path idea

a list of 25 off the FB beaten path

facebook has been raging the 25 lists, which appear to just be 25 random things.  

blog world has had these now and then, but i am out of the loop on blog lists.

1.  my immune system suffers wildly when i am busy in life.

2.  when my immune is down, i have many allergic reactions to most foods.

3.  my weight has essentially stayed the same with little work on my part

4.  i realize this does not make me fit

5.  i want to have a friend network in my area, and not just online

6.  i wish i knew how to actively pursue this.

7.  running was my biggest accomplishment in a long time.

8.  with a running partner, i would start again in a second

9.  the spring is a disgusting time to me...the world is dirty and wet

10. i adore the fashion sense of other people, wish i knew how to put the same things together 

11. i still wonder what i will do in life for my career.  sometimes i think social work would have been a more accurate choice

12. i hope to sit on a board that fights for people with disabilities.

13. i become enraged when people without rights park in disabled spots.  I have really debated carrying flyers to stick on their window that calls them assholes

14. i wish i spoke up more often when i see injustices.  i often worry it will affect me negatively to rock the boat.

15. i am overly generous with my time, ideas, and teaching tools, not because i think it will help my career, but because my stuff is awesome and should be used.

16. i am comfy casual at home, often mistaken for slob

17. i spill a lot, on everything

18. i am aggressive in sports

19. i have very little patience

20. i put a lot of effort into being understanding and looking at things from the 'walking in their shoes' perspective

21. i am hoping i get that in return

22. I should have never cut my hair so short, but as hair tends to do, it will grow

23. i want to do more with my hands..learn to scrapbook well, pottery, sculpture from rock and wood, build, design

24. i really enjoy working in my gardens, I hope they blow the neighbours away this summer

25. lipstick is silly to me 

and the list and complexity grows

i finally got a call from jesus i could accept.  usually when i am called 'to serve', i have been pre booked for the 'other team' and have to decline.  monday will be a sunshiney day with some cash flow via religion. 

i started making my calendar more sandee friendly.   i like things colour coordinated and have now made work, home, kitchen and social all seperate, so i know when i can make a day that much more full.   just need to add in thesis ....esh, knew i forgot something.   sigh

this calendar shows a month in advance, i have 1 social thing booked, and it is a weekend i have to cancel. double sigh

my kitchen renos start this month.....the 19th in fact and i am eager to get it done as fast as possible.  

I have decided to take a sabbatical from supply teaching.  how ironic.   i am taking time off from not working.

I have decided to dedicate tuesdays, thursdays and saturdays to thesis - - god willing it will be productive beyond my wildest dreams.  also, days i am not booked i am going to try and refocus my brain to suit the mood required to write.  

if all goes well, and when does that ever happen, i will only be called in on what i like to call even days.   tues and thurs have always seemed like the odd days.    even though there are 2, and the days i refer to as even have 3 and weekends have never counted.   all so complicated on the inside.

my new puppy is fergalicious.  been waiting to slip that in.  

house breaking - - triple sigh

so affectionate though

jonesing for a date of pad thai picnic, even if it is a carpet picnic with a movie.

what else do we need?

Speaking with a friend this evening we discussed that fact that people never seem to be thankful for what they have, yet always have the wish list of what they need next.  It is isn't enough to be happy with your education and job and friends, if you don't have a significant other.  You focus on the missing piece totally.   Not to say everyone has this same pattern, or same missing need, but there is always a list.   I think it is important to be content with who you are and what you have....if even for small amounts of time.  I think it is important that you are thankful for smaller things and realize the good that comes from bad situations.   I think it is important that you can grow from your mistakes.  

A small list for things I am thankful for - 

*this past week when it was bone chilling cold, I was thankful i had a home, and enough money to heat it.  I was thankful that I was able to realize this is a privilege in todays society.  

*that i am able to recognize a weakness in my thesis writing and made a step towards correcting it.  i am thankful i am not so pig headed and stubborn that i fought it longer than the 8 months i have so far.

*that i have come to a place in my life when i feel ok to live alone and i feel ok if problems were to rise that i could take care of them

* for my health.  i could always do more - eat healthier, exercise more, less stress etc, but i am thankful for what i put into my body, i get so much more back.

*my mind, which still amazes me with its ability to retain vast amounts of random information and the better ability to pull it up at optimal times

* my desire to do better in everything, i am so thankful that i want to be the best i can be and i don't settle for good enough with myself. 

* lack of fear when starting new projects.  it may be a small amount of denial, or ignorance, but i take projects on projects head on and love that i lack the ability to back down. 

enjoying the view

I spent the other morning trying to kill time.  I was irked by the thought of wasting some time in between the days activities, when I remembered the view.  I drove over to the lake and parked my vehicle and I enjoyed my coffee and stared out over the frozen lake.  Instead of being pissed about having nothing to do for 2 hours, I felt immediately blessed I had this view.  I was lucky enough to have no where to go and nothing but time to sit and to look.  It was one of those very cold windy mornings, where the sun was shining hard, but you still felt the winter.  I checked out all the ice huts I could see from that spot and pondered who was in them, if anyone that morning, or if they were empty.  I wondered if there was ice hut etiquette when they were close enough to be a small village and I wondered how you learn that sort of thing.  I must have spent a good half hour imaging how great some of the old huts of past days would be to photograph.  I thought about just how lucky I was to not have my day so booked that I would just drive by the lake like most days would bring and not even notice the ice huts had been put out.  That day I didn't work, seemed to make my life richer than if I had.

i am looking forward

my thesis is ready to become important to me again. it really had taken the back burner for far to long. it is important that i finish it and no doubt i will, it just seemed very daunting for a while. i guess i just needed a break from stuff and to sort of put it away for a while to make it more meaningful. i can't juggle the whole world at once, so i chose to pass on writing. being busy seemed to take up a lot of my time, and i was not focused enough to give it anything meaningful. i would type for the sake of typing and fill in space on paper for the sake of saying i am making progress, but was i? i guess i felt i owed other areas of my life some quality time as well. arguably they would get that same quality time if i had just got the writing done and out of the way too. it was nice to take some summer and be just a person too....being a student is hard all the time. i wanted to read for pleasure, and spend time enjoying some of the things i had to ignore for a while. i wanted to enjoy the planning of a wedding and not have that the side thing. i wanted to look for a job and not feel the guilt that it took away from what i could be doing. i wanted to have at least a few months being domestic and spending evenings with my husband, not knowing it would have slipped through my fingers so soon. now i am back at it. it is starting with a card to my advisor to let her know my unannounced hiatus is over, and i would require some direction please. i have a goal and i am looking forwards now.
not sure why this part, the only thing i have left to do, and a mere 100 pages, is strangling me. i guess it comes when it is ready and nothing should be forced...line by line it will eventually be finished. hard to know if i am scared of being finished, cause then it is one more degree without a job and the looming reality of a possible wrong career choice far to late, or the idea that i am maybe unsure of how to do this part.....
supply teaching is actually making me question my career choice and that scares the hell out of me. i hate the bad habits i am picking up, i hate the survival techniques i develop to keep from sinking some days, instead of teaching and management techniques i know i should use. i hate that i am forgetting how to plan to time lessons out, how to assess and mark, all my good ideas and what to do when reports are due. i feel like the closer i get to another teaching degree the farther away i am from being a teacher. i think i used to be good at this.
i went into this path because i really thought i wanted to help students find a passion for learning. i wanted to show them that the subjects they thought sucked could be cool if they were taught in neat ways and had someone with uncontrollable passion for them. I thought i could be contagious enough to make them want what i want. seems so unrealistic right now.
i look through the want ads, looking for alternative careers and i am so uncertain about what else i could do...... still not sure what i want to do when i grow up
i am going to finish the masters degree because i like to learn and i like to know that i could do it. not sure it will be more than a paper on my office wall and just for me though.
the next class i take, and we all know there will be more, is going to be for passion. it is going to be important and not aimed at making me more employable for an unemployable career.

and if i had a heart, i think this would warm it

i often thought that i may in fact be soulless. not that i am mean and empty more than the norm, but that the thing inside you that makes you recognized by society could in fact be missing. i have in fact, one time, although in my mind only and not on paper, sold my soul of sorts for a B Ed degree, but this could now be revoked since my part of the bargain was reneged shortly after, and i assumed said degree would have been useful and it has not been at all. any deal made with me often has fine print and added clauses which are added as seen fit for my own survival. anyways, back to being soulless..... i am beginning to think that i easily slip off the main grid of life and have become the most unmemorable person not including johnny depp, who for the life of me has the most mundane face ever. i feel as though i am constantly reintroducing myself to the same people over and over, i am constantly reminding people i exist, and for the second i stop to breathe i slip away again. it makes the job hunt near impossible when your name is never on the tip of anyone's tongue. i may have to start a new life goal that consists of people remembering my name and when using it in their conversations, others actually knowing who it is they refer to when I am spoken about. i don't need to be famous, i just need to exist outside my own head. i may also be soulless in one other way - - sensor doors do not open for me, or they open last second as i walk into them. not occasionally, but all the time, and everywhere. i am not picked up on the sensor detection grid either.

back to the said title....and reason to post today. my heart was ever so slightly warmed at an act which was caught once again by the local paper. (link not provided cause i was slow to post) local students had been gathering food for a thanksgiving food drive. this is something i always participate in, as no family should ever go without an opportunity to have a thankful moment among loved ones. the children gathering the food brought it all to their school and then made a human chain of students all the way to the food bank to which they passed each item hand to hand all the way to the people who needed it. they took the simple act of collection and made it meaningful. the idea that it took a community of children to make this effort possible and that the food passed along connected so many people was really nice to see. i will never tire of reading good news.