Many Happy Returns

Today is the birthday of a very dear friend.

Probably the person who knows me best.

Our friendship began the first few weeks of freshmen year. She and my roommate had a class together and she wandered into our dorm room and asked if my roomie was there. I told her no she was taking a shower and would be back in a bit. At this point in the conversation I thought this girl would go back to her room across the hall but instead she responded with, “Great! I’m going to hide in her closet!”

I should have known then what was in store.

Over the remaining four years of college and the years since we’ve graduated, our friendship has grown, and I don’t know what I would do without her.

She is always there with a kind and reassuring word when life seems impossible, and the promise that she’ll be praying.  She joyfully, wholeheartedly celebrates successes and blessings with me. Whenever we’re together we end up staying up to all hours of the night talking, sometimes just silliness and sometimes deep heartfelt conversation. She is always encouraging about my search for Prince Charming, and puts up with my relentless (and I’m sure at times annoying) pleas for her to set me up with some “hot  man.”  She’s even created a board on Pintrest dedicated to my someday wedding.  We can be incredibly goofy together but don’t really care what anyone else thinks about us. She has such a heart for God, and a steadfast faith.  She loves her family and her husband, she is going to be the most amazing mom someday – and I fully intended to spoil all of her children because I’m sure they will be just as incredible as she is. Even though she lives 3 hours away, anytime I need to talk I know I can call or send her an email and she will be there ready to help.

She is a friend, through and through…simply the best.

And although I am not there to celebrate her 25th birthday - which she may or may not have been nervously anticipating – I am so blessed to have a friend like her and so glad that today is her day.

Happy Birthday!

Just Great

Back from a long, unintended blogging break. And while not that much has changed aside from the fact that the school year will be coming to a close in 2 and a half weeks, I’m here to share news from my little corner of the world. This week has not been all that good. Okay, not totally true.

Last weekend was wonderful. Kim, Natalie and I had a little reunion over Memorial Day weekend. It was the first time we’d all hung out since February getting Kim ready to head down to Oregon for her dream job.  I love those girls. It’s like no time has passed when we’re together, minus the fact that now one of us has a husband, we are not in college anymore living next door to each other, and life seems to be more complicated.  Anyway, we had a weekend full of laughter and giggles, watching old videos from our college days and staying up way too late.  Miss them already.

School was actually pretty good this week, no major issues minus trying to catch up on the lack of sleep from an eventful weekend. My kids were great. They have Spring Fever and are so ready to be done. I’m right with them but have to keep them focused on school still, it’s been a little challenging, but we had lots of laughs this week.

Oh, and let me just add this little morsel of awkwardness. So last week, we had this open house thing where parents could come with their kids to see what they’ve been up to in class lately. I had about half my class come, anyway this very sweet little girl came with her dad. And after she’s showed him her work, etc. She looks at me and says, “My dad likes you.” And he goes “Well, she’s a great teacher!” And here’s the kicker, she responds, “Yeah, and he wants to ask you out!”

AHHH! I wanted to die, I think I just kinda awkwardly smiled and tried to brush it off, thankfully other parents and kids were in the room so I wasn’t stranded and then the little girl and her dad left. Well, I thought that was the end of that. Yesterday, she writes me this note:

“My Dad loves you. He’s been dreaming about you. He loves you.”

Ahhh!! I didn’t respond and now I’m desperately hoping he’s not going to try to ask me out after school ends. I need a pretend boyfriend, or a real one, and fast!

So embarrassing incident, number one…then, fast forward to this morning, wake up to a glorious day sun shining and the hopeful promise from the weatherman  today will be in the high 60s. I got ready for school and headed off to work, stopped and got a coffee, and headed towards the building.  Well, I was running just a tad late and right as I’m approaching the building those flashy signs that let you know when you need to slow down during school hours turned on, and I started to slow down…

Not fast enough. I got pulled over in the school parking lot, for speeding in a school zone, even though I was in the middle of slowing down.  Oh and wait it gets better, standing out front of school is a crowd of 5th and 6th graders hanging out.  And yes, they totally recognized me and watched the whole saga of me being ticketed unfold.

I was mortified, and not to mention now even later for work then I was before. AND, I have an almost $300 fine to pay because in case you didn’t know, speeding in a school zone is a double fine. yikes! I managed to hold it together until I got to my classroom, through calling Mom and then I called Dad and tears started falling.  We talked for a few minutes until I had to let my munchkins in and I managed to pull it together. But then later today, one of my students came up to me and said, “Were you upset you got pulled over?” I answered yes, to which she replied, “I thought so, it looked like you’d been crying when we came in this morning.” And she patted my shoulder and smiled at me. Kids somehow know when you need a little extra love, brightened my day.

And the kids were definitely talking about all the excitement I’d caused, I heard from several teachers who heard from students about my being pulled over.  In one way it was nice though.  The teacher whose classroom is next door came over and gave me a big hug and told mer her own school zone ticket story, so thanks 6th graders for spreading the word. Gah, I made it through the day in one piece, and managed to drive home and to Tacoma without having any more interactions with the police.

I’m really hoping tomorrow will be better, and I can stop feeling so stupid.

Back Here

It’s been a long stretch of a weekend, that seemed to roll over into today.

Last Thursday I started house sitting in Roy again. Back to the horses and the chickens and the dogs (only three puppies this time). It was nice to be back in the countryside, minus the ginormous bruise I got on the back of my leg when a pasture gate hit me. 

On Saturday, I had the day off from house sitting and I got together with two of my most favorite women. We met up at the beach and enjoyed some quality time together. So refreshing, although Saturday was a very late night and I haven’t fully recovered yet.

Sunday, was back to Roy and a total blur between the sleep deprivation and well the sleep deprivation…

And then today, I packed up from Roy and made my way back home. Tonight was supposed to be an excursion to the drive in with the Young Life kids. But because we weren’t able to get many confirmations on who could actually come the other leader and I had to come up with a back up plan, so instead we had movie night and ice cream at home. With only one of my girls. Just the three of us. It was a fun evening. Before heading back to watch the movie, the other leader and I grabbed dinner then ran over to Fred Meyer to get ice cream and a movie, which at his suggestion we saw “The Last Song.” :0) I enjoyed it.

But, anyway…I’m back here still hoping to get called for an interview before school starts Sept. 8. And boy is it coming fast. All is well, minus my state of sleep deprivation. More to come later, for now good night!

Weekend Run Down

It’s been a somewhat eventful weekend, after I found out that I didn’t get the job I interviewed for on Friday. (Not that I was really expecting to)

Yesterday, feeling especially house-wifey – despite the fact that I do not own a house or that I am someone’s wife -  I decided to be culinary and invent a new cupcake recipe. So I put on some pearls and my blue and white ruffle apron, put Julie and Julia in and spent a good portion of the day baking. The cupcakes which were chocolate, with a peanut butter center, and a chocolate ganache frosting turned out pretty well.  The cake batter recipe I used as a base was very dense so they didn’t get very fluffy, which is sad but they taste pretty good.

Today, I went to church with Mom and then headed up north to meet up with my four fabulous college friends. It was the first time the four of us have been together since Kim’s wedding in August. We met at the Cheesecake Factory, our favorite restaurant from back in the day.  Lunch was great, it was wonderful to be able to hear about each other’s lives and what we are all up to nowadays.

After lunch I dropped Kim off at her apartment and we crashed on the couch and enjoyed a chick flick – Leap Year - which was much better than I thought it was going to be.  Then I headed home, well I stopped and made a short detour at Nordstrom, Macys, and Sephora. (I couldn’t resist! Although I did resist buying a pair of beautiful blue heels)

Anyway, hanging with the girls was fabulous but it just brought into focus this realization that I have zero social life here in P.O.  I’m so starved for it, that I sometimes get over zealous and try to insert myself into my friend’s lives a little too much…Sorry, if you’re someone I’ve over texted, facebooked etc. :0)

Interview tomorrow, for three open positions. Ironically, it’s at the same school I interviewed at on Friday.  It feels weird and a little awkward. But we’ll see what happens…