Day 2- Sunday, June 27th

Time alarm set for: 9:30am

Time actually woke up: 10:45am

Only overslept by an hour and 15 min. Good thing I didn't really have to be anywhere. I had plans for lunch with my grandma but no actual time set. I pulled myself together, called her, and then hit the road to her house. I arrived right around noon and we just chit chatted for a while. We don't actually talk too frequently so it was sort of nice. Eventually we wandered off to the local diner and had lunch. Once we were done and I dropped her back home, I headed back to my house unsure what I was going to do with myself for the rest of the day.

I opted to stop at Wal Mart on the way home to look for pool goggles and Speed Stacks (plastic cups you stack and unstack in patterns quickly) for my nephews upcoming birthday. I found pool goggles but no Speed Stacks. I also came to the conclusion that you must be missing at least 2 teeth in order to work at that store. I have nothing against people who can't afford good dental care ( I was one of those people until 5 years ago) but it just seemed there was a disproportionately high incidence in that store.

After a partially successful trip to Wal Mart I moved on to Toys R Us in search of these blasted Speed Stacks. Didn't find them and no one knew what I was even talking about. At a loss for another gift idea I wandered aimlessly around the store. I eventually ended up in the "nerd" section of the store and came across a Myth Busters at home kit for kids. This is by far the most perfect gift ever for him. He's a huge Myth Busters fan and a nerd. Seems perfect, right? I hope he likes it!

I made the short trip home after finding what I am sure is the best birthday present ever. Faced with an entire evening of nothingness I did some laundry, procrastinated from unloading/loading the dishwasher, created something for dinner, and watched some stuff on my DVR. Quite a boring evening but they can't all be exciting I guess. I haven't a clue what time I actually went to bed, but it really isn't important.

Day 1- Saturday, June 26th

Time alarm set for: 9:00am
Time actually woke up: 9:45am

I highly doubt anyone cares what time I woke up, but I thought it might be fun to keep track of just how badly I can oversleep when I don't have to be up for work. I'm a pro at sleeping. I wish I could get paid for it.

Anyways, today was my first full day of summer vacation. Unfortunately I had to be up at a decent hour because I had a baby shower to go to. My sister was picking me up around 11am and I needed to be presentable by then. I pulled myself together pretty effortlessly and proceeded to noodle around on the internet. This is also something I am good at and wish I could get paid for. A few minutes into internetting and I decided to call a fellow Disney nerd and have some high quality trip planning obsessing with her. This is something we do pretty regularly and it is one of the few things that helps keep us sane.

My sister eventually showed up so it was off to the shower. It is my sister's brother's girlfriend who is having a baby. Maybe one day when I am bored I will explain how my sister's brother isn't related to me. My family tree is roughly the shape of a bonsai tree. Anywho, the baby shower was ok. My sister and I did an awesome redneck wrapping job on a big box that the stroller we got her came in. Who knew that computer paper, scotch tape, and some rubber stamps could actually look semi decent. I met a few new people at the baby shower and drank a lot of water. It was freaking hot out and I was trying not to melt while simultaneously avoiding a crazy old lady who was holding court in the kitchen.

We escaped from the baby shower around 5pm and no one felt like going home so we headed for the Jersey Shore Premium Outlets. This outlet mall doesn't have that many stores that I like but we managed to kill over an hour there. I think we hit Lane Bryant, Crocs, Sketchers, a store full of candy, and Nike. Out of all those stores, Nike was the most fun. We tried on some crazy multi color sneakers. There was a pair I really liked but I think my sister would have disowned me if I bought them.

After shopping we headed back to my house and then my sister went home. I spent the rest of the evening playing around on the internet, doing some laundry, watched Beetlejuice and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I fell asleep on the couch around 11pm for a bit and then dragged my lifeless body to bed about 30 minutes later. All in all, it was an uneventful (and sort of boring) first day of summer vacay. It's okay though. I will make up for it quickly.

Day 0.5- Friday, June 25th

The last day of school was Thursday, June 24th. As expected, it was the easiest and least eventful day of the entire 2009-2010 school year. It is a good thing too because based on how the previous 2 weeks had gone it would have taken minimal shenanigans to keep me from snapping.
Of course my employer feels that it is necessary for us to all come in the day after the kids leave. It is usually a pointless day in which we all just stand around, gossip, drink iced coffee, and pretend to look busy any time the Principal walks by. This pointlessness is supposed to take place between 9am and 1pm. In a rare move, we were told we could actually leave around 11:30am as long as our rooms were all cleaned up. Upon hearing this I took one look around the room and started doing a happy dance because there was nothing left for me to do.

A few days earlier some co-workers and I had planned our usual end of the year lunch excursion. We usually all go out to lunch somewhere local and just BS and drink for a few hours. It was nice to be able to get the festivities started way earlier than we had initially planned. Lunch was nice and we wrapped things up around 1:30pm. Earlier in the day I had agreed to go on a shopping trip with another co-worker after lunch. Three hours later and a trip to both Babies R Us and Toys R Us I was finally back home.

I already had plans for an evening of fun and games with a friend of mine so I knew I couldn't get too comfortable. She showed up and headed for the food store in order to find something to make for dinner that night. We mutually agreed that chicken quesadillas sounded yummy. I had bigger things to accomplish before we could eat though. I needed to conjure up two apple pies for a baby shower the next day. I immediately sprang into Betty Crocker mode and knocked out preparation and assembly of the pies in record time. I credit my speediness to the most amazing kitchen contraption ever.The Pampered Chef Apple Peeler, Corer, and Slicer.
In a past life I was a Pampered Chef consultant so I have every imaginable gizmo and gadget from them. I love this one the most even if it does look a bit like a medieval torture device. Everyone who slices more than 5 apples a year should own one. Once the pies were in the oven I began working on dinner. Dinner was done fairly quickly and painlessly. While we ate we watched The Pixar Story on CNBC. Yep. We are Disney nerds. There's no denying that if two girls in their 20s pick that as what they want to watch on a Friday evening in the summer.

Just to prove that we aren't complete losers we decided to go mini-golfing after we finished the Pixar documentary. Boy do we stink at mini golf. We tied with a score of 67 each. The good news is no one died or got hurt on the course while we were there. Whenever I go golfing I am always concerned that someone might leave with my club impaled in their forehead (accidentally or otherwise). On our way home we stopped for ice cream at the best local ice cream place ever. By this time it was after 11pm and it was time for the festivities to come to a close. Someone had to work the next day...and it wasn't me!

For lack of anything better to do...or how I spent my summer

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! If you have made it this far you are probably wondering why the heck you are even still here. Good question. Just know that I thank you for taking the time to stop by. I promise I will make it worth your time if you keep reading.

Before I can explain why this blog even exists I need to give you a little background information about myself. First, the basics. I'm 26 years old, I'm a life long resident of NJ, I have blue eyes, and I like long walks on the beach. You really didn't need to know any of that but I'm in a sharing mood tonight. You should also know that for 184 days between the months of September and June I am a special education teacher in a small private school. The rest of the time I am just trying to figure out where I fit in the world, feed my unhealthy obsession with all things Disney, and watch an obscene amount of reality television.

One of the joys of being an educator is that we essentially get the entire months of July and August off. Pretty sweet deal, right? Not too many people can say they get 8+ weeks of paid vacation every year. Because of the type of population I work with my job is particularly stressful and by the time June rolls around I am in full burn-out mode. Trust that in my case the time off is greatly deserved and damn near necessary in order to keep me from driving my car off the Driscoll Bridge on a Friday afternoon.

Ever summer of my life I have always gone to camp (childhood) or worked at least one job (age 13-present). Two summers ago I decided to stop working the summer school program at the school and only work my second retail job. It was my version of cutting back and relaxing for the summer. Anyone who has ever worked retail knows that spending 40+ hours under fluorescent lights and getting yelled at by bitchy customers isn't exactly relaxing. Earlier this year I left that second job in retail to focus on my college classes (and save my sanity!) so this summer I pretty much have nothing to do! I've learned to live without the extra income from my second job and my primary job gives me the ability to spread my salary out over 12 months. Finance wise things are pretty status quo for the summer so I'm finally able to kick back and relax.

I really enjoy writing and I think I am decent at it so I figured I would start a blog. I've always wanted to do one and there's no time like the present. Who knows when I will have this much free time on my hands again. I don't even care if no one reads this. It gives me something to do. At minimum it will help me remember what day of the week it is. Best case scenario is tons of people will read this, decide I am a literary genius, make me incredibly popular on the internet, and I will be able to quit my job and become a professional blogger. A girl's gotta have dreams, right?

So there you have it. The reason for this blog (and its' title). For lack of anything better to do...here's my blog!