Monday, December 15, 2008

Hairiness

I have discovered a very addicting game. I seriously spend hours playing this game when I'm waiting on Rex to get home from work.
http://www.addictinggames.com/pandasmahjongsolitaire.html
I finished all of the Christmas shopping today. Now I just have to wrap the presents for the Family Christmas party that's going on Sunday night and then I'm completely done. Hooray!
There's not a whole lot going on. I didn't have a job today so I went and got my hair did. I'm a brunette again!
The cats wanted to have their pictures on here, so here ya go (as well as a picture of my new hair):

Crystal wanted to be on the Interwebs.

Jake always has to be in the middle of everything.

Lizzie is just plain cute!

Hooray for dark hair!

Monday, December 8, 2008

Christmastime is here!

This is a closeup of the decorations around the railing. Yes, those are handmade bows.

The view of the railing from inside our apartment.

I was trying to take a closeup of the icicle lights, but it turned out really neat and blurry.

Parking lot view of our apartment's balcony.

Our tiny Christmas tree that hopefully the cats won't knock over this year.

Rex and I decided to decorate a little bit for Christmas last night, so I went to Walmart today to get the lights and such. It took me forever to decide exactly what I wanted to do, and then to find everything I wanted to do it. I think it turned out rather well though. :)
Last week was pretty boring for me, as not too many teacher like to take off the week after a major holiday that they get several days off for. If I did get a call to sub for someone, it was approximately 30 minutes before I would need to be there. So I did not work for BISD last week. I did enjoy getting back to work at the library. The children's librarians were all very excited to see me back. One even told me that when I'm not there everything goes to pot. That made me happy to feel like I'm contributing.
I'm working a half day tomorrow at a high school, and then I get to go see Twilight again with a friend from work. Life is good.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Ridonculousness

Tonight on the news there was a story about a school bus driver spanking a child. The news interviewed the child and the kid admitted to bullying another student and when the bus driver tried to verbally warn him, he asked what the driver was going to do about it and continued with bullying the other student. Then the bus driver had enough and went back there and spanked him. Then the kid started mouthing back and continued taunting the other child and the bus driver and the driver had enough and started chasing him around the bus. The news showed the video of the incident. What really fires me up is that the bus driver is going to get fired for this. Why??? What else can the driver do? They are required by law to stop bullying, but when this driver tried the child refused and continued bullying and taunted the driver as well. Finally the bus driver lost their temper. I know that the bus driver should not have spanked the child, but that child obviously needed it. The child said in his interview that he did it just to see what the bus driver would do. It drives me insane that this kid is going to get away with this! He probably won't even be kicked off the bus, which is definitely the LEAST that should happen for punishment. This kid needs to be taught a lesson, but there isn't going to be one. All this kid knows is that he won: the bus driver will no longer have a job. I was talking about the incident to Rex and he said that the kid probably will grow up to be a horrible person and probably already talks back to his parents. I told him that I know he does from my own personal experience in today's classrooms. The kids who will talk back to their teachers are the ones who talk back to their parents. The kids who are good in class are good for their parents. I can only think of one exception where the kid was good for me but bad for their parents, and that was because the kid liked me as a teacher. This kind of crap really makes me question whether I want to go back to regular teaching after this year's break. There are more and more children like this kid in the classroom. That is why so many teachers are quitting and there is a shortage of good teachers out there. There are so many of us who just get sick of all the crap and don't want to put up with it any more, so they go back to school and get their degree in business or something and get a boring office job, but at least you don't have kids yelling in your face and asking what you're going to do about it.
I have some serious decision-making to do. Right now I'm still wanting to be a band director, but the more stories I see like that in the news and the more bad experiences I have subbing....well...it makes me question my choices.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Getting ready for Turkey Day

So I don't get to be an aunt on my side of the family quite yet. :( Sad day. I don't really know what else to say, so....
I saw Twilight at the midnight showing with most of my female in-laws last week. It was AWESOME. I'm definitely going to go see it again, and take Rex with me this time. :) The only downside of it was since I didn't get much sleep Thursday night (only about 3 hours) I ended up getting sick. Boo sick! I'm getting better though. I think I could go for a walk. I don't want to go on the cart!
My job for Thanksgiving at the in-laws is to make mashed potatoes and apple pie. So I spent a while tonight after I got off work slicing up some apples for my wonderful caramel apple pie and a regular apple pie for those silly people who don't like nuts.
While I was slicing up apples and such, I watched "The Turn of the Screw." I have no idea why I don't understand what is going on in that story. I read it in high school and didn't get it. I read it in college and didn't get it. I've looked it up online and didn't get it. Now I've watched the movie and I still don't get it. I must be stupid or something. Surely it isn't that hard to understand, but I just have some kind of mental block when it comes to that story. Kind of like when I was in high school in Chemistry I and for a long time I didn't understand one concept. Luckily, it clicked right before it was time to take the test on that bit. It's a good thing I've never had to take a test over this story.
Anyway, I'm going to end tonight by saying a few things that I'm thankful for to get into the spirit of Thanksgiving. Or something.
I'm thankful to have such a wonderful family that I love and I know they love me too.
I'm thankful to have in-laws that I get along with so well (other than election time).
I'm thankful for my pets. They are the best cats ever in the whole wide world.
I'm thankful to live in a free country, instead of in the Middle East. That would suck.
I'm thankful finally to have a job so Rex and I can have some extra money for the holidays, and then we can pay stuff off more quickly.
I'm thankful to be a member of the Lord's church, and for all the blessings that come with it.
I'm thankful to have a home of our own (well, an apartment that we rent....but we don't have to share it with anyone).
I'm thankful for all the opportunities I've had in my life to meet all the really fun and interesting people that have crossed my path.
And finally, I'm so very thankful for my husband. He is the kindest, sweetest, most caring and gentle man I've ever met. I love him so much, and I can't believe my good luck to have found him. I have no idea what I did to deserve such a wonderful man, but I'm glad I did it!
I'm sure there are many more things that I just can't think of right now, but I have to go stir the applesauce.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Exciting news

Yesterday I got an interesting email. In it were several pictures of cute cats who were saying such things as "I love it when Daddy Comes Home," "Guess what? You're going to be a daddy!" and "Like Father, Like Son." From that, I guessed that the person who sent it to me is going to have a baby! I'm not going to divulge who it is yet(no, it's definitely not me), because not all the members of this family know about the pregnancy yet. But congratulations!
Also, I just got a phone call from a second grade teacher at an elementary school that I have never subbed at yet asking if I can sub for her on Thursday. It's so cool that my name is already getting out there as a good substitute and people want me to come sub for them! Hooray! I wonder how she got my name and phone number though....but oh well! It's all good that I'm earning a good reputation. :)
And Thursday night is the Twilight premier! Well, technically Friday at midnight, but you know what I mean. I'm going with most of my female in-laws, so it'll be a great family bonding activity.
Rex is doing good, by the way. We're both just working and keeping busy in general. :)

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Enough is enough

I don't live in California, and quite frankly, I'm glad right now. I have many friends who are homosexual (c'mon, I went to a liberal arts school as a music major...it was bound to happen!). I know that in 2004's election I voted for gay marriage. I don't know how I would have voted this year if I did live in CA because I'm conflicted majorly on the issue. On the one hand, I am a firm believer in my church, which does not support gay marriage. On the other hand, I don't want to tell other people what they can and can not do. I think it's kind of unreasonable to allow straight couples to marry and divorce like it's going out of style and then not allow gays the same privilege. I think there should either be WAY stricter regulations on marriage (like there being a limit to how many times a person could marry and get divorced) or gays should be allowed to get married and divorced like the rest of us "normal" (yeah right, like any of us are really normal) people. Anyway, I'm not sure what I'm trying to say other than the fact that people are protesting against my faith is kind of ridiculous. Yes, the Mormon church did heavily support Prop. 8. Yes, they did ask for volunteers to do a grassroots campaign. But it's kind of silly to focus on my church and forget the other institutions that did the same thing. What about the Catholics? What about the Knights of Columbus? What about the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America? What about the many many other organizations that also supported Propositon 8?
I think it's kind of hypocritical to call the Mormons a faith of hate and to picket our churches, temples, and other places of importance to us. I have read some of the backlash from the gay community and the hate coming from them right now is so heated. So we are full of hate, but it's ok for you to hate us? Come on now. It's not as if it was Mormons alone who passed that proposition. California doesn't even make the top 10 in states with the highest percent of the population being Mormon. As of 1990 (sorry, I couldn't find anything more recent but I doubt it's changed that much) the Mormon percentage was a whopping 1.79%. Yeah.....compare that to the 53% of votes that made Proposition 8 pass.
So anyway, I don't care if you picket against my church as long as you're not only protesting us. Focus on some of the other people too, please. Sharing is good for everyone!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Peer pressure isn't always a bad thing

So I've decided to give in to the pressurings of the family (well, they haven't really been pressuring me...I just wanted one too! I mean, everybody's doing it.) and get one of these fancy-schmancy blogspot thingies. :) I already have my blog on myspace, but it seems that people who don't want a myspace account want to know what's goin on with me too. Who knew?
Anyway, in 9 days Rex and I will have been married for four months. It's crazy! Sometimes it feels like we just got married yesterday, and other times it feels like so much longer. I love spending time with him (even though lately we only get to see each other when he gets home at night and on weekend evenings) and we always have something to talk about. lately it's been a lot of political stuff, but that's definitely subsiding since the election has been over for almost a week now. I still haven't found courage to go visit his family, but hopefully I'll be brave soon. They really are quite nice, for Republicans. most of the time. :)
For those of you who are unaware, I am a former band director-turned substitute teacher/librarian. It's not particularly a matter of choice that I am no onger a band director, it's just I did this little thing called getting married during the summer and that kinda preoccupied me for about a month there when I should have been looking for a job. But I still get to spend more time with Rex than I would if I were a band director this year. It's nice having my Friday nights free. Anyway, hopefully this whole substituting thing will get my foot in the door well enough for BISD to hire me as a band director for the upcoming school year. Rex is working at Jack in the Box Distribution Center in the warehouse and we're hoping that he will get a schedule that allows us to spend more time together. We're trying to get stuff paid off so that we can save money for him to go to culinary school. He is such a wonderful cook! I love it when he cooks dinner for me on the weekends.
I apologise for any spelling or grammatical errors in this blog posting....our cat Jake has decided that I don't really need to see the computer monitor as long as I can see the keyboard.