Wednesday, December 19, 2007

All they want for Christmas...

There have been a few students who have made priceless comments to me over the past three days of school. Some are priceless because of the faith that they still have in Santa and his abilities, and others are priceless because they break my heart and let me know why I wanted to be a teacher.

For instance,

G. wants Santa to get him Super Bowl Tickets. I told him that I thought that Santa would try his hardest, but Super Bowl Tickets are a high order, even for the big man himself.

On a more reasonable note,

C. would like the Blue Ranger, the Red Ranger, and not the Grey Ranger because he already had the Grey action figure, and it isn't as cool as the others. He would also like three new monster trucks. One with the Blue Ranger on it, one with the Red Ranger on it, and one with the Black Ranger on it, because he already has the Grey one and it is not as cool.

M. wants a pony. I know from childhood experience that there is a 99.9% chance that M. is NOT getting a pony.

On a more serious note,

J. wants his dad to get to come back from Iraq again soon, because he wasn't here long enough last time he visited.

Ji. wants his mom to get out of g-a-l(He spelled it to me). Ji's cousin reminds him that Jail is spelled J-A-L, but there might be an "I" in there somewhere.

M. wants a family where she can stay for longer than just a few months.

M. and S. would like to never have to worry about having enough money to pay for their lost library books ever again.

A. wants to understand why the adjective modifies the noun, and why the adverb modifies the verb, and why does the adjective come before the noun. He wants his eyes to stop "watering" when he doesn't understand something.

T. just wants a friend.

So here is a request to Jesus, and Santa for that matter, just from me this holiday season:
Santa, please let this time of celebration be a time that my students can enjoy. That they won't have to worry, be afraid, be sad, or be angry. Even if my students don't get what they want for Christmas, let the day and the days around it be comforting and free of pain and confusion. Let them not be Alone.

Be with them.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The Ultimate Girl's Night

So,
Last night, or afternoon if you will, after school, I met Amy and Elise at David's bridal to look at dresses. Now, you must have some background on the situation.

I have tried my entire life to not plan my wedding. I have friends who had their entire weddings planned by the time that they were 9 years old. The task of not planning became even harder when I started dating someone, and then dated him for two years.

Now I can finally plan! Now I can finally think about it! Now is the only time when I am convinced that I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT I WANT!

People ask me: "What are your colors?" "What kind of dress do you like?" "What flowers do you want?" The answer to these questions was, and sort of still is, "I don't know."

Yah, that's right all of you 17 years in advance wedding planners, I have no clue what I want, and I am beginning to think that I should have planned more as a child. Here is the deal... All of this time I thought that Christopher would want to have a key role in planning our wedding.

BA HA ha ha ha!!!

Ahem...
I was wrong. Really wrong............So wrong.

So now I have been on the hunt going on three weeks now. I have made some definite progress on the dress front. There is a problem with the progress. It leads me to two wonderful options on two amazingly different styles. I can't show you the Wedding dress because... DUH! it is a surprise, but the bridesmaids dresses look like

This:



And This:



Or like This:




How freakishly different could those two dresses be? The other problem is that the wedding dresses are completely as different as the bridesmaids dresses. What a dilemma.

Well,
Enough with the whining! Would I like some cheese with that wine? No I do not want cheese, and I do not like wine. (A fact that the fiance would love to change... but I don't think it is going to work out for him)

Wow, I completely forgot that this post is called "THE ULTIMATE GIRLS NIGHT" Now say that in the car dealer's voice that you always hear go, "SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!!!"

Anyway. We had a lovely time trying on dresses. My favorite was the third dress that I tried on, and that was it. I didn't need to put any more on. I knew that this dress was going to give me fits to make my decision, and the fact that the bridesmaid's dress looked like splendid goodness on my beautiful Amy did me little good as well.

After 2 and a half girlie filled hours of dresses, strapless bras, veils, and petty coats we moved on to a girl's next best friend. ITALIAN FOOD (pronounced i - little i sound - talian, not I - long I sound - talian. People do not live in EYE-tally) We fed our hungry bellies and talked of younger days, yester years, young children, younger men, older men, our men, the tendencies of man, man's relationship with God, the difficulty of speaking of spiritual issues with the one's closest to us, and we topped it all off with talk of birth control and urostat, and then I drank a plate of aged vinegar and olive oil.

(Hey, I got five bucks for doing it, Don't judge!)

Women are weird,
deep but weird,
inexplicable, deep, and weird.
Poor men.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Four days off

Last Monday my little town encountered a disastrous ice storm. It rained and rained, then it iced and iced, then it froze and froze. All in all, it was quite the storm.

The next day I had off because of the dangerous conditions of the roads. There were limbs down everywhere. The tree at my parents house is broken beyond help, and they are considering taking it down. The tree outside my apartment was nearly bent in half. The branches were touching the ground, and down the block there was another tree that had fallen on a car.

Well... we had Tuesday off, and then came the call that Wednesday would be a snow day as well. On Tuesday I wrapped gifts and got ready for Christmas, and on Wednesday I went to school and got some things done, and then I lazed around for the rest of the day.

When I got the call on Wednesday that school was canceled for Thursday, I made up my mind to be productive and get a bunch done on the wedding. On Thursday I went to McPherson and looked at dresses with my mom, met with a florist, and did other planning. While I was trying on a dress, the power went out. I had to walk to the front of the store and they had to bring out a mirror for me to look in, because the only windows in the store are at the front. It was a fun experience and I saw some beautiful dresses.

While I was trying on dresses, I got the call that indeed Friday would be off as well. I came back from dress shopping, and convinced my sister to spend Friday with me for wedding reasons. We went out Thursday night to pick up some food from my friendly neighborhood bar and grill. (The B's) We waited at the pick up stall for 30 minutes. They got the order wrong, and we waited for another 10 minutes for them to get it right. Good thing the food was good. To bad I still had to pay.

Friday was lovely. My sister let me boss her around all day. Chris crashed our dress party at a bridal store, good thing I had my street clothes on and not a gown. He is not much for thinking about these bad luck things, but I like to be a little suspicious, or at least keep the dress as a surprise.

Kati tried on One dress... She was not a fan. I wasn't either. Oh the madness of a continuous line of hideous brides maids dresses. The possibilities of ugly are endless. It seemed that things were looking up in the early 2000's. Bride's Maid's dresses seemed to be borderline attractive, but sadness, it must not be so, because I have yet to find one that is reasonably priced that is not,

"U-G-L-Y it don't got no alibi, it ugly, yah, yah, it ugly!"

Don't you love teen aged sayings from the 1990's.

Anyway... The rest of the weekend went off without a hitch, which is amazing considering the roads were terribly bad, and Chris and I drove on them almost continuously from the snowstorm on Friday night on till the slush of Sunday. All in all the weather man and I are not friendly driving companions.

Well,
I am going to call it a day, or at least an afternoon. Amy and Elise are coming up tonight to look at more dresses.

And the quest for the bride's maid's dress continues!

Friday, December 07, 2007

So glad for Friday

It is finally Friday. I know that it has been a long time since I have posted, but it hasn't been for some very good reasons.

First of all I am engaged as of last Saturday evening! It is a beautiful story, and I don't want to spoil it with the shortness of my time right now. Sometime I will write it down and give it all the consideration that it deserves.

This weekend should be a lovely weekend. We are going to Clinton's concert in W tonight. He is waltzing with a little cheerleader, and I am told that he is pretty good at it. Then on Saturday I get to attend the somethingth annual Christmas at mama Rooses house where me and my girly friends from college go to make Christmas goodies all day long. It is a wonderful tradition. I get to go to the Ball Game. Then Sunday will be back to church, and finally to the Tabor Christmas Festival.

Ah, the weeks before Christmas are Creeping by!!! I should probably wrap some of the Gifts that I have gotten. I love the holidays, and the focus on family and change of pace!