All Good Things, All Good Things

1. Three loooooooooong long super long months later, I am a dozen donuts fuller and finished with my student teaching. I was beyond ready to be finished, and super relieved that the end had arrived... but still, it ended up being quite bittersweet. My kids were sweet and I got a lot of hugs (and a couple of handshakes), and some pretty epic cards. My name's CH and I like warm hugs.

2. WB turned 25 (!!) and we spent a weekend in the mountains. It was weird because the weather kind of went insane, and it snowed on his birthday, but it was still nice to get away with him. Some people are worth melting for.

3. I took both of my PRAXIS tests, and I passed them. Like, really, really, REALLY passed them. Silly worries.

4. I celebrated the one year anniversary of my hip surgery (it has been a year already?!) with a 6-mile run (followed by donuts). I'm training for a 10-miler on April 26, and debating signing up for a half marathon in mid-May that would fit in nicely with my preexisting training schedule for the 10 miler.

5. I also celebrated Free Cone Day, my favorite day of the year. It was infinitely better this year, physically-speaking, since I was not on crutches and didn't get ice cream on my hair. Unfortunately, they ran out of cones before I got into the store. WHAT?! How do you run out of cones on free cone day?! I know, I thought the same thing.

6. My master's portfolio is due next Friday. After that gets turned in, I have a couple more classes; then about 2 weeks off; graduation; and two first-session summer classes. The end is nigh! And, honestly, after student teaching and portfolio-ing, those last two summer classes? No sweat.

7. It is FINALLY spring/summer. Sprummer! Oh, so this is heat. I love it... ooh, but don't touch it.
I love spring, dislike summer. But honestly, anything is better than this XXL winter.




Can you tell I've recently seen Frozen once or twice or several times and that Olaf is my favorite? (Yeah, why?!)

Grad School Update, Day 30

This afternoon, after attending a lecture {I actually went to an invited lecture. That wasn't required or talked about in class. Just something from a newsletter. What is happening to me?!} I was sitting in the graduate student lounge in the education building, which is a nice little room with some tables and couches and a microwave and refrigerator. Anyway, as I'm sitting there among several {scary} PhD students, I click on an icon on my phone and music starts playing even though my phone is on SILENT and no sound should be emitting from it and I wasn't even trying to play music. Despite my best efforts to close all the apps on my phone, of course my fingers got all jumbled and it took me a solid 30 seconds to turn off the music, while I whine "sorrryyyy!!!" and try to ignore the PhD students giving me death stares/embarrassed-for-me laughs.

Who's that person who always makes things awkward?

{source}

Guilty as charged.


Ah, school.

Scientific Anomaly

I already posted my scheduled post for today, and am leaving for the beach in just about an hour - but I just had to share this typical-clumsy-C story with you.

Last night, I went to see This Is The End {fantastically funny, by the way, even by my humor standards. Worth the 10 bucks!}, and as I was getting out of my friend's Jeep I slammed my knee into the inside part of the car door {I guess I was jumping out to get to the ground}. It started bleeding and it was the kind of pain where you just want to rattle off a chain of swear words but know that it's going to stop hurting in just a minute if you can hold on. Somehow I managed to say the words silently {hooray for continuing my Lentdom no-cursing!} and also managed not to cry. I doubled over for about a minute or so before I decided I was able to stand up. Luckily I'm so used to doing embarrassing clumsy things in front of people {and I was in so much pain/trying not to cry} that my face was only a pale shade of pink.

{source}

Anyway, the clumsy part isn't anything new. What was new was that after I walked about 10 yards or so, I got really dizzy, and had to stop every couple of feet. Once I'd walked a total of maybe 20 yards, I was hit with a serious wave of nausea and had to sit down. I was convinced I was going to throw up - I did that swallowing thing a few times and was prepared to tell my friend to get out of the way and not watch. So I put my head between my knees, prayed that I wouldn't vomit and make the evening even more embarrassing, and after a minute was able to take a sip of water. Soon after that it passed, I stood up, and felt totally normal.

When I got home, I of course had to google what the heck happened. The first result the computer gave me was that I am pregnant. Haaaaaa! Just kidding. Totally not pregnant. Thanks, Google. I found an explanation that makes a lot more sense - that that's a common reaction to pain. I have broken a couple of limbs, had shooting hip pain, and had hip surgery, along with a myriad of other bumps, bruises, and cuts {due to aforementioned clumsiness} and have never once thought I was going to pass out/die/throw up everywhere from pain. Ahhhh, car doors. Those bringers of ultimate pain.

Today my knee hurts and it's swollen and bruised, but I am no longer in fear for my life. On the other hand, I managed to burn cleanly through several layers of skin on my thigh via a drip from a hot glue gun {the area is bright white and covered with a bandaid in anticipation of the salt water sting}, so I'm making up for my knee recovery.

Speaking of my ever-graceful life:

{source}

If you can't laugh at yourself, life is gonna seem a whole lot longer than you'd like.

Dog GIF Friday

Well, another week has come and gone. I wish I could say this week has been happy and grand, but I'm not one to lie. Here's hoping another few days of rest and lazing around will get my hip over its grumpiness.

Since I didn't have all that many exciting or happy things to report this week, this Friday you get five of the best dog GIFs {all sourced from BuzzFeed, thank you BuzzFeed}.

This dog getting ready for bed {top 3 all-time favorite GIFs, by the way}:

 This dog who is too fat to get into his bath:

This dog freaking out over a lime:

This dog grabbing the mail:

 And these mops that are actually dogs:

Have a happy, love-filled, and puppy-filled weekend. xx

Cute News Alert

The web world blew up yesterday around the story of our effervescent Vice President, Joe Biden, who sent a handwritten letter to Myles Davis, age 7. Myles had written letters to Mr. Biden, President Obama, and Rep. Gwen Moore (from Wisconsin, where Myles lives), suggesting that if bullets were made of chocolate, the country would be a lot safer.

Myles with his letter and replies from Biden & Moore

Well, that could work. Though, to be honest, it might increase the peril of obesity in our nation. I mean, if people are just shooting chocolate everywhere, that sounds like a recipe for weight gain.

In his reply {great handwriting, by the way}, VP Biden writes: "I am sorry it took me so very long to respond to your letter. I really like your idea. If we had guns that shot chocolate, not only would our country be safer, it would be happier. People love chocolate. You are a good boy, Joe Biden."

Biden's letter

As a side note, did anyone else notice how cute-old-man it is that he wrote "so very long?" That just seems like a phrase that old people use. And it is adorable. All politics aside, I think that Biden is hilarious. He always makes amazing facial expressions, and this one time in a vice presidential debate in 2012, he used the word 'malarkey':

{source}

Just malarkey.

This reminds me of a story from a couple of years ago in the UK that also went viral. A little girl wrote to Sainsbury's, a supermarket, suggesting that they change the name of 'tiger bread' to 'giraffe bread' because the bread looks much more like a giraffe than a tiger. The full story is here, but photographs of the girl's letter and the reply she received are below.

Kids say the darndest things.

{Original Biden article, including photographs, can be found here}