oh the snow...

It's quite a blustery day here in Mapleton. Three teachers (not me) fell on the sidewalks on the way into the school and we got out 2 hours early. Craziness! What have I done with my extra time...well I cleaned up a bit and started a collage of hot men. Obviously that is an excellent use of time.

It has been a week since Heath Ledger passed away and I'm still pretty sad about it. It's really funny (in a non-funny sort of way) the things that affect people. I don't know why this specific celebrity death is upsetting me so much? I guess it's a mystery.

Always a bridesmaid...

I just saw the movie 27 Dresses tonight and it was excellent!! I loved every minute of it. Laura, Kayla, and I pretty much laughed the whole time. Hilarious! Although you might think it would make me feel worse about my current state of singlness it definitely didn't...I actually feel better! I would recommend this movie to all people and I will definitely be buying it when it comes out! Besides that I had a long day of inservice, but got a lot accomplished so all is well in the neighborhood! :)

Singlness

I'm not sure that the word singlness is a word or that it would be spelled like that. Back to the real subject...I had a weekend visit to Des Moines where I realized that I am one of the only single people left in the world. Ok, so not the whole world but that's sort of what it felt like. After a nice 2.5 hour drive I am feeling much better about my life. I have decided not to be upset about being unmarried/having no love of a lifetime until I'm 26. So I have a few more years until I completely panick and need psychological help. Yippy for all the people who do have their love, but I can wait for someone who is perfect for me and maybe it's just not the time.

Another lovely thing I read about this weekend that helped my mid-20s weekend crisis was a little article in Time magazine that I read which said:
Marry me...Say yes, and you're in for more than love, children and a home. Better health and a longer life are part of the deal...
So now I know that if I don't find someone I will most likely not live as long as my married friends.

Quite distraught

Today is a very sad day and I feel semi-strange that I am this upset by it. Heath Ledger died earlier today and I just feel like this is a terrible thing. He was only 28 and very talented. He also leaves behind a 2 year old daughter which is probably the worst part. I know it sounds strange but I am just really sad about it. I have one of those feelings in the pit of my stomach where I just feel uncomfortable. It's upsetting to think that there will be no more movies with him involved and that he never got to see his last movie. Anyway, I just thought I'd write a little about that because I'm feeling a lot of empathy for his family and friends.

Drats

Thank goodness the weekend is over because mine was not so great. It started with Saturday when I tried to dry some clothes in the dryer and dum dum dum it started to explode in a cloud of smoke. It smelled awful and needless to say the dryer doesn't work anymore. Lucky for me I have tons of laundry and now can not do it. Then I had to take kids to Group Speech and unfortunately they got a 1 rating so now I have to take them to State. That sounds like it should be a good thing, but really it's just lots of extra work and another wasted Saturday. I feel like something else annoying happened but now I can't remember what it was. Darn my memory!

Inner Turmoil

"A true friend is someone who thinks you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked." - Bernard Meltzer

I just got done looking through the scrapbook Krista made for me. I will admit that I teared up a bit. Although I generally appriciate my friends, I feel like I sometimes forget just how much I love them and need them in my life. So thank you to my friends for being so fabulous! I was going to get a bit more mushy but then I decided to hold that in for another time.

I have been having some inner turmoil lately dealing with being happy. I (usually) love my life in Mapleton. When I first came here I was very scared to be on my own and now I am really glad that this is the small town I ended up in. I feel like I am a different person here than I normally am. Not in a bad way, but just different. When I'm here I have to be a grown up and do my own thing. I have no one to depend on but myself. I'm also at a school that has an excellent staff. Overall, the kids are pretty good too. I have made some great friends here and there's a fun group of younger people to hang out with. When people visit they may not understand why I like living in a small town, but for some reason I love being in a town that pretty much has nothing in it. Maybe it helps me appreciate doing other things in bigger cities? So overall I am quite happy in Mapleton. The only problem is it's location in comparison to most of my friends. Here is where the turmoil lies. I would love to live closer to Des Moines to be a little more centrally located, but at the same time there is no guarantee that I'd end up in such a great little town. I do not want to live in the city and I do not want to teach in the city. I just don't know where I see my life going at this point....

I have always had this gift for making amazing friends and right now is when it's seeming like it's not as good a gift as I thought. I can't be near all of my friends. No matter where I live I will be far away from some of them. What's worse is that I just keep making more friends. I wouldn't say I'm adding on tons of new people, but the newest ones are just as special as the ones I've known since kindergarten. I would love to be able to see everyone every day, but that's never going to work out.

So far I have figured nothing out, but rambled about a lot of things...my analyzing never seems to work!

Wrestle Mania

I just got back from my first wrestling meet of this year and it was awesome! Apparently I am now the type of person who enjoys wrestling as a sport. Last year I felt a little sketchy about it but today I enjoyed yelling and watching the "fighting". It's thrilling. Almost more exciting than watching basketball... Laura and I are going to get t-shirts made that say MVAO Wrestling on the front and "be a man, rub some dirt in it" on the back!!! Sounds brilliant to me!

Although I've only had two days of work this week, and one of the days was just mentoring meetings, I'm still ready for a weekend. I just have so much stuff to plan and figure out for this semester so I need some time.

We posted the parts for the play today and that wasn't good. Lots of kids are happy, but also lots of kids (girls) were upset. I had one girl who had a lead in the play last year get upset about getting a small part, but really there are less big parts in a musical because of all the singing so you can't expect as much. She did a great job last year, but there were lots of good people who tried out this year so that's life. I feel guilty and bad for her, but obviously I can't change it and I wouldn't either. Grrr...emotions!

Our Song

So at this moment I'm listening to Taylor Swift sing Our Song, which (although it is country) is a cute song. Generally, I dislike country but occasionally I will enjoy a song. I admit it.

Today the music teacher and I cast the musical. It's such a big deal because it's really important to these kids. I just remember when I tried out for high school musicals and how disappointed I was when I didn't get the part I wanted. Slightly different since I didn't always think the leads deserved their parts. I really considered that when I was picking people, I made sure they were kids who deserved what they were getting and who would appriciate it. They are also kids who I won't mind spending extra time with. Life is about to get busy!

Being a girl is NOT all it's cracked up to be. Actually at this moment I'm not sure what the positives are?

Things that are constantly annoying about being a girl:

• obviously the visit from Aunt Flow monthly isn't the best -- also not looking forward to the "miracle of birth" -- Bleck!
• getting up early enough to try to look nice daily -- doing hair, makeup, and trying to match
• always feeling like I should eat less or work out -- I just don't want to but that doesn't mean I don't feel like that's a flaw.
• constantly analyzing men -- wouldn't it be nice to not realize what was going on around me instead of noticing every little bitty thing? Sometimes I'd like to be the one playing the "oblivious" card.
• it's always worse for a girl to be single than a boy -- it's like boys choose to be single, but girls are just losers who can't find someone. Maybe I like being on my own. Is it possible that I like finding out what I want from life before I share it with someone?

Those are just a few of my annoyances right now. I'm sure I could come up with more if I didn't need to go to bed! :)

Crabby

Why is it never ok to be crabby? I am crabby right now and apparently that emotion is not ok. People are at my house which is fine but I am not so much in the mood for lots of games and things so forcing me to play makes me more mad. I don't know why this crabby mood happened, probably because I felt icky all day and then went to the worst christmas party ever. There weren't very many fun teachers there so it was quite boring. I am just not in the mood for people to make annoying comments or be in my personal space. This was a little bit of a venting session, but I needed it. Grrrr....

Christmas Break

I took a few weeks off of blogging while I was away from Mapleton so my blog is very behind. I would like to report that I had a great Christmas! Lots of family bonding and seeing friends so that was excellent. I did have a date which most people who read this already know. It was good, but nothing too earth shattering. I spent New Years in Des Moines with some of my favorite people! I've been back at school for two days and so far nothing too terrible has happened. Musical auditions have started and it's going to be hard to cast it. There are around 40 kids who want to try out and definitely not that many parts. I'm going to post the list and run in case there is an uproar. I think that's about it for now. More later I swear!!