The doctor's considering it doubtful whether he will ever recover the use of his legs, which prevents his holding a pen.*

I found my book!

The only problem is that while I was in my 'lost book' depression I started to read several others, just to try and fill the void. I am now currently reading 8 books. ...I have a problem.


In other news: Today I trained employees on the electronic timesheets. I haven't done any short of training in 3 years. When I first started to train for Ukrop's I watched the other trainers for several weeks, wrote up all the important things, wrote an outline for myself so I wouldn't forget the most important stuff and then practiced it until I almost had it memorized before I ever trained anyone (p.s. this is due to nervousness, not perfectionism - there is a big difference. I do the same kind of prep for when I have to give a talk or lesson at church - well, almost the same, but I can tell you I usually have at least half of it memorized).


Last night was the first time I got to run through my head what I wanted to train them on, I went through the system and the job aid I created and took notes (the important points I didn't want to miss, etc.) and that's when I noticed a problem in the job aid. So I had to open that up and make the changes and send it to my boss. Then this morning I printed out all the copies for the employees so that they would have them during training to take notes. I went down to the training room and set everything up the way I wanted and then I spent 30 minutes sitting at my desk trying to calm myself down. There are reasons I didn't continue to pursue a career in education. I don't know how to calm down except to stop caring, but I can't stop caring because this is all me in front of these people, if I stammer or mess up...it's me. So I get nervous. And want to throw up, or quit, or die, or something.

The biggest group was first - it was actually probably the funnest group too, it had enough people that I felt comfortable enough to make jokes.

For time off request you can put a reason for request and Angie was speaking while I was typing in my reason, "Going to Italy to visit my male-model boyfriend. Need to buy plane tickets." People seemed to like that one. So I liked training (again, I used to be one, so it was almost like going back in time). But now I'm signed up to teach three other classes! What the mess?!

In other news - we had our last game tonight. We played Bon Air (who read my blog but never comment so I totally forget that they read it). I had a good 'stuffing' night, not as good as last time though. I got Stephanie a few times. I fouled Stephanie a few times too...

My favorite was at one point when I kind of, sort of pushed Steph and she fell out of bounds (it was an accident by the way, I didn't just reach out and push her) and one of the refs, Fred (my favorite) just stood there for a second and our eyes were locked and part of me hoped he wouldn't call anything, but I knew it had to come...but it wasn't coming! I theorize that maybe he was afraid to call it on me because I always give him grief when he calls stuff on me. Finally he blew his whistle and called a push. But the delay really made me laugh.

Over all, a pretty good day.

All of these plants in the middle of the city, it's like...a garden.*

So far this week I have had to eat lunch at my desk. Today I had a little bit of time, but not enough to go somewhere (even to the conference room) so I sat at my desk and read. The problem with reading at your desk is people might think you are slaking off. I didn't want that to happen, so I labeled myself for 30 minutes today while I put in my iPod and read:

...the bummer: No one even stopped by and saw it.

M.I.A.

Object: Book, couple hundred pages or so, medium height, adequate width. Missing since March 3rd. Last seen - can't remember.

I am missing one of my books.

I was really interested in what was going to happen too, but I can't seem to find my book anywhere. I have searched the car, checked around at the office, looked under my bed, in the kitchen, on the bookshelf, everywhere. I really want to know what is going to happen!

Looks like I'll be deep cleaning the entire house this weekend. Le Sigh.

We're Gonna Win!!*

Tonight was an incredible basketball game. I mean, I'm still geeking out about it. We started off the game pretty good and I felt like people were all generally in a good mood too (despite the loss we had the night before). It just kept going, I mean, the score was close, we were ahead, fell behind, ahead again...like a horse race. My favorite part of the whole evening however was the fact that I was taller than all of the other team's girls. This means one thing and one thing only to me - stuff after stuff after stuff. And clean stuffs too. The refs can't call a foul on you when you stuff a short girl cause they can see clearly that there is no foul. There was one point when I stuffed three people in a row. That's a proud moment for this little ball player.

At one point I did get frustrated and that's when I looked at the scoreboard and we were behind, but I could have sworn that we had just made several baskets, I wasn't accusing the score keepers of foul play or anything, it was just frustrating. Like being at work and thinking an hour has gone by when it's only been 20 minutes, you know. I said something to Amber about it and she gave me a look so I apologized, I wasn't trying to sound negative or anything.

I did receive a little bit of karma this evening. In last night's game I knocked down/tripped/tackled at least 3 girls from the other team (it wasn't malicious intent, I was just after the ball) and tonight I got knocked down...it was awesome. I only hope it looked as cool as it felt. I fell on the ground and I guess I had a lot of momentum and I flipped around. I'm kind of a "pain is glory" type of person, I mean, right now I'm pretty stoked that I have bruises all up and down my arm, two bloody knees (with lovely bruises to the side), a very tiny bruise on my face from last night's game...you get the idea. Long time reader's have seen the pictures (sorry - I'm almost certain no one enjoyed seeing all those bloody photographs). Best part, the refs called a foul and I got to take a shot. The other team had fouled us so much that it was one-one. If I made this shot I could take another, and by the look of the score it could bring us closer. There wasn't much time left in the game, but I wanted to do all I could to help get us that much closer to winning. I believe in Miracles, I believed that somehow these girls could get 5 points in under a minute.

Hate to break it to you, but I missed the shot, the other team got the rebound and headed down the court. But my girls (and since I am coach I can call them "My girls" and do so proudly) picked up the defense and the other team didn't make a shot. We were killing it with defense, rebounds, passes, and putting the ball up. I loved it. Like I said earlier...geeking out about it! We didn't make any more shots, but neither did the other team. We did our cheer for them and gave them high fives and told them how they did. My friend Renada gave me grief because I told her to go easy on me tonight and she says that she did...and I stuffed her twice (and tripped her once - but only I really knew that - until now I guess). My team called me over and they were debating doing the victory circle. Sometimes some of the girls do a victory circle around the circle in the middle of the gym (like in Wii soccer, as Erica put it). Then I heard someone say, "We probably shouldn't since we lost." But I had already walked away and I ran the victory circle by myself, my team cheering for me...I normally don't run the victory circle because I am too self conscious, but I was so proud of the way my team had played I was on a little bit of a high.
Everyone was still talking about it as I walked over to the bench to get my stuff and I said, "I don't care that we lost we played really well!" One of our male cheerleaders looked at me and was like, "You guys won."

Me: Whatever! (walking over to 'the book')
Cam & Drew: Look at the score, 31 to 27.
Me: (looking down at 'the book') Where's the score in this thing?! (then...lightbulb*)Oh my gosh, I've been looking at the wrong score. We won!

I had assumed all the excitement was over how well we had played as a team. I honestly thought we lost. A bunch of us went out for ice-cream afterwords (and I got free ice-cream - go feminine wiles!) I made a toast to the team and Amber let everyone know that we did, in fact win, in case I wasn't the only one who didn't realize it.

I don't know how I am supposed to sleep tonight. I shall dream of our sweet, sweet victory.

Winter, slumbering in the open air, wears on its smiling face a dream... of spring.*

I've just found out some horrible news! Absolutely dreadful!

March 13th is daylights savings!

Spring Forward!? Lose an hour!? Wake up late everyday for the following week?

Gross.

...I thought I had more time. Good news - at least it will be brighter in the mornings, maybe I'll run before work rather than after. And it means that spring is finally coming.

I feel like I just found out my favorite love song was written about a sandwich.*

So I had my iTunes DJ on this morning and Nelly's "Hot in Here" came up and it made me laugh. Not because I have that on my iTunes - cause I know why I have it on here, it reminds me of college.

So, Rexburg, Idaho for those of you who have never been is cold most of the year. Not just cold like here in Virginia in the winter...it's FREEZING! So one group of roommates once broke in to this song, except that it doesn't work in Rexburg so they changed the words to, "It's getting cold in here so put on all your clothes."

And that's kind of how Rexburg was, you wanted to wear ALL of your clothes. Anyway, I just had a little flash back.

It makes me laugh when people change the words to a song, or even when they just flat out misunderstand a song.

I used to think that "Brick" (Ben Folds Five) went, "She's a breaking up proud and slowly." (the actual lyrics are "She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly").

So - any songs you've changed the words to or totally had wrong?

"I cannot live without books."

Two months down, ten to go.

...7 books down...43 to go...eek.

January - 4

February - 3

I had trouble getting into this one at first, but I hit a spot and couldn't put it down (helped that I was flying coast to coast while working on this one). Very good read, made me cry at the end, which not a lot of books really do to me. I just have to say, Markus Zusak does a good job of making you believe a curse word is a term of endearment (if you read it you will see).
The Book Thief is set during the Holocaust so I was hesitant to read another Holocaust, but while I was in California, Mur suggested I read this one. It's a quick read and as with almost all books of this type, doesn't really have a happy ending. But it was worth the read.

I got to the end of this one and was like, "LAME ending!" But then I discovered that it has a sequel (and possibly part of a series). So, with the lame ending gone, I really enjoyed this book. Scott Westerfeld is the same guy who wrote The Uglies series. This book is historical fiction, there are events and people from history (just before WWI) woven throughout the story. At the end he points out what parts of the story actually happened. It's very interesting. ...I've already ordered the sequel.