For those of you...

That were concerned, I did hear from Jordan yesterday. All is well and life is wonderful. 

Now I am off to a job interview at Canyon High. Can I just say how much I hate interviews? Loathe, despise and abhor do not even cover it....

If I don't get an email by tomorrow someone is going to have to keep me from calling the mission home... 

Yes, I know. Some people aren't as lucky as I am. Some missionaries aren't allowed or able to write emails. But guess what, I am being selfish and I don't care. Jordan is allowed to and he has, every single week for the previous 74 weeks. This is the first week that I did not get an email when I should have and now I am freaking out. What if his parasite that he has been battling has made him really sick? What if a million different things have happened? The "what ifs" are running through my mind at a million miles an hour. Even a good dose of Tchaikovsky hasn't calmed my nerves...

Am I crazy? Probably but until I have an email...watch out. Don't say I didn't warn you. 

Impatience...

Patience is not a skill I have developed over the 21 years I've been alive. In fact, of all of the virtues I probably struggle with that one the most. With some things patience comes easier and some things drive me to the edge of insanity. 

I am particularly impatient when it comes with time and emails- not every email- just the emails from Jordan. It I haven't received an email by Monday evening I start panicking. I check my email about 1,000,000 times a day on Monday, constantly hoping that he will have written. Normally, I have my email by mid afternoon or early evening, at the latest. This week is different. It is almost 4 o'clock in the afternoon on Tuesday and I haven't heard a word- neither have has his family. Now I am far beyond impatience and into the realm of panic. 

Calm down? Yes, I probably should but I can't. I have scoured the internet for any story related to Mexico (thankfully nothing tragic has come up) and every worst case scenario is running through my mind.  I can't even think clearly. So until I have an email my impatience (and panic) will continue to increase. 

If this is God's way of helping me develop my patience, He has a sick sense of humor. 

"And, oh, how blessed is it thus to meet! To feel that vanished years have not estranged us, distance has not diminished love, that we are to each other even as we parted; to feel again the fond kiss, to hear once more the accents of a voice which to us has been for years so still,--a voice that brings with it the gush of memory! Past days flit before us; feelings, thoughts, hopes, we deemed were dead, all rise again, summoned by that secret witchery, the well-remembered though long silent voice... still will it be the same--the voice we once have loved, and deemed to us for ever still--oh, time, and grief, and blighted hope will be forgotten, and youth, in its undimmed and joyous beauty, its glow of generous feelings, its bright anticipations, all, all again be ours."

-Grace Aguilar

 

Jordan comes home in exactly 115 days...the countdown begins! 

Hillary and I are in similar boats (her missionary comes home one month before mine!) and we have found multiple ways to count down until the grand event...

1 more General Conference

4 Fast sundays

115 days

16 more Sundays

4 pay checks

1 school quarter

2760 hours

1656000 minutes

9936000 seconds

but its not like I am counting or anything :) 

Just something to think about...

"Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding line, and no way of knowing how near the harbor was. "Light! Give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour."

-Helen Keller

My only question is, do we cherish education in the same way? Would our lives be different if we had a different attitude about learning? So many do not have the opportunities that we have. Do we take advantage of them? Are we using our minds and capabilities to their utmost capacity? If not, what a terrible waste. 

(Can you tell that I am a teacher?) :)

Chinese Food

Whenever we get together as a family, it is guaranteed that we will have chinese food. The greatest part of chinese food are the fortune cookies (never mind the fact that fortune cookies are an american novelty and not chinese at all!). We have had some interesting advice in the past but tonight we had my all-time favorite:

Do not kiss an elephant on the lips tonight.

Need I say more?

Procrastinating...

I have a TPA to be writing. It is due tomorrow. Tomorrow at 4:oo pm. Am I close to finishing it? NO! Have I even started? Of course not. So in the spirit of polical correctness- which is what I have to be in writing this silly thing, I am going to share some of my favorite "politically correct terms" for common events in a teens life...

*No one fails anymore- he's merely passing impaired.
*Your bedroom isn't cluttered- it's passive restrictive.
*These days a student isn't lazy-he's energetically declined.
*Kids don't get grounded- they merely hit a "social speed bump"
* Your homework isn't missing- its having an out of notebook experience
*You're not sleeping in class-you are rationing consciousness.
*You are not late- you simpley have a rescheduled arrival time.
*You're not having a bad hairday- you're suffering from rebellious follicle syndrome
*You don't have smelly gym socks- you have odor retentive athletic footwear
*You don't talk alot- you are abundantly verbal.
*You weren't passing notes in class- you were participating in the discreet exchange of penned mediation (one of my favorites)
*You're not being sent to the Principal's office, you are being sent on a mandatory fieldtrip to the administration building.
*It's not called gossip anymore, its the speedy transmission of near factual information.
*The food in the cafeteria is not awful- it's digestively challenged.

Now I am off to write...like a mad women.

A productive day...

5 layouts- what a fabulous day! The wonderful thing about digital scrapbooking is that when you are done you just shut down the computer- NO MESS! I was a paper scrapper until about 6 months ago when I became addicted to Digi Scrapping. I LOVE my Adobe Photoshop CS (I would die without it!) and have become a scrapgirls.com junkie.

Here is a picture of Little Miss (as my sister calls her.) Doesn't she make the cutest little fairy?

This layout I used: Avalon Collection Biggie by Valeria Randall (available at scrapgrils.com). Font: MA Sexy

Instead of working...

Today I have not been in the mood to work- at all. So instead of tackling the GIANGANITC pile of paperwork that awaits me or even the powerpoint I need to create for tomorrows lesson, I have spent the last 2 hours scrapbooking. Even though I haven't been able to get anything "constructive" done, I had a very productive two hours, as far as scrapbooking goes. Here are some of the pages I did today...

(When viewing, the files are going to be huge so if you hit CTRL+ (-) [the minus key] the picture will get to a size that you are actually able to see.)

Be Silly Today...

'Nough said.

Wasting Time

There always seems to be a million things that I should be doing and yet I never seem to get around to doing any of it. Right now is a perfect example. Instead of working on my TPA (Teacher Performance Assessment) or the 10 lesson plans that are due on Saturday or the two papers that are also due on Saturday, I am sitting here blogging. Of course, now that I have procrastinated just a moment or two more, I am now off to start my work. So, if you don't see from me or hear from me the next couple of days, I am buried in the mound of paper work that the state of California has deemed necessary for me to complete in order to be qualified as a competent teacher.