Changes Around the Apartment

I thought I'd give a little update about a few little changes around the apatment. As you can see I've purchased a plant...not sure how well I'll do with this, but I'm going to give it a try!

This is the painting I bought at Bombay Company after Christmas. I was pretty proud of this bargain deal, $250 originally, but I got for $50 and it goes so perfectly in my bedroom, this photo really doesn't do it justice.

This is my new mirror...long story with this thing. I wanted the round mirror when I purchased the bedroom set but I had to wait for it to come in. When it finally came in, and Ozzie (the crazy man from the furniture store) put it up and it is the wrong color wood. So, I went back to the furniture store and of course they discontinued this color wood. Instead of having a unmatching set of stuff here I picked out another new mirror that is square and has silver trim to match the hardware of my dressers, but I have to wait for it to come in! So, this is my temporary set up!

Thanks to Mel and Rafe, I got these great mirrors for the living room from Ikea. I hung them up all by mayself and even stepped foot into Lowes to purchase the hardware to hang them up!!! They make our living room a little more attractive...we still have the nasty couches though!!

Celebrity Status

Today when I got to school I obtained some interesting information from Carl, our school's security guard. I must preface this story with the fact that there are gangs and such around the Cat City area who "Tag" or graffiti buildings all the time. The students like to do it on desks, books, benches, etc. around the school. He told me that I had achieved "Celebrity Status." I of course questioned this statement and Carl informed me that "Celebrity Status" is when a teacher's name appears in tagging of some sort around the school. So, I of course had to check out the tagging that gave me the staus. Carl thought it was pretty funny, I guess I should be flattered...but on the benches out in front of the bus pick up, sure enough there it was... FORGACS IS HOT. Gotta love my students...they are winners!

Holiday Highlights

So, I've decided to recap the past month as I've been a bad blogger... I'll start with tree trimming at the Walter-Fields home. This is a picture of my buddy Liam and I after trimming the tree at his house with Bill, Alan, Scott, Wendy and Robb. A good time was had by all and it filled that void of being at home when my mom goes crazy with the Christmas decorations!

These are from the Palm Springs Crew Christmas Party at my friend Yoder's house. We had an amazing pasta dinner, gift exchange, and I "think" there was a dance party and cocktails involved. It was great to celebrate the season with my friends here before we all traveled to our home states to be with family.


Once I arrived home in MI, I immediately missed the mountains and palm trees of CA. Luckily I got to see jsut about everyone I needed to see in my short visit home. This picture is the Forgacs Family photo for 2006. No we did not send this out...but we thought about it since it took at least an hour to get one with all of our eyes open!

Some highlights from my time in MI would have to include (in no partiular order):

-working out with mom and showing her some new moves

-seeing the Schroeder's on Christmas and meeting Lucy, finally!

-traveling to at least 5 different places on Christmas day

-hanging out in Northville with Melody and the SAE boys from CMU

-making kifli with grandma Forgacs

-eating like a king at the Bakarich's house with extended family

-shopping with dad for alarm clocks and running shoes

-the Sexy 6 reunion at the Dirty Martini

-chatting it up with grandma and grandpa T and getting lots of good $ tips from grandpa!

-eating and drinking at ESS with mom and dad, and then doing it again with Grandma and Patti!

-having birthday cake for Jesus with Opa and Jane

-the class of 2001 reunion at the club

-seeing my boy Stevie and the WW

-catching up with Nicole until 2am on Christmas Eve

-gossiping with my Amy and Katherine over espresso martinis

-shopping with MT and eating hippie hash downtown AA!

Upon my arrival back to Palm Springs I immediately went shopping for a New Years Eve party dress! I got it for $21, what a steal! It looked smashing with my new fur stole that mom got me before I left MI!

This is Wendy, Robb and I with our SWEET 2007 glasses compliments of my mother...we were of course the hit of the party with these. After this classy party we went to, we headed to Agua Caliente to ring in the new year and wrap up the evening. A good time was had by all!

Back to Reality

I'm now nicely settled back in Palm Springs and realizing that I've been a terrible blogger!! So much has happened since my last blog...not sure where to begin. I guess I'll just start off with brief recap of my week and then this weekend I'll play catch up. Although the holidays were great with all the family and friends, I have to say the California weather was nice to come back to. The past few weeks were a bit chilly so I busted out my wool coats for the morning and evening. The top of the mountains have a bit of snow!! It has been in the forties in the morning, but luckily by afternoon the seventies warm things up.

School has been good especially since we haven't had a full week yet. All these 4 day weeks make the time fly by. This coming week we have a 2 days of Professional Development too so no school those days either. I had my final evaluation this week for the observations my administrator does. I recieved all 3s (which is the highest) and one 2 in the assessment category because he wasn't able to observe this in my quick 40 minute period. I feel really good about this and just the confidence boost of being told that I'm doing a good job is uplifting. Also, my administrator has really helped to clear up some of the issues I was having in my 5th period class. I feel much more comfortable in there now that the kids know I know what is going on.

Today I got my test scores back from the CTEL that I took in December. I passed Modules 2 and 3, but not Module 1. I am pretty happy with this though since it was difficult and most people don't even pass 2 out of the 3 their first time. I will just have to take that last one in June again.

As for other stuff...friends here are good, I'll blog about last weekend's trip to San Diego and such tomorrow. I've been a "6 day a weeker"at the gym for the past three weeks. I've started going to some of the classes and I really love them. I'm a regular at the TKB (kickboxing) class on Mondays and Wednesdays, and Saturday I do the Step class. I'm still working with my trainer and doing my usual 4mi run...which is so great with my new shoes...they are like pillows for my feet! I tried a spinning class this week and OMG I thought I was going to die. Great workout, but whoa that was a class and a half!

I guess that sums things up for now. I'm back to the old grind...vacation is officially over!