grown-up (yet single) snow days

I apologize for the lengthy hiatus all of you faithful pickle jar readers have had to endure. I can't promise that this will be the post you've been waiting for, but perhaps it will jump-start a new year of more regular blogging.

So, yesterday was a snow day. Oh, the many joys of being a teacher! It was great to have a day where I got to sleep in and relax and stay in my jimjams all day. But the sadness comes from being a grownup who lives alone. This is another one of those things nobody ever tells you about growing up. Remember snow days when you were a kid? Everybody was super excited because not only did you get to miss school, you also got to go out and play and make snow angels and forts and snow men. And then you'd come back in and slowly strip off those damp layers while your mom made soup for lunch that you got to eat in your jimjams while getting warm. And perhaps, if you were really brave, you would layer back up later in the afternoon and venture out for round two. And I know that it's still fun to do those things as a grown up. It's one of the few times in life where you get to run around and act a fool and everyone thinks it's totally normal. But, like I said, there's a catch that no one ever tells you about. Single Snow Days.
If you're single and live alone and too far away from your family to safely travel home on a snow day, you have no one to go play in the snow with. Which means that it's practically pointless to venture out because you'll just end up feeling more sorry for yourself than you already do. This is when you put on a brave face and do the next best thing. You make yourself a hot cup of tea or cocoa or coffee or whatever your hot drink of choice is and settle into a marathon of book devouring and movie consumption. And, all in all, as long as you don't spend too much time thinking about how your friends are spending their snow days (especially those who have sweet children to play with), you'll make it just fine. And you may even have a midly impressive checklist to show for it.

Here's the tally for yesterday:
3 loads of laundry washed and dried (only 1 folded)
1 + 1/2+ 75 pages of books read
2 1/2 movies watched
1 week of lesson plans finished

And while that really doesn't seem like much now that I write it out, it was a rather enjoyable way to spend my surprise day off. Especially in light of my options.

Hope that you and your families had fantastic snow days and that you only feel appropriately sorry for me in this, my time of self-pity.

Things I learned in Room 2 today

1. I learned how to make a paper doll chain, both in a straight line and in a circle.

2. I learned that there are several “causes” that have their own special colors. These are used to promote awareness for the individual situations. The odd thing is that there are a limited number of colors, but a considerable number of causes. So one color may end up representing awareness for two comically unrelated causes. For instance, a yellow ribbon is supposed to raise awareness for support of our military. Great, right? It’s also supposed to represent suicide awareness and the awareness of anal cancer. Hmmm…………

Home Improvement and Discontent

I've spent the last two weekends helping my friend Rob shop for furniture. She and her husband have been planning to makeover their living room since they got married in the spring of 2009, but this month, we all finally got around to picking things out. We've agonized over the patterns and fabrics and colors and styles of dozens of different pieces. We've measured and measured again. We've positioned and repositioned things in our minds. We've looked at catalogs and at actual furniture on the showroom floors. We've sat in every single chair and on every single couch and now, we've finally made decisions. All the furniture pieces, positions, and patterns are finally chosen and paid for. In 6-8 weeks, they'll (we'll) have a brand new living room.

I've enjoyed every minute of it. Organizing and arranging all of these things is something that I love. Interior design is one of my many future career ambitions. But the fact that I currently live in my very first single-person apartment, which isn't the most luxurious of living arrangements, means that my style and taste aren't exactly represented by the hodgepodge of hand-me-down furniture and accessories currently in my apartment. I've got lots of plans and ambitions, but my life and my private-school teacher's salary haven't yet allowed me to make the changes I'd like. Needless to say, although I've thoroughly enjoyed living vicariously through Rob and Tracy this fortnight, I can't help but think about all the things I'd like to do in my own place. Here are just a few that are in the front of my mind right now:

1. Buy or make slipcovers for my couch and chair
2. Buy a "gently-used" table and chairs
3. New curtains for the living room
4. New bedding
5. A microwave, since mine decided to quit a couple of weeks ago
6. Buy or inherit some shelves so that my beloved books can finally get out of those boxes and breathe
7. Put some sort of art on the super boring walls

Hopefully, this incredible discontent that I'm feeling will be satisfied soon. Maybe I'll even blog about my efforts in the coming weeks. Keep your eyes peeled for updates.

Illness

Today was the first day that I was sick enough to actually call in sick to a real-live job. I feel like death eating a biscuit and probably look like it too. I've got an array of symptoms that I've been fighting off for two or three weeks but lost my power over sometime yesterday morning. My throat is sore, my stomach feels queasy, and I've got a headache the size of Montana. So, I called our precious secretary this morning and asked very politely, and very pathetically, for a substitute. She was gracious and caring, but the bad news was that I had not planned to be absent today. As a first year teacher, I do almost all of my planning one day ahead. If I've got a full week planned before Tuesday afternoon, it is a most productive week. Needless to say, I did not have written lesson plans when I requested a sub at 7am this morning, so I had to go to school in my jeans with my wet hair to create lesson plans and make copies for my poor sub.

Don't get me wrong and assume that I'm a terrible teacher who never plans anything but just shows up and sees what happens. That's not at all the case. I'm just the kind of teacher who too often makes all the plans in her head (and sometimes in the morning in the shower), so they aren't the kind of plans she can pass on to another at a moment's notice. However, after about 25 minutes at school this morning, where I am sure plenty of people thought I was completely rude because I reciprocated their polite "Good Morning"s in a unenthusiastic manner, I finally made it back home to my chair where a large glass of ginger ale, a box of saltines, several chloraseptic lozenges, my ugly quilt, and the first season of Jed Barlett's White House awaited me. I enjoyed my morning as thoroughly as I could with Montana between my eyes, but the worst part about today, that I forgot to mention earlier, was that today was the day that final grades for the 1st quarter were due. At 3:25. I had finally finished reading and scoring all of the AP rewrites last night, but I hadn't put them in our online gradebook to be finalized yet, so I actually had to do a bit of work today. The sad news is that I, as a poor single private school teacher, do not yet have internet access at my home. So I was forced to venture out. Knowing that I did not want to have to be seen by people, my sweet Rob-Bob let me hijack her laptop in her office(after also bringing me lunch). Those of you who know Rob know how big of a sacrifice this really was for her. Fortunately, I was actually more caught up on grades than I thought , so it didn't take long for me to finalize things. Now, I'm back to resting and consuming fluids at a nearly alarming rate. I hope and pray that I feel better tomorrow and will be able to return to Room 2 at full capacity.....or at least a capacity where Montana has shrunk to New Jersey and I can think about something besides the activity of my intestines.

I never cease to be amazed at how quickly time passes when I'm sick. After lying around all day, I have no idea how it ever got to be 4:35 in the afternoon. I have done almost nothing productive all day. Wow.

Anyway, I'm not sure that this was of any interest to all of you, but I've felt rather lousy and lonely today and needed to at least pretend that there were some people out there who might at least like to read about my illness. At least from your computer screen, you aren't likely to catch it.

Logos

I've thought a lot about the truth of God's power in the spoken (and written) word over the past year or so. I intended to write my Senior Seminar paper in exploration of this idea last fall, but my mentor did not think it was a good idea, so I was pushed in another direction. Nevertheless, the idea of logos, our logo-centric faith, and God's power through the logos permeates my thoughts on a regular basis. A good friend and mentor sent me a link to a phenomenal blog post this morning that I could not leave alone. By far the most personal highlight of my first reading was the following statement: The tightly knotted bond between God and language is the secret truth of all writing. Isn't that profound? Not writing more often is one of my continuous regrets, but I allow life to get in the way too often. I love words, and the beauty that can be found through true self-expression is overwhelming. So, when I can't seem to make time to write myself, reading the words of others expressing profound truth is almost as good.

I'm in a difficult place in my life, and I've been trying really hard to see God working in my life to love me and show me what plans he has made for us. To say that I'm not very good at it would be an understatement. However, one of the ways I find God, his power, and his presence in my life regularly is through words. Whether it's through a song, a prayer, a scripture, or a few words from a sweet student, God is powerful and gracious and faithful, and he knows me. Looking for the secret truth in the writing of others is a balm for the secret longings of my heart, and I thank my creator for speaking so tenderly to me during this, my time of wilderness.

Thanks to all of you who allow God to work through you to minister to me as angels.