Penciling In

Today I took a good hard look at my very messy planner page for this week. It's a blur of colors, times, arrows, X's, and plans I've made. I took a big long breath in and out to brace myself for this week to come. As my life goes on I find myself getting busier and busier. Not that I should really complain, because as my family knows I'm one that loves to keep myself busy and moving nonstop. I do enjoy the occasional downtime but for the most part, I don't like just laying around doing nothing.

Literally just 10 minutes ago, with agenda planner and pen in hand, I walked over to my roommate's room and sat down and said, "OK, let's figure out when to carve pumpkins." Which is so sad that I have to pencil a specific time in. Not because I'm an obsessive compulsive planner, but because I fear I will accidentally book myself up and not have time to do it. So while it make seem ridiculous to have "carve pumpkins" in my agenda, I have found that it is the best way to do it. Especially if you have the tendency to over-book yourself.

I don't ALWAYS highlight like I did below, but sometimes it helps to draw my attention to something I might have missed.

Work is really crazy this week and so that will take up a big portion of my time but I know that it's worth it and I am extremely greatful to have a job in this terrible economic times. So I keep my head up and I think positive thoughts because complaining never gets anyone anywhere.

With that being said, I thought you might enjoy an actual picture of my agenda planner for this week of October 25th-30th.

Here's a color key:

Pink = School-related things

Green = Work Schedule

Orange = Any extra fun

As you can see, it's not all required stuff that I jam my life with. And I don't let school take over my life. I get my work done early so that I can get stuff done that is more enjoyable during the rest of the week. I learned this the hard way from last year and being a procrastinator. However, I do still let assignments sneak past me and I end up scrambling.

All in all, this was really just a reflection of my life and me telling myself how much I enjoy it and how much I really love the people who are in it. :)

The Mysterious Blue Men

Last night was quite possibly one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Blue Man Group.

Last year, my roommate Julia won 2 tickets to see Universal's Blue Man Group and as an even trade, since I took her to Taylor Swift, she took me to the show. I will start out by saying I had

no idea what to expect. Honestly, I hadn't heard a lot about the show. We were ecstatic to find

out that we had Row A seats. It's not the front row, that's AA. But it's the 4th. The first row right behind the "splash zone".

The show had a psychedelic feel to it. Strobe lights, drums, paint, interesting skits. It was basically a series of One Acts done by 3 men

painted all blue and dressed in black. They were

creepy, let me tell you. They had some of the greatest facial expressions and held perfect composure at all times. The art they created with both paint and drums and random objects was incredible. Julia and I were dying to take it and hang it on our wall. The talent and mystery was tied together. I never knew what was coming next. We were on the edge of our seats and constantly in awe.

Unfortunately we were unable to take pictures during the show, but I do see how it would ruin the whole effect. However, I made sure to take photos afterwards. The part that I truly

enjoyed the most was how much audience participation they did. In almost every skit they either brought people up from the audience, or they went out and walked on the rows of chairs and just interacted. At one moment, all three of them were in within arm's reach distance, pouring Capt'n Crunch cereal in Julia's mouth and handing me flashlights. ;)

I would definitely recommend it to families with children as it was a good clean show. It was comedic, fun, enjoyable, and easy for kids to follow.

It was a breath-taking show and I would recommend anyone to see it, young and old. I would even pay money to go back and see it again. Hoping to take my dad someday soon. :)

Flooded with Memories

Today was a very special day to me. I took a few hours out of my day to make a trip to the elementary school that I went to for Kindergarten - 5th grade, and visit with a past teacher. This wasn't just any ordinary kindergarten teacher, she was blessed to have both my sister and I for our first year of school. In addition, my grandmother was asked to come into the class now and then to read to us! I loved being able to share my grandma with the class.

Anyway, I drove up to the school today and saw the place where I used to wai

t for the bus and play "Bo-Bo-see-otten-totten" with friends. I walked into the main office to check in and to my left I saw the nurse's office where I went on many occasions (I'm slightly accident-prone).

Being able to chat with Mrs. Ruhle after not seeing her for many years was fantastic. We talked and talked and talked, about what had changed on our lives and in the history of the school. She told me I was more than welcome to walk around the school too. So I did.

Honestly, it looked like the school had been stopped in tim

e from when I left in 2001. Everything was exactly the same except they did away with the portables and added another classroom building. Don't worry, I took pictures, not that they will mean a whole lot to you. :) But as I walked around, memories literally flooded my brain...

I remembered making origami figures in art class

I remembered my two friends Becca and Jessi singing phenomenally in front of my 5th grade class

I remembered numerous book fairs as I walked past the media center

I remembered running laps around the kickball field

I remembered watching some puppet show in one of the buildings.

I remembered playing "guard the pin" on the basketball courts

I remembered eating those plastic wraped popsicle, long, thin, freeze things in the wooden pavilion (show below).

I remembered sitting in the halls reading to kindergardeners when I was in 5th grade.

I remembered hearing about 9/11 and watching the twin towers fall in 2001 in my 5th grade class.

Like I've mentioned before, I have the worst memory ever, so when these small moments of my life came back to me I was thrilled. Haha. Only one other teacher that I had was still at the school, my 5th grade teacher Ms. Kabat. I went to her classroom but unfortunately she wasn't there. I walked around a little and checked out some of the books she had on her book cart. To my surprise, most of the books I picked up where from when I was there. To name a few, The Beverly Clearly series, Mr. Popper's Penguins, and The Boxcar Kids series.

It was a fabulous down memory lane and really reminded me how time goes by so fast. It makes me look forward, at least a little, to my high school reunion! :]

The basketball courts

The wooden pavilion

The jungle gym