Hawaiian Shirts

I have had an obsession with Hawaiian shirts ever since my cruise in January 2011. I decided to buy one when we were in Key West. I realize now that I paid an absolutely ridiculous price for it! My friends dad saw the exact same shirt in Grand Cayman the next day for half of the price I paid. Since then, I have bought three other Hawaiian shirts. I bought one in Grand Cayman and one in Cozumel during my cruise last August. I also bought one in Lake George. Those three shirts combined were way less than the price for my first shirt. Oh well, you live and you learn. Sometimes on dress down days (even though I once said I'd never dress down) I wear one of my Hawaiian shirts. I had no choice but to wear one today. It was over 90° and extremely humid. I had to show my tropical spirit in weather like this. I always get the question from kids, "Did you get that from Hawaii?" No, I did not. That's a bucket list item, though. I will go to Hawaii and wear my Hawaiian shirts at one point and buy some even cooler ones. I will also wear all 4 Hawaiian shirts during my cruise this August. You have to have a little color in your life!

"I've Never Seen a Storm Like That in My Life!"

I am so deeply sorry for not writing in here last night, except not really. We had a tornado in the area. It was the first big tornado since I've been on this planet, almost 26 years. It didn't hit specifically my town, but it hit about 10 miles away and we felt the affects. Our large steel grill fell over, yet our light plastic chairs didn't move an inch. Can you explain that one to me? We had some shingles fall off our roof and lots of tree branches fall all over the yard. I'm incredibly lucky that a branch didn't land on my car, which is directly under a huge tree. My dad and I immediately cleaned up a ton of branches for about an hour after the storm was pretty much over. We lost power for about 4 hours, had it back for about an hour, then lost it again until about 9 this morning. That's why I didn't write in here. I didn't want to waste my 3G data or battery on my phone. A large wooden pole holding wires at the top of my street snapped in half. A tree in the back of my yard is leaning on another tree. It was nuts. This morning, I heard a 7 year old say, "I've never seen a storm like that in my life." I started laughing because obviously she hadn't. I asked my dad and he said he'd never seen anything like it. It was almost surreal to see the damage. We have never seen storms like this in our area. It's a whole new experience for us. Unfortunately, I think the hurricanes and storms are only going to get worse. The most amazing statistic is that only 1 person was injured and no deaths! Thank God! The tornado was 1 mile long and went on for 17 miles. It was pitch black at about 7:15. At 8:15 when it starts to get dark, it was incredibly bright. It's amazing what mother nature can do.

Theme Song of my Life

I don't like posting song lyrics on Facebook or anything like that. However, I'm breaking that rule tonight. The theme song of my life, specifically at this point right now is "Breathe (2am)" by Anna Nalick. Below are the lyrics:

2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,
can you help me unravel my latest mistake,
I don't love him, winter just wasn't my season
Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to critisize,
hypocrites, you're all here for the very same reason

'Cause you can't jump the track,we're like cars on a cable
and life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button girl,
So cradle your head in you hands
And breathe, just breathe,
Woah breathe, just breathe

May he turn 21 on the base at Fort Bliss
Just today he sat down to the flask in his fist,
Ain't been sober, since maybe October of last year.
Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while,
But my God it's so beautiful when the boy smiles,
Wanna hold him, maybe I'll just sing about it.

Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button boys,
So cradle your head in your hands,
And breathe, just breathe,
Woah breathe, just breahte

There's a light at each end of this tunnel, you shout
But you're just as far in as you'll ever be out
These mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again
If you only try turning around.

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, its no longer
inside of me, threatening the life they belong to
And i feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button now
Sing it if you understand.
and breathe, just breathe
woah breathe, just breathe,
oh breathe, just breathe.

You can ignore most of the lyrics. The only ones that apply to me are, "And breathe, just breathe, woah breathe, just breathe, oh breathe, just breathe." Then again, I typically wake up at 2AM every night to go to the bathroom. I guess those lyrics apply to me too. I tell my kids to take deep breaths all of the time when they get worked up over something. 100% of the time, they do not take deep breaths. I'm the one who ends up taking those breaths. I typically tell myself to breathe in and out deeply before I take on a daunting task. With only 16 days left of school, it has been insanely busy. All I need to do is breathe, just breathe and I will be able to grind out the finals days of the 2012-13 school year. "Just breathe."

Favorite Drink

It's weird how your taste buds change as you get older. When I was a kid, I absolutely loved milk. I would pretty much drink nothing but milk. As I became a teen, I couldn't stand milk, but loved Kool Aid. I drank soda very seldom because we were only allowed to have it on "special occasions". I couldn't stand the taste of water, even though it has no taste. When I started swimming, I started drinking water a lot more, no, not the pool water. Now, I don't like regular milk, I only drink chocolate. I don't drink Kool Aid anymore. I drink a lot of water everyday. I'll drink Powerade too since my mom keeps buying lots of it. I'm a rare teacher who doesn't like coffee yet. I can be seen at work with my Nalgene bottle filled with water. I try not to drink soda too much anymore because I know it's not the best for you. I was told when I was younger that I should drink 8 ounces of water before every meal. That will help my stomach fill up more and cause me to eat less. Obviously the doctor didn't know me too well. That didn't stop me from eating a lot. Then again, I typically didn't drink the water before my meals. Oh well, now I drink water all of the time. Who knows what my favorite drink will be 20 years from  now.

Genealogy

My grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins came over for dinner today. We got talking about our ancestors, where they came from, who we are related to and how, etc. My mom had an obsession with genealogy a few years ago. She did a ton of research about who is related to who and what not. We talked for well over an hour about this. It's very hard to track down Jewish ancestors because they typically change their last names when they come over to America. You can easily spend an entire day looking up ancestors and ancestors and ancestors. I find this stuff very interesting. However, I don't see myself researching it for hours on end. I'll leave that to my mom. I've heard that everyone in the world is related to each other in some way. You probably have to go back many thousands of years to find out that I am your 167th cousin 93 times removed. It's very interesting stuff.

Parents Back From Cruise

Although I love having the house to myself, I also love when the parents come home. The only reason I like this is because I love hearing about how their vacation went. When they go on a cruise, which they've only done 10 times, I have no contact with them the entire time. They don't pay way too much money to use their cell phones in the middle of the ocean. I was surprised to hear my dad tell me that there were small things that bothered him here and there on the ship. Normally Carnival is known for their excellent service. He had poor service from the drink server at dinner. The entertainment was mediocre at best a few nights. There were some other things he mentioned that I was shocked to hear. I hope that when I go on my cruise in 3 months that service is much better. There's nothing worse than bad service anywhere. It always leaves a sour taste in your mouth. My parents are thinking about not going on another Carnival cruise because of some of their experiences this past vacation. They still had a good time overall, but it wasn't their favorite cruise.

1 Year of Blogging!

It was 1 year ago on this date that I decided to write a blog post every single day. This is my 359th blog post. I wrote a few posts before starting to write daily. I also missed a few days for vacations. The time has absolutely flown by! I'm proud of myself for writing in this every single day. I've had over 5,000 page views throughout this year of posting. Incredible! As I've said before, I have no idea how much longer I will do this. I don't see any end to this in the near future. I enjoy getting my random thoughts typed out. Hopefully you enjoy reading them. If you aren't, then what are you doing reading this? Anyway, thanks to everyone who has read my blog so far. Make sure to tell a friend to tell a friend.