angela's blog

Oh I forgot, this was taken this weekend. Is this dog perfect for us or what? I didn't pose this one or the remote control one. She really just climbs on the couch and sits there with her paws around these things.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/31/2006 01:41:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

It's Monday. Which means it's a new week. And that means that this week, instead of the "week of endings" it is actually going to be a lovely "week of beginnings." To recap, last week I: * Had dinner with Heidi. She left a day and a half later for Kentucky. She'll be back to visit I'm sure but it's not going to be the same. * Went with JJ to the church building to take some photos and walk around before the building comes down this week. Said goodbye to the building I got married in. * Turned in my keys to the psych building. Turned in my final grades last night and will turn in my department loaner laptop today or tomorrow. This week, though, none of this goodbye stuff. This week is all about the new stuff. I will start my duties as a teacher with orientation on Friday. We will be having our first church service in our new building. After last week, I'm very much looking forward to the next fork in the road. I wonder where we're going next?

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/31/2006 07:53:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Last night JJ and I had dinner with Heidi. Tonight is Heidi's last night here in the Triangle and then she's headed off to study World Missions at Asbury. First she will be off to Brazil on a missions trip with 12 other missionaries from newhope and then she will return to Kentucky and start her studies. We lingered over dinner at On the Border and reminisced and caught up on each other's lives. Heidi has been a staple at newhope church for so long that I think it's really going to sink in when I don't see her on Sundays anymore and we won't be meeting her for lunch. It's an interesting story how Heidi and JJ and I became friends because for awhile Heidi and I were friends and JJ and Heidi were friends but the three of us never spent time together. After JJ and I started dating the three of us started hanging out and then Heidi was quite instrumental in assuring that my marriage proposal didn't occur in a car or outside on a sidewalk but rather in the church itself. It's strange to think of life without Heidi. She's the closest thing I've had to a spiritual mentor since I've been here in North Carolina and I have watched her grow over the last 2 years. I will miss her. JJ will too. And as if that wasn't enough change for the week, our church building is coming down. A wealthy gentleman is buying the land where our current building is, knocking the building down, and building his retirement home. This means that we have to move. It also means that the building we've been in for 2 1/2 years is going to be demolished. I didn't really think about it until yesterday but it was in that building that JJ and I became friends. It's where we started dating. He proposed on the stairwell leading up to the tech booth. We got married there. Our whole life is wrapped up in that building and in a week that building will become a pile of rubble. This place is going to be destroyed. Memories of moments like these are all JJ and I will have left of the place where our life began It isn't that I don't think the next place is going to be great or that we will build more memories but up till now that building is where our life is and next week it's coming down. I think that tonight JJ and I are going to go to the church and just walk over it and reminisce a little. It's the end of an era ... Heidi and the building both at the same time. Maybe next week life will return to normal.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/25/2006 09:30:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

This weekend my in laws came to visit. My father-in-law had, at some point, misgivings about us getting a dog so I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive about whether he and my dearest Roxy would get along while they were here. My mother-in-law, while having a quite different idea of what pet dogs should be than I do (she grew up with the teeny dogs - under 10 pounds dogs) is so easy going I figured that as long as Roxy didn't filch clothes or makeup or something from her bags that they would be fine. Well it turned out better than we thought. Roxy LOVED my father-in-law. Went and sat with him while he read, curled up beside him on the floor while he napped, sat as his feet while he ate his plateful of tomatoes, followed him around. Don't get me wrong, she loves us and we see her every day. But of all the visitors we've had, I think she has liked him the most. And he loved her right back. Gave her treats, played with her, rubbed her tummy (her favorite!), let her sleep next to him on the floor or sit with him on the sofa. And then they had to go home. They left on Monday morning and per our usual routine, as we got ready to go to work we crated Roxy and then I let her out when I got home. While Jackie and Terry were here they stayed in our back room which currently serves as a combination small den and office. When I let Roxy out on Monday afternoon, she made a beeline for the door and just sat there (the door was closed). When I opened the door she walked over to the couch where Jackie had slept, sat down next to it and looked at me as if to say "I can smell him. He's still here. So where are you hiding him?" Last night we sat in there with her and she snuggled up with the pillows and blankets that my in-laws had slept on. Just look at how much Roxy misses her Pooh!

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/20/2006 01:19:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

It's hot here. So very very hot. Like I break a sweat walking from my car to the bus stop hot. I don't like it hot. And the fact that I don't wear shorts doesn't help anything. A couple of weeks ago I got my hair cut so that it didn't weigh down my head (no, I do not have photos yet)and I thought it would help except now it's growing out again and it's expensive to get it trimmed so that it matches the original cut. What a pain. So now it's just hot. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I have two things to look forward to in the next week: 1) This weekend me and the girls from my small group are going to the lake! I'll be sure to take pictures to post when I get back. But that should be relaxing. What, me enjoy time near water? Nooo. :-) 2) Next Tuesday is the LAST DAY I have to ride a bus to work. Hopefully ever. I loathe riding the bus. And for some reason the bus drivers don't feel the need to turn on the AC. Who does that when it's 96 out? (see above on my opinions about heat). And then the week after that I start my new job! Woohoo!

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/19/2006 09:06:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Oh and as a congratulations-for-getting-such-a-cool-job my husband bought me this cute little purse. And the matching zip-around wallet to go with it so I have a place to put my inhaler and Epi pen without running the risk of accidentally poking it when I'm digging around inside. It has pockets for my lip gloss and mints and gum and pens. And on the outside there's a slip-in pocket for my keys and a zip up pocket for my cell phone and whatever else. I also especially enjoy the wide strap. JJ has good taste, doesn't he? I have this to say about all matching stuff ... it's not that it's not a good idea. I have sort of realized how stuff that all matches is easy to see if you're traveling, and if it's all made by the same reputable company you know it's durable and so on. I looked through the matching stuff in this color though, and not so much useful to me. I like my work stuff and travel stuff to be more no-nonsense. Like eventually it might be nice to have one of these to carry as a shoulder bag to school. I have a messenger bag now that I bought in college but it doesn't have a flap close (which is way more convenient). I'd like to have a flap close with the option of zipping, or a flap that closes enough where stuff won't fall out. So something like this Timbuk2 bag in medium or large: Or this Manhattan Portage bag that has gotten rave reviews. I would need the shoulder pad add-on though: Or this simple one by Jansport. There wasn't a downloadable photo so to see it just click on the Jansport link. Of these three my 2 favorite are the Manhattan Portage and the Jansport but before I commit to buying (or asking for) any of these I'm definitely going to have to see how much I really need to carry around and for that I have a nice briefcase-bag that I got as a 3rd year letter award for Wash U that I can use for the time being. Woohoo I have a job!

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/18/2006 10:55:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Well it's official. After months of applications and one week of whirlwind interviews, I have a job! I will be teaching third grade at Cresset Christian Academy in the fall. I think I'm one of two teachers, but looking on the school's website I'm suddenly not sure that's the case. Hopefully it is, though. Otherwise I have some serious panicking and hysteria to prepare myself for. For me, not the students. I'm really excited and I'm hoping to bring some fresh approaches to third grade. Not like I'm going to try and change the school's curriculum. Definitely not. What I'd like to do is have lots of enrichment and lots of supplemental stuff. The stuff that challenges kids without making them fall off track of the important foundational stuff. I've got ideas for field trips and visitors and how to make learning fun. I hope it works. For example, I'm going to start building a webpage for my class. And if I get permission I'm going to put up a "fact of the day." Stuff like "Did you know that a hummingbird's wings can beat up to 80 times in ONE SECOND? See how many times you can blink in 5 seconds. Divide that number by 5 to find out how many times you blinked in 1 second [Mrs. Cooper sneaks in a math practice problem!] Are you as fast as a hummingbird?" Of course I will have to take some precautions. When I put up my "Did you know that if you drink too much milk it will make you throw up because milk ruins the pH balance of your stomach?" it will have to be followed up with a bolded warning DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!. So this is my plea for interesting facts. If you have random interesting facts that would be fun for third graders, leave them as comments! They can be math, science, literature, art, theatre, music ... whatever ... as long as it's G rated. Who knows, it might show up on my "Interesting fact of the day" link. Part of my hope is that I can show these kids that learning is so much fun. It took me a little while but by the time I was in the third grade (as best I can remember) I loved school. Now granted, I was the kid in 1st grade who refused to leave early for Thanksgiving vacation because I didn't want to miss recess. But later on I loved school. And by the time I got to high school I lamented the days I missed class, no joke. But I'm just hoping that I will be able to show these children how the whole world is fascinating and that we can never stop learning about it. Big task, I know. But hey, I'm usually a big task kind of girl.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/18/2006 08:26:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

On Tuesay, Roxy was CRABBY. She was whiny, she looked droopy (she's usually a very happy, bouncy, lovable dog), she wouldn't listen to us, she tried to nip our fingers and toes (unusual for her), and mostly she just seemed sad. Even her favorite treats - goldfish crackers or peanut butter - didn't seem to cheer her up. I was worried. After all, for nearly 4 weeks she had been the most cheerful, happy, silly, bouncy little dog. But yesterday she was typical Roxy again. Woke us up by wagging her tail so hard it thumped against the wall, wanted us to rub her belly, wanted to play with her ball, did her favorite trick of rolling over onto her back and waving her paws in the air, loved her treats and so on. Well I start looking up online to see if dogs, like people, just have "bad days." You know the ones where you look bad, feel bad, and act bad. Turns out, Roxy's a teenager! I had this general idea that by the time dogs are 2 that they are done with the whole puberty thing and that they're all grown up. That's what the vet who we adopted her from seemed to intimate. Noooope! Apparently for some dogs they can keep growing up until they're almost 3. Our best guess is that Roxy is somewhere around 19-25 months old according to our vet and she's already had a litter of puppies (don't get me started on my dog's teenage pregnancy ;-)) so if she is still in adolescence, it's very late adolescence, like the 17-19 stage. I'm pawning off her funky behavior for 36 hours on that. But when I got home from work Wednesday afternoon she was lovely and has been ever since. Or maybe she was just telling us that she needed a bath. After all, we gave her one Tuesday night and she does seem to be all better now.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/13/2006 10:50:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Yesterday Sabrina IMed me and asked me "Are you free tonight?" I originally thought "OOH! Cake? Ice cream?" because Sabrina is the world's foremost lover of desserts. But no. Eric Staal was going to be at Southpoint signing autographs and she wanted to see if I could come with her to take her photo. Of course! Anything for my former MoH, right? So I went. And the line went outside, all around the building! Thankfully I arrived a few minutes before 5 (Staal was going to be signing from 5-7) and so the line wasn't insane yet. And while we had to stand outside and I was sweating, we only had to wait about an hour, plus the last 20 minutes or so were inside the airconditioned mall. Sabrina got her autograph and her photo. And was very giddy about it. I'll let her tell you about it herself.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/12/2006 10:13:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

I left the TV remote on the couch. Roxy found it. I thought it was cute. So I took a picture.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/11/2006 02:07:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

A year ago yesterday JJ and I were married. You know, "I do," and all that. The last year has been a busy one ... we've done a lot of things together and grown a lot. Unlike Josh I don't have a cool "A year in the marriage of ..." album but I do have highlights ... ** The honeymoon to Asheville! We stayed in a hotel almost for free thanks to our friend Scott. We ate at Carraba's twice. We visited the Biltmore Estate and had ice cream in the courtyard. We had hotdogs and grilled cheese at an old timey soda fountain. We rode bikes. I ran into a bee while riding the bike. Poor bee. I think I just caught up with it. If I could, I would apologize. ** July 10, 2005 -- JJ has a birthday the day after we get married. He was very gracious to share our anniversary with his birthday since he has no choice about his birthday, but had a choice about the day we got married. ** Moving to the new apartment. From 930something square feet of cramped living to 1226 square feet, 2 garden tubs, 2 bathrooms, and a bedroom AND study. ** Being in small group together. ** Our very first married Thanksgiving with our NC family - Scott, Jamie, and by blood relation, Jamie's mom. Our first bad experience with a doggie. Willie was an animal shelter mistake. Mr. Pee-on-the-floor lasted 2 days. ** Our first married Christmas down in Perry. I'm "Aunt Angela" now! Oh I'm also "JJ's wife." It's still weird. I'm still waiting to see what it feels like to be called Mrs. Cooper on a regular basis. JJ got me a beautiful diamond cross. His parents got us a dutch oven. My mom got us a killer gift - home tickets to Heinz Field! We're not sure when we can go though. Boo. ** The Steelers squeak into the playoffs. They're seeded 6th. THEN, beating the Bengals (sorry, Carson, Kimo didn't mean it ... seriously he didn't), the Colts (I hope you enjoyed your 15 minutes of fame Nick Harper), and the Broncos (all right Plummer your beard was neater than Ben's ... too bad it didn't help your game that day) to make it to Super Bowl XL. Jerome Bettis plays his last game in his hometown of Detroit. Ben plays crappy. They still win. One for the thumb, Steelers are Super Bowl Champs again for the first time in over 25 years. ** Our first Valentine's day and my birthday. I'm sort of "eh" about Valentine's Day so we go and babysit at the church for parents to have date night. We're in charge of the preschoolers. I am on potty duty. Oh well. ** Our first Easter ... I was going to cook. Chaos ensued. We went to Ted's Montana Grill instead with Steve, Sabrina, and Scott. ** The Big Event at East Chapel Hill High School. We actually met there. JJ's first words to me were "Hi I'm JJ. Good meet you." I responsed with "Hey, I'm Angela. What can I do?" "Here, plug these in." It's the church's first capital campaign. We're back at the high school but JJ wants me to mix the sound for the big day. We seem to have come full circle. ** In May my parents treat us to a trip to China. The 12 day tour through Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin, SuZhou, and Shanghai shows us the majesty of China. It was 1000 times better because we went together. ** Mid-June JJ gets me my anniversary present early. I had found a dog that looked promising online. So he said I should go and get her. She is everything her online profile said she was ... and more. So we have a little family now - me, JJ, and Roxy the lab-retriever mutt who is the sweetest, bestest dog in the whole wide world. ** July 4, 2006, we have Outback the night before and then Q-shack that day to celebrate. We don't get to eat out that much anymore so it was an indulgence. ** July 8, 2006, I give the dog peanut butter. It is perhaps the single most entertaining thing I have ever seen. She tries to lick her own tongue and that's really hard to do. I laugh and laugh and laugh. ** July 9, 2006 -- it's been a whole year! We celebrate by JJ going to church at 7 to work the service and I work hopetown downstairs. Just like we always have. Just like we always will. ** July 10, 2006 -- JJ has another birthday. I hope he has a great day!

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/10/2006 09:20:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

For every angry word For every gentle kiss Every smile Every frown With the sunrise of morning And the starlight of night I have shed tears of joy. Happy Anniversary, JJ. May there be many more. I'll post more about what we've actually done in a year tomorrow.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/08/2006 09:39:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

I don't know why people like to think that it's weird to get sick in the middle of the summer. After all, at some point they're going to understand that colds, sore throats, runny noses and coughs all come with germs, you know, those little viruses and bacteria things that actually make you sick. You do not get sick because it's cold outside. If I sound irritated, it's because I am the victim of a summer sore throat and cough. I could have picked it up anywhere. Between the kids I teach and play with at church, the students I have at the University, and the dog, I have plenty of exposure to germs. I hope it gets better soon. Mostly it just makes me tired, my throat sore, and talking for long periods of time gets tiring. And I also hope that I don't have to go to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor. In other news, it's been lovely and cool out the last couple of days and today it looks like it's going to be cooler AND sunny. How nice. Tonight we're celebrating JJ's birthday (which is actually Monday) at Moe's. You should join us for some good clean fun. Sunday is our anniversary. We're busy. :-)

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/07/2006 07:27:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

It's been awhile since I've posted about swimming and my workouts in the pool. In fact, part of the reason for that is I haven't been to a pool in ages. At least not one that involved caps and goggles, racing, workouts and not involving small children and playing. I wasn't really aware that maybe I was avoiding the pool because I missed it or that it would be too hard to go back, but then last week I went to my friend Jaylyn's swim meet. Jaylyn is 6 and she was all excited over her 25 butterfly and her 25 backstroke. Her mom, Kim, used to swim in high school and college and we were talking about how after Kim has Jackson (who's due in October) that we might try and swim masters at the program Jaylyn will be enrolled in in the fall. It was a very casual conversation and there certainly wasn't any sort of "Yes we will" or "No we won't" but it did make me realize how much I miss swimming. I've been thinking about it all weekend. I can't seem to figure out exactly what it is that I miss about swimming. I left it in 2004 and never came back to it seriously and I don't know why. I don't have any answers for myself yet but I do know this. I miss swimming something awful. The smell of the chlorine, the shout of my teammates, the feel of the water, being in shape, even the 6:30 am practices and late nights. I guess it's because the pool was the one thing that, as far as I could remember, was all my own. Even though I was surrounded by teammates and coaches, it was all mine. I decided how hard I wanted to work and how much I wanted the payoff. I decided how far to push myself. In the end only I knew what it all meant. No one could ever understand what it really was to me. And in college, I was never that good. Not only did I swim for a DIII school but I wasn't even that good at that level. The team didn't need me for this championship or that one. I was never going to be the swimmer that made it to nationals. And I didn't care. Because it was all mine. The only person that ever even came close to knowing what swimming meant to me and who even came close to understanding how much I cared about it was my coach in college. But I was but one in a bunch of stars and bright lights, easily overlooked and easily forgotten. But I was there, and I guess that's what counts. To this day some of my favorite memories of the Wash U pool are from when I was working there and would get there early. There was a skylight and so I'd leave the lights off. I'd put in a CD and dive in. I could swim however fast or slow I wanted, and however long. Considering at the time I'd just had shoulder surgery not 10 weeks before, there was no terribly fast or long. But I remember how still the water was and how the only sounds were my CD and my hands and feet in the water. I had never felt more at peace with the world. And I haven't since. Maybe I should look into getting back to a pool. Maybe it's time I had something all my own again.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 7/05/2006 07:41:00 AM | Permalink | Comments