negative space

I never noticed it before. But sure enough, as soon as my dad pointed it out while we were on the road to Delaware, there it was...plain as day on the side of the truck. Can you find the arrow? Please tell me I'm not the only one who never caught on to this cleverness.

purple ska

So, the plans were - drop Josh off at the airport, go to the gym, and then spend my first real day as a non-teacher in the most productive cleaning/packing frenzy you've ever seen.

But it's raining. Storming, actually. (perfect for driving to the airport, right? Boo on Mississippi drivers when it's raining, or anytime for that matter.)

So far, it's been a hanging-out-in-my-p.j's-til-I-took-a-late-shower, listening-to-Fighting-Gravity, and eating-peanut-butter-from-a-spoon kind of day. That's about the same, right? ;) It's truly astonishing how much of a slacker I can be when left by myself. It's only lunchtime though, so I still have time for the frenzy fairy to strike me with her magic wand.

It helps too that we have a deadline...we're moving next week! Our trip up to Virginia/Delaware was mercifully productive, even though we didn't find a house. We knew it was a long shot with our time frame, but hey, we've got an apartment to camp out in for a few months while we take our time looking. And we definitely got a good feel for the layout of Newark, since we (me, Josh, my dad, and my brother Joel) drove around it 50 million times in 2 days.

What other big life decisions did I make? Glad you asked. I'm pretty sure I'm going to look for a job up there. I know...this is news to me too. The assumption was that we would find a house (ha!), and I would spend the time between move-in and having a family fixing the place up. You know, painting, stripping and staining furniture, and the like.

Well, now we have an apartment for three months. I mean, it's debatable if we're going to even put pictures on the walls. And Josh will be at work all day. Right...you see my dilemma. My thoughts exactly. I would be a walking nutcase stuck there all day with nothing to do. So, here comes job interviews - my favorite. :P We'll see where I end up! Ha ha ha! (That's our new motto.)

and we have a winner!

It's official....the dog has a name.

(drum roll please...........)

The new Keltonic dog is....Cody!

Actually, 'Toby' was everyone's first choice. But after calling him that for a full day, it just didn't seem to fit. He just seemed like a Cody.

So nobody I know suggested that name, but if someone wants to pretend that he or she came up with it, I think I can still give out a prize of some sort.

Progress reports? What progress reports?

"well, at least it's not guns."

...said Josh as we were watching the end of the local news.

And he said that because there were who knows how many people in Portland, Oregon having a pillow fight. Yep. A pillow fight. Now of course we were only halfway watching the news, so neither of us had heard any sort of intro. We just looked up to see a mob of people on the screen all bashing each other with pillows in the street.

Could you see that happening in Jackson? Me neither. Definitely with guns, but not pillows.

"outside the box, dang it!"

well, i'm posting a quote from my head.

for those of you who have known me for a while, this won't surprise you, but I definitely think too hard sometimes. and when is this not necessary? that's right - mad libs.

let me tell you...if you're having to tell yourself to think outside of the box, it's too late. you're already wrapped, packing-peanutted, and packaging taped firmly inside. coaxing your brain to let itself go makes it seize up even harder.

so jonathan and lynsey have been driving around the country for a few weeks now, and they've been whiling away the driving hours with mad libs. but not any mad libs - no, these are long stories that jonathan writes himself, and lynsey fills in the blank. so since they've been here for the weekend, late-nights in our kitchen are mad libs times. ha! and when it's my turn to fill in the blank with a part of speech, this is what you would hear in my head....

"Ok, a noun. Hmm....a noun. Something not in this room - too unoriginal. Something clever, not like 'a spoon' or 'a car'. Like....'a muskrat'! Umm...or 'a toaster'! Nope, that's in the room. Dang it! Something witty. Think, think, think."

What's ironic is that, with mad libs, it matters precious little what you end up saying. Even if I did say 'a car' or 'a spoon,' the story would still be just as comical. Yay for good friends who love you, even if your brain is wrapped in its own special packaging tape.

I promise - we really don't watch that much t.v.

"It's like they have hooves!"

Josh saw a girl on American Idol wearing gauchos and tall boots, and he's just not a fan of that look. I think he went on to say that she looked like she had llama legs. Ha!

I'll give you a prize...

...if you can name this dog!

My family has acquired the cutest collie/chow mix that you have ever seen! And if you know my family (die-hard cat family to the end), this is a pretty big step. Problem is, no name they've tried has quite...fit.

The front-runner right now seems to be Buddy, because he's so kind and gentle-hearted that he tries to be everybody's best friend.

So...look at the pictures, and if you come up with the winner, seriously, I'll give you a prize. Not sure what yet, but know it will be fabulous!


(For those of you who've never met my family, he's with my brothers Jonathan and Joel in these pics.)

tourette's

According to Mary Wilsford, that's what we teachers that are leaving are getting. We're all feeling a little ....stretched. And that makes us scream stuff out - not really words, just random sounds of angst.

Don't get me wrong - I love love love this job. It just seems like they're trying to squeeze every last bit of time and energy and help out of us before we go. :o Hence, the uncontrolled noises, often heard up and down the hall.

poor baby

One of the things about autism is that it traps you in a world of your own - where movies, t.v. shows, computer games, and tape stories play on repeat at who knows what volume or intensity. Needless to say, it makes learning to communicate like learning English as a foreign language, as an 80-year-old, in a loud stadium, while having rocks stuck in your shoe. And you don't want to learn it anyways.
The phrases that do come out are often as hysterically funny as those product warnings written by non-native English speakers.

(heard today from my little redhead who is on the autism spectrum....)

"Oh no! Oh no! I'm stuck in my class!"

He really really really didn't want to write, but I was making him. What a cute cry for help! If only it helped him get out of his work like he'd hoped.

give the guy a break

heard this weekend while watching the olympics...

"You know, Bob, he really just needs to relax.."

Ok, this was said about a man lugeing (luging?) down the track at 85 MILES AN HOUR! I guarantee you anything that the commentator would not be 'relaxed' if he was hurtling downhill at speeds faster than he goes on the interstate with nothing between him and certain death but a bodysuit. Please.

toeing the line of smart-mouthing

Me: "Why are you out of your seat?" (to the kid wandering around the room)

Child: "Why, I'm just getting some exercise."

Hmm....I better keep an eye on this one.

Guys get through seminary...

...by the sweat of their 'frau!' ha ha ha! that's a quote straight from Dr. Curry about the women like me that pay their husbands' way through seminary. Just classic.

The other great quote of the day comes straight from one of my student's daily journal entry:

"I must tell the truth. I broke the eggs!"

Apparently, he not only broke them, but tried to repair them and hide them back in the carton so he wouldn't get in trouble. :) And that's why my job is still fun, even on the hardest of days!

Ewww

This definitely falls into the category of weird things that you'd rather not know.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/27/insect.dye.ap/index.html

I mean, I can see how if you were trying to keep kosher or were a vegetarian, that eating a daily diet of little squished bugs would be deeply unsettling. I prefer to file the idea in the category of "things that are true, but dwelling on them would cause some sort of psychosis."

Other things in that category include all the partially fact-probably true-nobody knows for sure kind of things we all use to repeat to each other in middle school, like the number of spiders you ingest in your sleep over your lifetime, etc.

Still....ewww.

We're not in Kansas anymore

Well, I had great expectations of filling a blog with witty or deeply profound quotes on a daily basis. But as you can see, the whole "daily basis" thing is not quite happening. I guess I didn't realize that you have to have some sort of working memory left at the end of the day to remember any great quotes. Aha! Now we see the problem. (Sorry to disappoint, Mary Wilsford:) )

(Cute quote of the day: "That's astrocious!" said one of my students after looking at her terrible handwriting on one of her papers. It definitely was astrocious.)

So, if you haven't heard the news by now, which would be unbelievable since news travels at the speed of light in our varied communities here, we're going to Delaware! You can read Josh's blog (http://joshua627.blogspot.com) for all the details of the weekend, but man oh man, what a whirlwind. As of April 1st, if all the ordination stuff goes smoothly, Josh will be the assistant pastor at Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Newark (which is pronounced "NEW-ark," not "NEW-erk" like the one in Jersey).

Finding a house, packing an apartment, finishing a job, cramming in last minute fellowship...it's no wonder my head is scrambled!

the guessing game

That's right folks...name that illness!

Here are the clues...

1. Hacking cough
2. Super sore chest
3. Voice like a man or a frog, depending on the hour
4. Child in class out with severe bronchitis today

Any guesses?

Well, my guess was probably the same as yours, so I signed myself up for a doctor's appointment ASAP. (Which is rare for me...I'm definitely a tough-it-out-unless-I'm-dying kind of girl.) But since we're flying to Delaware for the weekend for a church interview, I figured I shouldn't give everyone the "gift that keeps on giving" when I shake their hands.

Turns out it's just an upper respiratory infection. (That shouldn't make me happy, but it really did!) Antibiotics are my magic pills.

So, okay, this is not really a funny quote, unless you count my kids asking me all day,
"Mrs. Erin, are you sick?" as I coughed and hacked my way through the day. I could have thought of a clever response, I'm sure, but the reaction time was just a wee bit slow today!

in the beginning...

Josh: "So, how attached are you to your socks?"

Me: "Ha ha! Um, I don't know, why?"

Josh: "Well....I accidentally vacuumed up one of them today."

sigh....

This is why I have a quote board now.....

Remember your freshman year in college when everyone had the ubiquitous dry erase board for writing down those things that seemed oh-so-funny at 3 am? "Ha ha! We're cool college students now...we have quote boards!"

So, my life seems like an entirely different existence from those first days living away from home. But somehow, I never have completely escaped the urge to write down the absurd, loony, or downright funny things I hear and read.

So here's a little window into the things in my day that make me laugh...and here's to extra socks. :)