Blessed

It has been a good week.








A really good week.

A good week of epic proportions.





Seriously.






I have been blessed. A lot.






Monday, this sweet little niece came to visit me. So did this one. I love this one.

It was so very kind of my brother and sister-in-law to give me such adorable and entertaining niblets. They make everything so much more fun!

And the week only got better from there.

President Sagers gave me a new group of mission prep-ers to tell my mission stories to.

This sweet family gave me two sacks of the most delicious vegetables I have eaten all summer.

And my most favoritest Burley cousins gifted me with the most beautiful washer and dryer I have ever laid eyes on. They hauled them over to my house, carried them up my stairs, and hooked them up in my kitchen, helping my laundry hookups to fulfill the measure of their creation for the first time since I moved in five years ago.

Kristi was kind enough to supervise the whole operation. She is always so good about letting me and everyone else in this town borrow her parents. I think she should consider charging some sort of usage fee, or maybe setting up some kind of rent schedule. Of course, she is too Christ-like to even consider that, but I thought I would throw the idea out there.

Seriously Kristi, you could make a haul!

Words cannot describe how happy and excited and grateful and appreciative and loved and thankful and indebted and overwhelmed and flabbergasted and touched I feel by their generosity. I know my mother will sleep better at night knowing that I am not frequenting the laundromat. I'll sleep better too... on my couch in the evenings while my my chalk-dust-saturated clothes enter the spin cycle in my kitchen.

Aren't they beautiful? Thank you, Joneses! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise I will take very good care of them. I will even give these wonderful machines a nice little vacation each year...

...right around rodeo season. I'm sure the washer and dryer will have earned a break by then. And I would hate for all of those visiting rodeo cowboys to be lonely as they separate their whites from their colors. As the recipient of so many charitable acts this week, I feel like it is my duty step up and increase my charitable out-put as well.

And although my heart is always full of charity for rodeo cowboys, I think saving time and money by avoiding the Laundromat is going to increase my love for the rest of mankind.

In fact, my first load of white just came out of the dryer and I am feeling more kind and compassionate all ready!

Miss H and the Long Weekend

I got a new short hair cut Thursday, so I decided to celebrate by having a long weekend.

Since my plans for world domination haven't progressed to the point where I can declare a national holiday to celebrate my personal style decisions, its a good thing Labor Day was already on the calendar. School has been in session for about a week and a half now, so when the bell rang on Friday, the hallways looked more than a little like this...

Long weekends usually mean trips to the big cities to visit family, but this weekend I decided to stay home and get some much needed rest. Not that it isn't restful to wake up at 7 a.m. with these little guys three inches from my face...
...but my return to the 5 a.m. exercise scene left me in need of some serious down time.

Since I wouldn't be visiting any of my family members and/or their laundry rooms, my weekend kicked off with a trip to my favorite laundromat. For more information about why I enjoy this particular laundromat, click here.
Normally I use my laundry time to grade papers or ogle rodeo cowboys but this weekend I had other things on my mind. Just previous to this laundry stop, I had a meeting with my stake president (a former rodeo cowboy himself). I thought the meeting was going to be about my lack of somberness while teaching Sunday school, but it turned out to be about making my busy life even busier, but in a good way. So I spent laundry time preparing for my new calling (a calling that I'm sure will provide plenty of blogging material, so stay tuned). One of my favorite weekend activities is grocery shopping. I know that usually isn't considered an "exciting" activity, but for me going to Walmart is like walking the red carpet at a Hollywood event. I always end up seeing at least a few of my students who all react in the same way...

1st- Shock. "Miss H? You're at Walmart?" They say it with the same inflection someone might use when they notice a lion has escaped from the zoo. (I remember how weird it was for me to see my teachers at the store when I was younger. It just seemed wrong to see them in any context that wasn't school)

2nd- Excitement. "Mom! Look! It's Miss H!" This is the part where my self esteem shoots up because I spend the next five minutes shaking hands with parents and listening to the my kidlet tell his or her younger siblings about how "cool" English is.

3rd- Pride in having thier teacher recognize them and interact with them. "See mom, I told you she likes to be called Mrs. Diesel!" I love listening to the comments they make as I'm walking away and they think I don't hear them. As long as I live in a small town with a Walmart I will never need Prozac.

My weekend schedule also always includes prep time for my Sunday school lesson. This week's lesson includes the chapters about Helaman's stripling warriors.
Because of the temple dedication, we didn't have meetings last Sunday. That means we have to cover two lessons this week to get back on track. To help the class cover all the information (and to help me stay on task) I made yet another Delightful Learning Experience that includes a section on how to be "Latter-day Warriors/Warrior Princesses". And since I made it through a whole interview with the stake president without once being chastised for my teaching style, I think our Sunday school class is going to have a pretty darn good time tomorrow.
One of my other much-looked-forward-to weekend activities is cooking. Real, honest to goodness, time consuming, sink full of dishes producing cooking is one of the few activities that allows me to turn off the blog narration that is usually bouncing around in my brain...and replaces it with a perky Rachel Ray-esque food network narration. Should I be concerned with the amount of dialogue that goes on in my head? Don't worry about answering that. I'll just ask my self about it later.
Tonight a made a pot of my favorite soup...a knock-off recipe of a spicy potato, sausage, and kale soup that I always order when I go to a certain restaurant that's name prominently features the word "Olive". I refuse to give the full name of the restaurant without being paid for my advertising services. A whole, like, ten people read this blog, so the folks at "*** Olive ******" should really take advantage of this advertising opportunity. Weekends are also nice because I (usually) have time to enjoy my food instead of scarfing it down on my way to a meeting or activity.
A less fun Miss H weekend activity is grading papers. With somewhere around 160 students this semester and only one preparation period every other day, I am going to be doing a lot of grading at home...and at FHE...and at institute...and in my car at stop lights.
So the smart thing to do this weekend would have been grade until I ran out of papers or my red pen ran out of ink. Too bad I'm not smart. I guess I could always do a little bit of grading after I read a few chapters...

Or not.

I guess its a good thing this is a three day weekend. Maybe I'll get something productive done Monday...but I wouldn't bet on it.

Home Sweet Home, Part I

My friend Elizabeth decided it was time to sell her cute little old house (I think the earthquake that shook apart her water heater and flooded her basement had something to do with that decision) so she has been looking at new homes here in town. This is one that she found last week. I liked walking through the house (it still had the 'new car', uh, I mean 'new house' smell that temporarily disables the part of a purchaser's brain that controls rational thought) but when we hit the kitchen, (stone counter tops and a dishwasher that isn't me!!!) I flashed back to when I first saw the apartment that would become my home.

A few days after I was hired by my cute little school in this cute little town (back when gas prices were low and Bush's approval rating was high, as opposed to now when the opposite is true), my parents and I drove over to look at apartments. I had only printed out a few addresses to investigate, but that worked out great because I fell in love with the first apartment we looked at. The first room I saw was the kitchen (through the open blinds on the back door) so I thought that would be a good place to start on this online profile of my happy home.

The first thing I loved about this apartment was the light. I have fallen in love with various and sundry features of my little abode since then, but the huge amount of natural light is still my favorite. I put my computer on the kitchen table near the window so I can enjoy it (and because that is one of the best spots for picking up the *free* Internet signal)There used to be on old desk with an even older computer against this wall, but Monday I had a "Gilmore Girl" pink hammer moment and ripped it apart so this little bookcase I inherited from my parents could move in. This is where the washer and dryer that I don't have are supposed to go. As soon as the laundromat owner guy stops giving me free soda, doughnuts, and quarters I will start looking into getting my own laundry stuff.
Of course, even if I do get my own washer and dryer, I will probably still frequent the laundromat during rodeo season. There is just something about the sight of a wandering cowboy separating his whites and colors that makes me so very, very happy.
I love to cook, so I spend a lot of time in here. Of course, now that my computer (He is an Acer computer, so I named him "Speed". Get it? "Speed Acer"? The 7th graders thought that was genius, which is why my personality will never develop past the junior high level) is so happy on the south end of my table, I will be spending even more time here.
Nothing counteracts new-house-smell induced moving mania like a clean, comfortable kitchen with *free* Internet access. Ahhhhhh...Home sweet home. oh, and speaking of sighs of contentment, I had better start rounding up some dirty laundry. Rodeo season is just around the corner.

Yeee haww!!!