idontbelieveingrammar

I used to be really good at keeping in touch. I know the value of you snail mail. I can bang out emails in record time and I’m not sure that the ignition in my car actually turns unless I’m talking on my phone. I remembered birthdays and bought funny cards and occasionally made mix cds. But. These days. Not so much.  Maybe it all went out the window when I had kids, but I’m thinking this probably happened before that. I am really good at maintaining with people that live in my area code, but for the ones that don’t I struggle to keep up. I forget birthdays. Even in the age of facebook where it reminds you days in advance. I rarely call old friends and emails are few and far between. And facebook  is supposed to make all this easier. But mainly it is just easier to feel like I am keeping in touch. Maintaining. When I’m really not. Because I can creep their page and look at their pictures and I think I know what is going on. And if they want to know about me. They can just read...

(just in case you can't tell what this is...it is a bad iphone picture of me going through a car wash) Lately I have been a bigger mess than normal. My house is a wreck. My flowerbeds are scary. My shower has things growing in it. I’m forever behind at work. I’m not doing the things that I usually do well. I am in the middle of about 6 books but am not close to finishing any of them. I didn’t give up anything for Lent. I am not following through on some of my relationships. I’m posting less. And reading less.   And running less. And praying less. And sleeping less. And wasting more time than ever. So I took Friday off to stay home and grade papers and clean my house and try and get on top of a few things in my life so that I could feel a little less overwhelmed. And I had a great day. I slept in a little. I got coffee. I took coffee to some friends that I hadn’t talked to in a while. I picked up for a little while. I graded for a little while. I took a short run. I shaved my...

Friday night a friend invited us to the movies. And not just any movies, but she had a groupon for the drive in. So I piled yoga mats and sleeping bags into the back of my husband’s truck. She packed a dinner and we headed south to watch Gnomio and Juliet under the stars. Me and my husband used to be big movie buffs. We saw them on opening night and would drive to weird theatres in Dallas to watch documentaries or indie films that most of our friends had never heard of. But in the last five+ years, that has waned. I still go to movies, but mostly cartoons. And I miss them. Like I miss having cable and having someone clean my house. And I miss movie popcorn with butter or smuggling in my own candy. And I don’t have the best movie ettiquiete. I do remember to turn off my phone, but I kind of like to add my own commentary sometimes. And I have a big screaming laugh and sometimes I’m the only one laughing. But outside, in the back of the pick up, I could laugh as loud as I want…...

After Spring Break my job gets really hard. The kids are really ancy for summer. The teachers are too. The seniors pretty much checked out at Christmas. Kids are always out playing in tournaments or on field trips. And when none of us want to be here and have of us aren’t, we have all these standardized tests to prep for. Important ones. Ones that determine whether kids graduate or not. And what I hate about these tests, is that even when the kids know the content they don’t always get the right answer. Because sometimes the answers are confusing. Sometimes there is more than one decent answer. So I have to tell them to choose the “best answer” or the one that is “most right”. And I hate that. I wish it were clearer. That it was easy to just pick C. But. life isn’t always that clear. And sometimes we feel like we have to pick an answer just so we can fill in our bubble. And we’d all like to think that we picked the best one. That ours is the best answer or the most right and that...

It is getting warmer. Finally. This girl needs sunshine to feel sane. And I’ve noticed something since the weather has warmed besides the fact that it might be time to break out the lawnmower. That I’m starting to make a lot of U-turns.   When I drive on the interstate, there are people on the corners again. With signs or cups or sometimes nothing at all. And I know some people think it is a dumb idea. Especially when they are standing on the corner right in front of the liquer store. But I can’t help it, if I have cash I’m gonna give it away. Or stop and buy them some food. Or at least look them in the eye. So in the last few weeks I’ve had to pull a few Uturns. Because I know that something in my heart responds to this. But that doesn’t mean I still don’t drive past the first time. Or try to talk myself out of it. Because I do. But usually as soon as I go past I loop back around. And meet Boomer in front of the EZmart. Or John who as...

  Warning. This is gonna be a super boring play by play kind of post. You might want to skip it. Today is the last weekday of spring break and it has been a LONG one. Shaun was out of town all week. And seriously short in the adult conversation and sleep departments. Friday . Because the weekend really starts here.I’ll pretend it started at 3:15 but it might have just started a little sooner. I squeezed in a very quick happy hour with friends and rushed home to finish packing and headed south for a fast lake trip. Got in late. My parents weren’t expecting me. I wasn’t expecting them. But headed out on the dock to soak in the sound and smell of the water before climbing into bed. Saturday . A great long run. Well over an hour. Lots of cousins. A packed house. A cold boat ride. A piñata. And a giant chocolate cake. A pretty good day. Sunday . A sucky long drive back. Lots of traffic. Lots of stops. And barely made it back in time for a friend’s shower. I hate showers. But love show...

part 1 . So it is a good thing my cellular plan has unlimited texts. But an even better thing that I have unlimted pictures. Because. I probably send as many pics as I do words to friends. When something funny happens, like my little covers herself in marker or makup or, my students do something ridiculous....I usually do what any good mom/teacher would do and repremand them. Well, right after pulling out my phone and snapping a quick picture first. Which may totally negate the whole repremanding thing... some st. paddy's day love  princess dress + red cowboy boots + shopping in public = lots of stairs. but it was better than the plaid pants, flower dress and fur boots we wore the other day.  an oldie, but this one will earn me mom of the year for sure. looked into the back seat to discover my daughter tyring to color herself as an oompa loompa. i should add that it wasn't the washable markers either.           ...

I was showing my kids a video from the high school I teach at and my son kept asking who people were. I knew most of them and would tell him their name and if I taught them and maybe something I knew about them. A little bit after the video ended, he asked which one was the littlest. Ugh. I thought. He knows. I pointed out a really great kid who happens to be not very big but very talented, well liked, smart and athletic and told him all the great things I could about this kid. He nodded and went back to reading Green Eggs and Ham. Crisis averted. I thought. Then the next day from the back seat he was talking about kids in his class. Justin is taller than Samuel. But CJ is even taller. He only comes up to his hair. And so on. Are you taller than anyone in your class Owen? No. Not even the girls. I’m the littlest. Crap. He totally knows. My son is tiny. My dad may be over 6 feet, but I don’t think my son got any of those genes. All the asthma steroids he has taken h...

This is me cheating again. or recylcling. A repost of something I wrote for a Lenton devo a few years ago...but equally fitting for today and the ashes I am about to recieve. The school cafeteria always served fish sandwiches on Fridays during Lent. I hated most things from the school cafeteria and wasn’t too fond of fish to begin with. Combine the two and it made for some hungry Friday afternoons. For the longest time I thought this was what Lent was all about. Fish on Fridays. The symbol for Christians was an icthus, or a fish. I thought it was related. Like so many things in the Christian faith. I didn’t get it. A few years later, I thought I did. Lent meant giving something up. Giving up sodas or my watching 90210 for forty days would somehow better help me understand the sacrifice Christ made for me on the cross. If he could lay down his life, maybe I could lay off the caffeine for awhile. I never chose anything too difficult to give up. I always picked something that I would ...

Yesterday at church, it was communion. And I love communion. I’m not sure why. I’ve never been a formal kind of girl. Or into ritual. But communion has always had a way of fixing what is broken inside me. I could write pages on the bread and the wine. And what it signifies. Or what happens. Or how I feel about feeding people. Or community. Or kneeling at the altar.   On thankfulness. And rememberance. And I do think they are all somehow related. But. I really don’t know what happens. I don’t care if it is a symbol or a mystery. I just like to be forced to the altar. To find myself on my knees. To have someone, especially when it is someone who knows my name, hand me the bread and the wine. And remind me. Of what Jesus did that last night with his friends.   And my church celebrates communion every month (or more depending on the service you go to). And it is an open table, and so if my kids have made it all the way through the service I take them with me. I know they don’t...