Lent

Lent has been on my mind for a few weeks now. Easter is my very favorite.

   Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!   Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!   Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia!   Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia!

My Lenten activities have never been really successful (if you can call spiritual exercises successes and failures). I usually last a couple days and give up, then am so buried in my overwhelming sense of guilt and hopelessness that I stop trying. Which ultimately makes me pretty grateful for Jesus' grace. But I suppose it doesn't work unless I start out with a plan in the first place. After all, how can I be crippled by shame unless my expectations are a little bit higher than normal?

I did a little research. (Stop shaking your head. You're not really surprised. Think about whose blog this is). I loved the Lenten videos at Relevant magazine, which I recommend watching. Spokane folk will recognize a familiar face, and I teared up listening to Jonathan talk about using our gifts to invest in the freedom of His people instead of their exploitation. Pretty amazing stuff. I also looked at some of the older ideas for preparing to celebrate Easter. I had considered giving up meat, sugar, alcohol, negative self-talk, and all of them at once. I think I'm deciding on a combination to help me with moderation (not one of my current strengths). Here are my ideas:

Prayer

Practice Liturgy of the Hours
Avoid guilt so that I associate prayer with joy and peace, not shame
Memorize, starting with my hero Donne.


Sacrifice

Learn, examine, and control my material excesses.
Start with abstinence from certain foods, and change as I discover where the excess really lies.

Charity

Reflect on the unique collection of my gifts and resources
Give them away (at least in a small way every week)

I'm pretty excited about it, actually. And on a side note, I think I might always schedule my February dentist appointments for Ash Wednesday. Sitting in a chair and having a dental sadist take off layers of skin with a pointy metal object and wonder why you're bleeding seems a good sort of appropriate for the first day of Lent. Somber. Painful.

Superheroes!

Celebrating David's birthday was an extra-fun blast this year. Mostly because our Super Fun Friends were willing to dress up for a Superhero themed party! Good times were had by all:

February Foolishness

This week, after a long couple weeks of feeling depressed and secretly looking at other career options (State Line, anyone?), I finally found a solution... at least a temporary one.

In spite of the insanity, attitude, and apathy, I will keep a log of all the kind and genuinely funny things my precious students say and do.

So I will forget about having to keep that darn 5th period after class on Monday because they were naughty and I will remember 4th period begging to sing along to David Bisbal. I will remember the kid who said, "You look nice today, Mrs. S." Even though I thought he was talking to the guy's afro in front of him and the whole class had a good giggle at my expense. I will fondly laugh to myself about my class's crush on Seth the IT guy with enormous biceps (comically enormous). They threaten to break my computer/projector/smartboard on purpose in order to call him in. They like my shoes - the blue ones and the beige ruffly ones and the sparkly toms. And they laugh at my jokes, even when they're just being polite.

Thanks, good kids! You make it worth the headache.

On Being a Good Learner or How I Suck at Skiing and Ski Anyway

A few weeks ago, we were invited to a surprise birthday party that included a Suprise! We're-Taking-You-Skiing at 7 am. David is an avid and talented skier. He's been skiing since he was three, was a ski instructor for a time, and now races down seemingly impossible slopes (or undefined slopes, for all you mathy types). He signed us up right away.

At that point in time, I had been skiing twice the winter before last.

That's all.

So the idea of skiing with a group of experienced skiers made me stressed out for about three weeks, up to and including the actual day. They were all very nice about it, even when I was crying (thanks, Scot and Erika!), and swearing (again... Scott and Erika). After the crying and in the middle of the swearing, I had a minor epiphany. This is what my class is like for a lot of my students.

The mountain is scary. The slope is too steep. I'm the only one who can't do it. I'm a stupid loser face. The toddlers can get off the rope tow on the bunny slope, and I fall on my face. Awesome. Everyone has to wait for me. They're bored and wish I weren't here. I shouldn't have come. I hope it's at least funny when I fall. Nope... no one's laughing.

And my students don't even get the researched benefits of swearing when they're super frustrated. Sorry, kids!

But it made me think about how to be an effective encourager when trying feels like a waste of time. And I don't have lots of really insightful wisdom, but I think me being in that place will make me more empathetic. And, for me, having people there who were pointing out the little things I do well (I'm good at getting off the chair lift. I have reasonably good form. I kept going.) helped immeasurably.

And maybe if I keep practicing, I'll actually be kinda good someday.

Bringing out Rebellion

Sometimes I wonder what it would take to make me break rules. Today, I found out. Five inches of snow and counting. After a truly terrifying drive home (cough cough... before I was supposed to leave work cough cough), my guilty conscience is mostly appeased by the safe arrival home. Multiple close calls, a couple of jerk truck drivers (if you pass me, get all the way in the other lane, please. Two halves of a lane does not equal one whole lane), and half-a-dozen near sliding off the road situations, and I only feel a little bit guilty.

But now, I'm going to do my grading. That's the same work I would be doing at work. But with tea and sweatpants.

Estamos de Vacaciones

I've read somewhere that the anticipation before a vacation is just as good as the actual vacation, but I think I disagree. Anticipation doesn't have enough sunshine to compete, and heaven knows I love my Vitamin D. We left for Puerto Vallarta the day before school got out for Christmas break (ha ha, suckers!), and arrived right about sunset to our resort. We took approximately 897 sunset pictures, so I'll only post one or two. (Ok, ok, in reality, we only have 52 sunset photos, but you still don't have to sit through them all). The resort was awesome.

The view from our balcony.

The all-inclusive resort atmosphere took a little getting used to, though. We met up with one of David's classmates and her husband, who are both a kick in the pants and super extroverted. They had been making random friends for a week already, and kindly welcomed us into their pool-side gang, which already consisted of Canadians and other United Statesians from across the country. Most of the conversation revolved around the crazy antics of a couple from Yellow Knife, Northwest Territories, some of which were amusing, but all of them made me sad. Drunkenness and promiscuity usually do. Especially when the girlfriend was telling stories about the man-whorish behavior of her boyfriend, who just sat there smiling and bobbing his head and looking at her boobs (which, in his defense, was hard not to notice as there were sparkly piercings from clavicle to cleavage). David and I both also overheard a number of semi-racist comments that made us stop and frown. Nothing really overt, but enough to make me want to stop and pull strangers aside. To say things like, "Actually, you are covered in oil and sand and spilled beer. I think you're dirtier." Or, "There are Mexicans in Mexico, turns out. If you don't like them, why did you come here?" I stopped really listening after a while and people watched. And figured out if I switched to glasses of Pepsi, no one tried to bring me more shots because it looked like I was already drinking and I could stop covertly pouring out the shots behind me. After a day, we got tired of the pool and wandered out to the beach. And swam, boogie boarded, went for walks, got massages at sunset for super cheap, and read.

Puerto Vallarta was our honeymoon destination three and-a-half years ago, so one day we took the bus downtown to wander around the neighborhood we stayed in. The city was decked the
halls out, and we had a romantic dinner on the beach at a restaurant we liked before. We walked along the touristy boulevard for a while, and found some fun photo scenes:












David making friends with a stranger on the street.

The hotel had some entertainment, which we didn't take advantage of until our last day. It was Caribbean Beach Party (or something like that), so all the poor entertainment employees dressed up for Carnaval (see below... I think I need to get me some lime green bikini chaps), and gave us a dance lesson. That sucked us in. We love to dance. Then they switched to a dance competition, which we won (t-shirts in the wrong size for both of us, but the pride of knowing we won!).

Take note of the bartender on the left dancing the merengue with a giant tray of drinks.

Anyone want to join us for another vacation? I'm ready to go back.

Warmth

One of my favorite things about winter is being tucked up all cozy in a warm house full of friends. There are very few things I like about winter, but that image stays with me as a comfort. This fall, we celebrated our 2nd annual Practice Thanksgiving, in which every family brings a dish to practice new and tricky recipes before they fall onto the plates of judgmental relatives. This group of people is full of the warmth that is my greatest joy in barren winter, and I am so thankful for their graciousness and fun and adorable progeny and delicious cooking skills.

I don't know who took which photo, but I assume the best ones here are taken by one of the artists. Feel free to give them credit.