Most little girls dream at one time or another of meeting a handsome prince and becoming a princess. I had my fair share of those dreams when I was a child. So, when I was a teenager, and the beautiful Lady Diana married the handsome(?) Prince Charles, I set my alarm and got up in the wee hours of the morning to watch the wedding on television along with the rest of the world. Then she had two little princes and her life did seem to be the stuff of fairytales. One day she would be queen. But, life is not a fairytale and the beautiful princess had sadness behind her lovely eyes. She and the handsome(?) prince got a divorce and it seemed she had finally found what may have been Mr. Right. But just when it looked like she might find happiness, her life was cut short. I remember the night she died. My mother called me and told me. I was so shocked and sad. All I could think about was that beautiful young princess and her fairytale wedding I'd watched so many years ago. Five years ago, she died. I can see in her sons that her influence is greatly missed. There are no fairytales. Only reality. Life and death. Lives are cut short all the time, but it seemed a sparkle went out of the world when she left it.

Oh do I need this three day weekend! Four weeks of school have been survived, including Open House and a problem with a set of parents. So, 9 more months to go! I like my kids though. I gave them the sad story of how I can't eat chocolate. One of them had a birthday today and she brought chocolate chip cookies to share. But, for her teacher? She brought sugar cookies. :) Kids are cool. They actually listen to you when you tell them things. Oftentimes much better than grownups do. I like my class. Did I say that? Well, I really do. There's not a one of them I don't like. Some of them irritate me at times, but I like 'em all. :)

Last night I made my bold prediction…there will be no strike. And of course there wasn't. Now the Diamondbacks can get back to the business of repeating as World Champions. Woohoo!

Dearest friend,

You sang so beautifully today at your grandmother's funeral. I know that your voice was lifted to her where she is smiling down upon you. The strength you showed comes from her, but you already knew that. I just wanted you to know how much I love you and how glad I am to have you for a friend. Thank you for wanting Mike and I be a part of it.

Karin

Well, it's finally Friday and none too soon. What a long week. At least it's a three day weekend, so I can recover a bit. I really need it. And even better, it's payday! And even better, it's Day 2 on the 6 day schedule which for 2nd grade means 2, count 'em TWO specials (i.e. Library and P.E.), which in my case are one right after the other, so I basically get an hour free in a row, although I have to pick them up from one and deliver them to the other. Yippee!!!!

Installed Jaguar (system 10.2) last night. So far, it's pretty nifty, although I haven't had the chance to really explore too much. The new Sherlock is extremely cool…it has a movie listing thing where you look for the movie, the theatre, and it even has the trailer pop up right there in the Sherlock window. How rad is that? You can also (from Sherlock) track flights, go straight to eBay auctions and a few other cool things. (Not that I need to go to eBay auctions often, but it's kind of cool!)

When your week starts off on Monday with a 13 hour day and then on Tuesday you have work-related issues, it sometimes seems as though the weekend cannot get here soon enough, especially since this happens to be a three-day weekend. It is definitely a needed break from the norm. We are now about a month into school, and things have settled in. I really like my class this year as a whole. They are neat kids. As individuals, I liked my kids last year. As a class, they drove me batty. My class last year was much higher overall than my class this year, but the chemistry in this class is much better. So, you give a little, you take a little I guess. I think it will be a great year if the high maintenance parents don't drive me nuts. Luckily, to me it's the kids that are the thing that I need to focus on…not the parents. So there. :)

Hurry up weekend…get here!

God save me from high-maintenance parents.

Okay, I'm not going into details because it would be sort of unprofessional, but hopefully the fire has been put out by now. However, to have myself described as “cold” and “unapproachable” is a little strange. I can't imagine anyone ever thinking that of me….well, I could go off here, but I will refrain. Suffice it to say that people need to deal with the people who they have a problem with first before going over their heads, especially when the person may have NO CLUE there is a problem. Aaarrgghhh….

Today = irritating, somewhat stressful, but also somewhat interesting day.

At least I know the administration is supportive of me, and that cannot (unfortunately) always be said.

As we say in the biz, one hurdle down, two to go…that is, we survived Open House, now all we have left to survive are parent/teacher conferences in the fall and spring. It's not that we don't like parents, it's that we are used to dealing with kiddos and parents tend to stress us out. With the kids, we can totally be ourselves, and with the parents, we have to be “professional teachers.” I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but I'm tired, so it probably doesn't. Anyway, I survived, and I'll try and write more later. It seemed to go well, and that is a good thing. But alas, now I must go back to work a mere 10 hours later…ugh.

I am stealing Enjelani's title. Hopefully she won't mind!

She wrote a very interesting post on uncertainty, and I commented on it just tonight.

I have always hated uncertainty myself. I don't like not knowing what other people I care about are thinking or feeling, and I tend to overquestion them to get to the “bottom” of how they feel. This can drive people crazy I know. I over-analyze everything. And I worry myself sick sometimes over things that I have no control over. If I don't hear from someone for awhile, I come up with all kinds of scenarios in my mind about how they're mad at me or they're not going to talk to me anymore, etc. etc. when it could be as simple as they were just really busy and nothing more. But, still I drive myself crazy with my overactive imagination.

And yet, given the opportunity to look into the future and know exactly how my life will work out and have no uncertainty whatsoever, I don't think I'd take it. Why? Well, because while uncertainty may be my enemy, hope is my friend, my ally. Just as I'm coming up with every negative scenario in my imagination, I'm also coming up with every positive one. And if I had to give up hope to lose uncertainty, I don't think I'd make the sacrifice. So, in some ways, I suppose, uncertainty can be a positive thing, because at least it allows you hope. And hope, to me, is the most important thing I can cling to. With hope, there is always the possibility of a happy ending. Without it - what would be the reason to keep on trying if you knew it would do no good?

So much going on in my head lately…but most of it is not anything I really want to share here. Nothing against all of you, but some things, I guess, are just too personal to write down for the world to see.

I have so much churning in my brain. So many things to deal with right now. Good? Bad? I don't know. Maybe a little of both. But most of it my own making, I suppose. Typical. Get myself into situations, and then have a hell of a time trying to figure out how to resolve them. So life goes.

I feel like I've been very high-maintenance of late. Maybe it's just me that feels that way. But I feel like I've been too clingy and too willing to dump my problems on others instead of just deal with them. So, if any of you are resentful of that, please forgive me.

Maybe I'm just really feeling sorry for myself because I'm sick. That always seems to happen. So now the lovely virus has worked it's way from my throat to my head and finally settled in my chest. At least I can breathe, right? And the Kleenex use has gone way down, so now maybe my nose can recover. Ugh. I hate hate hate being sick. I am not a good patient. In that aspect, I do not take after my mother. The nurses in the hospital and the care center loved her because she was so good and sweet. Whenever I've been in the hospital, I drive the nurses crazy because I question everything. Why are you giving me those pills? What are they for? Why do I need them? What are the side effects? And so on. But you know, sometimes that's a good thing. Usually they are pretty patient with me. But I think they are always as happy to see me go as I am to leave.

Tomorrow…Open House. Pray for me. :)

Weird…I just now realized that today would have been my parents 47th wedding anniversary. I don't guess there's really much more to say than sometimes I wonder how my mom put up with my dad for all those years…heh. She was a saint I tell you!

Well, I got another reminder this weekend of one of the reasons I don't like teaching…

I was supposed to have a nice weekend. Mike had a rare Friday night off and we were going to dinner and a movie. Then today I was supposed to see another movie with Marlene, but oh nooooo…..Thursday afternoon out of the blue I get a sore throat and I feel like absolute crap all day on Friday. I was glad to get through the day. So instead of a nice relaxing weekend doing fun things, I'm sitting here resting in a chair watching hours upon hours of the Food Network. (Iron Chef is really addicting.) I've also already gone through a box of Kleenex I think. :P bleh…drippy runny nose…stuffy head…I feel rotten. I can only hope that I will recover by Monday since it is Open House. Yippee.

Darling little children. They have germs!!!! I thought working out and eating healthy was supposed to keep me well! Hrmph.

The one good thing about this weekend? Marlene scored us awesome seats to the Amy Grant concert in October. Yay!

Moonpuddle and eric took the quiz, so I thought I would too, but alas, it appears I'm not a geek. Have I failed you guys????

You are 17% geek

OK, so maybe you ain't a geek. You do, at least, show a bit of interest in the world around you. Either that, or you have enough of a sense of humor to pick some of the sillier answers on the test. Regardless, you're probably a pretty nifty, well-rounded person who gets along fine with people and can chat with just about anyone without fear of looking stupid or foolish or overly concerned with minutiae. God, I hate you.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Hello, my name is Karin, and I'm a shopaholic. Yes, well, shopping for clothes hasn't been fun in a long time. It is now very fun. Too fun. Way way too fun. Ack! Oh well. It's only money right? ;-)

Well, maybe not, but there is just not a lot going on right now, so I haven't had much to say, but since at least one person wants to read it, I'll try and say something clever. ;-)

It appears that another one of my friends is pregnant. How many does this make since I started trying to get pregnant? So many that I have lost count. But, I am just going to smile and say…ahhhh…but I'm THIN! You guys will not be able to see your toes for the next few months…HA! I am really enjoying being thin again, so that makes it a little (maybe even a lot less painful) than it could be. THIN THIN THIN….pffftttt :p

On that same topic (since there doesn't really seem to be anything else going on in my life right this moment), I have been working out every day and pushing my number of ab crunches up 5 each night. Tonight I hit the goal I set for myself: drum roll please……..ONE HUNDRED!!!!! Yes, it is true. I did 100 ab crunches all in a row. And I have a witness. Mike was standing right there watching me, so there. Now I think I will stay at 100 for awhile and see what happens. And let me tell you, it's all in the mind. I pushed myself hard and I accomplished it. It amazes me what I can do these days. So much energy. Someone at work told me that I look “radiant” these days. I like that adjective. I feel that way!

In other news, tomorrow I'm going to Mervyn's after school, since they are having a blowout sale. My latest goal is to not wear the same outfit more than once for the whole first month of school. Silly? Yes, but fun! I used to have so many clothes, and it's fun to buy clothes again! Yay!

Okay, that's all I really have to say since nothing exciting seems to be going on in my life but losing weight/inches/whatever. Hump Day is over, here comes the weekend in sight, baybee!!!