Sweet!

When you hear the word "sweet," what kinds of things do you think of?  Kisses maybe?  Or candy?  Maybe your best mate or your roomie?  What about pie?  Well yes...pie is sweet but what about pi?  Pi as in 3.14, do you normally think of that as sweet?  If you're anything like me (a bit of a math-a-phobic person really) the answer is probably no... 

...until now that is.  You simply must hear this to believe.  The sound of Pi is actually quite sweet.  As someone on a friend's Facebook feed so eloquently put it, "MIND = BLOWN!!!!!!!! Its like math just exploded into song!!!!!"  I couldn't agree with that more and so, without further ado, I'll leave you with this:

   







   



          
          

42 Days...

...until I GRADUATE!!!  I know not everyone will understand but this is HUGE for me.  This is a lifetime goal that I've always held and it's been a loooong time coming.  My educational path has been non-traditional in nearly every way.  My journey has included many twisting, winding, sometimes bumpy roads.  I was definitely not the girl who graduated from high school knowing exactly what she wanted.  There was a time when, despite my knowledge that it was important, I wondered if I would ever earn my bachelor's degree.  That was actually a really big factor in my decision to go back to school at the ripe old age of 32 - the knowledge that having a four year degree was something that really mattered to me in the grand scheme of my life.

There's a song by the Avett Brothers that I really love right  now.  My favorite line says, "Decide what to be and go be it."  I love that!  It speaks to me in the deep.  The song also talks about, "...a kid with a head full of doubt" and I feel somehow that the kid is/was me.  I wish I had been able to make those decisions when I was younger and I wish (sometimes) that I had just gotten all this done years ago.  But then...if that were the case, I wouldn't be who I am and I wouldn't have had any of the rich and rewarding experience along the way either.  Those twisting, turning roads have not been bad, just long at times.  For the most part though, my former educational and career experiences have been value added to the person I've become.

I wonder what the next chapter holds?  I wonder when/where/if I will find a job?  I wonder who my future students will be?  Which of those children will have "a head full of doubt" to which I may be able to add a ray of hope?  Although it took me a long time to get to where I am and although the uncertainty of being a job-seeker in the worst economy since the Great Depression is, to say the least, daunting, I can say for sure that my decision to be a teacher was absolutely the right one.  Gone (but not forgotten) is my head full of doubt.  Although fear is definitely in the mix too, I'm now able to look ahead with pride and confidence in how far I've come.  I'm also able to look ahead with hope that I may be able to make a difference in the future by influencing the people who will live in it.

 





   



          
 

This MUST be love...

This song makes me want to jump up and dance around the room, I LOVE this thing right now!!!

Peaches

Peaches are so good this time of year! Seriously, I jut sliced one into quarters and it literally fell off the pit, yummy! My ideal breakfast (thanks, Mom) is some sort of fruit, ideally a peach or nectarine, a little bit of cottage cheese, and a piece of toast. Today I had to forgo the cottage cheese, because the small amount I had left was off--talk about gross! But I digress. The whole point of me blogging about peaches was that my breakfast made me think of a song Michael and I used to love back in our early days. In the song, "Peaches" by The Presidents of the United States of America, they describe peaches as "nature's candy," and I would have to say I agree! Admittedly this video is a little bit strange with the whole ninja twist, but I still like the song.

And I Miss You

Well this is it. I just got home from my last dinner at Los Amigos with my best friend, Molly. This eatery has been Molly's all-time favorite here in Michigan, and she and I have frequented the joint many a time over the past couple of years. Molly leaves for her new home in Maryland on Wednesday and I will miss her dearly.

It's funny - you never know when people are going to make such a huge impact on your life. If someone had told me a few years ago that I would meet Molly and her family, and that we would (almost instantaneously) develop such a strong bond with one another, I never would have believed them. I've loved her little girls so much these past few years...and I've loved her friendship more than I can explain. Actually I can't imagine what in the world I did with my time before I met Molly & Co. They've become such a regular part of the fabric of my existence that now I don't know what I'll do without them. Of course we'll still see each other, and we'll be able to stay in touch (thanks to this lovely little Internet thingy,) but things are simply different from a distance and there's no real way around that.

My heart feels heavy and sad tonight. I cried myself all the way home after dinner. I'm happy for my friends and all the new beginnings that await them in MD, but I'm going to miss them tremendously. Even though I know it's not exactly fitting, the song "Missing" by Everything but the Girl keeps coming to mind. I've always liked this song, and somehow it seems appropriate for the way I feel right now. "...And I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain..." seems to be a very good summary for today.

I also recently got some shocking news that my nephew, Nick has decided to move ~250 miles away to a neighboring state to live with his dad and his dad's new girlfriend. This has a long, detailed story interwoven into it that has no business here on my blog, but I am completely taken aback by this turn of events. I have always been very close to my nephew and I really don' know what to to with the idea that he's no longer going to live close by. I'm still processing my feelings about all of this, and I'm not really even sure I can do justice to any of that at this point in time. I've spoken to him, and we had a rather intense conversation. I'm left with feelings of anger, sadness, confusion, disbelief, and, despite my own negative feelings, love for the kid. I can't fathom how this is going to impact our family...and what a difficult change this will be. Everyone is hurting, especially my sister and that makes me so sad. Yet again, I know I will still be able to see Nick, but it just won't be the same without him here in Michigan. Again thoughts of deserts and rain spring to my mind. What can you do?

What a Dinner!

MCL and I went to Los Amigos, my favorite local authentic Mexican restaurant with some friends tonight. We were pleasantly surprised to discover they had a live Mariachi band playing this evening, in honor of Mother's day. We were serenaded brilliantly...and let's just say there was one member of the band who certainly knew how to work for his tips! He was definitely playing it up, but we had a good time and we were entertained by the band as we ate. This was certainly a first for me...and quite an experience! In fact, the youngest member of our party, one-year-old Becca, was so mesmerized by the music that she wouldn't eat right away, it was pretty funny. Good times!

"The Happy Death Song"

I heard this song (by Jeff Horwich) on Weekend America this afternoon and it made me laugh.