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 my crazy looking sandwich and say, "I need help," and try to look as pathetic as possible. Some of the classes actually think that I am this stupid. It's pretty funny. This, of course, leads to a discussion of sequencing.

Other than that, nothing interesting is going on this week. Well, there may be a little time for some Halloween stuff:

Monday- Class
Tuesday- Meet with trainer, Bible study
Wednesday- Practicum, maybe go see Paranormal Activity
Thursday- Title 1 Meeting, DAR meeting, Trails of Terror
Friday- Haunted Tour of Prairie Ave (maybe)
Saturday- Hiking at Mississippi Palisades State Park

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 the new crossing guard. Not cool. I almost got run over yesterday because people blow the stop sign on my corner all the time. I asked the assistant principal about the chances of me getting a stop sign to hold like he has and the crossing guards had, and he said slim to none. But he has a neon vest I could wear. Fabulous. Some punk girl in 4th grade stole my classroom keys off my desk at the end of the day. And that was after I was telling her teacher how well-behaved she'd been today.

I've been reading "Shake Dem Halloween Bones" to every class, and now the whole school is singing it. It's pretty awesome. I love Pre-K kids and 6th graders so much. Isn't that weird?

Ok, so now you see, I really am boring. But I guess that's better than drama, right?

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 yesterday, and they had the best mimosas ever. The fresh-squeezed orange juice makes a huge difference.

Sarah came over last night and we watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Such a funny movie.

Today I attempted to go for a bike ride on the lakefront. I only made it as far as State St before my pedals stopped working. I'm so over bike riding, at least for this season.

Sarah and I went to Bleeding Heart Bakery today, which I've been wanting to try for a while. I got a red velvet cupcake for today, and for tomorrow I got me and Ryan spiced apple cupcakes- spice cake, brown sugar frosting, and sauteed apples on top. The red velvet was great, so I can't wait to try the other one. This bakery was filled with so many amazing things I couldn't stand it. I want to go there every day. Good thing it's all the way up in Roscoe Village.

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 am loving it just as much as Blue Like Jazz. I started reading it last night, and it was like seeing my best friend after not seeing him for a long time- loving every second of it, forgetting how much you enjoyed spending time together in the past, not wanting it to end, having significant realizations about your life. I can't put it down. I'll be done by tonight. And then I'll probably want to go back and reread, because there's so much in there, and I'm sure I'll miss stuff the first time through.
I seriously want to be best friends with Donald Miller. I need to find a way to make this happen.

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 it still hurts that Nina never realized that.

But anyway, it was just about the worst weekend ever. I am tired of being interrupted, made fun of, lectured, criticized, judged, and constantly called a bitch behind my back. Nina was already telling Sarah what a bitch I was being on the way to the lake house Friday night, and I honestly have no idea why. I was excited for a weekend away, ready to have a good time, and when she got in the car she started criticizing every word that came out of my mouth. Things went downhill from there. And I know it's not just my imagination- Sarah was going crazy, too. The problem is that Sarah just wants peace, so she bends over backwards trying to accommodate Nina. (And Nina is completely oblivious to this.) I come across as the bitch because, after an initial attempt to please Nina, I do what I want. Also, when she is constantly arguing with me, my reaction is to just shut down. I stop talking, and maybe I do become a bitch. She makes me feel like being as difficult and contrary as she is. I can't handle her constant negativity. Sarah tries to be understanding and reminds me that Nina lacks basic social skills, but it makes me crazy. I would love to keep a tally of how many times she calls things stupid or lame or says she doesn't like something. It's pretty unbelievable.

Sarah also tries really hard to put the things she wants on hold to please Nina. For example, Nina really wanted to see Couple's Retreat this weekend, so Sarah made sure that we did so Nina couldn't say, "The one thing I wanted to do, and we didn't do it." (This has been an issue in the past.) So as we were pulling away from the house on Sunday, Nina said the one thing she wanted to do was go out in the rowboat, and she didn't get to do it. I offered to turn around, and Sarah said she would love to go row boating, but Nina insisted it didn't matter, then kept complaining about it. I thought Sarah was going to punch her in the face, especially since Sarah had mentioned multiple times throughout the weekend that she wanted to go in the rowboat. She tried to point this out to Nina, but Nina just argued and didn't even get what Sarah was trying to say. So at least it's not just me.

I think that a lot of this behavior must be caused by her unhappiness; that's the only thing I can think of. But I can't deal with it anymore. She refuses to even admit that she is unhappy. People have told me I need to talk to her, and I've tried. There's been no progress for years. I thought things were pretty much over, but then she's actually been cool lately when we hang out. I got my hopes up (despite my friends' warnings not to), but things haven't really changed. So I'm done. I can't be friends with someone who regularly calls me a bitch and always thinks the worst of me. I will still respond to her texts and phone calls, but I will not initiate contact. And if there is a group outing, I'll go (maybe), but there won't be anymore hanging out just the two of us. I'm tired of being in a friendship that constantly has me upset and stressed.

And just typing all this and making this decision to separate myself from her brings me a lot of peace, so I know this is the right choice. It will be hard, and she won't understand, but it's for the best.

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

1. Coat an 9-by-13-inch baking pan with cooking spray.
2. Combine peanuts, sunflower seeds (or other nuts), cranberries, oats, and Rice Krispies in a large bowl.
3. Combine peanut butter, brown sugar and honey in a large microwaveable bowl; microwave on High until bubbling, 1 to 2 minutes. Add vanilla and stir until blended. Pour the peanut butter mixture over the dry ingredients and stir until coated.
4. Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan. Press down firmly. (It helps to coat your fingers with cooking spray.) Let stand for about 1 hour to harden. Cut into bars.

They crumble really easily; my uncle's stayed together pretty well, but mine keep falling apart. But this is really no big deal- I just put them in a bowl and eat them with a spoon. They are delicious and filling and good for you.

Side note- Yesterday I put them in the pan, and Ryan came over to investigate. He was like, "Why are your energy bars making noise????" We put our ears up close and realized it was the Rice Krispies. Fun.

So since I've been on a huge baking/cooking kick lately, I got ambitious and decided to make pumpkin bread for my cousin who goes to U of I and loves pumpkin stuff and has been super stressed lately. So I found this Martha Stewart recipe. Everything was going well; I put the bread in the oven for 50 minutes, called my aunt to get my cousin's address, and chatted with her the whole time the bread was baking. When I went to take it out, my aunt heard me say words she's never heard from me before because it looked like this:


I am so mad. All that time/effort wasted because of my own stupidity. It was not Martha's fault; somehow the temperature got set at almost 500 degrees. I have no idea how. Maybe I bumped it? Seriously, I'm not that retarded. And if you disagree, please don't comment.

See all those dishes in the background? I'm about halfway done. I need to go finish now. My plan is to have a spotless apartment by the end of the day. :)

Apologies were made yesterday. It is a long and complicated story, but after much texting, Ryan finally started talking about his feelings and how he deals with them, which, of course, is by walking away. The crazy part was that he didn't think he had anything to apologize for, even after I gave a sincere apology for making him feel left out. After a while, it seemed like he understood that he'd done wrong, but wouldn't apologize. Finally, I said, "Ryan, I need you to say, 'Erin, I'm sorry for talking to you like that. And I won't walk away from you again without talking to you first.' And mean it." His reply was "Ok." I said, "I need more than 'ok.'" And he said, "WTF! Agreed." So I'm guessing that was his version of an apology. Then I told him that I know I'm a pain in the ass, but he is, too, and he agreed to both.

Rita and I hung out today and went for a lovely walk by the lake. We stopped and watched the moon come up, and it was gorgeous. And Rita is really cool. I'm glad I met her.

Today I had the terrible 6th grade class I can't stand. The boys curse and are just plain rude, and the girls are all drama queens and bullies and just not likeable. This is disappointing, because I love 6th graders, and they usually love me. I was ready for another day of silent work today when one of them noticed my new tattoo and asked about it. I told them I'd talk about it if they'd be quiet and listen. And they did, quite attentively. Apparently I now have streed cred. :) We had a great period, and they even got to do a partner activity.

Finally, I just have to say how in love with Chuck Bass I am. Tonight, when he said, "Remember that I'm Chuck Bass. And I love you." I almost died. Where is Chuck Bass in real life???

I am in love with her. I want to be her. If I can't be her, I want to be her best friend. Her concert was amazing. She is so talented, and she just kicks ass. I love all her songs about not putting up with stuff from guys. And when she sang "New Strings," which is one of my favorites, it was so awesome I wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time. My favorite lyric of the night: "Well I'll keep drinkin' and you'll keep gettin' skinnier, Hey I'm just like you only prettier."

Here is a picture of her on the tour bus before her show last night from the Tribune website. She is so hot. And you know what I love about her? She's not super skinny. She looks good.


This picture is from this article on the Tribune website called "Miranda Lambert is Hardcore." Love it. She is.


Rachel and I met up with Ryan and his friend Rita after the concert and went to a few bars. Rita was already kind of drunk when we met up with her and was teasing Ryan a lot, which was awesome, because he's usually not on the receiving end of that. We ended up at Skylark since they have cheap drinks, and at that point, everyone was having fun. Not long after we got to Skylark, Rachel started talking about a boy she was dating, and this led to some giggly girl talk. I looked at Ryan and felt kind of bad for him, since there wasn't much he could really contribute to the conversation. But he had to know that hanging out with three drunk girls would result in something like this. He got up to go to the bathroom, and Rita thought it would be really funny if we drank all his beer while he was gone. So we were all passing it back and forth, and Rita said something funny while Rachel was drinking, and Rachel burst out laughing and sprayed beer all over the table. Hilarious.

So when Ryan came out of the bathroom, Rita and Rachel were coming back with paper towels, and I was just laughing and laughing. He asked twice what happened, but we were laughing too hard to answer. So he grabbed his coat and left.

What a baby. He is the youngest child, and it shows. I realize that we should have behaved better, but walking out was not the way to handle it. Especially because he left Rita; they are friends at work, this is the first time they'd hung out together outside of work, Rita was kind of nervous about it, and then he just left her with two girls she'd just met.

After he left, the following text conversation took place:

Me: Are you seriously mad that we drank your beer? Wtf?

Ryan: Wtf? F- yourself. Wasn't having fun with you guys.

Me: I'm sorry to hear that. But everyone's upset now. Rita is not happy that you left her. I'm taking the girls home after this drink.

Ryan: And I don't give a F-.

Me: Seriously? I'm disappointed. I thought you were better than that.

Ryan: Are you F-ing kidding me?

Me: No, really.

Ryan: I'm disappointed.

Me: I'm sorry we were being too girly. But you could've handled it differently. Don't ever call me a F-ing drama queen again.

Ryan: F- yourself. You are a drama queen.

Me: You are going to F- yourself. Cuz no one else is going to if you act like this.

Ryan: Good, cause the people that thought this was wrong, I don't want anyway.


Can you even believe this??? Ok, I was not very nice/mature, but I don't appreciate being told to F- myself. So then, of course, this led to lots of Ryan bashing, which I feel bad about. I told Rita some of what was going on between us (but not details), which I shouldn't have done since they work together and I don't want her to think badly of him. But she was telling me stuff about him, too. And hopefully she won't remember it all; she was pretty drunk.

The good thing is that I think I made a new friend out of this. Rita is really cool. She moved to the city pretty recently and is having trouble making girlfriends here, and Rachel and I both really liked her. We're supposed to go walking on the lakefront trail tomorrow.

As for Ryan, I don't even know what to think. Pete called late last night, and he thinks I need to just be done with him. But it's hard. There are so many great things about him, but he is so emotionally immature. Walking out like that is something I could imagine my little brother doing. And actually, I think my brother is a little more mature than that now. Ryan and I were supposed to go out to Ann Sather for cinnamon rolls this morning and watch football at a bar later today, and I haven't heard from him. I am going to wait for him to call me, but then I'm not sure how I should play it. I feel like he owes all of us an apology, but I feel like I should apologize for making him feel left out. Although, I did apologize when we were texting last night, and he told me to F- myself.

I think I need to:

Grab the wheel and point it west,
Pack the good and leave rest,
I'll drive until I find the missing piece
You said I wouldn't get too far
On a tank of gas and an empty heart
But I got everything I'll ever need
I got this old guitar and a brand new set of strings

Oh Miranda, how I love you.

Anyway, the point is that I need to get the f- out of Chicago.

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 crazy about the dark shading, but it was necessary. What I love is that it has significance to me. It's not so much because I used to sing, it's more for my mom. She is a piano teacher, which meant I grew up hearing lots of terrible piano music. But once in a while, she'd pull out the difficult music and just play for the fun of it, and I would lay under the piano and just be in heaven. My favorite (and I think her favorite, too), was Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. I can play the toccata, but not the fugue, which is the best part and the part I remember her playing the most. So my tattoo is actually the first few notes of the fugue. I have a Bach tattoo. How badass is that?

Here is the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor from Fantasia, which I also watched a lot when I was little. The fugue starts around 3:40.

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 Bar to watch the Steeler's and Bears games. I was at the bar from 3:00-11:00. Ridiculous. Nina and Adam joined us about halfway through that time, which was fun. I was pretty drunk when we left, through no fault of my own; every time I came back from the bathroom, there was another beer waiting for me. Apparently Ryan likes it when I am literally falling-down drunk, which I was. We went back to his place and I remember falling several times. Then, of course, there was making out, followed by a confusing conversation in which Ryan's only answer was, "I don't know." I am tired of him avoiding questions. I don't understand what's going on. While Ryan was in the bathroom at one point, Adam commented that he was excited for us, that we were finally dating. Apparently we looked like it. And Ryan told this really sweet story about how when we were at the Sixteen Candles show and I got attacked by a butterfly and he thought someone messed with me and was ready to fight.

Monday: Felt awful. Went to bed at 7:30.

Tuesday: Presented at our district's curriculum night. It was incredibly boring, but good experience for me.

Wednesday: Had practicum right after work. I was supposed to be observed at work, but my principal is out sick, which sucks because I really wanted her to see this week's lessons. Ryan and I went on a recon mission to find this place downtown where he has to take a certification test. Since he called it Recon in his email, I replied in spy talk, and we emailed like that all day. It was fun and silly. Then we had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, and I found myself questioning my feelings and thinking that maybe I am over him. I tend to have a pretty enthusiastic personality. What other people call bubbly, he calls gay. He gets annoyed when I act like that, and I just can't help it. So I feel myself trying to tone it down in front of him. Not fun. But he is really fun to be around, and for some reason, I still like him. So we'll keep hanging out. But I'm not going to think about us having a relationship anymore.

Thursday: Kids were awful today. Got up extra early to make peanut butter cookies for Pete. His grandma and dog died in the same week. Worked with my trainer after work and I've lost 5 pounds. Ryan and I were supposed to play tennis, but it rained. Had a tattoo crisis, but I think it's been averted. (I will share more details on that later.)

So I've been non-stop busy, but things are good. Tomorrow is I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell with Ryan, Saturday is shopping and cherry limeade and Miranda Lambert, Sunday is more football with Ryan. How are we not dating?

Oh, P.S., Ryan was going on and on about his love of pirate jokes last night and finally told me that I needed to put "Get Ryan a pirate joke book" on my to-do list. He wrote it on the top of my pizza box and harrassed me about it all night. He even sent a follow-up email this morning. Well, I found a pirate book on Amazon and had it shipped to him. He is going to love it. But I said to him, "Does this mean that if I really want something, all I have to do is bother you enough, and I'll get it?" And he said, "Probably."

So what should I ask for???