Well, it's New Year's Eve again. I remember last year on this day I was writing about flying home to Vegas and reflecting on a relatively tough 2012. WELL, I can say that 2013 was a blast and that I'm actually kind of sad to see it go. Sure, being apart from Rex for almost six months of it was kind of horrible, but I think our marriage is a lot stronger because of it and we both learned a lot about ourselves in that process, so... I think it's all okay. Especially because he's home now. :-) Here's some 2013 highlights (not in order)....
1. Teaching fifth grade - so fab.
2. Cross country road trip with Jake and Jagtlyn (which encompasses a few of my next items)
3. Seeing the Grand Canyon
4. Watching Rex freak out like a kid on Christmas morning when we went to the Duck Commander warehouse
5. Meeting a weird Andy Griffith-obsessed herpetologist in New Mexico
6. Swimming under waterfalls in Tennessee
7. Watching my sister win the state championships in softball
8. Reconnecting with old friends when we moved back to Michigan
9. Fostering pugs
10. Getting a new job and loving it
11. Living 0.5 miles away from my job instead of 35 miles like last year
12. Getting a book published (that happened in February - I almost forgot it was this year)
13. Having three magazine articles published
14. Playing with Elvis in our new fenced-in backyard
15. Hanging out with my siblings and actually becoming friends rather than "see you at holidays" family
16. Watching MSU win the Rose Bowl (oh wait, that's tomorrow. I'm still including it!)
Yep, I'd say it was a pretty good year. It's going to be tough to top that in 2014, but we'll see what God has in store! Happy New Year, everyone!
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Christmas Caroling
I love my dad. He's seriously one of my favorite people in the whole world. One of the things I love about him is that it's impossible to be with him and not have fun. He brings cheer wherever he goes, and this becomes especially fun at Christmas. Every year for the past ten years, my dad has requested that as his Christmas present the whole family go Christmas caroling in the neighborhood. We always grumble and say, "Seriously? We're doing this AGAIN?" But secretly we always love it.
Have you heard my dad sing? No? Well, have you heard a cat yowl after its tail got stepped on? It's basically the same thing. As a matter of fact, no one in my family is particularly musical. Cara's got a pretty good voice, but no one hears it over my dad's hollers of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing." Every year I think we're going to completely humiliate ourselves, but here's the thing: no one cares that we're bad! They're always just so happy to have "old fashioned carolers" come by their house. Sometimes the fact that we're bad works to our advantage, because then the people at the door decide to sing along with us and that helps drown out the bad notes a little bit.
This year we went to Chicago the weekend before Christmas to visit my aunts and uncles. My dad declared that rather than give up his traditional caroling, we would just do it in my uncle's neighborhood! Actually, this sounded like a great idea to me - I never have to see any of those people again.
We all (11 of us!) bundled up and went out caroling. It was a lot of fun, just as it is every year. Here were a few of my highlights:
1. One crazy lady loved us so much that she offered us a bottle of wine and $20! We said no, obviously, since caroling is our gift to them and we're not doing it for money. The lady got super mad and was like, "What the hell?! That shit don't fly here! You have to take something!!" Uh....walk away quickly, children, walk away. My cousins are 7 and 9. What a great display of Christmas cheer for them to see. Eeeek!
2. We walked up to one house just as a man was getting out of his car. My dad said, "Hurry up, guys, SING NOW!" So we awkwardly stood there and serenaded the one guy as he stood out in front of his garage. When we were finished he knocked on the garage, which I thought was kind of weird because how is someone in the house going to hear him when he's knocking on the garage? To my surprise, the garage door opened and revealed the coolest man cave ever! It seriously looked like a beer commercial waiting to happen. There was a giant screen TV, old couches, neon beer signs on the walls, and tall heat lamps to keep the garage warm. The guy pulled out a cigar and asked if we wanted to watch the Bears game with him and his buddies (who were already in the man cave). We said no, but that place was super cool.
3. We went up to one house and started singing, and two beagles jumped up to the window and started howling (it looked as if they were singing along with us!). We sang with them for a little while until a kid (around six years old) came to the door. He saw us through the side window and was about to answer the door when he looked down and realized that he was in his underwear. Embarrassed, he turned and sprinted up the stairs without opening the door. Ha ha! We just kept singing until his mom came and opened the door for us.
It was another eventful year for Knasel caroling. Now it's Christmas Eve and I'm sitting here blogging even though I should be getting ready for church, but I'm not going to go because poor Rex has been throwing up all day and I have to tend to him. Poor guy! If you read this before tomorrow, pray that he gets better for Christmas! Magic always happens on Christmas Eve, right? It could happen.
Have you heard my dad sing? No? Well, have you heard a cat yowl after its tail got stepped on? It's basically the same thing. As a matter of fact, no one in my family is particularly musical. Cara's got a pretty good voice, but no one hears it over my dad's hollers of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing." Every year I think we're going to completely humiliate ourselves, but here's the thing: no one cares that we're bad! They're always just so happy to have "old fashioned carolers" come by their house. Sometimes the fact that we're bad works to our advantage, because then the people at the door decide to sing along with us and that helps drown out the bad notes a little bit.
This year we went to Chicago the weekend before Christmas to visit my aunts and uncles. My dad declared that rather than give up his traditional caroling, we would just do it in my uncle's neighborhood! Actually, this sounded like a great idea to me - I never have to see any of those people again.
We all (11 of us!) bundled up and went out caroling. It was a lot of fun, just as it is every year. Here were a few of my highlights:
1. One crazy lady loved us so much that she offered us a bottle of wine and $20! We said no, obviously, since caroling is our gift to them and we're not doing it for money. The lady got super mad and was like, "What the hell?! That shit don't fly here! You have to take something!!" Uh....walk away quickly, children, walk away. My cousins are 7 and 9. What a great display of Christmas cheer for them to see. Eeeek!
2. We walked up to one house just as a man was getting out of his car. My dad said, "Hurry up, guys, SING NOW!" So we awkwardly stood there and serenaded the one guy as he stood out in front of his garage. When we were finished he knocked on the garage, which I thought was kind of weird because how is someone in the house going to hear him when he's knocking on the garage? To my surprise, the garage door opened and revealed the coolest man cave ever! It seriously looked like a beer commercial waiting to happen. There was a giant screen TV, old couches, neon beer signs on the walls, and tall heat lamps to keep the garage warm. The guy pulled out a cigar and asked if we wanted to watch the Bears game with him and his buddies (who were already in the man cave). We said no, but that place was super cool.
3. We went up to one house and started singing, and two beagles jumped up to the window and started howling (it looked as if they were singing along with us!). We sang with them for a little while until a kid (around six years old) came to the door. He saw us through the side window and was about to answer the door when he looked down and realized that he was in his underwear. Embarrassed, he turned and sprinted up the stairs without opening the door. Ha ha! We just kept singing until his mom came and opened the door for us.
It was another eventful year for Knasel caroling. Now it's Christmas Eve and I'm sitting here blogging even though I should be getting ready for church, but I'm not going to go because poor Rex has been throwing up all day and I have to tend to him. Poor guy! If you read this before tomorrow, pray that he gets better for Christmas! Magic always happens on Christmas Eve, right? It could happen.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Dear Providence, You're Doing It Right
I love my school. Have I mentioned that before? I LOVE it. It's funny to think how worried I was this summer about how they were going to be too conservative or that they would hate me or that I would hate them and blah blah blah. I love it, and I want to work there for a long time. We'll see what God's plans are for Rex and I next year, but I pray that they include keeping me at Providence.
One of the things I love about Providence is that they keep their priorities straight. You can see it in everything they do: God is #1, family is #2, and everything else in life trails far behind those two things. I could wax on for hours about how they espouse these values on a day to day basis, but I'll spare you the novel. I just want to talk about how they celebrate Christmas.
In every school I've been in previously (both as a teacher and as a student), the day before Christmas Break is a day to party and have fun. We generally eat a lot of cookies, watch a Christmas movie, and do some sort of gift exchange. You know the drill. At Providence, they have a tradition of using the day before Christmas break to spread Christmas cheer to people in the community. They see it as an opportunity to be selfless rather than selfish and to show students what it looks like to care for others.
The day began with splitting up into "teams" to go visit elderly people who live alone and don't have a lot of family around to visit often. This is directly in line with the Bible's teaching to care for widows and to learn from the wisdom of our elders. My car went to visit a woman named Netty. She is 80 years old, and you could tell she had really been looking forward to having us. She had fresh pumpkin bars made and juice to drink. She told us all about when she immigrated to the United States at age 20 because she followed the man she loved even though she didn't know when she would get to see her family again. She talked about her adventures with her husband in Indonesia, China, and a million other places. She talked about the joy of raising their kids together. She talked about the sadness when he passed away in 2000 after 46 years of marriage. It was a fascinating story, and it was so good for the students (and me) to look at the theme of God's love and providence over the span of this woman's whole life. I'm sure it was good for her to have visitors.
After the home visits, the junior high met up again at an area nursing home, where we sang Christmas carols and read Bible verses to the residents there. One ornery old guy had a playground ball that he kept throwing at us from his wheelchair, but that was really funny and the kids kept throwing it back at him (not too hard, don't worry).
After the nursing home visit, each car of students got to choose where they wanted to go out to lunch. My car chose Subway, which was fun. It was a blast to sit down with four of my students and have fun together away from the pressures of school and homework and assessments. It was so funny to talk about our first impressions of each other. I thought they were sheltered and weird; they were worried I was going to be boring and incompetent like their last teacher (their words, not mine. I'm sure she was lovely). We all agreed that actually we all ended up liking each other quite a bit and that we're glad it all worked out the way it did.
Once lunch was finished, we went back to the school for a Christmas chapel and then a Christmas sing-a-long where the families of the students came to school to join in singing Christmas carols. I held someone's baby during the sing-a-long, which was funny because I'm not inherently that mother-y and I was positive that I was going to make the baby cry during the program and embarrass myself by having to go across the entire gym in front of the podium to give him back to his mom. Fortunately he was a good baby. *phew!* We made it through the program unscathed, and I was quite relieved when his mom took him back. She said, "You're going to be a great mom someday," and I just laughed nervously and mumbled out something along the lines of "Thanks" and refrained from adding, "That is so not going to happen."
All in all, it was a great day. I think that the school's message of looking outside yourself and providing for the community is a great thing to focus on. I wish more schools would do that. My school would be basically perfect if only I could wear nail polish... I may or may not have gone with one of my teacher friends to get manicures immediately after school today. Two weeks of painted nails ahead! Paaaartay!
Yay for the true meaning of Christmas Break - community service and sparkly nails.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Surprises
This was the best weekend I've had in months. It was a total and 100% BLAST, and it all started with a fun surprise.
My plan was to have a girls' weekend with my friend Katie. I'm in her wedding in July, and we were going to spend the whole weekend planning. I love weddings and I love Katie, so obviously this was going to be fun. On Friday, though, her fiancé called me and asked if I would mind if he came up to see her (He's living in Ohio and she's in Traverse City, so Kalamazoo is actually a pretty good meeting point). He wanted to make it a big surprise since she didn't think she was going to get to see him until New Year's. I'm all on board for romantic plans and giving Katie a chance to see her fiancé, but I was a little bummed because it meant that we weren't going to have our "girls' weekend" and that I would probably end up being a third wheel in my own house for the whole three days. I was picturing the newly engaged couple being all googly on each other while I sat in a corner eating a box of twinkies and wishing my husband was in town so I didn't feel like such a loser.
Let's just say that Katie and Chris are super awesome, and it didn't end up being like that at all! We had so much fun. Katie arrived first, so we ate some pizza and had girl time while we (I) waited for Chris to arrive. He wasn't due to be to my house until about midnight, so we had to stay up a while. Finally he arrived and texted that he was waiting outside the front door - could I send Katie out? Well, there's really no logical way to get someone to open your front door. Think about it. There isn't. Finally I went to the kitchen to clean something and said, "Hey, I was supposed to get a letter today - would you mind checking the mail to see if I got it?"
Okay, I know that's lame. I KNOW. But I couldn't think of anything else. It worked, so I guess that's what matters. Katie was so happy to see Chris, and Chris was happy to come in out of the cold. He ate some of our pizza, and we sat and talked for a while. It was good to see him - I really enjoy both Chris and Katie. Just as I was about to suggest we start heading to bed, Elvis started howling like mad from the kitchen. I went to go investigate, but I didn't see what he was howling at. I went back to the living room, and Chris and Katie asked for a tour of the house. We were in the office when the doorbell rang. That's super ominous at 1 AM! I was really creeped out and thought maybe the neighbors had come to yell at me for how loud Elvis was being, so I peeked out of the door only to see that no one was there. I thought I heard someone at the back door, and I started to get really freaked out. I made Chris go check the door because I was scared of every murderer/thief/rapist that I've ever seen on the news. Chris checked the door for me, but he said no one was there. It must have been a ding-dong-ditch. My heart was going about a million miles an hour - who was walking around outside my house at 1 AM?!
I went to go investigate the back door myself since Chris had said the coast was clear, but when I rounded the corner into the kitchen I saw a very familiar figure wearing a cowboy hat and holding a dozen roses.
REX WAS HOME!!!!!!!!!
I screamed (half out of being startled and half out of joy) and ran and jumped on him (I think I crushed a couple of the flowers...oops). I
thought he was on a hunting trip, but NOPE! He came home to surprise me! Apparently the entire thing had been a setup - Katie knew Chris was coming the whole time. They had set up this whole "couples weekend" without me knowing and had just made up the Chris "surprise" since he would be arriving first. I was 100% shocked and SO happy. We had so much fun that I really can't describe it all here... we baked and decorated cookies, we went downtown and listened to a jazz band while eating delicious food, we walked around the park and looked at the Christmas lights, we had an epic snowball fight, we played way too much euchre, we drove around in the horrible blizzard while rocking out to "Feliz Navidad," and we had Rex's family over for an awesome soup lunch after church today. It was seriously the best weekend ever.
My friends rock.
My husband rocks.
My life rocks.
Merry Christmas!
My plan was to have a girls' weekend with my friend Katie. I'm in her wedding in July, and we were going to spend the whole weekend planning. I love weddings and I love Katie, so obviously this was going to be fun. On Friday, though, her fiancé called me and asked if I would mind if he came up to see her (He's living in Ohio and she's in Traverse City, so Kalamazoo is actually a pretty good meeting point). He wanted to make it a big surprise since she didn't think she was going to get to see him until New Year's. I'm all on board for romantic plans and giving Katie a chance to see her fiancé, but I was a little bummed because it meant that we weren't going to have our "girls' weekend" and that I would probably end up being a third wheel in my own house for the whole three days. I was picturing the newly engaged couple being all googly on each other while I sat in a corner eating a box of twinkies and wishing my husband was in town so I didn't feel like such a loser.
Let's just say that Katie and Chris are super awesome, and it didn't end up being like that at all! We had so much fun. Katie arrived first, so we ate some pizza and had girl time while we (I) waited for Chris to arrive. He wasn't due to be to my house until about midnight, so we had to stay up a while. Finally he arrived and texted that he was waiting outside the front door - could I send Katie out? Well, there's really no logical way to get someone to open your front door. Think about it. There isn't. Finally I went to the kitchen to clean something and said, "Hey, I was supposed to get a letter today - would you mind checking the mail to see if I got it?"
Okay, I know that's lame. I KNOW. But I couldn't think of anything else. It worked, so I guess that's what matters. Katie was so happy to see Chris, and Chris was happy to come in out of the cold. He ate some of our pizza, and we sat and talked for a while. It was good to see him - I really enjoy both Chris and Katie. Just as I was about to suggest we start heading to bed, Elvis started howling like mad from the kitchen. I went to go investigate, but I didn't see what he was howling at. I went back to the living room, and Chris and Katie asked for a tour of the house. We were in the office when the doorbell rang. That's super ominous at 1 AM! I was really creeped out and thought maybe the neighbors had come to yell at me for how loud Elvis was being, so I peeked out of the door only to see that no one was there. I thought I heard someone at the back door, and I started to get really freaked out. I made Chris go check the door because I was scared of every murderer/thief/rapist that I've ever seen on the news. Chris checked the door for me, but he said no one was there. It must have been a ding-dong-ditch. My heart was going about a million miles an hour - who was walking around outside my house at 1 AM?!
I went to go investigate the back door myself since Chris had said the coast was clear, but when I rounded the corner into the kitchen I saw a very familiar figure wearing a cowboy hat and holding a dozen roses.
REX WAS HOME!!!!!!!!!
I screamed (half out of being startled and half out of joy) and ran and jumped on him (I think I crushed a couple of the flowers...oops). I
thought he was on a hunting trip, but NOPE! He came home to surprise me! Apparently the entire thing had been a setup - Katie knew Chris was coming the whole time. They had set up this whole "couples weekend" without me knowing and had just made up the Chris "surprise" since he would be arriving first. I was 100% shocked and SO happy. We had so much fun that I really can't describe it all here... we baked and decorated cookies, we went downtown and listened to a jazz band while eating delicious food, we walked around the park and looked at the Christmas lights, we had an epic snowball fight, we played way too much euchre, we drove around in the horrible blizzard while rocking out to "Feliz Navidad," and we had Rex's family over for an awesome soup lunch after church today. It was seriously the best weekend ever.
My friends rock.
My husband rocks.
My life rocks.
Merry Christmas!
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Persuasive Essays
Just a real quick post for you about Thanksgiving...
The day before Thanksgiving Break, I had my students do a persuasive writing activity in conjunction with the fourth and fifth grade classes (I teach junior high). Students had to choose a writing prompt and write a one(ish) page essay responding to that prompt. Here are some excerpts from a few of my favorites. I LOVE my job. That's really all there is to say about that.
Prompt: Write from the point of view of a turkey and convince people to not eat you.
Response:
I am a nice little innocent turkey, and why do you want to eat me? What did I ever do to you? First reason why you shouldn't eat me: I could be sick with anthrax and you might not notice it. Then you'll be angry for eating me. Turkey is very expensive, and then you'll be broke sitting under an overpass with no bed or house to live in. You will be sitting under a bridge and you won't get a wink of sleep. Then you'll think back and say, "I'm so stupid that I got that expensive turkey." Your cook may be dumb and blind and might not cook me thoroughly. He might not have killed me thoroughly, and when you go to eat it my nerves might react and my wings or legs might flop over the table and your wife might faint because of the awful sight. I could be very lardy and fat, and your thanksgiving day turkey will be made of big chunks of fat. Next time you think of getting a turkey, just remember the wise turkey who told you the reasons why you shouldn't get a turkey for thanksgiving.
Prompt: Write from the point of view of the pilgrims to convince the Native Americans that you are a friendly people.
Response:
The day before Thanksgiving Break, I had my students do a persuasive writing activity in conjunction with the fourth and fifth grade classes (I teach junior high). Students had to choose a writing prompt and write a one(ish) page essay responding to that prompt. Here are some excerpts from a few of my favorites. I LOVE my job. That's really all there is to say about that.
Prompt: Write from the point of view of a turkey and convince people to not eat you.
Response:
I am a nice little innocent turkey, and why do you want to eat me? What did I ever do to you? First reason why you shouldn't eat me: I could be sick with anthrax and you might not notice it. Then you'll be angry for eating me. Turkey is very expensive, and then you'll be broke sitting under an overpass with no bed or house to live in. You will be sitting under a bridge and you won't get a wink of sleep. Then you'll think back and say, "I'm so stupid that I got that expensive turkey." Your cook may be dumb and blind and might not cook me thoroughly. He might not have killed me thoroughly, and when you go to eat it my nerves might react and my wings or legs might flop over the table and your wife might faint because of the awful sight. I could be very lardy and fat, and your thanksgiving day turkey will be made of big chunks of fat. Next time you think of getting a turkey, just remember the wise turkey who told you the reasons why you shouldn't get a turkey for thanksgiving.
Prompt: Write from the point of view of the pilgrims to convince the Native Americans that you are a friendly people.
Response:
Dear Savages,
I know that previous explorers have killed your people, spread disease, and made you slaves. That is not why we've come. We strive for peace. If you agree to not storm our forts and wreak havoc on our peaceful civilization, we will not retaliate and burn your teepees to the ground. I would like to extend the olive branch. We pilgrims are having a dinner party. It would be very appreciated if you would bring a dish to pass, or rather, various dishes as it has been a sparse summer. Business casual.
Long live our King,
The Pilgrims
Monday, November 18, 2013
Independent Woman
Rex has been gone for almost five months. GROSS. I hate it. Only 32 more days until he's home for good, but who's counting? I never really realized how dependent I was on him until he was gone. It's handy to have a guy in my life - he lifts the heavy stuff, zips up my dress if I can't reach the zipper, fixes the car when it won't start, etc. Confession: he even braids my hair when I want it braided. I don't know how to braid my own hair, which is actually ridiculous. I just never learned.
Slowly but surely, I'm learning how to do all of "Rex's stuff" on my own. It's weird and oddly satisfying to live on my own. It's like, "Hey, I can do this. Not that I want to...but it's cool that I can." Does that make any sense?
Anyway, today I had an awesome "go me," independent woman experience (please cue "Independent Woman" by Destiny's Child in your head as you read this). My toilet broke, and I panicked. It wasn't clogged - don't think anything nasty, you nasty - but when I got home from school the water was just running and running, and it wouldn't stop. The bowl wasn't overflowed or anything, but it just kept refilling itself for no apparent reason.
Now, we only have one toilet in the house, and I had been teaching all day so I really wanted to use it. Unfortunately, I couldn't. It was running, and the flusher wouldn't do anything to stop it. I immediately picked up my phone to call Rex, but then I remembered that he was hunting and probably wouldn't want to scare all the deer away while he discussed plumbing problems with me. Instead, I called my dad. He didn't answer.
I stared at the toilet, perplexed. I thought about peeing in the shower, but that's disgusting. I thought about getting in my car and driving somewhere else to use their bathroom, but then I thought to myself, "This is ridiculous. You're a college-educated twenty-four year old. You're not going to be defeated by a toilet."
I spent the next twenty minutes on the internet researching how toilets work. It was actually kind of interesting - have you ever studied the evolution of a modern toilet? Well, I have. I studied diagrams and looked up trouble shooting pages about everything that can go wrong with your toilet (which is apparently a lot of different things). After all of that research I really, really had to go, so I marched back into the bathroom with my newfound knowledge, ready to take on my porcelain foe.
I opened the tank part of the toilet, and I noticed that the flapper was up. WELL, that's supposed to be down when the toilet's not running, so I put it down. Unfortunately, it picked back up. Stubborn little thing. I tinkered around with some parts and took some stuff apart, and finally I lengthened the chain from the flusher doohickey to the flapper thing (my terminology...not sure what they're actually called). Once I lengthened the chain, the toilet water stopped running, and the toilet magically worked! Whooo hoooo! I'm one exposed butt crack away from being a plumber!
Anyway, it was a personal triumph. I beat my toilet. Now if only I could braid my own hair...
Slowly but surely, I'm learning how to do all of "Rex's stuff" on my own. It's weird and oddly satisfying to live on my own. It's like, "Hey, I can do this. Not that I want to...but it's cool that I can." Does that make any sense?
Anyway, today I had an awesome "go me," independent woman experience (please cue "Independent Woman" by Destiny's Child in your head as you read this). My toilet broke, and I panicked. It wasn't clogged - don't think anything nasty, you nasty - but when I got home from school the water was just running and running, and it wouldn't stop. The bowl wasn't overflowed or anything, but it just kept refilling itself for no apparent reason.
Now, we only have one toilet in the house, and I had been teaching all day so I really wanted to use it. Unfortunately, I couldn't. It was running, and the flusher wouldn't do anything to stop it. I immediately picked up my phone to call Rex, but then I remembered that he was hunting and probably wouldn't want to scare all the deer away while he discussed plumbing problems with me. Instead, I called my dad. He didn't answer.
I stared at the toilet, perplexed. I thought about peeing in the shower, but that's disgusting. I thought about getting in my car and driving somewhere else to use their bathroom, but then I thought to myself, "This is ridiculous. You're a college-educated twenty-four year old. You're not going to be defeated by a toilet."
I spent the next twenty minutes on the internet researching how toilets work. It was actually kind of interesting - have you ever studied the evolution of a modern toilet? Well, I have. I studied diagrams and looked up trouble shooting pages about everything that can go wrong with your toilet (which is apparently a lot of different things). After all of that research I really, really had to go, so I marched back into the bathroom with my newfound knowledge, ready to take on my porcelain foe.
I opened the tank part of the toilet, and I noticed that the flapper was up. WELL, that's supposed to be down when the toilet's not running, so I put it down. Unfortunately, it picked back up. Stubborn little thing. I tinkered around with some parts and took some stuff apart, and finally I lengthened the chain from the flusher doohickey to the flapper thing (my terminology...not sure what they're actually called). Once I lengthened the chain, the toilet water stopped running, and the toilet magically worked! Whooo hoooo! I'm one exposed butt crack away from being a plumber!
Anyway, it was a personal triumph. I beat my toilet. Now if only I could braid my own hair...
Friday, November 8, 2013
Why I Was Late For Work Today
Why I was late to work this morning (or, in other words, the letter I didn't actually send to my boss).
Dear Boss,
I'm very sorry that I was late to work this morning. I didn't mean to be. Really, though, it wasn't my fault. You see, I've been living in Nevada for the past few years. We don't believe in snow there. When it snowed last night, that put my whole world into a tailspin.
I woke up this morning, looked out the window, and freaked out. SNOW?!?!?! The magical powder that had been reduced to a distant memory was now suddenly in my life again?! I couldn't decide how I felt about it. Happy? Sad? Angry? Excited? I needed to call a therapist to sort out all of these emotions. Unfortunately, it was 6:30 AM, so I had to soldier on alone.
I decided to proceed with my morning routine as usual. Things were pretty normal when I was in my house, but when I took the dog out for a walk...well...things didn't go as usual. Elvis has never seen snow, you see, so he completely freaked out and wouldn't go to the bathroom. His tail was between his legs, his hair was raised his back, and his legs were spread out in all directions as far as they would go, as if somehow he could avoid the snow if he just stretched out enough. He kept sniffing the snow and then jumping back as if it bit him. I think the coldness surprised him. Do you have a dog, Boss? Have you ever taken him out and he wouldn't go to the bathroom? You can't just take him back inside and LEAVE him there in his cage all day. His bladder will explode! He'll call PETA and they'll take you to animal cruelty jail! I couldn't do that. It would be too horrible (I thought).
But then...after standing in the snow for ten minutes waiting for Elvis to go, I decided to just leave him in his kennel. PETA might call, but I was cold and he was really freaked out by the snow. He was about to go into a full-blown canine panic attack, I could tell. It's more cruel to torture him with fear than to make him have to hold his pee, right? Right. Which brings me to my next point - I need to leave at lunch to let the dog out. I hope that's okay.
So anyway, I finished bringing Elvis inside, then I got my things together and got into my car. Unfortunately, there was ice on the windshield. Now, I remember back in my childhood my parents had a tool called an "ice scraper" that would scrape ice off of the car. Since my car has been in the desert for the past few years, I have no ice scraper. I looked all around the car and in my purse for tools, and the only thing I came up with was a credit card.
I sighed and decided to use my credit card to wipe the ice off of my windshield. I tried to get out of my car but discovered I was stuck. The driver's side door handle is broken, so I have to roll down the window to open the door from the outside. When I went to roll down the window, I discovered that the window was frozen in the "up" position. Fabulous. So I was trapped in my ice cave of a car.
I made my great escape by climbing into the back seat and opening that door. Then I went to the front and executed my (largely unsuccessful) credit card ice scraper plan. I'm pretty sure I got some ice shards in my fingernails, but hey - anything to get to work! Aren't I dedicated?!
I toiled restlessly until I had cleared off enough ice to drive to school, but alas - I was late. A thousand apologies. It won't happen again.
Until it snows again.
Then I make no promises.
Your loyal employee,
Christine
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Catfished
Have you heard the term "catfished"? It's a new term used for when someone dates someone online, but they turn out to be totally different than who they said they were. Example: the person you thought you were talking to was a 26-year-old Channing Tatum look alike, but really it's a 63-year-old sex offender from Hoboken. Get it? Okay, good.
My poor husband is getting catfished. He SWEARS he's not, but if he ends up being sold into slavery in the middle east somewhere, I know I'm looking for "Frank" from the "Upland Bird Hunting Forum."
Rex thinks online dating is the dumbest thing ever. For the record, I don't. I think it's handy. You cut all the crap - you don't have to waste time dating someone for months in order to figure out whether or not they want kids, what they want to do in the next ten years, what their religious beliefs are, etc. It's all laid out for you like a Mates-R-Us store where you can pick exactly what you want. If I hadn't married my high school boyfriend, I bet I would have tried out the online thing. Oh, well. No need. I guess I just got lucky that way.
Anyway, back to catfishing. So my self-professed online dating hater of a husband is going bird hunting next weekend with a guy he's never met. He met him online in a bird hunting forum. Rex is on this forum all the time...it's like facebook for hunters. Really kind of weird, actually, but oh well. He likes it and spends a lot of his (very little) free time on there. Sometimes I go on and post on his threads just so he'll pay attention to me.
Okay, just kidding about that part, but you get the idea.
So Rex met this Frank guy who is also from Michigan, and they've been texting a lot. They've even talked on the phone (so I give it a greater than 50% chance that "Frank" is actually a guy). Frank texts Rex pictures of the birds he gets, and Rex is eager to learn how to hunt with bird dogs. This led to Frank inviting Rex to his bird hunting camp in a few weeks. He's going with a few other guys, and he said Rex could come for free and hang out with them to learn the ropes. Well, that sounds a bit sketchy if you ask me. Want to know what sounds even sketchier?
The place they're going is called "Rainbow Resort."
LOL!!! I am not even joking. That's the name. My husband is so going to be violated. Frank insists that it's not a gay commune or anything (he actually texted that, ha ha), but I am yet to be convinced. Frank apparently has a female girlfriend, but who knows if that's actually true. It could be a cover story. I looked up the website for the resort and it actually looks pretty legit (and not gay), but still. Rex is going to the Rainbow Resort with a guy named Frank who he met online? That's got enough red flags to make a small communist country.
We'll see how this goes. Either Rex has a super cool new hunting buddy or he's going to be featured on an episode of Catfished next year. I'll let you know which when I figure it out.
My poor husband is getting catfished. He SWEARS he's not, but if he ends up being sold into slavery in the middle east somewhere, I know I'm looking for "Frank" from the "Upland Bird Hunting Forum."
Rex thinks online dating is the dumbest thing ever. For the record, I don't. I think it's handy. You cut all the crap - you don't have to waste time dating someone for months in order to figure out whether or not they want kids, what they want to do in the next ten years, what their religious beliefs are, etc. It's all laid out for you like a Mates-R-Us store where you can pick exactly what you want. If I hadn't married my high school boyfriend, I bet I would have tried out the online thing. Oh, well. No need. I guess I just got lucky that way.
Anyway, back to catfishing. So my self-professed online dating hater of a husband is going bird hunting next weekend with a guy he's never met. He met him online in a bird hunting forum. Rex is on this forum all the time...it's like facebook for hunters. Really kind of weird, actually, but oh well. He likes it and spends a lot of his (very little) free time on there. Sometimes I go on and post on his threads just so he'll pay attention to me.
Okay, just kidding about that part, but you get the idea.
So Rex met this Frank guy who is also from Michigan, and they've been texting a lot. They've even talked on the phone (so I give it a greater than 50% chance that "Frank" is actually a guy). Frank texts Rex pictures of the birds he gets, and Rex is eager to learn how to hunt with bird dogs. This led to Frank inviting Rex to his bird hunting camp in a few weeks. He's going with a few other guys, and he said Rex could come for free and hang out with them to learn the ropes. Well, that sounds a bit sketchy if you ask me. Want to know what sounds even sketchier?
The place they're going is called "Rainbow Resort."
LOL!!! I am not even joking. That's the name. My husband is so going to be violated. Frank insists that it's not a gay commune or anything (he actually texted that, ha ha), but I am yet to be convinced. Frank apparently has a female girlfriend, but who knows if that's actually true. It could be a cover story. I looked up the website for the resort and it actually looks pretty legit (and not gay), but still. Rex is going to the Rainbow Resort with a guy named Frank who he met online? That's got enough red flags to make a small communist country.
We'll see how this goes. Either Rex has a super cool new hunting buddy or he's going to be featured on an episode of Catfished next year. I'll let you know which when I figure it out.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Stepford Children
Have you ever seen the movie Stepford Wives? It's about this couple who moves to a new town and all of the women are perfect. They are all gorgeous, they cook and clean, they do whatever their husbands want, and they do it all with style and a smile. They're so perfect that it's creepy.
Well...that's how I've felt during these first few weeks of school. I think I'm teaching the Stepford Children.
I'm teaching at a new school this year, and so far it's great. I'm not complaining about the kids being so good; it's just that it kind of creeps me out. Like, I kind of hear the Twilight Zone theme song playing in the back of my head when I show up to work in the morning. They're that good. Don't believe me? Check this out:
1. I teach junior high, so I have different classes during different hours of the day. Unfortunately I was detained in the hall before third hour one day, so I got to one of my classes a few minutes late. I walked into my classroom, and literally every single student had pulled out a book and was reading silently, awaiting my arrival. WHAT?! At any other school in America there would have been mayhem: paper airplanes flying, girls gossiping in corners, boys swinging from the lights, you get the idea. Not my kids, though. When they get unsupervised free-time they just READ.
2. We had our beginning of the year assembly during the first week of school, and the teachers told their kids to "walk silently into the gym and take your seats." That's normal. Every teacher says that. What's not normal, however, is what followed: the kids actually did it. They walked silently in and sat there - SILENTLY - waiting for the assembly to begin. Even the kindergarteners. Do you know what it's like to be in a gym full of children and have none of them talking?! I do. It's CREEPY. Kids don't do that, ever. It's not natural.
3. My teacher friends know that if kids are crazy when walking down the hall, the teacher will sometimes call them back and make them start again. Well, I looked out of my classroom and saw the kindergarteners walking down the hall. They were absolutely quiet and had their hands to themselves - two things that I've never seen kindergarteners do. Imagine my shock, then, when the teacher said, "Okay guys, we're going to have to go back and try this again..." Want to know why they had to go back? DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY?! The SPACING was wrong between the kids. The kindergarten students had not evenly spaced themselves while walking down the hall. THAT was the issue with their line. I can't handle this.
4. I tried to start a project with my kids, and they all just sat there and worked quietly. Silence freaks me out, so I said, "You know, you guys can talk during work time...it's okay as long as you're still working..." They looked at me as if I was speaking Swedish. Then they went back to silently working. I shrugged and tried to go around the room making myself useful. Finally a girl whispered quietly to the girl next to her and then quickly looked up at me like I was going to yell at her for talking (which, obviously, I did not). Do these kids not know how to have fun?? I've gotten them to loosen up a little bit since then, but holy cow. They're so painfully academic.
5. Want to know what my kids do in their free time? Hmmmm? THEY READ. That's seriously all they do. Well, some of them hunt. They hunt and read. Not a single family in my school owns a television (true story), and every single child is from a two-parent household. After school they go home, exercise outside, spend time with their family, and then read. It's pretty much every teacher's dream. It was (is?) mine too, I guess, but the dream just turned out a little creepier than I imagined.
Classroom management is a strength of mine, and I have no need for it at my new school. I feel like Superman without any superpowers. It's strange. It's definitely an adjustment. I don't think I'm serious enough or disciplined enough for that school yet, but I'm working on it. I never thought my biggest challenge would be getting kids to have fun, but alas. Every year is different. We'll see how this goes. I don't dare complain for fear I'll break the Stepford spell.
Well...that's how I've felt during these first few weeks of school. I think I'm teaching the Stepford Children.
I'm teaching at a new school this year, and so far it's great. I'm not complaining about the kids being so good; it's just that it kind of creeps me out. Like, I kind of hear the Twilight Zone theme song playing in the back of my head when I show up to work in the morning. They're that good. Don't believe me? Check this out:
1. I teach junior high, so I have different classes during different hours of the day. Unfortunately I was detained in the hall before third hour one day, so I got to one of my classes a few minutes late. I walked into my classroom, and literally every single student had pulled out a book and was reading silently, awaiting my arrival. WHAT?! At any other school in America there would have been mayhem: paper airplanes flying, girls gossiping in corners, boys swinging from the lights, you get the idea. Not my kids, though. When they get unsupervised free-time they just READ.
2. We had our beginning of the year assembly during the first week of school, and the teachers told their kids to "walk silently into the gym and take your seats." That's normal. Every teacher says that. What's not normal, however, is what followed: the kids actually did it. They walked silently in and sat there - SILENTLY - waiting for the assembly to begin. Even the kindergarteners. Do you know what it's like to be in a gym full of children and have none of them talking?! I do. It's CREEPY. Kids don't do that, ever. It's not natural.
3. My teacher friends know that if kids are crazy when walking down the hall, the teacher will sometimes call them back and make them start again. Well, I looked out of my classroom and saw the kindergarteners walking down the hall. They were absolutely quiet and had their hands to themselves - two things that I've never seen kindergarteners do. Imagine my shock, then, when the teacher said, "Okay guys, we're going to have to go back and try this again..." Want to know why they had to go back? DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY?! The SPACING was wrong between the kids. The kindergarten students had not evenly spaced themselves while walking down the hall. THAT was the issue with their line. I can't handle this.
4. I tried to start a project with my kids, and they all just sat there and worked quietly. Silence freaks me out, so I said, "You know, you guys can talk during work time...it's okay as long as you're still working..." They looked at me as if I was speaking Swedish. Then they went back to silently working. I shrugged and tried to go around the room making myself useful. Finally a girl whispered quietly to the girl next to her and then quickly looked up at me like I was going to yell at her for talking (which, obviously, I did not). Do these kids not know how to have fun?? I've gotten them to loosen up a little bit since then, but holy cow. They're so painfully academic.
5. Want to know what my kids do in their free time? Hmmmm? THEY READ. That's seriously all they do. Well, some of them hunt. They hunt and read. Not a single family in my school owns a television (true story), and every single child is from a two-parent household. After school they go home, exercise outside, spend time with their family, and then read. It's pretty much every teacher's dream. It was (is?) mine too, I guess, but the dream just turned out a little creepier than I imagined.
Classroom management is a strength of mine, and I have no need for it at my new school. I feel like Superman without any superpowers. It's strange. It's definitely an adjustment. I don't think I'm serious enough or disciplined enough for that school yet, but I'm working on it. I never thought my biggest challenge would be getting kids to have fun, but alas. Every year is different. We'll see how this goes. I don't dare complain for fear I'll break the Stepford spell.
Titanic Party
Hello blog world.
It's been almost a month since I last blogged. That's horribly sad, I know. Ask any teacher, though, and they'll tell you: September is no time for free time.
What I want to tell you about today is what I did for my last summer "Hurrah." It was the week before school started, and I needed to do something fun. I was out for ice cream with my friend Sarah lamenting the fact that I had nothing to do, and she suggested that we have a movie night. Well, obviously that sounded fun. We got to talking, and I found out that Sarah had never seen Titanic. WHAT?! That movie is an icon!! It won ten million Oscars! With my husband still in Nevada and Sarah's husband working a night shift, we decided it was time for a girls' night.
You might think that a Titanic girls' night would involve sitting around and, well, watching the movie. NOPE. We had a legit Titanic PARTY. As in, themed dinner, costumes, etc. Strange? Yes. Fun? Absolutely.
We started by looking up what kind of dinner they ate on the actual Titanic so that we could copy it. They ate braised duck, which is obviously disgusting, so we skipped it and had pizza. Ha ha. We did have salads with iceberg lettuce though (catch the irony?) and blue Hawaiian punch in honor of the ocean. We got out fancy dishes, got super dressed up, and played the Titanic soundtrack as our dinner music.
Not only were we in on the action; our dogs were too. Sarah has clothes for her dog Bizzy (a trend which Rex has vehemently opposed when it comes to Elvis). She brought over Bizzy's tuxedo, and Bizzy and Elvis took turns wearing it during dinner. Elvis didn't like it much, so he just played with his new sea monster dog toy (See?? There it is again - THE THEME!). Bizzy looked very dapper.
After dinner we watched the movie. Halfway through, when the ship starts to sink, we paused the movie and put Bizzy in his life jacket. Yes, the dog has a life jacket. SO COOL! Elvis didn't have one, unfortunately, so I guess he went down with the ship.
Sarah and I were laughing and having a great time (except of course during the movie, when there were Kleenexes involved). I thought it was so funny that we came up with this crazy idea of having a Titanic party....except guess what?! It wasn't even my idea first! Sarah went on Pinterest and discovered that lots of people have had Titanic parties, and they did it was cooler than we did! Case in point: this cake:
Oh, well. I was still pretty proud of us for our party. It was fun. I think the dogs liked it too.
It's been almost a month since I last blogged. That's horribly sad, I know. Ask any teacher, though, and they'll tell you: September is no time for free time.
What I want to tell you about today is what I did for my last summer "Hurrah." It was the week before school started, and I needed to do something fun. I was out for ice cream with my friend Sarah lamenting the fact that I had nothing to do, and she suggested that we have a movie night. Well, obviously that sounded fun. We got to talking, and I found out that Sarah had never seen Titanic. WHAT?! That movie is an icon!! It won ten million Oscars! With my husband still in Nevada and Sarah's husband working a night shift, we decided it was time for a girls' night.
You might think that a Titanic girls' night would involve sitting around and, well, watching the movie. NOPE. We had a legit Titanic PARTY. As in, themed dinner, costumes, etc. Strange? Yes. Fun? Absolutely.
We started by looking up what kind of dinner they ate on the actual Titanic so that we could copy it. They ate braised duck, which is obviously disgusting, so we skipped it and had pizza. Ha ha. We did have salads with iceberg lettuce though (catch the irony?) and blue Hawaiian punch in honor of the ocean. We got out fancy dishes, got super dressed up, and played the Titanic soundtrack as our dinner music.
Not only were we in on the action; our dogs were too. Sarah has clothes for her dog Bizzy (a trend which Rex has vehemently opposed when it comes to Elvis). She brought over Bizzy's tuxedo, and Bizzy and Elvis took turns wearing it during dinner. Elvis didn't like it much, so he just played with his new sea monster dog toy (See?? There it is again - THE THEME!). Bizzy looked very dapper.
After dinner we watched the movie. Halfway through, when the ship starts to sink, we paused the movie and put Bizzy in his life jacket. Yes, the dog has a life jacket. SO COOL! Elvis didn't have one, unfortunately, so I guess he went down with the ship.
Sarah and I were laughing and having a great time (except of course during the movie, when there were Kleenexes involved). I thought it was so funny that we came up with this crazy idea of having a Titanic party....except guess what?! It wasn't even my idea first! Sarah went on Pinterest and discovered that lots of people have had Titanic parties, and they did it was cooler than we did! Case in point: this cake:
Oh, well. I was still pretty proud of us for our party. It was fun. I think the dogs liked it too.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Just One More
Lately I've been checking my mail like a high school senior waiting for acceptance letters from colleges. You may think I'm crazy, but don't worry. It's all part of the master plan.
I'm going to be really fabulous author someday. New York Times bestseller. It's going to happen. (Isn't that the secret wish of every blogger?? Haha...oh well). Here's my issue: no one really likes me yet.
My first novel (The Elsie Files) was published in February of this year, but it was published by this tiny outfit in Oklahoma with almost no marketing contacts. I've sold a handful of copies and really haven't made much money at all. They offered to pick up my second book, but I really didn't want to go with them again. I want to play in the big leagues, so I have to actually start figuring out how to do that.
In looking for a home for my second novel, I spent countless hours querying literary agents and publishing houses. I have buckets of rejection letters. Two agents are currently reading my second book to see if they like it, so keep your fingers crossed for me. Nothing concrete has happened, so I started getting discouraged.
I noticed a lot of places that rejected me want a writer with more publishing credits. I don't have a third novel in mind at the moment, so I decided to start querying magazines. I figured I could write a few magazine articles, earn a bit of cash, and stock up on publishing credits before my next round of queries.
Well, it's not quite that easy (are you surprised?). I worked for days to craft another round of queries, these ones personalized for specific magazines. I pitched ideas while trying to sound smart and pithy at the same time. All I got for my trouble was more rejection letters and e-mails to add to my collection.
I had a lot of hope for this one specific magazine. I thought my idea for them was really good. I got their "this material just isn't right for us" letter in the mail today, and I sank into my couch, disappointed again. I texted Rex and said, "Aargh! Just got rejected from another magazine where I thought I might actually have a shot. This stinks. How many times should I get rejected before I give up?"
I went about my business for the day, and when I sat down to check my e-mail I had a message from Pat Stone, the editor of GreenPrints magazine. He said that the material I submitted was "funny" and "well-written," and that he would like to publish it. My check for $75 will be in the mail tomorrow.
WHOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!! I very much needed a win. I called Rex to tell him the good news, and he said, "Well, I guess there's the answer to your question - how many times do you get rejected before you give up? Just one more."
That's so true. Rex has a way of being very profound at times. Just try one more time, every time. Eventually you might get something. I know $75 and an article in a gardening magazine isn't like I just got the cover story for Good Housekeeping or Time, but it's a start. Also, more importantly, it was just the motivation I needed to keep going.
I'm going to be really fabulous author someday. New York Times bestseller. It's going to happen. (Isn't that the secret wish of every blogger?? Haha...oh well). Here's my issue: no one really likes me yet.
My first novel (The Elsie Files) was published in February of this year, but it was published by this tiny outfit in Oklahoma with almost no marketing contacts. I've sold a handful of copies and really haven't made much money at all. They offered to pick up my second book, but I really didn't want to go with them again. I want to play in the big leagues, so I have to actually start figuring out how to do that.
In looking for a home for my second novel, I spent countless hours querying literary agents and publishing houses. I have buckets of rejection letters. Two agents are currently reading my second book to see if they like it, so keep your fingers crossed for me. Nothing concrete has happened, so I started getting discouraged.
I noticed a lot of places that rejected me want a writer with more publishing credits. I don't have a third novel in mind at the moment, so I decided to start querying magazines. I figured I could write a few magazine articles, earn a bit of cash, and stock up on publishing credits before my next round of queries.
Well, it's not quite that easy (are you surprised?). I worked for days to craft another round of queries, these ones personalized for specific magazines. I pitched ideas while trying to sound smart and pithy at the same time. All I got for my trouble was more rejection letters and e-mails to add to my collection.
I had a lot of hope for this one specific magazine. I thought my idea for them was really good. I got their "this material just isn't right for us" letter in the mail today, and I sank into my couch, disappointed again. I texted Rex and said, "Aargh! Just got rejected from another magazine where I thought I might actually have a shot. This stinks. How many times should I get rejected before I give up?"
I went about my business for the day, and when I sat down to check my e-mail I had a message from Pat Stone, the editor of GreenPrints magazine. He said that the material I submitted was "funny" and "well-written," and that he would like to publish it. My check for $75 will be in the mail tomorrow.
WHOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!! I very much needed a win. I called Rex to tell him the good news, and he said, "Well, I guess there's the answer to your question - how many times do you get rejected before you give up? Just one more."
That's so true. Rex has a way of being very profound at times. Just try one more time, every time. Eventually you might get something. I know $75 and an article in a gardening magazine isn't like I just got the cover story for Good Housekeeping or Time, but it's a start. Also, more importantly, it was just the motivation I needed to keep going.
Monday, August 26, 2013
That Time When God Spoke to Me Through a Subway Sub
The title of this post may be a bit misleading. I don't literally think that God spoke to me through a sub. It's not like a tomato was sitting a certain way and I thought, "Eureka! Life is figured out!" But I did have a profound experience at Subway today, and I think sometimes God works through little things to remind us of His truths.
Today was my first day of Professional Development at my new school. In laymen's terms, that means all of the teachers get together and sit through boring meetings for a week in preparation for students to start school next week. I am very nervous about this new school year - I'm going from teaching at a public school in Las Vegas last year to a SUPER conservative (aka can't even wear nail polish) Christian school in Kalamazoo this year. Last year's school had 1000 kids; this year's school has 60. I literally don't think I could find two schools more different if I tried.
Here's a fact you already know about me if you've known me for more than 10 minutes: I don't like change. I hate it. I figure when I'm happy, why change anything? I order the same thing at a restaurant every time. I married my first serious boyfriend. I've had more or less the same haircut for 15 years. I don't like change.
At lunch today, some teachers decided to go to Subway. My usual six-inch-turkey-on-Italian-herbs-and-cheese-with-lettuce-tomato-and-chipotle-mayo sounded pretty good to me. As I was standing in line, though, I got this crazy idea. What if I ordered something different? The thought popped into my head out of nowhere. I don't know where it came from. It actually kind of freaked me out. I've ordered the same sub literally hundreds of times, but what if today I tried something new? It was so weird and so unlike me. Actually, when I said "I think I'm going to try something new today," one of the teachers from my school said, "Man, who are you?? That's not the Christine I met two weeks ago!" Ha ha. That's how fast people learn I'm a creature of habit.
Anyway, I went drastically different on my lunch choice. I ordered buffalo chicken. The person asked what vegetables I wanted on it, and I freaked out. "I don't know!" I wailed. "I've never ordered this before!" The other teachers laughed at me, but it's okay. I really didn't know what to do.
When I finally made my choice (spinach, green pepper, tomato, onion, and ranch), I sat down nervously to try my new concoction. I took a tentative bite, and guess what?
It was good.
It was really good.
It was very possibly even better than what I usually order.
Suddenly I was struck with an understanding: sometimes change is okay. Sometimes it's even good. Sometimes it's even better than what you had before. Not always, but it's possible. To be completely honest, that's not even something I considered about my new school. I spent so much time missing my school in Vegas that I hadn't been able to get at all excited about my school here. But today I finally thought, "Maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe it will even be good. Perhaps - and I'm going out on a limb here - but maybe it will even be better than what I had before."
It's really pretty pathetic, but I can honestly say that that's the first time I thought that. It was just a reminder to me that God has plans for me and He promises never to leave us or forsake me. He's not hanging me out to dry - He's bringing me to whatever place He wants me next. Bottom line: it's all going to be okay.
And yes, I got that all from a Subway sub. A pretty good $4.51 investment if I do say so myself.
Today was my first day of Professional Development at my new school. In laymen's terms, that means all of the teachers get together and sit through boring meetings for a week in preparation for students to start school next week. I am very nervous about this new school year - I'm going from teaching at a public school in Las Vegas last year to a SUPER conservative (aka can't even wear nail polish) Christian school in Kalamazoo this year. Last year's school had 1000 kids; this year's school has 60. I literally don't think I could find two schools more different if I tried.
Here's a fact you already know about me if you've known me for more than 10 minutes: I don't like change. I hate it. I figure when I'm happy, why change anything? I order the same thing at a restaurant every time. I married my first serious boyfriend. I've had more or less the same haircut for 15 years. I don't like change.
At lunch today, some teachers decided to go to Subway. My usual six-inch-turkey-on-Italian-herbs-and-cheese-with-lettuce-tomato-and-chipotle-mayo sounded pretty good to me. As I was standing in line, though, I got this crazy idea. What if I ordered something different? The thought popped into my head out of nowhere. I don't know where it came from. It actually kind of freaked me out. I've ordered the same sub literally hundreds of times, but what if today I tried something new? It was so weird and so unlike me. Actually, when I said "I think I'm going to try something new today," one of the teachers from my school said, "Man, who are you?? That's not the Christine I met two weeks ago!" Ha ha. That's how fast people learn I'm a creature of habit.
Anyway, I went drastically different on my lunch choice. I ordered buffalo chicken. The person asked what vegetables I wanted on it, and I freaked out. "I don't know!" I wailed. "I've never ordered this before!" The other teachers laughed at me, but it's okay. I really didn't know what to do.
When I finally made my choice (spinach, green pepper, tomato, onion, and ranch), I sat down nervously to try my new concoction. I took a tentative bite, and guess what?
It was good.
It was really good.
It was very possibly even better than what I usually order.
Suddenly I was struck with an understanding: sometimes change is okay. Sometimes it's even good. Sometimes it's even better than what you had before. Not always, but it's possible. To be completely honest, that's not even something I considered about my new school. I spent so much time missing my school in Vegas that I hadn't been able to get at all excited about my school here. But today I finally thought, "Maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe it will even be good. Perhaps - and I'm going out on a limb here - but maybe it will even be better than what I had before."
It's really pretty pathetic, but I can honestly say that that's the first time I thought that. It was just a reminder to me that God has plans for me and He promises never to leave us or forsake me. He's not hanging me out to dry - He's bringing me to whatever place He wants me next. Bottom line: it's all going to be okay.
And yes, I got that all from a Subway sub. A pretty good $4.51 investment if I do say so myself.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Bendy Pretzel
I decided to try a yoga class today at my new fitness center. I've been doing Zumba, which is always fun, but I wanted to switch it up. I took yoga in college and loved it, so I figured maybe it was something I could get back into.
I was the first one in class - I was even there before the teacher. Soon after I put my mat down, the teacher sauntered in. I'm not sure of her name, so we'll just call her Ms. Bendy Pretzel (or Ms. BP for short). Ms. BP was fairly small, about my age, and she had one half of her hair in dreadlocks and the other half was shaved off. Erm...interesting. I figured maybe she had reached a level of higher enlightenment than me, or perhaps the shaved half of her hair had been messing up her chi or something. Who knows. Clearly I'm not an advanced enough yogi to understand.
Anyway, I was really looking forward to a relaxing hour of aligning my chakras and stretching my muscles. Once the class started, though, I knew I was in trouble. This girl moved FAST, and she did really advanced stuff. She would say something like, "Okay I want you to hop to plank and pull up into a cobra, then push into downward dog and bring that up to warrior two." She'd say that all in one sentence, and while I was still trying to translate that in my head she would already be halfway through the sequence. It was nuts. After a few minutes I looked around nervously, thinking that everyone must be judging me for being so far behind. In reality, I was actually ahead of most of the people. When Ms. BP called out the next command, I paid attention to what people did. The grandma lady next to me just stood there looking helpless and scared, and the guy in front of me was just staring at BP's butt. Cool.
The thing is, this wasn't an advanced class or anything. It was just your run-of-the-mill yoga class. So why was BP being so nuts?! I knew I was done trying to keep up when we were all standing and she told us to put our leg straight up in the air and put our knee in our ear. Ummm...no one can do that (except, obviously, Ms. Bendy Pretzel). The only way my knee is ending up in my ear is if I am in some horrible crash/explosion and that's just the way my body parts land. I wanted to yell, "I'm sorry! I'm just a recreational yoga user! I don't know all of this hard core stuff you're doing!"
Literally no one could keep up with Bendy Pretzel. Not even close. Half the class just stood there with their eyes bugged out while BP did stuff that no human should be able to do. At one point she contorted her body into this weird knot and then held herself off the ground on only one hand. WHAT?!?! I was amazed and disgusted all at once.
That's not really a good way to teach a class. I'm not going to stand in front of my fifth graders and say, "Time for math. I'm going to go ahead and do some Calculus, so just try to keep up the best you can." I left feeling pretty sad and inadequate, which is dumb because I actually knew something about yoga going in. I'm no Bendy Pretzel, but I was hoping that I would have at least been able to relax a little and do some toning stretches. :-/ Instead I think I might have pulled something trying to get into a "wrapped scorpion" position. Who would ever want to wrap a scorpion in anything, is what I'd like to know. *sigh* I guess it's back to Zumba tomorrow.
I was the first one in class - I was even there before the teacher. Soon after I put my mat down, the teacher sauntered in. I'm not sure of her name, so we'll just call her Ms. Bendy Pretzel (or Ms. BP for short). Ms. BP was fairly small, about my age, and she had one half of her hair in dreadlocks and the other half was shaved off. Erm...interesting. I figured maybe she had reached a level of higher enlightenment than me, or perhaps the shaved half of her hair had been messing up her chi or something. Who knows. Clearly I'm not an advanced enough yogi to understand.
Anyway, I was really looking forward to a relaxing hour of aligning my chakras and stretching my muscles. Once the class started, though, I knew I was in trouble. This girl moved FAST, and she did really advanced stuff. She would say something like, "Okay I want you to hop to plank and pull up into a cobra, then push into downward dog and bring that up to warrior two." She'd say that all in one sentence, and while I was still trying to translate that in my head she would already be halfway through the sequence. It was nuts. After a few minutes I looked around nervously, thinking that everyone must be judging me for being so far behind. In reality, I was actually ahead of most of the people. When Ms. BP called out the next command, I paid attention to what people did. The grandma lady next to me just stood there looking helpless and scared, and the guy in front of me was just staring at BP's butt. Cool.
The thing is, this wasn't an advanced class or anything. It was just your run-of-the-mill yoga class. So why was BP being so nuts?! I knew I was done trying to keep up when we were all standing and she told us to put our leg straight up in the air and put our knee in our ear. Ummm...no one can do that (except, obviously, Ms. Bendy Pretzel). The only way my knee is ending up in my ear is if I am in some horrible crash/explosion and that's just the way my body parts land. I wanted to yell, "I'm sorry! I'm just a recreational yoga user! I don't know all of this hard core stuff you're doing!"
Literally no one could keep up with Bendy Pretzel. Not even close. Half the class just stood there with their eyes bugged out while BP did stuff that no human should be able to do. At one point she contorted her body into this weird knot and then held herself off the ground on only one hand. WHAT?!?! I was amazed and disgusted all at once.
That's not really a good way to teach a class. I'm not going to stand in front of my fifth graders and say, "Time for math. I'm going to go ahead and do some Calculus, so just try to keep up the best you can." I left feeling pretty sad and inadequate, which is dumb because I actually knew something about yoga going in. I'm no Bendy Pretzel, but I was hoping that I would have at least been able to relax a little and do some toning stretches. :-/ Instead I think I might have pulled something trying to get into a "wrapped scorpion" position. Who would ever want to wrap a scorpion in anything, is what I'd like to know. *sigh* I guess it's back to Zumba tomorrow.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
200th Post!
Happy 200th Post to me!
Since this is my 200th post on this blog, I figure I should write about something happy and fun. Luckily, I can definitely do that because last night had an abundance of both happiness and fun.
The first happy thing occurred while I was volunteering at Vacation Bible School (which, actually, that's fun in and of itself). I was on a break and hanging out in the kitchen when I got a phone call from one of last year's fifth grade students. Her mom had told me that she was going to call, but I guess I forgot because I was still pleasantly surprised. Do you know what she was calling about? Of course you don't, which is why I will tell you now: she wanted to tell me that she got a perfect score on her math CRT test. A perfect score. PERFECT. For those of you who aren't familiar with the CRT, it is the Nevada version of the Michigan MEAP. It's the standardized test that all students have to take at the end of the year. It's basically the elementary school ACT's, and she got a PERFECT SCORE. That does not happen very often. I couldn't find a statistic on exactly how often, but I know it's only a handful of kids per year in the entire state. One of my kids got a perfect score!
Want to know the best part? She said, "I wanted to call you as soon as I found out because I want to thank you for teaching me all of that stuff last year. I know I never could have gotten that score without a really, really great teacher, so it's kind of your score too. You're the best. I'm really thankful that you were my teacher."
Ummmmm...oh hey, did you ever wonder why I became a teacher? That's it right there.
As I was walking around outside talking to my student, I noticed that my storm door was being propped open by something (my house is right behind the church). I decided to go investigate, and in between my storm door and my front door was a large black and gold box. Do you know what comes in a black and gold box? In that box was what will henceforth be known as "The most beautiful flowers that have ever existed, ever." That brings us to our next happy and fun event of the evening: Rex sent me flowers! No one has ever sent me flowers before! Rex has bought flowers for me plenty of times, but he's always handed them to me himself. They've never been delivered. Delivery adds a whole new level of fancy - the shiny box, the beautiful paper, the embossed message card in its own black and gold envelope...you get the idea. I felt like some sort of celebrity.
I took the most beautiful flowers that have ever existed, ever, into my kitchen and put them in the beautiful vase that also came in the black and gold box. I wish you could come over and smell them right now - my whole kitchen smells good.
You might be thinking, "Wow, Christine had a pretty good night." You would be right. It didn't stop there, though. Just as I was thinking, "Man, I wish I could show off my new flowers..." my dad texted me and said that he wanted to come over and see my new house. My dad has been living in Boise for the past five months, and he just got back two days ago! Hooray! I know everyone thinks their dad is the best...but mine might actually be THE best. So he brought my mom over, we got pizza, and we watched a movie. I haven't gotten to spend time with him in five months, and he hung out until almost midnight. Whoo hoo!! What luck! Also, I got to show off my awesome flowers.
So basically, it was an awesome night. Definitely worthy of note in my 200th blog post. I wonder what kind of crazy fun things will happen for my 300th?
Since this is my 200th post on this blog, I figure I should write about something happy and fun. Luckily, I can definitely do that because last night had an abundance of both happiness and fun.
The first happy thing occurred while I was volunteering at Vacation Bible School (which, actually, that's fun in and of itself). I was on a break and hanging out in the kitchen when I got a phone call from one of last year's fifth grade students. Her mom had told me that she was going to call, but I guess I forgot because I was still pleasantly surprised. Do you know what she was calling about? Of course you don't, which is why I will tell you now: she wanted to tell me that she got a perfect score on her math CRT test. A perfect score. PERFECT. For those of you who aren't familiar with the CRT, it is the Nevada version of the Michigan MEAP. It's the standardized test that all students have to take at the end of the year. It's basically the elementary school ACT's, and she got a PERFECT SCORE. That does not happen very often. I couldn't find a statistic on exactly how often, but I know it's only a handful of kids per year in the entire state. One of my kids got a perfect score!
Want to know the best part? She said, "I wanted to call you as soon as I found out because I want to thank you for teaching me all of that stuff last year. I know I never could have gotten that score without a really, really great teacher, so it's kind of your score too. You're the best. I'm really thankful that you were my teacher."
Ummmmm...oh hey, did you ever wonder why I became a teacher? That's it right there.
As I was walking around outside talking to my student, I noticed that my storm door was being propped open by something (my house is right behind the church). I decided to go investigate, and in between my storm door and my front door was a large black and gold box. Do you know what comes in a black and gold box? In that box was what will henceforth be known as "The most beautiful flowers that have ever existed, ever." That brings us to our next happy and fun event of the evening: Rex sent me flowers! No one has ever sent me flowers before! Rex has bought flowers for me plenty of times, but he's always handed them to me himself. They've never been delivered. Delivery adds a whole new level of fancy - the shiny box, the beautiful paper, the embossed message card in its own black and gold envelope...you get the idea. I felt like some sort of celebrity.
I took the most beautiful flowers that have ever existed, ever, into my kitchen and put them in the beautiful vase that also came in the black and gold box. I wish you could come over and smell them right now - my whole kitchen smells good.
You might be thinking, "Wow, Christine had a pretty good night." You would be right. It didn't stop there, though. Just as I was thinking, "Man, I wish I could show off my new flowers..." my dad texted me and said that he wanted to come over and see my new house. My dad has been living in Boise for the past five months, and he just got back two days ago! Hooray! I know everyone thinks their dad is the best...but mine might actually be THE best. So he brought my mom over, we got pizza, and we watched a movie. I haven't gotten to spend time with him in five months, and he hung out until almost midnight. Whoo hoo!! What luck! Also, I got to show off my awesome flowers.
So basically, it was an awesome night. Definitely worthy of note in my 200th blog post. I wonder what kind of crazy fun things will happen for my 300th?
Monday, August 5, 2013
Pug Luv
If you know me well, you know that I really, really love pugs.
I don't understand why. I honestly don't. They have squished-in faces, they're short and squatty, and they have tons of health problems. I even just googled "Why I love pugs" to see if someone else had come up with something profound to say about why people are drawn to them. Unsurprisingly, my search yielded no hits. For a reason I do not entirely understand, I think pugs are the cutest.
Because pugs are the cutest, today was AWESOME. My friend Lauren invited me to go with her to a pug meetup in Kalamazoo. Of course I said yes even though I don't have a pug. Lauren said she would share hers. Lauren's pug is a small female named Missy, and I happen to think she's adorable. Then again, I think most pugs are adorable, so don't take my word for it. When we arrived, my eyes just about bugged out of my head (just like a pug's, haha). There were pugs everywhere!
I don't understand why. I honestly don't. They have squished-in faces, they're short and squatty, and they have tons of health problems. I even just googled "Why I love pugs" to see if someone else had come up with something profound to say about why people are drawn to them. Unsurprisingly, my search yielded no hits. For a reason I do not entirely understand, I think pugs are the cutest.
Because pugs are the cutest, today was AWESOME. My friend Lauren invited me to go with her to a pug meetup in Kalamazoo. Of course I said yes even though I don't have a pug. Lauren said she would share hers. Lauren's pug is a small female named Missy, and I happen to think she's adorable. Then again, I think most pugs are adorable, so don't take my word for it. When we arrived, my eyes just about bugged out of my head (just like a pug's, haha). There were pugs everywhere!
You know how when Jesus left earth He said that He was going to prepare a place for us? Well, I hope my place has a room that looks JUST like that. Maybe fewer people. Just me and all the puggies. That picture doesn't even show them all, as it was just one side of the room. I couldn't get them all into one picture. Suffice it to say that there was a very high concentration of cuteness. The people would sit down, and all of the pugs would run up to say hello. Unfortunately, Missy didn't like this one bit. Here was her face for pretty much the entire event:
Poor little thing! Doesn't that just break your heart? She hid behind her mom and didn't want to play with any of the other pugs.
I did feel badly for Missy, but I wasn't going to let it ruin my fun. I had an absolute blast playing with all the little flat faces. Just before it was time to go, the coordinator of the event said, "Okay, everyone grab your pugs! Time for a group picture!" If you've been reading carefully, you know that I do not have my own pug. Everyone was grabbing their pugs and I was going to look downright silly being the only person without one. Either that or Lauren and I were going to look like lesbian life partners sharing our one little pug baby. Luckily, some people had three or four pugs, so they couldn't hold them all. A couple pugs ended up just running around, so I grabbed this one and pretended she was mine.
Isn't she a cutie!? Her name's Ebony. That's actually her name - it was on her collar. I didn't make that up or anything. I'm not sure who she actually belonged to, but there were so many people and no one started yelling, "Where's my pug!?!?!?!" so I figured I was safe to hold her for the picture. I'm kind of excited for the coordinator to put the picture on the group's website, because someone's going to look at it and say, "Hey, I think that chick is holding my dog..." Ha ha! I kind of wanted to actually take her home, but I figured that was taking the charade a bit too far.
After the pug meetup, Lauren and I decided to go to McDonald's for chocolate dipped cones. Yum! We ate in the grass so that Missy could be with us. Lauren shared her ice cream with Missy, and she was a happy camper once she was the only pug around. Awww...
The next meetup is September 8. I hope she likes that one a little bit better. Missy had better start liking these things, because she's the only reason I get to go! Otherwise I'm going to have to steal a pug to take to the meetings, and that just seems like a bad decision.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Things to Do for Long Distance Couples
Today I got something fabulous in the mail. One of my friends from college is a military wife, and she had a handbook about how to enrich a long distance marriage. She thought of my current situation and sent it to me, which I really appreciate. It was so kind of her. The book was basically a list of all of these things you could do for your spouse while they're gone or things you could do together long distance. To the book's credit, there were a few good ideas in there (A FEW). A lot of them, however, were exceedingly strange. Like, I want to meet the couples who submitted these ideas. I was going to list some here with my commentary, but you know what? I don't even think you need my commentary. The list really just speaks for itself. Here are my favorite twenty:
1. Learn how to cross-stich a loving message from you.
2. Carve both of your initials into a piece of wood and send it to him.
3. Send him a pair of electric warming socks with a note saying that since you couldn't be there to warm his feet, you are sending these in your place.
4. Print a message in the personals section of the newspaper. Call him the morning it runs.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry - I'm trying to hold my commentary, but I really have to interject on this one. What are you supposed to put in the personals?? Isn't that where people write to get a date? Like, what people did before online dating? How on earth is that supposed to help your marriage?! I don't get this one at all. Okay, sorry for interrupting. Back to the list.
5. Send a poster of his favorite national park.
6. Make an exercise video starring yourself so that he can exercise with you.
7. See who can grow the most tomatoes on an individual tomato plant while he's gone.
It's at this point that I really lost all hope in the helpfulness of this book...lol.
8. Send him a jar of his favorite jelly or jam preserves.
9. Have a personalized rubber stamp made for him.
10. Buy him a tabletop water fountain.
11. Have a street sign made for him with his name on it.
I'm serious, people. These are all straight from the book. I couldn't make these up if I tried.
12. Send him both of your baby pictures framed together.
13. Choose identical pairs of socks and send a pair to him. Choose a day when you will both wear the socks.
14. Send him a heart shaped kite to fly next time it's windy.
15. Take a virtual tour of the White House together.
16. Call each other on cell phones while swinging on swing sets.
17. Climb a tree and write a letter to him while up in the tree.
18. Write a letter together to the President of the United States or another political leader.
19. Buy two bird feeders, and send one to him. Tell each other about the birds that visit.
20. Buy a copy of his favorite romance novel (time out - Christine here - WHY would Rex have a "favorite romance novel"?? Does that not sound incredibly weird to anyone else out there?? Okay, sorry. I interrupted again.) Go through and cross out the names of the two lead characters and replace them with your names. Gift-wrap the book and send it to him.
So there you have it - my top twenty. Rex happens to be studying right now so he's signed in to gchat but we aren't really chatting. I just messaged him and said, "Hey, here's a thought - would you like to go on a virtual tour of the White House together?" After an extremely long pause, I am happy to report that Rex responded in an entirely appropriate fashion: "??????" Ha ha. Where did people come up with these things??
Another really funny part of this book was that all of the illustrations showed happy couples doing things together like eating breakfast in bed, going fishing, etc. Pretty much everything that a long distance couple can't do. Why would they have those as the illustrations? It's taunting us long-distancers! Like, "We're going to eat this yummy breakfast and then go fishing together...you just go ahead and have fun growing your tomato plant." Rude book.
It was a pretty good read anyway. It made me smile at least, and I hope it made you smile too. :-)
1. Learn how to cross-stich a loving message from you.
2. Carve both of your initials into a piece of wood and send it to him.
3. Send him a pair of electric warming socks with a note saying that since you couldn't be there to warm his feet, you are sending these in your place.
4. Print a message in the personals section of the newspaper. Call him the morning it runs.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry - I'm trying to hold my commentary, but I really have to interject on this one. What are you supposed to put in the personals?? Isn't that where people write to get a date? Like, what people did before online dating? How on earth is that supposed to help your marriage?! I don't get this one at all. Okay, sorry for interrupting. Back to the list.
5. Send a poster of his favorite national park.
6. Make an exercise video starring yourself so that he can exercise with you.
7. See who can grow the most tomatoes on an individual tomato plant while he's gone.
It's at this point that I really lost all hope in the helpfulness of this book...lol.
8. Send him a jar of his favorite jelly or jam preserves.
9. Have a personalized rubber stamp made for him.
10. Buy him a tabletop water fountain.
11. Have a street sign made for him with his name on it.
I'm serious, people. These are all straight from the book. I couldn't make these up if I tried.
12. Send him both of your baby pictures framed together.
13. Choose identical pairs of socks and send a pair to him. Choose a day when you will both wear the socks.
14. Send him a heart shaped kite to fly next time it's windy.
15. Take a virtual tour of the White House together.
16. Call each other on cell phones while swinging on swing sets.
17. Climb a tree and write a letter to him while up in the tree.
18. Write a letter together to the President of the United States or another political leader.
19. Buy two bird feeders, and send one to him. Tell each other about the birds that visit.
20. Buy a copy of his favorite romance novel (time out - Christine here - WHY would Rex have a "favorite romance novel"?? Does that not sound incredibly weird to anyone else out there?? Okay, sorry. I interrupted again.) Go through and cross out the names of the two lead characters and replace them with your names. Gift-wrap the book and send it to him.
So there you have it - my top twenty. Rex happens to be studying right now so he's signed in to gchat but we aren't really chatting. I just messaged him and said, "Hey, here's a thought - would you like to go on a virtual tour of the White House together?" After an extremely long pause, I am happy to report that Rex responded in an entirely appropriate fashion: "??????" Ha ha. Where did people come up with these things??
Another really funny part of this book was that all of the illustrations showed happy couples doing things together like eating breakfast in bed, going fishing, etc. Pretty much everything that a long distance couple can't do. Why would they have those as the illustrations? It's taunting us long-distancers! Like, "We're going to eat this yummy breakfast and then go fishing together...you just go ahead and have fun growing your tomato plant." Rude book.
It was a pretty good read anyway. It made me smile at least, and I hope it made you smile too. :-)
Friday, July 26, 2013
My Little Buddy
Living alone is difficult. I'm not sure if it's difficult for me because it is difficult for everyone, or if it's just hard for me because I'm not used to it. I don't know if I'll ever get used to it, really. This would be a lot easier if I weren't particularly fond of my husband, but I am. I miss him every day.
There is one thing that makes my life easier, though, and it's my little buddy. We're pretty much best friends. His name is Elvis, and if you can look at this picture and not think, "Awwww!" then there's something wrong with you:
Elvis and I have gotten a lot closer with Rex being gone. I feel really ridiculous about saying that I feel "close" to a dog, but I do. I think he likes me too, because he whines whenever I leave the room. He didn't used to do that. I brought him to my mom's house last night, and he followed me everywhere. When I tried to leave him in my mom's room, he sat by the door and waited for me to come back. When I went to bed, he curled up next to me and cuddled me all night. See? He likes me. He never used to do any of that stuff.
It's just nice to have someone to be excited when I get home from work, you know? Goodness knows my cat isn't. She would probably prefer we just all leave her alone to plot her world domination. She just slinks around and glares. Check out this picture:
See what I mean? I love her, but she's evil. I consider Elvis my friend, but Elsie is more...hmmm...my nemesis.
Anyway, back to Elvis. He and I have become great pals. The other day we talked about politics in the Middle East (he didn't have much to say, but then again I didn't either). When the Duchess of Cambridge had her baby, I told Elvis about it because I knew Rex wouldn't care. Elvis reacted appropriately by dancing around the kitchen on two legs and waving his paws in the air for joy.
That may or may not have something to do with the fact I was holding a treat over his head.
He's a mostly good dog, but he ate my favorite pair of shoes the other day so then we were in a fight. I locked him in his kennel for the night and didn't play fetch or chase with him. We usually play every night, so I think I really bummed him out. Then I felt guilty because, after all, he's just a dog. He didn't know any better. It's not like Rex ate my shoes. So the next day I bought him a new bone to make up for not playing with him. I think we're good again. Dogs don't hold grudges.
My current best friend has four legs and floppy ears, which sounds a little pathetic. He's a good boy, though, and I'm glad I've got him. :-) Only 21 days till I get to visit my real best friend (the two-legged one!) in Las Vegas! Whoo hoo!!!
There is one thing that makes my life easier, though, and it's my little buddy. We're pretty much best friends. His name is Elvis, and if you can look at this picture and not think, "Awwww!" then there's something wrong with you:
Elvis and I have gotten a lot closer with Rex being gone. I feel really ridiculous about saying that I feel "close" to a dog, but I do. I think he likes me too, because he whines whenever I leave the room. He didn't used to do that. I brought him to my mom's house last night, and he followed me everywhere. When I tried to leave him in my mom's room, he sat by the door and waited for me to come back. When I went to bed, he curled up next to me and cuddled me all night. See? He likes me. He never used to do any of that stuff.
It's just nice to have someone to be excited when I get home from work, you know? Goodness knows my cat isn't. She would probably prefer we just all leave her alone to plot her world domination. She just slinks around and glares. Check out this picture:
See what I mean? I love her, but she's evil. I consider Elvis my friend, but Elsie is more...hmmm...my nemesis.
Anyway, back to Elvis. He and I have become great pals. The other day we talked about politics in the Middle East (he didn't have much to say, but then again I didn't either). When the Duchess of Cambridge had her baby, I told Elvis about it because I knew Rex wouldn't care. Elvis reacted appropriately by dancing around the kitchen on two legs and waving his paws in the air for joy.
That may or may not have something to do with the fact I was holding a treat over his head.
He's a mostly good dog, but he ate my favorite pair of shoes the other day so then we were in a fight. I locked him in his kennel for the night and didn't play fetch or chase with him. We usually play every night, so I think I really bummed him out. Then I felt guilty because, after all, he's just a dog. He didn't know any better. It's not like Rex ate my shoes. So the next day I bought him a new bone to make up for not playing with him. I think we're good again. Dogs don't hold grudges.
My current best friend has four legs and floppy ears, which sounds a little pathetic. He's a good boy, though, and I'm glad I've got him. :-) Only 21 days till I get to visit my real best friend (the two-legged one!) in Las Vegas! Whoo hoo!!!
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Toothbrush
I woke up this morning and realized that right on my bathroom counter sits an essential symbol of my life right now:
One toothbrush. One sad, lonely toothbrush. Even the toothpaste looks sad, burying its head in the cup and facing away from me as if to say, "I can't bear to look at your sad life."
Okay, that part is a little melodramatic. Sorry. But seriously - every morning when I see my toothbrush standing alone, it makes me sad. There used to be a toothbrush standing next to it, but that toothbrush is now far away in Las Vegas, Nevada - 2,000 miles away from mine.
The far away toothbrush belongs to Rex, and he's in Nevada until September 29 for classes. He left on July 5. That's almost three months that my toothbrush has to be lonely. I realize it's not as bad as military couples who are apart for an entire year when one of them deploys, but still. My husband is my best friend and my favorite person in the whole world. I think I have the right to pout a little bit about him being gone.
Long distance relationships really stink. You get the bad parts of being single (no one to hug you when you're sad, no one to tell you that "of course that dress doesn't make you look fat," no one to help with chores, no one to go to the grocery store with, etc.), and you also get the bad parts of being married (checking with someone before you make any major purchases, not being able to go have a girls night and flirt with random people, not being able to get a pug, etc.) It's like a horrible parody of the Hannah Montana theme song: "You get the woooooooorst of both worlds!" It's horrible. I want my husband to be home.
It doesn't help that I'm horrible at talking on the phone (I always have been. I just feel awkward), and until five minutes ago I had no internet so I couldn't Skype or gchat. The internet tech just left so I finally have internet, but still. You know skyping isn't like the real thing. I hate reading about celebrities who say, "We make our relationship work by never going more than ten days without seeing each other. Anything longer than that would be detrimental to a relationship." Cool, you. I would love to see my husband every ten days. I would love to see my husband every day. Are you going to lend me your private jet to make that happen??
I e-mailed my cousin because her husband goes away a lot on trainings for the military. I asked for her best advice on how to do life alone when you're so used to having a partner to do everything with you. Here's what she said: "All I can say is....it sucks!! Honestly no magic potion....no words of wisdom....just be prepared to cry a lot...eat a lot of comfort food...and watch a lot of tv..."
Thanks, Danielle. Real encouraging, lol. I guess I give her credit for being honest, but it certainly didn't make me feel any better! Hopefully the next 74 days zip by.
In the mean time, I'll be consoling my lonely toothbrush.
One toothbrush. One sad, lonely toothbrush. Even the toothpaste looks sad, burying its head in the cup and facing away from me as if to say, "I can't bear to look at your sad life."
Okay, that part is a little melodramatic. Sorry. But seriously - every morning when I see my toothbrush standing alone, it makes me sad. There used to be a toothbrush standing next to it, but that toothbrush is now far away in Las Vegas, Nevada - 2,000 miles away from mine.
The far away toothbrush belongs to Rex, and he's in Nevada until September 29 for classes. He left on July 5. That's almost three months that my toothbrush has to be lonely. I realize it's not as bad as military couples who are apart for an entire year when one of them deploys, but still. My husband is my best friend and my favorite person in the whole world. I think I have the right to pout a little bit about him being gone.
Long distance relationships really stink. You get the bad parts of being single (no one to hug you when you're sad, no one to tell you that "of course that dress doesn't make you look fat," no one to help with chores, no one to go to the grocery store with, etc.), and you also get the bad parts of being married (checking with someone before you make any major purchases, not being able to go have a girls night and flirt with random people, not being able to get a pug, etc.) It's like a horrible parody of the Hannah Montana theme song: "You get the woooooooorst of both worlds!" It's horrible. I want my husband to be home.
It doesn't help that I'm horrible at talking on the phone (I always have been. I just feel awkward), and until five minutes ago I had no internet so I couldn't Skype or gchat. The internet tech just left so I finally have internet, but still. You know skyping isn't like the real thing. I hate reading about celebrities who say, "We make our relationship work by never going more than ten days without seeing each other. Anything longer than that would be detrimental to a relationship." Cool, you. I would love to see my husband every ten days. I would love to see my husband every day. Are you going to lend me your private jet to make that happen??
I e-mailed my cousin because her husband goes away a lot on trainings for the military. I asked for her best advice on how to do life alone when you're so used to having a partner to do everything with you. Here's what she said: "All I can say is....it sucks!! Honestly no magic potion....no words of wisdom....just be prepared to cry a lot...eat a lot of comfort food...and watch a lot of tv..."
Thanks, Danielle. Real encouraging, lol. I guess I give her credit for being honest, but it certainly didn't make me feel any better! Hopefully the next 74 days zip by.
In the mean time, I'll be consoling my lonely toothbrush.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Worth It
I haven't posted in almost a month. I know, it's despicable. The reason is because I've been moving 2000+ miles across the country, so hopefully you can find it in your heart to forgive me.
I hate moving. I HATE it. I have to pack up everything I own, carry it out to a trailer, carry it out of the trailer again once I get to my new place, then unpack it and see how many things broke. Oh, and then I inevitably have to spend a bunch of money to replace the stuff that I couldn't bring with me and/or the things that didn't make it. Then I have to figure out a way to decorate my new place and make it look nice on a budget because everyone looks at me as the hostess girl who should have a nice house. :-/
Today, however, it was worth it. It was worth the hours I spent wrapping and boxing literally thousands of items. It was worth the headache of unpacking them again. It was even worth the bath salts that spilled all over my copies of The Elsie Files and ruined some of them. It was worth the money I spent to make our new house feel like a home. Do you want to know why?
Because I am home. I didn't really realize it until today. I've been a little (okay, a lot) sad to leave Las Vegas and the friends and job I love there. I have been dreading the blizzards and ice that will arrive here in a few short months. Today, though, I realized that I don't really belong anywhere else.
Rex's aunt had the family over for a Sunday night dessert party. This is the kind of thing his family does all the time, but I've been missing out because I've been gone. All of the aunts and uncles and cousins came over to eat ice cream and treats (my cookie-brownies were a hit!), and then we played a family game of softball.
The family has a make-shift softball field in their back yard, and they even renovated a tree house to be a score board. We picked teams and started playing. It was like one of those two-page spread ads in Good Housekeeping where the family is all laughing and enjoying a nice summer evening. You don't think those people actually exist in the world, but they do. They're my in-laws. People were making jokes like "move in - this one's going nowhere!" (that was for me, lol) or "How can she run in that June Cleaver dress?" (That was for Aunt Sarah, whose dress was very June Cleaver. I loved it). My brother-in-law was on the other team and ran by second (where I was fielding), gave me a hug and said "Love ya, sis!" before he kept running. Everyone was joking and laughing and having a great time. I suddenly came to the realization that this was worth coming back for. I'm not going to miss any more of these family events. Family isn't about flying into town for a wedding or funeral and then flying back out to our everyday lives. It's about being there for each other's everyday lives. It's being able to play a goofy softball game on a Sunday night. It's having people to call when you're trying a new recipe and you want someone to try it. It's telling your little cousin that "Sure, you can come sleepover at my house and do nails!" It's asking your brother-in-law what kind of birthday cake he wants, since you're finally here to make one for him. It's being able to shop with your sister when she needs a new outfit to look nice for a date. I'm not going to miss that stuff anymore, because I'm here, and it was worth every headache it took to get here. It feels good to be back.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Rich for a Day
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be fabulously wealthy? I know I have. Well, I got a little taste of it this week, and I want to tell you about it.
Rex and I planned an extravagant overnight date to celebrate our third wedding anniversary. It was a combination of an anniversary celebration as well as a final "hurrah" before we move to Michigan next week. (I don't know whether to write "boo" or "yay" after that statement). Since we live in Las Vegas, we decided to have a fun night out on the strip. We reserved a suite at Mandalay Bay Hotel, and we got ready to have a fun night out. Because we reserved the suite for a Wednesday night, it was only $112. The same suite on the weekend is well over three times that expensive. Vegas is a very "weekend" city, so weekdays are super affordable.
We got to the hotel, and I was blown away. For my friends in the Kalamazoo area - you know the Radisson Hotel? Well, this hotel made the Radisson look like a Motel 6. I couldn't believe the extravagance. There is no way that people should have spent that much money on building a hotel. I bet the chandeliers alone were $50,000 or more each. We went to ride the elevator up to our hotel, and a security guard checked our room keys and showed us to the right elevator. They have multiple elevators to go to different floors - cool! When we got in the elevator, there was a television screen showing video clips for us to watch on our ascent to our floor (we were on floor 30). We finally got to our floor, and we went into our room.
The room was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I wish I would have thought to take pictures, but I didn't. The entire side wall was floor to ceiling windows with a beautiful view of the strip. An entire wall of glass - how awesome. There was a dining room (which we had no use for...but it was still cool), a bedroom, a living area, and the most ultimately cool bathroom that you ever saw in your life. It had a huge jacuzzi next to a window that overlooked another part of the room, and across from the jacuzzi was a flat screen TV.
Wait, you don't look completely shocked. Perhaps you didn't read that slowly enough. I will repeat: ACROSS FROM THE JACUZZI WAS A FLAT SCREEN TV. IN THE BATHROOM. Whaaaaaaaaaat?!?!? I couldn't believe it. I tried telling Rex that watching Duck Dynasty from the five star hotel jacuzzi was a bit contradictory, but he didn't care. That's what he wanted to watch. Ha ha.
After we checked in to the hotel and looked around our room, it was time to go out for dinner. A parent in my classroom had given me a gift card to "brio," a fancy Italian restaurant downtown. We figured this would be a good time to use it. I had never been there, but I heard it was fancy so Rex and I got dressed up. It's a good thing we did, because this was the fanciest restaurant I had ever been to in my life. We walked in and Rex said, "Umm...I don't think I belong here. They're going to sense that I'm not sophisticated enough and kick me out." He looked sophisticated, though (he left his cowboy hat at home - THANK GOODNESS), so we got a table. We tried to read the menu, but I didn't understand anything on it. It was all fancy Italian sounding words that I didn't know. Where were normal items like "spaghetti"? I went out on a limb and ordered "campanelle diavolo." Do you have any clue what that is? I didn't either. It was described as spicy, so I figured it might be good. Ummm...it was. It was an absolute explosion of flavor with every bite. It ended up being a trumpet shaped pasta in a spicy tomato cream sauce with smoked chicken and green onions. Mmmmmm... it makes me hungry just remembering it. Rex got some sort of seafood thing, so I didn't try it. He said it was good though.
You know how waiters come around while you're eating and refill your water? Our waiter did that, but he also did other stuff too. For example, Rex ate some bread and accidentally dropped some crumbs on the table, so our waiter came and said, "Let me get those crumbs out of your way, sir." He then proceeded to use a special crumb-removing brush to wipe the crumbs from the table. My eyes just about popped out of my head. He wiped the crumbs off of our table with a special brush? Did he mistake us for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge or something?! I've never had anyone do that! And he kept calling us "sir" and "ma'am," even though Rex was right - we are sooooo not sophisticated enough for that. We're more "Howdy y'all" kind of people, but let me tell you - brio is not a "Howdy y'all" kind of place. It was fun to experience a candle-lit romantic fancy schmanz gourmet dinner, but I don't think we're going to make it our go-to date spot or anything. Even with the gift card, it ended up being pretty expensive.
Back at the hotel, we had fun night in our luxury accommodations. The next morning, I was kind of sad to be checking out. We'd had so much fun acting like we belonged in a five-star world. As we got in line to check out, I was disappointed to see that there was a line. I don't like waiting in lines (who does?), but I figured it wouldn't take too long because the line was moving pretty quickly. As soon as I got into line, a man in a tuxedo came up to me and held out a silver tray with Mandalay Bay water bottles on it. He said, "So sorry for the wait; can I interest you in a water bottle?" Yes, please! The wait was only about five minutes, but I got offered three water bottles during that time. Fancy! Where are those guys when I'm at Cedar Point?
After check-out, Rex and I spent the day at the pool. "Mandalay Bay Beach" is 11 acres of sandy "beach" with tons of pools. Rex and I particularly liked the wave pool and the lazy river. What kind of crazy hotel has that as their hotel pool?? Vegas hotels, apparently.
All in all, it was a really fun "staycation" to celebrate our anniversary as well as our last few days of being Vegas locals. I'm really going to miss living here, but I'm sure new adventures await in Michigan.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Hooray for Me!
I know it's not polite to ask a lady about her weight, but is it polite for a lady to tell you about it anyway?
Well, I don't care if it's polite or not, because I'm telling you about it and that's that.
This March, I stepped on our scale and almost cried. I weighed 145 lbs. Now, let me preface this by saying that I KNOW 145 is not "fat," and it still falls within normal BMI range for someone of my height (5'8"). Technically I was still healthy. The discouraging part about the situation was that I had never weighed this much in my life. My clothes were starting to be too small, and I bulged out of them. I hated trying to squeeze myself into my favorite outfits. My self-esteem was plummeting.
Compounding this issue was that my sister Cara is going to be a supermodel someday (you watch - she totally is). She is a junior in high school and looks FABULOUS. How would you like to have this girl as your sister? (she's the one in blue). I hate being compared to her because I don't look like that, and in March I weighed significantly more than her. I felt like a fatty.
I knew I had to do something about my weight, not only for my confidence levels but for the fact that I couldn't afford new clothes to fit my larger self. I started working out a couple times a week. I never really "dieted" per se, but I just started looking at portion sizes of food and following them. Did you know that a box of pasta is supposed to have eight servings in it? Well, I used to eat an entire box of pasta in one sitting. Also, a slice of pizza is one serving, which means that splitting a large pizza between my husband and I was probably not very healthy. Suffice it to say, I can eat a lot of food. A LOT. It just doesn't mean I should. I started cutting my portions to smaller sizes and working out more. I began weighing myself frequently, shooting for a weight under 130. I had good weeks and bad weeks, but I wasn't losing as much weight as I wanted. I was getting discouraged. I decided that since I was working to live a healthy lifestyle and was at a technically healthy weight anyway, I should probably stop weighing myself obsessively. Yesterday my husband and I went to the pool, though, and I noticed that my swimsuit bottoms felt really loose. Strange... I came home and weighed myself, and GUESS WHAT?! Here's what the scale said:
Hooray for me!! I lost fifteen pounds in a little over two months! Now I'm sexy! Ha ha... Maybe not really, but I look better than I did. I feel healthier, too. This morning I took the ultimate test: I tried on a size 2 pair of capris that I haven't been able to wiggle into for a long time. Not only could I wiggle into them, but they fit well. :-D My old clothes fit well, and my "fat clothes" are too big. Life is good. I think I might celebrate by going out and buying a new swimsuit, since my old one is too stretched out for my new and improved self. Either that or I'm going to eat a whole box of pasta (just kidding!).
Sunday, May 19, 2013
The Monkey and the Tampon
The weirdest stuff happens to me.
Case in point: today a monkey tried to steal a tampon out of my purse. I challenge you to find one other person who has had that happen to them.
Rex and I were spending a fun Sunday afternoon at the zoo. There is a really cool zoo about 45 minutes from Las Vegas that was started by two veterinarians who wanted to show off their exotic pets collection. It grew into an awesome zoo where visitors are allowed to play with almost all of the animals. Today I held a baby kangaroo, had a toucan perch on my shoulder, let a tarantula crawl up my arm, and had a lemur jump onto me, just to name a few things that happened.
The funniest, however, was the monkey.
There was a little Capuchin monkey who was out playing with the visitors, so I dutifully waited in line for my turn to play with him. When it was my turn, the little guy came and sat in my lap. He looked up at me with his cute baby monkey eyes, and I think I fell in love. I must have a monkey someday. Anyway, he crawled up to my shoulder and looked down at my purse - lots of fun stuff in there! He jumped down to rifle through my things. I didn't really mind, but I kept an eye on him because I wasn't sure what was in there and didn't want him to pull out anything embarrassing in front of all of the zoo people.
Good thing I was watching, because it turns out that a tampon has a shiny wrapper to grab a monkey's attention, and it happens to be the perfect size to fit in a little monkey hand. He grabbed my tampon and was about to pull it out to show the zoo people his prize, but I grabbed it out of his hand while it was still in my purse and shoved it down to the bottom under some other stuff as if to say "choose something else, monkey!"
Apparently the monkey thought that meant, "Let's play hide the tampon!" since he started digging through my stuff to find it again (which he did). I grabbed it again and put it back in my purse again, but I was getting a little desperate. I needed to find a diversion. I grabbed the first thing I saw, a pack of Ice Breakers breath mints, and shook them like a rattle. Babies like rattles, so I figured monkeys probably did too.
I was right. The monkey abandoned the tampon and grabbed the mints out of my hand. If it had been a baby, the baby would have contentedly shook the mint box and maybe gnawed on it a little. I wasn't dealing with a baby, though, remember? Do you know what a monkey does with a box of mints? He opens it and dumps all of the mints on his head. Then he runs around picking them up and eating them.
The people standing around started cracking up, and I looked guiltily at the zookeeper. I wasn't sure whether or not monkeys are allowed to eat mints. I guess they are, because the zookeeper didn't freak out or anything. He even ran up to her and put one in her mouth as if to say, "Here! Try this!" It was really funny.
All's well that ends well. I wasn't too horribly embarrassed, and the next guest will thank me because the monkey has really fresh breath now.
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