What a great weekend!

Karen and I had such a great time in Portland this weekend! All of my classes were great...some were brilliant! Although I spent more money than I had intended and we had some tense moments checking into the hotel, all's well that ends well. Heck, I even won 2nd place in a dance contest at the Friday night crop and was able to select a new Squeeze at the QuicKutz booth on Saturday! I plan on writing more about the weekend tomorrow, but I need to get to bed right now.

Future topics:

• Red Robin
• Quick Quotes Canvas Class
• Simon Sings
• QuicKutz Girls and the Dance Off
• Hanging Out with Karen
• Organizing My Craft Room
  

Rainbow Connection

Now that Romeo & Juliet is over, I'm getting back to my real life. I'm taking the "My Word" journaling class and am excited to be writing every day. I watched an episode of Craft Lab today which was all about creating an art journal. I'm looking at my lonely art journal and am really excited about getting back to exploring my creative side. I had wanted to take the BPS class about choosing joy, but I had no time due to the play. I'm definitely in a scrapbooking mood since it has been so long, so I was checking out Shimelle's site for more classes I can take and ran across this link!

I haven't seen The Muppet Movie since I was a kid, but I have to admit that I owned the record and listened to it all through high school! This is a photo of me during my senior year; 20+ years later, I still have that Kermit doll in my classroom! I haven't looked at this picture in ages, but I'm glad I decided to pull it out today, because it is in an old album and the photo was stuck to the page. I had to use Un-Du to get it off. It's a really good reminder to me to get the rest of my photos out of those albums.

I want to spend some more time exploring my "Rainbow Connection," because I have this vague memory of sitting in our darkened living room on 7th street watching this film. I'll definitely come back to this, but for now, I'll enjoy the video and my photo!

"My Word" -- 1 Answer

The second half of the prompt is to select one of those questions and answer it for myself. So, I'm going with #6!

There is so much to love about my mom, that I don't even know where to begin. She has given me unconditional love since the day I was born. Even during those teenage years when I didn't deserve it, she was there for me. She was willing to let me move in with my biological father after I ran away in high school. Whether she was making the greatest sacrifice a mother could make or simply calling my bluff, it was at that moment that I realized how much she loved me. That's the day I started turning my life around. It took me awhile to earn back her trust, but we have been the best of friends ever since. She was even the Matron-of-Honor in my wedding!

Yet, the question asks me to pick the thing I love the most, so I'm going to narrow it all down to the way she treats me on my birthday. Frankly, I've always felt that the birthday of a child should be a day celebrating the mother...she is the one that did all the work. :-) Yet, my mom makes me feel like the most special person on the planet on my birthday. When I was little, she made and decorated the cutest cakes for me...one to take to my class party and one for my birthday party with friends. She let me choose the dinner menu, which was always steak and potatoes. Even when the family was going through lean times, my birthday celebration was never lacking. In college, she sent me care packages on my birthday with gifts and homemade cookies; even when miles separated us, I was Queen-for-the-day. I'll be celebrating my 40th birthday next month, and my mom is outdoing herself this year! She is taking my sister and me to Chicago for my birthday weekend!!!!! She is trying to get tickets for Wicked and Oprah. Since it is my celebration, she is even willing to give me up for a few hours while I visit the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.

So, what do I love the most about my mom? I love the way she expresses her love by making me feel special. I love that she is proud of me. I love that she is able to love unconditionally. I love that she is my mom!

"My Word" -- 10 Questions

The topic for today is to make a list of ten things I would ask one of my ancestors and then choose one question to answer myself. I thought a lot about who I would want to ask questions. Would I choose Grandma Hazel whom I loved so dear? No, I was lucky to have many years of quality time with my grandma. Although I would love to relive one of those days spent watching Days of Our Lives, eating junk food, and playing Scrabble with her again, I know that she will always be alive in my heart. So, maybe I would talk to my dad who died too soon; we had so much unfinished business. I spent a lot of years working through all that, and I've come to terms with it all and have learned to forgive. That was such a valuable lesson that he taught me, so I think I'll choose someone I never had a chance to know. I'm choosing Grandpa Robbie.

1. What made you want to become a judge?
2. What was the most interesting case you tried?
3. Did you ever regret any decisions you made?
4. Did you love all of your kids the same?
5. Or was Bobby always your favorite?
6. What did you love the most about my mom?
7. What did you find funny?
8. Did you smile much?
9. Laugh often?
10. Was it the stress of your job or of your life that caused your heart attack?

Future...where do I go from here?!

I spend a lot of time thinking about the many interests that I have and about my lack of expertise in any of them because they are so varied. As I near 40, I feel like I should be making a plan for the next 40 years of my life. If I'm going to work for another 25 or 30 years, I need to make sure I'm doing something that won't drive me crazy! I can't see being an English teacher for that length of time. Most kids don't enjoy English and society in general seems to be moving away from reading for pleasure. Even business communications seem more tolerant of language inaccuracies. With whole generations being raised in chat rooms and on IMing, I don't hold out a lot of hope for the progression of the English language. I'm tired of seeing chat room abbreviations in homework assignments! Needless to say, this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. So, I look at my options and wonder where I should go from here.

• Obviously, I can always leave education. I would love to work for a magazine, but that would most likely involve relocation. Thinking about where I live now, I don't really see anything that is better than education.
• All of my dream jobs require relocation or extensive travel. For instance, I've always loved the idea of being an educational director for a theatre company, preferably a Shakespeare company.
• Another dream job would be as a Shakespeare consultant where I would travel to conferences or school districts to teach teachers how to teach Shakespeare through performance. I would also do residencies and help students mount Shakespeare productions.
• If I'm being more realistic, my two main interests are becoming vocationally certified as a CTE teacher and obtaining my National Board Certification. I want to gain my CTE certification as soon as possible, because we have a teacher retiring in the next couple of years. I would love to step into his position. It would also give my video production class state funding immediately, and THAT is a HUGE plus! Once I start teaching CTE, I may decide that I don't want to get my NBC. Of course, the down side to all of this is that I would no longer be teaching Shakespeare, so what would that do to my dream of being a Shakespeare consultant?
• Conversely, if I pursue my Shakespearean interests, will I miss my opportunity to become CTE certified? For instance, I REALLY want to apply for the Shakespeare: Enacting the Text seminar this summer. Although they only choose 15 participants from over 100 applicants, I feel fairly confident that I would be accepted since one of my referees worked with the seminar director last summer! If I do this, that means I can't take summer school for my CTE certification. It's such a conundrum...I really don't want to have to choose between the two.

With all this being said, I haven't even discussed my varied interests outside of school. I want to spend more time on my website, scrapbooking, photography, podcasting, reading, writing...heck, I would even like to strap on a pair of rollerblades once in awhile. Then there are all the things I NEED to do (in addition to grading papers...yuck!): exercise, clean my house, do laundry. Then there are things I SHOULD do: help Neal with weeding, cooking, paying bills. But, when it comes right down to it, I don't get everything done because I'm lazy, spend too much time on the Internet, and watch too many TV shows. At least I don't play WoW anymore!

Well, I'm sure I'll write more about this in the weeks to come, because I need to make a decision soon.