Wishing Away Time

I'm doing it again.  I'm wishing away weeks and months of my life.  I don't know why I torture myself like this.  Oh wait!  I know why; I do it because I have so much to look forward to.  We have two exciting trips coming up and I just get so excited about traveling.  Traveling is nourishment for my soul and for my brain.  Traveling is a way for us to get away from the routine of our everyday lives.  We can reconnect and talk about things other than work.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my job and my students, but I also enjoy spending time with my family and learning.  You see, we don't just travel or go on vacation to relax.  We like to go and do new things.  We like to learn about the places we are.  We like to experience the culture of the area.

We choose to spend our money on traveling.  We don't have a fancy house or a new car, but we get out and about quite frequently.  In November, we are going to Chicago for Thanksgiving.  We get to visit and spend the holiday with our extended family that we only see once or twice a year.  We know we will be seeing Fiddler on the Roof, which is one of hubby's favorites.  We will also probably go to the zoo and a museum or two.  Hopefully, we can also catch up with some friends that we haven't seen in a while.

In December, we will be spending Christmas at Disney World.  While this will be a lot of fun, we also make a point to go on tours to learn about the workings of the park.  This year we will be learning about Animal Kingdom and some of the animals that call it home.

While I can't wait for these trips to get here, I also know that I need to slow down and enjoy this fall.  There is a lot going on and I need to take time to enjoy it.  My studnets need me and I need to be my best for them so I'll try to stop wishing away time because I know with how busy things are it will fly by.

They Don't Make Them Like That Anymore

This past Saturday Mom, hubby, and I went and saw the week's number 1 movie.  We saw The Lion King.  I love that movie so much.  It has all the elemens that make for a good movie in my opinion.  I laughed, I cried, and I got the chills all in a span of 89 minutes.  It also has great music and a message of loyalty, love, and family.  This movie makes me so nostalgic.  I first saw it when it was released 17 years ago.  I was almost grown then, but still in high.  I was at the end of my childhood and looking forward to the future.  Now, I am far removed from my childhood and sometimes wish I could go back to that simpler time.  I've seen this movie multiple times since, have seen the Broadway play, and mini-productions of it at Disney World, but nothing brings back the memories like sitting in a movie theater with popcorn.  There are very few movies that have that same effect on my today.  I don't know if it's the quality of movies has gone down or the fact that I have grown up and see things through different eyes.

In other weekend happenings, I watched my beloved Hogs lose to Alabama.  I saw lots of negative feedback on Facebook, which makes me sad.  If we had won these same people would have been singing the team's praises.  The truth is that Alabama was a better team than us on Saturday for a variety of reasons and I love my team just the same.   

We were also busy scheduling a weekend trip to Branson at the end of October and our annual Thanksgiving trip to Chicago.  We have a lot of fun and exciting things coming up this fall including much more Razorback football.

Glowing and Growing

In education, when providing feedback we often use Glows and Grows.  Glows are things that are good and Grows are things you want to improve on.  Well, I am going to give a couple Glows and a Grow about this past week.

GLOW #1

Razorback Football is finally here!   I love the whole atmosphere of the football games.  We took a family picture, which I think turned out pretty good.  Then, we headed to the stadium and got there in plenty of time to enjoy all the pre-game festivities including our mascot, Tusk, arriving, the band forming the "A" on the field, and the players running through the "A" before kick-off.  There were tons of people there (The Razorbacks truly are our pro team!) and we won 51-7!  Can't wait until the next game!





GLOW #2

A couple of weeks ago I entered a giveaway on The Glamorous Life of a Housewife.  And I actually won!  I won this beautiful set of measuring cups from Anthropologie.  They are too pretty to use, but I love them so.  Right now they are just sitting on my counter so I can admire them whenever I am in the kitchen.  Thanks Whitney!



GROW

I am currently taking a class on Educational Research.  This class is killing me.  I feel like I am studying a foreign language.  I don't know the terminology or have the smallest clue about what most of it means. The sad thing is, I have taken basically the same class before.  Granted, it was nine years ago, but still, it is seriously like I have never heard any of this stuff before.  Research is definitely not like riding a bike.  You don't just get back on and remember how to do it or read it.  I know I will understand this stuff; I just hope it's sooner rather than later!

That Was Embarrassing

Little, potentially embarrassing things seem to happen to me quite often like tripping over my own feet, slipping on wet floors, and the like.  Thankfully, this seems to happen most of the time when either no one is around or I am surrounded by complete strangers.  Hopefully, these strangers just have a quick laugh to themselves and move on with their own busy lives.

Yesterday an embarrassing thing happened.  But, it happened when I was in a room of 4th and 5th grade boys.  They were sitting at this table in my classroom.



I had given them something to work on.  I was going to sit in the chair with the wheels to be able to help them.  I tried to sit down and apparently sat too close to the edge of the chair.  Instead of letting me sit down, the chair rolled right out from under me at warp speed and stopped only when it hit the wall.  I fell smack dab on my rear end.  To make matters worse, I was wearing a skirt.  I did manage to land fairly lady-like and therefore avoided showing anything inappropriate for young boys to see.  One of them was even sweet enough to ask if I was ok.  I was so embarrassed and slightly sore from hitting a concrete floor.

Slightly embarrassing moment #2 of the week happened today.  I was dressed and walked down to the car.  As I was getting things in the car, my pants reached their breaking point.  They were a little thread-bare and decided they were done.  The thread-bare spot turned into a huge hole.  So I had to run back upstairs and change.  The only person I caught a peek of was a random guy that lives in our building.  Hopefully, he didn't notice.  At least this happened before I got to work.

Maybe I can avoid any further embarrassing incidents this week!

Doing My Best

You know sometimes you try and you try, but your best just doesn't seem good enough.  I've kinda felt like that these past couple of days.  Work has been a little tough, but I just keep telling myself it's because it's the beginning of the year.  Once everything settles down, it will get better and we all will get in a little bit of a routine.  I won't go into all the details, but I will keep telling myself to just keep doing the best that I can.  I will in no way be able to keep everyone around me 100% happy, but I will keep trying.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been going to exercise in the afternoons after school.  Today I didn't do that.  I was feeling tired and run down so I came home and took a nap instead.  I haven't given up on exercising and hope to go tomorrow.  I'm just going to keep doing the best that I can.

I have been trying to make a better effort with meal planning.  I hate having to figure out what we are gong to do for any particular meal on the spot so I have been making an effort to plan ahead.  This saves me from getting stressed out and making grocery store runs at the last minute (or worse, going through the drive-through).  I am cooking at home more which gives us leftovers for lunch.  Granted, I'm not doing fancy meals, but rather stuff that is quick and easy.  I'm doing my best and it seems to be getting the job done for now.