lucy says

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

and we're off to see as many family members as we can in the next four days.  i hope everyone else has a great day with family and friends tomorrow.  

'cuz i can't resist a cute dog video

too fun to resist, yall.

how did i celebrate the beginning of my winter break, you ask?

while most of my counterparts (with the exception of a few) had cleared out of the school by about 3:37 this afternoon, i was still there.  wow, sarah.  you must be thinking to yourself.  what a dedicated teacher you are to want to hang out with students crashing from their daylong candy-cane highs after the bell has wrung.  oh how i wish i were and that i could claim such a sentiment.

but yeah, no.  that is not why my little civic was one of the lone cars left in the lot after the last bus had left.  in fact, if you had driven by my school this afternoon you probably would have been perplexed to see the teacher standing on a chair in the middle of the parking lot digging through the recycle bin/dumpster.  that teacher?  yep.  you guessed it.  me.

i won't bore you with the details or an admission of how much of this may have been my fault.  instead, all you really need to know is that i had a box sitting near my recycling boxes today.  the box that was NOT paper for recycling was FILLED and i mean FILLED with the projects that my students had spent pretty much the entire week working on.  and oh yeeeeeeeeaaaaah!  i also had about $200 worth of curriculum materials loaded in that box as well . . . so you can imagine the freak out that occurred when i realized the students in my 7th period had taken THE WRONG BOX during their weekly save the earth mission . . . and why i absolutely HAD to go digging through the recycling bin this afternoon.

so probably not how many people would choose to celebrate a two week break from the insanity that is my job lately.  but that is how i spent my afternoon . . . 

in an unrelated note: my 7th period will be studying "common sense and how to find some" when we get back from the break.

__________________

 side note: all of the curriculum materials were found in my rummaging, as well as a good amount of the projects.  not all, but it'll do.  so thanks for the concern, but you can totally breathe now.

so that was unexpected

today was mani/pedi day.  i don't do these often, especially in the winter and usually not at all when i have been treating my hands as horribly as i have been lately.  but.  i decided i wanted to have pretty toes for christmas.  you know, since i'll be swathed in five or six pairs of socks each day in the arctic temperatures of okc/springfield/stl.  yeah.  yall up there better get prepared - in case you forgot, i'm a wimp.

so back to my self-spoiling afternoon . . . typically when i get my hair cut or my nails did i am pretty quiet.  usually it's because i get so relaxed that i don't want to talk.  today, though, the salon was really slow and for a while i was the only customer in there, so it would have been really rude of me not to talk.  and as i am talking to the girl painting my toes (color selection: star of bombay - it ROCKS!) i find out that she is a senior at our rival high school.  so, we talked about football for a little bit since said rival high school (reigning texas state champs) are NOT playing to defend their title on saturday.  so that was fun.  and a little unexpected, but not the point of this blog.

when she found out i am an english teacher, she wanted to know what books we were reading, so i told her . . . . somehow our conversation came around to the fact that she is in gt english, which i teach at my school . . . and then somehow she started talking about hamlet and then our conversation morphed into a discussion about shakespeare and maybe a tom stoppard play or two and how you just don't "get it" until you see them performed.  for pretty much the rest of the time i was at the nail salon.  was it nerdy?  totally.   will i be going back?  um, yes.

maybe by that time i will have actually finished pride and prejudice and i can spend the mani/pedi time talking about how all of you people who love mr. darcy are totally cracked.  

sticker shock

i had to buy new tires today.  i am now poor.  

that is all.

funk, not funky.

hey.  did you know christmas is right around the corner?  yeah.  my mind keeps telling me that, but nothing about my attitude seems to be reinforcing the information.  not like i'm being all grinchy and whatnot, well, i hope i'm not, anyway.  i just don't feel christmas, yet.  i also don't feel like blogging lately or like reading.  since all three of these are things i typically look forward to, i've been trying to figure out what is holding me back from breaking out the tree and wearing my jingle bell earrings (which are metaphorical by the way).

maybe . . . 

-it's because i was sick most of thanksgiving break and didn't feel very festive from the outset?

-it's because i couldn't find my emmylou harris light of the stable christmas album until this week when i discovered it in the wrong case?  i know to some of you that means nothing, but for me that album IS christmas, so without it, i apparently am not very yuletide-y.  it's been in constant rotation since i found it though, so maybe i'll catchup sometime soon.

-it's because it's been years since i got to go into laura ashley and look for my christmas dress?

-it's because they only let us sing 17 words of "go tell it on the mountain" today at church?

-it's because the semester doesn't really end on friday (we end in january) and most of my life has programmed me to fa-la-la-la-la at the end of the semester?

-it's because i live in tejas and we've only had two days below 50 in the last month?  (not that i'm complaining about THAT . . . )

-it's because lucy refuses to wear the santa hat i got her last year?

-it's because you can buy stuff like this at "respectable" establishments like borders . . . 

(yes.  that's glitter coating mary and joseph . . . )

none of these things are particularly serious, so i'm hoping that i move out of my funk and become more festive over the next couple of days.  if not for my own sake, then for the sake of all of yall who will get to bask in my presence here in the next few weeks.  ;)

things to avoid

in this last month of 2008, i've decided i should try and better myself a little.  in that spirit, i've made a list of things i need to avoid.  mainly - as you will see - most of these pretty much center on me not spending money.  that recession word is scary.

- two words.  taco.  bueno.  just typing them makes me crave a party burrito.  and why?  it's not like they are really THAT good.  okay.  maybe they are.  whatever.  i just ordered two new pairs of jeans from the gap in a size smaller than what i normally wear because i am GOING TO BE ABLE TO WEAR THEM BY CHRISTMAS.  that means.  no party burritos.  dammit.

- vodka and/or margaritas.   see above.

- target.  well, any part of target that does not sell groceries that is.  what?  you expect me to go buy groceries at a real grocery store?  um.  yeah.  not gonna happen.  and neither will my crossing that line between grocery and soft lines/hard lines (oh yes.  i am so down with the target lingo.) be happening.  i hope.  some of you won't care that you aren't getting christmas presents, right?  because see, i have a problem in that store.  i cannot stop buying stuff.  that i don't need.  i get hypnotized by the beautiful red bull's eye.  and then the next thing i know, there is nothing left in my bank account.  (and parents who might be reading this blog - specifically MY parents - know that there may have been some hyperbole in this last paragraph.  some.)

- wal~mart.  but that is typical for me each month.  nothing special here, really.

- and finally.  kate spade.  i didn't even know this was going to be a problem until earlier today when i looked at the website and discovered these shoes.  yall.  i am so not even a shoe person.  there's a chance i didn't even remember that kate spade designs shoes.  but now i can't stop going back and looking at these.  and then my brain starts rationalizing and remembering that money i've been pretty good about saving over the last two years and NOT TOUCHING and oh my.  i fear that this may not end well.  but aren't they pretty?  and oh look.  there's a purse, too?!  who cares that they don't match . . .