Job Benefits...and a squirrel friend

If you follow us at all, you'll know that I am a teacher. Well, without getting too specific, I'm a teacher in a vocational high school. We had an awesome professional day on Wednesday where we could choose to try out a technical area and see what it was like to perform some different jobs. I hemmed and hawed on this and decided to try my hand at masonry. The freshmen students do a really cool project in there with tile and I was hoping to pick up some tips for that pesky upstairs bath. Well...the best laid plans...

I got in there and was told that we were building a patio. Awesome! Just my luck! And you'd be amazed to know that a patio is on our short list for next summer...so let's do this. 

My teammates and I decided to choose the most difficult pattern for our patio: herrinbone. I was so surprised to see how easy it was once you got going. Now I'm not heading towards anything with a diamond tipped wet saw anytime soon, but this was really straightforward and easy to manage on a small scale. Hopefully Chris and I can figure it out...and if not, at least I'm buddies with the masons at school now!

 I know you're sick of Penny's birthday, but she deserves a birthday-food-eating pic post:

Ben and Jerry's...only the best!

We also misplaced her favorite orange squeaker on her birthday (damn that lawn extention!) so we had to go out and find her a new favorite toy. She now has Squirrel Friend that goes everywhere she does. She loves him and snuggles him and sometimes tries to rip his feet off. That's love. 

BFFL