A few things on my mind:
1. My hair is at the perfect length for me, which means (of course) that I’m due for another haircut.
2. My husband took the GRE today, and it’s starting to make our future a little more real. We’ve been spending our weekends researching schools and weighing options and preparing application materials, which is bound to continue to take up our weekends for the next couple months at least.
Growing up is kind of scary, eh? It’s like right now, we have this nice and relatively smooth lifestyle that is almost entirely within our comfort box—we have enough money for our needs and some of our wants, we’re happy with the friends and neighbors we’ve surrounded ourselves with, and we’re very much used to the lifestyle we’re in right now, kinks and all. Zoom forward a couple years and anything could be in the picture—grad school in Florida, a baby on the way, a non-teaching job (on my part) to pay the bills because I can’t (or won’t) find another job in education once we leave…it’s all a little unsettling. Exciting, yes, but unsettling.
3. Random acts of kindness make all the difference in the world sometimes. Yesterday morning, I arrived at school running on just under three hours of sleep, and what do I find? A special delivery of a 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper and two chocolate bars from an old college friend who understood that teaching is still often very difficult for me and sent the gift my way just to cheer me up. Lyndsey, you are living proof that there is still much good in this world!
4. I had somewhat forgotten (over the course of a nice, long, lazy summer) how difficult it is to keep up on things while I’m teaching full-time again: blogging, housework (esp. dishes), my church calling, exercise, cooking, and much more all seem to be slowly falling more and more by the wayside. As for the exercise, though, I’ve been brutally determined to fit some in at least 2-3 times a week no matter what, and I think it’s the only reason I haven’t totally cracked under pressure on some days. I keep reminding myself that things will get better once I’m more caught up (and finally ahead of myself in planning), but that won’t happen for awhile yet.
I’m debating on just setting aside one day a week to stay at the school super late (instead of just the usual hour or two past contract time) to get totally caught up and ahead so that I can go home at normal time the other days. The only flaw? I don’t have a spare night, seeing as how packed my weekly schedule is.
5. Mine and Matt’s birthdays are coming up, and I’m excited about two things: one, we’re probably going to get some of the board games we’ve been coveting like crazy ever since our gaming friends left us for Texas, and two, we’re finally going to splurge on a nice(r) vacuum, which will maybe hopefully mean that the wretched cat smell will finally start to dissipate out of our apartment. (The whole thing is suspicious, really—we’ve never owned a cat, and we’ve lived here for two and a half years, but the smell still remains…I’m convinced that the cat must have died here and its ghostly stench still haunts the bathroom and spare bedroom where it was locked up…)
Isn’t it weird how you get so excited over the “practical” gifts as an adult? As a kid, getting clothes or stuff you needed was usually the worst, but now that I’m an adult, I love getting that kind of stuff (especially kitchen appliances!).
What practical adult gifts do you look forward to getting?
6. I just realized I could basically pass for a vampire in these shots. I usually go with darker eye makeup and no lip color, but I tried to switch it up and only do mascara with a bold red lip.
Guess I need to remember to load up on the blush next time 🙂
What’s your favorite way to switch up your makeup look?
