Ramblings of a Thirty-Something

I love quotes. I love applying quotes to my everyday life and being inspired by them. I love reading the wise words people have put down, and I love dreaming that someday, my wise words will end up on one of those quote sites (although I might have to do something amazing first). Anyway, I found this quote online while researching some different ideas for blog posts. I really like the idea of analyzing quotes, so I'm going to make this a regular-ish column here. I've decided on a name, too. The basic premise is I'll ramble about nothing, then give the quote, and then ramble on about the quote. It'll be a fun time, I promise. So here we go... Wise Words  "Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else´s life." --Steve Jobs There are so many variations on this idea--the idea of being oneself rather than someone else. But I really love the way Mr. Jobs phrased it. Our time is limited. On average, we are given eighty-five years on this planet

Today was our first day back from Spring Break. It went much better than I anticipated. I actually woke up feeling refreshed rather than worn out, which always makes the day more smooth. And the kiddos were fine. We have art class on Monday mornings, and this morning my entire class agreed that my classroom just looked "dreary." So we made flowers and ladybugs out of construction paper and hung them around the room. One kiddo even made a rain cloud with little rain drops...so much fun! Today was also one of the last Mondays of the year. We are in the single digits (as far as Mondays go) which is fine by me! I'm kinda like Garfield...I hate Mondays. We have 8 more Mondays this school year. Eleven more weeks, but only eight Mondays, thanks to Memorial Day and Easter Monday. It sounds like such a short amount of time when you put it that way. I have one more region to get through and two more state tests to give them. Then we have to write a research paper on some Social

I have never been a very daring person. I've always been a play-it-safe kind of girl. I am afraid of heights. I suffer from varying degrees of social anxiety. I feel like I epitomize the description Bilbo gives of himself at the beginning of The Hobbit movie:  I was entirely respectable. And nothing unexpected ever happened . (This is one of many reasons I feel like a hobbit...though I think that will be a later post). Well, all that changed last summer. June 6, to be exact. That was the day I boarded a perfectly good airplane and jumped out of it. Granted, I had a parachute (and a very attractive man) strapped to my back. But skydiving awakened something in me...some part of me that I had never known existed. A part that wanted to be extreme. A part that wanted to do daring things, unexpected things, dangerous things...like: 1. Run a marathon.  I always hated running in school...probably because I run like I'm pulling a plow. I hated running laps and doing the mile

A whole new way to watch televisions shows has entered the scene in the last few years. I'm talking about binge-watching. Thanks to DVD releases of television seasons and websites like Netflix and Hulu, we can watch entire seasons of shows in a matter of a day or two. And people do it--I've been guilty of it. I watched the entire series of Archer in what added together equaled less than two days. You just click to watch the next episode and you can...it's like a super power. And it's great with shows like Doctor Who or Game of Thrones , and it's even better when you have just discovered a show that has already been on the air for several years. Like two summers ago, when I binge-watched seven seasons of Supernatural . But my most recent binges have been relatively small, and they have been necessary. Last year, we were introduced to perhaps the most terrifying television show to ever be broadcasted...and no, I'm not talking about American Horror Story. I

This is going to make me sound like a middle-aged woman, but I love the Hallmark Channel. I'm not a Lifetime movie kind of girl, even though both channels are quite similar. But the Hallmark Channel appeals to the idealist in me. I love the idyllic movie settings and characters...the implausible scenarios and yet ones you find yourself believing. I fell in love with their movies when they started making the Love Comes Softly series by Janette Oke into films. Granted, they aren't great films, and they aren't very true to the books, either, but they are sweet films with a great message. Since then, every once in a while, I will check out what's playing and watch a few movies. One I watched recently struck my fancy. Again, the plot is very simplistic and predictable, but the concept behind the story struck a chord with me. The movie was called The Wish List and starred Jennifer Esposito, who I loved on Blue Bloods as Danny's partner. As one might have guessed,

I hate ISAT testing. And daylight savings. They are terrible. They ruin your weekend and your whole week at school. But you know what I love? Music. I love music. I love listening to music and making music and experiencing music. I love the way music touches your emotions--honestly, who doesn't tear up during the National Anthem? Or America the Beautiful ? I love that music connects us across generations. When we sing one of the old hymns in church, like Amazing Grace or Sweet Hour of Prayer , I can't help imagining all the people singing those songs back when the church was first built or around a campfire as they traveled West. And when I listen to Bing and Frank croon out those holiday favorites, my mind drifts and wonders what it was like to listen to that through your big wooden radio with the lit-up dial as a war raged in Europe and you wondered if Christmas next year might be a time of peace. This weekend, one of my music groups sang at the nursing home, and it b

Let me be the first to say--I loooove Pinterest! Has there been a better website invented? I hardly think so. I'm on Pinterest more than Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram combined. I actually am currently on both this blog page and Pinterest. I love that we live in a world where we can share creativity and our interests with people across the planet. It really is a fantastic thing. I follow boards of people I've never met, and I have people following me who are also complete strangers. Sure, that could sound creepy, but all those people know is I have a strange addiction to nerdy stuff and wedding things...no pictures or personal information gets exchanged, unlike on Facebook or even Twitter. Oh, and have you seen that awesome new choice to "Explore Interests"??? I love that! It takes things you've pinned about and suggests other pins like them...basically like searching but without having to type anything into the search bar. Try it--it's fun. Now