With Everything On My Plate, Why Am I Not Hungry?

I have a LOT going on in the next few weeks: Easter egg dying, student birthday party, Easter egg hunt, Easter traveling (which means Easter packing), hair appointment, nephews birthday, grandma's birthday, personal day in Kansas City (which means planning for personal day, and personal day packing) Mother's Day weekend plans (which means MORE packing) Elementary School Field Day Fiascos, district fiascos in general, music concert practice, music concert, class play, class awards and assembly, field trip, last day of school, packing my classroom for the move...

With all that going on - and more will be added I'm sure- I feel restless and almost bored. Yes, there's tons of stress going on in my life right now. I have many things I'm worried about, most of which I can't share with you quite yet. No, I'm not completely caught up on my work and organized for what's going to happen. I feel more and more behind everyday.

With everything going on, why am I feeling so gosh darn blah?

I try not to use my blog as a venting tool, and I usually focus on the positives in life, and I'm sorry that this post is teetering on the negative side of things. Please don't disregard my blog, I'm sure I'll be much more Resplendent :) mood next time.

On a happier-more fun-note, I have a new poll at the top of my page so please vote for your favorite part of Easter.

Results from the last poll: 5 people chose Thunderstorms as their favorite part of Spring and 1 person chose blooming flowers.

New Design, New Poll

It's Spring, and along with the cleaning comes the rearranging. I rearranged my blog and tried to make it feel cleaner and more Spring-like. I added a weekly poll at the top of the page. So be sure to vote for your favorite thing about Spring!

Here to Receive The World's Best Aunt Award... ME!

To be honest, I wasn't exactly looking forward to babysitting my nephew this weekend.  It's my sister and her husband's 5th anniversary and they're celebrating with a weekend away and they asked me to watch their 4 year old son Quinlin.

I left right after school and made it to Kinsley a little after 5 just in time to get some instructions and let the parents head out the door for a massage. It was a good trial run and we had fun playing soccer outside and when mom and dad got home we ate pizza and watched some TV together.

This morning, mom and dad left and now it's Q and I until tomorrow afternoon. Today I spent the day walking up and down the alley while he rode his four-wheeler making about every single dog in Kinsley bark for about 30 minutes. We then rode our bikes around the block (because we didn't wan't to get lost) before heading to the park. We found the park pretty much by luck and Q had a great time playing with preschool classmate Casen (rhymes with Jason and a very cool name) before we had to make a quick trip home to bandage a bleeding wound. We patched it up and then went back to the park and played with a cute little fellow by the name of Sam.

My favorite part of the evening was getting ready for dinner. I had plans to make chicken & rice casserole, but Q wasn't too sure about it. Chicken looks and tastes like snakes and rice looks like baby worms. Appetizing, right? Fortunately he changed his mind and decided that it "actually tastes good!" In fact his direct quote was, "The next time you come here you have to make this."Basically I scored the Best Aunt of the Year Award.

Bed time was smooth sailing. After an ice cream cone and an obscene amount toothpaste he went to bed by 8:30 and he's completely conked out right now. I'm glad he's worn out, I'm hoping it means I won't have to wake up at 7 tomorrow morning.

Letter To March

Dear March,

You are a crazy month. Of course I never mind the snow, even during Spring Break, and the strange hail/rain storm the other day, even the chilly fog and the light covering of ice on my windshield this morning was fine. In fact, I don't have any complaints about you weather-wise. Keep up the good work and don't let global warming get you down.

I do however wonder if you could somehow make it possible to keep my work load simple. Not that I don't want to work, just the craziness of spring makes my life so busy. So many things seem to pile on the last 9 weeks of school, and we still have 8 more to go. Between assessments and field trips and meetings and field days and requisition forms and cleaning and babysitting and teaching and everything else that just hasn't appeared on my calendar yet, I'm exhausted.

March, please don't take this letter personally, as a month I like you and I'm sure we can continue our friendly relationship. You may pass this message on to April and May if you please. I'll contact June and July if I need to.

Yours truly,
Rebecca

Abandon Kansas Take 2

For the second (school) night in a row I rocked my socks off to the amazing sounds of Swimming With Dolphins and Abandon Kansas. This time in Hays, KS. It was the same show as Tuesdays in Wichita, but the energy was even more amazing. Both groups seemed to be more comfortable with their sets and more in the "tour-mode" than before. I only wish I could be traveling to Boulder, Colorado with them again tonight. It made me wish I was on Spring Break this week.

Some pictures from last night.

Swimming With Dolphins

Abandon Kansas

This is possibly my favorite picture of the night, I just wish it wasn't so blurry.

Abandon Kansas Take 1

Yesterday I drove to Wichita, KS to see Abandon Kansas kick off their new Ad Astra Per Aspera at Gracepoint Church.

My day started a little shakily because we got about 6 inches of snow during the night, and I wasn't sure if I was going to able to make the drive. After I learned that we were about the only county in Kansas to have a large amount of snow that actually stuck to the ground and the roads were clear, I started getting ready to go.

I left quite a bit earlier that originally planned, and therefore made it to the church quite a bit early. As I was waiting for my friends to come & for the doors to open I browsed through the band's merch. I almost broke down and bought a mustache... I still haven't given up on that thought completely. :)

When the doors opened we joined the rush and stood up close to the stage. The first band to start the show was Swimming With Dolphins. I've never heard them before but I definitely enjoyed their music. They were hilarious and definitely entertaining. I didn't get a chance to check our their merch last night, but I'll be doing so tonight, and I'm waiting for their new album coming out in May.

The reason I drove for seven hours in one day, on a school night: Abandon Kansas.

Basically, the show started off AMAZING. I'm not going to give anything away in case you're going to check the show out, but I was so not prepared to the huge amount of intensity and it carried on through the whole show. The set was great and the music inspiring. The guys played a great mixture of new and old songs and shared some convicting thoughts on Compassion International. I couldn't believe, after talking with lead-singer Jeremy after the show, they played 13 songs. I could have stayed to dance and sing to 13 more.

My night ended early because I had to drive home, and I'm currently at school, teaching kiddos how to write paragraphs and sipping on a Red Bull (of course it's poured into a Solo cup - I can't encourage energy drinks for breakfast) and sneaking Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. I'm going to try to sneak in a nap after school this afternoon and get ready to party with all the guys (and girls) tonight in Hays. Hope to see you there!

 

Sieze The Day

I was challenged to take a picture of every hour of my day on February 28th. I can't say that I succeeded in taking one every hour, but I did get some throughout the day. I hope you enjoy them.

7:30 a.m.

I start every morning at school by logging on to bloglovin'. It is always fun to see what's going on in everyone's lives.

9:05 a.m.

This is my desk at school. I've been grading, but obviously things are still a mess.

12:00 p.m.

After lunch the kiddos played some file folders games. There are two students playing "Monkey Multiplication."

11:00 p.m.

Bonnie and I stayed up all evening making posters for Alyssa's Sub-State game. We had matching T-Shirts too.

It paid off- Alyssa was completely embarrassed and her team won a tough game beating Lacrosse by 7 points. And she got a black eye.

2:00 a.m.

I finally made it to bed and Willoughby curled up under my blanket to sleep with me.