*Last night, I reached into my filing cabinet eagerly to pull out my book lists so that I could make that delicious check mark through yet another book title that I’d read. And there my highlighter sat–poised with eagerness over the columns of book titles–when I saw it:
I had read the WRONG book.
Apparently, there are actually TWO books that both go by the name of The Piano Teacher, and me, not paying attention to the author’s name, read the WRONG one.
Go figure that the ONE goal this month I was actually feeling really motivated on is one of the only ones I probably won’t be able to reach. Dang you, January.
*I ordered $50 worth of stuff from Old Navy last night and only had to spend $15 (thanks to Super Cash and Rewards). I am the queen of cheap living. (In fact, I think I might start posting more regularly about little tricks I’ve come up with for getting things cheaper–would that be interesting to you?)
*Signs that my hair is maybe getting a little too long:
-it frequently gets yanked when I take my purse off my shoulder since it’s entwined with the handles
-it’s gotten caught in the car door, the car window, and in normal doors (oh come on—I can’t be the only one this happens to)
-when we kneel in bed to say our evening prayers, it always gets trapped under Matt’s forearms, sometimes causing me to yelp “OW!” in the middle of a prayer
-my arms get tired when I actually try and legitimately style my hair because it takes so stinkin’ long and my arms are almost always already sore from running
-when I turn around fast, it sometimes whips people in the face (funny for me, not so fun for them)
-I keep dropping food or liquid into it (and sometimes don’t notice until hours later…yuck!)
-when I lean down to help students with something on their desk, my hair covers the book or paper that we’re trying to look at, and I’ve started to find my hairs all over my students’ stuff. Double yuck.
-(I’m sure there are many more, but my class is about to start. How do you know if your hair is getting too long?)
*I’ve been so busy at work and with everything else going on regularly in my life that Matt and I haven’t even watched last week’s episode of Biggest Loser. This is a first, people.
*I am just now—today!—getting around to grading stuff the students handed in DECEMBER 3RD. I’ve always known that I hate grading, but this year, it’s reached epic proportions (and not just for me either—all the other Language Arts teachers are basically in the exact same boat). The problem is, whenever I tell myself that for sure today I will get such-and-such thing graded, one of two things inevitably happens: one, I am given other random things I have to get done ASAP by the department head or by the administration that take several hours after school to complete, or two, I get so hungry that I start taking points off the students’ work when I probably shouldn’t, which is a definite sign I need to get the heck out of the school for the day.
*(I think the grading thing will get a little easier when the sun starts setting later at night because on Mondays and Wednesdays, I have to go home at a reasonable hour–like around 4 PM or so—if I want to get an outside run in before I lose daylight. Of course, my final trimester grades will be due long before that really starts happening, so I don’t really know what I’m going to do…maybe I’ll just stop assigning my kids stuff…)
*Five years ago TODAY I went into the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah as a full-time missionary for the LDS church. A part of me can hardly believe it’s been so long (partly because not a day goes by that I don’t think of my mission). Whenever I think about my time in the MTC, there are a few things that really stick out to me that I LOVED about being there:
-all the study time I could possibly want! (I’ve always been a freak about studying, so I relished the chance to study something almost 24/7 and not feel one bit guilty about it. I know, I’m such a weirdie.)
-the excitement of singing missionary hymns with thousands of other missionaries. For those who have never been in the MTC, it is a powerful thing to hear hundreds upon hundreds of young adults (most from ages 18-26) singing with their whole entire hearts. It’s something that I wonder if I’ll ever really experience again.
-every mealtime being an all-you-can-eat buffet, which was always finished off with copious amounts of chocolate and/or ice cream. Some missionaries complain about the food in the MTC, but I loved it.
-receiving mail from home every day. Even though the MTC was located just over an hour away from my mom’s house in Bountiful, missionaries choose not to have any face-to-face contact (and very limited phone contact) with their loved ones back home during their missions. Because letters were one of the few forms of communication allowed in the mission rules, I seriously LIVED for the mail. (It really helped that I was spoiled rotten my whole mission when it came to receiving letters and packages). I think my mission is part of the reason why I still have a major mail obsession today.
*It’s strange to me how much has changed over the past five years, but I will be forever grateful for the chance I had to be a missionary for my church.
*Yesterday, I got a shipment of new books I’d ordered for my classroom, and it was like a whisper spread like lightning around all my students, and on everybody’s lips were two words: NEW BOOKS. I’m so excited that many of my students get as excited as I do over new books. It makes me think that maybe I am making a difference in their lives, even if they would never, EVER admit it.
*One of the new book series I picked up was the Michael Vey series, by Richard Paul Evans. Seriously, my students are OBSESSED with these books, and I keep catching my kids surreptitiously trying to read them under their desks while I’m up front teaching. Have you ever read that series? If the popularity keeps on growing like it has been, I don’t see how they could NOT make those books into movies…
