Countdown!!!

2 hours until Survivor

7 hours until Mike and Steph are here for the weekend

29 1/2 weeks until our little bundle of joy should be arriving. (Yep, we're gonna have a baby!) Due Sept. 2

Weird Things

I found this on several random blogs, and I thought it would be fun to participate in. The purpose is to list 6 weird things about you because we all have a little weird in us.

1. When I lay down to go to sleep, I rub my barefeet together. I do it no matter the time or the temperature. I cannot go to sleep with socks on because I can't rub my feet together.
2. I write down the full names and birthdays of everyone in my family during church or class. This started when I was in grade school. I have countless lists stuck in my bible. Weird to see how the family has changed.
3. I alphabetize my pantry, spice cabinet, and movies.
4. I hate lipstick.
5. I bite my bottom lip all the time. During the winter this causes chapped, cracked lips.
6. I have lots of bottles of lotion, and I never use any of them. Lotion just makes me feel slimy and gross.

?????

I don't know what to name this post because there is so much to tell. Since my last post Ty and I have done so much. So here goes: Thanksgiving, Christmas with several families settings, Ty had a wreck (broken kneecap), we got a new dog to give to my parents they didn't want a puppy, we gave our old dog, Patton, to my parents, my 25th birthday, our 3rd anniversary, Ty started a business, I took and passed my Health and P.E. certification test, and I shopped A LOT!!!!

Recently I have been losing my mind. I guess I was nervous about turning 25 or something, but it has been crazy the past few weeks. I locked myself out of my classroom two days in a row. The first day, I blew a breaker in my classroom, and I had a fist fight in my room. To clarify, I was not involved in the fight, although I did break it up. I lost several Christmas presents that I purchased. I also bought Christmas cards to send, but I guess they are with the presents I can't find. I locked my keys in the trunk at school, so I couldn't go anywhere. I called Ty to come help me, and he had the wreck while I was on the phone with him. I made out my semester test. I wanted the test to have 100 questions. Apparently, I forgot how to count to 100. 29 no longer comes after 28. In my world 50 does! The worst thing about this is that I read the test three times and filled out the scantron. I somehow didn't notice that I ended on 78 instead of 100. My class noticed as soon as they got the test. I was so embarrassed. I fixed by the next class period. I think I am losing my mind.

To top it off, my husband just asked me what blogging was. He lives in the dark ages.

So funny!

Watch this

Many Emotions

I do not like grad school right now. I have no motivation to complete my assignments. I do not care if I don't get an A. I've never been that way before. I don't know what to do to get motivated again, because I just do not care at all. One class I don't mind, but the other one I hate. I feel like I have been in this class repeatedly. It's the same professor for three other classes that I've had. All of the classes have been the same.

I quit cheerleading. I hate that I had to quit. It was so hard leaving all of the girls. I feel sorry for them and the situation I left them in. I had to quit because of health and personal reasons. I now worry about what it's going to be like for the cheerleaders the rest of the year. It has been the hardest last couple of weeks staying out of cheerleading. I love the girls, and I want to stay involved because they are so great, but I had to leave for personal reasons.

I am in Mississippi and am so excited that I am able to visit friends. I am enjoying the time away from Searcy and the ability to relax. We have no plans, and that's so great!! I love not having to rush anywhere.

I love teaching school right now. School is so fun. I'm getting to teach the kids so many fun things and they are really enjoying learning. I feel like I am making a difference in their lives both educationally and emotionally. I am truly doing my job as a teacher.

For the most part, I have great co-workers. They really care about me and what I am doing. They are so nice to me. Yesterday, I had several go out of their way to make sure I was okay. I felt so loved. I am very thankful for that.

Spiders

I do not like spiders. I never have. They're freaky, eight legged creatures. I don't even like grand-daddy long legs. Well, my dispise for spiders has grown recently. A week ago a red sore developed on my toe. I had no idea what was from. By Sunday, my whole foot was swollen and I couldn't walk. I went to the ER (not my favorite place) because of the pain and I had red streaks leaving the wound. They concluded that I had been bitten by a brown recluse. When, I do not know. My foot looks awful. I have not been to work all week. The swelling is massive, and now I have a very nasty wound. I've been back to the doctor on Tuesday, and I'm going back this afternoon. On Monday, I developed a blister in my eye. I do not know if this is related to the spider. I'm so glad that I didn't see the spider when it bit me. If I had, the spider would be going through just as much pain and suffering that I have been through because of his choice to bite me.

Rough Couple of Days

It's been a rough couple of days in work and family. Struggling with having a positive attitude and staying focused.

K is for Klutz

I remember having to come up with acrostics all during school. Sometimes we got to do our mascot, but we usually had to do our name. I had a terrible time with this project. K....Y....L...A.
It doesn't get much harder than that.

I have finally found a word for the letter K....Klutz.

I've known for awhile that I am accident prone. In college flag football I received a concussion, pinched nerve, broke hand, and torn ACL. Yes, in that order. Needless to say, I'm glad that I graduated in four years. I hate to think what year five would have brought on.

This weekend, I sealed the deal as being a klutz. My husband and I had a long restful weekend of football. On Sunday night, we went over to a friend's house to cook and watch the Manning brothers. (I sure do have a married woman's crush on Peyton) My husband was making hot wing sauce and asked me to melt some butter in a bowl in the microwave. Since we weren't in our home, I couldn't find the bowls (later found clean in dishwasher). I chose to use a mug. Well, our friend's microwave works better than ours because the butter was boiling when the timer went off. I pick up the mug no problem. Apparently, my finger holding the handle decided to have a spasm and touch the side of the mug. This burned, so I flinched. This cause butter the temperature of lava to splash all over my other hand. It landed on the side and then proceeded to run down my hand. As I'm screaming in pain, I'm spilling more butter on the original hand that caused all of the trouble. I finally make it to the counter and wipe the butter off. I have stripes on the palm and back of hand from the burning fire of butter. Later in the night, another friend comes over and asks if I just had a child because it looked like I was leaking. In all the commotion of spilling butter, I spilled quite a bit on my big boobed self on a grey t-shirt. The butter made spots look wet. I couldn't see over my boob to see the big dark grey spot on the underside of my boob. It was quite embarrassing and funny at the same time. I am sorry there are no pictures to enjoy this, but my camera was at school.

p.s. the good thing is that survivor starts thursday, and I have no meetings this weekend.

Ramblings

Steve Irwin died from being pierced by a stingray barb. I find it weird, almost funny that the crazy guy who does stupid things with animals dies because of an animal. I thought for sure a crocodile would take his life someday.

The Razorbacks got beat Saturday, but at least it was better than last year.

I am loving helping the cheerleaders. I have routines and chants running through my head all the time. It is taking me back to high school. I feel young again.

Today, I didn't have school, so I went up to school to organize the cheer storage closet. It was a mess. There were 15-20 boxes that would not fit in the closet plus the mascot costume. I got them all in there today except one. That's okay though because it was the lost pom poms and I'll give them out to the girls on Tuesday. I felt very good about it. I love being able to organize messy things.

I feel caught up. I have all of my classes grades entered. I have turned in my homework that is due tomorrow. There are a few things that I still need to do, but I'm not overwhelmed.

The first couple of weeks of school have gone well. We've had the back to school dance, and classes have finally settled down. My biggest class has 25 students. My computers are working, but I'm waiting for student printer.

Ty is getting settled into his new job. I'm so thankful for this blessing. It will eventually take care of us completely. I can't wait.

We decided to hold off on moving to Cabot. We are going to pay a few things off and save for a down payment before buying a house.

I love my Crisis Class and the other class is growing on me. I know it will not be my favorite, but at least it is bearable.

School starts Monday

Although I enjoy the summer and having time off, I'm ready for school to start back up. I've been getting my classroom ready for days. I'm so excited about this school year. I get to teach brand new stuff to a whole new group of students. Monday, 130 students are going to file through my room. I want to be an example to these moldable minds of seventh graders. They deserve to have at least one person who cares about them. I want the students to know that I do care for them, and I believe they can succeed. In addition to the 130, I have 41 cheerleaders depending on me to lead them in the right directions. I can't wait to have all of these kids spending their weekdays with me.

Busy Bee

Today, I woke up and decided to be a little worker bee. I have already made Ty breakfast, checked blogs, painted our third bedroom, and done 5 loads of laundry. It's not even noon yet. I've also danced/exercised for 30 minutes. I plan on moving a two shelves, making some phone calls, running errands, and making dinner by 5 o'clock. At the rate I'm going, I will be able to get it all done. What is wrong with my lazy self? I like this attitude in myself. I hope it stays.

Tomorrow is my first official day of school meetings. It is my least favorite day, because I have to meet everyone. I'm so terribly bad at meeting people because it is way out of my comfort zone. Tomorrow is especially bad because the parents come. The good thing is that classes don't start until the 21st. That gives me some more time to get things done.

In other news, Ty has been "unofficially" hired fulltime by his father. In two weeks he will change to commission pay instead of hourly. In six months that will increase, and then in a year it will increase again. In three years, Ty's dad will step out of the business. This is a huge answer to prayers. Ty and I are looking at moving to Cabot to be half way between both of our jobs. We found a great house, but I do not know if we can afford it. We are swimming in debt, so I'm not sure we will get approved. But it is perfect, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 1.6 acres. It also has a dishwasher and fireplace!!! Oh it is heaven on earth for Ty and me.

Surprises

Yesterday was a wonderful day! I started the day with some sweet compliments from a stranger. As I was getting ready for my last graduate class of the summer my husband called. He wanted to go on a date with me. That's always special, so I agreed to meet him in Little Rock after class. I got to Little Rock with no problems. My sweet husband surprised me with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill concert tickets. It was great. We also went out to eat at Damgoode Pies. I love this place. It has Chicago style pizza. Yum! We then went to the concert. The concert was really good. I was surprised at how Faith Hill responded to the audience. She took letters and read a sign that asked her to sing "I Surrender All" to their Granny who was on the phone. Believe it or not, she sang it. It was beautiful. I gained a lot of respect for her because of that. She then sang "How Great Thou Art." That was planned in her concert. I was so very impressed and decided that I like her that much more. Tim McGraw is just a good performer.

p.s. I don't know how Tim got his jeans on.

Sunshine

This morning I woke up to a pleasant surprise. I was checking blogs, and I saw a letter to me. This letter was written because I had blogged about her. Stacy, that made me feel so special. I have been having some gray days lately, and this cleared some of the clouds. I long for a continued sunshiny day, but they are so few and far between that I've almost forgotten what they feel like. Maybe today I will see the sunshine all day.

What do I read?

Copying Lindsey from several months ago I thought I'd do a blog review. I'll write about Lindsey's first. She cracks me up. There is never any clue about what she'll write about next. Reading her blog makes me miss her and college life.

Stacy : I don't even know this woman in real life. I came across her blog randomly and now I check it everyday. She usually writes about her family, but I find myself strangely connected to her and her emotions. I can identify with her, and I have a weird sense of understanding even though I have no kids. She is creative, talented, and funny. Her humor and openness leaves me longing for updates.

Baby Ira : This site is written by Ira's dad, Joe. Ira was born with a birth defect, and this blog is about his struggles as a father with a child with disabilities. It occasionally has other points of interest like church planting and baseball. It is very moving to see how a family copes with this stress in their daily lives.

Kristen Chapman : This girl was in my club at Harding. I always thought she was funny at school especially when I got a concussion playing "D" team football freshman year. She's just a fun loving girl.

There are several websites I visit daily, but I never comment (hint Stacy and Ira). I had a conversation with Sam about being a secret blog checker. We decided everyone does it, and they are afraid to comment on people they don't know that well. However, because of blogs we feel like we've known them forever.

I would cry if anything happened to my anonymous blogging friends.

wrong place at wrong time video

Mario Brothers

I love Mario Brothers. When the first Nintendo came out, I had enough money saved to purchase one. I played that game all the time. Recently, I've seen Nintendo DDS (?) ads for the new Super Mario Brothers. I want to play so badly, but the screen is like one square inch. Not worth the money to satisfy my longing for the long lost came. Ty and I have an XBOX. I've been trying to find a game that is similar to Mario because Microsoft doesn't make a Mario game. I played PacMan World for awhile. It's okay, but it was extremely easy to beat. That is probably why they have an E for Everyone on the package. A three year old could play it. Yesterday, I rented Frogger Beyond. Let me tell you. It is hard. I feel like such an idiot playing this frog came. Ty makes fun of me, but I don't care. I think I may just have to buy this one to help give me a procrastination tool.

My other procrastination tool is making up dances. I've made one up, but I have no music for it. That's backwards I know.

What's up with that?

• I get nervous when there is a word verification letters signature. I don't have good eyes, and they always use some font that it is hard to read. I'm afraid I'll get it wrong.
• When I drive by corn or cotton fields, I want to pull over and steal some off of the plant. What a weird urge!
• Why is there braille on drive through ATMs?
• People in Clarksville, Tennessee don't know how to drive at Four-way stops.
• Why does my computer freeze up everytime I open a pdf file?
• I've haven't been able to get into my classroom since school got out.
• I'm still awake at 11:35 when I usually go to bed at about 10.

Pictures of the Chaos

Chaos

We just finished up fireworks. It was an experience in and of it self. If you want more details about that you can call or ask me in person. However, I will tell you the story that puts the icing on the cake for chaos. I need to give a little bit of background before I start the story. My dad has a very bad temper. Ty and I borrowed my parents minivan and camper to go to fireworks.

We are traveling home to Searcy from our fireworks tent in Clarksville. Ty and I were in the van following our friends who were pulling the camper with their truck. The camper started fishtailing a little so we pulled over at the next exit to check the tires, etc. We get back on the road and four miles later, the camper starts fishtailing. This time it is not just a little, it is 90 degrees to the truck. I am freaking out because I'm watching this all unfold. It was a silent freak out though. He finally gets pushed over to the median by the force of the camper. That's when it got really bad. The camper started to flip over. Since it was still attached to the truck, the truck started to flip. Just at the last moment, the safety latch on the trailer snapped, so the camper let go of the truck. This allowed the truck to slam back down on all four wheels. We knew everyone was okay, but the camper was definitely not. It was on its top in the median of I-40 in Tennesee. The camper was totalled. The windows were busted out and our belongings were scattered all over the highway. We spent the next hour sorting through the wreckage and getting our things in the truck and the van. This was a huge feat since they were already were packed. We finally made it back to Searcy, but it was absolute chaos in the camper and while the camper was crashing.

Ramblings

I couldn't think of a title because I have so many random things that will be said in this post.

• After I finish my take home final tonight, I will have successfully completed 15 hours of graduate school creating a $1300 raise.
• In July, I get to take a class with one of my favorite undergrad professors. I am so excited.
• Izzie is probably pregnant.
• I am definitely not pregnant.
• I am about to be camping out for 3 weeks in Tennessee.
• I still don't know where my pugs will be staying while I am gone.
• I start selling fireworks on Tuesday.
• I am nervous about being the cheerleading coach.
• I stress out way too easily.
• I am starting to come up with a totally new curriculum for next school year.
• My brother-in-law got a job!!!! Yay!
• As a 24 year old, who am I supposed to leave my life insurance and retirement to besides my husband. I shouldn't have to make these decisions.
• My parents just got back from an African safari. Sadly they killed a zebra and a giraffe.
• Because my parents are mounting so many of their animals, they are building onto the house to have room to hang the heads.
• My parents are spending my inheritance.

p.s. I hate fireants.

School's out for Summer

Yay for summertime!!!! Our air conditioning broke, but since my parents are in Africa we are crashing at their house. It's been kind of nice. In the week and a half since school's been out I've: gone fishing several times, watched X-Men 3, ate lunch with Anna and Caca, read The Divinci Code, watched The Divinci Code, slept a lot, played with my animals, and hung out with Ty. I love summer. I start a two week short course on Monday. I'm not looking forward to having class for four hours a day. However, I still will get to sleep in. Then, I'm off to sell fireworks. I can't wait for some extra money to be flowing in. Everything is going well with the family. My parents return Monday, so I'll have to get the air fixed. That would be a little crazy with us all here. Plus, I could get away from my fears of chickens and bees.

Last night when I took the dogs out, a medium sized tarantula crawled across my foot.