Michigan on Top

With the debacles surrounding Michigan football over the past year, I was happy to hear that Jake Long is being drafted #1. I don't have any idea when that last happened.

I don't quite understand why they are drafting before the draft starts. So I am knocking on wood that it holds up.

In about 52 hours, I will be done with taking classes for the master's degree! Hopefully I'll get my sanity back. We went on a field trip today and I left my car keys there. That wouldn't have been such a problem if we knew where the second set was...

Stream of Consciousness

It's beautiful outside, and I miss having a sunroof.

When will I be able to think in paragraphs again instead of lists or sentences?

My professor canceled class tonight so we could work on our papers. They are now due by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Do you know what that means for me?

OK, that was a paragraph.

Thanks Molly, for the idea to center the text. It's kind of fun.

Why do parents refuse to come to conferences, but will show up for "fun nights"?

I saw a Ben Folds concert last night in a college gymnasium. Dave and I stood (general admission, no chairs), in the old folks section in the back. It was a good concert, but brutal.

Yes, the concert was the day before a huge paper is due.

I slept through two alarms this morning and missed my carpool.

Gas was $3.59 on the corner this afternoon.

Keepsakes

I love getting wedding invitations. The bigger envelopes in the mail, the calligraphy, seeing the choice of color and font, finding out all the details about where and when the wedding will take place, all of it.

I was cleaning our office yesterday and found the save the date notes and invitations from our wedding. I remembered the trips to the scrapbook store for paper and all the work that went into preparations. Even with all the work and expense, they are things that I'll treasure forever.

Three down, three to go...

Days, that is.

I've done pretty well on the list of things to do. Dave's birthday went well, as did the regional meet. I postponed my midpoint review for another few weeks, saw my father, and slept 8 hours in the past two nights.

Tuesday night, Dave did come to the regional meet. I didn't expect him to... which was reflected in the fact that I never saw him there or said hello to him. He sat with parents on my team who told him they were glad to be there to keep him entertained since I was ignoring him. Luckily they didnt know it was his birthday at the time, because they would have really given me a hard time!

In unrelated news, Lucas is using the potty. Not just the little one, but the big one. His mom is thrilled because that means less to clean up, while Lucas is walking around giving high fives and saying, "Poop potty! Poop Potty!"

I don't know where to start...

This is my final week of having two exhausting jobs.

This is my to-do list for this week (and I am here posting):

-Write a response paper for class Tuesday night
-Celebrate Dave's birthday (Tuesday) somehow (I did get him presents)
-Write lesson plans for Tuesday afternoon
-Write lesson plans for Friday all day
-Coach at the regional and state meets
-Write out updates to my students' parents regarding their May Mackinac trip
-Hang out with my father who will be here from Las Vegas
-Write up a mid-point review of my work in my master's field
-Compile work from the past two years of my master's
-Copy said work and paper and deliver it to EMU
-Give mid-point review presentation
-Go to dinner with the state swim team Wednesday night
-Send the overdue book order payment for my class
-Submit the new book order

I guess that doesn't seem like it is as bad as I thought.

You'll see more of me on here soon. If I make it through the week.

Bursting

So I solved one problem today to be faced with two more. Gotta love it.

Coaching is fun. Today I handled high school girl drama/conflict and actually think they learned something from it. Of course, by opening up for some discussion, now they've given me two more problems to think about.

I think it may be possible that my brain will just burst.

The good news is, I have no practice tomorrow night.

All in all, I have handled the first four weeks of the season rather well, I think. I have been happier, have only dissolved into a crying mess one time, and made some time for myself. Unfortunately, I add another thing to the to-do list tomorrow when my fall class at EMU starts up.

I have a wonderful, calm, peaceful class of 19 boys and 6 girls this year in fourth grade. It is amazing what going in to work and not being verbally assaulted every day will do for your job morale.

There are many, many pictures to post- a trip to Boston, a new bathroom floor and vanity, new nephew pics... and much more going on in life. Hopefully I'll get back to this more soon.

Cool Stuff

• You need to check out Google Translator if you haven't already. Go to Language Tools on Google's main page, and then you can have any text translated. The really spooky part was when I put in for my blog to be translated. Within 3 seconds, my entire blog popped up in Spanish. It took about 10 seconds, but my blog also popped up in Arabic. I am just amazed that that kind of technology exists.
• I spent an entire day after a sand volleyball game in complete discomfort because I had sand in my eye. I tried flushing it with water, submersing my head, swimming, all to no avail. It took me 5 minutes on the Internet to finally find the remedy, and I need to share it with you. I was in all sorts of pain with a huge headache, and I was so relieved. In order to get something stuck in your eyelid out, pull your upper eyelid over your lower eyelid. The lashes on your lower eyelid will brush out the offending object.
  

Story People

When traveling in the Virgin Islands a few years back, Dave and I visited a ton of local art galleries. Of course, the favorite thing we found was from an artist in Iowa (not the exotic location!). His name is Brian Andreas, and he is the creator of Story People. For some reason, the stories resonate with me. Many people I have talked to think the art is weird, but I love it. I think it's because it's about what I'm capable of!

Check it out. Some of my favorite stories are:
Good Jumper
Waiting for Signs
Flying Woman
Wonder Roast
Invention
Simple Rules (I know, I'm sorry)
Some Kind of Ride
Enough Time
Color Blind
Before Dawn
Plumber


More things I love are the tiles that Hallmark puts out. I saw one at a local Hallmark that said, "Love What You Do", but haven't been able to find it again. I needed it this past year.

Time (Can you tell I haven't been trying ten titles?)

Lately, I have an aversion to everything that is required of me. Cleaning, grading papers, going to work in general... I guess it is spring fever.

Just last weekend, I had all of the students' grades caught up and handed out progress reports. Then by Friday, I had a bagful of papers to grade again. If I could spend 15 minutes every day working on grading, or cleaning, or laundry, or dishes, I'd have a lot less piling up going on.

Over the past two weeks, I have tried to do less worrying about what I have to do and just doing it. It is amazing how much less time things take when you just go ahead and do them without the bellyaching.

On a fun note, this past Tuesday my mom and I both called in sick to work. (I am not one to feign sickness much, but she's retiring and we thought it would be a fun day.) We went and spent the greater part of the day playing golf with another friend of mine, Robin (who also called in). It was a great treat- the weather was beautiful, and it took until the 12th hole for me to want to walk off the golf course in frustration.

pro·cras·ti·na·tion

Procrastination is the deferment or avoidance of an action or task to a later time. For the person procrastinating this may result in stress, a sense of guilt, the loss of productivity, the creation of crisis, and the chagrin of others for not fulfilling one's responsibilities or commitments.

transitive verb : to put off intentionally and habitually

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Coaching has started again. It is a fun session, with plenty of coaches and a reasonable number of kids. It also means that when I get home at 8:00, I am dead on the couch. I would have posted sooner, but there was absolutely nothing of any value to say.

After 2 1/2 weeks of coaching, I have piles and piles of papers to grade. I am going to head off to do some tonight, but I spend every evening thinking about the things I have to do without doing them.

OH! I remember what I was going to say! A friend of mine had tickets to the Norah Jones concert here Friday night. She gave them to me as she had something come up. They are front row tickets. Yahoo!!! Of course, I can't keep a secret worth anything. I had hoped to just bring Dave there on Friday, but within half an hour I was jumping around with the news.

Domesticity & March Madness

I made cookies tonight. So far (crossing my fingers) they aren't ending up burnt like they so often do. I tend to forget that they are in the oven... In general, I am not a very domestic person. I clean because I have to, Dave cooks every night and I do the dishes, and this is the first time I've baked in months. I wanted cookies for us, of course, but also my international partner from China because I am seeing her tomorrow, the custodian from school for replacing my dirty orange curtains with blinds, and the teacher across the hall because she has returned from maternity leave.

I was sad to see Southern Illinois lose tonight to Kansas. Last year, Bradley made it to the Sweet 16 and beat Kansas in the first round. I would have liked to have seen another Missouri Valley Conference team do even better. It's crazy how no matter how the basketball game goes, it always seems as though you can just watch the last two minutes and see the most exciting part.

Fun Notes Today!

• The crocuses and daffodils I planted last fall started popping up yesterday! Will they make it through the lower temperatures coming over the next few weeks?
• I didn't have to call Jeremy's* parents once today, and he made it through the entire school day. (*Name changed)
• Last night at my volleyball league game, I FINALLY accomplished serving overhand! They were great serves through one and a half games. After that, of course, I couldn't get one over the net. I have another chance tonight in the winter league playoffs.
  
• The temperature in the house is 63 degrees right now! 63 degrees feels wonderful, as we regularly keep the house at 59 degrees during the winter (I sneak it up to 62 every once in a while).The warm spell will make the gas bill next month a little easier to take.
  

What went well in school today:
My students are making PowerPoint presentations for book reports this quarter. Jason* did a fabulous book report about dinosaurs, complete with wonderful, scary pictures!