Major Update

As some of you probably guessed, I've been a little distracted.

Things at my job continued to get more and more stressful leading up to the end of the school year. I went into the summer uncertain if I would be offered a contract for the following year and if I was offered a contract, it would be conditional.  So when the summer started I went straight to work on complying with those conditions.

The final decision on whether or not I would be offered a contract was supposed to happen mid-May.  It was postponed until mid-June...



At the end of July I received a letter informing me that I would be offered a contract for the 2012-2013 school year as long as the conditions were met but that those conditions would not actually fulfill the requirements of employment.  So, if I wanted to be offered a contract for the 2013-2014 school year, I would need to complete the unnecessary conditions as well as the new conditions... AND this all had to be completed before the end of this school year.


So I resigned.


I was not sure what I was going to do but I knew that God was giving me the "ok" to not be yanked around and made to jump through ridiculous hoops in a job that had become way more discouraging and oppressive than it was rewarding.


I received the letter on a Thursday, filled out an online application with LifeTouch on Friday, had a phone interview with them on the following Tuesday, had a live interview on Thursday, and was offered a position on the following Monday.

I said "yes", of course.

I will start training on August 22 and in September I will be an Undergraduate Photographer for LifeTouch.  I will also need to become a morning person.



I am so happy! and sooo not stressed!


God is good.

I've Never Heard THAT Song.

A couple of my 4th graders wanted to sing a song for me today.  It went like this:

O give me a home where the buffalo roam

And the deer and the antelope play

Where solemn is heard and the birds need the Word

And the clouds are just cloudy all day.

O, home on the range

Where the deer and the antelope play

Where solemn is heard and the birds need the Word

And the clouds are just cloudy all day.

Severe Weather?...Or Not.

Today in my 5th grade Science class, the following exchange happened:

Me:  "Each student will choose a type of severe weather..."
T: "I get 'volcano!'"
Me:  "Um.  A volcano is not weather."
Class: *blank stares*
Me:  "When was the last time you looked outside and said, 'hmm....looks like volcanic eruptions today.'?"
N:  "Ms. Roach!  You tell the funniest jokes!"

Seriously??

Um...EEEWWW!

My fourth and fifth graders are unusually interested in what I eat for lunch.  They are often alarmed that I eat characters from Veggie Tales and always concerned that I don't have any ranch dip.  (They just don't understand how anyone could like "naked" vegetables.)  They are sometimes fascinated, like when I bring a whole green pepper and bite into it just like an apple, and sometimes grossed-out...like today.

There I am, minding my own, enjoying my lunch when I hear, "Ms. Roach! WHAT are you eating?"

Me: "Green beans."
A: "Why are you eating them with your fingers?"
Me: "Because they are raw."
L: "EEEEEEEWWWWW!"
Me: "What do you mean 'ew'? You don't like green beans?"
L: "Not raw! I only like them cooked with mayonnaise on them."
Me: "um.....eeewww!"


Seriously...that can't be normal.

How God Answers Prayer...According to 9 Year Olds

The other day we had a lesson on prayer that included what prayer is, who can pray, how to pray and how God answers our prayers.  This lesson was followed up by a worksheet for homework.  The last question on said worksheet was:

What answers might God give  to your prayers?

Here is how my fourth grade students answered that question:

"Yes."       "No."      "Wait."     "Maybe."      "You are a very lucky little girl."      "OK."      "I will think about it."        "Give Me some time."       "Wait and see."         "It's good to be thankful."


Sometimes...they crack me up.

Violated Airspace!

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day but this post is not about Martin Luther King Jr.  Instead, this is part of my "A Moment from Mondays Gone By" series...where I re-post a favorite story or in this case, share a favorite memory.

As I was running errands today, I happened upon a small community football field.  What surprised me the most is that it was empty.  See, when I was a kid, if we had had a day like today...no school, no snow, dry ground, blue sky, 40 some degrees...the neighborhoods would have been crawling with kids.  We would have been all over that field!  That makes me sad.

Moving on.


Part of my growing up years were spent in a trailer park.  Don't judge.  Our lot was the main hang-out for all the park kids.  We had a great sledding/biking hill with a bridge over the irrigation ditch; an amazing log fort; materials for building epic bike jumps; AND an empty lot next door.  Our lot was separated from the empty one by a deer fence, which had started out about 3 feet high but had been pushed down for easier access.  However, the grass that had grown up through the fence was at least 3 feet high.  Anyway, this lot was used for football, soccer and Frisbee.

The problem was the neighbor on the other side of the lot.  She was a witch.  She ate children.  If you looked her in the eye, you would be paralyzed and she would put curses on you.  Actually, some of that might not be true but we weren't about to take chances.  I don't actually remember ever seeing her but I have distinct memories of being yelled at.  And we never got our ball or Frisbee back when they went over the fence.

So, there we were...enjoying a "no school" day...playing football.  Suddenly, the ball veers off course...15 or so kids freeze...there is a collective "gasp" as the ball crosses the plane of her lot...multiple voices yell, "VIOLATED AIRSPACE!!"...15 or so kids run-jump-dive-roll-slide into our lot and hide behind the grass until the coast is clear.  Then 10 or so kids brave enough to continue, scrounged up another ball while everyone else went and hid in their own yards or houses.  It was so much fun!  But then again, any experience that could be followed-up by the phrase "We almost died." is a winner in my book.

I wish all kids could have that experience!

Hallmark Movie Quote

"How could you do this?"

"I was mad."

"At the school?"

"At my parents."

"So why didn't you spray paint them?"

Random Thoughts Regarding Oysters

Ok.  For those of you who do not know...I don't eat seafood.  I eat most fish...just not all those other things found in the sea.  Some are squishy.  Some are slimy.  Some are simply too bug-like to stomach.  But the oyster is in a category all its own.  In fact, if I were to write a dictionary, this would be my entry for "oyster."



oys*ter   |oi-ster|    noun     An uber-gelatinous substance that looks like it came out of an infant's nose that some guy, who was starving to the point of having already digested several of his own internal organs, picked up one day and said, "Huh. This looks good."


That is all.

Can I See Some IQ?

A: "Is this class pass or fail?"
Me: "Yep.  Leaning more towards fail at the moment..."

Here Comes the Bride...

OK.  Everyone just CALM DOWN...  I am not getting married.


But now that I have your attention, let me tell you what I learned from a fifth grader today.






Science Question:  What is an example of how thermal expansion affects our everyday life?


Student Answer:  A bride. It has joints and when it is hot, they can swell, but when it is cold they come back together and it doesn't come apart.




Um....OK.....

While that IS true, I think she meant to say "bridge".

Weed Whackers...Aisle Nine.

While standing in line at the grocery store, I noticed the lady behind me.  Why, you ask?  She had plastic eyelashes.

Plastic. Eyelashes.

Not regular false lashes where you can at least see some lash definition.  These were...well....Mr. Potato Head lashes.  They looked like plastic eyelash mittens.  Or Saul Rubinek's eyebrows.

So, there I am...covertly staring...trying not to laugh and biting my tongue to keep from asking the obvious questions...

Do you have a mirror at your house?

What are you pet caterpillers' names??

Your neck can bench press HOW much???

I know.  I need therapy.

I Don't Do New Year's Resolutions...

I don't do New Year's resolutions...  That is not to say that I don't have goals and ambitions or things that I would like to accomplish during the course of a year.  I just don't usually contemplate them at the beginning of the year. I'm more apt to set goals around my birthday...

However, I just happened to view my own blogs and realized that this last year was kind of miserly in terms of posts.  I know that there were several times this last year that I said the phrase, "I gotta blog about this..." and yet those stories are not here. That makes me sad.

There is so much that has happened in my life since May that has been influenced by the distress of my job.  And my job took over my life.  Literally.  I started working 10-15 hours a day.  I stopped blogging. I stopped taking pictures. I stopped travelling. I stopped eating right. I stopped laughing.  And that has got to stop.

I'm not quite sure how to accomplish the taking back of my life.  Maybe the first step is in acknowledging that I am not ok with this.  So...I have taken that first step.  I'll let you know when I figure out what the second step is.