idontbelieveingrammar

I was slurping a steamy bowl of pho while the friend across the table from me ranted. She went on me listed wrong after wrong that her family had done. She told me how she responded and the clever lines she had used. And I completely agreed with her inside, but I paused briefly from my soup while she stopped long enough for me to comment...and I am certain that she did not like what I had to say. I told her she was right on the money. She grinned, glad to have my support. But. And it was a really big but. That she could chose to be right OR she could chose relationship. Sometimes we do not get to have both. She kept talking. Justifying her response. And her actions. And I just slurped my soup and listened Only to tell her it doesn't matter. She has to choose which is more important, being right and letting everyone know it or mending the relationship. I haven't talked to her recently. But I think she chose being right. And sometimes that is the necessary choice. ...

My daughter is learning to spell. She can't read yet, but don't tell her that. So far she has mastered the following words: zoo, her name, her brother's name, the name of a boy in her class (I'll have to investigate this later), and dog. I'm glad that she is learning...although sad that I will no longer be able to spell out words I don't want her to understand, a few of which might only contain four letters. She is loving this new skill and it has all but taken over many of our conversations. She is constantly asking me what certain letters spell. Unfortunately she just strings together whatever letters spring to mind and 99.9% of the time our conversations go as follow: "Mom what does c-g-n-t-q spell" "Nothing" Slightly confused but also proud of her abilities..."That spells nothing?I thought nothing started with an n." "You didn't actually spell the word nothing...it does not make a word" "No, I said wh...

I hate leftovers. I don't reread many books, I rarely rematch movies. And I am well aware that somethings are better the second time around. Combine this with a character trait of being too much... As in I eat too much. I talk too much. I say too much. I buy too much. I drink too much. I even apologize too much. Pretty much, if anything is worth doing, I believe it is worth overdoing. And you get a lot of leftovers. Which eventually have to be thrown out. Right now there is a box of Enos pizza sitting in my fridge. Enos has the thinnest crust known to man, it is not my favorite pizza, but easily in the top 10... I would marry this pizza if it was legal and I wasn't already spoken for, yet I will have to force myself into eating the leftovers for lunch rather than pulling through for something I like less. I don't know quite what the aversion is, maybe it is my longing to try new things. To read a new book rather than the same one 5 times. Or maybe it was my moms...

Everything we see is really just light focused onto the back side of your eye. Essentially your retina is like a tiny little movie screen for all of our images to play out on. It is covered with over 100 million photoreceptors to help give your own personal movies color and shape. This is also a good place to mention that the images are all upside down. Or maybe we are the ones upside down? Either way, these images get flipped and sent to our brain via the optic nerve. Every time I read about light, the eye, optical illusions, and how we see things I am amazed. There is an article on NPR about light and how we see and that seeing is not merely the reception of signals but that it is really more like dancing (go read it...and have your mind blown...or at least something to chew on for a while http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/01/12/261230681/seeing-the-world-is-like-dancing-with-it ) Or if you are a Vsauce fan, watch the one on color and spend the rest of your day w...

In middle school, just as I was starting to do my bangs, go to country club dances, shave my legs and shower daily, my parents got a new hobby. They could not just play golf or redecorate like some of the other parents I knew. Instead, they bought a boat. A really big boat. The kind that slept six, had a full kitchen, bathroom and even a decent sized shower. Most tweens would probably be thrilled that for all practical purposes their family owned a yacht, but unless it came with it’s own personal hot tub I was not impressed.   This is also a good time to mention that my parents knew almost nothing about sailing and that I really did not like the weekend jaunts down to Kemah that kept me away from my very own phone line that boys were so not calling me on…(but a girl could dream). Almost every weekend as long as the weather was nice and there was decent wind we would head south.   I’d go down below while my parents checked lines and sails and located the winch. ...

I am an Olympic junkie. Every two years I catch myself watching hours of sporting events I could care less about (curling, is just really cold bowling and you would never catch me watching that on TV) and cheering on athletes I have never heard of. Sometimes they aren’t even from my own country. For example, my favorite this year is the 44 year old brick layer from Nepal that took off 4 months to train in cross country skiing. The guy predicts he will come in last place.  The guy doesn't even care because he is there. He makes me want to pull a Tonya Harding and take out all the other cross country skiers without day jobs so he can at least come in 16th or something.  Regardless, I will be right there on my couch cheering for him.   The Olympics with their heartache and story pull me in. And I just can’t help but watch….even ice dancing. Before last night I didn’t even know that “twizzle” was a thing.   Now I’m pretty sure I’ll be dropping that word ...

No less than a dozen times a day I have to utter these words in my classroom, "Stop taking selfies and do your work." or occasionally I'll just photobomb them.  #bestteacherever or I've even considered bringing in one of those duck billed whistles for the next girl that insists on taking a dozen pictures with her best ducky face. I love my Instagram, but I can make it through several days with out adding any pictures. And the selfies are rare.  Part of me just doesn't get how these kids can't make it through a 45 minute class period without documenting their face. I thought maybe it was teenage vanity. Or that sense of just wanting someone to like them. Like literally. They brag about their number of likes and followers and I am oh so glad that all I had to worry about in my day was a silly spiral slam book that might get passed around in secret.  These kids are documenting their every second and getting immediate feedback for it. I am even more thank...