On being sick...

NOT A FAN...

Whoa! Sorry!

Ok people...first of all I want to apologize for the 2 month hiatus I took from blogging.  I guess I just haven't had any random experiences that I have found worth embarrassing myself on the internet about!

As the year draws to a close I figured I should do something to recap the year but now that I think about it, there isn't much to tell that hasn't already been stated...

I could make a list of my resolutions for the new year but I have never been known to make and/or keep said resolutions so I don't think that will work either...

Alright so I have just lost my inspiration to continue writing...yikes, not good...that only took about 10 minutes!  Basically I wanted to write to let you know that I haven't forgotten about you...all 3 of you...I just haven't had the time/inspiration/patience to sit down and write.

One resolution for the new year...keep you better updated on the happenings of my life.

I hope you had a fantastic Christmas spent with family and friends and that you have a wonderful and safe time celebrating this year and bringing in the new one!  Lots of love is being sent to all of you!

Why is it almost Monday already?

I am not a fan of daylight saving time! The 'falling back' one hour part is kinda nice but not really worth its 'spring forward' counterpart. Yeah I know it is only one hour but I really think that my body was going to allow me to sleep another hour this morning, which is not normal recently (ie Saturday morning I woke up at 7:30 with no chance of falling back asleep).

I also don't really know where my weekend went...actually I do, I showed some signs of actually having a life and BAM...weekend over.

Really my weekend was jam packed with stuff.
- Awesome country concert on Friday night courtesy of Steel Magnolia, Easton Corbin, and Blake Shelton!
- Nail-biting ACC Tournament Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Disappointing ending for my Heels :(
- Getting my read on - I have been slack lately on reading so I read one all the way through and started another. The first was a sweet fiction book about a middle child that feels Stuck in the Middle with two sisters that have amazing lives and opportunities while she continues to be a 'plain-Joan' that brought real tears to my eyes and down my cheeks and demonstrated how chocolate ice cream has the power to drastically alter a person's life. I also started an interesting non-ficiton memoir-type that was recommended to me by one of my BFFs Maggie Same Kind of Different As Me that has already made me laugh and want to cry.

This has been a GREAT weekend and I guess I just don't want it to be over yet.

So I figure there has been a lot to keep me busy and not notice the time flying by. Knowing this still does not make me excited to go back to work tomorrow. I pray for a better attitude when I wake up.

Snow!

Ok I'm not gonna lie. I LOVE SNOW! I love that it gives me an excuse to be lazy and stay inside in front of the tv all day. (Do I really need an excuse though?) I think that it is beautiful - before people mess it up with their cars and walking through it. I love to watch people out having snowball fights and building snowmen.

I also enjoy the occasional Snow Day off from school. But for some reason right now I am not thrilled to be out of school. My students have a project that they are working on and some can't really get it done at home without resources we have at school. Also as I am a control freak I don't like to have to rearrange my lesson plans and schedules to accommodate interruptions. I mean, I have my plans set through March and into April already - that's how controlling I am.

But alas, I have today and most likely tomorrow off due to this winter storm. Can I be productive during this time? If so, what do I do?

Oh wow!

It's been 18 days since my last post and I'm not really sure that you have missed much. Back to the same ol', same ol' - sleep, work, sleep, work. Although, you might be interested to know one of my "sleep" stories...so let's start there.

I have been having trouble getting up and going the past few weeks so sometimes I skip breakfast or just grab something (a pack of cookies) on the way out. So on Monday, before I went to bed I decided that I REALLY wanted cinnamon rolls for breakfast the next morning. In my head I knew I made the plan and there was no way I was backing down. I go to bed about 10ish, like normal. So here comes the weird "sleep" story part. I wake up and the look at the clock and see 12:00 and I get up. YEP, I see 12:00, as in midnight, and get up thinking it is 5:00am. It was like my brain was interchanging numbers to try to make this make sense. ANYWAYS...I get up and turn the oven on to start pre-heating. When I finally go to put the cinnamon rolls in the oven, I just set them in and close the door, look at the clock again and see 12:34. Double take, WHAT 12:34!!! What the heck? Why am I up? What in the world am I doing? A normal person may say "crap" and then just throw the cinnamon rolls out. NOT ME!! I REALLY wanted those cinnamon rolls so I stay up for 15 more minutes while they bake, buzzer goes off, I take them out and put them on the stove, turn oven off, and crawl back in bed. When I finally wake up at the actual 5:00am I warm them back up and put the icing on them. When I told a colleague at work this story she says "so you were like sleep-walking. Well sleep-cooking really." My roommate has told me that I can't plan to use the oven early in the morning any more just in case.

Now I have gotten up at a crazy time like 2:30, turn the shower on, recheck the clock and realize, turn the shower off and then go back to sleep. This time, not so much.

We have over 300 kids in 6th grade with only 10 teachers, sometimes our classes reach numbers of 34+ so we finally found out we would be getting relief - an extra Social Studies teacher (for 1 class period), Math teacher (for 2 class periods), and a Science teacher (for 1 class period). Yesterday (Friday) I see about 12 new schedules in my box to hand out to students on Monday to make these changes happen. So we will see what the 17th day of school looks like when these 6th graders worlds are turned upside down! More to come I am sure.

Also, did you realize what time I am posting this? Before 9am on a Saturday. That's because on Friday's I get up a 5, work all day, hang out with some work friends after school, come home and go to bed at normal time 10ish. At least my body gave me 2.5 extra hours of sleep. But seriously, I was hoping to sleep til 10 at least! Oh well...whomp whomp whomp.

Yep...

To say that this weekend has been relaxing is an understatement and not even exactly the feeling that I am having right now.

Friday night I came home from school and started reading a book. I finished the book at about 1:30 am and was very happy about the fact that I could do that with no worries about the next day.

Saturday I stayed in (well out on the balcony) all day reading another book - which I finished before the sun went down. That night I went to hang out with some friends and stayed up really late. It was fun but very, what's the world "chill"? Without anything exciting? Nice? I don't know - left me wanting more?

Sunday, I proceeded to lounge, lay, sit, nap in the living room all day watching "The Love Saga" on Hallmark. (Some of my all time favorite stories/movies.) I got the apartment cleaned up during commercial breaks and did some laundry. Oh...I even alphabetized my CDs. That was my day.

Today, Monday, a holiday from school, I watched movies in the morning and started a new book this afternoon. Now I am watching Friday's episode of General Hospital - but not really watching because there aren't any good story lines at the moment.

So...that sums up my long weekend. SUPER exciting, right? Although I really really needed a weekend of doing nothing - having no plans, not being responsible for anything - I think I took that a little overboard. I need some excitement in my life. I need some adventure - books and movies can only accomplish so much. As much as I love to imagine my life as it could have been in 19th century England, or the American frontier, or modern day Oregon falling in love with the doctor saving my father from a heart attack, I have to realize that this...is my life.

In this season of my life I am sitting and waiting although I confess I don't believe that I am spending my single life exactly as the Lord has called me to do. I should be spending my time with Him. He will show me where my life is supposed to lead - IF it should lead to a certain someone or something. I feel like I am allowing my life to stay sedentary, almost accepting that this is my life forever. Is that the case? I don't really know. But isn't that supposed to make it interesting? Not knowing what is going to happen?

I don't know how I got a tangent or what the answers to my questions are but I do know that in the foreseeable future I know that I have 8 school days with kids left, a beach weekend in between to celebrate the wedding of a friend from college, and lots of mistakes (maybe a few triumphs) in there as well.

Where am I going? What will I be doing when I get there? God only knows - FOR REAL!

A wonderful hodge-podge (sp?)

So...it has been an interesting evening!

We had/are having torrential downpours outside plus severe thunderstorm warning plus tornado warning plus hail warning - which my new car (ahem truck) was so NOT excited about! So yeah - that was fun!

Also, LC and I were discussing new names for our balconies. She is going with the island feel so she is going to call hers a lanai. I watch my soaps all the time and they call there patios and balconies terraces so that is what I am going with. Now, even though I am online I have no desire slash time to look up the meanings of these terms to know if they are being used correctly. (It is already past my bedtime for a Sunday night.) So terrace it is!

Now on to the real reason for this post...school!

Of course I brought work home with me for the weekend and of course I waited until about 7 pm on Sunday to get started on it. My students are researching countries in Africa and Asia and are writing a short paper about those countries. Most of the papers start off with a line or two or five like this:

Hello! My name is (insert name) and I am going to tell you about the culture of Japan that I think was really fun to study about and I am really excited to tell you allot about it. So here we go!

Yep!

And then one of my kids wrote about the geography but his concluding line said this:

Hopefully one day in the future I will be able to study about the geography of Japan!

Well buddy, since your whole paper was already about the geography of Japan, I am so happy that I have been able to make that dream of your come true! I mean really. IDK!

Oh and of course I got many papers that were copied and pasted from several websites. Not only was the writing style and vocabulary waaaaaay over the head of a seventh grader, but its chunked in several different fonts and there are underlined portions that are probably hyperlinked. So, yeah! That's what I've got!

And also I just realized I have written - so, yeah - a few times in this post. Not really sure what that means but I'm thinking that things have been so ridiculous that there really hasn't been anything else to say.

Anyway - gotta get to bed 'cause this girl needs her beauty sleep FO' REAL!

I guess it happened...

...well as you can see I was correct in my original assumption that my life is completely uninteresting and have few things that people would actually like to know about my life.

I haven't posted anything recently because there really hasn't been anything to say. So let me bring you up to speed and you'll see what I mean.

Kids are getting restless (as am I) because school is almost out - in 5 weeks - 23 days!!!!! I guess that is kind of exciting. My principal has commented that we have to "tie a knot at the end of the rope and hang on tight." I guess that means "hold on for dear life, it could get crazy." I am definitely seeing that happen.

OK...what else?

Oh, I got a "big girl" car today. Its an SUV but the salesman actually called it a truck because apparently in the car business there are cars and there are trucks...everything falls into one of those categories. So...I guess I am a truck driver now! What makes this a "big girl" car? Well, it is loaded with lots of gadgets that I really don't need and some of which I will rarely to never use but they are super cool and fun to have. So OK I guess that is exciting also.

Whatever...if you are still reading this then you are a trooper - you also probably already know about this.

Anyway - til the next time.

How bo-ring!

Um so basically any time I start to tell a fun anecdote or story it ends up being something that happened at school. If you get me in a room with one other teacher - namely the bff LC - I could go on and on. I am sure that anyone who is not a teacher and is listening is thinking to themselves "Why do I care? Why does she keep going on and on?" Well the answer to those questions is: I have no life and that is the one thing that basically fills my days, nights, thoughts, and sometimes - unfortunately - my dreams/nightmares.

Now don't get me wrong, I do other SUPER exciting things like watch TV, read fun books, sit on the balcony and see people in my neighborhood, and have a weekly dinner with some friends in town but even those things are not that exciting to other people.

I do get bored with my life every once in a while but most days it really exciting...definitely a fun adventure! If you can get past my quirky stories of 12 year olds at school, you may get a fun story about the hockey players that live in my neighborhood or the "snuggle buddies" C and I have. The decision is yours!

Blah...

So, don't ask me why but I am in a "blah" mood today. Nothing major happened at school - or at least nothing that doesn't usually happen. The kids get on my nerves one minute and the next minute we are cracking up. My lessons the past two weeks plus part of next week are really good. I just don't know what I am feeling. Not happy, not sad, not depressed, not excited, not content, not stressed, not anything. Just blah!

How do I get out of my blah mood?