Category Archives: think happy thoughts

Oct27

Cold Front!

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Cold Front!

I wore a jacket today.

Normally, because I hate cold weather, this would be bad news. But I can’t remember the last time we were in 50 degree weather. February? March?

It only took until October, but I finally feel like we’ve got ourselves some appropriate fall weather. And back in my home state, fall was my favorite season because of how the trees would turn colors, particularly in the mountains.

Observe:

Look at that beautiful mountain and the leaves changing colors into golds and oranges….

A younger, more naive me… in a JACKET!

What’s not to love about that sort of scenery? The colors, the rock formations and shapes, the crisp mountain air…

So, what I’m trying to say is that change, especially from hot weather to moderately cold cold weather, is good. Yay for jacket weather!

Oct22

Mental Health day

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Mental Health day

I didn’t go to work yesterday.

No, I didn’t just NOT show up. I took it off a week ago, anticipating that I might need a break. (And oh, did I need it, people. This was a moment of inspiration before disaster truly struck. I couldn’t have been more grateful that I had foresight to take that day off…)

A lot of people asked me if I had any plans for my day off.

The beauty of it all was no, I didn’t. If yesterday had a theme song, it would be Bruno Mars’s “The Lazy Song”. Absolutely yes.

Now, to be clear, I did do a few responsible things. I made meals (breakfasts, lunches, and dinners). I did a deep clean of the kitchen, unloaded the dishwasher and ran it. (Twice, actually. Dishes got a little backed up due to some of the craziness of work which will not be mentioned in this post or on this blog.) I did lots of laundry, which included changing the sheets on our beds to our “cooler weather” sheets (the high for today didn’t get past eighty-five. THAT IS TWENTY DEGREES LESS THAN WHAT WE HAD ALL SUMMER, PEOPLE! So yes, “cooler weather” sheets, not our “cold weather” sheets.

I even went grocery shopping. I hate grocery shopping, but I did it on my mental health day. BECAUSE IT WAS BETTER THAN THE REST OF MY WEEK. Seriously (and sadly) true.

But, overall, I was fairly lazy. I slept in. I gave myself a three day weekend. I was fairly useless.

And it was marvelous.

The moral of the story is: I need to do this mental-health-day-for-no-good-reason-thing more often!

Oct8

There’s an app for that…

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There’s an app for that…

Jared has this habit of looking at apps for my phone. (He got me the good phone first, and so he’s constantly suffering from phone envy. Here’s hoping that he gets his own awesome smart phone soon…) So, he’s been looking at all sorts of things that I can download for my phone that he wishes that he could have on his own.

The other day, he came across this app called “Paper Camera” that was Amazon’s app of the day recently. Meaning that you can download the app for free when it normally costs money. He told me that I should check it out and see if I wanted to download it to my phone. I didn’t really have time to “check it out” but it sounded intriguing, so I went ahead and downloaded it (after all, it was free, right?).

What it does is takes pictures, but instantly converts them to different styles. Case in point: My classroom.

This is Comic Book style.

Neon Cola style- takes the colors and turns it into neon-light sign style.

Going simplistic- Con Tours style.

You just select the method, and it immediately shows in real-time what the image would look like BEFORE you even take the picture. Sweet, no?

Still not sold? Just check THIS out!

Jared and the pups in Con Tours mode.

Jared in the family room- Sketch Up style

And if that doesn’t melt your heart, what normally looks like this:

 

Turn into this:

Okay, now you’ve got to admit it- that’s pretty dang awesome. And the subject matter therein is pretty much the dictionary definition of adorable.

Oct4

It’s been a week…

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It’s been a week…

You know that there’s something wrong with you when you look at your blog and go, “Wait! Why is that the top post?! Did it not save my latest few posts?!” and then realize: “Nope. I had a lot going on it my head, but was too busy to do anything with it.” Yes, I really did have that train of thought run through my mind.

Anyways, this past week has been insane. It was the end of the first grading period, and it almost did me in. The whole past week, I have had 7th grade papers as my constant companions. When I wasn’t grading, the thoughts of what I needed to grade haunted me. Poems, book reviews, and miscellaneous late work fluttered around me… and it was horrible. Even with these two hanging out with me as I tried to work hard:

Thanks for your patience with papers being all over the house (and pets), Jared. I know that was rough.

On the flip side, to balance out the misery and chaos created in my life by grading, this weekend was General Conference weekend for Church. And it couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I was triple booked this weekend (between grading, my CTWP conference, and an amazing book festival going on within a hour of here) along with General Conference. And they were all important and/or meaningful things for me to be involved with. I had to make a conscious choice to choose Conference.

I always seem to enjoy the Saturday sessions more. And this year I was not disappointed. Within the first two hours of Saturday morning, I had several talks that felt like specific parts were addressed directly to the struggles and discouragement I have been facing. This year has had so many things go wrong, and I have never felt so hopeless or discouraged, even when I have tried so hard to focus on the good around me.

General Conference touched me and reminded me that all these things will pass. These issues and doubts that have plagued me are temporary, and that I can rise above it. I feel so lucky to have such easy access to inspiring and good people sharing simple truths about how to live our lives.

That, and the fact that grades have been officially submitted, make life a much happier place to be.