Great Expectations

I survived my sickness!  All better! Man that was a drag!

I'm happily breathing through both nostrils and the cough that made me sound like a seal dying on the beach has subsided.

So yesterday I did what I always do the day I decided I'm over my sickness, I cleaned like a madwoman.  I figure there are germs laying about and I must destroy them...That and the fact that when I'm sick nothing gets done...

I also made some serious progress in the book "Great Expectations"  I'm actually starting to like it...Here are some observations~

• I feel I can relate to Pip and his feeling of wanting more out of life that what he was born into.  That's the American Dream right?
• I don't understand why this was awakened in him after a visit to a creepy old woman's house?  Why is it that seeing her dark, cobwebbed, cake rotting interior and meeting the oh so snotty Estelle does he suddenly want a better life...like them?
• Who is his mysterious benefactor? Is it Mrs. Havesham? I wonder if it isn't the escaped convict in the bog that he stole the file for?
• Will becoming a gentlemen and coming into his fortune change him into a better or worse person?
• Ultimately will his "great expectations" be met or disappointed?
• Why do there have to be so many extra and unnecessary words in this book?

So if you've read the book I would love to have your thoughts on the matter..but don't spoil the ending :)

In other matters of my life I'm feeling slightly abused because I have to go into work today.  Let me explain...I'm part time...which means I get paid part time, I don't have benefits, I don't receive subsidy and there are other things that happen along the way of which I'm excluded because of my PT status.  However, meetings are scheduled on days I don't work and then I go in and put in my hours as if I'm FT....However, on the bright side I am looking forward to hanging out with my colleagues as a group.  I haven't had much chance to do that.

I hope you have an amazing day!

Frychik

Ugg I have a bug

So today I will definitely be on the couch.

As I was propped up in bed trying to sleep I had a few observations...

• I felt so much sinus pressure on my face it felt like an elephant had placed his great big round foot squarely on it!
• It literally felt like my head would explode if I swallowed
• My throat was so dry from breathing through my mouth that I needed to swallow every 30 seconds
• Robitussin doesn't do didly squat!
• I was amazed that I couldn't even smell the vicks I had rubbed on the end of my nose and all over my chest (some serious blockage)
• Why is it sometimes you can breath in one nostril but you can't breathe out of the same nostril? 
• You realize when one nostril does clear how very, very thankful you are that you have two

On a different note...

As I was sitting in my chair with a blanket feeling miserable I decided I should read my book "Great Expectations" I sent Ty out to the car to get my purse which is were the book was.  He came back in and announced my purse wasn't in the car...

Oh man, it has happened again!  I thought back to when I used it last.  Josh and I had run to Taco Bell for lunch.  I remember very clearly hanging it on the back of the seat.  I don't remember taking it back to the car.
I did a quick mental inventory of what was in my purse...about $100 cash, credit and bank cards, my B&N discount card! My new camera, check book...Not to mention the purse itself was one I had bought in Peru...

I have left my purse before... in fact several times before.  One time I left it in a shopping cart in the Albertsons parking lot and didn't realize it for 3 days! Got it back with everything in it.  I left it in another Taco Bell and got it back.  Left it in Burgerville, and left it in yet another Taco Bell in the Dalles when I was in high school and someone drove it all the way to Walla Walla for me.

I figured my luck had run out...There was just no way I deserved to get it back.  I held my breathe while Jeff called Taco Bell and was beyond amazed and grateful when they said they had it!  The next question would everything still be in it?  Unbelievably it was all safe!

So I would like to give a shout out to all the honest people out there in the world! 

I would also like to say thank you for prayers answered long before you even know to pray for them!

And I think I won't take my purse into Taco Bell's anymore.

I'll be on the couch with my book...

Frychik

One thing led to another and another...

My sick day wasn't at all like I had envisioned it.  In fact I never once sat on the coach and I didn't make any progress with "Great Expectations" and I'll tell you why.

It's because I had a massage scheduled...

I have a bad neck.  I have spent thousands of dollars going to various people, I've been manipulated, electrocuted, injected, twisted, you name it (except acupuncture, not going there!) I've tried it.  What I have finally concluded is that a monthly massage is the most helpful and least expensive.

So since I had a massage I had to get up shower, shave (because I just don't want my mesuse getting cut on my stubble!) dress and head out the door when all I really wanted to do was sit on the couch...

The massage was worth getting up for but on the way to the massage my gas light came on...sigh I have to get gas.  Might as well go to Costco for gas and if I'm at Costco gas I might as well go into Costco and get some groceries we need...While checking out at Costco the checker asked if anyone had told me I looked like that movie star....he paused searching for her name,  I knew who he meant I had heard it before, however it had been awhile.  Geena Davis....I don't see it but in my life I've had probably 10 strangers say it...I'll take it.  Wish I could post a picture of her here...can't figure it out.



Then I was hungry and had 31 Global Studies tests with me so I went to Subway ate lunch and graded papers.

Then as I walked out to my car I noticed there was still blue/white writing all over the windows from our WW weekend and I better go through the car wash.



Then on the way home I realized I still needed to swallow my pride and talk to the optometrist about bifocals...and the Verizon store is right there and I need to talk to them about why everyone else gets my text except Josh...That just won't due.  That needs to be fixed immediately!

So by the time I'm headed home it is 3:30 and the sun is shinning and my 60 bulbs need to be planted...So I planted bulbs.  In the spring I'll be so glad I did!

And then I picked my two pumpkins!  They are so pretty! I'm still so excited about these pumpkins!



Then I sat down on a chair and finished grading tests, while I texted my friend in California who is also a teacher and had the opportunity to sit down with one of her kids parents... Cindy Crawford! How weird would that be?

Wish I looked like Cindy Crawford!

Today my throat feels better but I sound like Demi Moor... ;)

Frychik

Eeyore...

I'm sick! I went to bed with a sore throat and I've woken up with an even sorer throat! Uggh!  Thank goodness I don't teach today!

I hate being sick! It puts me in a very Eeyorish mood.  Everything is negative...I tend to wallow and be impatient with my sickness.  But that's probably normal...


I'm trying really hard to read Charles Dickens "Great Expectations"  It one of the many classics I missed growing up.  But it has such small type that it seems to take a week to just read 10 pages. 

But I wanted to share one part that I think is just the cleverest way of describing something

"It was a rimy morning, and very damp.  I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. "

Isn't that cool!  I admire good writing.

As I get further into the book things are sounding faintly familiar...Mrs Havisham with her one shoe and a room which has frozen in time...

Have I read this before? Have I seen a movie? Or have I just heard people talk about it over my lifetime and that's why it familiar?

So, I will take advantage of my sick, weakened state and sit on the couch today and read without guilt.  Well, until it warms up enough for me to plant my 60 tulip bulbs which showed up on my doorstep...


I hate being sick! But having a book to read always makes any situation better.  Maybe someone should give Eeyore a book...

Frychik

Tigger or Eeyore?

Two years ago I read a book written by Randy Pausch.  His book The Last Lecture, was written after he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.  In other words he knew he was dying and he had a message to share.


Its good a powerful stuff.  I'm thankful to know it before I'm on my death bed.  Here are some of my favorites--

1.  "you may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better."

2.  "The brick walls are there for a reason.  They're not there to keep us out.  The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."  "...The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough.  They're there to stop the other people."

3.  "No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.  At the same time, it is often within your power to make them better."

4.  "Time is all you have, and you may find one day that you have less than you think."

5.  "Luck is where preparation meets opportunity"

6.  "Give yourself permission to dream."

7.  "If you took one-tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problems, you'd be surprised by how well things can work out"

8.  "Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals, and it won't make us happier."

9.  "look for the best in everybody, if you wait long enough people will surprise and impress you."

10.  "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted"

11. "Make a decision:  Tigger or Eeyore"


I'm wishing a Tigger day for you!

 

Frychik

Kodiak Attack!

Awesome weekend! Our team did such a good job!  They played so hard and with so much heart it would be impossible to not be inspired by their spirit and determination!

 Real or not there is a long, long standing "rivalry" between CAA and PAA.  They are the bigger school across the river and because they are the bigger school they have certain...advantages shall we say, that a smaller school does not have available to them.

Having taught at both schools I really do try to encourage the rivalry to go away but there is no way to move it when our teams are up against each other...

Last year at Fall Classic our team, the Kodiaks, played amazingly well.  They won every game except one and then found themselves in the position of playing for 3rd or 4th place against PAA Sat night.  Last year we ended in 4th place.

This year was setting up to be the same scenario.  We easily won our first 3 games.  In fact poor Josh felt like he hadn't done anything because the other teams just weren't getting any shots on goal.
Again we found ourselves playing Puget Sound and again we lost but this time just 1-0. This was heart-breaking for the team.  If they had won that game they would have been able to play for 1st place...maybe next year.  So we found ourselves in the position to play PAA for 3rd or 4th again...

But "we", the team and the parents/fans on the sidelines were determined to have a different outcome.

Let me just pause to say that it is nerve wracking to be sitting on the sidelines watching a game.  As a parent I believe I wanted this win for my son as badly as he did, and in the game of soccer it can be won or lost in the fading seconds of a game.  I only relax when we have a two point lead...  When we scored that first goal I was so excited! Then the second, I started to breathe easier, but the second goal was followed by a third and fourth goal!

Unlike last year, this year, we won! We won in a big way.  We shut them down :) 4-0!  The fans on the sidelines were just as excited and proud as the team was.  I'm so grateful that we could be there with the team.

So another Fall Classic is in the books and I'm already looking forward to next year.

I'm a proud Kodiak Moma :)

Frychik

Fall Classic

So we are off to a great start!  Yesterday Josh and the kodiaks played their first two games of the Fall Classic tournament.

 There was lots of diving and running and kicking.  These guys played with their hearts.  So fun!  They won their first game easily

 There such a great bunch of guys.

 I'm thinking he's gonna need a chiropractor soon...

Oh so exciting!

Our second game was in the pouring rain and I didn't get my camera out.  I was huddled under my enormous umbrella.  I was very happy with my umbrella.   But we won that game too!

Our next game is this morning at 10 am and then we are playing the big schools.

Keep cheering for the Kodiaks!

Frychik