Friday night.

Well, the husband just went to have some fun with the guys. Only not his guys, my guys. Yes, I have guys. They are the guys I grew up with, went to school with, spent many formative years with, played basketball with, played video games with, made home movies until 3 a.m. with, etc. They're my buds.

And now they're Chris' buds too, so I guess they are our guys now. Anyway, they all rock.

They're having a guys' night poker and beer thingamajig to celebrate Justin, Jesse, and Justin's cousin Brandon's birthday, no girls allowed.

S'okay. I'm studying Statistics and Data Analysis, which I picked up at the library today and am hoping will demystify the last part of CSET Subtest II for me. Which is tomorrow. Thank goodness it's almost over. I'm ready for life again!

November.

It's here again, people. That month that heralds all the upcoming vacations from work. That month where static electricity runs through your down blankets, hair, and car doors to give you a nice shock. That month where Daylight Savings Time ends and we're plunged into darkness before we can even escape our work desks. 

I'm still crazy busy again this week- work, school, and CSET studying are killing me. Thankfully, this is the last week before my second go at the CSET, so at least that won't be looming over me come Saturday night. Will I pass, though? It's iffy, I think. I'm really struggling with the statistics part, mostly because I have never in my life had to take any form of statistics. Not so easy trying to comprehend a whole course in one week.

Chris and I have been doing a lot of photo shoots lately. One was last weekend with Chris and Shay Moses and their almost-here baby boy in downtown Redlands. Another was yesterday with Chris and Melody Holz and one-year-old Bennett, in downtown San Diego. Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE that my husband is so much into photography with me? Love, love, LOVE it. It's so much fun being a team and creating beautiful photos together.

I'm going to go back to studying about language immersion programs now. I leave you with a scrapbook page I made exactly 3 years ago, on November 1, 2007. (Oh, to scrapbook again. To attempt to write books again. To have free time again!)

Scrapbook page has been brought down for maintenance. Will be back up soon.

Wedding Teaser

Sheesh. This has been a long and crazy week. Work, book editing and formatting, CSET studying, birthday celebrating, sister-in-law moving. It's 7:55p.m. and I really just want to go to sleep.

Sadly, I've got more of most of that stuff to do tonight. But I feel my blog is definitely suffering during this sad time in life. I haven't been able to put up anything from the past month, but most especially, I haven't been able to write about our beautiful wedding and honeymoon! It's coming... it's even a little bit in progress, and now that Chris has gone through and edited all our Hawaii photos it's only a matter of time before I find a free couple of hours to match words with photos and get it up here.

In the meantime, we also received our wedding "trailer" a couple weekends ago. Our videographers were great. Really fun guys who worked well with our photographers, and they totally have the same aesthetic as Chris and I do. This little teaser was just what we needed to remember how special our day was!

(NOTE: If you want to listen with the music for the video, don't forget to turn the blog music down! It's all the way at the bottom of the page.)



Chris and Jordan // Wedding Trailer // San Diego, CA from Lomaland Productions on Vimeo.

Also, also, my husband has begun putting up some of our Hawaii stories on his own blog, so if you want to hear and see about our trip, you can always check out his site and give him a little comment love!

Productive... sort of.

Got 3 great responses from 3 of my math students today. Victory!
Went to the bank and deposited some schtuff. Victory!
Started in on my new class for my credential. Vic- no, wait, I'm not even close to done with that one. This month will be hell from what the syllabus says. Hell. Pure hell.

On top of it, I've still got my first TPA to finish, and less than 2 weeks to re-take the geometry subtest fort the CSET. Good grief.

Also I have a bad sore throat. The kind that makes your ear hurt and makes eating something you dread.

All I can say is:

Why me? Why now?!

The results are in.

Oh, my gosh, I've made you wait so long!

I wish I could say it took me this long to find out too, so you all wouldn't feel as ditched as I feel you all feel (say that five times fast), but I knew at 5:02 pm on Tuesday evening. I just haven't had a chance to drift over to the blogosphere and report it. I kind of a little bit suck that way. But I'm trying to be better!

Anyway....

I passed! Well, I passed one of them. The one I'd actually studied for, Algebra & Number Theory. And I was only thirteen points away from passing Geometry, Probability, & Statistics. Bummer. That would have been the lucky break of the year. But I really didn't take time to study for that one, so I can't be upset.

Woot! I passed the CSET! Hear me roar!

I remember, months ago, when I first took a look at that sample CSET. I thought I was going to die. I thought no one can possibly pass this test. You would've had to major in math to pass this test. Just goes to show what massive amounts of studying and a good Algebra 2 Teacher's Edition can do!

(If you too want to feel the fear of God in your heart, go here to see the sample test. Seriously. Thought I would die.)

Classes for National start up again next week. I'm devoting this week to finishing TPA 1, then spending the next month doing classwork and studying for CSET Take Two. On top of that, Chris and I did another photo shoot today for one of his best friends, Chris Moses, his wife Shay, and soon-to-arrive Baby Boy Moses out in Redlands today. I am just itching to start editing those photos... and our wedding photos, our honeymoon photos, and other photo shoots I haven't finished recently. It's going to get a little crazy busy around here!

P.S. My beloved husband has already gone through all his honeymoon pictures and edited them. And started on mine. He is Superman. He's begun blogging some of our story on his site, http://christrementozzi.tumblr.com/, if you want to check it out. I'm still working on the lengthy version of our two weeks in Hawaii, so bear with me! It'll be up eventually!

The CSET

Today (allegedly) at 5 p.m. I will get my scores from the CSET.

Did I ever tell you how the CSET went down last month?

I don't think I did.

It was a week before the wedding. I had been studying math up to my ears for two months. And you know what? I had learned a ton of stuff. Stuff that I will never have to teach a high school student, or even a college student for that matter, but stuff that is nonetheless on that blasted CSET.

I got super lucky and was assigned to the afternoon testing session, so I'd stayed up cramming late the night before, then slept in a bit, woke up for some more cramming, and had a delightful lunch Chris made me to get me going. (He's such a babe.) I packed up my water bottle and #2 pencils and went down the street to State.

The morning session was still going on, and I chatted with some people outside the doors. I realized very quickly that most people were taking it for the first time, and none of them had studied a lick. "I'm just going to wing it," one guy said. "I took a math class in college, so I'll be set."

Oh, poor fool.

I decided not to tell him that I had not known anyone who had passed on the first try, even with major studying. And that, in fact, it took my friend Aaron three tries. Why discourage people?

When we were let in and seated, the girl next to me started up a conversation. She was in an internship program where she and her friends, who were also in our room, were already teaching. I asked how her studying had gone. "I haven't studied. I figure I'll take it again if it's hard." I asked if she'd even looked at the sample test online. "Nope."

Seriously? How does a whole program of current teachers not bother checking out this expensive and crazy test before they sit down to take it. I decided not to talk to anyone else. It was too depressing.

When we got the test, the girl next to me swore under her breath. That's right, math teacher girl. Welcome to hell.

Unfortunately, the geometry test came out first. This was unfortunate, because in my two months of studying, I had really only had the time to study for the algebra portion. As we got closer to the test date, I decided to screw the geometry test and focus on algebra, and just work on geometry if it looked like I had a shot.

But geometry came out first, and I figured why not try? I was actually able to answer quite a few, either from actually knowing how to solve the problems, or by making methods up until I came out with an answer that was one of the options. (If the CSET truly is evil, they would have figured out these fake ways to approach the problem and purposely planted those answers to give me false hope. They are such jerks.)

I felt okay after the geometry, and I hadn't even studied for it. I figure there is a chance I pulled it off, but it'll come down to the questions I just had to guess on. Fingers crossed I'm a good guesser.

Then came out algebra, and I figured I was all set. I knew my stuff. I had gone through every inch of the guide and knew as much as I could keep in my head.

I opened it up and leafed through the pages. And almost cried. Those jerks.

I don't know how they did it, but they took all the math and manipulated it into unrecognizable problems. I had no idea what they were talking about on about 1/3 of the problems. I was extremely confident about another 1/3. And the last 1/3 took me awhile to figure out, but I did come up with answers from my choices. So.... I'm not feeling that one as much.

I came home and hugged Chris for a long time. Then we had pizza and coke and watched a movie

Anyway, so today's the day (possibly) I can find out the results. If all works out, I should be able to go to the CSET website's results page and log in to see my unofficial score. Which basically means, today is my last day to optimistically thing, hey, maybe I won't have to study my mind into insanity for the next month again.

Prayers and good wishes and crossed fingers will be appreciated today1

What's a new wife to do

... when her husband's a better cook than her? Or at least more experienced. Or maybe just quicker at throwing meals together. Or just capable of looking in the fridge, tossing some things together, and voila! A dinner!

Seriously, it makes a new wife a little worried that she's not pulling her weight around here. (Except for laundry, anyway. She does have the monopoly on the laundry.)

So what's a new wife to do?

Bust out the crock pot. That's what.

Chris may have the upper hand when it comes to creating meals from leftover things in the fridge, but I have the patience to go look up some yummy new recipes online and work out a real meal plan for the week that won't break our bank. First round: Spicy beef roast with rice and edamame. I was a little wary this morning when I dumped in the can of pepperoncinis, and really wary when I came home from work and the entire house smelled very strongly of said pepperoncinis, but it was totally worth it when I tested a piece a few hours later. I love that the crock pot makes any kind of meat just fall apart. 

Chris gives it a 6 on the New Wife's Cooking Scale. The scale, which we just hashed out in the last two minutes goes something like this: 1 is 'I never want to eat this again.' 5 is about at 'I liked it, you did a good job, but I don't love it enough that it should be a weekly dish.' And 10 is the best home-cooked meal he's ever had, which he claims ranks up there with some of his mom and grandma's dishes (I know, awwwww, right?) So I'm happy with a 6. As long as my meals land between 5 and 10 I think we'll maintain the happy little newlywed life we've got going on here. :) And who knows, maybe I'll be cool enough someday to attain a 10.

Something I learned from tonight's cooking experience: frozen peas do not microwave well. I had little imploded peas come out of the steamer bowl, and they did not taste good like that. Edamame, however, comes out great, especially with a little butter and garlic salt. 

Stay tuned later on in the week, when the leftovers from tonight's crock pot meal become spicy beef enchiladas!