Scary- Day 10

Me + Fridays = suck at posting :) So you get a quick before work post (that I wrote last night, hehe). I know I didn't give you a ton of time to actually read my Friends post, so feel free to visit that instead if you prefer friends over my random fears.

For Day 10, a not-so-brief list of things I'm scared of...

1. matches. i lit my one at age 19. i lit one more the next day. i never lit one again. i would if i had to.

2. giant trucks on the highway. especially being sandwiched between two of them.

3. eric's aggressive driving especially when in road-rage mode.

4. bugs near my bed. (anywhere else they are fine)

5. being observed by my principal, still- even though i have tenure.

6. fires. ever since my first grade teacher told me i could not bring Snuggles out of the house with me.

7. insomnia.

8. being stuck without food.

9. loud thunder.

10. people i love doing any of the following: smoking, not wearing their seat belt, riding motorcycles.

11. something bad happening to a child. especially on my watch.

12. for that matter, something bad happening to anyone i love.

I think that's about all.

Any fears you share with me?

Friends: They Know You and Love You Anyway- Day 9

Happy Veterans Day! I feel very thankful for the sacrifices of all of our veterans to protect us :)

I also feel very thankful to have a day off that not everyone has. I made literally 6 phone calls this morning to make doctors appointments, change my name on car insurance, get our heat meter replaced etc. It must be weird to have a job where you can actually make phone calls on a daily basis and don't have a serious list going of people you need to call haha.

Day 9 of the Blog Challenge is about *Friends*



I've always been one of those people who feels that it is not so important to have lots of friends and more important to have real ones.

Turns out though, real friends don't disappear too often... so then you end up with real high school friends, real college friends, real work friends... and well, you have a lot of 30th birthday parties to attend, oh no sorry- that's just Eric :) And believe it or not, Eric is a mainly high school friends kind of guy- can't imagine if he had gone away to college too! It would be like the movie 27 dresses, except instead of wedding hopping we'd be 30th birthday hopping hehe.

Anyway, back to my friends. I truly have the best friends. I know everyone says that, but I really do. It's probably because I am extremely picky about friends. I want only really great, fun, quality people- if I get the slightest hint of someone using me or just a generally not great person, I just hit the road. However, I also very rarely lose friends (I have, but not often) because I tend to pick really loyal people and be loyal myself :) Sometimes I get a little cocky about my friend-picking abilities, but I swear my friends really are THAT great.

Ever notice when this blog challenge says, "a picture..." of something, I interpret that as several more than 1? Sorry :)

5 high school friends, 5 college friends, 1 work friend, 1 sister and 2 cousins (Court had not arrived yet when this picture was taken):



More high school friends (some repeats of past picture obviously)...



College friends with the guys included...



I know people have differing opinions on whether girls and guys can actually be friends, but I will say those 5 guys pictured above were the only reason I survived living with many girls all through college. Two of those guys actually went to my high school as well- and Dan (furthest left, front row) and I went to school together from Kindergarten until Senior year of college. Cool, huh?

Terrible picture of work friends... but only picture I have of the kindergarten team... I guess I shouldn't be giving Eric crap for having too many friends, huh? I'm always amused when people say they are looking to make new friends- I'm like, really? I'm looking to lose some :) I'm kidding... but I really don't need more. I think if I relocated I would though- about 90% of those friends are live less than an hour away.

Which friends do you see the most? high school? college? sometime after college?

Into The Outback- Day 8

Good thing for the blog challenge or there would definitely be no post tonight. I just got home at 8 and then fought with my internet for about an hour after that. At least once a week it needs to be "reset" (which is annoying in itself since the router is in the garage). But then it gets really slow and I have to go on and change the "channel" which would be fine except the internet is in slow motion. I wouldn't care if this was once in a blue moon, but it's probably once a week. C'mon Verizon, you charge me enough, you should really not suck.

Anyway, today's post is about a place I've traveled. Since traveling is probably my #1 thing to do (next to total relaxation at the Cape of course), I have been semi-debating which place to show. Finally, sorta picked a place at random...

The Outback, Australia





















I may have been a better photographer in 2004 than I am now. Though I clearly was a different person because I was in the Outback- Alice Springs/Uluru and then driving up to Darwin for about 6 days and I took maybe a total of 10 pictures. Now I'd have 10 taken in the first 10 minutes. Oops.

Tell me a place you have traveled :)

Veggie Meals and Movies :) - Day 7

Hi friends. Today was definitely a day where the "fog" was basically blinding at work. Kids these days.

Before I get to my 30 days challenge, I want to have a quick chat about healthy eating. I'm not a vegetarian (like I need any more food restrictions!), but I do eat probably 80% of the time as a vegetarian just because I like meals of veggies and carbs and I find it easier to cook without grocery shopping all the time.

Sunday I had a delicious vegetarian meal, made half by Eric and half by me :)

Eric made the stuffed mushrooms... yum :) These include mushrooms, stuffing mix, dried cranberries, onions, celery. It's held together by white wine and chicken stock, which actually makes them NOT vegetarian, but obviously you could make these with vegetable stock. These are a favorite of things my mom makes so Eric had to recreate them. I don't think Eric was impressed with the process of actually stuffing the mushrooms but he likes them enough he MAY volunteer to do it again.

I made the mashed potatoes. I didn't think stuffing and mashed potatoes would be enough for a meal, so I took used the Oh She Glows idea of adding navy beans to my mashed potatoes for some protein. I added them before mashing so they became part of the potatoes and they were very tasty.

This meal filled me up well, but left me enough room for my night time snack of ice cream or popcorn- or both.

What's your favorite "vegetarian" meal? (give or take some chicken broth)

Now on to Day 7 of the blogging challenge :) Favorite Movies. Those who know me know that I'm not a big movie person. I have a very short attention span so I prefer TV shows, or reading/surfing the internet. When I do watch movies, I like comedies and girly movies. Here are my top 4 favorite movies of all time...

Now and Then

Yes, I really wanted a secret code with my friends where we could flash light each other when we wanted to chat in the middle of the night. But alas, none of my friends lived quite that close.

The Sandlot

Sandlot is kinda like the boy version of Now and Then + subtract a few years. I love me a good bonding moment.

Office Space

Who needs bonding when you can have job trashing?

"What is it you'd say, you do here?"

Love Actually

Interestingly, the first time I saw this movie I didn't really like it. Too many story lines I guess. Now I've seen it several times (and seeing a movie more than once is big for me) and I loved it more every time. The kid pictured above is by far the best character.

What's your favorite movie?

Happiness- Day 6

Today, as part of my 30 day blog challenge, I am supposed to show a picture of something that makes me happy... so here are two...

Yup, kids make me happy.

I realize you cannot see the faces on these kiddos which makes them far less cute. However, I have a strict no kids pictures on the blog rule- so this is the closest to breaking it I am going to come.

You may be surprised to hear that kids make me happy, since they are much more frequently making me annoyed, stressed-out and often a total crazy person. However, I recently read a really amazing description of the effect of children on happiness in The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. She was referring specifically to the effect of a child on their parents happiness, but I found it related to how my students affect my happiness...

She was discussing the fact that while most people state that their children are a major source of happiness, one study that watched a women's emotions during their daily activities found that "child care" was only slightly more pleasant than commuting. Hmmm...

Gretchen says, "In many ways, the happiness of having children falls into the kind of happiness that could be called fog happiness. Fog is elusive. Fog surrounds you and transforms the atmosphere, but when you try to examine it, it vanishes. Fog happiness is the kind of happiness you get from activities that, closely examined, don't really seem to bring much happiness at all- yet somehow they do."

Other examples of fog happiness include hosting a party (preparing, cooking, managing everyone, cleaning up afterward- hmm why is this fun?), running a race (waking up early to train? waking up even earlier to run wait to run the race? running up hills? point made...), even cooking a nice meal can be fog happiness when you are running around like a crazy person trying to get the timing of it all right.

Teaching is fog happiness.

On any given day, it involves arriving at school in the dark, trying to plan activities that will engage the kids while also meeting the academic needs of 21 very different children while also balancing the ridiculous standards set by people who are not teachers and don't know my kids, setting up said activities which always include an absurd number of materials... this is all before 8 am. After that, things get even more fun... I try to actually teach planned lessons while battling bathroom accidents, attention seeking behaviors, inability to sit still, "developing" social skills, and general lack of caring for any adult authority. Just when I think it's all over, I usually have to attend some kind of pointless meeting in which some equally pointless work will be assigned. And don't get me started on parent e-mails...

When closely examined, there is no happiness here, only stress, anxiety, anger, frustration and a seemingly endless supply of work to do. But when you look at the big picture, that I have helped teach 101 children how to read, that I have shared in the happy experiences of 101 kids, that I have hopefully made some of the bad experiences a little better, that I have received thousands of cute notes written in "kindergarten spelling," that I have the power to make (and hopefully not break) a child's day... well, it's kind of cool. Plus there is just nothing more amazing than seeing the world from the eyes of a kid...

This brings me no closer to wanting the fog happiness of parenthood... or hosting a party haha.

What brings you fog happiness?

My Sis and Bro- Day 5

Happy Extra Hour Day! I love adding an hour to my Sunday :) So far I've spent most hours of my day making wedding photo books on Shutterfly. It took me a good 3 hours to make one for my grandmother because I had SO many pictures of my dad's side of the family- #1 because they are large and #2 because they all gave me all of their pictures so I had a lot to sort through, but that's good. I think it's going to come out awesome in the end.

Today is Day 5 of the blog challenge and I am supposed to blog about my siblings. I've already wrote a blog post about Caroline over on her old blog, so if you want to check that out, go here.

(Obviously wearing sweatshirts from random schools must run in the family since Jake does not go to Merrimack haha)

A little boy in my class this year is very close to his sister. They take the bus together in the morning and she drops him off at my classroom each time. Her third grade teacher told me that she said, "I love him at school, but I hate him at home." Hahahaha... I love that and it sometimes describes so well the love/hate relationships you tend to have with your siblings when you are younger. I remember being SO excited the ONE year that I shared a school with Caroline (Jake and I never did)- when she was in kindergarten and I was in 5th grade. Even though I never "hated" my siblings at home, there were a few things that kind of made me crazy about them... so I decided in my post today I'll tell you one thing they did that drove me crazy as a child, followed by one thing I love about them now. Hope it's fun to read :)

Just so you can get a good picture in your mind, here are the little devils as children...

Caroline, sister, age 21

Drove Me Crazy: Caroline didn't like milk, which is fine. Except that I really didn't like milk that much either and I was forced to drink it anyway. But Caroline was so stubborn that she never had to drink it. This annoyed me.

Love Now: Caroline is a very creative, talented at art person. She is always willing to offer her help with these types of things. You may think this wouldn't come up often, but try planning a wedding and you'll see how often this comes up. She designed my table names with pictures, she created my guest book, she made me a post wedding scrapbook, just to name a few things. She is currently working on the shutterfly book for my other grandparents. I help her compose e-mails, that's my contribution :)

Drove Me Crazy: The day Caroline and her friend Hannah read my diary. Uncool kids, uncool.

Love Now: Caroline and I share lots of mutual interests including; taking excessive pictures, running, doing yoga, attempting to eat healthy with a side of peanut butter cookies, blogging, hanging out with our friends/family/each other etc.

Drove Me Crazy: Her endless singing of a certain phone number of a boy she thought I liked.

Love Now: Basically just love that Caroline and I are friends and sisters- we seriously would rather hang out with each other than most other people. I like that :) (this post has had a lot of smiley faces)

Jake, brother, age 19

Drove Me Crazy: I used to babysit Jake and putting him to bed was very annoying. #1- he would not actually go to bed when I asked him to. #2- once I actually got him up to his bed (after a lot of yelling and dragging), I would have to sit in his room and try to read in the dark until he feel asleep. I realize now this is how a lot of kids operate, but I was very happy when I babysat other kids and learned how easy the bedtime routine CAN be (if the kids don't know you well haha).

Love Now: Jake is hilarious. At least 90% of what he says makes me laugh. That's like my top quality in a person so I mean this as a serious compliment.

Drove Me Crazy: Jake was not awesome at losing. Normally, Caroline took the brunt of his anger but on the occasional chance that I was playing against him and I beat him, it was not uncommon to be chased away by Jake swinging a hockey stick at you.

Love Now: Jake stands up for his sisters and watches out for us, even if he's the youngest. You never know when that hockey stick might come in handy...

Drove Me Crazy: Jake was also not the best at waking up in the morning. This was fine except for when I had to watch him for a week in college and it was really hard to get myself out the door and him (yes- this is why I have no desire to have kids right now). Just when I thought I might kill him, he decided to wake himself up one morning and then he wrote himself a note with things he needed to do. Something like, "Dear Jake, you better be awake right now. Don't forget to take vitamins and get backpack. From, Jake" hahaha. It was the best not ever, seriously.

Love Now: Jake taught me a lot about being a teacher. School was not easy for him, but he was always a very hard worker- in fact, he still is :)

I love my siblings :)

By the way, I also love my parents-in-law and brothers-in-law but I think these posts have been long enough already... another day :)

Tomorrow I will be showing a picture of something that makes me happy. I'd love to hear your guesses of what you think that might be...

Mom & Dad- Day 4

Oops- didn't blog yesterday :) However, I have a good excuse- work all day, followed by a quick shower and then we were off to another 30th birthday. Just in case you didn't think the 30th birthday thing was going too far... on the way to the party last night we got invited to another one last weekend! Thank goodness I am only 26 so we don't have my friends and Eric's friends all in one year. When they all turn 40 I'm going to throw a massive party for everyone and that is going to be it, remind me in 10 years. A few pictures...

Eric w. the birthday boy...I think they are sick of me taking pictures of them all the time :)



Eric and some of his other buds...





and me + Eric...



So back to the blog challenge...

It's time to talk about the parents. It's been done before on this blog so I'll try to think of new material :)

My mom is basically just one of those people who was 100% born to be a mom. I never really remember a time my mom was not doing mom things- playing with us, cooking us dinner (all different dinners of course), driving us around, reading to us, dressing us in cute (matching) outfits, inviting our friends over, standing up for us, etc etc- I could go on forever. Although I constantly insist I am the "easy" child- I know there were moments (short ones of course) when that was not the case. Like when I piled so much crap under my bed, I was basically sleeping above a dust/junk pile. Or when I practically got suspended at the age of 10, oops. There was also my never ending use of phone lines... Somehow my mom managed to take most of these things in stride and still love me all the same. My mom, every single day, put our needs before her own. I know that's kind of like the definition of a mom, but trust me- I know a lot of them and most do not do it like my mom does. Aside from our occasional fights about my messiness and inability to get off the phone, I always remember thinking my mom was really cool. She was always very honest and open minded, never "out of touch" as many teenagers think their parents are. Now that I'm older my mom is more like my friend... well, my friend who buys me lots of presents and leaves butternut squash soup in my fridge when I'm at work :)



When I think of my dad, all sorts of things come to mind. I think about our awesome weekly trips to the Children's Museum when my sister was a baby. Or, when I got to go to "Take Your Daughter to Work Day." I had been to my dad's office before but it was cooler to meet all the people he worked with, hang out in his office, and I even got to be on the radio that day :) Pretty sweet. I also remember when I did a 3 week program at University of Virginia and my dad flew down with me, then flew back three weeks later to pick me up. Eric and I have a little joke that whenever we say something the other doesn't want to hear, but put a positive spin on it- we call it "pulling a Jay." For example, the other day I told Eric I like his food so much that I wish he would put less salt on so I could taste the deliciousness more hehe. Like my mom, my dad is all about taking care of us, just in different ways. He helps us study, form a "plan", and just overall be productive people. During wedding planning, my mom and I would discuss and debate and eventually get things done- but in the time that we had done 1 thing, my dad would've done about 10. I also remember as a kid if I came home with a terrible test grade, my mom would be like "WHAT!? You were talking on the phone too much instead of studying! (true), and my dad would come home and be like, "okay Kelly, let's form a PLAN for how we can do better on future tests" (aka talk on the phone less, study more haha).



Even though all 3 of us are technically moved out of the house, my parents both still do a LOT for us. My mom is basically my personal shopper/ home decorater/ when I'm especially lucky, cook. My dad is my restaurant finder/ financial-life as a grown up advisor/ when I'm especially lucky, trip planner. Plus, I just genuinely enjoy hanging out with my parents now in a way that I didn't quite appreciate when I was 15. I feel lucky about that.


So Mom and Dad, thanks for being the best parents :) I love you! <3