I Guess They Are Listening

Teaching kindergarten, I often wonder if my words are falling on deaf ears. I feel that I repeat the same phrases daily... so often in fact that I have considered investing in a recording device. I often wonder at the end of the day if they have gleaned anything from their seven hours they just spent in school. I still don't know the answer to that question in its entirety, but I do know they must at least sometimes listen.

At lunch today as I was eating with my students, one of my students (who often needs just a little extra time for mastery) was talking to a friend. This student pointed to the lunch special of rice and said to the friend emphatically,

"This is rice. Now, what is this???" A classic Mrs. Anderson phrase if ever there was one.

The friend promptly answered, "Rice."

The student finished, "Good job. It's rice."

I had to laugh. They may not be engaged in meaningful learning, but at least they are picking up on my mannerisms and sayings.

Thanksgiving Recap

Eric and I have unpacked the suitcase, and we are back from our Thanksgiving excursion up to Knoxville to visit my dad's parents and some of my extended family. We had a good time hanging out with my grandparents, going up to Gatlinburg (think Branson), enjoying the fall leaves (which stayed just long enough for us to come and see them), hanging out with a dear friend at ...mmm... Starbucks, and watching a lot of football (yeah Aggies!). It was a good trip.

This morning at church one of the elders told Eric that he needed to stop dragging me from home for all of these trips... haha, they are still getting to know me. Where do we go next???

If Only I Could Do College Again...

At the youth retreat two weekends ago, I had an interesting experience. By "interesting" I mean funny and awkward.

On Saturday afternoon, another youth sponsor approached me while I was talking to some of our youth and asked me if I would help tie water balloons for an upcoming game. As my job was to "help out," I of course agreed. As I began tying the balloons, he profusely thanked me for my help and said that I could take some balloons to throw when we had finished. I thought this was a somewhat odd request- I didn't need to be bribed and why would I want to throw a water balloon at one of our youth???

I continued tying balloons, and he told me to give some to my friends to tie. I explained that I didn't mind and thought that friends was kind of a funny word to use.

I continued tying and breaking water balloons all over me (I was pretty drenched when I finished. Tying water balloons is not for wimps my friends!) Somewhere in this conversation, he looked at my RUF shirt I was wearing and the following conversation ensued:

Sponsor: "Ruff" What's that?
Me: R-U-F (I thought he was making a joke. I mean after all we are at a PCA deep south retreat. And he looked like he was still in his late 20's.)
Sponsor: Okay, R-U-F what's that?
Me: Oh sorry, I thought you might have heard of it. Reformed University Fellowship. It's a college ministry associated with the PCA that I was in in college.
Sponsor: Were in or want to be in?
Me: (our whole interaction starting to make sense) was in
Sponsor: (astonished) How old are you?
Me: 23 (Slightly irritated after getting about 5 comments a week on how young I look from everyone and their barking, unleashed dog in Greenville)
Sponsor: Oh, I thought you were a high school student.
Me: ha.ha.ha. (Hopefully it was convincing).

That was kind of the end of our conversation. We kind of avoided each other after that. I will spare you the rant I gave Eric, but I will say two things:
1. I may look "young," but I would like to hope that I do not look 6 years younger than I am.
2. I know my husband is not a millionaire, but come on, I do have a wedding ring.

I guess though, if looking young made you able to keep doing college.... I'll take it. Oh, and no one is allowed to post comments about how one day I will appreciate looking younger!!!

Past Due

Well, Eric and I haven't written at all in this glorious month of November... so I will rectify that :)

I have always liked November a lot for several different reasons-
* It is the beginning of the holiday season. I get excited about seasonal decorating and trying to find gifts to match family and friends ( I have always loved giving gifts that are creative or suited for the person or maybe just plain "cute").
* I love Thanksgiving... I might even dare say it is my favorite holiday (much to the angst of one friend who declared it a "Male Holiday"). I have a lot of wonderful memories with my grandparents and family making food, watching the Cowboys play, hiking in Sedona, and playing football outside. And now as a kindergarten teacher I get to relive all those projects like "Indian" vests, headresses, turkey creations, pumpkin pie cooking...
* I love the weather- it's finally turning cooler (for Texas and now Alabama) and it finally feels like the season of fall.

Well this blog was supposed to be what we have been up to so I will type on . . .

Our kittens are well loved and doted upon. They went to the vet today- all healthy which is good because we are attached. Having pets is quite the responsibility- it is our first step towards parenthood. So far they have not destroyed anything... but they do like to pull our internet cord out of the computer which unfortunately frustrates Eric much more than me.

I went with Eric and the youth on a youth retreat at the beginning of November. The retreat was good. I am not the "youth leader" type in many ways, but it was fun to go and spend time with our youth and be a help to Eric. I will create another post about my funny experience there.

My grandparents from Arizona came to visit us last weekend... and brought us a 1986 Plymouth. We are stylin with it. It is always such a blessing to spend time with my grandparents, and it was good to show them our life in Greenville.

Well this post is getting too long (there is probably etiquette about this sort of thing). So I will end it :)