Monday Funday

Hello dear sister!

It has been a busy week! This week officially kicked off the start of our speech season, which saw me staying very late at school indeed. We had videos to record, practices to run, and rounds to judge. The virtual component is a strange one, but it has been fun to be involved with the kiddos again. I think I mentioned in my last post how nice it is to have students who actively want to practice.

Otherwise, this weekend has been fairly cozy. The weather has been overcast and chilly, turning all the puppies into the cutest of snuggets.

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Herm in particular does not know how to handle the chill. And we’ve reached the time in which all the dogs sleep in the bed to steal our warmth.

Yesterday, as you know, I went to puppy sit the little smols at Amanda’s house. On top of being adorable, it was very productive. I got all my teacher things done whilst petting the tinsiest of puppies.

Afterward, I came home and buckled down on watching some Great British Bake Off. Saturday marked two weeks until the wedding, so Sparhawk and I have intensified our self-quarantine. Fortunately, there is a lot of Bake Off to watch.

Today, Sparhawk had parent-teacher conferences, so I had the house all to myself. I cleaned all the common rooms to prepare for when the house sitter arrives. That way not all the cleaning has to be last minute. I did some laundry, made some TikToks, baked some brownies, and finished a book. It was quite a nice, though dreary, day. I finally didn’t leave all my teacher duties until the last day of the weekend, and it was nice as I thought it would be.

I get to see you in less than two posts!

Love,

Super Koala and cuddly Nan

A Message From the King

A brief recap of my week, before I get to the important things:

Everything was so very busy, and I felt very frantic all the time. The week before grades are due is always a time of great need and bartering in the school system, which definitely contributes directly to my work load and frantic feelings. On top of that, speech is starting to pick up. On top of that, the Gremlin was sick. On top of that, there are always a few wedding things to be tended to.

This all culminated in the mega-weekend, which began on Friday, when I had kids in my room practicing until 5. (I try to remind myself that it is nice to have team members who actually want to practice.) I then had about thirty minutes to run out for food and eat said food before heading to our football stadium. It was my turn to supervise a football game, which was also homecoming. Once that ended at 9, (it thankfully started an hour earlier) I went back to my room to do some project grading, keeping those from being ferried around all weekend. When I got home, I discovered that Sparhawk had cleaned the majority of the house and bought Andy’s. Twas very nice.

Saturday I woke up at 6:00 so that I could hit the old dusty trail to St. Louis. I made it in enough time to order my cake and everything before going to my dress fitting. Laura met us there because she is so nice. After learning how to tame the many layers of by dress, we went to a little farmer’s market shop to find live ceremony decorations. Then we went to Tooie’s, picked up White Castle, and came back to the house. After eating, we all stood outside for a long time and puzzled out several wedding elements. Laura was very helpful like. Soon after she left, I also left to begin the drive home.

Sunday was grading day. I graded so many assignments, including the very tedious late work I had received. I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone while doing said tedious late work, and Sparhawk and I quoted all the good lines. Once that was done in the late evening, I finished a book because my brain deserved something nice.

I would say Married at First Sight without the train wreck is less good, but it was an excellent reunion. Now! Onto the good stuff!

Hear ye! Hear ye!

After almost 8 years of mystery, Annabelle’s secrets have finally been revealed! I present to you, her DNA results!

I loved these so much. It was so fun to learn the truth. You’ll notice, there is shockingly not an ounce of Pittie in our girl.

I hope you have a good week! I’ll get to see you in person some time in the near future! How exciting!

Super Koala

Freedom! (Post-Quarantine)

Dear Captain Spazzmataz,

Thank you for celebrating my release from quarantine with me. Fortunately, I have successfully made it out unscathed. A teacher in my school got sick while I was away, so I know that I am extra fortunate. Being back at school was quite nice, and many freshmen expressed happiness at my return. They like me more than the sophomores.

While I was set free on Friday, it was still a quiet week. Other than establishing myself as a TikTok star, I haven’t accomplished much. Sparhawk was busy all weekend, so I was particularly less motivated to go out in the world.

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I didn’t even take many animal photos this week. Mostly just videos it would seem. I did many work outs on my stationary bike, but not in the real world. We finished the most recent season of Glow Up, which I would highly recommend, and I finished season 1 of Married at First Sight, which really felt like less of a train wreck than season 9.

Though I got much grading done Saturday and Sunday, Monday was our most productive day in the world. Sparhawk and I successfully applied for our marriage license, and then we got tasty Indian take out at a place I had never been before. We also stopped at a music store and shoe store because he needed some semi-essentials.

I suppose that is it for the week. Terribly lame, I know. I’m excited to see progress in your diamond painting! Keep me updated.

Love,

Super Koala

The Time is Now (In Quarantine)

I’m back! Post number two, post number two, post number two!

As you know, I have spent this thrilling week in quarantine. I don’t have much to say about quarantine, other than I only ever need excuses to stay in my house all the time, and I appreciate the world giving me that. Teaching in quarantine has been strange, but not altogether unpleasant. In many ways, it is infinitely easier because I do not have to spend my life force dealing with the issues of having a group of people forcibly together under a set of rules. Instead, I just tell them what to do and answer their questions. It’s less fun, for sure, but it is easier.

To celebrate teaching in quarantine, I bring you a photo montage of my daily teaching assistants!

The last few photos in the series depict a properly frizzed Hermes. I actually feel more behind on the back end of teaching things now that I spend all my spare time in a day making sure Hermes is tired enough to be good in class. So far, the plan has been very successful, even if my productivity is suffering a bit.

While maybe not terribly exciting, that has been the majority of my week. I spend more time on my stationary bike now that I’m not up and moving around so much of the day. This has enabled me to finish the Netflix season of Married at First Sight, so now I’m watching season one on Hulu. Deonna and Greg got married, so that’s really all the matters. (Apparently, they’re expecting a baby.)

This weekend, Sparhawk and I went back to an actually flat trail. We rode 5 miles out on the Frisco trail, so 10 miles total. I felt much better about this ride, and actually went for longer. I think it was much more reasonable for someone who hasn’t actually been on a legitimate bike ride in years. My goal is to keep coming back to this trail and extend my distance.

I think you know about how I spent the rest of my weekend. Sparhawk and I did quite a few wedding tasks, which was good. I had some teacher times. I did some make up experiments. Now, I am living my best life as a sock in my Jack Skellington hoodie.

I hope you are the Churr are being safe with all your smog. I’m so concerned. Sweet baby Churr can’t wear a mask on walks. Her free, independent spirit would never tolerate that.

I’ll have to check out this organizational show. If you ever need a house to organize with clear plastic containers, you know where to find mine!

Stay safe!

Super Koala

Pretend It Is A Week Ago (Pre-Quarantine)

Dear Captain Spazzmataz,

You were right when you foresaw that my technological doom last week would lead to a less-good post. How do I forget so much in a single week? I used to think I had a fairly decent memory, but apparently I was wrong.

Anyway! Some exciting things that I know happened two weeks ago include Hermes graduating from training!

I think you know it’s true when I say I am in no way biased in Hermes’ favor. Ever. I will blame anything anyone wants to blame on Hermes. However, this time, I think he did really well. I actually think he did the best with his tricks out of all the puppies in his class. We now just need to work on him being better in all the other ways.

Foolishly last weekend, I let Sparhawk talk me into going on a bike ride. He claimed we were going on a “flat trail.” Wrong. So very wrong. There were big hills. Like, bigger than the hill going down our neighborhood for sure. I am not talented on a bike, and I don’t understand how gears work, and I was going so dang slow that I ended up just walking the hills. It was terrible. But the trail itself is actually really pretty. There were quite a few different scenery areas, and some interesting sights along the way. I was actually close enough to a deer to pet it, which I wouldn’t do because it was a baby and it’s father could have been lurking somewhere close by. I didn’t get a picture of that, but there is a cool semi-abandoned farmstead that I did take pictures of!

After I floopsed in the grass for a time, we eventually left the trail and went to Hyvee to purchase supplies for our first fondue night! It was delicious, and the pot was actually really easy to use. We only did a cheese and a chocolate course, which was plenty. Everything worked very well, excluding Sparhawk and I, who were far too excited and bought far more things than we can actually eat. That being said, we’ll have to make more fondue when you come back for the winter. It would be much better with people to help us eat the immense amount of cheese.

I was even social last weekend and I met Amanda for lunch. It’s good to see her, as I do still miss my old work friends very much. I need to keep a chart of when I see everyone so I know that I’m still spending time with them and being a good friend.

Afterward, I met Sparhawk for some wedding related errands. Thinking back, we were actually productive in many different ways. I am so proud of us.

That’s it for this small post. I shall leave you with a picture of someone else who has grown very fond of the moose.

Coming back at you very soon!

Super Koala

Weekend Update

From the kitchen chair of Super Koala:

Hello! It is I, belated but returned. I am here to provide you with another weekend update since my week wasn’t terribly exciting. I did teacher things, we took Herm-Verm to training where he did much better this week (he has been living a disciplined life), and really that’s about it.

Now that I’m sitting down to type, I realize I don’t really have much to tell you about Saturday either. I must get more interesting soon. The only particular item of note was the Oz man came over, and then Sparhawk insisted upon bringing Rayanne ice cream to make her feel better, which I thought was nice. (You need to provide your significant people with nicknames to continue our theme.)

To Sunday!

Sunday was Sparhawk and I’s 10 year anniversary. We didn’t do anything too crazy as, alas, there is still a pandemic afloat. We had also mutually agreed that this could be a lower maintenance anniversary year since, even though 10 years is a big mile stone, we’re getting married very soon and that is expensive.

We began the day by basking in the sun with the puppies and feasting on Waffle House. Nan’s tummy treatment is going quite well so far, so that’s something to be grateful for.

After we had some home times, I got fancy, which hadn’t happened in a while. This ended up not being the greatest decision, as my mask did not appreciate being friends with my make up. I tried a new foundation technique that I will likely not be replicating.

After fanciness, Sparhawk and I went on a quest to obtain his low-key anniversary gift, which was the Tony Hawk reboot for ps4. He didn’t even know this was a thing yet, so it was a good surprise.

We then went to the south side of town in search of some home supplies. We got some more crates for our shelves in the living room space, which looks much nicer than how they were before. We also found some excellent spooky finds at Joann’s, one of which shall be posted below. Finally, we went to the mall where Sparhawk bought me my new favorite item of clothing, which is this most excellent and ridiculous Jack Skellington “summer” sweatshirt. It’s terrycloth instead of fleece, and it’s also delightful.

We ended the evening with Nakato (second feast!) and a movie night at home. We watched Poltergeist, which for some reason I thought was supposed to be completely terrifying. I didn’t find it scary at all, just strange and peculiar. Occasionally gross. I guess it’s one of those movies everyone is supposed to watch it at some point, but I’m not altogether very interested in watching it again.

Since I didn’t have a lot of life to tell you about, let me instead tell you my Married at First Sight thoughts. I think I’m about halfway through. They just moved into their apartments.

– Matt and Amber: trashy trash trash. I hate Matt. I feel like he doesn’t understand the concept of them being married at all and doesn’t actually want to be married. Amber makes me uncomfortable, but she’s far too nice for this garbage.

– Deonna and Greg: Greg is adorable, so I hope this works out. Also, I’m rooting for Sandy. She’s the MVP of the show. Can Greg win her over? Can he?

– Jamie and Beth: This appears to be working? They make me feel like there really is someone for everyone in the world because they would both drive me crazy, but appear to make each other happy at this point.

– Keith and Iris: I like them both very much as people, but I have the least feelings about their relationship. Maybe that means it will be the most successful? Either way, they both seem very nice.

That’s all the Gremlin and I have for you! She’s been laying over my arms on the table as I type. I hope you had a lovely weekend seeing Tyler, and I hope you survive your impending tundra doom. We were supposed to have some fall weather this week, but the forecast is already predicting warmer temperatures than anyone said originally. Just think how happy sweet baby Churr will be!

Until next time,

Super Koala

First Week of School!

From the chaise of Super Koala, where I am pausing Married at First Sight in order to better compose my thoughts to you:

Dearest Captain Spazzmataz,

(As an aside that is also a beginning, I made my title and, afterward, was both amused and delighted to find that your post was titled the same thing. Clearly, our creative juices are hard at work.)

I am writing to you on this Sunday eve of the first Monday in which I do not have to go to school. Last year, having regular Mondays off felt bizarrely stressful. I’m always so obsessed with my extra time and the certainty that I’m not using it well enough, and that just carried consistently throughout my year. With a pandemic, I feel little to no pressure to use my time more effectively exploring the world around me, and am quite content to be a guilt-free hermit in my home. Also, with not having so many Mondays off at my new school, they feel more gift-like, like a three day weekend did when I worked a traditional, students-all-five-days kind of week. All in all, it has been quite nice.

That being said, it does not make for incredible posting content. I will admit it. So, to provide you a run down of any notable events in my week:

Monday:
– I can’t remember much from Monday, so it clearly wasn’t terribly important. It was our last teacher work day before the students came, we got to leave early and I, for once, actually did, and I made some last minute adjustments to my classroom set up/environment. This included some of the fun new things Eric and I picked out last weekend! The bottle next to the sign says “Raven’s Brew.” It was fate.

Tuesday:
– Tuesday was the first day with students! It was a little strange; because of Covid, we couldn’t have an assembly or anything. The school essentially had a building-wide Zoom meeting from our classrooms.
– I discovered it is going to be very hard to learn everyone’s names with masks on. I find this to be a bummer since I’m normally really quick at learning their names. I also learned that, on the rare occasion I do glimpse them without their masks on, I have no idea who they are.
– The most important discovery of all was made: there are dispensers filled with lemonade, iced tea, and sweet tea in the teacher’s room every day. I can make an Arnold Palmer whenever I want, fo’ free.

Wednesday:
– As I already explained to you, Wednesday was the night of the baddest training. We don’t talk about Wednesday.

Thursday:
– Thursday was my first day of actually having the students do something academic, which means they needed my help. I forgot how much energy you have to force into the room for successful, engaging teaching. My spirit is out of shape.

Friday:
– Friday began my weekend of pumpkin coffee celebration. (This is a new, personal holiday I have decided to celebrate.)
– I kicked it off with whatever the ridiculously long name is for the pumpkin coffee frappuccino. It was nice enough, but it did not keep me awake. And I hate how ice crystal-y frappuccinos are, and how it’s hard to balance the goodness of the flavor with the level of freeze in your cup. In terms of preference, it came in third out of three. They also left the whipped cream on. Tragic.

Saturday:
– Saturday began with the most wonderful of all pumpkin beverages. You know who I’m talking about. She’s still number one.
– A monstrous morning storm rolled in and hung out for a good hour. It was magnificent. I tried to get a good photo to display the stormy-wonder and the sheets of rain and the very blustery wind and how a small stream was moving down our street. I thought you might miss those Midwestern weather phenomena. The picture I got shows very little of that.
– Sparhawk was gone the majority of Saturday being the wedding singer, but really the wedding trumpeter. They just haven’t made that movie yet.
– I finished two books.
– Herbert drove me CRAZY, so we played frisbee until we achieved exhaustion.
– Sparhawk brought me home rather delightful wedding favors and cake.

Sunday:
– I started out today with the one, the original, PSL. I got it iced. It’s fine. Cold foam cold brew is way better. Maybe I should get one hot tomorrow to have it as a contender in it’s true form.
– Today has been my teacher day. It’s interesting, having two whole new classes to teach. I find it’s always most difficult to begin a unit and harness direction; it gets much easier to plan as we move into a unit and have a clear end goal in mind. It has been a good kind of mental challenge. Hopefully it’ll go well this week, since we’ll be doing actual things and not just “getting to know you” and pre-assessments.
– Herbert has been feeling unwell today. It’s actually been quite gross. I think he might be one of the bad tums, like Nan. Because of that, it has been a relatively quiet evening with some sleepy puppers.

That is it for my week! I’m so happy for you and my sweet baby Churr out in the West. It looks like you both have been having an excellent time. I’m so impressed with you getting all fancy and being so productive. It looks like a lovely start to your new adventure.

Fondly,

Super Koala

Struggle Bus Sunday

From the couch of Super Koala:

Dearest Captain Spazzmataz,

As I went to type the above title, I originally spelled the word “struggle” and “sturggle.” I think this is very emblematic of my brain today. My sincerest apologies if this, my first return post, is a mess.

It’s been a productive last week of summer here at the homestead. While it hasn’t been the most uproarious of times, I’ve done a nice job of getting all the goodies from my shower situated, and putting the house in a better order. Or at least parts of the house. Some of the house is still, in fact, rather shameful, and we won’t discuss those places.

This week actually began with our most dastardly of Herm-Worms graduating beginning puppy training. As you observed, the people at the store all seem to think he is good, which is strange to us, given that we know he is the worst. However, we are very proud of his puppy progress and graduation from elementary school, so much so that we signed him up for intermediate training, and he began the next day.

I have also included this precious picture of Annabelle missing me very much. She has been quite needy. I’m sad for her with both Sparhawk and I beginning work this week; I think she’ll probably miss us very much.

As I mentioned on the phone, I wish I would have taken before/after pictures of my house projects this week. It was a lengthy process, but admittedly, very satisfying to finish. I had called you at some point because I was stressed over this mess of a laundry hamper that I had to assemble:

I had thought this would be an easy task, but I quickly despaired because the instructions were only in picture form, which I hate, and I couldn’t find any screws. The Gremlin repeatedly tried to assist me with my frustrations by covering the instructions entirely, thus removing any duress they could be causing me.

Finally, I turned the hamper into this workable piece of furniture (is it?), and I proved that I don’t need Sparhawk to assemble everything for me. (I had what I considered to be an amusing video of the hamper rolling around in my house, but you have to pay WordPress money to upload video APPARENTLY. Instead, I have this less good photo for you.

Finally, my biggest project was the grand kitchen rearrangement. Once again, my before pictures aren’t truly “before.” This was after I had already taken a lot of the new presents out, finagled, and did the first round of dishes. I tried to still get some photos to appropriately depict the absolute bedlam that was our counters.

Now, I have all this lovely space to work with!

I also did a lot of rearranging in the cabinets, which is where most of the junk on the top of the counter went. It’s actually very pleasant to be in the kitchen now, and I feel like it’s a nice way to start off the school year. I have lots of other projects I want to work on (TikTok has been very inspiration), so I’ll have to start getting back in the swing of documenting work for the blog!

To end the week, BBKF came over last night and stayed until very late. Or early, depending on how you look at it. Then, I woke up early for some scrumptious Waffle House with Sparhawk’s mom. Now, my brain is mush, but at least I should get some good sleeps on the last night before the start of the new school year.

I hope you and my sweet baby Churr are having a beautiful time! Work on your essays!

Talk to you soon,

Super Koala

P.S. Why did WordPress change their image system? Does it solve any other purpose than to cause me rage and make my pictures uneven?

Destructive Verbage!

Dearest Captain Spazzmataz,

Today I finally got all my ducks in a row for our new project.  Sorry for the delay and the horrible cliche just implemented in those post.  What with your visit and all the tumultuous goings on at school, it has been a most wild and crazy time.

I like that we’re doing the same pages for this project!  It was fun to see what you had done in your interpretation of the pages in comparison to my interpretation of said pages.  My first welcome page ended up looking like this:

For some reason, this Tim Burton Charlie and the Chocolate Factory quote always says welcome to me.  So I had to make it my hello page.  I left a good deal of the space blank because I figure I can fill it in as I learn more things about myself throughout the course of this project.

The second page I found extraordinarily frustrating.  For some reason, I decided it would be a most excellent idea to weave an actual checkerboard out of paper and then adhere it to the page.  This was surprisingly difficult for my un-crafty fingers and did not turn out nice looking.  But I promise I tried.

I unsurprisingly roped Sparhawk into playing checkers with me, using pennies and dimes as checker pieces.  He was very amused by my antics, obviously.

In a depressingly short amount of time, I was clobbered.  I tentatively put up a good fight, but it was for a brief moment.  Sparhawk came out solidly victorious in the end.  As the book dictates, he got to sign his name on the page.

That’s all I have for this week!  I’m excited to get back in the groove again and see what you have on Friday.

Love,

Super Koala

P.S. Just booked our hotel room for Chicago!

A Long Overdue Sister Bag Adventure

Dearest Sister,

My sincerest apologies for having the sister bag for basically a thousand years.  It is a rather tragic event, especially when considering that I’ve done a lot of fun things, I’ve just failed to take the sister bag with me.  Luckily, I remedied this two weekends ago when I took the bag to Cider Days for some quality puppy volunteer time.

Now, as you may or may not know, Cider Days is a Springfield, MO fall festival.  It takes place on “Historic Walnut Street,” and I used to find it quite fancy and adorable.  However, Sparhawk and I have now attended fall festivals all over the Ozark area, and we have found many more impressive events.  Sorry, Cider Days.

Even if it is not nearly as fancy as the other festivals, Cider Days does have one significant benefit.  And that would be the Humane Society tent!  In past years, I have giddily ogled the puppies that come to these events.  This year, I got to hang out with them.

These were three of the puppies that came with us.  The fourth, Stormy, spent most of her time on another volunteer’s lap, so I didn’t spend much time with her.  The first puppy, Bella, is the one that Amanda ended up adopting.  The middle one, Oddie, was my little buddy most of the day.  And the last one posing with her paw on the sister bag, Brittany, is the one that almost came home with us.  No shame.

We had a fun day saying hello to people and going for miniature puppy walks.  After many hours outside, we were all sleepy.  Particularly little Oddie, who was also chilly.  We made them all beds.  It was incredibly precious.  Fortunately I had the bag with me to save my chair and house my snacks.

After we loaded the pups back in the van to go home, Sparhawk and I wandered around the street a little more to look at all the vendors.

I had spent most of my time in the tent with the puppies.  We found a lot of fantastic things, including the customary honey sticks, the most delicious apple cider candle of my life, and your present!  We also found this lady who does absolutely fantastic work.  Some of her paintings featured pets, so of course I asked her about them, and I discovered she does custom pet portraits!  So look out for that in my house soon.

All together, it was a very fun day.  I ran into lots of people I knew on the street, and several friends came by to visit and pet puppies.  As you can imagine, when I returned home, Annabelle and Nyxen were very jealous and had many opinions on how I spent my time.

– Super Koala, Out!