New year, new beginnings

It's official.
Now that I am working in schools, I will officially never think of a year as beginning in January and ending in December.  It's August to August all the way.  And who can blame me?  School years start in August, years of my life start in August (my bday was yesterday), and big things just always seem to happen in August...mostly due to all those other transitions. 

But anyway, yesterday was my birthday, and I was once again reminded of how very blessed I am.  Some people go through life with no one.  They die; no one notices.  They die; someone may notice...no one cares.  They CHOOSE to die because no one cares.... And the depressing list could go on.  Sometimes it's hard to believe there are people out there like that.  Especially when I could say the word and have at least 20 people (probably more) willing to help me with any problem at any given time.  I mean that as a testimony of the awesomeness of my friends and family...not by any means because of my merits or powers of manipulation or something... I am constantly surrounded by the world's best kind of people.  I really mean that.  You all were bright spots in what otherwise would have, frankly, been a mediocre day at best.  Sort of an odd day at work (although work is going great in general), frustrations with the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation (cue Stepford-hair lady and her mound of paperwork), and car issues...  But it was a great day all around.

Awesome dinner at the Ribeye with all-star lineup of guests: My parents, G&G Drake, Melissa, Craig, Jeff, Jamie, David, Pat Drake, Amber, Tina...I think that's it.  It was super fun.  And then Melissa made TWO delicious cakes that we ate back at the Dojo.  Many of them had never seen our beloved Dojo, so that was cool.

Then I was feeling somewhat emotional last night....not really sure why.  I guess it's bound to happen from time to time.  And then I had sort of a funny dream (in retrospect).  It's going to be lame to tell about, but I'm going to try anyway.  Basically, it was just about the Drake cousins all going on some trip somewhere (in modern day)...and then there was, like, a flash, and I heard a little voice behind me shouting "Hey guys, wait up!  Wait for us!"  And I turned around to see a 4-year-old Craig and Monica running up behind me, Craig waving his arms...  And I was filled with this powerful, nostalgic energy that caused me to wake up in tears... about 4:45.... and I maybe was not able to get back to sleep after that.  So, I dunno, for whatever reason, it's been sort of a strange couple of days.  Not bad though, just a bit different.

We chalked the quad tonight for freebiblenow.org.  15-ish people showed up to help chalk!  About 3x more than usual!  Things are changing....the world keeps spinning.... as it really should. :)