As most of you know, I am a teacher. I find teaching to be the most fabulous profession ever for many reasons, one of them being summer break! I have never loved summer more than I do this year. However, I realized quickly that if I didn't work this summer at least a little bit, I would get terribly bored. I have been nannying four days a week until 2:30 (have I mentioned this already?). It has been a lot of fun with trips to the library, the movies, and the pool. The family is out of town this week, so I have a week of freedom! It started today, and I think I will document "Rachel's Week O' Fun"!
I spent the morning being just plain lazy. It was fabulous. I slept in and then watched a Lifetime Movie of one of my favorite books by Jodi Picoult (!). The movie did NOT do the book even a bit of justice, but what can you expect... it's Lifetime. :) I got ready and met two of my girlfriends, Beth and Cassie (and Cassie's baby, Caleb) for lunch. We had a great time together. We brought our wedding pictures and talked about the joys (and occasional frustrations!) of marriage. We then got onto the topic of bondage in our Christian walk, which I found very interesting. We began talking about the fact that as kids and even as teenagers and adults, we have all struggled with the bondage of feeling as if we will be "punished by God" if we don't do our devotions one day or skip church one Sunday. It is mind boggling to me that we can turn something as beautiful and humbling as Christianity into something that can be so restricting. In my opinion, that is Satan at his finest. He takes something that has saved us from him and from ourselves and turns it into something that can feel so choking and terrifying. That is so what this world is all about though, isn't it? If you're good enough, if you read your Bible, if you pray, if you are "spiritual" (whatever THAT means these days!), you will get to heaven. As long as you do enough for God, you'll be good when you die. How awesome is it that we serve a God who is not about tasks? That we can simply trust Him with our lives and commit our all to Him and He will show us His glory! I am in awe of His grace and power, especially as of late! He has shown me His glory and it is amazing that I can break free of that bondage with the power of His grace and mercy!
Anyways... back to the day of fun! After lunch, I journeyed over to Target and Golf Galaxy where I picked up a few more cleaning supplies (I'm getting borderline obsessed) and returned a hat for T. I did get some Method glass cleaner as well as some Method stainless steel cleaner. If you're not familiar with Method cleaning supplies, they are environmentally friendly and they are just fun. :) They come in pretty colors and they smell great! My current favorite is Method Pink Grapefruit All Purpose Cleaner, as showcased below.
I am not going to go off on a whole paragraph like last time, but this stuff is GREAT. I love the way that my kitchen smells after I use it. It's worth the $5 at Target... for sure.
After Target, I went to Biggs, which is my new choice of grocery store. I had a coupon for a free gallon of milk, so I decided to go there instead of Hyde Park Kroger, which has always been my grocery store. However, I have found a whole new love for grocery shopping in Biggs. It is bigger, cheaper and NICER. I will always have a soft spot for Kroger and I am probably not completely done shopping there, but I am planning on doing my next big grocery shop at Biggs. I also continued my "green streak" and purchased 5 cloth grocery bags. They were cheap and I definitely will use them. I have hated using all the plastic grocery bags... why does the checker always feel the need to put a carton of ice cream in ONE bag? What a waste. I am looking forward to using my new bags and will post a picture of them the next time I put them to use! I am doing my part to help the environment and although I don't believe in "global warming", I do believe in doing my part to keep God's earth clean and the way He intended it! So, don't think I will be making any Al Gore-type speeches anytime soon, because to be honest, this is probably about as green as Rachel gets!
I came home and did a thorough cleaning of my kitchen, threw in a load of laundry, and enjoyed a relaxing evening with my hubby which included our (yes, I said OUR) weekly viewing of "The Bachelorette". I think that T is the best guy in the world to willingly watch DeAnna's search for love each week and give me a great commentary. I think it's safe to say that we are both rooting for Jesse to be the last guy standing. Tyler "identifies with them the most". :) He also gave me permission to be on "The Bachelorette" if he ever kicks the can, which I hope is never a reality! Oh well, at least I know that I have options! ;) KIDDING, only kidding! I have the best hubby EVER... way better than any old Jesse!
So, that was today. We will see what tomorrow brings! Love!
Well, needless to say, I am NOT an expert blogger. I'm not sure if it's due to the fact that I don't think anyone finds my life interesting but me or the fact that I have never been so busy in all my life! Maybe it's a little bit of both! But, to the few of you out there who have checked this every so often in hopes for an update from Haney Land, never fear! I have returned and it is my "summer resolution" to update this more in hopes that someday, I will look back on it and laugh at my ramblings. I will warn you-- these won't be deep in the least bit, but you'll hopefully get a bit of an outlook on life here and maybe, once in a while, a little bit of my heart. :)
It has been a whopping FOUR months since my last update and there has been much happening here! First of all, we moved! We now live in an amazing apartment on the third floor of a 98 year old Victorian mansion and we are LOVING it! Considering all the problems we had in our last place (hole in the ceiling of our bathroom, mold growing through the wall in our kitchen, drug dealing neighbors, etc.), we feel like we are living in Disney World! Well, maybe not Disney World, but at least Cinderella's palace! It is an incredibly gorgeous place with all the charm of an old home. Our landlords, who have quickly become friends, have done an absolutely impeccable job keeping it up. I love it here.
In other news... baby news... just kidding! I had you for a minute there, didn't I? Not for a while! :) Seriously though, in other news, I am going to be teaching third grade this next school year! I am so thankful for this change. I absolutely loved my sixth graders this year, but it was no secret that I struggled at times. Primary grades are my heart, so I know that this will be an excellent switch for me. Plus, I will be working with a wonderful veteran teacher who is going to be an excellent mentor for me. All in all, I am enjoying my summer break but will be really excited to go back to school in August!
More news... hmm. We will be taking a vacation in August. Where, you ask? Well, I don't know. All I know is we will be going somewhere but that hasn't been decided. I am SUCH a planner and normally, this would bother me a lot, but I think that my husband has rubbed off on me and I have become more laid back in certain areas. I'm looking forward to going somewhere... the spot has just not been chosen yet! We're hoping for Aspen, but we will have to wait and see.
My summer has been going well so far. I am nannying for a family Monday through Thursday. The job is wonderful. They are very precious children and I get off at 2:30 every day! That gives me just enough time to get stuff done or take a nap. Today, I was very productive. I cleaned the apartment, went to the bank, did laundry and went to the library. This brings me to my final two points. Here they are:
1. OxyClean just might be God's greatest invention.
2. I am obsessed with the library.
I will hit on the OxyClean part of these points first. After getting married and starting to do more consistent laundry, my sweet mother introduced me to the wonder that is OxyClean. I started with a rather small tub of the powder. I would add a scoop to my regular laundry loads (along with detergent, of course) and my laundry would come out as usual. I honestly can't say that I saw a marked difference in our laundry, but, it was nice to know our clothes were extra clean. Soon, I graduated to a large tub of the powdered gold and began using it on everything... clothes, carpet stains, etc. I loved it, but it was hard to mix up a paste every time I had a stain (which is quite often, I must admit). The next time I was at the grocery store, I happened to come across OxyClean in a BOTTLE. Could it be? Yes, it was. It has saved some great pieces of clothing from the stains I have inflicted upon them, my favorite being bright blue ink all over a corduroy coat. I was about to just throw away my faithful old coat, but I decided to give it a try with my OxyClean spray... even though the ink had been dried in for MONTHS! Well, folks, it came out! Corduroy is as good as new! My latest OxyClean victory was today. I took some raspberries to work so I could have them as a snack, but didn't finish them all. I made the mistake of putting them on top of my new white shirt in my bag when I went home (stupid, I know!) and later, when putting away the contents of the bag, I discovered that my beautiful top had five large raspberry colored stains. I almost cried, but I decided to give OxyClean another chance. SHE DID IT (I'm not sure when OxyClean became a girl, but bear with me)! I saturated the stains, ran a few errands, and when I came back... the stains were GONE. Not just faded... completely gone. I am still in shock. It was a great day for me and my OxyClean. We will be friends for life.
On to point number two... the library. Cincinnati has a great library system. You can check out books from any location and return them to any location. This works out well as I had to return some books from the branch near our old house on the same day that I took the kids to another library. I have to compliment the genius who thought that up. I am also continually amazed to discover new books and authors. My current favorite, who has stayed in the top spot for a while now, is Jodi Picoult. I will warn you... her stuff is not happy-go-lucky, feel good material, but it really makes me think. I thoroughly enjoyed her most recent book, Change of Heart. It made me think about it for days on end. Alright, back to the library obsession. I can't get enough of the library or its contents. I could spend all day in any library and be perfectly happy. I also have about half a million books checked out right now, which still excites me! I would much rather read than do anything else. I think my favorite book out of the twenty or so (I'm not kidding!) that I have checked out currently is Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook. I'm not a big fan of Martha, but I am a big fan of what she does. I can't say I have ever seen her show, but I love her magazine and I am currently in love with this book. It is about 700 pages, so I will have to renew it several times... either that or buy it. However, it is $50 (crazy!) so I think I will just renew it until kingdom come.
I can't believe I wrote this much and I can't believe that I wrote that much on a CLEANING SUPPLY. Oh, dear. I guess I really am getting into this whole "wife" routine. :) I will start updating on a fairly regular basis, so check back again soon. Thanks for the prompt to get back into this, Tarah and Hayley... it was fun!
I am not going to go off on a whole paragraph like last time, but this stuff is GREAT. I love the way that my kitchen smells after I use it. It's worth the $5 at Target... for sure.
