Sah-WEET!

Oh how I love a productive Saturday!

A big goal over the Christmas holidays was "Operation Get Rid Of Lots Of Stuff." Like, furniture, and recycling, and rubbermaid storage bins in my room, and old computer junk, and stuff like that. So I got all in a tizzy and hauled all the stuff that was previously being stored in my room and other nooks and crannies out into a big ol' giant pile in my living room, to be driven off with glee to the various places it all needed to go.

And then my car died, effectively halting my ability to haul stuff around.

So there it all sat in my living room. For nearly three weeks. That is, until last night when I had a complete and total dance geek party party of awesomeness in which I invited a bunch of dance friends over and we mocked watched the DVDs from Sea To Sky, the dance convention we all went to back in October. (I say mocked because they are the most poorly made DVDs I have ever seen. No scene selection, only snippets of the dances, bad sound, weird angles that don't allow you to see, I dunno, the DANCERS. Gah. Don't even get me started. Ok, so I started already. Whatever! They're better than nothing, I guess, and were still a good excuse for a shindig.) Click on the picture to see the insanity in my living room. See that white triangle in the bottom left corner? That's a wee bit of the spare single bed that was propped up against my couch and didn't quite make it in the photo. GAH!

Nothin' like having people over to motivate you to get cleaned up. Unfortunately, having only gotten my car back Thursday night, I didn't have time to take any of the pile of junk in my living room anywhere, so it all got dumped back in my bedroom. Sigh.

BUT! Today! Oh sweet day of productivity! I got rid of SO MUCH STUFF and got SO much done, and even did some building and some electrical work. Ok, so my electrical work consisted of plugging in my computer monitor, but hey, it sounded good for a minute there, didn't it?

Today I...

- slept in. Very important, and newsworthy because IT NEVER HAPPENS.
- piled all my crap-to-be-gotten-rid-of on the kitchen floor and outside the door to my suite.
- talked to Rachelle, my very-bestest-friend-in-the-whole-wide-world (yes, she always needs to be referred to as that. It's the law.) and soon-to-be-mommy-of-THREE-boys, for about an hour during said piling of crap-to-be-gotten-rid-of. Enough hyphens for you? No? I-didn't-think-so.
- unsuccessfully tried to stave off cramps-of-death with gigantesque dose of Happy Pills.
- dropped off dead bulky computer monitor and dead DVD player at the electronics recycling depot. That in itself was great cause they have been sitting in my room for at LEAST a year and a half.
- went to Purolator to pick up my new monitor and send off the smells-like-burning, good-thing-it's-still-under-warranty monitor back to maker-of-stupid-monitor company.
- went to Future Shop to return the loaner monitor and happily got a chunk of change put pack onto my oh-so-overused credit card.
- balked at my body, because just as I thought I was going to keel over and die from previously aforementioned cramps-of-death, the clouds parted, the sun shone down (no, really!) and my body flipped the ok-you-were-writhing-in-agony-but-now-you're-completely-fine switch and all was right with the world.
- celebrated with a grande non-fat no-whip peppermint mocha from Starbucks.
- drove to the other end of the city to get my car Air-Cared so I could renew my insurance, which expired six days ago. Yes, I had temporary insurance. The car passed. Woohoo! (Darn well better have for all the work that was just done on it!)
- went to renew insurance.
- came back to dead car. AURGH!!! Apparently 10 minutes of forgetting to turn my lights off was enough to drain the battery.
- flagged numerous random people down in the Superstore parking lot asking if they had jumper cables. More than one person went to open their window and then changed their mind, forcing me to scream though the glass. Cause apparently I looked like some crazywoman who was going to dive through a cracked open window into their car and EAT THEM ALIVE.
- finally found Kindly Dude to jump my car, blocked someone from the recently-vacated parking spot beside me so Kindly Dude could park there and resuscitate my car, and thanked him profusely. Mental note. Put jumper cables that are hanging in storage room BACK into car. Right-o.
- drove to Ikea to buy a dresser (goodbye chunk of change from the monitor) - part three of my holy-cow-I-can't-believe-I-haven't-blogged-about-this new bedroom set-in-the-making. Suffice it to say for now that I am in love. With furniture. I need help.
- came home and nearly broke my back hauling massive box of wood out of my car and into my room.
- assembled said dresser-of-awesomeness.
- plugged in my replacement monitor. (See?! Electrical work! And last Saturday I strung 75 feet of coaxial cable all through my house so I could have TV in my room! IN MY ROOM! For the very first time in my life. Gloriousness, I tell you, gloriousness!)
- wrote a long detailed blog post about a mundane day of errands.
- am going to have a glass of wine (or two or five) while I unearth my bed from all the junk I had to pile on top of it in order to build the dresser.
- have decided by default to go to neither the dance nor the Recycle-Your-Not-So-Great-Christmas-Present party, opting instead for PJ pants and new furniture.

Rah rah for Saturday night!

Also? Yes, I realize what a girly-girl post this is. And I love it! tee hee hee!

RSVP

Whenever I plan events/parties/dinners or whatever, I like to use Evite for the invitations. It sends a message to people's inboxes and then they click through for all the details and to RSVP. It's handy, I've used it for a while, and I enjoy it. One of the features is that guests RSVP's are posted on a message board/wall thing-a-ma-bob and they can choose "yes," no," or "maybe" and leave a message for you should they so choose.

My birthday is coming up, so I sent out the evite earlier this week, and a number of people have replied. It seems it's a popular weekend, so there are a number of people who can't make it. Ok, fine. What gets me are the reasons. No word of a lie, here are the resaons they can't make it:

* Awesome initiative. I'd help out but I will be in South America. Have fun!
* I am so sorry but I am in Ontario for the first two weeks of Feb!
* Hillary, I'd love to come, but will be in Africa. Hope you have a fantastic day!
* Hi, unfortunately I'll be in Mexico, dancing on a cruise boat. Want to do it there? :) Have fun!
* Sorry, we'll be at Big White [a ski resort about a 4 hour drive from here] skiing.

Ok, forget my birthday, lemmie go with one of THEM! Sheesharoonies!

Tormented

Aurgh. It's 4:49am, and I can't sleep. I've just had a terrible crazy dream that I get my car back today (this is true - yay!) and all of a sudden it's doing all kinds of awful car things - smoking and steaming and buzzing and clanging and all the lights on the dashboard come on at once. They're not wild fantastical things that a could never really do, it's just getting it back from the mechanic and everything goes wrong... again. You know you've been having car issues when you're woken up by bad car dreams. Bah.

I have to be out the door in precicely two hours. But I'm wide awake (and had been long before I started writing here!) I need sleeeeeep (she types while yawning). Oh today is not gonna be a good day. Hillary McSleeps-a-lot. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I'll be in a workshop all day. Not having to be "on" all day means I won't snap at the kids from being over tired... but it also means I won't have the kids to keep me awake. Which could result in embarassment. Oh joy. OK, back to sleep. Or to tossing.

Oh sweet sleep why do you elude me when I need you most?

Would you rather... *updated*

As I walked into my classroom this morning, Lenny* - one of my grade two students - and his friend Tyra were playing a game of "Would you rather..." As I fumbled for my keys, this is what I heard.

L: Would you rather... get married and after you are in the bed, pee your pants... or.... eat five rattlesnakes and throw up?

Well now, what would YOU choose?
Oh man. These kids crack me up!

* Update: ok, you HAVE to read the comments. They're hilarious! *

Therapy!

I start therapy today! Woohoo! (We always knew she was crazy!)

No, no, not THAT kind of therapy. VOICE therapy! Ever since teaching music, I've had issues with my voice. I lose it constantly, and even after a day of teaching, it is often hoarse.

I went to the Voice Clinic in December and had a consultation with a speech-language pathologist and will have another appointment in February with an ear-nose-throat specialist, both who have been doing a study on occupational voice use. The SLP told me that women (check!) who use their voices for their jobs (check!), particularly in large rooms (check!) with high celieings (check!), lots of concrete and windows (check! check!), and relatively noisy environments (check!) are much more susceptible to having voice trouble. This is also compounded when the person is talkative (triple check!), outgoing (check!) and has a busy, active life (check!) that might have them out at restaurants, dances, or in the outdoors freuently (check! check! check!).

Soooo basically, my lifestyle and occupation means that my voice doesn't have a chance. Good times.

And also, she thinks I probably have slightly higher than normal acid reflux when I sleep, compounding my voice and throat issues (which, she tells me, is probably why I cough all. the. time. or need to clear my throat so much even when I'm not sick! Hallelujah! An explanation!). She gave me a list of foods to avoid (um, chocolate, nuts, spicy foods... yeah right!) and told me to elevate the head of my bed 4 to 6 inches so I'm sleeping on an incline. Guess silk sheets are out oft he question, hey? I'd slip right out the end of my bed!

The good news is that the SLP is writing up a report that recommends I have an FM system in my classroom (hooray!). I get to have a little Brittny Spears mic on when I teach and it gets amplified through the entire classroom. Everyone I've ever talked to who has had one of these things says it saves their voice incredibly AND really imporves the behaviour of the students. I figure it's cause there are four speakers mounted around the classroom, and it jsut makes it seem like I'm EVERYWHERE! Muah ha ha!!!

But also, the SLP runs a seven-week, fourteen hour group therapy session for occupational voice users. I'll get to learn all about how my voice works and how to take proper care of it. It's covered by medical, so I'm there! Hip hip hooray, finally an end to my voice woes!

But giving up chocolate? It ain't gonna happen. Ha!
_______________
* ok, I know therapy is a GOOD thing and has done a world of good for many, many people. Please don't be offended by my 'crazy' joke, I'm just trying to poke fun at myself!

Car Talk

But not of the ranting kind...

From Wikipedia...

If the gasket fails, a variety of problems can occur, from compression loss (leading to power reduction, or a rough engine [uh, yeah! chug-a-lug, baby! But hey, at least I saved some cash on going for a massage!]), to exhaust gases being forced into the cooling system, leading to the engine overheating [the needle up past the red "OK, I'm really really hot and might blow up at any minute" zone is a BAD thing, right?] and increased engine wear due to the motor oil being mixed with antifreeze. Coolant can leak into the cylinders, causing the exhaust to issue steam [great heaping billows of white noxious steam, yeah] and the catalytic converter to be damaged. If a very large amount of coolant does this, hydrolock can occur, causing extensive engine damage. Sometimes, all that may happen when a head gasket is blown is excessive steam erupting from the tailpipe [excessive is an understatement, baby!] and the engine may act and drive like normal... [though apparently with the damage to my head gasket, my mechanic is stupefied that the thing could even run.]

Driving with a blown head gasket (if possible) can cause additional extensive damage [Here's hoping the rest of the engine isn't shot, now! Heh... um? Pretty please?] due to overheating or loss of lubrication.

So. July. The water pump blew, causing the car to overheat. Water pump fixed.

November. There was a problem with the fan, which blew the new water pump, causing the car to overheat. Or something. Fan fixed. Water pump fixed.

First week of January. Computer that regulates the fan was screwy, causing the fan to work inconsistently, causing the water pump to break, causing the engine to overheat. Computer fixed. Fan fixed. Water pump fixed.

Second week of January. All this overheating caused the head head gasket to blow (actually it blew a while back), causing the water pump to blow, the timing belt to go wonky, and a host of other things. Head gasket fixed. Timing belt fixed. Host of other things fixed. Water pump fixed.

Found out that every head gasket ever made for this model of car/engine has blown. They have since redesigned it, but lucky me, I still get to pay for it. The parts are expensive, but the three days of labour my mechanic has put into it? All he's charging me is $100. This fix is costing me HALF what it would cost me normally because my mechanic is my hero! How he makes his money, I'll never know.

Actually, I do.

He'll probably charge some other poor shmuck an arm and a leg next time HE goes in. A poor shmuck like... maybe my dad.

Um, neener neener?

Pitching tents... or something like that

Oh this SO cracked me up today! Ho-lee hilarious, batman! Better some humour after my big sob story below. Watch it! Right now!



And supposedly this is what the guy sent around in an email afterwards:
"All I know to say is..'Thank God for His GRACE!!!' After talking with God about this whole thing, He let me know that when it happened... all of heaven fell to their side, they started beating the ground, with tears streaming down their face, and Lot was running around pinching himself, and all the heavenly hosts roared with laughter...just like you did!!!!"

Return of the Beastmobile? AUGRH!!!

Ladies and gents, life is on hold. Strict, strict budget for things like entertainment and eating out. No travel. Maybe getting rid of the cell phone. And you KNOW things are bad when there will be no dancing lessons, either. Commence crying now.

My car has fallen under the curse. The evil, evil curse of the Beastmoblie. Those of you who have been reading this blog for over two years have read the posts about my old car. There were scores of them. This post is the best introduction, and one of my finer song re-works. When the Beastmobile (aka a 1989 Olds Cutlas) finally bit it in November of 2005 (thanks to a dear sir who felt that he didn't really feel like stopping for a red light), it was joyfully replaced by a beauteous issue-free 1994 Civic with a piddly 94,114 km on it. 59,480 miles, for you Americans out there. :) And it's been glorious. Only the routine oil changes and a scheduled timing belt replacement at about 100,000 km.

Until now.

Last winter my trunk began leaking. So much so that when I braked, you could hear it sloshing around. Off I went to my parent's house so that we could drain it and run a space heater in it to dry it out while it sat dry and toasty in the carport (I only have street parking). It was a few months till I could get it into the body shop to have the leak fixed, but eventually I did, and voila! No more leak!

This summer, though, my car began to overheat, so I took it in. It needed a water pump. Ok, fine, that's expected. I got that fixed and a few other odds and ends and forked over around six hundred and fifty bucks. Oof. Oh well, such is the cost of owning a car.

Of course, having just replaced the water heater in July, one would not expect that the cooling system - including a problematic fan that wasn't an issue last time - would have to be done AGAIN in November. Such was the case, however, when I began to overheat on a long drive out to the valley (which reminds me, I really need to write a few posts...). My mechanic - God bless him - charged me no labour. Still it was five hundred and twenty bucks for parts.

As summer turned to fall and fall faded into winter, the weather got wetter. So did my trunk. Just a bit at first, but come the full-fledged rainy season, it was back to a sloshing pool of rain water in the back of my trunk. Goodie goodie gum drops. Now, having the folding seats that I do, there's a little flap of fabric that rests in the trunk. All the better to soak up the water and bring it into the seats, my dear. This I discovered as I picked friends up for Christmas dinner and they arrived at my parents house with wet a$$es. Classy. All the subsequent driving around I did over the holiday involved folded up towels in the back seat for people to sit on. Double classy.

Over the last week of the holiday, I noticed that my car would chug a little bit when it was idling, and sometimes there was quite a bit of really nasty smeling white exhaust. But only sometimes. Then, last Friday, it chugged so much it felt like I was sitting in a massage chair and as I dropped off my friend Becca, it filled the neighbourhood with noxious smelling white smoky exhaust. I only has about 30 blocks to home, so I tried to make it. The temperature guage was up higher than the red and I was billowing massive clouds of smoke as I went. When steam began to billow out from under the hood, however, I pulled 'er over post haste and walked the remaining fourteen blocks to my house. Of course, not before opening the hood to find that the small amount of water in the overflow resevoir was boiling. So let's recap, shall wee? I had water in my trunk and no water in my engine. You'd think they'd learn to share or something. Geez.

I waited till the next morning and drove it straight to the mechanic to be parked there over the weekend. No chance I was gonna drive around with it ready to blow at any second. Of course, the drive there was without incident. Anyway, there it sat, to be looked at on Monday. Two guy friends of mine both told me - independently of each other - that from what I was describing, it sounded like a blown head gasket. Now I don't know much, but I know that THAT is expensive. Like really a lot. Oh happy fun times of joyousness.

I called to check in with the mechanic after school on Monday (yesterday) and he told me that one of the things that had puzzled him last time was still acting up - the computer that controlled the fan that helped to cool the engine. So he changed that. I asked about the head gasket, and he told me that while all the symptoms pointed to exactly that, he could find no evidence of a blown gasket. No mixed fluid anywhere, nothing on the spark plugs, and he drove it all over the place all day long and never once did it chug or smoke for him. He did everything he could and couldn't make it do what it was doing for me. Typical. He got the other mechanic at the shop to look at it, too, and he couldn't find anything either. He told me that when gaskets blow, they blow, and it's not intermittent, so he was very confused. Head gaskets are a very common fix, but he had never seen this problem before in all his years of working on cars. Goooood. That makes me feel SO much better. Yerg. Ah, but of course! We forgot that we're talking about one of MY cars.

He told me that he really couldn't bring himself to fix something he wasn't convinced was broken, so we'd leave it at the computer and the other tweaks he'd done and see how it fared. He was cautiously optomistic that this was the final fix. So off I went tonight after work to pick it up. And to unload another five hundred and twenty bucks. What are we at now, about $1700 since July? No problemo, I'll just go pick it off the money tree in the back yard... Oh right. I DON'T HAVE ONE.

While I was at the shop, I asked, "Well, just in case this isn't the final fix, how much would a blown head gasket actually cost me?" He told me that under normal circumstances it would be a couple of thousand dollars (CHOKE! COUGH! SPUTTER!), but that he'd have pity on me, and I shouln't worry, it would be painless. But the car is probably fixed now. So home I went with my probably fixed car.

Of course I watched the temperature guage and exhaust like a hawk all the way home. Temperature? Fine. Exhaust? Normal. Chugging? Non-existent. Woohoo!

That is, until about the last 8 or 10 blocks. Was that a cloud of white smoke I saw, or am I just paranoid? And I'm starting to feel that slight chug... or is my mind playing tricks on me? I pulled up to my parking spot and let it idle for a minute.

POUF!!!

And there is was. Billowing cloud, chug-a-lugging engine, crying Hillary.

Let's see how much my mechanic's pity is gonna cost me THIS time. Oh yeah, and that trunk leak is still not fixed, either. It's not like THAT can be left alone forever, either. Good thing I just got my Christmas mastercard bill and bought myself a bedroom suite, too. Anyone got some excess wealth they'd like to share?

Frickity frackity flappity FLIP!!!

Pardon me while I go cry now.

Conversations

H: [after making some strange face or sound or both] Oh Brad, why am I so weird?
B: I stopped asking that a long time ago.
H: Oh come on, you've met my dad, you're supposed to know the answer to this.
B: Oh right! It's genetic! ... I get my bad sense of humour from my dad.
H: What?!? You've got a fantastic sense of humour!
B: Yeah! I don't know where I got the good part from!

New Year's Prayers

Three years ago I went to a Christian retreat center for New Years Day and I came across these two prayers. I don't know who wrote them or where they came from, but they particularly struck me, so I wrote them down and come back to them every year. As I go and spend some time on them today, I thought I would share them.

~~~

Father, I surrender the past year and give it up to you. I give you my failures, my regrets, and my disappointments, for I have no more use for them. Make me now a new person, forgetting what lies behind and pressing on toward that which lies ahead of me. I give you all my hopes and dreams about the future. Purify them by your spirit so that my will shall truly reflect your will for me. As I stand on the threshold of a new year, encourage me by my successes, challenge me by the power of your word, and guide me by your spirit.

~~~

You keep us waiting. You, the God of all time,
want us to wait for the right time in which to discover
who we are, where we must go, and what we must do.

Thank you for the waiting time.

You keep us looking. You, the God of all space,
want us to look in the right and wrong places for signs of hope,
for people who are hopeless, for visions of a better world
which will appear among the disappointments of the world we know.

Thank you for the looking time.

You keep us loving. You, the God whose name is love,
want us to be like you - to love the loveless and the unlovely
and the unlovable; to love without jealousy or design or threat,
and most difficult of all, to love ourselves.

Thank you for the loving time.

And in all this you keep us,
through hard questions with no easy answers,
through failing where we hoped to succeed,
and making an impact where we thought we were useless,
through the patience and the dreams and the love of others
and through Christ and his spirit you keeps us.

Thank you for the keeping time
and for now, and for ever.
Amen.

(click for full size)

Tids and bits

Turns out I don't blog very much when I'm on holidays. Something about not having to procrastinate on all the stuff I *should* be doing! Hip hip hooray for holidays!

No big Christmas reflections or even posts this year. It kinda snuck up on me and then was gone - I know, I know, that's how it is every year, but even more so this year. Part of it has been that I haven't been to church very much in the last month or so. We added a Sunday night service a while back and because the majority of my friends go to that one, I shifted, too... except it's not working out so hot for me. Um, mostly cause I don't end up going. Anyhoo, all that said, I missed all the advent stuff, and it was all rush rush rush right up to the big family dinner on Christmas Eve, and then it's over. And I'm sad.

But! There have been some definite highlights to my time off. The first one was having two new friends - Hugo and Lucille - join my family for Christmas. It was SO great to have them there (and if you two are reading this, hello! Seriously, you guys made my evening! I'm so glad you were there!). Then of course there was some good family time on Christmas day. It was the first Christmas Day in recent memory, anyway, that we didn't have to pack up and go somewhere or have a whole crew over, and it was great to lounge around all day. I inflicted gingerbread house building on my parents (I still had leftovers from my party a few weeks ago) and it was a big bundle of hilarity.

I spent one day up in Whistler with Hugo and Lucille snowshoeing - and pretty much snow-battling to the death all day long. We then went into the swanky hat store and tried on many a chapeau... much to the owner's chagrin, I'm sure. Come on, who DOESN'T want three soggy rowdies with cameras knocking over hats and trying on your merchandise??? Pics from our day are here.

There was one day of serendipitous spontaneity - lunch, a trip to Ikea, dinner with the fam, catching The Golden Compass, going out for drinks... all arranged on the fly as the day progressed. I love days like that! You never know what the next hour will hold! :) Thank goodness for cell phones!

Now I'm cleaning the house (and blogging... see? Apparently I just found a reason to procrastinate!), prepping for a New Year's Brunch chez moi tomorrow, and then heading out to welcome 2008.

And there's still a week left of holidays! WOOHOO!

Since I didn't wish it before, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. And to 2007, I say "So long, sucker!" Bring it on, 2008!

_____
PS. Hokey Dinah! Kristin Plater (of the AWESOME video below - seriously, if you haven't listened to it yet, you should... and then click through and listen to her other stuff, too... I'm looking for her album to buy and if I can't find a real live CD I'm buying it off iTunes. She's great!) left a comment thanking me for posting her video! She's super friendly and replies to comments on youtube and apparently to blogs, too! Melissa, she's playing in New York on the 18th. If you like her stuff, check out her site for details: http://www.kristinplater.com/ Haha, ok, enough plugs for now! And no, she's not paying me! :P

Why Not - SUCH a fun song

I found a YouTube gem... Kristin Plater! This song totally makes me smile. All about being yourself, donig the little things that make you happy. I love it! "If I'm gonna laugh, I'm gonna laugh out loud!"

Pictures from a Classroom Christmas

Pictures go along with this post. Click any picture to see a larger version. Click here to see the whole set (it's worth it!)

Um, wow!

I was at a Christmas dance last night (of course!) and having a great time, as always. It was nearing the end of the night and I was dancing with my friend Michael, being very apologetic because I always seem to be dancing with him near the end of the night when people are leaving. Our two previous dances that night had been punctuated with me yelling my goodbyes and Merry Christmases to people as they left - which was just kinda rude (I'm sorry, Michael!) and also resulted in me missing more than a few leads. We laughed about it - he's a sweetheart - and I promised him a dance where I would pay attention to, oh, I dunno, HIM for once! SO there I was concentrating, when another friend JR (hi JR - this post's for you! Ya better comment! ;)*updated: go you! Thanks!* ) came and waved a piece of paper at me.

(click to embiggen if you want to read it)

Huh? Whatever, it's the new Swing Dance Club brochure. Surely I could look at it later. I mean, it's lovely and all, and has lots of great info about West Coast Swing, and is distributed at dances of all kinds all over the lower mainland, but seriously? Now? Then - in between whips and passes - I took a closer look. HOLY SMOKES! What? Uh yeah, that's yours truly. ON THE FRONT COVER. Buah ha! Hilarious!

Through a child's eyes

When the kids walked in the door Monday morning, the first thing they saw were four great big brown hoof prints on the floor. "Look!" I told them. "Santa came! And Rudolph, too!"

The buzz began immediately.

Santa! Santa came!
Hey, he left a note!
Rudolph put our paper chains on the ceiling!
And our letters are gone!
Santa took them!

The kids could hardly get their coats off quick enough to rush over the the chart board and read what Santa had to say. They looked around at the candy canes hanging, the paper chains a waaaay high up, and the big red fuzzy at Santa left for me to borrow (Miss Hillary, you're SOOO lucky! "Why's that?" Cause you get to borrow Santa's hat AND you get to see him again before Christmas to return it!!!). Some looked around in wonder, some were nearly shaking with excitement. And of course there were a few who punctured the glee with doubt.

It's not real!
The hoof prints are just paint.
Miss Hillary put those chains up.

"Nooo!" I told them. Eighteen excited kids all talking at once and asking questions was boggling my mind, but I just carried on, weaving a tale of Santa's visit and answering their questions as I went. "When I left on Friday, none of this was here! There is a little ladder in the school, but it's not nearly high enough to reach the ceiling! Those chains are WAY too high for me to have put them up. And I would get in trouble if I painted the floor! That wasn't me, either. Rudolph must have had very muddy hooves..." Then why didn't Santa leave footprints, too? [smart little kiddies!] "Well must have been riding his sleigh, so his feet didn't get muddy." It's just paint. Miss Hillary, you painted those. "Nooo! It's dried mud. They weren't there on Friday. Mr. G [an ESL teacher who had come in to drop something off], did you paint those hoof prints?" He didn't either, which was nearly enough to convince them. Miss Hillary, are you sure you're not lying? "I'm positive! I would neeever lie to you! Besides, what could have happened to our letters? And how else could those chains have gotten way up there? Anyway, didn't you say on Friday that you wished Santa would visit our classroom?

Yeah, but why does Santa always come when we can't see him? Why doesn't he ever come for us to see? Then we can KNOW that he's real!

"Ah, but it's not about seeing him. It's about believing. If you ever saw Santa, there would be no more magic."

By the end of our excited discussion on the carpet that morning, the biggest doubter was the biggest believer and every single child was convinced without a doubt that the big man in red had come to visit.

They happily told everyone they saw, too. Friends, teachers, passing parents. Two even ran to the office at recess to tell the office staff.

The day proceeded in sugary goodness as we made and decorated our gingerbread houses. I have never seen so much candy in one place in my life! They loved it, and were definitely in the Christmas spirit, humming Christmas songs and chattering about Santa as they worked.

After school I found a large envelope in my box: our letters to Santa had been read and replied to! I wrote on the outside in big swirly red writing "To Division 21, Love Santa,"dumped a whole bunch of silver glitter inside the envelope, and shook it all around. Up to the staffroom I went, where I dripped some water on the outside of the envelope and stuck it in the freezer to chill overnight.

Tuesday after recess was the big event - our letters from Santa had arrived! I waited an extra minute or two in the staffroom to make sure all the kids were lined up outside our door. As I approached, I whispered excitedly to them. "Boys and girls, look! Santa answered our letters! And it must be fresh from the North Pole! See? There's even ice on the envelope!!!" Gravity and the freezer had worked more magic than I could have hoped, as all the water had run down to the edge of the envelope and had made about a dozen little frozen droplets hanging off the side. Our envelope had icicles!!

Look! It's cold!
And frozen!
It came right from the North Pole!
How did Santa answer them so fast?
He's a fast guy!
Oooh! It's dripping!
Wow! I never got a letter from Santa before!

We all rushed to the carpet where I speedily handed out the letters. I pulled each one out with a flourish, sending silver glitter fluttering to the ground over the students' heads. Miss Hillary, what is that?

With a big grin and a twinkle in my eye, I answered them. "It's MAGIC!"

As the kids got their frozen letters, they all buddied up to read, passing them around and comparing them.

Santa is really busy making toys, so he got his elves to write to us!
Hey look! My elf's twin brother wrote to my friend!
These MUST be real because he answered all my questions!
Oooooh! The raindeers fly using magic flying powder!
Phew! Santa says I'm on the nice list!
Hahaha! My elf's name is "Stinky!"
Here, look at mine! Can I read yours?
[while clutching her letter to her heart:] I LOVE SANTA!!!

The kids spent about ten minutes passing their letters around and reading. (And you have to understand that for my class, to have them that engaged for that long is a nothing short of a miracle!)

I couldn't let the magic end there, though. I know that some of these kids don't really do anything for Christmas, and a few won't have many gifts this year because their families just don't have the money. Santa had to make one last visit...

When the children arrived on Friday, there was a new set of snowy footprints all throughout the classroom - from the door, over to the chart stand, over to the Christmas tree, and back out again. There was a new note, the tree was covered in snow, and there were nineteen gifts wrapped up and laying underneath the tree.

This time there were no doubters.

Santa came AGAIN!!!
And he left us presents!
What IS this stuff?
It's snow!
But it's not melting!
Miss Hillary, those are YOUR footprints!
Put your foot in them, let me see!
... Oh! They're bigger than your feet!
Miss E [my special ed worker], try your foot.
It's not hers, either! That proves it MUST be Santa!
This is the very first present Santa ever gave me!
Oh, this is the best day of my LIFE!

After reading the note and handing out the gifts, the kids tore into them to find the biggest candy canes they had ever seen. These must have come from the candy cane forest at the North Pole! I didn't need to do anything to create the magic this time - they did it on their own. Stories and theories swirled about how Santa could have gotten into our classroom without a chimney (maybe he came through the walls, maybe the janitor let him in, maybe he came through the mouse hole [er, the mouse hole?!?! It's now been filled.]). They talked about how fast Santa's sleigh must be and about how cold the North Pole is. And I sat back and watched, loving every minute.

It's been a while since I've been able to see Christmas in that magical child-like way. It has significance every year for me because of that very first gift that was given long long ago, of course. But there's another aspect of Christmas that I have not seen for a while, and that's the magic, the innocence, the wonder of it all. Impossibility made possible. Childlike faith in someone that can't be seen.

Or then again, maybe it's really been there all along. Maybe that's what Christmas is all about, even for us adults. Childlike faith in a gift too good good to be true, and yet! There He lies wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. God become man to dwell, to die, to deliver. Impossibility made possible. What a gift we've been given.

As a very wise elf said in her letter to one of my students, "Whoever believes in Christmas will always have magic."

How right she is!

Ridonculous!

You would not believe how annoying it is to use my computer right now. My monitor is fried. No problem, I've got my old one still in my room. Hook it up, and.... no workie. At all. My new, 14 month old LCD monitor is dead, too. Oh, sure,i t somes on when you turn the power on... for exactly one second. Then it goes blank. So lucky me, as I HAD to do something on the computer tonight, I got to turn my monitor off and on and off and on again just so I could see the screen for one second and position my mouse. Then it went blank. Turn it off, turn it on, click, then screen went blank. Off, then on, then position mouse. Off then on, then click. Off tehn on, then type when needs to be typed. I can't see what I'm typuing now, so no complaints about typos.

YAAAARG! Dumb machine. WHY do they make things and PLAN for then to break withing two years? Seriously. As IF I have the money to buy another monitor right now. Melissa, I'm gonna check into your suggestion. I may be able to get a warranty from teh shop I bought it at, it might still be under warranty. We'll see. You'd better believe I'm gonna kick up a fuss.

And yes, I'm blogging. I don't need to see what I type (well, kinda) and I wanna whine about this. Seriously the most annoying thing I've encountered for a very long time.

Grrr, technology. *grumble grumble grumble*

OK, time to tunr the monitor off and on a hundred times now to actually post this bad boy.

UG!

Smells like burning

Well I had about 16 different ideas for posts in my head as I came home tonight... another Rebirth instalment (or two or three), an update/recap of the Magical Monday of Grade One Christmas Wonderfulness (complete with photos), some general squeeing about Christmas, a rant, a peek into the psyche of Hillary (don't run away, there's a but coming!), and so on and so forth.

Buuuut, my new, fourteen and a half month old computer monitor (member this post? Good thing I have a blog, that's how I figured out when I bought the dang thing!) is extremely dim on the top half and smells like burning. I know this cause it's the same smell that my electric mixer made while I was mixing up 8 litres of cement icing for the gingerbread houses at 6 am on Monday morning. I knew the smoke wasn't a good sign. Anyone wanna give me a mixer for Christmas??? So anyhoo, I'm gonna shut'er off for now and rant and rave to the place I bought it (*cough* Future Shop *cough*) another time.

Good thing I have all those photos to edit. Good thing I have BEEN editing photos, upping the brightness and wondering why they seemed do dim on my monitor and so dull on the computer. I mean, that was happening with my OLD monitor.

Oh yeah. Smells like burning. Just got another whiff. Buh bye now.

I just might be getting a little carried away...

We wrote letters to Santa today at school. No asking for toys allowed - they were to ask questions and tell Santa about themselves. In Canada, if you write to Santa and send it to the post office, you get a letter back, so the kids are all excited to get a letter from the big man in red himself. (I mean, come on, the North Pole is in Canada! It only takes one stamp to get there!)

We've also been making paper chains all week... when they kid's work was finished, they could go to the art centre and keep working on their chains. One kid's chain is nearly 10 metres long!!! I promised them that I would put them up to decorate the classroom after school.

Little do they know that Santa will be paying our classroom a visit this weekend! Instead of the regular morning message from me, there will be a note - written entirely in red sparkly glitter glue - from Santa:

HO HO HO! Santa here! I came to visit your class on Saturday but there was nobody here! I left some treats for you, and my hat for Miss Hillary to borrow. She has to promise to give it back before Christmas, though! I'll need it! Miss Hillary put up your paper chains, but not very high. I got Rudolph to help me put them higher. I'll answer your letters as soon as I can! ~ Love Santa.

I've spent the last two hours with Christmas tunes blaring, teetering on top of the highest ladder in the school attaching paper chains to the just-over-three-meter- high ceiling. I have also painted four reindeer hoofprints on the floor right by the main classroom door (only four, though, cause Rudolph flew around the room most of the time!) and have dabbled them with a wet paper towel so you can't see the paintbrush strokes. There will be candy canes for each kid hanging from the art hangers that are draped over the rows of lights. The only major setback to my preparatory festivities this afternoon was stepping backwards onto the not-quite dry glitter glue message when I was trying to move the ladder. D'oh! I had to take a plastic spoon and scrap off a few words and start again. There are now red glittery footprints all over my carpet and the bottoms of my shoes sparkle! As long as I don't wear the same shoes on Monday, I'll be able to tell them that Santa left footprints, too!

I've got a grade six class (full of my students from last year!) lined up to write a personalized letter from Santa back to each student. I'll put the replies in the freezer for a while, scrape off some frost, and deliver them to the kids on Tuesday or Wednesday - direct from the North Pole!
That, and we're making gingerbread houses on Monday! It's going to be quite the day!!!

True story

My breakfast today consisted of a bowl of cheerios and a palm-sized slab of gingerbread with lots of icing and covered - covered! - in smarties.

And this, folks, is why Christmas and my butt are motal enemies.

*Editied to add, for my American readers: Smarites are like M&M's, but better! They're not the sugary candy... um... pellets? like in the States*

*Also edited to add: My lunch also involves a cheese ball. I'm going straight to the fat farm, aren't I? Sigh.*

Apparently I like to eat pie

For the last two weeks, my grade one girls have begun to write... and write and write and write and write and write. They love it! They spend their centers time writing, they write oodles in their writing books, they write at home and bring it in to show me. "I just love to write!" they tell me. It is absolutely adorable!

One girl in particular, Annie (not her real name), writes me notes. Every morning she comes in with an envelope of something she has written at home. "Don't open it now!" she tells me. I ask her when I should open it. "At home!" she says, but invariably, by the end of the day, she caves and asks me to open her note.

Here are SOME of the notes she's written. Keep in mind that 18 out of 19 of my kids are ESL, and that she's six. I've kept spelling and grammar intact. I wish I could show the actual writing and the pictures, hearts, stars, and happy faces that go along with these notes, too. You'll just have to use your imaginations!

To Miss Hillary From Annie
You like To. eat Apple Pie
Yoe ur Nice and Neet
we like To make pie
pie is Good for you
Love Miss Hillary

To Miss Hillary From Annie
your a Nice teachandNeat
playful teach
Good teach is Nice
Youllke To drink Milk
and eat Apple pie
lovely Miss Hillary
you lik To eat pancakes
AMELIA BEDELIA is Nice
she like T make pie
I make my story for you

To Miss Hillary From Annie
you like egg and dklling Milk
you is Nice and you Like Appie pie.
and Apple Book and egg cake
Good Story

I Like to make Apple pie
a Apple. Book is Good For You
and Nice and Neet Amelia Bedelia
look the cloud and the sky
Imake my own story
Good Story [] yes

ToMissHillary FromHillary
you like To eat pie I make a pjr [picture] a pie

To Miss Hillary From Annie
your Nice and Neat teach
you like To eat Apple
and driking Millk
pancakes Book and walter the Baker book
Nice book Im write
Ilike pet is guinea pig and Hamster
is fairy pet love Miss Hillary
GoodWrite and Good write story

ToMissHillary From Annie
MissHillary like to eat Apple pie is Good For you
you like To drinking Millk

ToMissHillary From Annie
We like to Make pie
isGood FOR You

ToMissHillary From Annie
I like to make Apple pie To eat is Good
your nice teach and a Neat teach to
lovely Miss Hillary


All these notes are good for the heart but very, very bad for the will power. I'm picking up a pie on my way home tonight.

Spice Up Your Life! *now with video!*

The Spice Girls opened their world tour in Vancouver tonight, on stage for the first time since 1998. It was spectacularly phenominal! Oh wow. WHAT a show! There are no words (and I'm sooo tired, and my ears are still ringing), so here are some pictures instead! I believe I've been dubbed Shutterbug Spice. Now the question is, what spice is Phil??? ;)

[All photos property of Hillary. Permission required to use/reproduce]












The Finale/Encore. This person must have been sitting right beside us. This was our view almost exactly! (if anything, watch the last two minutes! AWESOME!!!) Man, it's the next morning and I'm STILL buzzing!

WooHoo!

Really? Seriously? The DoughBoy? I love it! How many of you knew that every single summer I went to camp Gump and Chunk called me "Pillsbury" and then that that became my camp name when I worked there? HA!

A-Ziggah zig AH!

Despite having never really been a fan ten years ago when they were big, I'm nearing giddiness about heading to go see opening night of the reunion world tour of the SPICE GIRLS (!!!!!) on Sunday night! (I'm just ignoring the depressing fact that I'm old enough to be going to a 'nostalgia' show!) And yep, they chose Vancouver to open their tour. Because we're AWESOME! hehe!

I've been doing my homework on YouTube, thinking that oh my goodness, I don't know any of their songs. Ah, but I DO! And you would, too, even if you tried really really hard not to.

My friend Phil found himself with an extra ticket, so he invited me! It's gonna be a spectacular show, I'm sure - they'll be pulling out all the stops. That, paired with Phil being SO incredibly excited about it that it just cracks me right up, is gonna make it an AWESOME night! Now the only question is - what to wear???

Jean was the closest guess, for sure. Go Jean! And Melissa wins for the most hilarious thought process. "You're going to the North Pole... and dancing with the elves [do I sense a new reality TV show coming on?] ... OH MY GOSH YOU'RE SANTA!"

I was giving hints! Go back and check out the last two posts - now with highlighted hints! :P

Stop! <--- (also a hint)

[Last day of NaBloPoMo! Woohoo! I made it! It was way easier than last year. I guess I'm getting more verbose in my old age? Ha! Ok, obligatory NaBloPoMo comment over. Back to our regularly scheduled programming...]

I was never very sporty when I was growing up. My ginger-haired sister and baby brother always seemed to have more fire in them - more competitive spirit. They were always more into sports than I was. Frankly, I found organized sports just plain scary. I never felt very good at them, and was often intimidated by what I saw as the posh, cliquey societies that surrounded them.

But times are a-changing. I'm still not hugely into team sports, but I am doing things I ever thought I'd do. Backpacking in the mountains. Travelling on my own. Dancing! I guess this Sunday night is just another way I'm trying to spice up my life by doing things I never thought I would. I'm getting so excited!

And by the way? Eighty six of you saw my blog yesterday. Eighty-six different people. And I love you all. But for my three commenters? Jean, Heather, and Melissa, you're the bestest! Sooooo.... you get another day to guess! (Yeah yeah, I realize that that's because nobody really cares, but I'm having fun, so humour me! :P )

NEVER would I have expected this in a million years.

It has to do with somewhere I'm going/something I'm doing on Sunday night. And nope, it doesn't have to do with dancing (well, it does, kinda, but not with my dancing obsession!). And NO, I'm not a wannabe, I'm really gonna have fun!

So I'll tell you what I want... I want you to guess! What am I doing on Sunday night?
I'll reveal the answer tomorrow! (and if you saw it briefly on Facebook, no cheating! ;) )

Quatchi Miga Sumi

Nope, it's not another language. Rather it's Japanese anime meets mythical forest creature meets First Nations artwork. Quatchi, Miga, and Sumi are the new mascots for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games. I can't figure out if I like them or not. They're cute, for sure. Miga is a sea bear (what? part orca whale, part Kermode spirit bear) who loves to surf and snowboard. Quatchi is a sasquatch who dreams of being a famous goalie. And Sumi is what? A Thunderbird, I think? With an orca hat? Drawn in Japanese anime?

It's definitely a mish mash of styles. But on the other hand, it probably represents Canada and the west coast better than I would first think. There IS a huge Asian influence here in Vancouver, and it is important to recognize First Nations cultures, too. It's kind of too bad that it's not a little bit more representative of more of the British Columbian population (as people also said about the Olympic Logo - which I like, by the way: it's friendly, fun, welcoming), but then again, how exactly would they do that? BC is so diverse already, they'd have to have a dozen or more mascots to do that.

I think I like them. They're a little over-the-top cutsie, but then they're marketed towards kids. They've each got personalities that have been created along with them - likes, dislikes, stories, dreams. You can click on any of the pictures to learn more about them. We'll be seeing much more of them in the years to come. May as well get to know them!

Quatchi....................................Miga....................................Sumi
And let's not forget the mascot's sidekick Mukmuk the marmot!

One Day For AIDS

December 1 is World AIDS Day, and once again my friend John Andru is working tirelessly to raise awareness and financial support to go towards AIDS relief. This is a guy with a passion for raising awareness about this awful, awful disease. Not one to sit around and say, "Wow, isn't it terrible that all these people are dying," he is giving up hour and hours of his own time running the third annual One Day For AIDS campaign. His goal, from the website, is to have 365 people donate $30 towards AIDS relief, with proceeds going to your choice of recipient organizations: The Mennonite Central Committee, The Canadian Red Cross, or the Dr Peter AIDS Foundation.

Would you consider going to the website and donating? Or if you can't give, at least go to the website and read up a little? Raise awareness by maybe taking in an AIDS-related movie over the weekend, reading up about AIDS in books like Stephanie Nolen's 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa, or even by purchasing a red AIDS ribbon to remind yourself and others of the gravity of this disease.

John is organizing a number of different events around Vancouver this weekend if you'd like to come out. One of them is a showing of My brother...Nikhil (scroll down when you click the link) at the Pacific Cinémathèque (1131 Howe St @ Helmcken St) at 2pm. Alternatively, if you're not in the Vancouver area, why not rent a film like Dear Francis, an excellent documentary about college students who go to Africa to educate students about AIDS and end up learning far more than they bargained for. I saw it last year, and it was phenomenal. The trailer is below.

As John says in his November ODFA newsletter, "There are lots of things that you can do. But above all - please don't do nothing. Please don't tune out, or become apathetic or indifferent. My question and challenge to you for World AIDS Day 2007 is: Do you care?"


Dear Francis


One Day For AIDS 2005 * One Day For AIDS 2006

Rebirth, part three: On Staff

It was Spring Break, 1995, and I was finally old enough to go the Leadership Training up at camp. I was going to work on staff at Kawkawa that summer, and I could hardly wait.

Leadership itself was a great week - seminars, training, lots of work, and so much information I thought my head was going to pop. Bertski, Professor, and Prem (the director at the time) poured their hearts into us that week. It was intense and loads of fun.

Summer finally arrived, and I had been given three weeks to work - the first two weeks of July and the very last week of August. I was a junior counsellor for one week and taught some activities and helped run a Bible study the next. I was so sad to leave at the end of my first two weeks. At the end of the summer, I came back as a camper for my last year then stayed the weekend before the last week of camp. It was then that Prem asked me if I would like my own cabin for the last week. I was beyond thrilled that he thought I was ready for the challenge of going it alone.

And so I got my very first group of girls: Ellen, Ashleigh, and Kandace. It didn't matter to me that it was only three girls, I was going to be the best counsellor there ever was! It was such a great week, and solidified my desire to work at camp for many more years to come.

And many more years there were. I continued to work at camp for another seven years after that, anywhere from one to nine weeks each summer. If I thought I had grown as a camper, my years there on staff would blow me away.

It was on staff at Kawkawa that I had the honour of praying with someone as they decided to become a Christian for the first time. It was on the back steps of Chalet 401. I will never forget how I felt God niggling at me all day to ask this girl if she wanted to become a Christian. About how scared I was to actually bring it up, and about how eagerly she said yes. I was so excited that I thought I was going to pop. I ran back down to the campfire where the non-counselling staff were still praying and told Bertski about it because I just couldn't contain my joy. She gave me a hug and then told me to go get back to my cabin of girls. Oh yeah! Whoops! (Good thing I was a junior counsellor and there was still someone with them!)

It was on staff where I first saw how much the Bible is a living book. It was the hardest week of camp I had ever experienced. I had a really challenging group of girls, and I was having some conflicts with some other staff, too. I was at the end of my rope. About halfway through the week (um, DUH! Why did it take me so long???), I opened my Bible randomly and had never had something jump out at me in such a vivid, life-giving way. It spoke directly to what I was dealing with and was exactly what I needed to hear. It went so far beyond coincidence. The passage I read encouraged me, chastised me, and gave me comfort and hope. I came to see that God was (and is!) in that book, alive and well, and oh so relevant.

It was on staff that I saw God work in SO many different ways. Big, small, ordinary and extraordinary. It was amazing to get to see him work through me, in me, and often despite me, and in and through so many other people, too. Camp is not the only place I've experienced this, but the thing about camp is that all the rest of life's pressures and messiness just isn't there, so it's much easier to see things more clearly. And seeing God work and answer prayer at camp was training for seeing Him work in the 'real world,' where sometimes it's not so recognizable amidst the stress and business of regular life.

It was on staff that I had one of my most humbling moments - where God began teaching me to back off on my own plan, cause his is so much better. (Oh how I wish it only took that once to learn that lesson! It's gonna be a lifetime before I get that one down!) It was a particularly hot week, and I had wanted to surprise my girls by sleeping down on the dock. I had gotten permission, and waited till they were all ready for bed before I surprised them. They were so excited to get to sleep outside, and I'm sure one of the reasons was that it was about a kajilion degrees in our cabin. We bundled up our sleeping bags and pillows and made our trek down the giant hill to the beach, only to find that some of the junior counsellors were swimming and the dock was soaking wet.

It was definitely not one of my proudest moments when I told off the junior staff leader and made it perfectly clear how annoyed I was that now we couldn't sleep on the dock. I was disappointed for my girls, too, who were really looking forward to this. So, up we trekked back to our cabin - waaay up the hill - and had to go back into our sweltering cabin to sleep after being out in the cool breezy summer air down at the beach. *grumble grumble grumble* At staff meeting the next morning, I made sure that EVERYBODY knew that I'd like my girls to sleep on the dock, so puh-leeeease don't go swimming after campfire.

Take two. It wasn't a surprise, but the girls were still looking forward to sleeping out. After we all got settled on the dock, we began looking up at the stars. "Hey! There's a shooting star!" "And another one!" "Look! I just saw one, too!" It turns out that that night, and not the night before, was the night of the huge August meteor shower. We lay awake for hours watching falling stars and talking about God's creation, reading Psalms and praising God for his creativity and beauty. Ok, God, I get it. You've got a better plan! :P

And it was on staff that I made one of the biggest discoveries about myself I've made so far. For a year or so, I had been plagued with the question of "What's my passion?" I saw people with a passion for scuba diving, or a passion for missions, or a passion for sports and on and on... But what was mine? Sure, I liked a lot of different things, but I couldn't call any of them "my passion." I guess in some ways it was a quest for purpose: what is my purpose, my calling - where that place where my great love and the world's great need intersected?

Well, it was the last night of the second to last week of camp in 2001. I had had the most incredible week - I had the best cabin I've ever had, and witnessed some extremely meaningful changes in the lives of every single girl in my cabin. It was a particularly impacting week for many, many campers, not to mention staff. We were at campfire on the last night, and I found myself looking around. The kids - many who had never once set foot in a church in their lives - were singing with all their hearts, arms raised to heaven, knowing what it felt like to experience the love of God. They were deciding to trust him, choosing to accept the gift he offers.

It was at that moment that I knew. What's my passion? It's here. It's this. It's helping kids come to a greater understanding of who God is and what he's done for them. It's seeing lives changed. I've struggled since then to understand how that translates to the 'real world,' as sadly, camp is not a year round event. But it's trying to see how that works into my daily life - in whatever role I'm in - that will be the lifelong lesson. It was on staff at Kawkawa where I realized that nothing gets to my heart quicker than a child in love with God. And to have God allow me to help that happen? That's my passion.

My guesses!

Whoops, I just realized I never wrote out my guesses for the little game I played last week.

1. Shelli! The "Saved by the Bell" theme threw me off for a bit, cause I knew I had JUST seen that somewhere - facebook? another blog? Yarg, I couldn't find it. But it was the "la la la" that gave it away. (And then it turns out it was Sarah Cool who had posted the Saved by the Bell lyrics. So either it was a co-incidence, or Shelli, you found a genious way to try and throw me off... unsuccessfully! Buah haha!)

2. Sarah D! This one took me a while, and I totally confused my friend Brent by asking him what vegetable he shared a name with. I figured the 'wearing colourful underwear' could have been him! It certainly would have been a secret! HA! But then, while Brent was too confused about me asking him what kind of vegetable he was to speak, I got to thinking... famous vegetable, famous vegetable... veggie tales... at first I thought "Power Pickle!" but then it hit me: BOB! The "I'm innocent" was a nice touch! Input from the hubby, I'm assuming?

3. Anne! Flock of goats. I feel so special! ;) hehehe! And yep, your hint was what gave it way for sure! Nice way of telling me you figured mine out! I really do like your blueberry pie, especially when it's extra sweet! ;)

4. Ashley! Yours was easy to guess, but only because you left a non-anonymous comment shortly before or after posting that one. Otherwise I would have been totally stumped - good one, girl! Beautiful love note, m'darlin! I like the way you think!

Have no idea what the heck I'm talking about? Go read this - and feel free to play along! It's not too late!

Diary of a Worm

from a cute kid's book I have in my classroom...

April 10
It rained all night and the ground was soaked. We spent the entire day on the sidewalk.
Hopscotch is a very dangerous game.

May 1
Grandpa taught us that good manners are very important. So today I said "good morning" to the first ant I saw.
There were 600 more of them in line.
I stood there all day.

May 28
Last night I went to the school dance. You put your head in. You put your head out. You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself about.
That's all we could do.

June 15
My older sister thinks she's so pretty. I told her no matter how much time she spends looking in the mirror, her face will always look just like her rear end.
Spider thought that was really funny.
Mom did not.

What would YOUR diary entry look like if YOU were a worm???

*grin*

Tis the season

Report cards due tomorrow.
Crazy busy with that and...what else?
Dunno. But feel overwhelmed and house is a disaster area.
Sleep is whacked out. Big time.
Reports will be late (again.) (sigh.)
Still doing the "I am's" but no time to post them in the AM's.
7:59 pm and still at work.
On a Friday.
The kids left at noon.
I spent ONE FULL HOUR sharpening pencils.
Meant to get the kids to do it, but this week was too much of a zoo.
Still have no voice.
It ran away a week before Halloween and I haven't seen it since.
Really should have taken time off Halloween week.
Gonna do it next week. Monday, Tuesday Wednesday.
Five days without talking.
HA! If you believed that, you clearly don't know me.
Five days without talking all day every day.
And lots of hot lemon.
Dang day plans for subs. They're so much work.
Darnit if I'm gonna miss one day of NaBloPoMo.
Even if post sucks.
Ok. Going now.

"You have no friends online recently"

Oh, right. That's because it's THREE SEVENTEEN IN THE MORNING and I'm up doing report cards.

Not still up. Just up. I fell asleep around 9:30 last night watching the Deal or No Deal Thanksgiving special (anyone know how much that totally awesome lady in the green shiny shirt won at the end? And anyone love her momma as much as me? "You've got to do something you've never done to get something you've never had. Honey, you've never said no to $45,000, but you've never won a half a million, either! No deal!"). And because my body is programmed, apparently, to wake up after about 5.5 or 6 hours of sleep, I pinged awake at about 2:45am. Good thing, cause I've got a lot of work to do.

Update: It's 7:37am now. The effects of my first hot chocolate have come and gone. I'm nodding off. Time for another shot and then off to work.

Good golly this is gonna be an interesting day...

I am a minister of reconcilliation for God

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.

As God's fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says, "In the time of my favour, I heard you, in the day of my salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favour, now is the day of salvation!

~ 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

This passage overwhelmes me. It speaks of identity. It speaks of the core message of the entire Bible. It speaks of my overwhelmingly huge yet blissfully simple purpose as a Christian. It speaks of my heart's desire for people to know and understand the depth of what God has done for them. This passage speaks. This passage is life.

Oh wow.

And as for NaBloPoMo... I'm cutting it a little close, don't ya think?

Yaarg! In my delirium last night I posted at nearly the last minute, then hit save instead of publish and collapsed like the sleep-depraved zombie I was on my bed couch. So I posted. Kinda. I'm counting it. You'd better, too! :P

Rebirth, part two: Campfire

It's summertime, and the sun has slipped behind the mountains, bathing the lake in orange as it set. The sky is turning a deep blue now, and campers are making their way up the path to the campfire, their feet crunching the dry gravel beneath them. Their voices are hushed after a twilight discussion, the shouts of the day's activities now subdued and calmed.

Two trees mark the entrance to the campfire area. Rows of rough benches - nothing more than heavy planks on wooden supports - are arranged in a semi circle around this sacred place. Moss-covered boulders, ferns, and scraggly trees rise up the side of the mountain behind them, while the patio lights of the cabins further up the hill pierce through the dark branches. There is a fence closing off the open side of the semi-circle - tall wooden boards painted green, all different lengths, their pointed tops drawing your eyes skyward. Perhaps they were intended to look like the evergreens that surround them. Perhaps they are a reminder to just look up.

Those who like the heat of the fire sit up front, while others scurry to the back row or make sure to sit beside their new-found friend or favourite counsellor. Near or far, everybody is mesmerized by the flames at some point, staring into the blazing, dancing, brightness; lost in the worship, lost in the story, lost in their own thoughts.

As the campfire flickers it sends sparks soaring upwards. My eyes follow them until they disappear, but by then it is not the sparks that have my attention. I crane my neck upwards and stare at the towering trees that surround this little circle of heaven. There is an open patch of now-dark sky directly above the flames. A handful of stars are visible in the opening, and I am in awe.

This is a cathedral. This is where God dwells, where he draws near, where his presence is felt. This is where lives are changed.

This is where my life was changed, over and over again. This is my "God place."

I am never separated from the love of Christ

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or sword? ... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, now any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
~ Romans 8:35, 37-39

How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That he should give his only son
To make a wretch his treasure

Rebirth, part one

When I was eight years old, my nana and papa gave me a birthday present. I still remember where I was when I got it: the atrium section of the old White Spot in West Vancouver. The gift wasn't much to look at, but it would be one that would change my life. It was a card telling me that they had registered me for summer camp. I would be heading off to Camp Kawkawa for one week once school was out.

The time finally came (it's a long wait for a little kid from the beginning of February till summer!) and my parents drove me out to Surrey to catch the camp bus bound for Hope, the little town where the camp was located. Fearless little monkey that I was, I hopped on a bus full of kids I'd never met before in my life, and waved goodbye to my parents, who were definitely having a harder time saying goodbye than I was. I was off for an adventure!

Little did I know then what an adventure I'd be in for.

I don't remember much of that first week of camp, except vague pictures in my mind of my counsellors - Sudsy and Coke - and one of the crafts we did: leather bookmarks that we decorated with leather stamps... They were so cool!

The next year, of course, I wanted to go back. And the next, and the next. I didn't miss a summer - from kids camps to junior then senior teens. I loved the counsellors there - Bunta, Dewey, Squeak, Bertski, Prem, Link, Chunk, Gump, Squab, Lucy, Derby, Crocket, Festus... the list could go on and on. So many of them made such lasting impacts on my life.

And I met lots of great friends there, too. Every summer my address book would be full of new addresses - people I'd write to every now and then, maybe call on the phone once in a while (back in the days when it was a big deal to call long distance to the next suburb. Definitely no email or facebook to keep in touch back then!). They were all people I couldn't wait to see again the following summer.

The location was beautiful, the water was warm, the food was great (oh Georgy Porgy, you were the best cook!), the skits were hilarious, the activities were always fun. It was there I learned how to have a camera war, how to paddle -and tip! - a canoe, how to shoot a bow and arrow, how to watch the counsellor at the table like a hawk so I wasn't the last one to put my thumb up and be stuck scraping the dishes with "Mr. Scrapey." I learned goofy songs and ridiculous wide games, and I learned that sleeping out on the beach was an amazing experience - unless of course the counsellors woke you up early and told you that you were all going to play a trick on the director and sneak over to the provincial park across the lake via canoe. Let me tell you, 80 kids trying to hide behind two outhouse buildings just doesn't work. Grizzly was M-A-D when he got in the camp boat and came looking for us. Kids were in tears, the lifeguard threw down his whistle and quit, stomping off into the forest. Counsellors were mad, we were terrified of our punishment, and it all blew up... until Grizzly finally told us all that it was all a big joke, he'd planned it all, and YAY! We were going to have a pancake breakfast in the park.

Man, that all sounds so awful written out. It was pretty funny at the time, and I have only warm memories of the famous "Sneak." Maybe that's also because that was also the day I found out that my very first cousin was born (he's in grade 12 now!).

I learned all kinds of things at Camp Kawkawa, but the biggest impact that camp made on me was on my faith. It was there where I felt that my faith really grew the most - where I learned the most about God and about what it meant to be a Christian. It was all around me at home, too, but it somehow seemed that there, between the mountains and at the edge of the lake, away from "normal life" and school and parents and pressures, I could really experience God in ways I never had before.

Every year I left camp on a high. I felt like a new person every time I got home. The thrill would subside, but the lessons remained. It was at camp that I remember Gump sitting with me on the back bench of the campfire, ignoring what was going on around us and stopping to pray for my friend April, who was at camp with me and had just gotten called away to take a phone call about her mom who was very sick. I learned that I can pray any time, anywhere, for anything, regardless of what's going on around me.

I remember Bunta telling me straight up that I had a bad attitude when I kept complaining about the girls in my cabin practicing their cheerleading routines every night. I remember telling her, "You know what? You're right," and being so grateful she called me out on it. Those girls stopped annoying me from that moment on, cause I realized it was really me being the twit. (And funnily enough, one of those girls now is a fairly regular sub at my school!)

I remember Matilda's Bible study sessions one week when I was fourteen. She challenged us to make ourselves available for God. I did, and recommitted my life to Jesus that week. I would say that that was the week when my faith really became my own and I became a Christian because I knew it was what I wanted to do, not becuase my parents told me so.

I remember the campfires - the songs, the stories, the testimonies kids told on the last night of camp about how God had impacted their lives that week at camp. I can see their faces lit with an orange glow as they stood by the fire and told their story - of their life back at home - good, bad, or otherwise, of their struggle with friends, of new commitments they wanted to make, of what God was teaching them. I remember how they impacted me. I shared my stories, too, at the edge of that campfire. Of how God had challenged me, of who I was, who I wanted to be. Of renewed commitments and a refreshed soul.

I remember knowing that I wanted to keep going to camp as long as I could, and when I was too old to be a camper, that I wanted to work there. So when I was sixteen, I applied to work as a Leader In Training...

Your turn!

So I totally thieved this off of Anne, who ripped it off of Heather Anne (holy cow, go read her blog of November 16. Like, NOW. Nearly made me cry!), who in turn stole it from someone else (whose name does not include the name Anne). But it's fun (and you all know how much I like fun! And parenthetical statements, apparently).

So, here's the drill, if you brain didn't just explode from that last paragraph. (Too! Many! Thoughts! At! Once!) Leave your answers to the following questions in the comments. Be sure to comment ANONYMOUSLY (don't forget and click enter automatically!). Then I'll try to guess who you are. Won't that be fun? :)

Here we go (are you ready?):

1. One secret.
2. One compliment.
3. One non-compliment.
4. One love note, but it does not have to be for me.
5. Lyrics to a song.
6. How old you are.
7. How long we've been friends.
8. And a hint to who you are.

(And no, I won't use statcounter to help me figure it out!)

That's it. No more parentheses (I promise!).

I am a citizen of heaven

But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a saviour who comes from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. ~ Philipians 3:20


I am a stanger here, I don't fit in, I'm out of place
I am a citizen of heaven and it's obvious to see
That I belong with you

Don't want to settle or get too aquanted with this life
Got to keep on looking up, cause He's coming soon
And then I will be

Heavenbound

~Phatfish

I am...

... tired, grumpy, getting sick, completely fed up, nearly burned out, and absolutely amazed I didn't walk out of my job right smack dab in the middle of the day today.

No, seriously.

I have had e-nough. ENOUGH! I would REALLY REALLY REALLY like a day - just ONE! -where I'm not dealing with kids (ok, that kid) dumping sand in someone's hair, pouring milk on their head, throwing blocks at other children, splashing water in people's faces, breaking kid's lego creations, pushing/shoving/kicking, stealing other kid's belongings, lying about what's been done, blaming other kids... shall I go on? Here's to a better day tomorrow. Man, not even nearly four hours of dancing - two lessons and a dance - got me out of this mood, and that's sayin' something.

So no, no real "I am" post today. I am... really glad God's not keeping track.

Goodnight.

Because I'm tired of hearing myself talk about school and dancing

I have a life, really! I do!

In bold is what's happened in 2007 so far:

*Updated to clarify: I have NOT done everything on this list! The bolded ones are ones I've done in 2007. The ones in italics I've done, but not in 2007. Them plain ol' list items? Never done. Is that clearer? ;)

- lost a friend
- stayed single the whole year
- kissed someone new
- kissed in a car
- kissed in the snow
- kissed in the rain
- fell in love
- had your heart broken
- broke someone else's heart
- had a stalker
- questioned your sexual orientation
- came out of the closet
- got married
- had a divorce
- dated someone you'll never forget
- done something you've regretted (why are these listed so close together?)
- lost your first love
- lost faith in love
- kissed under mistletoe
- shoplifted
- caught a shoplifter
- got a promotion
- got a pay raise
- changed jobs
- lost your job
- quit your job
- applied for a job
- dated a co-worker
- dated your boss
- got fired from your job
- did something you were proud of
- discovered a new talent
- were involved in something you'll never forget
- painted a picture
- wrote a poem
- ran a mile
- listened to music you couln't stand
- double dipped
- skinny-dipped
- went to a sleepover
- went camping
- threw a surprise party
- had a party thrown for you (there's still time! It's not too late!)
- laughed till you cried
- laughed till you peed in your pants
- slept the whole day
- flirted with a boy/girl/boyfriend/girlfriend
- visited a different country
- cooked a disastrous meal
- lost something important to you
- got a gift you adore
- realized something new about yourself
- tripped over a coffee table
- dyed your hair
- came close to losing your life
- someone close to you died
- went to a party
- drank alcohol
- drank alcohol underage
- did drug(s)
- got drunk (well, close, anyway. I've still never been full out drunk)
- got arrested
- read a great book
- saw a great movie
- pretended to like someone (isn't that called 'sales'? :)
- saw a movie so scary that it made you cry
- saw one of your favorite band/artist live
- saw someone famous in person
- did something you want to tell everyone
- enjoyed this year overall

I am free forever from condemnation

Therefore there is now no conemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and of death. ~ Romand 8:1-2

Paraphrased from Rob Bell's "The Gods Aren't Angry" tour:

So what is repentance? In the Old Testament it was always paired with joy, with celebration. It was realizing that, "I've missed it... until NOW! And of course I'll rearrange my life accordingly!" Repentance is realizing that what's required has ALREADY BEEN DONE. Any ritual or any belief that doesn't tap you into the celebration of the reconcilliation of all things is simply not Christian. ANYTHING that creates guilt in us or tells us we are not enough is not from God.