Day One: Thanksgiving Break

Day one: Top Ten Things I am thankful For Today: 1. Having the day off. 2. Sleeping in 3. Heat 4. Patient Friends 5. Reminders of what life is all about 6. Things I can do without even thinking about them. 7. Outlet Malls 8. New things especially my new reversible Nike beanie with a brim 9. Invites to great movies 10. Free exercise bikes

Well, as Thanksgiving custom goes, I am taking today to begin my thankful list. I keep a list of the things that make me happy on my white board in my kitchen. Those things help me remember the things I am thankful for. Thanksgiving is also a great time of year to reflect on things you are thankful for. I guess tomorrow's post will be more of this but today is all about what I am thankful for today. It was a great day off. After getting ready for the day, Janette picked me up and we headed to Park City for some shopping. This also happened after I slept in, I was thankful for that too. The outlets were fun even if they were a little disappointing because I couldn't find too much too buy. I guess I should also be thankful for that because I will have more money at the end of the month. Old Navy does not have an outlet in Park City anymore. It is just a normal store. That was kinda sad, but I still found three shirts to wear. I then spent about an hour in the Adidas store trying to find a suitable pair of basketball shoes. No luck. Then I went to lunch because I was driving Janette nuts by taking so long. I am very thankful for her patience and willingness to deal with me trying to figure out my shoe needs. After lunch, we went to the Nike Outlet which was awesome because when I walked in, I found a spectacular hat. It is like two hats in one because it is reversible. It is also very cute. Within a half an hour I had the hat as well as great basketball shoes. Successful trip after all.

Janette and I then went to Salt Lake and visited with her parents. They are so very nice. We got to chat with her mom for a while which is always nice. I was very touched by her honesty with being frustrated that she could not stir the chocolate for fudge. She is going through chemotherapy and it is no fun to go through. When you are sick like she is, you can't do everything that you would like and you must rely on others to help you. I am so thankful that I am healthy and can do all the things I want to. I admire Janette's mom's strength as she battles cancer. I was thankful to be reminded that life is more than what we can or can't do, it is more than the things we have, it is more than mere moments. Life is all about the moments and all about the people that are close to us and spending moments with those people. It is wonderful to be reminded of that.

Some of the other things that were good today were going to a late movie with a few friends. It was Enchanted and it was so cute and well written. The acting, sets, and animation was great too. Great family movie. I love feel good movies. I am also very glad I have heat in my apartment because it is very chilly here today. When I came home tonight, the bank thermometer read 28 degrees. Brrrrr. I am lastly thankful from my free exercise bike. I rode it for the third time this week. It is very nice to set up in front of the TV and pedal away!

Well, Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I hope each of you feels love today and that each of us also realizes just how blessed we are. Life is so good! :)

Sunday from home.

This weekend has a good one. I think the best thing about this weekend is that when I go back so work, I only have to work for two days. That will be a good thing for me. I am excited to go to Park City with Janette on Wednesday. I am also excited that the Packers will play on Thanksgiving day, so I will be watching that as well as enjoying the turkey with the Bills family. Thanks Bills for always letting me come and spend the holiday with you.

I am actually emailing this from home. I do not know why all the sudden I can get the internet here again, but I am not going to complain. I just won't get too excited about it seeing that it seems to go away.

It has been a fun weekend. My friend Megan came up and stayed with me. We went bowling yesterday and then went shopping. I bought too much stuff, but that is life sometimes. Last night we watched Oceans Thirteen. Good movie. Today we pretty much lounged around until church.

Friday was burger Friday and man do I love Red Robin. I would live there if I could. It is always fun to sit with teachers from school and just shoot the bull. It was even more fun this time because we sat next to the really big windows and got to see lots of students we knew come and go from the window looking out at the mall entrance. The most entertaining part of the watching was that we saw a few of our students make paper boats and try to float them in the fountain that is in that part of the mall. The best was when they finally noticed us and totally tried to run away. Hilarious. I love that out in public it is very bad to see your teachers. I guess we are supposed to always be at the school grading papers and lesson planning.

Well, not much else. I am very excited that I can post from my mail now and even attach pictures that turn up. It tried it and it worked. Enjoy this picture from last November. It is a classic.

Genius!

Hi.

Friends, when you read this remember that you can not hear tone on here at all. I think one of my friends thinks I am totally bummed out lately. Sorry that sometimes this is a place for me to vent about everything in my life. So, if I seem tired, bored, or down I am not. I really am enjoying my life. I have so much and really lots of times I look around and say: "What have I done to deserve all this?"

Maybe each time I vent I will need to preface it. Here is some venting. So, my new mp3 player comes today. So very exciting. I was happy all day. But then I remembered that my cd rom does not work on my school computer. So, I figured I had to wait until I got home to do anything with it. Well, when I got home I tried to install the software but for some reason it needed my computer to be updated to do so. When I tried to update, I couldn't. Apparently my system isn't authorized or something. Of course this is no fault of my own seeing I got the computer for free. So, no mp3 player working as of yet.

So, I have wasted a lot of time trying to figure this out, when I realized that I could just download the software from the site of Creative the company that made my mp3. Yeah, I wish I would have remembered that at 10am this morning. Everything would be perfect. But I do not have my school computer with me which would have been nice to know when I ran back there to drop something off about an hour ago. So this will be the third time I go to school today. Fun.

But at least The Office is on soon.

I am so excited for next week and the three days off I will have. I plan to go to Park City and buy some new clothes including new PE shoes. Then there is the Packer game and Thanksgiving on the same day. Then I am going to sleep, sleep, sleep.

Good times. Well I am off to figure out this mp3 thing.

Later,
A

Is it burnt out in here or is it just me?

I am tired. Tired, tired, tired! I have no excitement lately for teaching and I think that makes a difference for both my students and me. I am sure that every profession has times like these. I don’t think anybody can be 100%, 100% of the time. And if you can, will you tell me how to do it?

My mom mentioned the other night that she thought I wasn’t having as much fun as I was having last year. I think it is true to some extent, but I really do believe that November is a hard month for me. I am just so tired all the time.

Tonight was fun. Spur of the moment I was invited to go to a movie and to dinner with one of the other teachers from work. Seeing I really didn’t want to do anything else tonight, I jumped on the opportunity. The movie wasn’t the best. It was Bee Movie. I suppose it wasn’t too bad seeing we took a three year old with us, but it wasn’t something I would suggest to all of you. I really think I should be a movie critic or something.

I bought myself a Christmas present today. I have been looking at new mp3 players for a while now and there was one that was on sale last week and I didn’t buy it. I was sad by it too, so when it was thirty dollars cheaper today I decided to buy it. I guess this is the substitute for not going to see Kelly Clarkson in Nashville on the 3rd of December. For those of you who hadn’t heard about this plan, I was going to use my frequent flyer miles to go and see KC in Tennessee. I thought it would be a good mini-vacation for this hard time of year. Unfortunately, I couldn’t convince anybody to go with me to see KC, which made me feel sad. But I realized it would have been pretty expensive. So, if you think about this whole thing, I really just saved myself 100 dollars by buying myself a new video mp3 player. J And I can use those miles later this year, maybe even to fly home.

How about those Green Bay Packers; 8-1, not too shabby? I like to watch them play after I have recorded the game. That thirty-second button is an amazing thing. Not only does it skip commercials, but it also skips from when the player goes down right to the start of the next play. Saves so much time! I have also loved that when I wake up at ten on Saturday mornings, I usually am able to pick up the Wisconsin football game. I really have been spoiling myself this year. I probably should quit that, but then again, I am not going to! It is the year of making Alice happy!

Well, no words of wisdom this time around. Except, eat your vitamin C, it is cold season after all. Ciao!

Summerlike Saturday.

WOW. It is warm today. I should have gotten up and rode my bike somewhere. Or taken a walk. Unfortunately, somebody decided to stay up until 2:30am and woke up with absolutely no energy to do anything but curl up on her futon and watch the Wisconsin football game. Dang Alice.

It is a beautiful day though. If it is cause by global warming, I am very glad for it. Thank you global warming. Thank you for all driving more and walking less. Please note that there was lots of sarcasm in those last few statements.

I like Saturdays. The only problem with a Saturday is that I never get anything done. I always have amazing plans like saving the universe from idiots or climbing Mount Everest, but usually all I can muster is getting out of bed, dressing and a trip to the library. Sad but true.

I cannot, for the life of me, find a book that I would like to read. This is hard because right now I really want a good book to read. Maybe as I wander the library today something good will jump off the shelf.

Not much news from this front. This week seemed to drag on and on, but at the end of it, it almost seemed short. I think I am in some weird time warp these days. I am very thankful that next week is the last full week of work before Thanksgiving vacation. Yipee for that!

I am pretty much floating my way through it all right now. I am not really excited to be at school and I think it shows. Poor little bored students.

Well, I think I better go and figure out what do do with myself for the last hour before I go babysit for my landlord. I told him that he should take his wife to the wonderful movie Dan in Real Life and he took me up on it. So, I get to have fun 4 and 2 year old fun later today. It is a perfect day for bike riding and park going, that will be fun.

Have a superb weekend.
A