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See? They're not untouched roots. I'm just being fashion forward....

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!

true

So...

Do you ever find yourself about to start a conversation with someone and then you remember that the thing you were going to discuss with them wasn't something you know because they told you, but, rather, something you learned from stalking them on various social networks? So then you can't talk to them about it, or you will out yourself as a stalker?

No?

Just me?

Ok....

So I really wanted to check out Occupy Philly and I finally got a chance to today (google it if you don't know about it, or it's predecessor Occupy Wall Street). My friend Becca was up for checking it out and we managed to make it down in time for their big march across town to the Liberty Bell. I was surprised by the crowd. Yes, there were dirty hippies. But there were also a ton of families marching with their kids. There were white people and black people and middle aged people and young people and really old people. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon.

Me and my marching buddy Becca. They had a big sign making area so we decided to make signs.

(yes, I'm wearing my teachers union shirt)

Bonus points if you recognize the movie Becca's sign is quoting. I recognized it right away, but only a few people on the march seemed to get it, including a random bicycle cop. As we were leaving the march at the end of the day and heading towards the subway, one of those open top tour buses passed us. The tour guide read Becca's sign to the group in a confused voice and we ended up having a ton of tourists peering down at us, gawking.

Lots of different causes were represented:

We marched across town to the Liberty Bell, where they had a brief rally and then we marched back.

I loved these two little toddlers waving their fists in the air, so I had to snap a picture.

This sign says "You know things are bad when toddlers start marching".

Snapshot of some of the march.

I liked this one. It was above a big pile of snacks. I don't know how clearly you can read the writing, but it informs you that snacks are a human right.

This sign was one of my favorites, and we didn't even see it at the protest. It was on a wall directly across the street from a Bank of America in Fishtown. How angry do you have to be to do this? (I don't know how clear it is, but the yellow sign says "I hate Bank of America".)

There was tons of press there. I got approached by one reporter, who wanted to talk to me about student debt. He wouldn't talk to him, but he said something to the effect of "I'm sure many of these protesters here are recent college graduates like yourself." I was flattered, but I had to assure him that I can no longer really be considered a recent college graduate. Here is a video from the local news:

Occupy Philly Marches To Liberty Bell: MyFoxPHILLY.com

And one of my friends posted this on Facebook, so I had to share.

Random updates

Long time, no blog.

Things have been crazy. September has been an incredibly pressured work month. My grad class is interesting but time consuming, and my parents have been traveling which always leaves me with a bit more to juggle. We've been trying to squeeze in soccer in between almost unrelenting rain. Things are well though in the household of the Undomestic Goddess.

We've been reading quite a bit together. His reading material is all boy.

Grandma and Grandpa have been in Hawaii (that's my mom in a hammock eating a banana). Isaac has been writing and drawing a lot and I am so enjoying it.

We found this cute 3 dollar candy dish at Target.

Made some potholders using this tutorial.

We pulled out our Halloween decorations. I had forgotten about this table runner that we got after the holiday last year on super clearance. Love it!

We are loving pumpkin flavored/scented EVERYTHING!

We tried a self frosting Nutella cupcake. We had high hopes but we both agreed that they were not that good. The Nutella part was yummy of course, but the cupcake part was kind of flavorless and had the texture of a kitchen sponge.

Isaac pointed these out to me when we were shopping. We decided to get them for his dad for Christmas. I'm terribly predictable. I get him Bob Marley something for every gift giving occasion.

Lots of lounging in front of the computer during Conference weekend.

His Michael Jackson obsession continues. The writing prompt at school was "I can...". In case you can't read it, he wrote "I can dance like Michael Jackson".

A coworker loaned me this for Isaac. He was unimpressed (they are songs from the 80s and 70s) but I found myself singing along long after he got out of the car.

Have a great week!

Rain, Indy Bands and Rollercoasters...

Yesterday I was lounging in bed trying to decide what to do with myself when I got a text from my friend Jami. She had been given two free tickets to Hershey Park and they expired today. She asked if I would come along and of course I agreed. She had to work that morning, so we didn't get on the road till around 3 and then when we got to Hershey we decided to eat dinner first before we went into the park. All we could find was Wendy's, which didn't end up sitting too well while we were in the park. Anyhow, we did the whole Chocolate World Experience and then hit the park. We only rode rollercoasters. It was a blast. I don't know if it was because it is so close to the end of the season, or because the morning had been so overcast and cloudy, but the park was pretty empty. We hardly had to wait in line for anything. We road several of the big rides and over and over, just cause we could. I hadn't been to the park since I went with my Girl Scout troop as a kid. It was a really fun evening.

On the way to and from my friend Jami was playing a live Indigo Girls cd. We are both big fans. When I went home I googled their tour on a whim and saw that they are playing in Philadelphia in a few weeks. Tickets were reasonably priced, so we bought some. I'm pretty excited. I've never been to the Keswick Theater, but I've heard good things.

Friday night I went to the Popped Music Festival, after scoring a half price ticket through Groupon. It got rained out of FDR Park and moved to the Liacorus Center at Temple. I was exhausted from a week of work, it was pouring rain, and I sat in traffic for an eternity to get down to the city and then somehow missed my brother's exit (he was watching Isaac for me). More than once I thought of throwing in the towel. It was worth it though. Even though Becky and I were older than the crowd of jeggings wearing plastic bespectacled hipsters, we still enjoyed ourselves. We got there in time for a decent band, The Hold Steady, then we heard one called Elbow, that I really liked. Next was a weird artist Panda Bear. They were pretty terrible. Then Cage the Elephant and they were awesome! After them The Shins were coming on, but I was so tired I peaced out before they came on. It was fun weekend.