A Forced March

March is usually pretty similar to October around these parts:  every weekend is chock-full of social plans and obligations, while the weekdays drag on maddeningly slow.

My students this year, as much as I love them, have been driving me crazy this month.  Testing season is in full-force, and Summer is so far off in the distance that it feels like it's never going to show up.  Everyone is burnt out with school, and I feel like a slave driver constantly forcing them forward through curriculum.  Spring Break could have very well lasted two weeks this year.  I'm sure all parties involved would have been cool with it.

Aside from St. Patrick's Day, a slew of Girl Scout crap, play dates, and house-hunting, not much else happened.  My brother Chris announced he and his wife, Nicole, were expecting twins, I sold my first record on Discogs (a Pearl Jam LP) for a cool $200 (seriously), and. . . that's about it.

Check out this month's assortment of randomness from the Hough Family:

One of my students gave me this autographed poster from a concert he and a few other kids performed at with some rock and roll has-beens.  In case you needed validated proof that I 'rawk,' the guitarist from Boston said so.  Tell your friends.

Found this one day after a class left.  I should probably invest in some cleaning supplies at work one of these days. . .

New additions to the House clan:  Chris and Nicole's thumb-sized twins.

Found this old chestnut in one of my boxes of books.  Figured Chris has far more use for it now than I do.

Kris took the girls to Clare one day to visit her mom, so Yours Truly took the opportunity to kick some more ass in Mass Effect 3 -  a rarity these days.

One Saturday, taking the girls out to the Roll Arena for the afternoon (featuring a rare glimpse of Alayna actually rollerskating instead of playing arcade games.)

Abby racing around the track

One day during the middle of the month, Kris and I were dumb enough to take the girls out mattress shopping with us.  NO idea why we thought that would be a good idea.  Here's our kids screwing around on a mattress we didn't end up buying, at Dan Dan the Mattress Man in Midland.

Guess how much these animal-loving girls loved seeing this dead, stuffed wolf?

I picked this up for St. Patrick's Day. . . I'm a big fan of craft beer and Jameson, so I was hoping this shit would go together as well as Chocolate and Peanut Butter.  Sure, it was good, but not worth the increase in price from a normal bottle of Jameson. You could barely taste the difference.

St. Patrick's Day technically fell on a Friday this year, so here's the girls all Irish'ed up and ready for school.

There was a carnival at Chestnut Hill after school, so Kris took the girls back up to that and let them play a few crappy carney games while I packed up for our annual St. Patty's stint in Clare.  Surprisingly enough, Alayna won a cake in the cake walk. . . something Yours Truly repeatedly tried to do back during my Elementary years, but to no avail.

Healthy dinner.

After Kris and the girls returned from the Carnival at their school, we dropped the girls off with Mom and met up with Chris and Nicole at the Midland Center for the Arts.  We had bought tickets for a one man production of - no joke - the entire original Star Wars trilogy.  I had a quick tinge of anxiety when someone asked me which Star Wars trilogy I was going to see, but fortunately I was spared having to sit through some random dude interpreting the God-awful Prequels.  They even had Bell's Two Hearted on tap, which they served in a bizarre sippy-cup sorta thing, but it was appreciated.  In the end, the guy did a pretty good one man show of the trilogy (but the beer definitely helped.) 

More selfies with Mom. . .

Playing with Shopkins, surrounded by mountains of cardboard (we're still packing, and still looking for a new home - it's LOADS of fun. . .)

At some Girl Scout cultural. . . thing.  I don't know, I wasn't there.  Here we have the Cannonball along with two of her friends, Madi and Samantha.  I'm guessing they're playing the part of Guatemalans. . .

Es muy bueno.

Seloske gave me this in 2006.  As a member of the Pearl Jam Fan Club, he received merch from the band once and awhile, and they accidentally sent him two identical LPs of this, so he gave me one.  Had he known that the record was incredibly rare, he probably wouldn't have done so.  I only listened to it once or twice, so decided to sell it on Discogs.  Some guy in Colorado ended up buying it for $200, which was good news for both of us:  he ended up scoring a great record in perfect condition (the cover had a little wear, as you can see, but that's it) and I ended up with a decent chunk of change.  Too bad I don't have more of these lying around in the collection. . .

- Brian