The Adventures of Kinky Reggae: A Vagabond for Beauty

I'm having one of those weeks where I just love what I do. I'm teaching sequencing and found some great activities to make it more fun. When the primary kids arrive at my class, I go out in the hall and tell them a monster has gotten into my room, and I need their help figuring out what it did and where it went. They squeal in delighted fright and cling to each other as they tiptoe around the monster footprints taped to the floor. They see that the closet door has been opened, and stuff is all over the ground. A desk is tipped over, and there is just a path of general chaos. The footprints end by an open window. This leads to a discussion of what the monster did first, second, etc. The kids get so into it. With the older kids, I begin class by telling them that I'm starving, so I'm going to make myself a snack. Then I proceed to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I do it all out of order and look like a complete crackhead. Finally, I hold up m

I am so, so boring. I haven't been blogging much because there really isn't much to talk about, which I guess is a good thing, right? I'm just incredibly busy. My schedule looks like this: Monday: Class Tuesday: Work out with trainer, Small Group Wednesday: Practicum Thursday: Work late to catch up, or Title I meetings Friday: Go home and go to bed early Saturday & Sunday: Laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, lesson plans, homework, football, socializing So there's really not much to say. Ryan took me to the Blackhawks game last night, which was pretty cool. We had great seats. But all his talk about trophy wives and the Blackhawks girls got old quickly. Tonight I realized that he is Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock. The similarities are frightening. That would explain why I spend so much time feeling like punching him in the face. I got a Halloween card in the mail today from Sarah. It made me really happy. The crossing guards were all laid off, so now I'm t

Lil Sis and I went to the zoo on Friday night. I wore my beret, which got mixed reviews. Lil Sis loved it, Sarah approved it, but Pete and Nancy said it looks stupid. DinoNites was awesome. There was so much stuff to do, we didn't have time for it all. We started off by riding the Tram of Terror, which was hilarious, but there were a few scary moments as well. It was very well done, and a nice long ride. Then we went on the haunted carousel. We pretended to be scared: We decorated delicious sugar cookies and carved pumpkins. Lil Sis has never carved a pumpkin before, can you believe it? She loved it. We went through the corn maze, and all of a sudden, it was almost 10:00 and time to go. We didn't even get to the dinosaur stuff, or see any animals. We'll have to go back next year. We ended the evening by watching It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown at my place. It was the perfect fall night. Other random weekend stuff: Nancy and I had brunch at 11 City Diner

Last night I had an honest-to-goodness nightmare, which is a very rare occurrence. I dreamed that someone from the textbook company came in and told me that even though I'm the Reading Enrichment teacher, I still needed to be teaching from the textbooks and not using my own material. Anyone who knows me knows my extreme dislike of reading textbooks. I felt so much rage in this dream and was completely flipping out. I woke up gasping for breath and actually said out loud, "Oh, thank God, it was just a dream." I am a huge nerd.

I LOVE this author. He has written several books, but the best one is Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality . I've read this book multiple times, and it never gets old. I don't know how to describe it; there are chapters on stuff like faith, confession, church, etc., and he just tells you stories about his life and his friends' lives, and you learn so much. It is so beautifully written. And this book really does have universal appeal. I gave a copy to my ex's mom (who is still a friend of mine). She is Mormon and a writer for a Mormon magazine (the Ensign), and she read it and loved it and passed it around to a bunch of people at her work who all really enjoyed it, too. I also gave a copy to one of my best friends who was an atheist at the time, and she loved it as much as I do. I have been waiting for a few years now for his next book, and it is finally here: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life . I

This weekend I went to Nina's parents' lake house with her and Sarah, and I think me and Nina's friendship is over. This has been a long time coming. I've tried so many times to talk to her about how I feel, how it seems like she doesn't respect me or even like me a lot of the time, but it's impossible to have a real conversation like this with her because she refuses to acknowledge her faults. And I don't think it's a conscious thing; Sarah and I agree that Nina is just completely non- self-aware. I really think she still blames me for something she believes I did almost 7 years ago; that's the only reason I can think of why she always believes the worst about me and doesn't respect me. The sad thing is that after all that stuff happened in the past, her boyfriend came to me and said he knew I hadn't done anything wrong because my supposed actions just didn't fit with what he knew about my character. That meant the world to me and

Let's start with the success. Last summer my uncle in Florida (who is amazing in the kitchen) made these delicious peanut energy bars. I've been craving them ever since and finally made some last night. The recipe is from the Eating Well website (a great magazine my uncle subscribes to), but we made a few changes. So here is our recipe, and the link above is to the original recipe. Ingredients: 1/2 cup dry roasted salted peanuts 1/2 cup roasted sunflower seeds, or other chopped nuts 2 cups dried cranberries (or Craisins or whatever, but I love cranberries) 2 cups rolled or instant oats 2 cups Rice Krispies 1/2 cup creamy or crunchy natural peanut butter 1/2 cup packed brown sugar 1/2 cup honey 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Coat an 9-by-13-inch baking pan with cooking spray. Combine peanuts, sunflower seeds (or other nuts), cranberries, oats, and Rice Krispies in a large bowl. Combine peanut butter, brown sugar and honey in a large microwaveable bowl; microwave on High until b

Last fall, I got a tattoo of the Hebrew symbol for grace. Right away, it became a problem because it looked like the letter E from the side, so everyone thought I was lame and got an E for Erin. I've been wanting to add to it forever, so Thursday I finally pulled the email my Old Testament professor had sent me to see the other symbol I wanted. (It's the symbol for steadfast love and faithfulness, as in "His love endures forever.") As I looked at the email, I made a horrifying discovery. My grace tattoo was on backwards. I had the mirror image of what it was supposed to be. I immediately made an appointment to see Marci at Tatu Tattoo. Yesterday we sat down and tried to figure out how to fix it. I wanted to make it into music notes, but the lines were too thick. So then Marci came up with the great idea of doing a piano that kind of fades into music notes. So this is what I ended up with: I am still getting used to it. It's a big change. I'm not c

First of all, I just need to start of by saying that the Agnus Dei from Durufle's Requiem may be my favorite choral piece ever written. It is achingly beautiful. Anyway, I haven't blogged in a week, and like, a million things have happened. Let's go through this chronologically: Friday: I went to that meeting at the district office and learned that not only am I the Title I teacher, I'm also the RTI coach for my school. At least this will look good on a resume. Saturday: Went for a bike ride with Carla along the lake. I rode in traffic and didn't die! It was a nice ride, and this time, when my chain fell off, we figured out how to get it back on (with my dad's help). Saturday night was a sleepover with my Small Group (Bible Study) girls! We gave Whitney a makeover and played Never Have I Ever and just enjoyed being with each other. I know I say it all the time, but I really love those girls. Sunday: Picked up Ryan from the airport and went to Joe's B