Older and Wiser

Tomorrow is my birthday and I have a lot of conflicting feelings about it. I will be 27, and that is not a problem for me. I am kind of glad to leave 26 behind. I mean, it was a good year. I celebrated my second year of marriage, bought a house (huge), and got two puppies. My 26th year was a year of growing up. I learned all things house hunting and mortgages and interest rates and financing options, and I am very proud that at this stage in my life I have what I do. I don't want to leave behind the feeling of spending the first night in our own home, or the memory of painting my first wall. These were all good things. I also became pregnant at this age, which was a wonderful feeling. An exciting time, when I thought that things could not get better.
At the same time I want to leave the age behind. This year encompassed a lot of firsts I want to forget. My first and second miscarriage, my first emergency room visit, first huge loss. It is a time that I have gained a lot from, but I really want to leave it behind. 27 feels like a brand new start, a clean slate.
Tomorrow is by birthday, and I want the day to pass quickly. Not just because I am excited to leave my 26th year behind, but because tomorrow was my original due date. Tomorrow I would be having a baby, but I am not. It is something I have been dealing with all month and it has been hard. I think about how different things would be right now. I think about if I would have had a boy or a girl, and I envision a much different celebration than the one I will have tomorrow. I am optimistic about the future, but I just want this month to be over.

VEGAS

Chris and I got away for the weekend and it was so nice. In these hard economic times, going to Vegas for a couple of days may not have been the best choice, but it was a release that I needed and we had so much fun. I was "sick" on friday so I could not go to work :) and we arrived to Vegas about 2. We spent the entire night walking around and laughing, drinking, and eating. It was great. On Saturday we put in some serious shopping hours and that night went to a nice dinner at the famous chef Emeril Lagassi's restaurant. Chris and I are loyal "Top Chef" watchers (show on bravo), and apparently that automatically makes us food critics. The food at Emeril's was amazing, and it gave us the opportunity to use our new food critic lingo :) Such dorks, but great meal. After dinner we saw a hypnotists show. It was so hilarious and amazing. Hypnosis is a little scary. These people were making fools of themselves, and apparently had no recollection of it. After the show we met up with an old friend that I went to elementary, middle school, and high school with. Kind of crazy that you have to go all the way to Vegas to see someone from your home town, but it was a wonderful way to end a fun weekend with my hubby!

Things I've never done #2- Valentine's Card

About a month ago Whit and I were at the mall and we found this new store called Paper Source. We were immediately amazed by all of the cool paper, and arts and crafts things. Most of our amazement came from the fact that people actually buy that stuff and create beautiful things with it. Many of my friends are very creative and my other sister is as well, but Whit and I did not get this trait. So right then and there we decided we were going to make Valentine's cards this year. I am sure that in one of my elementary school days I made a cute card for my parents but that was probably the last time I broke out the red and pink construction paper. I really wanted to try to be creative and make a card for Chris. I think it worked out pretty well. I had a lot of fun doing it and it meant a lot to him. Check out my skills
Open once

Open again and find three envelopes connected and a cute homemade card in each.

Not Boring

I am continually amazed by my students. They are so funny, and stupid, and inappropriate and brave. It definitely makes for days that are not boring. Here are some of the gems from this week:

1. One of my AVID students came in on tuesday very upset. She had done an extra credit assignment in chemistry. They had to research a new discovery in the field of chemistry and write a short paper on it. She came in outraged because she received no credit. She gave it to me to look at and I started busting up. She had researched an new element called Govermentium. This element was not made up of the normal protons, nuetrons, and electrons, but made of nuetrons, assistant nuetrons, morons and peons. Every four years the element goes through a reorganization when the nuetrons morons and peons switch places (something like that). THere was a bunch more but I can't remember. She looked at me and a light bulb went off. "Mrs. Pompey, there are no morons and peons in chemistry are there?" My response, "Nope, not in chemistry."

2. When analyzing a poem by Langston Hughes we were identifying things like similes, metaphors, alliteration, and I wanted them to tell me the name of the device Dialect. I gave them the definition and one boy shouted out dialogue. I said no, but they were close. A few random students shouted words that started with dia- and then with the utmost confidence a boy stood up and shouted "diaphram!" I think I was the only one in class that giggled at that.

3. The most innapropriate story this week. During 2nd period there are announcements over the loud speaker and one announced that next week at lunch there would be a "Best pick up line contest" (I know, right). So this sparked an impromtu contest in my class. "Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven" and such. THEN one boy in my class said "Mrs. Pompey, do you work at subway?" "huh?" my response. AND then he said, "Because you gave me a foot long!" OMG. are you serious. What would you do in that situation? After throwing up in my mouth a little bit, I continued with the lesson, and spoke to him after class. So crazy.

4. Finally, from this weeks original student poetry I found out that two of my students have lost parents to cancer, 3 have been abused, one was taken from her mother for undetermined reasons, one was attacked in a park, one has a sibling in the hospital, and two are not happy on the planet right now. These were just from the students who shared.

It wasn't a boring week.