* tiny but powerful *

Two years ago, Winter Lumpy joined our (soon-to-be) family when Brian proposed to me with his help!

TGIF, seriously. It's been a long day and a long week. Early to bed tonight. Sorry for the lame post.

Yesterday, the drama teacher at school asked if I could help her with sightreading some piano accompaniment for her students' audition songs, which they are preparing for the spring musical auditions coming up in a few weeks. I warned her there were no guarantees but I would try.

Well, I tried -- and BOY was it a spectacular failure! I was never stellar at sightreading even in the prime of my youth (on the piano, anyway; violin is easier), but now that I don't have access to a piano at home and don't play regularly anymore, I am extremely rusty. I could keep the bass line running but anything that involved crazy chords in the right hand...whoo boy! It was not pretty, let me tell you. Especially since I was trying to sightread it at tempo.

The drama teacher is really desperate to get some kind of semi-functional accompaniment help in the next couple days, so I put out a public plea for help on my Facebook and Gmail statuses (stati?) and started racking my brain for any possible pianist friends I could ask. Luckily, I FOUND A WILLING AND BRAVE SOUL! Scott has graciously agreed to come by the school both Friday AND Monday, and he even offered to work on the music a little ahead of time if I could drop it off for him tonight.

Sooo...it will be interesting to see how it goes tomorrow! I'll be there with him too, so we may split hands on some of the more challenging pieces. With Scott's help hopefully I won't make as big a fool out of myself this time around.

Wish us luck!

I'm starting to feel better, though I'm still fairly congested and low-energy. Lots of tissue being used over here at the moment. But overall I can tell I'm on the upswing, so that's a relief.

To follow up on the question I posed on a previous post: I think my two favorite Thanksgiving foods are still mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie (hey, I narrowed it down to something savory and something sweet -- that's pretty good for me!). I absolutely looove potatoes. But I love me some pumpkin pie, too. It's gotta be COLD pumpkin pie -- none of this warmed up business!

One year for Christmas, my brother got me a big box of mashed potato MIX. Like, little packets where you add water, butter, and milk, and STIR. Isn't that hilarious??? He said he had been scouring my blog that year for hints about what I might want for Christmas, and all he could find was about how I really like pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes. So since pumpkin pie would've been perishable, he opted for the next best nonperishable thing: instant mashed potatoes. SO FUNNY.

He was also extra proud of himself because the box itself was -- guess what color? -- BLUE!

I think I still have most of that box somewhere, actually. Hey, nonperishable, remember?

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And with that, I will leave you with an old quote -- an oldie but goodie:
"For a second, I forgot what prawns were. I was thinking about scallops. When they came, I was like, 'Those don't look like potatoes!' " - Eric
"Eric, scallops are seafood, not potatoes." - K.

(stolen from one of K.'s posts during NaBloPoMo last year)

10 FAVORITES
Favorite Color: Blue! Duh.
Favorite Food: Dang it. I'm so bad at favorites. I don't know!
Favorite Month: July.
Favorite Song: Definitely don't have a favorite song either...
Favorite Movie: This section isn't going so well...
Favorite Sport: Oh! I can answer this! Soccer.
Favorite Season: Spring.
Favorite Day of the Week: Saturday.
Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Coffee. *EDIT: GREEN TEA ICE CREAM! I almost forgot about that flavor because I get to have it so rarely. :( But I definitely like it the most! I just happen to have access to coffee ice cream more often. Mmm...now I really want some green tea ice cream!
Favorite Time of Day: Evening.

9 CURRENTS
Current Mood: Does "sick" count?
Current Taste: Nothing, actually.
Current Clothes: Brown slacks and dark red blouse on top of a black tank top.
Current Desktop: A closeup of orange orchids taken by Brian during one of our visits to the SF Conservatory of Flowers.
Current Toenail Color: Um...normal-colored?
Current Time: 10:04pm.
Current Surroundings: My living room (which will soon have couches -- this weekend!).
Current Thoughts: I am irked at one of K.'s students for making an insensitive comment. HRMPH.

8 FIRSTS
First Best Friend: The earliest one I can remember is a girl named Georgina. 4th grade, maybe?
First Kiss: Matt, my high school boyfriend.
First Screen Name: Azalea225.
First Pet: We had a turtle at one point. Little did we know one day he would disappear at the hands of our grandmother... after which there was turtle soup! :-O
First Piercing: Ears. 6th grade, maybe?
First Crush: I honestly don't remember... if there were any in elementary school, I have zero recollection. In 6th grade, I had a crush on Theo. Hahaha... a-w-k-w-a-r-d at the time. Yay, middle school! :-P
First CD: I also don't remember. I never had very many CD's. I do remember my first cassette tape album (received as a birthday present) was a Celine Dion album, I think in 9th grade.

7 LASTS
Last Cigarette: Um...never?
Last Drink: Also never. Unless you mean the Coke I had with dinner...
Last Car Ride: As opposed to driving the car myself? Brian drove us home from the DL performance at Waltz Weekend on Saturday.
Last Kiss: Also on Saturday, before I started getting sick. We've refrained since then in hopes of avoiding getting Brian sick as well. I've given him goodbye pecks on the cheek in the mornings, though.
Last Movie Seen: Casino Royale. Before that, Hairspray. And before that, Ratatouille (okay, it took me several tries to spell that correctly). We don't normally watch movies that much, but we happened to watch these three within the past two weeks! Strange.
Last Phone Call: Tonight, with my mom.
Last CD Played: In the car -- "When You Say Go" by Testimony!

6 HAVE YOU EVERS
Have You Ever Dated One Of Your Best Guy/Girl Friends? Yes.
Have You Ever Broken the Law: "Duh" is a good answer for this one.
Have You Ever Been Arrested: No.
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: No.
Have You Ever Been on TV: I think for like 2 seconds in one of those top-high-school-seniors "get a shot of everyone throwing a cap in the air" things that a local news station did back then.
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn’t Know: No.

5 THINGS
Thing You’re Wearing: My cross necklace.
Thing You’ve Done Today: Attended a Staff Meeting.
Thing You Can Hear Right Now: Brian typing.
Thing You Can’t Live Without: My watch. (MUST. KNOW. THE TIME!)
Thing You Do When You’re Bored: Browse blogs.

4 PLACES YOU’VE BEEN TODAY
My classroom.
K.'s classroom.
My car.
My couch.

3 PEOPLE YOU CAN TELL ANYTHING TO
Brian
(Hmmm...he's the only person I actually tell everything to, so I feel like it's misleading to try and arbitrarily name two more people for this list...)

2 CHOICES
Black or White: Wait, wait -- I need CONTEXT! Bah. Um...black, I guess?
Hot or Cold: Again, boo to lack of context. I guess I'll go with "hot."

1 THING YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE: Lead someone to Christ.

Okay... your turn!

What's your favorite Thanksgiving food?

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I could choose just one...
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Thanks for all the well wishes. I made it through the day at school, got my grades in, and even left a bit early to crash at home for awhile. I didn't make it to rehearsal, but that's probably for the best -- I wouldn't have lasted upright very long and would have risked getting all the guys sick as well.

Not much to say today. I started feeling a sore throat coming on last night, and I woke up feeling much worse. I've spent most of the day in bed, alternately sleeping, grading tests (which have been depressing), and eating a little. My throat is feeling slightly better now, and I've been taking Tylenol around the clock, so I'm really hoping I'll be okay enough to teach tomorrow. I also need to turn in progress report grades, so I'll have to go in at some point anyway.

Hope your Sunday has been better than mine!

Since no one has been attempting any more guesses on the song lyrics, I guess it's time to finally demystify the ones still left unidentified!

1) "A Sorta Fairytale" by Tori Amos
2) "Consuming Fire" by Tim Hughes
6) "Do You Dream of Me" by Michael W. Smith [I use the intro of this song as my cell phone ringtone]
7) "The Gift" by Collin Raye & Susan Ashton
12) "If I Am" by Nine Days [anyone remember my old away messages?]
16) "Finding Me" by Vertical Horizon [another source for old away messages]
17) "Broken" by Seether with Amy Lee
19) "Another Day" (from RENT, as several people recognized) - but the version I have is a recording by my high school friends Kristin and Joey!
20) "All I Really Want" by Lincoln Brewster
24) "Something So Beautiful" by Kyler England [a relatively obscure new artist whom I first heard as an opener for Vienna Teng a few years back]

Know any of these songs?

K. and I went to see the fall play again *twice* today -- in the afternoon for the second cast, and in the evening for the first cast again, just because we love the kids and had so much fun watching the production. There were definitely differences in the portrayal of characters between the two casts, but I really loved them both. The kids also did fabulously on the dancing! We were so proud of them!

What a great way to end the week. :)

Time for a thankful list! It's been awhile. I should try to do these more often again. (Main inspiration from JoEllen!)

From the past week or so...I am thankful for:
- dancing more this year
- having at least some physical activity built into my schedule again (a step up from *none*...I really need to work on that)
- slowly getting a little better at the warmups in rehearsal
- successful first DL performance of the season
- 3-day weekend
- having a washer and dryer to do laundry in our own home
- music from the lyrics game bringing back old memories
- being able to share so much of my daily life with K.
- sharing a classroom with Laura and being able to see how she teaches the kids I'll be getting next year
- working with Rick again this year on planning curriculum
- competent and efficient TA's
- finally being able to handle having a TA (which I hadn't been before)
- having family close by
- last but not least...BRIAN! He is so supportive and patient and takes such good care of me. I thank God for him every day.

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P.S. I wrote most of the above earlier today, but I just got home from the opening show of "Pride & Prejudice" and THEY WERE SO GOOD!!! I'm so proud of all the kids! I can't wait to see the other cast tomorrow!