Happy Birthday to me!

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.  ~Robert Frost

Birthdays are good for you.  Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.  ~Larry Lorenzoni

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No one in the world is as spoiled as I am.  That is a fact.


I had a wonderful birthday last week.


It actually started the week before when Stephen bought me some new black shoes to teach in, and a new blue coat.  (that I love!!!)

Then on my actual birthday Stephen woke up at four in the morning to make me a special birthday breakfast.  

It was frittata, and cinnamon rolls.  It was so yummy!  And, even though it was like six in the morning Zak came as well.  We read the story of my birth (from my Dad's point of view, which was really neat), and had a great time.

Then I went off to school.  It was a good day.  When I got off I went to meet Stephen at work.  We hung out and he had me convinced that we were going out for dinner.  We stopped by the house to pick up my inhaler that I had forgotten (or so I thought), and when I got in there was a suprise party waiting for me!  I had no idea!  I've never had a surprise party before.  We ate pizza, ice cream cake, cheese cake, and played Life.  It was super fun!

See? Completely spoiled, and I didn't even mention that Zak got me some tennis rackets and balls for my Birthday, and that Stephen's Mom got me some lavender soaps and things (I love Lavender!).  Oh, and Stephen got me Chocolate sunflower seeds (yum!).

But that's not even it!  So fast forward to this weekend.  Stephen tells me we have a surprise trip.  So we pack up in the car and drive down to Logan.  Stephen took me out to eat at this amazing little Indian restaurant.  It was funny because when we pulled up it was attached to a Gas Station.  However, don't let looks deceive you because it was FANTASTIC.  I haven't had Indian food since I was in England, and I'd really been wanting some, and this was as good as anything I'd had there (except Suresh's chicken curry of course!).

Then after dinner we went and explored in Border's Books and Petsmart.  I got three floor puzzles in Border's Books because the teacher in me couldn't resist ;).  We also ran into Quince, a friend from my home ward, so that was super fun!

Now, here's the most awesome part.  Then Stephen and I went to see...... Brian Reagan!  It was soooo funny, and I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.  Stephen did very well at keeping this secret, because, come to find out, he got the tickets before Christmas!  I was definitely surprised, and it was wonderful!

To top off our adventuresome weekend we started on our way home, but it started snowing so hard that we could hardly see the road in front of us.  So we pulled off in Malad, Idaho.  The hotel there had no vacancies, but we couldn't really go any further.  So we slept in the car for a few hours before trying to get on the road again.  It was slow going for a little while, but eventually the roads cleared up and we made it back to our home at 6:30 this morning.  Needless to say we were rather exhausted, but the snow made for a very pretty Rexburg to come home to :)

So, no one can argue with me now.  I am definitely the most spoiled person alive.

Happy

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think.  Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.  ~A.A. Milne

If you want to be happy, be.  ~Leo Tolstoy

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Just sitting here listening to Disney music (If I Didn't Have You- Monster's Inc, My Favorite Things- Sound of Music).


I have warm toes, and am watching my cute husband doing homework.


It's nice.

*hiccup*

So, I had the hiccups.
I don't like them.  They are obnoxious, and whenever I get them they are loud and shake my whole body.
They were driving me crazy so Stephen looked up ways to get rid of hiccups online.
We found a site and as we were reading some of the different ways, my hiccups went away.

So there you have it.  Reading about getting rid of hiccups gets rid of the hiccups.

:)

Happy Valentine's Day

It's been a great day.  Stephen got me some beautiful roses. :)

School was so much fun!  We had a cute little party put on by some of the parents, and the kids were adorable because they were soooo excited.

I made little Valentines for the class, and I wanted to share because I thought they turned out adorable!

I used my cricut to cut out the hearts and "Valentines Day" sayings.  I love the cricut!  Then I just used little pom poms and googly eyes to make the cute little monsters (my favorite part) :).  It's funny how something so simple can make you so happy.

P.S.

How could you not love this face?

Sickness

It is easy to get a thousand prescriptions but hard to get one single remedy.  ~Chinese Proverb

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Yesterday was a funny day.


I've had a pretty nasty cough since before Thanksgiving.  It's especially obnoxious when I start coughing and sneezing while I'm teaching.  I've been to the doctor many times and tried antibiotics, cough syrups, cough pills, decongestants, and steriods, but none of them made my cough go away.


So yesterday I went to the doctor yet again, and they gave me a chest X-ray.  There's nothing wrong with my lungs, although they did discover that I have mild scoliosis (who knew?).  That doesn't really matter though.  So after everything I've been through they've decided that I must have something like mild asthma, because this cough is so persitant.  So now they have me on some allergy medicine (to help with my sneezing), and two different inhalers (to stop the coughing).


I really hope this works this time.  So far so good :).  I'll be so happy to stop coughing.


And in other exciting news.  They've found lice at my school.  Oh the joys of elementary school :).  Those kids sure are lucky that they are so cute. ;)


But all in all it was still a great day.  I'm finding more out about my teaching style.  And Stephen hung up a bunch of new pictures yesterday.  Most of them are from the wedding and I love them!  Our apartment is so cute :)


I'm so blessed, and so grateful to have such a wonderful husband.

Work and Motivation

If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.  ~Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book

I can't complain, but sometimes I still do.  ~Joe Walsh

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Today Stephen and I had a teacher training and I started thinking about how much work life is.  I realized that I could be much happier if I stopped complaining so much about the work I have to do, and just took the time to enjoy the work I have to do.


Really, there is always some element of work that can be enjoyed.  Life would be so boring if we didn't have any work to do.  It's satisfying to be able to accomplish something.  


I recently read the beginning of a book called Drive.  It was really interesting.  It talked a lot about the open source software movement, and organizations that are somewhere between non-profit and for profit businesses, that have a main goal of helping people, with the added bonus of making a little money on the side.  It highlighted how this is completely in contrast to the traditional view of motivation that says that humans should be motivated by rewards and punishment, or biological needs.  This shows that there is actually a deeper and less rational motivation for people that is internal.  This is the motivation that breeds creativity.  Actually, it was really interesting because this book notes that putting external rewards or incentives on something that people are internally motivated to do actually lessens their performance.


So thinking about these two things I decided that instead of being overwhelmed by all the work I have to do I should just work hard and do the best I can, and know that that is enough.  


Really life is wonderful, and as the quote says in the beginning:  I can't complain.  :)

Jumping on the Blog Bandwagon

So I decided I would get one of these blog things. :)

I'm not sure how entertaining it will be, but I will be posting whatever I please. I guess I don't mind much who reads it. I'll share things that I find useful :)

For starters, this is what I am about to prepare for dinner tomorrow:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Wild-Rice-Soup-IV/Detail.aspx

I'm pretty excited. I've done it once before, and it's warm and yummy! Only this time I am going to use one pound bacon instead of two, and I'm going to add some chicken into the mix.

Probably not the healthiest thing in the world, but it sure is tasty!