I Have Been Changed for Good

Steve and I had the awesome opportunity of graduating this weekend. I was so impressed with the speakers. One woman said of the students I am going to teach: love them, feed them, and change them, in whatever order is most appropriate at the time. Elder L. Tom Perry, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was there. He spoke of a teacher who changed his son's life. All it took was "one teacher, one class." It was awesome to shake his hand and look in his eyes and know that he is an apostle of God.

Thank you to all who have helped Steve and I over the years. We/I appreciate it more than you will ever know! I know that I have been changed for good by those who I have come in contact with these last few years. I love my family and in-laws. Where would we be without you? Thanks for your examples and support, thank you for all the advice and love! You are the best!!!

And now it is about the time when Steve and I have to admit to ourselves that we are adults. How do we do that? I am still not sure...

CA Here We Come...

well...kind of! Steve and I are planning a trip to California for this summer. This is my reward for getting a 4.o this last year (thankfully! considering it was a pass/fail year). We are planning a big trip, kind of a last hurrah before "real life" begins in the next few years (more school, work, kids, etc.) We know we want to hit Carmel/Monterey as this is where Steve's ancestors are from. We are then going to head down to Anaheim and San Diego for, you guessed it, all of the history. Just kidding, we are really excited to go to DisneyLand, Sea World and the like.

Our only problem is that we are not sure where to stay in Carmel. We would like to camp maybe one or two days to save some money, but I'm not sure how to find good campgrounds in the area. If you have any hints, let us know! We are also looking for any travel tips, as this will be the longest road trip we have taken in a while.

Finally, if anyone wants to go, we'd love to have some travel buddies! This would be great for gas splitting and/or sharing a room a couple of nights to cut back on costs. We think we are going to get the So. Cal City Pass from Costco. It's about $220 bucks for 6 days of fun! We realize this is a long trip, but we'd love to have friends even if it's only for one leg of the trip.

Yay for our last summer of willy nilly freedom!!!

Today I spent a good portion of my day cleaning. I wish I would get on these kicks more often! I love the satisfaction of knowing I can walk on my kitchen floor and not have to worry about stepping on some nasty mystery item. One item that I usually have trouble cleaning are the burner bowl things on my stove. I have discovered a wonderful cleaning material for just that kind of problem. It's called Greased Lightning.I just filled a sink with water and dumped some of this stuff in. I then let my bowls soak for about half an hour and all of the gunk came right off! There was one stubborn spot, but it came off with a little scrubbing with some baking soda.

And yes, Lessley...I did dust. (The Target $1 duster works pretty well.)

In response to my husband's blog post about having to pay too much money, I thought I should post on how there are still some good hearted people out there who care for the college student (ie: they are probably on the fringes of going bankrupt because their food is so cheap). Tonight we went to Rancheritos (formerly Beto's) and were able to get dinner for the two of us fo $6.50. We left completely full...ahh, satisfaction!

Passion

Today Steve and I were talking about work and school. I always thought that once I got out of school life was going to be awesome. I would be so excited to start every week and get paid for doing something I loved. Don't get me wrong, I really like teaching, but I'm not sure it's my passion. Steve asked me if I wished I were back in school and I sadly had to say yes, sometimes I do wish I were back in school. Starting class at 7:30 or 8 and being done anywhere from 12-2. If I missed a class I was the only one I had to worry about. Now I have work every day from 7:15-5:00 (which includes travel times). Sometimes I don't even get home until 8 or 9. If I want to miss a day, I have to make sure I can get a sub and then I still have to spend over an hour planning for the person who will be taking care of my "angels" for the day.

I worry for Steve because we both know that he is not done with school (which he really hates!). And all of this might be working toward something he might wake up dreading every day for the rest of his working life.

So the question I pose to you today is: How do you find your passion? How do you find the thing that will keep you motivated to get up and go every day. I know that no matter what you do there will be days that you just don't want to wake up to, but I'm talking about the majority of days and weeks. I know that Steve and I are still young. I still have the opportunity to go back to school if I want, in order to search for a vocation that is truly stimulating to me. But how do I go about doing that? Any ideas? We have listening ears!

I have lost my table to science! Steven is working on an invention for a manufacturing class and I am left with no kitchen table! Just thought I'd share... : )

Oh Sick!

So if you know me very well you know that I have phobia of throwing up. It freaks me out. I also wonder how I am going to be a parent because I cannot handle other people throwing up either. I used to say that I was a "sympathy puker" but Steve corrected me because I don't actually throw up when I see others do it (I'm too afraid). Instead I get sympathy sick. So anyway, Steve and I had had this conversation on Sunday due to thin walls in our apartment.

Early Monday morning I had a student who said she wasn't feeling very well (a common complaint of a 7 year old in order to get out of class/get special attention), so I told her if she needed to throw up she could leave the room without asking, which she did. I also let her call her mom and go to the office to lay down for a while. In about 15 minutes she came back to get her things because mom was on her way. As she was walking to her desk (in the midst of all other desks, mind you) she tossed her cookies. I nearly tossed mine as well. I ran over to the boy she was standing by and yanked him out of his desk (superhuman strength due to adrenaline) and sent him to the office. The poor girl just could not stop.

Here is where I am so proud of myself! I evacuated my class (so that I wouldn't lose my stomach) out into the hall, got the girl calmed down and cleaned up, and got the heck out of there! She went home right away and I took the opportunity to make a "text-to-self" connection with my class. We had just read about the same situation in the book Ramona Quimby, Age 8 on Friday. We made comparisons about how the girl in our class probably felt much like Ramona, etc. We then proceeded to hold the next hour of class in the library while our gracious principal came in and cleaned up. (The poor woman! The janitor was outside scraping the sidewalks.)

What a way to start off the week!