Princess & the Plane: Straight Trippin'

I had plans for a great post that had to do with my trip this weekend. And then life happened, made me bummed, and now I don't feel like writing anything fun.

You see, that's the beauty of goals and plans...they can be changed. I never want to be so on target that I don't give myself the space to change. Or breathe. Or relax.

So, here are a few lessons from the weekend in Orlando (visiting my friend Amanda and her new baby):

--My goal was to write everyday in 2013...except on vacation. New rule. Just decided that this weekend when all I had was a purse and my iPhone.

--News flash! You can pack everything for a 4 day trip into a purse when the airlines decide to charge for anything more than a purse. 
 

--Speaking of airlines, you can count on Spirit Air for cheap flights and major delays. Always, without fail. 

--Don't go to another gate area to get a Starbucks when Orlando MCO goes into 'International Mode' (it's top secret apparently because no one warned me I'd be spit back outside and have to go through security twice. And therefore forced to gulp down my freshly purchased Starbucks. Grrr.) 

--I took a big risk in my life and lost (more on that later, I promise!) Or did I gain? Life is all about perspective, I suppose.

--2 Month old babies can capture your heart in 2 seconds.

--Orlando drivers ARE.THE.WORST.
 
--I love my best friend more and more as I watch her evolve in her God-given role. She is a phenomenal mother and wife, and I am inspired to live like her if I am blessed with a family in the future. 

More Mustache Love

I finally got around to taking a picture of my mustache B in its perma-home. This is the reading area in my classroom (obviously. And wow, I need to organize this sucka!) I apologize for the lighting...it was taken with that ol' dinosaur iPhone 3GS. And by dinosaur, I mean 2 years old.

 

My classroom theme is non-cartoony vintage owls. Specific, I know. {And she wonders why she's single.} Not really sure how mustaches come in to play, but who cares?! Look how perfectly random it fits in there. I found a black metal tray on sale at Hobby Lobby and spray painted it glossy white. I used to have the most darling burnt orange ceramic owl from Dollar Tree in place of the plush owl puppet from IKEA, but it got broken when I had a sub. boo. Some would say that you shouldn't put glass or breakables around children. I would say, children need to learn that the world is full of breakable and beautiful things. So if my $1 loss is this child's gain, then it was worth it. He (and the other witnesses) will be better off seeing me react with disappointment and grace; and this sheltered lesson on taking good care of things may help them think twice about running around stores or museums like bafoons.

If the thought of having glass around children bothers you, then you are gonna poop when you see the left side of this shelf. eek.

The Before & After & After Again

Remember the time my school workroom was all messy? 

And then, after one very long Saturday before school started, it wasn't?

Yeah, me too. And then this happened the week before school started (and had things added to the pile over the first semester):

My Poor shelf! It's CRAM-packed!

 It has stayed this way for a while because as you know, when life happens, who has time to clean out a random workroom you barely use (or would you if it was clean and organized?)

This past weekend, I went up to the school with the express purpose of making it 'eat-off-the-floor-or-do-a-ballet-recital-in-it' clean. I wasn't sure how long it would take, but after 4 hours and LOTS of heavy lifting, it now looks like this:

My trick with any de-cluttering {because, let's be honest, it is loathsome} is to start on one side and work left to right around the room. So basically, control my ADD urge to bounce all over the place. If I go from one side to the other, moving items to their rightful place or getting rid of things, I have a starting/stopping point where I pick back up each time. For some reason, this works for me psychologically. Oh, and a Venti Starbucks no-water chai helps with the motivation. 

Let's hope it stays this way for a while. Which, in teacher land, means for the next week or so.

I liked the cleanliness so much I decided to set up a (rough) Keurig station:

I wasn't kidding when I said I want to be able to relax in there. Maybe I should add a yoga mat or a napping couch?

Got any genius de-cluttering tricks that you use?

loved and lost

lonely in a crowd
lonely on the street
lonely without you
holding onto me
 
wishing you’d come back
wishing you could see
wishing you would realize
you didn’t set me free
 
trying to move on
trying to forget
trying to find new love
that won’t end in regret

 
Ps. This is dedicated to those asking, “IS it better to have loved and lost...?”

Pps. If you haven't gone to see Silver Linings Playbook, go see it. Beautifully realistic.

My Imaginary Life

Sometimes I like to look back on my iPhone camera roll and take a gander at the things I felt were interesting enough to photograph or document. Occasionally, I like to share them with commentary like I did here and here.

Happy Friday! Enjoy my randomness in the form of photos:

Believe it or not, this used to be a fairly full fake plant. And then, just like life, it's fullness got plucked away over time. Sad, huh? What's even sadder is that it took me that long (until there were only 2 fluffs left!) to throw the dadgum fake plant away. I'd like to think it's because on any given day, I'm either feeling like this:

 Or this:

I'd like to think I'd be more with it if I could settle down one day, preferably with this guy (and no, it's not off the internet...my friend took it on her iphone when she was a few feet away from him! ahhhhh.): 

We could have some babies, which would then prompt me to buy one of these (and of course, I'm SURE the model for this pic really did just have a baby and is really nursing. She couldn't possibly be just a regular model with a flat stomach & oversized tatas...no way. And why do I have this on my iPhone? Your guess is as good as mine.):

Regardless of the number of babies I have, I will make sure to always have stellar birthday parties for my other babies (these aren't mine, but are one of my FB friend's dogs. I laughed so hard I cried when I saw this and I REGULARLY look back at this pic for a dah-hah-ha laugh/cry. I mean, look at their hats people. Look.at.their.hats.):

In addition to having these wonderful celebrations, I will make sure my kids grow up to fear the Lord (remember the good 'ol days when we thought the world would end? And then it didn't. So we left up all the billboards to have a good laugh):

Wait, I'm sure I won't teach my kids THAT kind of religious fervor. Maybe it's better to balance it out with more of a passionate love, like how you feel toward a spouse. Or how I feel about this band:

 (That's Coldplay by the way. And if you needed this side note, you are missing out. jk. kind of.)

But really, I just hope my kids (these imaginary, future kids I have with Ryan Gosling, remember? C'mon, keep up!) grow up to be Godly & passionate, sweet and loving. Like a little group of my current students...they took their ENTIRE indoor recess time to make this message for me out of pattern blocks. They kept whispering and hiding every time I walked by until the very end. Right as I said 'clean up', they called me over to read the message together. I actually teared up. Can you read it? (It's ok, I pretended but I really couldn't.)

 "We Love U"

That says is all. Enjoy the weekend!