gotta be real quick!

it's late (well 9 p.m.), and I just did 3 huge assignments for my online alaska culturally diverse classroom class. Must finish by Sunday (and March 8th officially) in order to keep my teaching cert. um.......

new semester going on, from scratch movie curriculum is.........going. lots of class size and dynamics changed with the new semester.

grades were so, SO scrounged in all sunday night and into monday morning - stressful.

the house paperwork was unorganized today so we did not sign and seal the deal.

SIGNING HOUSE PAPERS ONCE AND FOR ALL tomorrow, WEDNESDAY at 2:30 p.m.

Keys Thursday once final finances are sealed. Casey is taking Thursday off to get the house keys and start moving - mostly the washer and dryer from Home Depot.

Side note: today we found out we cannot have a land line phone until the ground thaws - like June seriously - cell phone number shall soon be dispersed to you all.

Ah, so, the trip to Seward bball trip last weekend was fast, fun, interesting, enjoyable, and some rudeness from a ref --> I got a technical for asking why the other team had two players with number 22 - which should be an automatic technical for the other team.

She said, "you said in a not so rude, but in a sort of rude tone, "we're suppose to be notified of that". RIDICULOUS!

And then a Seward coach bee - ah. sorry for the lang but come on: the seward coach played her C team against our JV upperclassmen, telling us it was a JV game at 10 am when it was a lower level C team game actually.

follow that?

So at noon she played all her varsity swing JV kids who play all varsity all the time but are sophomores - AGAINST OUR REALLY NOT GOOD C team bad players in the JV GAME that we didn't know was a JV game. With a quarter rule we could only play good kids about 2 quarters of that 2nd game. CHEAP, REAL CHEAP LADY! OWn up to it too you sneaky, slime chick. So rude to me and our good old guy C team coach.

As for me as a human you ask (not as a teacher/coach)?: it's good to be busy so the house is HERE! hope things settle down soooooon. We looked at and basically reserved a couch and a lazyboy recliner yesterday in Wasilla, might just go to Anchorage this weekend and get stuff there.

I shall now take some time to read my Ireland book.

For the Lord is good (even when a coach is not acting good?), and His love endures forever.

negative - - - - - 20, - 26, -34, -39 degrees! The coldest two weeks of winter is happening as it annually does! WEIRD! Inside all day, not realizing. Hands turn red with chap.

We walked through our house for the last time ever as "visitors". It is "wonderfully mad, like socks with poop in them" - Steve Buschemi circa de 1999ish SNL.

The pine ceiling is marvelously mad, like....okay enough on that. It is clean, and nice, and neat, and weird, and good, and not real, and GREAT! The carpet is sharp, clean, and quality looking. The banister has that same exact description too.

Closing Tuesday or Wednesday and we'll move a bit each night until the full move Saturday! Furniture shopping soon! Pictures soon!

Life is rolling! 83 essays sit in a plastic container to go on a 3 hour tour (plus 4 other hours, plus mountains on a school bus, plus silly high schoolers). We drive south 2 hours past Anchorage to Seward, across the other long hours to Nikiski to play at 3:00 P.M. Sleep in a school on the floor, chaperoning, coaching, eating, watching a sport.)

It will be fun. My first Alaska road trip, of all the famous road trip stories from coaches, kids, Casey. Nothing special, but special.

One more fun list to report:

Snowshoe Race, Ice Cream Eating Contest, Best Alaska Beard Contest, Cribbage Tournament, Tug of War
Cross Cut Saw and Swede Saw Contests

Most Abused Carharts Contest, Yahtzee Tournament, Dog Races, Ice Bowling, Telephone Toss, Outhouse Challenge - sponsored by Royal Flush (our neighbor here at the rental.

Dog Weight Pull Competition
Dog Weight Pull Weigh In - Bocifus Sanford, 58 pound runtboy

Paul Bunyan Wood Chopping, Ax Throwing, Man's Best Friend Dog Trick Contest, Best Buddy Wrapping Contest.

ALL AT WILLOW, ALASKA'S 45th STATE WINTER CARNIVAL this weekend and next!!!!!!! "The Year of the Snowshoes"

Hilarious traditions. Fun! Will report Sunday if not too messed up from turning in grades.

"And I just showed up, for my own life, and I'm standing here taking it in and it sure looks bright!" - Sara Groves

No house close Thursday now - paperwork backup. House walk through Thursday at 4:30 p.m.

Travelling all weekend to Seward with bball still which is fine that Casey doesn't have to move in by himself. Bball should be fun but long with only one Fred Meyer (like Meijer) on the trip and sleeping in the schools :) Must get a real nano charger not just a computer charging - NEEDED FOR IRELAND anyways! :)

Hey don't get an LG dryer if you have to have propane like us. There is no gas to propane converter unless you're in Korea. So we shall trade ours in for some Maytag neptunes, front loaders. :)

Game tomorrow! Heritage Christian. I've decided our league is almost exactly like TCS's league. My school being like.......Ottawa Hills....no......too preppyish for Houston......what was one of the other public schools in that league? Well, anyways we play all Christian schools basically- graduating classes of all schools equals 90 or so.

Nice new blog Matt! I like it :)

More furniture talk and speculations needed from 1040!

Cleaned and packed the entire rental! Steam-vac was a requirement in our rental agreement with proof in receipts.

Glad that's done! Now get it up and out to the new world!

We're supposed to meet Thursday to sign the house over to us, but our builder talked to Casey tonight and wasn't sure. Either way it is here! I have to go out of town this weekend to Seward with that coaching deal, so it's probably better if it was next, next weekend. :)

Side note: Exams this week!

In more fun news we got a new Bissel vacuum cleaner that'll do carpet and non-carpet floors.

Got a great gift in the mail from Matt and Tracey! Lotsa Ireland fun and usage - not to mention SWEET new music that I shall priortize this week. Thanks you two! I've been reading my Ireland book non-stop, marking it up, bookmarking things in color coded sitches. Like "orange" post it markers are for pre-trip planning, and "green" is for things I want to do for sure! YES!

I was thinking maybe that if track would need a chick to help coach the 4 track meets, that I would do it! FOR IRELAND!

Other fun topic: Lazy boy factory sale and Lazy boy retailer up in the shopping plaza near us! Woo! Have a great week all yous!

Crazyness all over the place!

End of semester, millions of bbal games, loan signed, final house paper signed, walk through needed, moving, cleaning rental, moving, moving, moving!

WHOA NELLIE HORSEY!

A bit overwhelming as of tonight but we did get the loan settled and immediately ordered a cool black top fridge bottom drawer freezer. Also we bought a washer and dryer that is in stock and ready to go the house already,

We haven't been in the house for about a week and a half or more, and won't get in officially to walk through with "inspectors" next Thursday.

All that said, I have to go out of town overnight next weekend down by the VOLCANO! Sure would be bittersweet mostly sweet if the school district cancelled the bball trip. They did that last weekend for another school that went down there. We're talking 5 hours south of here on the Kenai Penisula. Check out a map sometime. Seward and Nikiski from Willow!

Very tired! Until the weekend probably! Enjoy your lives!

That place we want to move to is.......getting.....THERE....... COME ON!!!!!

It seems he has a cleaning crew in to do cleaning, touch up paints, baseboard and door whitening more presumably. The pine ceiling is so very nice making it the pure lodge feeling of goodness. Also, the banister is more than half way put together, mostly on the loft/landing. NICE!

Banister, carpet, little siding........

Notrealnotrealnotrealnotrealnotrealnotreal. Been waiting so long, we'll believe it when we get in it. All builder's out there should just say the ending date of their projects are 10 months from the start date. That way emotions don't rise and fall and impatience won't get the best of anyone. You all hear that builders?

In other news:

Really maddening Colts slop.

It snowed all day today about 3 inches, so that was nice, and it oughta get the little snow machining buggers tired for Tuesday school time.

I created a "Cinema as Art" curriculum from scratch today for nine hours. It's kind of shabby (in purpose and organization) but will have to do. It is a sink or swim survival mode new creation of a class - noone ever pioneered it at this school before so no text, no idea, no syllabus - these things you could have guessed!

There's a thing called Augustine that I keep calling Visuvious - Pompei like in nature? About 4 hours south of here there has been volcanic activity and Alaska Airlines has cancelled most flights. Yeah, that's right knowers of my schedule, I was suppose to be at an away (FLYING) bball tournament this weekend, but got denied for no reason - and I'm not upset.

THEY MIGHT BE STRANDED THERE!? Ahhhhhh!!!!!!

No school tomorrow!

"Baby, baby, baby, do you want my picture or my autograph..."

What a great Thursday!

It was Wednesday though and you can fill in a lot of other random blank stories on how my Wednesday went with that line of thinking above.

HA! Duhyeeeeeee.

There's something wrong with our well/water at the house so a huge crain (not mandy) crane trucks were out at the house last night. We were notified via email weirdly just "to be informed". No word on seriousness or how when what you know uh huh

Game tomorrow vs. the home school wizards basketball team.

Team Pegasus.

We've had late practice all this week so it has been late practice like.

Our school has to cut one and a 1/2 teaching positions...........ummm.......hopefully not mine?!

Good to chat to daddio in dallas. Mom, he tells me IKEA is in the works this weekend! WOO! I'll be with you in spirit!

Also, great to see justin blog words again as opposed to vids, as well as Matteo and dads.

Happy whatever day you think it is to you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I too wish I was there to celebrate, that was fun to get invited! HA! Hope it was great!

Attention blog reader not interested in basketball blab, skip to blog bottom for house update and Ireland talk! :)

So, it was a long, but enjoyable Fri and Sat.

We played yesterday losing by 5 and not really doing well actually. Fill in frustrating coach thoughts here.

Today we played little sisters of the poor (politically correct, prob not ;) and played better as in "our (my plans) game". Final score 52-5.......Hmm......

Adjusting to a new coaching system and the differences in some philosophical points is apparent and prevelant. Claiming that run and gun is important but pushing and constantly pursuing running a bad offense.......not my cup of tea....overbearing 3 dudes (2 old school ones) I coach with. Let's just tell it like it is.

Just to bore you I shall say my philosophy mostly instilled by Sir Palombo that lines up like so:

aggressive defense and rebounding (1-2-1-1 zone press entire game, good for JV level), pitch up floor (no dribble), layup, layup, layup, everyone scores.

No need for offense.

The game days always go as follows: JV girls, JV boys, Varsity girls, Varsity boys. So it requires me to sit through some hours of that to support the varsity girls. In turn, Casey supports 3 teams too! HA! It was good to get out and be seen and known and know others. Lots of community members etc. Sure, sure.

I still (or just do in general at schools) have a feeling of temporary being there/here. But that is not the case, it is time to not approach anything as temporary. These families, this school, the community are going to know or want to know us whether we like it or not. So shall we embrace? Sure. Yes, in time.

We went to the house today and the key wasn't there. Wha....a,,.?

We looked in the windows but it was getting quite dark outside so all we could see was some pine boards on the floor drying polyeurthane. Thursday night is the last time we went. No exciting word on it to report then. And you scrolled all the way down here for that!

My Ireland news is that I'm about to buy some early Ireland running shoes. That's what I call anything I shouldn't really be buying right now. Hahahhahahahaha! Really just flight scouting for the trip and hoping for a miracle there in prices.

And soon I'll write fiction.

Best new commercial, Wendy's:

Some shoppers: "You can get that for 120 frosties cheaper on line."
Hus to wifey: "Whoa! You look like a million chicken tenders!!"
Driver to cop: "WHAT?! That's 75 junior bacon cheeseburgers!"

Here's the news that I promised! WE HAVE TOILETS!! And dad Casey says yes of course to the urinal; he is jealous!

This week - really the past two days - the following was completed:

rest of floor baseboards, in closets too
1/2 shelves ready in closets
water heater in garage set/hooked up
window sills

Needed: carpet, pine ceiling, banister/railing, little outside siding, stove, final touches and clean up.

Our realtor said 2 weeks to the finance dude so the loan is in process. Ended up having to pay $2500 extra but we get $3000 back at close for what we fronted (lights). Weird, we'll take it!

Probably won't be in officially till the end of January.

Other news:
Sad miners.
Texas, nice!
First game to coach tomorrow!
Looking for cheap(er) Ireland tickets.
Way good music fills the marePod - you're right dad in the groves, it's gonna be alright. Good song!

Hero Rat(s) Field the Silence!

Good quotes below:

"So here I am, pushing myself forward off the cliff, away from the ground I rely on way too much, into who knows what. This is where faith is made; this is where life is made; this is where I am made."

"I teach the women to sew the gorilla family and hopefully this product will help them sustain themselves." I absolutely love God's creativity in this! So good!

"We learned about hero rats that are trained to sniff out land mines."

"Somethings are faithful.....the rest go down and down"

"You too should live a porpoise driven life."

School Report: it happened again - the same as it ever was ;)

House Report: it happened again - looks like we need a gorilla family to sustain us!!!!!!!

Realtor crooks! Anger and bitterness hurts the "holder-on-to" more than the dummies who caused it. A bit of advice I heard and realized in House Report talk, shan't discuss more

14

FOURTEEN DAYS!??!!??!? Goal: move in over Martin Luther King, Jr. day break!

Woo Mom did a YIR!!!!! YAHOOEY!

Field the Silence!

I'm excited for this 2006 deal. It's a year not a deal I shall mention in supposition. A good year to have before us!!!!!! I have a list to post for general 2006 goals - not to annoy you - but to gauge my seriousness in accomplishing! Like dad's promise to get mom a house and whala! March will be sad to say goodbye to 1040 one last time :( :)

That one place is part of the life tomorrow, but like I said bball shall distract into balanced nicerness beyond academia.

So, I heard a symbol song (Prince) on the radio as we drove to check our house progress (nill - final meeting tomorrow for Casey and those builder involvements)...yeah a Prince song so I vocalized,

"Can they at least play something from this decade, FROM THIS DECADE?!?, I mean come on it's 2006?!?"

At least there's hope in UAA's college station.

Happy New Week to you all!

"Time on wings, will carry you..." - so catchy, so good!

Blog Title Today: "Folding Four Quilts"

The Dream of the Rood and Family Album soundtracked our time with the parents!

It was pleasant, grand, fun, and exciting to show them this Alaska new world of ours and share the holidays with them.

Today I slept in till 1:30 P.M. after going to bed at 10:00 P.M. ON NEW YEAR'S EVE NIGHT!! HAHAHHAHAHHAA!!!!! Awesome!

West coastilly New Year's just isn't as impactful: watching the ball drop at 8.

Ripped some video off the camera to edit and make into DVDs last night. So, look for newsletter type deliveries via DVD style biquarterlyish.

IRELAND consumes my mind as this 2006 day sinks into resolutions, plans, hopes, dreams, and excitements. A new house, the bball season officially underway this Friday, thoughts are starting to spread my mind through to our March trip, and on into the Summer of Ireland!

Last night, I was folding all the quilts my mom made and that were used by my parents this past week as I thought:

It is such a good life here, there, everywhere. Another year passed, and God has 2006 lined up for His will, His kingdom, the hopes and dreams and excitement are all grounded in Him! WOOYEAH!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!