balcony seat

I love going to my church, especially my sunday school class. It's a very small white church that has been there over 100 years and was first started by Czech immigrants who settled in east Bell County. If you visit the church cemetery, most of the epitaphs are written in Czech, it's that legit. It's also the church where I got married, which is another reason it holds so much value to me. But back to the sunday school class.

Because our church is so small, I attend a class with people from all ages. I'm the youngest at 27, and I'm pretty sure the oldest is in her 90s. That's 70 years of living in between us. I'm humble enough to realize that my fellow classmates are much wiser than me because they've seen so much in their lifetimes. Two world wars, the Great Depression, the introduction of tv, followed by color tv, followed by cordless phones, followed by cell phones capable of playing tv shows from wireless internet. It's no wonder they stick to the basics of what's real, what they can see, touch, and feel. We can learn a lot from that sort of groundedness (is that a word? Is it now.)

The topic of our class today focused on what we are supposed to do as Christians. If God were to come back right now, would we be serving his purpose? One of the ladies in the class mentioned that she was watching Rick Warren who said the best way to answer this would be imagining yourself sitting in a balcony seat at your funeral and listening in on what others had to say about you. Granted, most of the times nice things are said at funerals regardless of how good the person actually was. But I actually know of people who have passed away and didn't have a funeral at all. Some were just buried without any family or friends, others were cremated and still waiting to have their remains scattered in the Guadalupe River. And this could have been what the deceased wanted, no fuss, no worry, just passing quietly from this world to the next. But how sad is it to think that at your death there were no good things or bad things said. In fact, there was nothing. It's enough to make me realize that I want to matter to others and make a difference, hopefully for the better. Hopefully, as a Christian, the least that will be said was that I loved Him and it showed.

taste less

For the past few weeks, I've been forced to suffer with listening to the local radio, mainly due to my own laziness in hooking up my satellite radio. But through my suffering, I've come to realize why so many people think that their favorite type of music is rock, country, or hip-hop. These are the only types of music played by mainstream radio. Which is a tragedy, I think. There are so many other great types of music out there that don't fall into these 3 generic categories. It reminds me of when I was in high school and thought that my favorite type of music was "alternative rock," because that was the closest thing to my taste that I could listen to on the radio. Little did I know, my taste actually included many sub-categories and crossover types of music, like Canadian Indie Rock, ska, folk rock, new wave, experimental, and what have you. I just hadn't heard it yet.

I'm not saying the songs being played on mainstream radio aren't good, I'm just saying there are so many other songs out there that are as good or better but just don't have the best PR person trying to promote them. It's sad to me that bands have to sell their music anyway. It kind of cheapens it in a way. Think of how much better they could be if they weren't restricted by money or contracts. So much creativity kept within the constraints of the tin can that the huge corporations place on them. But I digress.

The same goes for food. We all have that one local restaurant that everyone swears has the best the food and are famous for one certain dish, but when you go and finally try it yourself, you can't help thinking, "really? This is what everybody thinks is so great? Am I missing something here?" I believe these false praises are based off the majority of folks who have no idea what good really is. Or, rather, their taste is on level 3 or 4, when it could go to 11. They have no idea that the dessert they think is great could actually be much, much better. They've never tasted anything better, so it's not their fault they think crap is great.

I've experienced this recently with my father-in-law's cooking. He was in the restaurant business for about 30 years and every dish he makes is simply amazing. It has layers that take your taste buds through a journey of delectable delight, it's that good. It's a talent that comes from many years of experience, and so many are content to stop when they've accomplished one good dish rather than seek to improve upon it.

My point is that we could all benefit from a more adventurous approach to food, music, clothes, movies, whatever. By only relying on what "the critics" think, we are selling ourselves short on discovering some untapped greatness. That's all for today. Next week's lesson: Learning to Think for Yourself and Discover Your Own Taste.

Broken Record

One of the many joys of pregnancy, other than carrying and growing a human life, of course, is pregnancy brain. I used to be a real sharp thinker, the quickest wit in town. These days, I'm lucky if I can remember to...what was I talking about? Seriously, I have trouble following conversations, and I'm pretty sure I've told my friends at work the same stories several times. This scares me because it's a characteristic my mom has had for years and which slightly annoyed and confused me. Why she takes pleasure in repeating the same tales over and over is beyond me. Until now. Now that my synapses also fail to connect, I realize how easy it is to bore others because you think what you're talking about is entertaining. And it was. The first time.

Besides being forgetful, I've also been plagued by songs stuck in my head. Today it was "she's got the look (she's got the look) she's got the look (she's got the look) and I go lalalalala she's got the look." And then it was replaced with "you've got to get yourself together you've got stuck in a moment that you can't get out of." And then that was replaced with "I can get to sleep, I think about the implications, of diving in too deep, and suddenly the complications, especially at night, I worry about situations that, I know will be alright, it's just overkill." The last one is actually a pretty good song by Colin Hay of Men at Work fame, I highly suggest looking it up. At least it wasn't "hey Mickey you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind hey Mickey!" Oh, crap...

consumerism at its best

Skeebo and I had a wonderful adventure in the big-D today. After a rushed start to get to a client's house in time for a family portrait shoot, Skeebo worked his magic and had some a great turnout on his photos thanks to the overcast day. Then the family treated us out for sushi and hibachi, which is our favorite. We shared a fried roll and chicken and steak, which was quite delectable. Afterwards, thanks to the influence of the youngest daughter, we made our way next door to Yogurtville, where you can create your own delicious dessert from about a dozen types of yogurt and hundreds of toppings. Skeebo impressed us all by opting for one-of-each-topping.
We then parted ways with the family and made our way to the cathedral of American consumerism...the mall. And Willow Bend Mall in Plano is nothing to sneeze at. All of the most awesomest stores are there, including the Apple Store, which is where we got sucked in. We innocently went in trying to find an answer to Skeebo's Final Cut problems, and instead came out with a new Mac for me! And a wireless printer that is only $30 after the rebate. Which is why you see this odd pic of me next to this post. I'm trying out the cool built-in camera that I've seen all the cool kids use on the facebook intraweb site. I'm just thrilled to have a reliable computer that actually completes a task when you push the button, and doesn't freeze and shut down every time you try to download something. Skeebo can attest to the amount of cuss words released on my last laptop, which is only 3 years old but acts like its 90. You know, forgets what it's doing in the middle of something, decides to nap at random points for no reason, and scares all the other drivers out there because you never know when or where it will crash. You get the drift. I love my mac.

Progress

It's been a while since I've posted, and I've had an interesting week. Sometime last Friday I took a practice test for my 4th-8th generalist teaching certificate and began to freak out when I scored a 68. I'm usually a good test-taker, but these questions were unlike any I'd encountered on standardized tests. Most of the questions were things like: "A teacher of beginning readers designs a variety of instructional activities using "word families" (e.g., mail, tail, sail, trail), groups of words that have the same rime but different onsets. One important advantage of this approach is that it:"

Excuse me, what? First of all, I'm pretty sure you misspelled rhyme, and what's an onset? Needless to say, I had a lot of studying, or cramming, to do before I took the $120 test on Monday. I've never been so nervous in my life, mainly because I've never had to invest a dollar amount on a test before. I've had to invest in college, sure, but if you fail a test you still have a chance to make it up on the final. So after a weekend of freaking out, I am happy to report that I passed the test with a score of 280 out of 300, which is like a 93 for those of us who are more used to being scored out of 100.

So now I could officially be hired by a school with a probationary certificate, all I need to do now is finishing the online coursework and I'm set. Which brings me to my second point.

Why do so many instructional materials use crappy writing? It's like they got bored of writing it themselves and decided to hire a monkey to finish it for them. Here's an exaggerated example of what I'm talking about:
Why should a new teacher learn the different behavior strategies for managing a classroom? That's an excellent question. Here's the answer: It provides order in a room of chaos and gives the students structured boundaries in order to facilitate learning. This can be done in many ways...

Seriously? Can you just say what you mean in a way that does not make me want give myself a lobotomy? Just because you are adding extra words and making the text longer doesn't mean you are making it more meaningful. Trust me, I got my B.A. in B.S.

Sigh, only a few more courses to complete, though. And on a side note, I got side-swiped by a little old man while making my way home from work today. He decided he was going to change lanes whether I was in the lane or not, and my horn reflex was a little too late. But it just left a long scratch on the side of my van, no harm to me or my unborn child. And he was on the way to visit his wife in the hospital, which I felt bad about but c'mon. That doesn't give you free reign to drive wherever you feel like it. So many bad drivers out there, a person almost can't avoid it.

So that's been my life in a nutshell. Peace out.

turtles, seahorses, mice, oh my!

My awesome cousin Donna and her newlywed husband Dan made a trip to visit yesterday and add some wonderful artistic touches to our nursery. We now have beautiful turtles above where the crib will be placed, a kickass octopus, seahorses, and dolphin next to the rocker, and a whale and bird above the changing table. Having an artist in the family is a wonderful blessing and saved Skeebo and me the hassle of figuring out how to stencil or otherwise decorate the baby's room.
In the midst of preparing for our baby boy, we have had another disturbing development...mice. Living out in the country, I guess it's expected that we have critters trying to move in and take over. We keep setting our steel cat trap and have caught over 12 now. The most mice at one time was five. FIVE. Yeah, pretty gross considering all the diseases and crap the mice carry with them. I thought they were just holing up in the kitchen and our spare room that is overflowing with crap, but as I was looking through my tupperware box of wedding memories today, guess what surprise awaited me? Yep, you guessed it. Underneath my album of wedding memories hid a real, live mouse. I about crapped my pants. My hero took the box outside and let the mouse out for the dogs to run down, and Jackie Brown did an outstanding job catching it and bringing it to its imminent death. Sigh, I was under the illusion that mice were avoiding our closet. Now I realize no place is safe, and considering how toxic mice are, it brings even more worries for me and my pregnancy.
I guess we'll just have to get some outdoor cats to keep the mice out, or find some way to exterminate the suckers. Yucky gross gross.

exhaustion & the fair

I'm enjoying the third and final day of a three-day weekend thanks to one of my final vacation days, and I'm so glad it's almost over. Sounds crazy considering I cherish every spare moment I get away from work, but this has been more of a working weekend. The run-down went something like this:

Thurs., 5:30pm - I finally get home to see a good amount of crap set out for our garage sale the next day. Furniture, dishes, clothes, decorative things, you name it. This is all part of the cleaning out grandypa and grandyma process, and I'm thankful my husband has a good friend to help move furniture around, cuz even in my only 4-months-pregnant state, there's no way I could have lifted any of that.

8pm - We finally wind down with pricing all of the stuff, which is actually fun. I enjoy deciding the worth of objects I have no emotional connection to. 10 cents for a plate with a cat on it (which someone actually bought), $50 for a stereo that still works (someone got that too, but for $35), and an entire box of random kitchen crap for a buck a piece. And used bras and socks for 10 cents, actually sold some of that, can you believe it?

Friday, 5am - We are hopefully thinking that a mad rush will come clean out our garage sale very early in the morning, so we go ahead and set out signs, make coffee, and sit. And sit. And sit some more, until our first customer finally shows up at 7am but stop at the big house (Skeebo's parents house on the same property). I run after them to let them know we are next door, move a sign around and post a new one on the big house to let folks know we are here.

11am - We make our "big sale of the day" by selling the chairs to our dining set for $40, even though all of the wheels fall off as we're loading them, that didn't stop him. He also got a couple of meat grinders and a sprinkler for a grand total of $53, not too bad.

3pm - We finally decide no one else is going to show up, so we start putting everything away and of course get some last-minute shoppers who take off with the 3 twilight books I owned for $3. Works for me. We close shop with about $178 and some change, but no big furniture pieces gone. Bummer, dude. Anybody want a couch with a fold-out sofa bed? It's got a slipcover and everything, just too much furniture for us.

Saturday, 6:30am - For some crazy reason, we decided to go to the state fair the day after having a garage sale. Mainly because it was the only day we could make it. So we get ready and head outside to see the puppies had torn into my bag of clothes that were ready to be dropped at goodwill, as well as a book and one of the couch pillows. They didn't touch anything when we left it all set out for the garage sale, but now that it's over, I guess they decided it was ok to tear up crap. Oh well, I guess it's better it happened after and not before.

7:30am - Everybody's loaded in the car (Skeebo, me and his folks) and we are leaving the neighborhood when we see the dogs running loose. We decide they will be chained up the next day as punishment, since we don't really have a fence to keep them enclosed. Rascals.

10am - We arrive at the fair and make our first culinary stop of the day at Owen's sausage house, followed by the petting zoo and dog show. Then our next culinary stop is the chicken-fried bacon, which tastes just like it sounds, greasy and salty.

1pm - After perusing through buildings of art, food, wine, and cars, we make our next culinary stop where Skeebo and his folks enjoy a Texas-size plate of nachos and I enjoy a gyro.

2:30pm - We head to the bird show, where we saw huge cranes fly over the crowd, an owl fly out of the Texas Star ferris wheel and land on the stage, and a parrot that sings. Really fun, interesting stuff.

3pm - We ride the Texas Star ourselves, which was fun though kind of a rip-off at $7 for only two full turns. Oh well. Then we have our next culinary stop where I chow down on a corn dog and malt, while Skeebo and his folks enjoy alcoholic beverages. I'm ready to leave by this point, but unfortunately I'm only one person (with one on the way), so I don't have much pull.

7pm - After the boys have been harassed enough by the women-folk, we are finally on our way out the door and here the tail-end of a set by 38 Special. Funny thing is, we didn't realize it was the actual band until afterward, we thought it was just a really good cover band.

8pm - Our last culinary stop of the day is El Fenix for delicious mexican food. Then yours truly got the pleasure of driving home since the men had their bellies full of beer and Skeebo's mom isn't the best night-driver. I could tell that was gonna happen, which is why I was ready to leave by 3pm. Oh well. All in all it was a fun, exhausting weekend.