December 26th

'Twas the night after Christmas, when all through the house
Children were playing and screaming and so was my spouse.
The presents had all been opened with care,
And the children were hoping Superman would soon be there.
One kiddie was sleeping in the dog's bed,
And Aunty was crying or resting her head.
Mama in her glasses
and Ryan in his cap,
Were just settling in for a food coma nap.
When out from the front room arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my seat to see what was the matter.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But my husband and cousin playing with mini-policeman gear.

They played 'police vs. bad guys' until the evening expired.
And everyone went home a little more tired.

Bad Habits

Youk! Remember this guy?

He's the one all in black who is trying to hone in on our wedding rehearsal. (He just really felt he ought to be included.)

Somewhere along the way this dog has picked up a couple of really bad habits.

Bad Habit #1: Pooping in his sleep.
Bad Habit #2: Stealing stuff that doesn't belong to him...or us.

Since you didn't ask, let me give you the details. Have you ever heard the phrase "turd nugget?" That's Youk's calling card. He'll be laying on his bed sleeping soundly. Suddenly he starts twitching like he's chasing something in his sleep. Then he'll leave a single turd nugget on his bed. He wakes up, sniffs his bed and then runs of like he's frightened. If we call him over to his bed he tucks his tale and drops his head like he's embarrassed or ashamed of his little mishap.
It's totally gross but also just funny enough to keep us from getting mad.

His other habit he picked up on his own. He has always enjoyed playing fetch, but we have very specific toys and training tools that we use for that game. Recently, however, he started retrieving our newspaper off of our front driveway. That was kind of cute until he started retrieving all of the neighbor's papers as well. We'll let him run around outside when we're doing yard work and all of the sudden realize we have a pile of papers that don't belong to us sitting in our driveway. He loves it. If we don't take it from him, he'll bring the paper to the grass, toss it around, and shred it all to pieces. It's a fun game. So far nobody has complained. They're the freebie papers that have about two articles and the rest advertisements so nobody really reads them anyway. At least we have that going for us.

Liar, Liar

I lied today.

This week has been kind of a disaster. The week before a big holiday seems to go that way at school, so it wasn't totally unexpected.
Things came to a climax after school today, the last day of work before an oh so sweet two week vacation. I had a meeting with some parents. I've been nervous about it since Wednesday when it was scheduled. I didn't really know how it was going to go down. In the past, conversations with this student's mom have been amiable despite her students poor performance in my class. After writing three consecutive disciplinary referrals for the student, I wasn't sure I'd get off so easy.
My favorite superhero c0-worker was at my side and a newly hired administrator was there for back-up. Unexpectedly, both parents came for the conversation. Even more unexpectedly, they weren't there to point fingers, yell out their frustration, or to enter into name calling, "PE Nazi" anyone?...Yeah, that's been my favorite parent provided label so far.
These parents were very concerned, loving, and pro-active. I was almost shocked. I have had a very difficult time with their student this semester. I concluded something about the home life must be out of order, but I was wrong.
We discussed the behavior and performance of their child. They were so apologetic and frustrated. That's when I lied. I told them I liked their student and wanted to see her/him successful because he/she is so smart and so capable. I wanted to mean what I was saying...for their sake. Truth is, I don't like this student. I try, but the student makes it so stinking difficult. There is the cussing, attitude, disrespect, not following rules, refusing to participate, cutting class, and on and on. Smart, capable, those things were true. Like him/her? Not really. But I'm going to try. For their sake of the parents and for the sake of my lying-butt self, I'm going to try.

And that concludes another episode of True Confessions with your host, Bobbi St. Clair. Tune in next time for "Honey, I shaved the cat by accident."

On the go-go

I am having a fantastic time immersing myself in Christmas. I love the season, but I'm spending all of my time baking, decorating, shopping, and spending time with family and friends, so the blog is kind of lacking. I wish I had been diligently taking pictures along the way, but I'm a slacker in that department too. After a fun and eventful Thanksgiving, where I made good on my goal of eating myself silly, we came home and decorated the house.
Last weekend Ross shot down a Christmas tree...actually he cut it down, but he was threatening to shoot it. Then we had a kick off to the Christmas season party. We ate ourselves silly again.
This weekend we went to a Christmas play and a Christmas concert, then went to Shae and Ryan's for some more...you guessed it, eating. Plus we got a little baking in this weekend, and of course we were obligated to taste test and re-test each of the candies and cookies. I think I may have to run double tomorrow.

Here and there we work a little too. It's way overrated though, so I try to avoid it as much as possible. My students are on the verge of chaos, and I am wondering each day if I can make it through without ringing the necks of about half of them. I am determined not to ever have kids. (Sorry Ross.) I've seen what they become at about 14-years-old, and it's not pretty. I'm sorry Mom and Dad for that period of my life. I'm not sure what I did, but I'm certain it was an ugly time.

Some of my students could use your prayers too, by the way. (And not just the ones who I want to turn over my knee.) We have a handful who have lost parents, guardians, and siblings this fall. I know the holidays are not going to be easy.

That's the other crappy part about teaching. Reality. So many of our kids have it hard. Really hard. It's impossible to ignore when they're staring you in the face. Rape, abuse, foster care, parents in prison, students working to help pay the bills, parents lost to deportation, students just out of jail themselves, and the list goes on. It seems like nearly every student we have, has a story like this.

Yeah, now I'm depressed too.

On a more positive note, I get to hang out with my boy the "Q" tomorrow. I know you're jealous. I'll leave you with a picture I stole.

Ho! Ho! ...Oh!

On my drive home after work today, I saw a figure on the sidewalk about a quarter of a mile up the road. I said, "Santa?" to nobody in particular. The figure, clad head to toe in red and wearing what appeared to be a long white beard, had an uncanny resemblance to old St. Nick.

Then I drove a little closer and realized I was wrong. So wrong.

Mr. Claus, was actually a Mrs. In fact, she was just an older woman with a bit of a belly, getting her mail. Never mind that she was wearing red shoes, red stirrup pants, and a red sweater. The "beard" was just a white envelope that she was holding in front of her face.

My mistake.

On another note, she was the second woman I saw sporting the uni-color today. The other one was at school. She was going crazy with the navy. How do these women find shoes in the exact shade as the rest of their outfit? I'm really curious about this.

Please stop me from ever being that color coordinated. (And Ross, no comment on the sweatsuit number I was wearing last night before bed. It won't happen again.)

Baby it's Cold Outside

Yesterday it snowed on the valley floor. It was enough to turn everything white but not even an inch of accumulation. At least not in Salem. Then temperatures dropped and everything froze. Schools were delayed and canceled across the Willamette valley. My Maine native husband laughed at the way Oregonians react to snow and called us all names. The End.

Merry Early Christmas

This is my present to you...

...I did not receive permission to use this photograph. All rights are not reserved.

Get Fat and Be Somebody

My goal starting Thursday morning is to consume as many Calories as I possibly can. Wish me luck.

(P.S. Yes, my mother is drunk on turkey in this photo.
P.P.S This year Shae will not have the unfair advantage of a baby belly...unless it's a turkey baby.)

The Curse of the Flannel Sheets

For our wedding, Ross and I got two sets of really nice sheets for our bed. They're the nicest quality sheets I've ever owned with a thread count of about a billion. The problem with the sheets is that they're really cold when you first get into bed. I don't mind so much, but I was tired of warming up Ross' side of the bed for him. He hinted several times that it would be really nice to have some flannel sheets this winter. We still had some gift cards to Bed Bath and Beyond, so I stopped by on my way home from church one afternoon. It was our lucky day because I found some flannel sheets that were on sale.

Ever since we got these sheets, we've had no problem getting into bed. In fact, we keep getting in earlier and earlier. On the flip side, we've had a bit of difficulty getting out of bed. We used to get up when the alarm went off the first time. At last count, we were getting up after it went off for the third time. At the rate we're going, we'll be late for work next week, miss it completely the week after that, and we'll be getting up just in time to go back to bed by the end of next month.

I think I know why the sheets were on sale.

Top 5 Things I've Learned from Teaching Adaptive PE

1.) Wigs allow you to channel other personalities...Lady Gaga anyone?
2.) You don't need music to dance. Or a reason. Or a partner.
3.) You're only cool if you poop your pants.
4.) When situations get too tough to deal with...sweep.
5.) There really is a market for Velcro shoes.

Holiday Cheer

It's pouring rain, cold, and windy as all get out. If it was the weekend, I'd curl up with a cup o' joe and a good book...
...Yeah right, who am I trying to kid? But if I was also sick and unable to move from the sofa or the bed then I would totally do that.
I can hardly believe Thanksgiving is next week. My favorite part of the holidays...okay any day, is dessert. I like eating sweets. I like baking them even more, especially the pretty ones. This is what's on the menu for next Thursday:

I took a trial run at this Cranberry trifle the other day for a fall potluck. I decided to make the Martha Stewart vanilla pound cake rather than buy one at the store. It calls for a load of butter and sugar, but I figured I'd be sharing with a crowd, so it would be okay to splurge.
There I was, making a cranberry compote, whipping up a cream filling, and baking a pound cake. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, but this is ME we're talking about.
When my cake was due to come out of the oven. I poked it here and poked it there with a toothpick, and each time it came out clean so I took it out of the oven and put it on a wire rack to cool. In the mean time, I went back to creaming my cream cheese, ginger, whipping cream, and brown sugar. By the time I had my stiff peaks and returned to my cake, I found a mess waiting for me. The cake had sprung a leak. Evidently the very middle was still a bit soupy. A puddle of batter was continuing to build under the cooling rack, so I did the only logical thing. I scooped the thing back together and returned the whole mess to the oven. Luckily, in a trifle, the cake layers don't have to be pretty. It baked itself more or less back together then I broke it into a dozen pieces in order to layer it in the trifle. This may be the new future for many of my baking projects...
This has been another episode of "Baking with Bobbi."

On our way to Nationals...

Cross country season is winding down. The Willamette men and two individual women will compete at the DIII National meet in Ohio on Saturday. The boys made the regional meet a nail-biter, winning by just two points. Our number one guy thought he was finishing the 8K race a loop early and took it out hard with over a mile to go. He ended up finishing 7th. Stephan, typically our #2 guy, finished 2nd overall in an outstanding performance. As a team they finished in first place with 63 points. Two weeks ago they lost the Conference Championships by 3 points.
The team who won Conference placed third at Regionals. They were 17 points behind us. That's the difference between our men showing up at Regionals and not showing up at Conference. Now if we can just put it together at Nationals, the season could end on a very positive note.

Go Bearcats!

Happy Birthday MJ!

*Photo by www.jessharveyphotography.com

Happy Birthday Mama Joe!
It's your birthday, and you know what that means...BIRTHDAY POEM!!!!

Dearest Mother of my heart,
Your birthday poem's about to start.
Today you are another year older,
And if I may be a bit bolder -
You're 51 and lookin' good!
I guess we knew you probably would.

I'll keep it nice, I don't think you'll care,
But here are some things I'd like to share:

People think that we are sisters.
Your feet get nasty, bloody blisters.
You can't burp on command,
But your whistle is in high demand.
You aren't competitive even a bit...
You don't like losing and that is it.
I think coffee is your drug of choice.
You have a lovely singing voice.

These are a few things that make you unique.
There are more, but of them I won't speak.

I like your hair. Your shoes. Your smile.
I think you should sit back and relax a while.
It's your birthday, and I hope it's a great one!
(P.S. When I see you, I owe you 41...)

Much love!

Chai tea ice cream

I made up a recipe today for Chai tea ice cream, and I'm pretty proud of it for two reasons. 1) It actually tastes how it was supposed to taste, and 2) I am a recipe follower. I break out in hives when I try to deviate from my recipe card. Today I stepped out on a limb and made something that wasn't written out for me. :) For any other ice cream enthusiasts that might be out there, it goes like this:

Put a cinnamon stick and black tea bag in 1/2 cup of water, and bring it to a boil. Remove it from the heat and let it sit 5min. Remove the cinnamon stick and tea bag, add 2 cups of milk, 2 cups of heavy whipping cream, 1 cup of sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of ginger powder, and 1/4 teaspoon of cardamom. Bring it to a simmer (don't let it boil). Remove from heat. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Cool for 30min. Put it in the refrigerator until it is cooled. Put it in the ice cream maker and let the ice cream maker do it's thing. Taste test several times. Don't share. Hide in the garage and eat a bowl as big as your head. Destroy the evidence.

Wedding Pictures

I'm only going to share a handful of pictures right now because there's so many to choose from, and I can't make any more decisions. These are all courtesy of my great friend, Jessica, who is quickly becoming a popular and stellar photographer. You should check her out at jessharveyphotography.com
Thanks so much, Jess, for capturing so many great memories for Ross and me and for our families!!!! You are a rockstar. ;)

August 7th, 2010

Gettin' purdy.


Walking "the gauntlet."


Saying our "I do's" and our "Yeah, man's"....Ross


Relief. We did it.


The Boys.


The Girls.


The Parents.

Watch your words

I don't always think before I speak. Shame on me. It could get me into big trouble one day sooner than later.
I was teaching PE yesterday (go figure), and I had my class outside doing some conditioning on the track. My aide was helping me by passing out straws to the students each time the crossed the finish line (to keep track of the # of laps they completed). One of the freshman boys was being really obnoxious as he approached us, and slowed his jog down to something less than a crawl. My aide had to wait and wait and wait for him to cross the line so he could hand him his straw. Jokingly, on my part, I told my aide to "give him his straw and punch him too for being annoying." I say stuff like that all the time and probably shouldn't, but nobody has ever taken me seriously before. Until yesterday. No sooner were the words out of my mouth, than my aide turned around and punched the kid in the back. Just like that!
"Whoa! I wasn't serious!" I said.
"Huh, huh, huh." He laughed.
The kid kept running.
The end.

Sympathy cravings

My co-star is pregnant with baby #2. We went through her first pregnancy together, and I feel obligated to continue the tradition with this one. I am here to support her in whatever means necessary. And if that means eating lots of chocolate, pumpkin ice cream, Oreos, and apple crisp, well, I'm prepared to make that sacrifice. That's what friends are for.

A good sign, it's going to be a bad night

I'm working on recruiting runners for Willamette. I've decided to cash in my chips for tonight. You know it's going to be a lesson in futility when you encourage your first recruit to go to Linfield instead of WU (they have a great nursing program, and that's what she was looking for - I was just being honest). The second one (who responded to my initial e-mail with a "Dear Mr. Wright") starts out our phone conversation by saying, "Yeah, so I looked at your list of majors, and there was really nothing for me there." We have forty-nine pretty broad majors, but great, okay. I'll save you some time, count my losses, and wish you well.
I think I'll be more productive with my time tonight and fold some clothes, write thank you cards, or wash the mound of dishes sitting on my counter. Phone calls aren't my thing anyway.
But for all of you who have stuck with me and read this, I'll leave you with something better than a bad blog post:

*Precious photo courtesy of jessharveyphotography.com

The Nutty Professor

In case I haven't told the world already, I got hired this fall to be an adjunct professor for my alma mater. I'm just teaching one class a week on PE Methods. It's kind of cool getting to work with college students who are in school by choice. They're a little more motivated and focused than your average high school student. The problem with this class is that a) I'm teaching elementary PE methods and have never worked in an elementary PE classroom and b) I'm learning a lot about how wrong we are currently doing things in our PE program at McKay.
It kind of bums me out to research information on good teaching practices at the elementary level and discover "how not to do it" is how we are doing it at the high school. Ha! My biggest pet peeve (outside of all the swearing they do) is when kids ask "Why can't we just play ____enter alternative activity here_____? Nobody likes this game." It makes me kick and scream and pull my hair. Then I read the other day, that at the high school level, activities should be student driven. If they love b-ball, they should have an option of a b-ball class because proficiency in activities that they enjoy is what will keep them active in the future. Doh and Duh. Too bad that will take restructuring our entire department. Maybe, just maybe we can start moving that direction because our kids are fat. They need to move. And they hate pickleball. I hate it too.
Amen.

Powder Puff

At my school, homecoming week is kicked off with an eagerly anticipated Junior vs. Senior Powder Puff flag football game. One of my favorite quotes so far this year came from own of my senior girls participating in the game. She was trying to explain to another PE student the position she was playing. So she asked me, "Ms. Wright (we haven't gotten the whole name change thing down yet), what is that position that sounds like lemon or lime or something."
I took a second, tried not to laugh, laughed anyway, and said, "Lineman?"
"That's it!"

Sometimes teenagers are way more entertaining than we give them credit for.

Happy Fourth

Fourth week of school that is.
This is my boy on his first day of school:

I just love first day of school pictures.

Hi. I think you're kind of cute. Nice tie. Now go to school and change the world...one knucklehead at a time.

The Final Chapter

The last part of our honeymoon (I know this is so old news, but I'm really slow at getting pictures and what not, so whatever) we took another trip to the coast, farted around Augusta, spent time on Ross' mom's boat, and did some fishing. I'll share the fishing pictures from the day we left. We fished a pond across from the St. Clair cabin. The neighbors gave us permission, and we had a great time. We caught fish like crazy using these stinky, biodegradable purple worms. That's what they liked. So that's what we gave them. Let the games begin...

One fishy wishy... (doesn't matter if it's a minnow, it has fins, it counts)

Two fishy wishy...

Three...

Four...

Yes, Ross caught some too.

Five fishes for Bobbi

Six fishes for my precious...

Seven...


Eight...

Here fishy, fishy, fishy...

Ummm, that's ten for me...


Yep, that's an eleven...

...and twelve. We'll stop with that.

That's one of Ross' big ones. It's bigger than it looks there. He caught the fish of the day. In about two hours we had caught around twenty-five fish between the two of us. I haven't done that since the days of fishing for bluegill and crappie with Dad and Jesse. The first day I was trying not to catch fish because I didn't want to have to touch them, but by the end of this second day of fishing, I was having a good time. I'm ready to go back...

Chapter 3: Maine Reception

While we were in Maine, Ross' Mom and her husband hosted a reception for us. A good number of Ross' relatives who weren't able to come out for the wedding made it to the reception, which was really nice. "Food and beer, we'll be there," was their motto. Whatever the case, it was nice to meet some of them for the first time and to see others again. They're really nice people, and Ross especially enjoyed the mini family reunion.


In addition to family, several of Ross' college and high school buddies showed up. They played some extreme version of croquet.


(Ross showing off his moves.)

Then they started with some version of Frisbee/try to hit the guy not paying attention.



Once again we had some amazing food courtesy of Ross' Mom and her husband, Phil. They are fantastic cooks, and we all ate ourselves into a state of comatose, then ate some more.

This cake they ordered from a friend was all kinds of chocolaty goodness. It was something like four layers of chocolate cake, filled with chocolate gnache, frosted with chocolate frosting and topped with white chocolate shavings. It's safe to say I got my chocolate fix for the day. I only had to fight Ross for every bite. We shared a piece (which I will never do again). His bite was about six of mine, and I was left fighting for the crumbs.

Chapter 2

Maybe you don't know this about me...I like to run. It's kind of a bad habit of mine. I've tried to keep it in the closet for years...no, not really. Anyway, Forest Gump was kind of an iconic figure for me as a teenager. Not because he could play ping pong like a champ. Not so much because he was in the shrimp business. It was the fact that he started running and just didn't stop. Long story short, on our honeymoon, Ross and I made a trip to the lighthouse. The Lighthouse. You know, the one he runs to on the East Coast. Come on guys. Guys? Well, I thought it was cool anyway. So here are some pics from that part of the trip.



Re-living my Bobbi Gump days....

Re-cap part I

Now that we've been married for over a month, and it's like old news, I thought I'd share a few pics from our trip to Maine.

Most of the week we stayed in this cabin which Ross' grandpa built back in the 50s.

We also spent some time on the lake cruising around in the family's fishing boat.

We docked the boat at this island where we found wild blueberries. We also found a nice picnic table and:

This sign that led to...

...this toilet.

Tune in next time for more adventures in Maine.