A Computer Blessing

Thank goodness for blogs and Facebook. I know it's kind of lame, but because of awesome computer-ness, I feel like I'm still very close to a lot of people who are far away. I just reconnected with some old roommates and discovered old inside jokes never die. I can also see my family who live far away and watch their cute kids grow up. Thank you to the computer and internet gods! :)

The Ups and Downs of Christmas Time

I think I've just been through the craziest week of my life. My students were beyond insane this whole week, but that's to be expected. The fun really started on Thursday when we had our school "Let It Snow" musical program. We were in charge of teaching our own classes the songs and actions. The second grade got to do "I'm Getting Nothing For Christmas" and the "Chipmunk Christmas Song." Teaching the kids to sing a song is one thing, but getting 47 eight eight-year-olds to do actions at the same time is a different story. I learn all the action backwards so I could mirror them. So for the show, which was packed with family, friends, and random old people, I got to sit in front and do the actions with them. The absolute best part was during the first part of the Chipmunk song, the kids were supposed to sway. Right, left, right, left, stop. That was all. Getting 47 kids to sway at the same time...entertaining, to say the least. Two kids came within 2 inches of cracking their skulls together and one other almost fell over because they were swaying so big.

If that wasn't fun enough, Friday was, and I quote, "the best day of school ever!!!" Our school did a canned food drive and my class collected the most so we got to have a hot chocolate party, which turned out to mean that I got cups and hot chocolate mix and was on my own. The kids loved the whole thing. Then in the afternoon we had our class party which was crazy. The kids flew through all the games and crafts in twenty minutes, but it all worked out pretty good. I should have know something was going to go bad. It was too easy.

I survived the insanity of the last day because I just kept telling myself that I was flying home in less then 24 hours. So last night I packed and cleaned and got everything ready to go. Got up this morning at 6:30 so I could get to the airport in plenty of time for my 10:15 flight. We pulled up in front of the Sky Cap and there was no line. I was like "Wow, the airport gods are smiling on me." WRONG!!! When the guy asked where I was flying to and I said Philadelphia, he said, "No your not." Everything from Connecticut to Virginia is buried under a huge snow storm. They weren't even delaying the flights, they just full-on canceled everything.

When I tried to call Delta, they were so busy that you didn't even get to sit on hold. So I called my roommate Abby, who had driven me, and told her to circle back around and park. Then she was nice enough to come in and wait in line with me for about two hours to get on another flight. At least it was entertaining watching what different people wear to fly. We saw everything from the pink crushed velvet track suit to the lady wearing silettos and a full-length fur coat. And plus, we saw the best mullet of our lives and we never did figure our if it was a guy or girl. :)

The whole time we were standing in line, I kept reminding myself to have a positive attitude and not yell at anybody. It wasn't there fault I was stuck. This turned out to be what saved me. When it was finally my turn, I was as pleseant as can be and the ticket agent did everything she could. She worked for about 10 minutes to get me the first seat possible. While she was working, a guy came up behind me and was yelling about how the airline had screwed up and he needed to go in 30 minutes. Because of his crappy attitude, nobody wanted to help him. Lesson learned: a smile and a happy attitude will get you a long way.

So now I'm still in Utah, but I have a flight out Sunday night/Monday morning at 12:55 and I'll get to Philadelphia around 10:30 on Monday. Yes, it's annoying and it messes up my plans, but I'll still get home and before Christmas, so it's all good.

Your Life May Be Pathetic...

-If you get way over-excited about using the vacuum-sucker-tube bank system for the first time.

-When your 8 year old students start pointing out your zits, asking "Why do you have a big red bump on your face?"

-If the teenage clerk at Bed, Bath, & Beyond calls you "Ma'am."

-You go to a wedding reception of a person you used to baby-sit, before you're married.

-You show up a day early for said reception.

-If you get upset when you lose to chance to win a toy AFLAC duck.

-When you know only about 5 people are even going to read this. :)

I'm a Survivor

I lived through the first round of this years parent-teacher conferences. Wow, they really went all out this year. I always am really nervous because there are always parents who question me because of my age. It doesn't help that they all seem to think that I'm only about 20. Then I had to explain to three parents why their children were failing math. They never turned in any homework (ever), and even though I send home progress reports every other week, this somehow came as a huge shock. And of course it was somehow my fault. :)

I think the worst one was a parent who I never have had a good experience with. She came in with both guns loaded, ready to protect her child from anything negative I was going to tell her. And then for the next hour she told me every negative thing that has happened in her life and her child's life, 1% of which would have any effect on her schooling. I do want to know and understand my students, but I do not need to know about all the messy details. BWHAAAA!!!

Awesome Stuff That Happened Recently

Yeah, so I'm really slow at posting cool stuff anywhere, so now there gets to be a ton of cool stuff all together. And when you see them all together, you get a glimpse into the awesome-ness of my life. :)

Half way through the month of October, my school has our Fall Break. The dates are chosen to coincide with hunting season... yeah, we're cool in Utah. Months back, my former roommate, Staci, who was seriously the bestest roomie (after Abby of course), invited Abby and I to visit her in Vegas. Plus it was her birthday, so we really, really had to go.

We couldn't leave until Friday evening because Abby had to work. So we set off and the fun ensued. Abby and I in a car for long periods of time usually ends in laughter and mild to extreme stupidity. We had been driving for an hour or so, and the sun was starting to get in one of those annoying spots where the visor ceases to be helpful. Now, you have to know an interesting fact about Abby. She worships the sun, loves to be in it, but hates when it's in her eyes. She shouts at the top of her lungs, "MY EYES, MY EYES!!!" Since the evil sun would not hide behind the sun visor like it was supposed to, Abby started to get frustrated. I should have been worried when she started to play with the visor, wishing that it could bend in different ways. Next thing I know SNAP!

She snapped in clean off. Didn't even leave a stump behind.

But then Abby, being the inventive, creative person that she is, found that she could use a broken visor as her own personal, where-ever-you-need-it visor. The sun never had to be in her eyes again.

So to make me fell better about breaking part of my baby, Abby apologize about 7,000 times and then entertained me the rest of the way to Vegas (also 4 hours). Man, was she tired. :)

Then, in the not so distant future, in was my birthday. I became an official Old Maid by become 26. As traditional goes, Abby made me the coolest cake of my life. Two years ago, it was a caterpillar (so cute!), and last year was a whole beach scene (including Fruit Stripe gum surfboards and Teddy Grahams wearing icing swim-suits).

Since I was OBSESSIVELY watching the Phillies in the post season, Abby decided to make me a baseball cake, including the Philadelphia Phillie, which she didn't know at the time, but I have loved him since I was 4. He turned out so cute! (She made sure he had a big butt.)

After the awesome-ness of my cake, it was soon Halloween, which is my second favorite holiday. I LOVE making costumes and dressing up. And now that we've graduated from Trick-or-Treating and switch to dancing, it's even better. Abby continued with her theme of cool movie characters which people seem to have trouble recognizing in costume form.

This year she went for the lady from "The Birds." And yes those are crows, feathers, and painted on fake blood on that awesome suit. I discovered that I apparently have a great talent for painting on fake blood.

I start planning for Halloween months in advance, which is a really good idea if you make your own costume and they are award-winning (two years in a row). My friend Brian was helping me brain-storm back in August and he suggested Wonder Woman. I didn't really think anything about it, but a week later, when I was really trying to figure out what to be, Wonder Woman just kept coming up. So I did. Several trips to DI and Jo-Ann's fabric, lots of sewing, gluing, and a lot of iron-on-ing, you get Wonder Woman, the blond version.

My favorite parts are the boots and the Lasso-of-Truth. The boots were tan, mid-calf boots that I spray painted candy apple red. Then I "fashioned" the top half out of red pleather and Velcro.

And this is what you can do with my hair with a hair brush and 5 minutes. AWESOME!!!

Other random things:

• You know your favorite take out place when you start to recognize the staff who work there. You know you go to your favorite take out place when the staff start to recognize you. :)
• My niece, who is basically one of the coolest nieces ever, has her own blog, which is cooler than mine. She's 8.
• You know you're having a rough day as a teacher when the best thing you can say at the end is "We all made it out alive."
• I told my friend to bring me something awesome from Italy for my birthday. She brought me a picture of herself...in Italy.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Never Assume

We had an assembly on Tuesday at school. Ballet West has a school program where they come and teach the kids about ballet then do a little performance. I was terrified about how the kids would act, especially the boys. Turns out, I had absolutely nothing to worry about. They sat still for the whole program, which was an hour long. They LOVED it. The only thing I had to do was keep them from standing up to see the dancers toes. They even told me they loved the music. The performance was a 15 minute version of "The Sleeping Beauty." They loved Tchaikovsky's music. All of them were dancing around at recess. It was so cute.

Yeah for free stuff!

To celebrate Labor Day, Abby and I went to Seven Peaks for our last hoorah. The season passes were so worth it. We had already gone in the water once and were just laying out to dry off. There was a little family in front of us and they were packing up to go. The wife turned to us and asked if we wanted their rented tubes ($5 a piece). We jumped at the chance, because you can't use the free tubes in the lazy river or wave pool. We then spent the next two hours floating around Seven Peaks. We went around the Lazy River about 3 times. I was so relaxed I looked like I was dead.
Then we took them into the wave pool. We went in before the waves started to get used to it first. We've seen many people biff it getting into their tubes with the wave machine going. I didn't have any trouble with mine, but Abby was a different story. When she would get in, her legs would go straight up into the air. Then when she was trying to readjust or get comfy, she leaned back to far and disappeared. From then on, I wasn't allowed to let go of her tube. She even used the Death Grip on my leg when I let go for 5 seconds.
All and all, an awesome way to spend your last official day of summer.