only comes once a year...

For all of the drama, 30 has been nothing short of awesome so far. This will be a little recap of the birthday funness I've had so far. I will be my traditional birthday year in review post at another time.

I started the celebrations the weekend before my birthday with a nice family dinner at the Hibachi. I wanted to do it on a weekend when Isaac would be with me. Our chef wasn't quite an animated as some I've seen, but it was delicious and yummy. They brought me out a little dish of icecream with a candle in it and everyone sang. We all started cracking up because as soon as we finished the last night Isaac promptly yanked the dish over to himself and started eating. In true Stephenson tradition, we didn't take any pictures. Afterwards we came back to my place for cheesecake and Dad helped me fix my vacuum cleaner.

I had a long day/night of parent-teacher conferences on my actual birthday. I did have a nice birthday dinner at Applebees with a group of my coworkers. My fabulous classroom assistant Sheree bought this cake (which was delicious!):

When I got home my mom surprised me with super cute placemats. They match the kooky chefs in frames on my wall.

This weekend I had the best birthday ever with my girlfriends. We went to Becca's in Fishtown and had a Stampin' Up rep come and help us make this adorable card:

The party decor was so fun. Becca made me this great banner:

The plates somehow managed to combine my favorite things, pink and animal print:

One of my favorite parts of the party was when Becca's husband Steve brought over a homemade Nutella panini. I order one of these at this great place in the city Tria every year for my birthday. We didn't go there this year, but they still brought me one, complete with a tea light on top.

They gave me some really thoughtful presents, including an awesome Wii game, one of those karaoke ones with the microphone.

(It should also be noted, that I received some *ahem* less thoughtful presents... anyone who knows me knows how I feel about bananas...) The evening ended with a trip to the piano bar where I sang "Part of Your World" from the Little Mermaid. =) So, so far 30 has been pretty great.

keeping pace

Hey, happy fall y'all!

My parents came down yesterday to watch Isaac's soccer game and then we had a nice lunch at Friendly's. It was a perfect crisp, cool, autumn day to watch some clueless little kids kick a soccer ball around. Isaac ended up delaying the whole game because he decided to swing on the goalpost and then his cleat got all tangled up in the net. He has turned into a little bit of a showboat too, trash talking a little bit and excessively celebrating after he scores a goal. I'm trying to nip that in the bud. Two of our games at the beginning of the season got rained out and they added them back on to the end of the season, which makes it feel like soccer will never end. Don't get me wrong-- I love soccer but I'm ready to not have a commitment every Saturday and Wednesday night and to get Isaac back on his regular weekend schedule with his dad.

We had debated trying to make it into the city the for the Freedom March yesterday but we just didn't have enough time. In the evening we went to a cornmaze with some people from church. Isaac has a great time. Tromping around miles and miles of corn is not exactly my favorite way to pass time, but the kids had a lot of fun. We got home around 9 and by 10 I was nodding off. I guess my body really is slowing down now that I'm older. I feel like I can barely hang after 11, which is so disappointing. Pretty lame. Oh well.

Maybe I am still recovering from Tuesday night when my friend Jami and I went to see the Indigo Girls. When we went to Hershey Park a few weeks ago, we listened to their live album the whole time. We talked about how we would both like to see them in concert, if they were even still touring. When I got home I got online and discovered not only were they still touring, but they would be in Philly in just two weeks. My parents bought my ticket as an early birthday present. We had a great time mixing and mingling with a crowd of mostly butchy middle aged lesbians (let's just say, there was a TON of flannel being worn that night). I think going out on a weeknight just through me all off though, and I feel like I still can't recover. #lame

Today we did church. Last week the Bishop came into our YSA Sunday School class and read a letter that said at Stake Conference in a few weeks they will be officially organizing a YSA branch in our stake. Therefore, our YSA activities and Sunday School will be discontinued. I had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I am about to age out of the YSA program anyways, and even though I could technically attend for another year or so, I had planned to officially call it quits when I turn 30 in a few weeks. I'm ready for that phase of my life to be through. On the other hand, this means I won't have a calling any more teaching the Sunday School class and coordinating activities, leaving me open for a dreaded primary calling (I'm telling you, with as many kids in our ward as we have on the spectrum, I still don't understand how I've escaped being put in there for as long as I have).

Anyways, after this whole thing went down, I filled in as a RS teacher. My lesson went okay (I mean, you can't make family history that relevant or interesting) but they must have been happy with it, because then they asked me be a substitute teacher next week for a teaching for our times lesson (on this talk, which I'm actually pretty excited about).

Apparently someone has an insane level of confidence in me, because today they pulled me out and asked if I would officially accept a calling as a RS teacher. The bishopric counselor acknowledged that lessons in RS lately have been "controversial" (I may or may not have audibly snorted at that one) and encouraged me to remember that there are sisters from our ward from all walks of life: recent converts, people who have grown up in Utah, people who have not grown up in Utah, people in our ward who were very liberal politically and people who are extremely conservative and it's important to be sensitive if a lesson topic could be controversial. Of course, I agreed to that. (I guess my violent rant to our RS president following a comment that Michele Bachmann was a great political candidate for LDS people to vote for must have been passed along. Two weeks later she announced that there was to be NO political discussion in RS, which is A-OK with me). So anyways, I guess that's what I get for complaining about the lessons and discussion. Now I'm in charge of them once a month.

What else? Work... has been exhausting. Another year with two students with really challenging behaviors that monopolize all of my time and stress out the whole team. It's been the same story every year since I started, just insert a different kid. I don't know how much more I can do it, honestly. The other day I found myself fantasizing about starting a whole new career, which is pretty terrifying. It's insane to think that I am so disgruntled with public ed, when I haven't even made a dent in paying off all of the loans I took out to become qualified to do it. I'm just trying to take it a day at a time and I'm reminding myself that I am taking the steps I need to become more qualified and eventually relocate to a district with more resources but it still sucks. I've always said that if I had to work 40 hours a week (or whatever) that I at least wanted to be doing something that makes a difference. Right now I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels...

My place is finally decorated for Halloween. I found this great subway art (I print her stuff out for almost every holiday and season for supereasy decor). Usually I print it out in 8 by 10 but I happened to have a 16 by 20 inch frame in the closet that I wasn't using. I think it looks great. I had it printed out at Costco for about 6 bucks.

Anyways, I should get up off the coach and get ready for the week. Have a great one guys!

help!

Anyone out there use twitter and can help me understand it? It makes me feel so old that I am baffled by it.

We're old...

I was out for a birthday dinner with some friends last night. We ended up in a rather long conversation about ketchup.

"Gosh, we're so old, all being so into a conversation about ketchup" - Friend 1

All make agreeing noises and nod their heads.

"Let's talk about things young people like to talk about" - me

"Good idea" - Friend 2

"Um............ what do young people like to talk about?" Friend 3

*Very long silent pause*

".....Lady Gaga????" -- Friend 1