a blended life

You know, I can't stand January. I think it's the worst month of the year. Or at least I've felt that way as long as I've lived in Utah. There's a completely ridiculous weather pattern that we lovingly refer to as 'inversions', which is a kind word for all the cold air gets trapped in the valleys where everyone lives--and we get to breathe in toxic levels of air pollution and not see the sun for weeks on end. The amount of snowfall is astronomical and is proportionate to the amount of daydreaming I do about faraway beaches. Good news, February starts in two hours, and as the second worst month of the year, this is already looking promising. A few bits of uninteresting info: *Hannah has had the flu for 7 days. She now at the stage of coughing so hard that she throws up. *Teaching is still going well. It surprises me how much I like it. *Leah has a boyfriend named Stetson. She got in trouble for the first time in her entire school career the other d...

My life has been officially taken over by high school math. I really like the school I work at and my cooperating teacher is amazing. She is teaching me a new language, Teenagese. For example, she introduces me as, "Carrie, my student teacher, who is the bomb-diggity." I finally said to her, "You know, I don't even know what that means." I'm learning. However, I can't believe someone is letting me teach high school math. Not only that, but the working full time and being in over my head in lessons plans is running my life. Every question I get asked has only one answer: Because I'm a student teacher right now. In fact, here is a list of questions that can be answered with because I'm student teaching : Why do I come home and stare out the window in a trance for an hour after school? Why would anyone normal actually choose to leave the house at 7:15 am when the temperature is 3 degrees? Why have you lost 5 lbs this month? Why don't you...

There is no natural segue from the last post about my dating adventures to this awesome topic. Let's just say that the fun is over and I've had to seriously switch gears into school again. Plus it's snowed about 156" this week and my mood is looking like inversion gray right now. Estoy de mal humor! I've started about 3 different posts about student teaching and none of them were worth posting. I think part of it is that now I've crossed this boundary into being a teacher instead of being an outsider, so I have to really watch what I say. And we all know how good/bad I am at watching what I say and being tactful. So, I won't mention the student who looks and acts exactly like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And I won't mention the heated discussion I got into with someone about serving missions. ONLY IN UTAH DOES THIS HAPPEN, PEOPLE. And I won't tell you how many times a student asked me this week if I like Metallica. And how many times I c...

I promised all of you faithful, loyal friends that I would let you know if I had a date that was worth mentioning. I had a date. And now I can't think of anything else to say about it without being confusing and awkward. He came over a weekend while the girls were with their dad, so we had a lot of time to just have some FUN--one of those touchy subjects that hasn't happened much in the past few years.  There was some of this: A bit o' this: (Wow--tiny picture. Sorry, Benedict Cumberbatch.) An afternoon of snow/crashing at Sundance: A tad of freezing lights: And some calories: And nearly an exact replica of this: I'm tempted to leave it at this and let you have lots of unanswered questions. Give you all something to gossip about.

This year wins for fewest number of pictures I've ever taken on Christmas. I don't really have an explanation for that so I won't bore you with pontifications.  We always have a buffet on Christmas Eve (I've mentioned this several times, so my faithful readers already know). It's the most random selection of food with no cohesiveness--everyone picks whatever they're craving at the moment. Translate: Carb loading.  Karina was so beyond hungry she stopped smiling. Or maybe she was frustrated at me for taking a picture of her? Or both? I told the girls we would open one present on Christmas Eve as long as it was a game we could play together. They opened this Lego Hobbit game. Translate: Jacob and I spend an hour putting together a lego version of the Shire while the girls lose interest and move on to something else. Karina sleeps in the background with some really fabulous socks. Hannah was up at 5:30 am. The rule has always been t...