Some days are just crappy.

Today was just one of those days . . .

I woke up at the kitchen table last night at 11:45. I have no idea what time James came to bed.

Molly woke up at 4:30 this morning and would not go back to sleep. Plus, she kept yelling at me all morning (not crying, just hollering). I kept trying to give her things to stick in her mouth because I didn't want her to wake James up, but nothing worked.

The wall attacked my baby toe this morning, too, and I think I may have broken it (my toe that is . . . the wall is fine). It's not extremely purple or dangling off my foot like that time my sister ran me into my mom and dad's bed post and my ring finger toe was dangling and purple), so it's probably not broken, but it is bruised and hurts. Tonight I asked James for some sympathy, but all he said was, "I've seen worse. It's not a deep tissue injury." Thanks.

Even though we were up at 4:30, by the time I gently put my shoes on and gathered up all my things (bags can't be packed the night before when you wake up in a stupor at the kitchen table), we were late as usual.

Molly conked out in the car on the way to school. I wanted to take a nap with her, but that is probably not safe to do while driving (though I think I did that often when I was driving to Tooele. Thank goodness my car knew the way).

She also conked out in her swing while I was feeding her dinner tonight. That was weird. Maybe she is having a growth spurt or something. I don't have any idea.

It was just a crappy day. I don't think my students understood anything I taught them and they were extra misbehaved today. Why is the slope formula so difficult? Why does Erwin try to make every discussion, even the Civil War, about immigration? Why do my team kids talk while I'm trying to give them the announcements? Why did I crash into the table and now have a bruise on my leg to match my toe? Why does the girl who I haven't seen for 2 1/2 weeks have the nerve to tell me she is bored in my class and doesn't understand what we are doing?

My lunch consisted of a coke and some pringles since the bread at our house was stale. Dinner was macaroni & cheese and blueberry muffins. Um . . . yum?!? James was fixing something on his car, so I was going to just fix him a can of soup when he came in (it was getting late and I was starving, thus the mac & cheese) . By the time I got around to it, I told him to just fix something himself. He ate the rest of the mac & cheese. He hates macaroni and cheese. Why did he do that? Oh yeah, because I told him he had to fix himself something. (It probably would have otherwise been a grilled cheese night for both of us, but you know, the bread was bad.)

Why do dishes have to be done every stinkin' night? Why is my house always a disaster? Why am I always so tired even when Molly doesn't get up at 4:30? Why did no one I voted for win on Tuesday (oh wait . . . Sherrie Swenson and anice Fisher won. Oh yeah, and I decided to vote of Jason Chaffetz and he won). Why does my car make weird noises? Why does my toe hurt?

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Don't Forget to Vote!

Tuesday is election day! Vote!
Practice using your constitutional right to express your opinion.
If you're still not sure what's going on and you live in Salt Lake County, you can find a copy of your ballot here by simply typing in your address.

Vote!!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is our favorite holiday . . . um yeah . . .
We're trying to show Molly how much fun Halloween can be by dressing her up in these very elaborate costumes.

Costume #1.

Costume #2 (or Christmas present #1).

Costume #3.

Letterman Sweaters

In the last little while, my Grandma has asked me to clean out a couple of the closets in her house. We found a lot of suits that no longer fit my Grandpa. We also found a lot of nice dresses that no longer fit my Grandma. The suits are all too small, but unfortunately the dresses are all way to big. My grandma insisted on keeping them all because, "I might get fat again when I'm feeling better." We didn't take very much to the DI, but we did reorganize a few things and put some "new" things toward the front so they can be worn.

The coolest things, I think, we found were some old dresses that belonged to my Great Grandma Fern. My grandma has kept them since Great Grandma died in 1964. The dresses were really cool and looked like ones June Cleaver would have worn. I've always thought that Great Grandma Fern was a bigger lady, like me, my mom, sister, aunts, and cousins. These dresses were very small, though. She may have been tall, but was really skinny. I guess everyone was in that era.

The other cool find was my Grandpa's football letterman sweaters. The blue one is from South High School, class of 1947, and the red one is his University of Utah sweater, class of 1951. Originally, I thought maybe the 51 was his football jersey number, but I'm dumb and it's actually the year he graduated. Unfortunately, there's nothing on the red sweater designating football, the U, or anything other than "51." Weird.

The sweaters were in rough shape, so I asked if I could get them cleaned and Grandma said that'd be okay. They cleaned up pretty cool!We also found some brand new navy blue pants for Grandpa (he only wears khaki) and several brand new lightweight jackets that Grandpa has also never worn. There is also a jar of honey and a glass bottle of (probably well-fermented) apple juice that are glued to shelves by some toxic black substance. They've been there quite a while because the "new" contact paper on the shelves (I don't remember Grandma contact papering these shelves in my lifetime, so it's probably been a few years) was actually cut around these two jars and even tacked up the side of the apple juice.

Pandora

I like Pandora. I like the the randomness it brings within my musical specifications. I listen to it at school during my prep. It helps keep me awake and productive (though never productive enough to get ahead, but that's part of the job, I guess). Not only is it random, but totally obscure. Today, the first song that played was this: The Samples "Indiana."




I've never put "the Samples" on any Pandora playlist, but somehow it's in there. This was cool! I love this song! I had one of those reminiscent experiences for a few moments. I was into the Samples at one point. They have literally 20+ albums, though, the only real link between them is Sean Kelly and his naturist, always stoned, weirdness (youtube "Sean Kelly African Ivory" for a taste of the weirdness . . . "for every button that we push, there's an elephant bleeding behind some bush" Rock on!). During the time I followed what the band was doing, I got weekly digest e-mails of their fan page and read as the band constantly lost and added new members. I have probably 4 or 5 albums and like some more than others.

My sister and I saw them open for Sting once at the Canyons (formerly Wolf Mountain and formerly formerly Park West). We saw them one other time at Kingsbury Hall, but I was disappointed because each meaningful 3 minute ballad changed into a 20 minute weirdo jam session.

Once I actually drove through Indiana (with my sister, of course). We had the song queued up on our cd player (hooked into the Golf's tape deck with a long cord - we were so cool!), but the traffic in Chicago was terrible and although we could see the sign that said "Welcome to Indiana" in front of us, it was still minutes away. We kept hearing, "I remember the first . . . I remember the first . . . I remember the first . . . "until we finally passed the sign and could listen to the rest of the song.

I'm sure Annie was driving. She did the day shift (I tended to doze off in the mornings) and I took the night shift (she couldn't see at night and had knee pain or something). I'm pretty sure it was daylight when we crossed the border, because that same day we went to Valparaiso to find a t-shirt (they made it far into the NCAA tourney that year), but unfortunately got there too late and the bookstore was closed. We may have made it to South Bend and Notre Dame that same day.

. . . Weird what I song can do for you!