frenetic thoughts on this, my first official day of summer: a bulleted list

• so i finished my 7th year of teaching on thursday.  it should have been my 8th, but i took my little detour in 04-05, so i'm behind now.  all in all, it was a pretty good year . . . i love how i always say that in may, but if you had talked to me in february i would have sworn to you that i hated my job and everything involved with it.  but now that the year is done, i'm like, okay.  yeah.  i can totally do this forever.  (totally not saying i will, but that's always how i feel at the end of school.  weird.)
• speaking of 'forever' - i retired my second principal this year.  i've worked in three different school systems and have been really blessed in two of them to be led by people like mr. a and mrs. c., two of the most caring and compassionate individuals i have EVER known.  in both cases, they each worked in public schools for over thirty years.  i can't even fathom that . . . i'm hoping i make it to 10 before i follow another adventure somewhere else. 
• speaking of somewhere else - as a lot of you know, i was kind of looking to move to a different school next year.  two very unique possibilities popped up at about the same time, so i thought i would explore them.  as i told my principal, me looking into moving had absolutely nothing to do with my school now.  i actually am very content where i am. (stop laughing.  really.  i found out it's possible for me to achieve!)  but, i just felt like neither of these two possibilities were things i could ignore (one was teaching with melissa at her school and another was moving up to a high school in oklahoma to work with joy - both are things i would love to do at some point), so i dove right in.  for the last couple of months, my whole prayer has been for God to make it very clear to me where i need to be next year and that i would go there.  (sometimes my selfishness gets in the way and i don't really pay attention to that kind of "stuff," thus the request for clarity.)  i suppose you can't get much clearer than not hearing back from either option, can you?  God cracks me up sometimes.  so.  i'm sticking around for at least one more year and i am good with that.  from what i can tell, next year's bunch of incoming 8th graders will probably lead to a lot more prayerful conversations, though . . .
• my thoughts are actually much more organized - and WAY longer - than i thought they would be when i sat down to write . . . maybe i should change the title of this blog?  it's not really turning out to be frenetic.  but dude.  i love that word.
• so every summer, i make a list of resolutions.  i'm MUCH better at sticking to these than i am to anything i come up with in january.  the two i'm most excited about are de-branding my bathroom (trust me, more on this to come) and hanging out at a coffee shop or the library at least 4 afternoons a week to actually WRITE.  i've decided i am going to have to leave my house to avoid distractions, so i can actually accomplish something.  
• my complex better figure out the pH balance at the pool this summer . . . my skin STILL smells like chlorine from earlier today and it has been scrubbed and polished since then.

a new obsession

chris jordan's photography. a little depressing, but i think his images are amazing and powerful. yeah. i should be able to say something much more eloquent and intelligent, but it is monday and i just woke up and have not had coffee/diet coke/iced tea yet.

top 6 things i learned on my trip to chicago (a little late)

1. i found where i want to live if i ever suck it up and move north of the mason-dixon line. wicker park is pretty much awesome. i could have walked and walked and walked around looking at all of the stores and sat and sat and sat outside at all of the different restaurants all day long. there were a few national chains represented, but for the most part, all of the stores and eateries were locally owned and independent. YAY! THE best store, by far, was paper doll. the cuz, sis, and i spent at least an hour exploring all of the cards and bags here. i even found a great new bag to cart around my computer this summer when i decide to get out of the house and go people watch.

2. listen to your mother and pack socks. while saturday was PERFECT, sunday was freakishly cold. now i know a few of you (jan and joy) are rolling your eyes at me right now and saying, "was it really cold or just sarah cold?" um. even all of the chicAAAHgo people couldn't stop talking about it. this was (of course) the day we spent at wrigley for the cubs game. my mom had warned me about how cold she had been when she went to a game a few years ago, but being me, and it being FREAKING MAY!, i ignored her and did not take socks. but, i am now the proud owner of a cozy cubs thermal and some cubs socks. i can't remember the name of the store where we all stocked up, but other than the guy behind the counter who may have yelled at erin, it was a pretty good shopping option . . . not very crowded and rather inexpensive for having doors that faced wrigley.

3. even though i am now officially old, i will STILL get carded. (it's almost a blessing now . . . not quite, but almost.) the 'bouncer' at cubby bears asked me - and only me - to show him a second form of i.d. to get in. no one else in our group, not even my YOUNGER sister, had to do this. my only other picture i.d., though, is my teacher i.d. - will i go to teacher hell for using my **** junior high school picture to get into a bar? when i showed it to him, i did get the traditional gasp of "wow. you teach junior high?" to which i got to say, "yes. that is why i am here."

4. i like tapas. maybe the best birthday meal (not cooked by mi madre) ever. (that could change in 90 minutes as melissa and kelley are taking me to uncle julio's for lunch.) but right now, i truly believe it was THAT good. i think it also helped to go with uber-sophisisticated erin and jessica who knew what the heck was going on. it may have also helped that we spent the hour wait to get into evanston's best tapas restaraunt at ethel's chocolate.

5. my sister is a walking t-shirt generator. without meaning to, jessica comes up with some lines that erin and i have decided should be placed on t-shirts that we force her to wear for our own enjoyment. our two favorite ica-isms (you like that sis?) were "cotton candy is my beer" and "yeah. at the kanye concert . . ." if you don't know my sister, these are probably in no way any kind of amusing to you. but those of you do are probably laughing so hard right now you fell off of your chair.

6. i am really lucky to have an erin and jessica in my life. thanks yall. it was SUCH a great way to spend moving into the next decade.

when did i become this person? (so not as serious as it sounds)

so the flying thing is no better. when did this happen? i don't ever remember getting nervous about flying and the only time i remember feeling sick on a plane there's a chance i could have had help in that direction from a little something called beer. but, nope. yesterday. i got on the plane. i was feeling fine. i was a little amped up about getting to take a mini-vacation. i was jammin' to some eric hutchinson on the trusty iPod and reading my better homes and garden magazine (yeah. did i mention i am old now?). then we start heading down the runway and i suddenly want to leap out of my seat and beg the flight attendants to let me OFF OF THIS HORRIBLE TUBE OF METAL WHERE I AM TRAPPED WITH 100 OTHER PEOPLE. I DON'T WANT TO GO HURTLING THROUGH THE SKY AT A MILLION MILES AN HOUR. PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME!

luckily. i am cool under pressure, so i didn't do that.

i finally calmed myself down. i wasn't able to sleep, which was NOT fun. but like a big girl, i sat back and dealt with my 2.5 hours trapped in the very nice midwest airlines leather seats and i ate their warm chocolate chip cookie when they brought it to me. so i figured all was well. and then we started our descent. i'm not even going to discuss the turbulence. nope. our pilot came over the speaker to tell us we were nearing milwaukee (i flew into milwaukee because it is just as close to erin in drive time and i got a better deal). so i start preparing for the landing, which HAS always been my least favorite part of flying. anyway. i start looking out the window at what i KNOW is the city of milwaukee. i even chuckled at myself because i completely forgot it sits on the shore of lake michigan. but then i noticed we weren't getting any lower. in fact, i felt like we were climbing again. and then the next thing i know we are waaaaaaaaaaay out over the lake and i couldn't see any land. instead of using ration and realizing we were probably going to loop back around and head toward the airport, i completely believed for like 15 seconds that our pilot was lost. or that he was trying to kidnap us.

but. he didn't. or he remembered where he was going. whatever. we landed and now i am snuggled in erin's guest bed wondering where she got her sheets because i really like them. also. i'm debating the eternal question: capris or jeans?

we're meeting up with jessica sometime later this afternoon down in the lincoln park or wicker park areas. happy weekend everyone!

if only . . .

i was going to wait to write and post something tonight, but then i woke up and saw this . . .



um. if only this would have been NEXT sunday instead of yesterday, i would have been there in PERSON. just sayin'. here's hoping the cousin, the sister, and i get to witness something equally as horrific and entertaining!

and now i want one . . .

so this afternoon i was at the WRAP club (writing, reading, and poetry) meeting.  i 'help' sponsor this group of 5 or 6 kiddos.  i say 'help' because i think my main function is to get them off topic and frustrate the other sponsor.  i seem to be pretty good at fulfilling this role.  it's actually pretty easy - they are 7th, 8th, and 9th graders, after all.  

seriously.  

all i have to do is utter two words: edward cullen and ZIP!  they are off.  usually, i like to utter those words with a few others like: "is a loser" (smart, i know) or if i'm feeling really verbose and daring, "sucks."  (if you have no idea what i am talking about, i secretly envy you.)

anyway.  today, i kept them away from the world of forks and bella and edward and JACOB! somehow i got them talking about the names they chose for their spanish class.  this, in turn, got me thinking about the name i chose for spanish waaaaaaay back in 10th grade.  i shared it with my kiddos this afternoon.  they didn't really understand my maniacal cackling when i remembered what i had chosen.  perhaps you will.  it's a little telling.

margarita.

oh geez. 

that song in my head

i have been singing show tunes all day long. i borrowed a friend's wicked soundtrack earlier this week and started listening to it early this morning . . . that morphed to the following list of tunage throughout the day.

• on my own - les mis
• the rose - the rose
• maybe - annie (forget any other song from this show . . . THIS is the best one!)
• glory - rent
• wind beneath my wings - beaches
• part of your world - the little mermaid
• little drop of rain - les mis
• popular - wicked
• defying gravity - wicked

 . . . and so many more.  oooh.  now that i'm looking at that list, it looks like a pretty good iPod playlist.  i also just got an image of me singing along with said playlist at the top of my lungs at the gym.

and, in reference to my previous post . . . 

 . . . i present hunter, charlie, and lucy.  

and, p.s. - he may not be my favorite person, but i'll admit i am pretty impressed by our prez with this incident.  but, i'm even more impressed by the people of greensburg.  how awesome are they?

3 dogs and a lady

charlie is sleeping on my leg. lucy is curled up as close as she can to me. hunter is sprawled out on the floor next to the couch. i finally figured out that if i turn off all of the lights and put the television on mute they will all be quiet and still at the same time. in fact, i am typing this as quietly as i can so that i don't accidentally wake one of them up.

this has been an exhausting three hours.

crap. they are all awake again.