Blog Swap!

Hello fabulous EM=Me readers! I am Krista from One Hundred & Eighty One Days and I'll be your entertainment for this portion of the day that you spend avoiding work by catching up on your favorite blogs.

"Class, please write about your summer vacation.

Be sure to use neat handwriting and start every sentence with a capital."

As a part of the 20Something Bloggers swap that matched me up with Dr. Emily, we were asked to compose a guest post about our summers. Now, every June, July, and August are a very special time in my life, as I am lucky enough to be one of the those wonderful people that mold young minds. (Not to be confused with the unwonderful people who stunt children's creativity - I hate those people too!)  And as a second grade teacher, people often ask me, while trying to hide their envy, "Soooo, what do you do all summer?" And this question was actually the catalyst for creating my blog.

I had left life in Chicago to move to Vegas after accepting a teaching position, as apparently the entire State of Illinois didn't need any, so I spent my first summer off in the hot desert heat cooped up in my apartment sitting on the one (utterly uncomfortable) chair I owned, knowing next to no one, and going stir crazy. Three months of not working, with no money to go home, with no friends in town and not being able to go outside can be a struggle. The following summer, I also went a little mad. I was lucky enough to have met an amazing man in Vegas (who I am happy to now call my fiance), and we had just moved in together a few months before the big summer off. When June finally rolled around, and he arrived home each night after leaving me for some 12 hours to play lawyer, our conversations would go something like this:

Me (standing in the doorway): "HEY BABE! How was your day? What's new? I cooked dinner. Want a glass of wine? Scotch? Oh my god, Zoey did the funniest thing today- she sniffed a turtle on our walk. It was so funny. So, I was on facebook and I saw that What'sHerNameThatWeDon'tReallyLike is now dating SomebodyWeKnow. Weird, right? It's hot out there. Barely walked for more than an hour..... blah, blah, blah, blah....  Anyways, dinner? Wanna watch a movie or something?"

The Man I Love:"Have you left the house today, Krista?"

Me: "No, I haven't talked to a single soul all day. Why?"

The Man I Love:"Yeah. Exactly."

Having nothing to do makes doing anything at all difficult. And let's be honest, I am a teacher, so it's not like I have the extra cash to do all that much anyways. So, this summer I decided to do anything I could to stay busy. So here is how I spent my summer avoiding idle madness....

Visited Fiance's family in lovely San Antonio, Texas

Got another tattoo. And it hurt. A lot.

Took my wonderful Fiance to my family's summer house in Pentwater, Michigan. It was us and 38 other members in my family. Cozy.

Spent my birthday with good friends at the Chicago Gay Pride Parade.

Visited Wisconsin, drank a lot of beer, and ate my own weight in cheese.

Adored my nephew Cooper every chance I had.

Had my 5 Year University of Dayton college reunion where my college roomies and I pretended we were in college again. w

*I also:

Started a blog

Drank

Had staring contests with my dog

Slept late 

Took two online education courses and hated it

Made wreaths, paintings, and other goddies to decorate my classroom

Cooked

Drank some more

Gave up caffeine

Worked out

Got addicted to Pinterest.com

Planned a wedding and decided to screw it and plan to go to Mexico instead

"And that, class, is how I spent my summer vacation."

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doesn't she sound amazing, y'all?

i strongly, strongly encourage you to check out her blog

there's more goodness where this came from