1. Done working at Taco Time for the summer. Happiness! I liked my coworkers a lot but dealing with customers could be stressful. Note: be NICE to your fast-food workers. It's a tough job!
2. My parents and Jack dropped me off at school today. Only it wasn't a one day trip, it was a two day trip, and sharing a motel room with three adults and one 5-year-old is NOT fun. For one thing, we all went to bed really early. It started out with the three of us reading and Jack doing just about everything but lying quietly in bed. He was fussing about his blanket, complaining about the lights being on, asking to have his back rubbed, getting out of bed to get water, drinking a whole glass of water, asking how many pages I had left, asking if I would be done soon, and so on. About 8:30 Dad turned out his light and started trying to go to sleep. Mom did the same about 8:50. About 9:10 I switched to using a light wedge so we could turn out the other light because after almost an hour Jackson was still wide awake and talking. He didn't end up falling asleep until around 9:30 and I, out of sheer boredom, fell asleep about 9:50. Probably the earliest I've ever gone to bed for the night in over a year.
3. We stopped at a rest stop once. Rest stops are great. I love the ones where they have coffee and cocoa and cookies for free. Those are pretty much the best things ever. The one we went to this time didn't have food, but once a couple years ago we went to one and my mom asked me to get her a coffee from the little stand. I did so and while the lady got it for me, she informed me meaningfully that 'my husband says that drinking coffee stunts growth!' Uh.... awkward. I didn't feel like correcting the assumption that the coffee was meant for myself so I left without correcting her. I do drink coffee quite a bit now, but I'm done growing, so I'm probably safe now I should think. Unless coffee causes shrinking... now that I do not want to hear!
4. Classes start Wednesday! I'm excited to get some routine back in my life. Summer was great but very routine-less. I'm sure I'll be sitting in class dying sipping some coffee to keep awake in a few weeks and wishing I could go back to the good old 9-hours-of-sleep that I got routinely for the past three and a half months, but for now I'm almost looking forward to the homework and practicing.
5. Orchestra and lessons start next week! I love this part, so of course I can't wait. However I'm also a little nervous about doing a lot of playing because I've had pain in my arms, wrists, and hands for a few months now and taking this summer mostly off hasn't seemed to help substantially. So, if you could keep that in your prayers, I would greatly appreciate it! I know that God knows what he's doing in this situation, so I'm just trying to stay calm about it and not let worry cloud up this lovely semester. I don't have that many semesters left of college-- I'm one fourth finished already-- and I want to enjoy every bit that I can!
6. Six? That's it? Okay, so this idea of '7 Quick Takes' was taken from a couple other blogs I read, all written by Catholic homeschooling moms. Some of you are looking kind of confused now, wondering why I, a Presbyterian teenager, would find these blogs interesting, but hey, I helped raise my siblings and I'm kind of used to it. I like reading homeschooling stuff. I would spend hours as a 9th grader poring over the list and descriptions of classes offered at our homeschooling co-op, deciding what classes I would want my kids to eventually take. I'm also the kid who started a notebook of random things I wanted to remember as a mom. A couple items in that notebook were 'Zout is great for removing stains' and a list of chores appropriate for each age level. I also regularly devoured a homeschooling magazine that my mom got for several years. And when the teacher at co-op in 9th grade asked for a paper on a personal interest, yes, I chose homeschooling as my topic. I'm a little strange that way. So shoot me. But before you do that check out this: http://www.topmastersineducation.com/homeschooled/ I was too lazy to figure out how to make this an actual link, but copying and pasting is always an option. Maybe it'll help you understand. Maybe not... but regardless, it's kinda cool. And since I'm no longer 13 I don't think being fascinated with homeschooling is necessarily so odd anymore.
7. Friends and family are really the best. I was able to go to my home church this past Sunday for the first time in five or six weeks and was blessed to have several people greet me, hug me, and otherwise show that they cared I was there and were happy to see me. When I got to school today several of my friends showed great warmth in greeting me and I discovered a little gift from my mom in one of the boxes I unpacked. I mean, is feeling loved not the greatest feeling in the world to have? It makes me want to be careful this year. Now that I have friends at school, I'm afraid I'll just retreat into myself around others completely because I won't feel the need to make new friends. I guess I'll have to make sure I push myself out of my comfort zone when it comes to interacting with new people. Most of you know me fairly well, right? You know that I'm quiet and tend to keep to myself. My trainer at work would give me a hard time about that. When he said goodbye to me he said that I was 'the politest and quietest person' he'd ever met. That made me laugh but it's true that I'm quiet and reserved! I don't think there's any need for me to seek to actively change my personality but being friendly is something I can definitely work on!
Hoping your Labor Day was a good one!
