Good. I think he's creepy as hell anyway.

Student J for Morning News: "I am going to Chuckie Cheese for my birthday!"

Student T (same one I wrote the earlier entry about who peed on the tv): "I went there for my birthday and I asked Chuckie to sing to me but he didn't so I kicked him in his leg."

I garden now.

Today my parents came to visit and we planted a garden in my backyard. I don't have any funny stories about it. However, this is your heads up that I'm sure some will be in the works. Namely, "How come I planted a garden and nothing is growing." Look forward to that.

In the meantime, here are some pictures from Ry's surprise 24th birthday party to keep you occupied.

Ry's 24!

Thao and I being fabulous.

Ry and I with his sister Lindsey and her boyfriend Adam.

Yeah, I know. It's a cute picture.

Oh no he DI-N'T!

Our behavior specialist comes up to me with D., who is completely sobbing, after gym saying that two other boys from the class hit him. We call the two boys over and try to pull out of D. what exactly happened. The cause for the tears, as it turns out, was NOT the hitting but the following:

"He said *sob* my momma *sob* is so fat she puts mayonaise on ASPRIN *SOOOOOOB*!!!!"

I turned around and walked away and I'm 95% sure that the boy who said it saw me laughing.

I'm not sure what to say to that.

After watching a high school student performance today of 'Where the Wild Things Are' (which happened to be a cast of all white kids) my student X. turned around laughing and said to me: "White people are so funny!"

Ok.

Birthdays Past...

Ryan's birthday is this Friday, which has got me thinking about some of my more memorable birthdays. Because, apparently, when I think about my boyfriend, I think about myself...

My 16th: I had a bunch of friends over and we played whirlyball in Flint-town. It was fun, but my haircut and outfit was not. There is an atrocious picture of me opening a present in which I am wearing a blue plaid button up, my hair cut in bangs and then parted down the middle (a horrible, horrible idea for girls with round faces), feather cut on both sides in the front, and then pinned back near my temples with barettes. No good. No good at all.

My 20th: I spent my 20th birthday in Spain. Fortunately, studying abroad in London was not only good for my education, it did FABULOUSNESS for my fashion sense, opening my eyes to the classic suede and black combination, stilettos, and sleek skirts. Thus, I was much better dressed this time around and was sung 'Happy Birthday' in Spanish by some random guys on the street. Also, I bought really cute tan leather boots while there, as well as placemats with lemons and oranges on them.

My 21st: Lola threw me a surprise party. Oh man, I love Lola so much but she freaking sucks at secrets. (Although, to her credit, she is getting much better.) So, she told me about my surprise party, including everyone she invited, everyone who was coming, and even one friend who drove 3 hours to surprise me. So then I had to feign surprise. Which I'm bad at. BUT, she threw me a surprise party- or whatever- and it was really fun and we had an amazing time. Also, my friend Rob got drunk at TGIFriday's and lifted up his shirt and pressed his naked chest against the window that separated the party room from the regular seating area and I'm pretty sure that the ladies sitting on the other side were wishing me a really crappy birthday.

My 23rd: Frank, my boyfriend at the time, took me to a Bed & Breakfast in Shipshewana, Indiana (self-acclaimed, "Heart of Northern Indiana Amish Country") as a surprise. Unfortunately, I spent the majority of the weekend freaking out imagining the fervor with which the Amish Bed & Breakfast owners were praying for the salvation of my unwed boyfriend and I who were staying in the same room. (I'm seriously getting a LOT better about 'Stress Sara'. Or, at least somewhat. I think.)

My 24th: My parents flew me to Hawaii to visit Kristin. We had dinner on the beach and I got to wear my white capris which are dead cute. Except that Laura (NYC roommie) always called them my J-Lo pants. But whatevs.

My 25th: I flew to NYC to spend my birthday with my favorite city friends. I posted a blog on that experience before Ryan and I went back out this year. The whole, left my license and credit card in the cab, ate moldy cake, and borrowed $400 from my friends thing was not so good, but the rest of it was fabulous obviously.

Finally, although it isn't really MY birthday, I remember many of my sister Alison's birthdays as well. I spent a lot of these getting into trouble for playing with her friends and (quote/unquote) stealing them. Mostly, it was just because my funness was just sort of unstoppable. Or something.

Birthdays are fun.

What? A wishlist? How much fun!

I added a wishlist scrollbar on the right of my blog. I'm not sure why it's so entertaining. Kind of like a wedding registry except I won't get any of the stuff because there's no celebration. Unless you consider finding every cute thing for sale on the internet and cataloging it a celebration. Because I do. Cataloging and cute things are fabulous to me. Reason enough.

If I had a chiuaua...

I would name it Matilda Honey.

Belinda - RIP

This is Belinda. I forgot I had pictures of her. She was my hairless rat that I buried in a dog park in NYC. Cute Belinda.

The title was "Things that are dumb" but then turned out to be mostly about the Dutch which was unintentional.

1. Runners who don't acknowledge other runners. Do the head nod or something! Running is hard and you're stuck up if you pretend that you don't see someone run by you. You deserve a tripping for that. Stupid jerks.

2. People who have those little dutch child statues in their front yard. Even dumber- people who have them apart from each other. CLEARLY they are supposed to be kissing. While I am not a big fan of Holland because I always have crappy experiences with the Dutch employees in the Amsterdam airport, (shut up about judging a country- you should ALWAYS put your best face forward especially if you work in an AIRPORT- some people never know anything about a country other than their airports- duh), I am QUITE sure that little Dutch children do not walk around leaning over with their butts out UNLESS they are about to kiss. And anyway, I spent the last two weekends in Holland, Michigan with my parents and then Ryan's and I NEVER saw any demonstrations of this. Only lots of wooden shoe dancing. And tulips.

Speaking of the Dutch, check this out: http://www.dutchtub.com/ I'm not sure how I feel about it, seeing as it looks like people are boiling themselves for dinner. It could be fun though. I don't know. The people in the pictures would probably be nicer than the people in the airport though.

Turkey Hunting: A Photo Journal

Ryan and I went up north turkey hunting with my sister Alison and my brother-in-law Ben. Here's a brief photo documentary of our trip.

We went to the National Wild Turkey Federation dinner. Ryan won a rifle. Turkey hunters like rifles. Ryan is now a turkey hunter.

I brought Victoria. Remember I have that super cute traveling case? She is the cutest rat. We took a nap together on my new hammock today. She is eating a doughnut.

Ryan and I shot his gun. This is our 'special' picture with the hot earphones on so we don't blow our eardrums out shooting at paper turkeys. You can't just smile normal with something like that making you look... like that...

This is me shooting Ry's rifle. I am a good shot. And, as it happens, steadying yourself like that makes your butt look really good in your jeans.

We went fishing. Ryan tried to give me some helpful hints on fishing. I didn't want any helpful fishing hints. I told him that. Then he got angry because I freak out when the boat starts going into the reeds so the reeds start engulfing me. Something might be in there and then I couldn't get out fast enough. Ryan said only to yell like that if I'm dying. But I might have been if we hadn't have gotten out of the damn reeds faster.

Ryan caught a fish. We didn't have a net with us so he threw it on the bottom of the boat and it flipped all the way over to my side and kept smacking my butt under my seat. Ryan laughed a lot...

... so I caught a bigger fish.

Then, we went hunting.

Hunting is hard.

Finding morels is much better. And I look better posing on the forest floor with tiny mushrooms than I do in camo anyway.


THE END

All I do is talk about school. I'm a teacher. I don't know what else to say.

Quotes from today:

Me (at our calendar time at the start of the day): "J. what is your news for today?"

J.: "I have this fighting game at home that my mom and dad let me play. There's PUNCHING (demos included) and THIS STUFF (face smashing demo) and they hit each other with BOTTLES! Like, bottles that are empty you know? And then they break."

Me: "Uh, that's terrible. You need to pick a different news."


At recess, my tiniest boy, C., was balancing on a movable rope while another student was swinging it.

C: "OH SNAP! OH SNAP! OH SNAP!"

(C. falls on the rope, straddling it) "Oh, I hurt my nuts."

I'm sorry.

I've been an incredibly boring poster lately. Last week I had to smell two kids' butts at school to see which one smelled like the poop I'd been gagging over all day before I gave up and decided that the process of stopping the smell was far more disgusting than the smell itself. Yesterday, it was brought to my attention that, via permission slip, I had informed all of my chaperones for the field trip today that the field trip is tomorrow. So that was dumb. Except that I had to call all the parents yesterday morning while the kids were working and I was really glad when one of them called back that I didn't pick the Jason Mraz ringtone where he says 'damn'.

I'm boring right now.

I did go up north with Ry last weekend to Alison and Ben's, but that story isn't very good until I get the pictures to go with it so that will have to wait.

Again, I apologize profusely for my present lack of fabulousness.