FEELING LAZY AND INADEQUATE

I don't read or follow any well known blogs. Nothing about baking, mothering, photographing, championing, or acting entices me. I like to read blogs about people I know - or even people I am merely acquainted with - and the stuff they are doing. For someone like me who loves to spy on people, it is amazing I can only think of two people I truly blog-spy. The rest of the blogs I read are people close to me. Today I made my first venture onto one of those people-I-don't-know-that-everybody-talks-about-their-blog blogs: Pioneer Woman. I will never do it again because she made me feel as my blog title depicts, lazy and inadequate. On top of that she made me postpone planning my lesson on Ancient India to read through her history of perfecting the cinnamon roll. This took 2 hours of my life today and I didn't come away feeling good. So what if I can't bake 34,397 different kinds of pies and photograph the great outdoors for a magazine all while raising 4 home schooled children! What I can do is keep up my mediocre blog that maybe 7 people read. It sure would be nice of my peeps out there to blog more than once a month/year/blue moon. I could use the distraction to keep me away from going back to Pioneer Woman for her Pumpkin Cream Pie recipe.

PARENTS AND STUDENTS THINK THE DARNDEST THINGS

This is an excerpt from an actual email I got from a parent:

"...he said that he and other students were docked points based on their opinion of BYU and being UTE fans. I told him just not to wear his UTE shirts to class anymore. But teachers should be aware specific colleges or religious prefrences has no place in the classroom and grades should not be influenced by this..."

Wow.

p.s. I didn't even know he was a Ute fan

DIAMOND STORY

The first time I remember hearing the story about my grandmother's wedding ring, I was 7 years old. I have probably heard the story told by her or my grandfather dozens of times since then. The last time I heard my grammy tell it was on the eve of her 60th wedding anniversary. I sat next to her that entire day as she told me story after story about her courtship with my grandpa, their engagement, the diamond, their honeymoon, etc. I would give anything to be back with her on that day. Here is the brief story of that ring.

My grandparents had a unique courtship - one for another blog post. Most of their relationship was spent writing letters between Grammy at home and Grandpa at his residency. Grandpa is a true child of the Great Depression so he saved and saved for a ring to send to his Sweet Elen. The way grandpa saved enough money was to eat baby food from his hospital in Cleveland. By not having to buy food he was able to buy this ring. Such humility and devotion! He mailed the ring to Grammy in Utah and she received it on Christmas day. That was the proposal, he wasn't even there in person. I love this story more and more every time I think about it.

If I was ever around my grammy she probably wasn't wearing her wedding ring because I was (notice in the picture of us I have her ring on). She let me wear it all the time and I loved it. It stood as such a symbol to me of the constant love, devotion, and kindness of my amazing grandparents. It was more than just a diamond to me, it was the hope I had for myself to be like my grammy and to have the relationship she and grandpa had.

After grammy died, her ring was removed. I don't know where it is now but I think about it everyday. I think about what it represented but I also think about her without it. It surprised me how sad I was to imagine her without that diamond. I know she didn't want to be buried in it because of it's significance to our family but there is that part of me that wished it was still with her.

I am grateful I had the moments I did with my grandparents to hear this story. Not only did I hear about it from them but they exemplified this story through their actions to each other. I sure miss having the opportunity to see that ring and I REALLY miss my grammy.

OFFICIALLY AWKWARD HANDSHAKE

I just can't seem to keep karma on my side lately. I saw Corey (aka C2 from my post about my dating life) and his wife at the Temple tonight. I was trapped in a completely unavoidable situation because I work in the temple and couldn't just run away. He actually spoke words to me which was yucky in my stomach but the funny/awkward part came in the celestial room: he shook my hand. Yes, a handshake. I don't need a handshake from you brother, I'm totally okay without that. Mid-handshake he apologized for the fact that I had to see him and in such an awkward setting. He acknowledged the awkward! That's like Monica saying she's breezy to Richard, it negates all breeziness. It was super awkward! Almost as awkward as his facial expression when he tried to process what on earth I was doing in the grown up temple.

3 GENIE WISHES

Josh and I were driving back from Kaysville tonight and he just started rattling off the three wishes he would choose if he had a Genie. These were his wishes:

1. Have all current and future construction on I-15 done, finished, complete. Forever.
2. To have 2 Billion $$$ (which he gave me a long list of the things he would spend his $ on)
3. The ability to choose anyone to come back from the dead and be undead

This prompted me to think about my three genie wishes and this is what I came up with:

1. to have the border of Utah extended to include that remaining .01% of Lake Powell that is not (yet) in Utah
   
2. a cure for all cancers - so all people need is just a simple vaccine, like the MMR shots become the MMRC shots
3. unlimited travel money!!! literally, if I want to go somewhere, there is just beautiful amounts of money to do it

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS = FALL BREAK

UEA used to mean something in Utah for students and teachers. It was a time when kids gleefully played outside for two days before the weather turned cold and teachers sat in conferences. Thank the good karma in the world that UEA no longer exists and we do a little thing called fall break. This is the only time that the lack of funding has improved my life. There is no money to put together teacher conferences so we just get the days off. Let me show you what teachers like myself do with time off:

• breakfast at Kneaders with Allison
• shopping
• hang out with cute babies
• lunch with family
• stay up late
• sleep in
• Temple
• watch TV and/or movies
• learn to make cake pops
  
• nap
• make playlists on iTunes
  
• stay in pajamas past noon
• internet
• dance you ace off to Michael Jackson
• think about Grammy
• think about Patrick Swayze
• organize things
• clean things
• laundry
• eat. a lot.

Thank you funding. I am glad you went away. I needed a "vacation from my problems."

CAN'T SLEEP

I don't require a lot of sleep during the week. I usually get 5.5 - 6 hours every night. I do catch up on Friday and Saturday when I sleep about 8-9 hours each night. I am not doing as well as I used to on my normal weeknight hours. It has been about two weeks now that I just haven't felt rested. I think the week that Grammy was dying and the week after she passed made for some sleepless nights. I kind of self-inflict by staying up and looking at pictures of Grammy in the hours that I can't sleep. And I suppose that blogging about not sleeping because I think about Grammy isn't any better than looking at pictures her. What would be really cool is if I was productive in the wee hours of the night instead of sitting and wasting away time. I wish I had the ability my father has to tune out the world of thoughts and stress and force myself to sleep. Well here goes nothing, I am gonna give prayer a try. Honestly, that is usually the only source for a good sleep when I am wired at night. Goodnight....

LIFE

Today I attended my Grammy's funeral. Today I mourned. Today I cried. Today I grew.

I am not a very good example at coping with death. I take it hard and I don't like to move on from it because I feel like when I do, the person is really gone from my life. While trying to mentally, emotionally, and spiritually comprehend the events of the past two weeks I have learned of another tragedy. One of my students was killed in an accident today caused by another student of mine. Knowing the heartache I have been processing with my spiritual, mature brain makes me so sad for my students who will have to struggle through the loss of a friend and classmate with their tender, young souls.

Somehow I have to muster up the courage and strength tomorrow to discuss with my kids about the death of this student and how to cope with it. I need to teach them compassion for the student driving the vehicle. I only hope I can be an example in their life at this time and help them through this. Teenagers are so impressionable and I know this situation will be so hard on them but they will get through. They will get through just as I am getting through. Just as we all must get through and continue on in life.

THREE TIME FIGHTER

My reason for the cure lost her battle tonight.
Love you grammy!
I will still fight for your disease.
October 20, 1927 - October 2, 2010