nerd heaven

OMG rediscovering The Westing Game with my fifth-graders. I love the crap out of that book. I'm totally trying to convince myself that I could pass it off as part of this month's reading homework, too...I'll let you know how that goes.
p.s. Not to rat anybody out, but my mentor admitted to not liking Passage to India either. And he's like a real writer and stuff.

Why I don't do this

See? Now I'm all stressed out about all the things I didn't include on my list at 11:47 last night. So stressed out that I'm stopping in the middle of cooking to come update. Like my Mom. Obviously I'm super-grateful for my mom. Possibly even more than my dog, though Daisy never forwards me articles on what kind of plastic I should not be using and where to keep my toothbrush so it doesn't get contaminated with E. Coli by people flushing with the lid up (news flash, Mom, I live with four boys. We've singlehandedly contaminated our entire block with E. Coli, and that's before lunch on a slow day.) And the rest of my family, who are awesome, and my in-laws, who are awesome, and I never really want to kill my kids and if I did I certainly shouldn't be posting about it on the interweb. And having a warm, safe home and a car that runs better when crusted with mud and goldfish crumbs than when not, and my dear, wonderful friends, and SEE? I've launched off into one of those Hallmark posts that I said I wasn't going to do. You'd probably be better off going to the last post and checking out the porcupine. This blog stuff is way too damn difficult.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm going to go saute something.

Thanksgiving Eve

     Okay, it's Thanksgiving Eve. So far, I have resisted the endless Facebook posts about what I'm grateful for (one thing a day, presumably starting with hubs and kids), and while I was initially proud of myself for not falling down that rabbit hole, I'm now starting to feel like a Thanksgiving Scrooge. You know what that means...all four of you readers get to be my Gratitudinous Sounding Board. I hear you moaning and groaning about how you just survived a damn month of Facebook posts about all the Precious Moments crap that everybody else is grateful for - and now her, too? Yes, me too. You don't have to read it, Scrooge.
Meanwhile, for the three of you who didn't just open a new tab to search for YouTube videos like this one, here we go.

1. My dog. Everybody thinks they have the best dog, but in my case it's empirically true.
2. Having finished The Grapes of Wrath AND Passage to India, and never having to read them again.
3.The possibility of seeing both my sisters and their offspring this winter.
4. My kids. Except for when I want to kill them. No, even when I want to kill them. They are pretty awesome. And sometimes provide me with opportunities to practice patience and understanding.
5. My husband. See above.
6. Chocolate
7. That I have a coworker who is as grammatically anal-retentive as I am, so we can be pariahs together. A rare thing anywhere, but particularly so in elementary education.
8. Being able to call it a night.

Okay, that was kind of weak - but in my defense, it's later than I thought. If you are feeling rather let down or unfulfilled, you should totally check out the YouTube link above. It's a porcupine eating pumpkins, better than which it does not get.

pro tip

When you are going through a personal crisis, The Grapes of Wrath might not be the most productive reading material.

Reason #21

The native hummingbird population needs to be kept under control.

Reason #20

That nest of clean laundry is not going to build itself.

Reason #19

Why Everyone Should Have a Cat

Because every time she turns her back, you keep getting lotion all over you, and somebody's gotta lick it off. I mean, seriously. If it weren't for her, you'd just be walking around covered in lotion all the time. What would people think?