Style Of Glamour

• One of the employees at the Kalamazoo Plato's Closet told me I had great style today! Especially since I wore this same outfit yesterday and needed to shower at the time, I was all like...

Games We Play

In the spirit of trying to get back to the essence of my blog, I'm going to restart my listing format. I want to keep doing this but I refuse to get bogged down in "catching up". What's the point if I'm always behind? So, today...

• Enjoying hot chocolate, games and amazing conversations with my bestest friends. I love that we can have serious conversations in such a casual way. And Scattergories with Jason and Justin is pretty much the best. (Honestly, they're just super creative!)

The Going Ups & The Going Downs

• Ups and downs of work lately: 
• UP - I got THE cutest apron from Serena, who was my secret Santa. She said she saw it at the store and thought of my! How cool!
• DOWN - Katie found an awesome mission trip to Korea and when I asked if I'd be able to take time off for it, I was told I couldn't because I won't have enough vacation time by then :(
• UP - I really feel like I've found my place as a teacher at the center :)
• DOWN - When I tried to redirect children who were using blocks as guns, I was told not to do that in that classroom. This was really hard for me in the moment (because of the recent school shooting) and is difficult overall, just because that's not what I believe or how I was raised. The teacher who told me this gave me some books and articles that support this idea but it's still hard :/

Banquet Scene (Dec 14)

• Last night was the band banquet and it was great! Very fun to see the girls - I missed them - and make good speeches. Plus, Mr. Liska's video was fantastic - it made me remember all the great stuff and forget all the crappy stuff of the season.
• Tonight, we had our guard dinner. Lindsay's mom picked a great restaurant - finally! I got there a little late and the girls called me over to sit with them right away :) I talked a lot with Lindsay and Leah, which was wonderful - I will miss them so much! I also got great pictures with all the girls, thanked all the parents who attended one-by-one, and loved the gift that the girls got me (LONG FUZZY SOCKS!). Plus, Molly's dad said these super heartfelt things to me about how much Molly loves guard and how much that is thanks to me. It was a great way to celebrate the end of our season.
• After the dinner, Jackie was hosting a sleepover for the girls at her house, so I went for a little while. Jackie's house was awesome! It was painted crazy colors, had tons of interesting furniture, and contained a home theater and tiki bar in the basement! It was exactly what a grown-up house should be - whatever you want! :)

The Calm Before The Storm

• This weekend was a wonderful way to relax. It was great being with Anna and with her family, baking, watching movies/New Girl, Christmas shopping, being inspired with DIY stuff and just hanging out. It was a lot better than relaxing in my apartment alone, except that I didn't get to be with Chloe. Plus, I have a really busy week coming up, so it was especially nice :)
• I interacted with 6 workers at the Meijer on Zeeb Rd. tonight. They were all so nice! There weren't many people in the the store so all of the workers were really helpful to me - even stopping what they were doing to ask if I needed anything - which was especially great because I needed some really weird stuff. I'm excited to do the customer satisfaction survey on the bottom of my receipt!
• I can't wait til Chloe gets a cat roommate...I think she'll be very happy about that :)

Driving With Myself

• I drive a lot. Now, I know this is not a shock - to anyone, really. And it's kind of an occupational hazard when your best friends and friends-who-are-family live all around the state. But here are some recent indicators that have reminded me how much I drive (and, honestly, how much I love it):
• Newly-paved roads (Cross St.) and increased speed limits (on Washtenaw! To 45 mph!) feel like presents from the Road Commission to me - and only me.
• I get excited about new road projects when they will clearly improve traffic flow (Washtenaw and US-23 interchange).
• And, I mean, this is what my driving over the next 2 weeks looks like:

Clean As A Thistle (Dec 7)

• I am sleeping over at Anna's this weekend - yay! It's already been awesome and I've only been here for 4 hours. On the way over, I talked with PP, for over an hour, about all kinds of things. It was wonderful - just like how we'd be talking if we lived together. Basically, one topic leads to another in one stream of consciousness shared by two people. It's great :) Then, somehow, almost as soon as I came into Anna's house, we headed into her room and I made her clean it. It was the normal messy, but with stuff everywhere - we couldn't even really see the bed. So we cleaned together. It was awesome. She let me throw things away and told me where to put things. And we vacuumed. In less than 1.5 hours, it was beautiful. Literally, beautiful. Allie and Tyler both agreed - and I can't wait to hear what her mom has to say about it :)

A Line Allows Progress, A Circle Does Not

• I had a great meeting with my director today. It's technically called a "probation" meeting (I'm still in what is officially called the "probation period" of my employment) but that makes it sounds WAY worse than it was. It was honestly a wonderful conversation. I took the time to answer the questions she gave me (albeit, the night before) and I think it my answers made me look really prepared. We talked about my experiences so far, when I explained about the struggles I've had they were well-received (rather than being thought of as slights on the center), and she shared with me about her experience as a 1st grade teacher in south Dallas. I told her my concerns about food disposal and we had a great conversation about what we can do, within the confines of the licensing laws, to diminish what we are throwing away. She complimented me on how well I'm doing in the role of a "float" teacher and explained that my position is basically a training position for when a core teaching position becomes available. Cool! She was also very receptive to my career goals, stating that they knew when they hired me that I might not be interested in staying at Towsley for the remainder of my teaching career. My thought process during this part of the conversation? "And they hired me anyways? Wait, does that mean I'm actually qualified and good at what I do? AHHH COOL!" (See posts from July 2011 when I was seriously wondering why I became a teacher.)  She told me they are happy to have me as long as possible and that she will not hesitate in giving me great recommendations. I'm so ridiculously lucky to have this job :) Plus, I got to work in one of my favorite rooms today. And one of the little girls insisted on giving me a kiss when I told her I was going home.
• On the bus ride home, I briefly started reflecting on the impact going to EMU has had on my life. I've pondered this before but the difference now is that it's impossible to imagine what life would be like if I'd attended college elsewhere. Almost everything in my life is a result of my decision to go to Eastern and the things that don't necessarily seem connected probably are.
• On a slightly more depressing note, although I've been working a full-time and 2 part-time jobs for almost 4 months, I am currently at the same financial spot I was in September...basically broke. I'm not saying this to glean pity, I just want the world to know that I think THAT IS COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS.

Knock Three Times

• Memorable quote from work today:

Deeksha (girl): "Knock knock!"
Me: "Who's there?
Deeksha: "No, we're not playing the knock knock game, we're just knocking you up!"

I Went To Your Wedding (Dec 2)

• Even though I still felt too exhausted to go to the service today, I headed up to church around lunch time to help with the Hanging of the Greens. Mandy gave me lots of great hugs, I got some free food and I helped decorate - it helped me feel better :) Plus, I was dubbed in charge of "fluffing" the artificial wreaths, because I was apparently awesome at it. The little old lady who is super OCD about decorating gave me that title! I was pretty excited :)
• After this, I met Anna at Bed, Bath and Beyond and we shopped for a wedding gift for Leeann. Our procrastination was summed up when the cashier printing the registry for us faltered as he checked the date of the wedding. We finished his sentence of "And the wedding date is..." with "Today - yes, we know!" But we found some pretty great stuff. Mostly baking-themed, to relate back to the good old days of TBS bake sales :) And they gift-wrapped everything for us in a VERY pretty box/bow. It was fun!
• We then went back to the apartment to get all prettied up. Anna helped me with a French twist for my hair and I wore a maxi-dress I've had for a couple years but have never worn. I didn't get a ton of compliments on it and I don't really like how it fits, so I'll probably be doing some re-making to it. We were ready with time to get gas and coffee AND we arrived early...WHAT? It was awesome :) The wedding itself was beautiful. The colors were light pink and gold and everything was so classy (well, except the bright blue PPT slide projected behind the alter, proclaiming that it was Leeann and Jaren's wedding day...). Plus, it was great to see and hang out with so many friends from EMU/band/TBS (especially Kathi, since she lives in faraway Florida now).

LOVED her dress :)

Best "Guest Book" idea ever!

Aaaand from the photo booth :)

I'm Not Immune

• Happy December!
• Well, I planned to get a bunch of things accomplished around my apartment today, and maybe venture out to find some Christmas gifts - but I was thwarted by my immune system again! DEFINITELY not as bad as last time, but the sinus crap I got was pretty lame. Among not being able to breathe and using at least half the box of Kleenex my mom bought me, I was in bed/sleeping from midnight until 5 pm today - except for the hour I this morning when I went to get medicine. And I'm now going back to bed at a normal time, despite the excess of sleep. Hopefully, I'll feel better for Leeann's wedding tomorrow!