, I like the ones here, and these especially:
I'm also toying with the idea of doing my own custom one. At $19.99, and given that they are removable and reusable, that's not too bad. I could get two or three and change it up every so often.
Well, often to power up the Dell for the first time and do some installs!
Today was my first day teaching the second group of summer campers - this week at Howard H.S. The morning went fairly smoothly, and afterwards I enjoyed lunch at home with Peter - nothing fancy - just our TV dinners - actually they were kind of gross. We need to come up with something new to have for lunch that doesn't get expensive. Both of us would happily eat out every day, but that definitely adds up after a while.
Last night we had our second Super Suppers Meal - this time it was Sesame Orange Shrimp with Rice. It was ok. Not fantastic, but ok. I think we both agreed that it needed some more seasoning, some more something. It kind of tasted like a step above a TV dinner, which as you might have guessed we are a bit sick of at this point. Tonight we are trying our third meal, Beef and Mushroom Burgers with Baked Beans - it really does look good, so hopefully it will be.
Saturday we went on a picnic! Now my idea of a picnic has always been a perfectly prepared, Martha Stewart type of meal, but we've never actually had one of those. We have gone on two picnics in the past - our first was technically one of our first dates and I went all out and actually made a breakfast casserole of some sort. I actually used Phyllo dough! Needless to say that was the one and only time I used that particular ingredient. The second was last year in the spring, and I picked up mostly pre-made items, but still yummy. This time we took a more gourmet approach:
Just kidding - good old K.F.C. Totally bad for us, but an occasional splurge is worth it, right?
Ok, well now I'm off to read the rest of my blogs and get some digiscrapping done - Peter and I plan to have computer-free evenings for a while so we can spend some more quality time together. TTFN!
I read a lot of blogs. So many, in fact, that I use FeedDemon to keep track of them all. I realized lately that I read a lot more blogs than I ever comment on.
I think that's partially because it's somewhat of an annoying process to comment on blogs that I read in FeedDemon. I have to copy the feed's address, and then launch my browser, paste the address in, and then get to the point where I can post a comment. I frequently download my feeds to read when I'm offline, so at those times it's not possible to comment when I think of something, and then I forget to do it at all. That does come down to the other reason I suppose that I don't comment often enough - I'm lazy. I need to work on that.
But earlier in the week, I was catching up on my blogs, and discovered that Renee Pearson had written something interesting in her Design Friday Post on Monday (which reminds me of something I used to do in my classroom occasionally when I'd either forget to do something or run out of time: Tech Thursdays became Tech Mondays, Professional Dress Wednesdays were occasionally Professional Dress Fridays, etc... - haha - flexibility is key!). She wrote about a design magazine and website called Before and After. Upon checking out their web site, I became totally excited because I think I will definitely be able to use their articles in my classroom - not to mention learning some things myself! I plan on ordering their online subscription as soon as I can.
So, I decided to not be lazy and actually opened up my browser to comment - and last night, not only did Renee write me to let me know she had answered my question on her blog, but when I excitedly went to read the response, I discovered that my question had given her the topic for today's Design Friday post! Talk about flattering, and what fantastic resources she is suggesting! I'm so excited to check out the books she is recommending, as well as hunt down a few magazines to start the year off with. Renee even linked me to the magazines and books directly - talk about nice! Thank you so much, Renee, for taking the time to respond to my comment, and for providing such wonderful resources! I have a feeling I will be spending more time at our local Borders this weekend than usual - thank goodness my hubby enjoys those visits as well!
And to think, the other day I was wondering how'd I'd find ways to spend my budget this year! (Just kidding).