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.