The Adventures of Kinky Reggae: A Vagabond for Beauty

Here are my favorite moments of 2010. Singing/screaming "Goodbye Earl" with thousands of other girls at the Dixie Chicks concert. Our Thanksgiving Game of Apples to Apples. When the lady from my district told me I was losing my job... It was hard not to laugh in her face, because the first thing that popped into my head was, "Now Ryan has to read Twilight." When I found out I may be losing my job, Ryan said he'd make it better, and he did. The first Sunday I went to Trinity and heard everyone singing in beautiful 4-part harmony. Listening to "American Honey" driving through Kentucky late at night, on my way to Florida. Watching Juno with Kathy the night before Mother's Day. (Unfortunately, the best part of that night can't be blogged about.) Doing the Watermelon Crawl my last night at DC's with Rachel. We "rocked back on our heels, dropped down to our knees, crawled across the floor, then jumped back on our feet." Rachel is my fav

Amanda got me the one thing I truly wanted for Christmas. Last night I watched the audio commentary of Eclipse and ate orange slices till I felt sick. It doesn't get any better than that.

I made a few of these ornaments: And a few of these: And one of these for Rachel and Mico, who are obsessed with bacon.

1. One of my students read a book. It is the first book he's ever read. It's called Eddie and the Jets, and his name is Eddie. I wanted to jump up and down and hug him, but I played it cool and just let him know how proud I was. Then we went on Amazon and looked for some other books he might like to read. I love this kid. 2. One of my quietest students gave me a bracelet for Christmas. His special ed. teacher told me he made it for me, and I never would've guessed; it's really cute! So sweet. 3. My friend Meeghan gave me the movie Once for Christmas. Can't wait to watch it! 4. My friend Jenn, the other 8th grade reading teacher, made me this creation from marshmallows and jelly beans. 5. I gave Pie in a Jar to my team, and it was hilarious. When I handed out the jars, my explanation was met with blank stares. (Keep in mind there are three boys on my team.) When I explained again, this time more slowly, the confusion turned to awe. "You mean you just put it in t

I am making most of my Christmas gifts this year. This is not an attempt to be pretentious; this is me being broke. Also, I really like to make things. It was difficult to think of something to make for Ryan. The gift I'm making for my girl friends is, well, girly, and it's obviously not feasible to ship pie in a jar to Chicago. So here's what I came up with: a jar filled with his favorite snack (Reese's peanut butter cups) that he could keep on his desk at work. I got the idea for a lady's blog who did this for her husband. She made three jars (sweet, salty, sour), and put a picture of their kids on each one. I thought it would be kind of creepy if I collaged my face all over the jar, so I went with a Steelers theme instead. I used Mod Podge and began with a layer of black tissue. Then I did splotches of yellow. Then I went through magazines and printed out pictures from the internet and collaged each side, including the bottom. I'm actually really happy with

I'm awkward in social situations. Seriously. I do okay one-on-one, but put me in a bigger group, and I'm a mess. Thankfully, there's usually alcohol in group situations, which saves me. But it would be nice to have a coping mechanism for situations where it is not appropriate to be drunk. Like baby showers. Baby showers are my worst nightmare. I had two parties to go to Saturday night, which for most people, would just be fun. I was excited until Saturday morning, when I started thinking about the fact that I'd be going alone and that I wouldn't know most of the people at the parties. It sucks when you only know the host because she's going to be busy taking care of things and talking to everyone. I felt somewhat reassured after Amanda told me it would be a very small group at her house, and Mico reminded me that the advantage to going alone is that you can leave whenever you want. However, I was still nervous. Luckily, it was not as bad as I though

I got a message on Facebook from an acquaintance who is considering a move to Phoenix. She asked what it's like to live here. Here's what I came up with: 1. Winter weather is beautiful. Perfect. I seriously couldn't ask for anything better. Low 70's during the day, sweatshirt weather at night. If I want cold and snow, I can drive 2 hours north. It's the ideal situation. Of course, this is just part of the year. Summer is hell. So really, you're not much better off than in the midwest, because there's still an entire half of the year where you really don't want to go outside. I guess the advantage to Phoenix is all the sunshine. 2. There are really crazy drivers here. This is not just my imagination; when you listen to traffic on the radio, it is just a huge list of accidents. I've heard several people philosophize that it's because everybody here is from somewhere else, so you've got a million different driving styles in one ci

This Saturday, my friend Amanda and I spent 9 hours making pies in jars as Christmas gifts. I know, I know. We are amazing individuals and people are lucky to know us. It was an arduous day, a day that required endurance and strength of character. But, with a little help from Mico, Brett (Amanda's husband), my mom, and Miley Cyrus, we persevered. And we are super excited to actually give the pies to people. We still can't figure out how it took us so long to complete this task. It's not like we were just sitting around; we worked that whole time! It's really not a complicated process. You just press the pie crust into the jar, make the pie filling, and fill the jar. Then you put a little bit of crust on top. You can decorate the jars and freeze them for up to two months. We were originally going to make apple and cherry, thinking that apple would be really time consuming (since you have to peel all the apples). Unfortunately, the cherry recipe was not so good and turn

This is the quote from Sex and the City that popped into my mind Saturday night. Here's how it went down with Pete. He was supposed to pick me up from the airport last Tuesday. All this time I've been gone it's been all this talk about how much he missed me and couldn't wait to see me. Then, a week before, he canceled because he had to help his best friend move. If this were an isolated incident, I'd be disappointed, but it wouldn't be a big deal. It's a good reason. The problem is, it's typical Pete, never following through with plans. He called me in the middle of the night Wednesday. I was stupid and answered, and he tried to convince me to come over. Right. That wasn't going to happen. He called me Thursday and Friday nights, too, and I ignored him. I wasn't going to talk to him unless he called me at normal hours. Finally he called me Saturday afternoon, and I told him it would really help me if I could spend the night at his plac

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my small group out here? Somehow I managed to stumble upon a group of liberal Christian women. The cool thing is that our leader, Amanda, is my age, but the other 4 women are all in their 40's and 50's, which means they are wise and there's so much to learn from them. Three weeks ago, we challenged ourselves to set aside time each day for God. At least 15 minutes. And I'll admit, I really suck at praying. It sounds terrible, I know, and maybe I'll write more about it another time, but for now, it is what it is. But I've really enjoyed my time each day. I have a journal where I write down three things I am thankful for each night. They range from trivial (Bears win over the Eagles, Ryan's drunk texts) to significant (meaningful conversations, connecting with students). In addition to the journal, I've gotten back to reading my Bible every night. I'm currently struggling through Isaiah. I'm sorry, I