A Little Break in Routine

Every now and then it is nice to just get away and relax. Sometimes this requires a full out vacation on the beach in Oahu, or skiing in Denver. Sometimes all that is needed is a good book, a cup of cocoa and a few hours of quiet.
This past week I was able to "get away" for a few days by helping a friend house sit. Julie's grandparents were out of town this week and needed someone to stay at the house and watch their adorable Maltese.
It's been nice living in Valparaiso just five minutes away from the church. For one thing, it doesn't take me as long to get ready for school in the morning, and I don't have to pack three different outfits for all the things I need to do while in town for the day. Being able to go back to the house and chill between activities was a definite plus.
Although the routines of my daily activities have not changed greatly, enough things changed with my change of residence that I am quite spoiled now. I love my family, and I love living with them, and I love being close to Destin, but I must admit that living in town so close to everything else has me almost wishing I could find a place in town to live permanently. Almost.
I go home tonight after youth group and it will certainly be nice to see Mom again and get back into the other aspects of my daily routine. It will also be fun to tell her all about my week in minute detail. :o)

Down time

A slow time for blogs but a busy time for everything else. Beetween Rocky and Youth Group I've been keeping myself out of trouble. :o)

School is pretty routine, lessons, quizzes, grading, and tests. The yearbook has gotten off to a rather "rocky" start, but I think in a few weeks things will be much better. Still waiting for the computer program so that we can get working on pages. :o(

I went to Alabanza last week with Julie. I had a blast. Si showed up too and so the three of us sat together. I saw several familiar faces and got to introduce Julie around some. Dale Julio was the speaker and he is working through an interesting series. I enjoyed the message and the singing so I think I'll go back sometime soon.

The youth group boating event was a blast. Thanks to all who put that together. We had a great turnout and I know that everyone who had an opportunity to try out the tubes and skis had a great time. I went on the tube once. I planned to give it a second try after lunch but got sidetracked talking, swimming, and playing tennis.

Labor Day weekend has been enjoyable. I love three day weekends. I've managed to get a lot of work done, and I've been having some relaxing moments as well. I played tennis with Julie on Friday and then she spent the night Saturday night. Sunday evening I got to spend with Savannah and we did a lot of catching up. Overall a great weekend.

Back to work tomorrow. The break has been nice, but I'll be glad to get back to work, my kids have alot of learning to do. :o)

My Birthday!!!!

Well, I had a great birthday today! I just want to say thank you to all the people who made my birthday a great day - Julie, my Mom, Savannah, the little girls, Luke and Joe, Dad, all the teachers at Rocky that said happy birthday, and my yearbook class who ate my brownies. :o)

I had a great dinner - Mom fixed Lemon_pepper chicken with mashed potatoes, garlic bread, smashed potatoes, and green beans. Later on tonight we'll have Key Lime Pie and I get to open presents. :o) The best part of the birthday for sure.

School is going well, and yearbook is off to a great start for the year. Next week we'll start selling ads to businesses, I plan to start a fundraiser within the next week or two, and we'll be taking pictures and all sorts of cool stuff. :o)

I have at the moment quite a bit of free time after 5pm every night and I have pretty free weekends - not counting the four hour Saturday school every off and on. I'm excited about finding fun stuff to do with my new free time - maybe Alabanza and hanging out with friends. I hear there's a place that offers swing dance lessons in town - I think I'll have to look into that too - maybe get a group together. That would certainly be fun.

First Days of School

School Has Begun!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am very excited to be back at Rocky this year. I have several very interesting classes and I am the yearbook advisor again. :o)

Looking forward to all the great things that are going to be happening this year.

Health and Beauty Conclusion

Well, Mom and I started part of the detox diet suggested by the author of Toxic Relief, but had to quit rather prematurely this time when we came to the realization that at this stage in our resources, we would be unable to follow through all the way.

I must say that for the almost full week that we were on the extremely strict diet, I did begin to feel better physically, but I don't know that it had to do a lot with detoxing. It was probably, most simply put, because for almost a straight week, I ate no sugar, no chocolate, no caffeinne of any form, drank at least twice as much water as usual (although, still not nearly enough), and ate many extremely healthy fruits, vegetables, grains, and more. So I was on an extremely strict, but also extremely healthy almost vegetarian diet. :o)

Even though we can't really go through the detox diet and fast like we had anticipated, Mom and I hvae decided that it would be for the benefit of all concerned, if we began eating up the food in the house and slowly, but consistently replacing it with choices of better health, like wheat flour instead of white, wheat noodles, brown rice, non-sugary cereals, and so on. I must admit that as ominous as it might sound to decrease chocolate and sugar consumption around the house, I am all for it. :o) It's about time some of those types of changes started occurring. Besides, if it's not here to eat, it's a lot easier to not miss it. :o)

On the beauty side of this article, I bought some new makeup last night. :o) I was also looking through some hair style magazines. Although sorely tempted to chop off my hair in a Storm look, I have decided to merely try a few styling changes to the mid length that I possess. I'm afraid that I might regret my decision to chop it off and spend two and a half more years, just getting it back to it's present length, not to mention the mid back length that I've been working for all year.

So I am almost all set to begin back at Rocky as a stylish professor of Languages and History. Actually, with only a Bachelor's degree, maybe the term professor is a little ambitious. I had better stick to the more humble appendage of teacher. :o)

Health and Beauty Part I

Mom has us reading a very interesting book at the dinner table these days. She does actually wait until we have finished eating, which is a good thing considering the topic - toxification of our bodies in today's industrial world.

According to the author of the book Toxic Relief, we live in a society inundated by toxins. Between the toxins naturally found in our bodies, and the toxins we place there through breathing polluted air, smoking, and eating foods that have pesticides and chemicals in them, we are literally toxic waste dumps. Well, actually, some of us are worse off than others; however, the point of this book is to show people how to detoxify their bodies and live much healthier lives in a culture that makes that extremely difficult.

The book is written by a doctor, and is actually a lot more interesting than I first gave it credit for. The first two chapters, devoted to introducing the reader to the dangers of toxification, are rather dry and hard to begin. However, the practical aspects of the book are getting very interesting. I'll write later about the different things that are suggested for enhancing health and; therefore, enhancing beauty.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

So I'm back home. Celebrations for Independance Day were enjoyable. I even got to see a few of the fireworks displays as we drove home from Pensacola.

My car is no longer mine. I sold it yesterday to a junkyard. :o( Now begins the search for the new perfect car. I pray that I can find one before school starts. :o)

Being home is nice. It's quiet (this alone is rather shocking), comfortable and very familiar. Why is it so hard to move out of the familiar and comfortable zone anyway? I never thought of myself as unfriendly or unsociable, but I do seem to have a real problem with doing things out of the ordinary. I like things to stay the same and I don't much enjoy change. At least not lasting change.

Okay, I'm rambling now. Although I don't like change very much, and prefer the comfortable and familiar, it does make me wonder what God has in store for me. The last time I got really comfortable and complacent about where I was in life, and truly believed that I had attained the "place," God completely turned my world upside down and had me doing stuff I never would have dreamed of. It took a little while to get comfortable again after that.

Well, dinner is ready and I don't feel like being philosophical any more, so this is the end.