From my eyes…

It dawned on me the other day that my life has changed a lot since meeting Mike. It seems like everything I do is more fun, more meaningful, more happy, just more positive. That’s not to say that we don’t have different views about things or different ways of doing things in our life that sometimes cause stress, but overall, my life is just better. I have someone to help me with the hard parts and to celebrate the good parts. It’s really fun being part of a team and each day just gets better.

Back in October Bon Jovi concert tickets went on sale. Not just Bon Jovi tickets, but Bon Jovi with Daughtry opening. Sigh. I’m not sure there is a better rock combo.
I had to work the Saturday morning tickets went on sale. I was still coaching cheer and the girls had to be at a special weekend game. Thankfully, it was at our school. I snuck off to my classroom close to ticket time and logged in to the ticketmaster website in about 10 different windows. I was getting my tickets. This was a concert I could not miss. It was not an option. And I was super excited, since I was going to hit the right buttons at just the right moment and I would have “Bon Jovi/Daughtry concert” on my calendar in a matter of minutes.
You can imagine my disappointment (If you aren’t familiar with love of Bon Jovi, you can click here to get caught up) when I was unsuccessful, over and over, not getting tickets to this concert. I was crushed. Beyond crushed. I actually got teary-eyed over not getting concert tickets. I was like a zombie the rest of the day. My poor cheerleaders felt so badly for me. They knew how much it meant. I tried to snap myself out of it, and by the next day I had moved on, but not without a little extra sadness.
I didn’t think about the concert anymore after that Saturday. I let it go and moved on. Then, Monday came. Monday, February 25th. And all the people at work, all the students too, the ones who’d been to the concert, well, they came strutting in with their little t-shirts and happy faces and stories about Saturday night. It only took about 3 hours before I’d booked tickets for Mike, me, and his brother to go to the Tuesday night concert. I decided it was worth being tired on Wednesday. And it was worth the money. And even though I was sick and had NO voice whatsoever I had to go. I mean, when would there be another time to see Daughtry with Bon Jovi? I’m guessing Daughtry won’t be opening for people much longer. He’ll be on his own in a matter of months.
We had to sit far away and the band looked like they’d been shrunk. They actually looked just like the figurines I received as a Christmas gift. Dancing dolls is what I told Mike. Regardless, it was a great concert. I stood a good amount of the time and danced and bopped my way through each and every song. There were some ridiculously drunk girls in front of us. They were annoying. Then one fell. That was funny, but only because no one got too hurt. Made them quiet down for a song or two.
All in all, I’m so glad I made that last minute decision to get weeknight, nose bleed seat tickets. After all, it’s my Bon Jovi!

This is a sad post for me to write
My favorite local cover band, Then Again, has played their last concert. You may recall a few posts I’ve written about some amazing nights in Chicago watching these guys play. It was extra exciting when we (mike, jen and I) realized that Gina Glocksen was on American Idol since we’d seen her many times on stage with her boyfriends band, our precious Then Again. Or maybe you remember me sharing that I (obnoxiusly) made it into a pic on their webpage.
One random day I was looking up their show dates, so I could plan on getting some people together to go in the near future. It was then that I learned that February was going to be the last show- EVER! Thankfully I still had enough time to get a group together to go.
We made a night of it and carpooled into Chicago with three other couples. We enjoyed a super yummy dinner at Good Island Brewery, arrived early enough to the concert to get good standing room, and then headed back to a hotel to avoid the long drive back to the ‘burbs. It was a really fabulous night! Gina came out and sang a few songs (not Paint it Black, but that’s ok), they had all kinds of other guests come up on stage, and they were still going strong at 3 a.m. when we finally decided to leave.
Two coolest parts - besides getting to and be with friends? The band members parents were there, Jayson (the sexy little lead singer) did an entrance from the center of the audience, and one of my girl friends who was with us realized she KNOWS one of them and ended up being able to go to the VIP room to see her high school friend. They let her husband go with her, too. I was excited for them!
I’ll miss our concert in the city, but maybe they’ll be back, right? Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
 

One of my very best friends, one of my very fist AZ friends, got married this weekend. Jen and Kelsay, along with their immediate family members head off to Kuai (Kauai?) for a beach wedding.

We’ll be celebrating with Jen & Kelsay in March as a reception in Arizona, and in June at a reception in Illinois.

I usually participate in Lent and the idea of making a sacrifice as God did with his Son.  I  don’t believe in giving up something that I won’t miss, or that could hardly be counted as a sacrifice. Instead, I try to find something that will remind me daily of Christ’s committment to mankind. I try to find something to eliminate that will make me a better person in the end.
Sure, I’ve had years of giving up foods and TV. At that point, giving up fried foods or poor TV choices was what I needed to make myself a better person. In recent years, I’ve choosen not to give up anything, but to give of myself - make more time for other people, get in touch with more long lost friends, etc.
This year, three days into lent, I still had not given it much thought. Life was busy and I wasn’t making time for more spiritual self. Sitting at a volleyball game it came to me. This would be a great year to give up guilt & judgement.

Guilt: I came to this by realizing how renewed I felt with this whole Weight Watchers journey. I realized that THIS is how life should be lived, so for lent (and hopefully forever) I’ve given up feeling guilty about something if I’m giving it my all. Just because I don’t see the results I want immediately, doesn’t mean it’s not working or that it is something to be upset about.

Judgement: I often think back to a time in high school. It was junior year and I changed churches for a few months. While the change made me feel more grounded in my own religion, it was exactly what I needed to get myself back to the person I wanted to be. It is where I needed to go to be able to grow on my own. In this time, I truly had reached a point where I didn’t think bad thoughts about anyone. Anyone. I gave everyone the benefit of the doubt and I simply didn’t pass judgement. It was a simple way to live and I felt fantastic. In the last 12 years however, I’m finding that I’ve fallen back into a typical way of thinking about others. Whether it be strangers or co-workers or friends. It adds a weird weight to my heart. I know that it does, because I’ve been where it didn’t. This is hard to explain, but it’s something I feel is really important to work toward.

Do you celebrate the Lenten season? What was your sacrifice this year?

I’ve been looking for a new car for quite some time. Like with the purchase of my home, I want to make sure I get just what I want. I’ve come close to getting new cars before, but when I weigh it out against my current situation it’s never been ideal. My car has been paid off for years. I don’t even remember what it was like to have to come up with that extra money each month. Do I really want to take that on right now?
Unfortunately, I don’t think I have many months left to bounce back and forth. The Sentra is just one the way out.
So, I started my research and shopping around online. I know I want an SUV. I’m pretty certain I want a hybrid. I want an American made car for the sole purpose of being able to find a mechanic in the area who will work on it without snide comments or raised eyebrow or comments like “well, if it was a Ford we’d have the part, but since it’s not we’ll have to order that”. Plus, the nearest Nissan and Toyota dealership is one of the worst in the area (I asked a friend who works for Toyota and I’ve had several experiences there with my Nissan). The next closest ones are an hour away.
Taking all of this into consideration, my first choice in the Ford Escape Hybrid. Not only is it a great car, but Kermit the Frog is the spokesperson….spokesfrog? You can look at how cute it is and read about the hybrid technology here.

What do you think? If you could get a new car tomorrow, what would you pick?

So I’ve been following Weight Watchers POINTS Plan for several weeks now. I really love it. When I started I blogged about how I’ve dealt with my weight and appearance since I was young. And how as soon as I started WW I felt a burden lifted. Like a good friend who was there to carry something that none of my physical friends could carry for me. I still love the program. I hate to call it that since I’ve just stopped thinking about it as a “diet” and more a way of life. I just decided that I will eat in this style always. And as my weight melts off, or creeps back on, this is how it will be and I will no longer waste my time obsessing over it.
I’ve lost 12 pounds since I started. I put back on 4. And then dropped two again. I’m calling it a ten pound loss since I started. I’m hoping to lose another ten by the start of June and then another ten over the summer months.
If you are interested in knowing more about my experience with WW and how I’ve made it work for me, please comment me and I will email you. I enjoy talking about it and sharing my tips and I’d be really happy to hear anything you know about the program.

I don’t write too much about my job here, but I’m frustrated and felt like getting this out. Sometime as I write answers come to me. Maybe that will happen with this. Maybe it won’t. Either way it’s worth a try.

Reading Comprehension.

It’s just something that I get. I remember my 3rd grade teacher telling my parents she thought I was missing the ideas in things we read. I think she was an idiot. Reading has always been a forte of mine and I chose to overlook this one school year of criticism. 

Anyway, there are a lot of kids who truly DON’T get it when it comes to reading. The ones who can’t read the words get help early on, because, well, that’s rather fundamental. But then there are the kids who I see in my 7th grade general education classroom. They can read. They can decode any word and have fluency like all the rest. They just haven’t a clue what it is they are reading about. They can tell you the elementary details - colors of clothes, setting details, character names. But they CAN’T tell you any of the IMPORTANT parts of the plot. They can’t connect what they read on page two to the way a character acted on page 5. They can’t see why the auther chose a certain nickname for a character as a way to describe part of the personality. They just don’t get it.

How the hell am I supposed to make them get it? I realize it’s my job and maybe this makes me the worst teacher on the planet, but I don’t know how to make someone get it.

All of the reseach I’ve done comes to whole lot of nothing. It suggests practicings over and over and then gives generic practice sheets the repeat the parts that my students already get NOT the higher level connections they need to be grasping. Ugh. It’s frustrating.

I’m reaching out to cyberworld. If you, or someone you know, has had problems with reading comprehension in the past and have overcome it, HOW?  Do you remember what helped you? If you are an educator and have found a way around this complicated issue, will you share? Please?

What’s the key to reading?

I’m a busy girl, but not any more busy than the other busy girls of the world. How do they stay on top of all the hot topics in our world? I don’t get NPR….I don’t think, I’ll have to try that one again on the way to work tomorrow. I don’t have time to read online news articles from work. I’m not home during news hours and really, when I sit down at 7 at night with two hours until bed, I don’t want to wathc MSNBC. Are those my only options? I have to change something. I think I’m going to try to read an online newspaper more often. Maybe get to work a bit early so I can look at headlines online.

How do you do it? How do you stay on top of all the things in our world - health break throughs, political this and that, local government decisions, world goings on?

BOO. My lunch got stolen today. I’m going to be bitter about this for a lone time. It’s a smaller school than I’ve worked at the past few years and I gave Mike my little fridge and microwave to take to school and I’ve been using ours in the lounge at work with no problems until now. Someone ate my frozen entree. Just plucked it from the freezer, heated it up and chowed down, leaving me with nothing for my hungry belly. I threw a bit of a tantrum, but who wouldn’t?! I mean, I understand the mistakes happen, but really… I make a point to remember what I brought and eat only that, why is it too much to ask that others do the same. The kicker? I went back to my desk and emailed the teachers who eat the period ahead of me as if it were and honest mistake. Not one of them replied with who ate it. The culprit didn’t reply nothing. A few offered bars and such in their desk, but no one said “oh, you know I think so and so must have thought it was hers”. Not that I expected tattletales, but then I would have had someone to go to and trade lunches with. Sigh. It’s over. I clearly didn’t starve to death. I actually got so frustrated I wasn’t all that hungry anyway. I’ll be sure to use a great big thick black Sharpie on my meals from now on!