Robynne and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...

bah, today was just not my day. It even started out bad.

I woke up this morning at 9:07 because the phone was ringing. My first thought of the day was "oh s***!" What a great way to start my day. My first class on a Tuesday starts at 9am. The phone was my babysitter wondering if I was home and could I please let her in? General hurry-ing and stressing ensued and I got to the pre-school where I teach at 9:30. Fortunately, I have two hours to teach two 45 minute classes so I fudged it and got out of there by 11 without really shorting either of the classes for time.

On I drove to Corona Del Mar to teach my two classes for the city. Both went fine. It was hot but the kids were sweet and everything was cool. So I packed up my stuff and tossed things into the closet I have there to store stuff in. It was only after I locked and closed the cupboard that I realized I had just locked my keys inside. My car keys, my city keys, my studio keys. Bah. I did manage not to lock my cell phone in so I called city hall and asked them to send someone to open it for me.

30 minutes later someone shows up. Just to give you a timeline, it was now 2:45. I'm supposed to be at the studio by 2:30.

She has a huge keychain full of keys. Every key to every lock in the center. Except for the key to my cupboard. Crap.

So she goes back to city hall to get the key, comes back and opens it for me and voila! I have keys again. It's now 3:35.

I race off to try and get to Santa Ana to teach my class at 4. Luckily I happened to have some crackers in my car otherwise I would have been both pissed and hungry. Hungrier at any rate.

Of course, traffic is awful. I creep down the freeway.

I raced into the studio at 3:59.

Chicago anyone?

so, my sister and I are thinking about going to Chicago over Labor Day weekend. Why you ask? Well, it started because my parents are going to Vancouver that week (my dad has a trade show and my mom is gonna go with then they'll take a few extra days vacation afterwards) and I was thinking about joining them up there because the flights are pretty cheap. but then, I thought, nah, I don't want to be the third wheel on their vacation so I looked to see if there were cheap flights anywhere else. Then, my sister said she has a four day weekend over Labor Day so we thought, hey, we should go somewhere with the baby!

My sister has this goal of seeing a baseball game in all the ball-parks in the US so she looked up where teams were going to have home games in places she hasn't been to yet. Our cheapest options ended up being Chicago, Pittsburg and Denver. We both decided that Chicago seemed the best choice by far. Besides, I was pretty sure that I knew people who live in Chicago.

So, the point of telling you all this....anyone know someone I can crash with my sister and my baby in Chicago? Or, does anyone know of a really cheap place to stay?

At the moment I'm impatiently waiting for my sister's room-mate to finish reading her Harry Potter book so I can read it next. It's the newest one. I really hope her room-mate isn't a slow reader. In the mean time I'm re-reading some of my comfort books. I love to sit outside in my backyard with my feet up and keep an eye on the baby playing with her red car while I read. The nice thing about comfort books is that I already know the jist of the story so I can keep an eye on the baby without missing out on the book. It makes multi-tasking easier.

I went back to work this week. It's been crazy busy. I'm working less hours in the summer but they're all back to back now. Instead of having a 2-3 hour lunch, I get the the 20 minutes it takes me to drive from one studio to the next. But I start later and finish earlier so the jury is still out on whether the new schedule is better or not.

back to work

well, the recital is over, the wedding is over, the baby's birthday party is over. All of my crazy busyness over the last two months is over. I've been reveling in my vacation the last three weeks. I didn't go anywhere or do anything exciting but I did get to play with the baby all day long and read some books and putz around the house. It was nice.

But I'm glad to go back to work, I did miss it. Besides, I always start feeling guily about being lazy after a week or so. I've been teaching just a class or two a day this week which helped get me back into the swing of things. I have the best schedule ever.

I'm going to an R.A.D. teachers workshop on sat. It's titled "Look, See, Observe and Reflect." I'm assuming we're gong to look, see, observe (aren't they all the same things?) and reflect. I'm looking forward to it. I think that one or two of the girls from my studio may be demonstrating but I'll find out on Sat. I hope at least one is, it would be nice to know if I'm seeing the same things in them as other teachers.

My boss said something pretty cool to me the other week. She told me that she thinks I have the makings of an excellent teacher. Right now I'm good, but I could be even better. She's offered to kinda give me my own privtae teaching course. The RAD has one but it's really expensive and the kinks haven't been worked out of the new syllabus. Maybe in a couple of years I'll think about it. Fortunately for me, I've already passed all the dancing exams I need to qualify. I think this coming fall I'm going to be teaching in the evenings a little less and sitting in on more classes as well as working the desk more. I definately think that I'm being groomed to take over the studio eventually. That's fine with me, I would love to but if I do I'm going to have to marry a wealthy man because I don't think owning a studio pays too well.

:(

My uncle died yesterday.

He was my aunt's second husband who I only remember meeting a couple of times. He had diabetes and has been sick for a really long time.

I'm just glad he's with the Lord now and free from pain and free of his deteriorating body. I'm also glad that my aunt is now free from the strain and stress and heartache of his illness.

Be at peace Uncle Wim.