Mustache Is Funny Enough Of A Word To Act As A Title

Ok. So I've been terrible at scheduling time to attend to my blog. I miss it.

But don't you worry! I have found new inspirations to keep me on track with giving my little piece of the internets the love and attention it needs.

One of these aforementioned topics for discussion is Jake's decision to participate in Movember. I am both proud of him and insanely excited to be entertained by the amount of facial hair that is about to happen above my husband's upper lip.

I plan on taking day to day pictures to show the growth of this furry monstrosity. Be excited.

Not only will Jake be raising money and awareness to help in solving a serious issue in men's health, but he will be hilariously furry by Thanksgiving. It's really a win-win for everyone.

If you're interested in beating the crap out of cancer while also supporting men growing mustaches everywhere, feel free to donate to the cause here (for Jake's team) or here (just in general) but I highly recommend here (for Jake and his man-stache).

This is Jake's Mo-tivational picture. I don't know about you, but I'm inspired.

Happy growing, boys!

A Recent Conversation With My Phone

Me: Oh hey, Phone. I would enjoy using you to make a phone call. Specifically to my husband.

Phone: ...

Me: Phone?

Phone: Oh, you wanted me to work when you hit the on button?

Me: Yes. That was my intent.

Phone: Fiiiiiine. I'm on. What do you want now?

Me: Well, I just hit that cute little icon of a phone so that I could make a call.

Phone: Hmm. Are you sure?

Me: Yes?

Phone: Well, I know you pushed the phone button, but I think that maybe you actually meant that you wanted to open your Fandango App to check out the movies playing in your area.

Me: Oh, well, thank you, but no. I actually wanted to make a call so I'm going to go ahead and push the phone button again.

Phone: So, you mean you wanted to see your work email?

Me: Still no. Just, call Jake please.

Phone: Amazon App Store?

Me: Phone call. Because you're a phone. I would like to call somebody. Over the phone

Phone: No, I don't really feel like it. How about... Oh, I know! I'll turn off again!

Me: Wait, what? No! ON BUTTON!

Phone: ....

Me: ON BUTTON! ON BUTTON! ON BUTTON!

Phone: Oh, hey. Can I help you?

Me: YES! I would very much enjoy making a phone call. Because you are a phone.

Phone: Oh, I see. I guess it's just hard for me to know what you want me to do after all of the concussions I've suffered.

Me: Excuse me?

Phone: Remember those cement stairs you dropped me down?

Me: Well. Yeah, but that was an accident. You fell out of my pocket.

Phone: Yeah. How many times have I fallen out of the car because you forgot I was unsafely on your lap as you drove?

Me: Like, two times? Maybe?

Phone: 47. I have fallen out of your car 47 times.

Me: That may be an exaggeration...

Phone: Remember Hawaii?

Me: Yeah, we had a great time there! You took pictures of beautiful tropical landscapes and...

Phone: No. I was covered in grains of sand. And you dropped me in the ocean.

Me: Technically someone else dropped you.

Phone: Nope. Someone handed me back to you and said "Don't drop your phone in the ocean!" and then you dropped me on a rock as a wave was rolling in. I had to sit in the sun with my battery exposed for 5 hours until I could work again.

Me: So, what you're trying to say is that I can't make a call?

Phone: I'm turning off again. Don't even think about trying to play Cut the Rope. The last fall from the car may have accidentally caused me to "forget" how to open that game up.

Me: But all of my three stars!

Phone: Oops.

Me: I actually wanted the iPhone.

Phone: Angry Birds is gone.

Me: YOU'RE A MONSTER!

Dear Google Searchers

I apologize that my blog is neither actually about mythical creatures nor is it designed to sell my homemade triple decker bunk beds.

I accidentally brought up mythical creatures in a post that was focused on distracting everyone from how lame my effort had been with writing and the fact that Jake and I will be stuck in our mini-condo until our 30 year loan term is up.

I cannot believe how many people are accidentally coming across my blog when searching for those two things. Last month over 2,000 people found themselves here after asking Google to show them some images of some "Awesome Mythical Creatures" or "IKEA triple decker bunk beds". How disappointed are those people?


Very. The answer is very disappointed.

The only creatures that appear on this thing are my two Boston Terriers who spend their time sleeping and grunting and doing very non-mythical type things.

I'm not about to get into why I've been so pitiful here, I will just graze over my absence and we can pretend it never happened.

This whole teaching gig is turning out to be a little more than having my students make finger puppets while I online shop and prepare for Winter Break. It's been great, but I've been exhausted and don't feel as though I have the energy to tell stories adequately, but whatever. My kids think I'm hilarious when I do something unplanned and, most of the time, ungraceful, so perhaps my re-entrance into my blog will work similarly.

I interviewed for my job over Skype since I was in Hawaii for a wedding. I was extremely nervous to do something I was so excited for over Skype because I'd never used it before, plus I was in a house packed full of all my friends from college in a very Real World style situation and I kept envisioning them popping up behind me and doing something "hilarious" for the interviewers to see.

I woke up at 6 am thanks to the time change between Hawaii and Seattle, put a beautiful shirt on with my pajama shorts so that my upper-half looked professional, and found a quiet place outdoors to show off my tropical surroundings while also hiding from my friends.

I was totally prepared. My laptop was plugged into an outdoor outlet to avoid it dying during my interview. I had really thought out some good answers to questions I foresaw being asked. I had my cell phone in case I needed to call one of the TWO principals interviewing me. Totally ready to nail the interview.

The Skype started to ring.

I took a deep breath.

And then the sprinklers went off managing to simultaneously soak my right side and the outlet my laptop was plugged into.

Fantastic.

I honestly could not tell you what I said for the first 15 minutes because I had so much anxiety caused adrenaline coursing through me that I nearly blacked out. I can remember saying a whole lot of words very quickly and laughing a lot. Maybe. Did I smile? Did I start crying? I have no idea...

The point is! I got the job, which is an awesome job I am loving. How that debacle of an interview resulted in my dream job, I can't tell you.

Probably the Mythical Creatures of Hawaii.

Ok, those exist...

Thank you the Menehune of Hawaii who are small mythical people, much like a leprechaun or fairy!

Oh yeah, that dude definitely is responsible for my successful, yet damp, interview.

2 Years

Last year I created a sentimental video to celebrate our anniversary. It was not Oscar Award Winning, but it was the epitome of "it's the thought that counts." This year does not offer the same amount of time for me to spend on such an endeavor.

Honestly though, we look pretty much the same if you want to just look at last year's video and pretend it's for this year. Here are the changes. 

On our first anniversary I hadn't fully committed to getting my hair back to being au naturale. 

 On our second anniversary my hair is brown and Jake's beard is fuller. Although I should point out that he doesn't look like a "hobo". He didn't want me to point that out though. I totally just did that all on my own...

I guess some things have changed though.

I got all graduated and have a teaching job now.

And... We got a fish tank?

The point is, we're still in love and legally bound by matrimony.

And I'm so busy this year that Facebook determined it needed to go out of its way to remind me with the little notice thing on the right hand side of my home page that my anniversary to Jacob Epler is TODAY! Thank god for technology.

Oh! AND, I got into a fender bender today. So that's different from last year.

Don't worry, it was seriously the least climatic fender bender in the history of anticlimactic fender benders. We were stopped at a light and the car in front of me started to go and as I let my foot of the brake I was distracted.

By Harry Potter Book on Tape skipping on my iPod-to-Car attachment thingy.

And then the car in front of me stopped and I did not.

So that's different. Instead of making sweet videos for Jake this year I was busy making our insurance go up. Happy Anniversary, Honey! 

Drive-By Posting!

So remember how I thought I might possibly be getting a job the last time I wrote, oh, about 5 years ago? Well I did, which is amazing, but also very time consuming.

I'm thinking my blog will forgive me though considering the long list of other things that have suffered due to my constant need to be doing one of the following:

• Being at school decorating my room (children don't take a teacher seriously if the room isn't plastered in colored butcher paper and coordinating boarders)
• Attending New Teacher Orientation where I learned a lot and made new friends who are also new teachers
• Attending New Teacher Orientation where I learned I may not have a "beefcake fireman calendar on and/or around my desk" which is good to know. First grade classrooms are always a gray area when it comes to calendars with scantily clad beefcakes, so I'm happy any confusion was cleared up...
• Working on school stuff 
• Reading about new ways to do school stuff
• Meeting parents which is one of the scarier things I've ever done 
• Teaching children the proper way to walk in a line
• Having my mind blown by said children when they let me know they tire of coloring and start asking for homework

The point is, I've been too busy to breath, let alone keep up on this thing. I've missed it though so am using this as my "warm-up" to writing my first Mrs. Epler's Class Newsletter Vol. 1.

The business has been so intense our house has begun to feel the pain as well. Quite some time ago we realized that we were out of batteries. We buy our batteries at Costco because they give you 2,000 of them for about $5, but we didn't need anything else in bulk and so kept putting off the trip.

Because lists are easier than actual sentences, here are all of the things that were in need of batteries until just last weekend when my mom went to Costco to buy us bulk batteries:

• 3 clocks
• 2 Wii remotes 
• The normal remotes we pilfered batteries from whilst in the middle of playing some serious Donkey Kong Country Returns on said Wii
• My electronic toothbrush...

Oh, speaking of things inanimate things I'm leaving to fend for themselves, here is a list of things my car currently needs:

• An oil change (it's only been like 8 months though)
• A new passenger side headlight 
• New windshield wipers
• The squeaky ass breaks checked
• Roughly 14 empty Starbucks cups and 31 water bottles removed from the floor and/or cup holder

Whatever. I'm busy molding young minds. And sleeping. 

Fine Print

I'm back from Hawaii and have plenty of stories to share but I'm still exhausted and so am going to wait to delve into them. In the meantime, I will tell you what happened me today.

I had a few interviews while I was in Hawaii (I will explain more later) and had a follow up one today so that the principal could meet me in real life and see that I'm not scary or had someone else interview over the phone for me or something else that would lead her to determine I was not fit to teach the nation's youth. I left early to get there because I'm fairly certain she wouldn't have been too impressed with me being late to our first real meeting. Plus, Jake told me to.

As I pulled into the parking lot 15 minutes early I checked my hair in my review mirror only to realize that the half that always goes flat had gone flat. I scratched my scalp in attempts of gaining some last minute volume to avoid my head looking lopsided only to be reminded that my scalp had received a rather impressive sunburn in Hawaii.

As in, I looked as though I had dandruff. Extreme. Dandruff.

I'll save you the details of my dramatic panic attack held in my car as I picked my hair clean which was immediately followed by anxiety about my chipped fingernail polish and then a piece of raisin being stuck in my teeth, because the interview ended up going well. Very well, actually.

My phone died on the drive home (my phone had a hard week, don't judge it too much) and when I got home I had a voice mail. At first I thought it might be the very nice principal who didn't comment on my chipped nails or flat half of my head, but it wasn't. It was another school district who wanted to talk to me about a possible job.

I am not very superstitious, but I definitely don't want to jinx anything so I'll say this in a small font.

I think I might have a job soon. 

Things That Make Me Go UUUGH...

This will probably sound familiar, but I should be packing right now. We leave for Hawaii in approximately 22 hours, but who's counting?

I have had one of those weeks where I keep finding myself saying "Really?! This would happen to me..." in a very mopey, and likely annoyingly whiny voice.

What has happened to me, you ask?

1. We live in a condo and so have a Home Owner's Association. If you do not know what this is, it's essentially people who walk around the place judging you and your unit while trying to find reasons you may be out of compliance with the rules they created on a whim one day without your consent. Once they find a reason they will write you a very rude letter that is pretty much telling you how trashy you are because you left a lawn chair out on your patio. Disgraceful.

I'm guessing not every HOA is like this, but that's how ours rolls. The president is the WORST and will look directly into your windows unabashedly while her dog runs around the place without a leash and her patio looks like an episode of Hoarders. In case you can't tell, I'm a little bitter about our "president".

I recently bought a new shirt that I am in love with. It's cute and striped and has buttons up the back like maybe I'm wearing a cardigan backwards. This is the trendiest things get for me, so just go with it.

I came home the other day and ran into our "president" who was wearing a very familiar shirt. My new, cute, stripey backwards cardigan. With old, ratty black sweatpants. And pink and green flip flops...

So I'm pretty proud of my taste in clothes.

2. I'm much like a 78 year old woman with my exercise regiment and really enjoy going for walks. I can run, but walking doesn't make me gasp for breath which makes me feel morbidly obese, so I choose to walk. Speed-walking is an Olympic event, so yeah... I'm kind of an athlete.

As I was walking quickly and pumping my arms to get my heart rate up, I looked over at a house that had a dog bowl in it's front yard full of dog food (totally against our HOA rules, so you would never see that nonsense here).

Something caught my eye and so I looked over at this dog dish to find something eating out of it. A gigantic rat. A rat was eating the dog food.

I made a noise like, "Oooh! GROSSuuuuugh!," and continued walking quickly.

As soon as I was away I forgot about the rat and continued to focus on not tripping while listening to Harry Potter Book On Tape on my iPod. I like to get amped when I fast-walk around my neighborhood.

On my return home something caught my eye again, and it was the rat eating the dog food again.

You would think that the second time around I would be a little more prepared, but no. I again made an embarrassing noise to myself in order to articulate just how yucky I thought the rat was and continued walking. But this time I passed a woman pushing a stroller who looked at me as though I was possibly having some sort of fit due to being overexerted from my walk.

3. As I am searching for a teaching position, I know it's not reasonable to get an interview for every job I apply to. Still, I cry a little on the inside every time I receive an email letting me know that they went with another, more experienced teacher for the position.

They go a lot like this:

Dear Random Applicant,

We at (fill in a school district here) received your application for the (fill in a teaching position here) and wanted to say thank you for your interest. Unfortunately, you suck at life and we went with an applicant who is way prettier and funnier than you. Also, she would never wear anything that her disgusting and mean HOA president would wear.

Please continue to check our district website and apply to any other positions that you are interested in so that we may crush your hopes and dreams by telling you no. Also, you have split ends.

Sincerely,

Automated Rejection Service


This morning I received a phone call from a very pleasant gentleman who happens to be the principal at an elementary school in the district I really want to be in. When he told me who he was I had to work very hard not to say, "ZOMG! Are you serious? Like, is this phone call for real?!" which I suppose would not have been very professional.

He told me that he liked my application and wanted me to interview for a position he has open at his school. Then he let me know that the interview day is on Monday. When I will be in Hawaii. The interview will not be on any days where I will be in the continental United States, so...

I died a little when I found out that this would have to be chalked up to "Missed Opportunities" but at least I'll be in tropical paradise!

Wind and showers are the "tropical" part of tropical paradise, right?