Big day. Yes, quite big.

I found out today that "Pop the Pig" is a cheap RIP-OFF version of the original Hasbro game, "Pig goes Pop". Haha. For shame.

But seriously, today I ACCEPTED A JOB. Like, a real grown-up, full-time job! It is in Vermilion County and less than an hour from C-U! Which I LOVE. It sounds like I will be in the Rossville school district, for anyone who might happen to know where that is. But this is all very exciting and a huge burden to get off my shoulders.

AND I was put in as Sunday School teacher at church this evening. Soooo, yeah. That is obviously an extremely important job, and prayers are appreciated. This time 4 months from now, I will have all SORTS of small children watching me. I have been given much responsibility today.

There will surely be more on this to come. Right now there is much to be done. I need to get some lesson plans for tomorrow; prepare stuff I need to take to the Praxis exam (my certification exam that I'm taking Saturday morning in Fort Wayne, of all places); PACK for Fort Wayne, since I am going there this weekend to see Erica, take the Praxis, and go to the final College Weekend of my college career (12 for 12--perfect attendance!); ummm.....oh yeah, and write my Silver Lining article. Haha.

God is good. Life is an adventure. As I have said before, I'm just desperately holding on to my inner tube of life, striving to place all my faith and trust in the Driver of the motorboat.

BTW, whenever I use that analogy I think of Uncle Marty, not gonna lie. :)

Why I have a weakness for children's board games

... Besides the obvious reasons, of course.

You see, I walk down the game aisle at Target or Wal-Mart, and little gems like this pop out at me and say, "Buy me! Buy me! I will only take up space in your storage room for the rest of your life, but if you buy me now I will provide you with a few days of FREE entertainment for your students with minimal prep time on your part! I may also provide you with a conversation topic with your friends and maybe an hour of entertainment during some random game night! You know you want me!"

And so I buy it.
And don't regret it. :)

Pop the Pig is truly a delight, and I recommend it for anyone who needs/wants to entertain children of all ages or adults who are easily amused.

Or even adults who are not so easily amused...I mean, this thing is pretty stinking cool.


...Oh yeah, and this one.

Same explanation...but for anyone who has seen or read Diary of a Wimpy Kid, no explanation should be required. :) There ARE really good questions in this game for discussion/social skills, so it really is perfect...honestly....

But besides board games, much is going on. The Dojo as a whole is being stretched and squeezed and rolled around...much like Silly Putty in the hands of the Creator. Such is life. I have an interview in the Danville area in a couple hours. I'm not exactly feeling it, as I don't have extensive experience in early intervention... but stranger things have happened I suppose. We shall see....

Some things just aren't meant to be

You think this is going to be some profound post about my future and the fact that I didn’t get the Thomas Paine job, don’t you?

WRONG!

This post is about coffee cups. :)

Aren’t these mugs fun? Fun, cute, and innocent-looking?

DON’T BE FOOLED.

They are, all of them, a disaster waiting to happen! At least in my hands. :)

Whitney got me one of these, the one that says “Decaf is for Sissies”, for Christmas. I didn’t start using it until the spring semester of school, but within ONE WEEK of using it, the mug came to a hasty demise. I bumped it while sitting at a desk (a large table, really) at school, and it crashed to the ground in a mess of tea and colorful ceramics.

Feeling sorry for me, Whitney generously purchased a second mug for me around Valentine’s Day. This one was SUPER cute. It was yellow and said something about us being sisters but from totally different planets…I really liked it. BUT, lo and behold, less than a week after I started using it, this mug also met a dreadful fate. I had it in the back seat of my car with my backpack, and when I grabbed my backpack, I bumped the mug and it rolled to the concrete parking lot. Ka-blooey!

And SO, I decided to go to the Kitchens store and buy a third mug for myself. My third and final attempt, I told myself. So I bought a third mug, and boy was it cool. One side said, “Trust your crazy ideas,” and the other side said, “Always color outside the lines,” and it was super colorful and had a dark-haired girl with sunglasses…. And YES, I am speaking about this super cool mug in the past tense.

TODAY, the third and final Kitchens mug (less than one week old) met its sticky end, in the most dramatic manner yet. I set it on top of my car as I was going to school this morning. (You know where this is headed…) It was a dark, cold, rainy morning, and in my hurry to load my car without drowning in the downpour, I forgot about the mug on the roof. However, it somehow stayed on for a block… until I turned onto Neil Street… at which time I heard a rumble atop my car and thought, “Aw, MAN,” just in time to look in the rearview mirror and see a small, colorful object roll off the back of the Bubblo and SMASH with a caffeine-charged SPLOOSH onto the busy street. Sad, sad, sad, (but hilarious) story. I am simply not supposed to own one of these mugs, I suppose. Maybe I will buy one more and just set it on my desk for decoration and commemoration, never to be taken ANYWHERE! Ha.

If this episode is any indication of the rest of the day, it's gonna be a doozy. :)

Limbo

...But I'll leave if I have to.

...And now we wait

First job interview-- check!

And nothing unpleasant occurred. :)

There are some important things I forgot to mention, that, of course, I thought of as soon as I got home. But you'll have that...

Thomas Paine would be great, but realistically, there's a good chance I won't get it. And that would be okay. There are other options for life.

I love the daily devotional that I get in my e-mail from Dr. Charles Stanley. I especially love when it just so HAPPENS to correspond perfectly with what is going on in my life. Like today. This was the final paragraph:

God’s ways won’t always match our mindset because He works from an eternal perspective and we often see only the immediate. We must remember that His ways are best. Just think, if He had followed the disciples’ plans [referring to the disciples' preconceived notions about the Messiah's life], there would be no forgiveness of sins. Let’s drop our expectations and trust Him.

Amen.

Psalms 39 and 40 were also delightful to read this morning.

People tend to walk in a "vain show" (especially when applying for jobs, haha).....Instead, we should put our hope in the Lord and trust that he will give us the words. After all, we cannot measure how much he thinks about us or cares about us.....despite our vanity and neediness. Trust in the LORD and do His will, and SHARE with the world how he has blessed you.

Psalm 40:16 -- Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, the LORD be magnified.

And again I say, Amen.

Ah yes....

...now I remember a big reason I started this blog... I try to limit myself to one facebook status post per day, and some days are simply worth more than that.

"Tornado...there's a tornado..." I heard a familiar, melodic voice say at 9:50 this morning.

Today was the first Tuesday of the month. So, of course, there was a planned tornado siren at 10:00 am. One of my students (the one I mentioned before with the sing-songy voice) is horrified of the tornado siren. When he was at Thomas Paine (now he's at the Middle School) the tornado siren was right outside their window, and it traumatized him. Needless to say (well, maybe not needless), he spends the entire morning of every first Tuesday preparing for the event, even though the siren is really very quiet at the Middle School.

I see him starting at 9:50. SO, at promptly 9:50 he wanders into our room sporting these massive, retro, ham radio-esque headphones, and a distant expression. "There's a tornado drill," he says in that melodic voice. I had forgotten about the whole thing until then, but Sandy reminded me of his fear... So much for my language lesson this morning! :) We looked at a few pictures, but he was clearly distracted/agitated and kept interrupting me with a quiet, "I am very scared..." or, "Do you want to go for a walk?" I finally took the hint and we began wandering the halls to get someone's mind off of the impending disaster.

We ended up camping in the teacher's lounge (empty at 9:55 am) to ride out the storm. I sat us down next to the vending machines, which were conveniently droning and emitting loud gurgly noises, in hopes that they would drown out the siren's dreaded wail. Mission accomplished. :) We sat at our table, humming to ourselves and listing words that rhyme with each other, until about 10:05. (In your mental picture of this, please do not omit the retro ham radio headphones. Very important.) He didn't hear a thing. I did, but the vending machines were droning at so similar a frequency that someone wearing large headphones would never notice... As we walked back to our classroom, he kept saying, "The siren is all done...it was canceled..."

Yes...of course it was. :)


Whoops. I really didn't mean for that story to take up so much space. I had other things I was going to write about.....but that's probably good for now!


(Yes, this post is sandwiched by "now"s....parenthetical statements excluded.)

Big things...

I parked head-out in an Urbana parking lot today...I felt rebellious. :)

But, no...that is not the biggest thing that happened today.

I have a job interview at Thomas Paine on Friday morning...eep... I feel like a grown up. Also, we are probably not keeping the Dojo next year. So yeah. Not really sure why, but we trust that the good Lord knows what he's doing.

That about sums it up...bit of a crazy week...as usual. :)