HALLELUJAH!

MY CREDIT CARD IS OFFICIALLY PAID OFF!! I'VE BEEN WORKING FOR THIS DAY FOR QUITE A WHILE AND NOW I HAVE A ZERO BALANCE! HOORAY! AND HALLELUJAH!

Financial freedom is something that i have always struggled with, and paying for school has been an added burden, but with my credit card paid off, i have one more loan to repay and then i will be debt free! when i clicked that button for my last payment today, it was a wonderful feeling! who knew that seeing the number zero could be so entirely gratifying! i count this as a HUGE accomplishment. granted, i'm super broke still but i'm almost out of the hole! now the goal would be to never be in the hole again...probably won't happen if i go back to school! oh well, short successes!

OH MY!

Teaching is an adventure! Today had some really good moments though-

1. I can not help myself from sharing this...i was cleaning up papers from the tables after the kids left for the period and i found this note and i just have to share it! it's so ridiculous!

Dear friend,

You may or may not believe this but i get away with being bad because i'm a vampire. you won't believe it cause you think they aren't real but they are.

Sincerely,

Anne

i honestly could not stop laughing! this girl really thinks she's a vampire! what is this world coming too?? maybe i'll get a paper cut in front of her and see what happens! :)

2- we have been talking about symbolism for the past couple of days and the other day we talked about symbolism in music. we talked about some songs lyrics and one of the songs was Drops of Jupiter by Train! I have literally had that song stuck in my head for the past week. Today i showed them a video from youtube with the lyrics so they could hear the music and see the lyrics...one class ate it up! they were being so awesome that when they requested that i play Fireflies for them, i couldn't resist. Two boys went up to the front of the room and started interpretive dancing to the song right in the middle of class and it was AWESOME! i so wished at that moment that i had a video camera! it was so hilarious! two 6th grade boys twirling around in slow circles while "the earth moves slowly"! PRICELESS!!

A Due Reward!

I love long term subbing- do not get me wrong- but these kids at the end of the school year are out of control!! I love them, (most of them), but these kids are giving me the run around! It's a hard balance between caring what they do and just running out of patience to care what they do! The teacher i am subbing for is on maternity leave and she will be retiring from teaching to be a stay-at-home mom! because of this, she has boxes in her room so that she can come and pack things up! This week, because i'm so nice and because i had run out of patience, I let this boy named Matt build a fort with them! He's been wanting to all week and I got tired of saying no- and dang was it so cute to see this 6th grader doing his spelling packet in a cardboard box fort! I wish i had taken a picture! I know i probably shouldn't have let him do it, but i didn't care at that point!

i figure that i deserve a reward if i can make it through these last 2 weeks of school! i think that i more than deserve this-

i love it and want it and frankly, i'm going to get it before school is over! maybe i should have enough self-control to wait but i don't!

there is also something else that i am dying to own, but i don't know that there is anything i can go through to feel that i deserve this as a reward...it's $200, but it would be well worth it!

all of the seasons of Lost compiled so conveniently in one boxed set! if i really rationalize, i tell myself that buying all the seasons separately would be much more expensive- 6 seasons x $40 per season= $240! so $200 is a steal! ;) okay, maybe not, but i'm starting to save my money!!

as a side note...

TOMORROW IS THE SERIES FINALE OF LOST!

i have mixed emotions about the whole thing- i became a Lost fan my junior year of college! i had few friends and a non-existent social life and a good internet connection, all which lead me to watching seasons 1-5 on my down time (and when i should be doing homework, and when i should be studying, and when i should be doing a whole slue of other things) and i fell in love! I watched Lost so much that i started dreaming about meeting Jack Shepard on an island, and flying on airplanes and sitting next to Kate Austen! I LOVE LOST! i am so excited to see if all of my questions will be answered tomorrow, i kind of think they won't, but i can not wait to watch the series finale (i'll be watching it Monday, so don't bother me on Monday!)

but then it will be over, and then what will we talk about through late night texts Betsy! well...we'll just have to watch it over from the beginning, that way i can still get my Lost kick every week!

Comfort!

When you have a really crappy day, a day like today, what do you reach for?? I personally look for one of two things- clothes or food! :) Today was a mostly crappy day! I have been long term subbing for a 6th grade class and mostly they are good kids! but this one class had given me the run around and today i got so mad that i left the class!! ;) okay i just stepped out of the class but still! so today i needed some comfort food! i took a jaunt to good ol McD's and got myself a crispy chicken honey mustard snack wrap! oh yum! i don't know why but i freaking love those snack wraps! and then another drive down the street to the sno cone shack for a strawberries n' cream sno cone! :) and those two things together make for my mid day snack and a little pick me up!

What do you grab for when you have had a crappy day!?

(not to make you focus on the crap of a day, but the comfort afterwards!)

Wishing I had something to say...

It's been a while since i've posted and that's because i have nothing to say! You know how when you write words down and send them out into the universe, or the world we call the internet, you want them to be witty and clever and the first thing that everyone you know wants to read... I don't have any of those words today! but i have some words, however less than profound they may be- i can guarantee that they will be almost completely and utterly incoherent!

Life is hard, but life is great right?! how can it be both at the same time? I don't know, but it's one of those things i've been thinking about. how can we be happy when so many things are crumbling down around us? how do we find the strength and the will power to get out of bed every morning, especially on the days we don't want to!? Why do we do half the things that we do?

I guess that lately i've fallen into a rut and i've been thinking a lot about why i do the things i do. i haven't been doing the things i want to do and i haven't been the person i want to be, at least not every day. I want to be someone who inspires others, and who makes a difference, but i haven't felt that lately! But i walk out in the sunshine, or hear an amazing song, or get a text or call from a friend i've been dying to talk to! or savor a delicious candy bar of perfectly mixed chocolate, caramel and peanuts all melted to the perfect state and it not only tastes good but makes all my worries melt away! Those are good things! Those make a good day!

but what about all the bad things? people not getting along, disappointment, grief, pain, loneliness, confusion and fear! what do we do with that? what do we do- we move forward! why do we do that, why don't we just let ourselves wallow in self-pity, why do we even try to pick ourselves back up and try again? i guess there's a million reasons why, but i know we do! we pick ourselves back up and we try again, and we try more and we try harder and we just try!

President Monson can say it better than me,

"Our responsibility is to rise from mediocrity to competence, from failure to achievement. Our task is to become our best selves. One of God's greatest gifts to us is the joy of trying again, for no failure ever need be final."

wishing i had something to say, probably more appropriate is...i wish i had something concrete to say! i don't know what i'm trying to say! i guess, life doesn't always make sense but even so it's good! i see people with problems all around me and i want to fix them but we can't always fix them. We want to find just the right words to make everything okay but we can't, we want to say and do the right thing but there's isn't such a thing. we want to be ourselves but always be better! we change our minds from day to day, week to week- we change, we grow, we progress and we always live in a state of contentment and anxiousness for the next stage. We live today and plan for tomorrow! and we think about yesterday!

we write a blog post and hope by the end of it we've said something profound, and if we haven't, we hope people don't think we're crazy and have lost our marbles! because sometimes the only thing we can do is write and let what comes, come

and we wake up tomorrow and try to make sense of it all...and hopefully we figure out more than we did today!