Visit From Mom & Dad

My parents came to visit! 

They flew in on Friday while I was still at work.  They toured around Portland a bit on their own, stopping by the International Rose Test Garden (a guaranteed way to please my dad).  

After I met up with them, I took them to see my morning school.  After that we went out to dinner at the Kennedy School.  It's an old school building turned into a collection of restaurants, bars and hotel rooms all while maintaining most of the "school building charm."  One of my favorites is a bar where there are still chalkboards on the walls.  The "Detention Cigar Bar" is pretty funny though too.  I think my parents liked the "Boiler Room" the best.  It is decorated with all kinds of pipes and pieces of machinery.  It looks pretty wild.     

Over the next few days we did some serious exploring.  Cannon Beach, where we froze our butts off, but watched the tide for a little while nevertheless.  We went to Columbia River Gorge to see some nice views and waterfalls.  

And Willamette Valley wine country.  Where we did some fun tasting...

we may have gotten a bit out of hand...  

(those are grapes we found on the ground...don't judge me.)

It was really nice to hang out and show them around a bit.  It's been hard knowing I'm so far from them, so it was really nice to have some time showing them our new home.  I'm still not recovered, a week later...being a tour guide will wear a girl out!  But it was worth it :)  

Problem Solving

If you watched the tour of our apartment, you saw our awesome clawfoot tub.  I absolutely love how it looks (painted claws and all). It warms up super quickly for baths and it's remarkably easy to clean too, since it's set off the ground and has no tile walls surrounding it.  The one issue it has is with the shower curtains.

Because it's independent from the wall we need to use two of the plastic shower curtain/liner things.  We have one for the wall side, and one for the curtain side.  This dual curtain thing leaves a "small" gap  (or gaping hole, however you choose to define it) at either end of the tub.  The end opposite the shower head isn't a problem since it rarely gets wet.  But the side by the shower head is a different story.  Every time we shower, a large puddle develops on the floor where the pipes enter the floor.  Sometimes it's more like a small pond than a puddle.


I still can't determine if I naturally came up with this idea on my own, or if I gleaned it from somewhere else and forgot where, but at any rate: I have solved our problem!

Binder clips!  The photo is slightly blurry (apologies, my camera has never worked well after it got dropped in the Andes Mountains...oops!), but you get the idea.  

There's another one for good measure, haha.  It is such a simple fix!  I've put 5 or 6 of these little guys on the seam of the two curtains.  And it works, yay!  The floors have stayed MUCH drier and I'm sure the downstairs neighbors are happy about that.  

First Day of School!

Tomorrow is our first official day of school!

Things are shaping up in the classrooms.  They look like classrooms now, which is promising, haha.  I've had my hands full trying to attend two schools worth of in-service meetings, learning the policies of two schools, getting two classrooms ready and not to mention keeping all the people straight!  I think I'm feeling ready though.  Which is scary, since I rarely feel that way with the beginning of a school year.  

I always have a problem getting any sleep the night before school starts.  My mind is constantly racing and I wake up in the middle of the night fearing that I haven't planned enough to fill the time or that I'm missing some important piece of paperwork.  Luckily I don't have a "homeroom" to worry about this year, which makes it about 20x easier, but I've still got the nagging worries.  My old principal used to take Benadryl the night before school to help her sleep.  I prefer the glass of red wine approach.  So, with that, I shall leave you and go pour myself a glass of Malbec...a small glass...don't nobody need no hangover on the first day of school!