It was all Yellow

So I'm sitting here suffering from a really bad allergy attack. Just when I think its going to end and the tickle in my nose stops its torture, it just starts right back up again with a single watery eye and very good reason to blow my nose. If I could just sneeze I think I would feel better, but its not that kind of allergy attack, its just teasing with me. ANYWAY. . . So I didn't want to shower and do my make up yet, because it would all come off the left side of my face so I thought I would wait it out by writing a blog post. I don't know what is going to make this episode end, its not like I've taken any medicine, I'm not that smart. ANYWAY. . .

Have you ever taken the color test? Red, white, blue, yellow??? Well I heard a presentation by this guy on Wednesday and it was great. And he said that no matter what, our core personality will never change. So I guess I was wrong that I used to be a yellow and now I think that I'm a red, and that I thought at some point in my childhood I was a white, but I know that I have never ever been a blue, because that means I would have to be super selfless, which I am not. Plus I've never been a worrier.

So in watching his presentation I have once again decided that I am a yellow personality that learned how to be assertive (he explained in his presentation that its the healthy thing to do as an adult yellow). A few things that helped me realize what I was:

• Yellows are motivated by fun. They try to incorporate fun into everyday. When people seemed to ME like they didn't have very meaningful lives (so nice of me to judge, I know) I could never understand why they didn't do more FUN things. Its what keeps me going through the hard times, looking forward to something fun in the future.
  

• Yellows wake up loving themselves every day for no good reason. Enough said.

• Yellows, like everyone else, carry around a trash can where they keep all of their insults and bad things that happen to them. The only difference is that yellows have a hole in the bottom and have a hard time getting upset. Okay, hold on before you start thinking of all the times I have gotten mad. I'm not perfect on this one! BUT it reminds me of how I smile when I'm upset with Adam and how I laugh when I yell at my classes for being bad. But yeah, I can hold a grudge too.

• Yellows are afraid to face the facts. I used to not open bills if I knew I couldn't pay for them. I DON'T KNOW WHY!!! Anyway, Adam pays the bills now.
  

• Now I'm going to make myself pretty and get some work done around the house. I kind of want to have a party tonight!!

We Couldn't Help It!!

We couldn't help but laugh, a lot, when we started singing There is Sunshine in my Soul Today at church. After all, there wasn't just sunshine in my soul, there was sunshine all over my BRIGHT red arms. I leaned over before the song began and said, "I think I've had enough sunshine for awhile." Which is totally NOT true. I just haven't had enough sunscreen in my life. Anyway we chuckled through the first verse (it wasn't very funny in the 2-4 verses. . . ) Probably our favorite is the line "That glows in any earthly sky" when Adam and I both looked at my "glowing" arms. So I'll take a break from the sun for a day or two and then I'll be cautious with my exposure. :)

I Try To Learn From The Best

I'm always looking for teachers examples that I can follow, tricks of the trade that they use that I can experiment with in my class. Today I was watching Willy Wonka and I thought the teacher was AWESOME! Here are two quotes that shows just what a great teacher he is:

"I've just decided to switch our Friday schedule to Monday, which means that the test we take each Friday on what we learned during the week will now take place on Monday before we've learned it. But since today is Tuesday, it doesn't matter in the slightest. Pencils ready!"

"Of course you don't know. You don't know because only I know. If you knew and I didn't know, then you'd be teaching me instead of me teaching you - and for a student to be teaching his teacher is presumptuous and rude. Do I make myself clear?"

PS I forgot this movie was a musical. . .

Sometimes A Little Rebellion Can Be Fun

It was summer of 2006. I had accepted a job teaching Interior Design, Child Development and Clothing at Bingham High School starting that fall. It was strongly encouraged that I attend Utah's Family and Consumer Science Summer Conference in Riverton Utah. I requested the time off from my retail position and made the 20 minute drive in my Toyota Pick-up (Which I need to take a moment to say that I miss it SO MUCH. There was just something about that truck that was so comfortable and made you feel . . . connected with the road, I guess).

Summer Conference is two days long and it was a difficult couple of days. It catapult me right into my adult life. No more being a kid. I was reminded of a quote from Raising Helen, where the niece is upset with her aunt, her new guardian. She screams, "Don't you remember what it was like to be young?!?!?" And Helen, the aunt, replies, "Of course I do! It was last Wednesday!!" All around me were reminders of adultness. Women in their 30s and 40s and 50s and so on. . . Women talking about students, about babies, about grandkids, about divorces. And all I could think was, I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE THESE WOMEN. Of course, once you get to know someone you'll end up loving them, and I know that now. I know a lot of these women and I do love them. Some of them are great role models, and some of them are dear friends, but at the time this is what I saw:
Crocheting
Knitting
Frumpy clothing
Quilting
Some of the most boring shoes you have ever seen in your LIFE
Basically I just got scared of growing up to be. . . boring.

So on day two of the conference I wore:
A rockin' white tank top with skulls
A little gray cardigan
Black yoga pants
Pink shoes with skulls (I had a theme going. . .)

I AM NOT GOING TO GROW UP TO BE BORING!!!!!

Now that I know that my story is my own and that I will end up according to how I live my life, I've toned down a bit. I still dress up to the nines when I attend this conference but I'm not quite so intense. Growing up can be hard, especially when it happens so quickly.

Forever

*Written on Sunday evening

After Adam finished his triathlon yesterday he laid down to rest while I went out to the swimming pool to enjoy the warmth I've missed all winter. While I was there I started chatting with some men in town for mountain biking. They were funny and teased me for stealing their pool chair, even though there were plenty to go around. They asked me questions like where I was from, what my husband did for work, how I liked teaching. . . basic stuff. They also asked how big of a family I had. It came up naturally in conversation, but I can't remember exactly how. I said, "I'm the oldest of 6 kids." So they went on to say how unfair it is when oldest children are expected to be a good example and the pressure can be too intense and how much oldest children are expected to help out with younger siblings. I admitted that it was true, I did help a lot with Kenny and Hannah, but that I didn't mind. It was a lot better than other things I could be doing as a teenager. But it got me thinking, people always assume that helping out with younger siblings is such a drag, but really if you love them it isn't so bad.

Then this morning as I got ready to head back home, packing up the hotel room and doing my hair, I got a song stuck in my head. I really have no idea where it came from, I hadn't thought of this song for a long time. It was a song from Pooh's Grand Adventure, I think its called Forever. Pooh is singing to Christopher Robin about how they are going to be friends forever. When I was a high school student, my younger siblings were on a different school schedule than me and so Andrew and Rob and Kellie would all be in school, but baby Kenny and I would not. We spent a lot of time watching Pooh's Grand Adventure and I remember writing down all the words of the song Forever. Then I would sing it to Kenny, pausing at smaller words and he would fill them in. It went a little like this:
Kim: Forever and ever is a very long time. . .
Kenny: . . . Pooh.
Forever isn't long at all when I'm with. . .
. . . you.
I wanna call your name
Forever
You will always answer
My name (the actual word was forever, but Kenny always got it wrong, which was actually cuter than getting it right)
And we will just be we, forever you and me, forever and. . .
Ever.

Maybe I didn't have an ordinary teenager experience. I think I had an extraordinary teenage experience. And I wouldn't change it for anything!

Well, today I'm glad I don't teach Spanish.

I'm procrastinating my lesson for church tomorrow. I started it, but got distracted by this, that and the other. This was checking my facebook. That was checking blogger. And the other was finding this button on my Mozilla web browser. The button said "Translate" and it was blue. And I had never seen it before. I clicked it and it said, This page has been automatically translated into English. Well it was my friend Tiffanie's blog (Love you Tiff!!) and so, duh, she WROTE it in English. Still, I was curious. So for some reason I selected French off the drop down list of languages. I don't speak French, so I couldn't tell if it was correct or not. So then I changed the language to Spanish. And wow!! It totally translates her whole blog (later I tried it on my own blog too!) into dang good Spanish. I mean, I haven't studied it for a LONG time, so maybe I'm incorrect about the accuracy, but it seemed pretty close to me! So write your paper for school into your blog. Translate it into Spanish. Or French. Or Hebrew for that matter. Its like Google's version of the easy button.

It's the little things

I don't write much about Adam in my blogs or on facebook. I don't talk about how I think he's the hottest guy I've ever met. I don't tell about all the cute things he says and does for me. I don't mention the phone calls and the text messages I get during the day. (That is to say, I try not to)

I don't want to brag.

So this is probably the only time you'll hear me say it. But the reason I bring it up to day is because I always wonder how I got so lucky. Before I dated Adam I never even dated someone I thought was as cool, as good looking and as totally compatible with me. I never knew it was possible to be so happy. But really, What did I do to deserve him?

Well after a year and a half of asking myself this question, today when I left the grocery store I realized the answer:

I always put the grocery cart in the cart return.

YEAH BABY! I knew someone was watching me take the high road. Even in the RAIN!