I keep forgetting to bring my camera to school, so pictures of our fun weekends will have to wait. Meanwhile, this will just be a random blog about random stuff, and it might be boring for you all, but I am recording this for posterity!

Because we've been sick a lot lately, Todd and I have gotten to spend a ton of time together, and its been such a great blessing. We get along really well, and we are starting to adjust (or ignore!) all of those fun differences you discover in your first few years of marriage. We have spent a lot of time reflecting on our blessings, and we have so many. When I think about other people that I know or have heard about, or see on TV, I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father that he has seen fit to bless us with many temporal and spiritual blessings. While not every single prayer has been answered the way we want it, we have stayed healthy, we don't have a large amount of debt (our only debt is my student loans), we have two cars, a cute apartment with cute furniture, we are generally healthy, have lots of food to eat, and whats more is that we have a great marriage. Sometimes I find myself complaining because our apartment is not big enough, or my brakes squeal (real bad!) on my car, but those are just minor things compared with the big picture. I need to get better at seeing the big picture, and not worrying about things that won't get me anywhere spiritually.

On another note, everyone I know that is pregnant at this moment is having a boy! This seems to be boy season. I was born during a girl season, and so I grew up with girls at church and most of my friends at school were girls. However, I have a feeling this might jinx me, because I REALLY want a boy first. I always wanted an older brother (no offense to my siblings, I just didn't want to be the oldest all the time!) so I think it would be fun to have a boy than a girl. Since everyone is having boys though, by the time I get around to popping kids out, I'll probably have a girl first. I mean, girls are great too!

I know I'm not supposed to blog about politics (my own rules, I guess I can break it), but at this point I kind of feel sick of the whole process. I really feel like I've tried to take an objective view of the candidates, and now they just seem to be saying the same things and playing the same games, and I'm just ready to get up there and vote! Especially now that Romney is down for the count, I've lost a bit of interest, although I would love to see McCain choose him as his Vice-President (yeah, right though).

Politics in Idaho have gotten a bit interesting too, with Luna's whole plan on turning our pay into performance-based pay. My thoughts are that this is ridiculous, its such a subjective plan, and all teachers know that each day is a whole different story in terms of whether your kids had breakfast, if your ADD kid took his medicine, if you had a bad night of sleep, if your high math kids are absent that day, etc. I mean there are a thousand factors that could change on a daily basis in your classroom, and trying to base your pay on some random day of testing is such a mess. Good luck bucko...I don't think it will go too far. However I do think that bad teachers shouldn't be given tenure! Maybe its one of those Catch-22 deals, like most political issues....

That's all I got kids! I am getting excited to move to Indiana, although I'm not so excited about finding a job (they pay crappier there than in Idaho, shocker!) I'm considering getting some good volunteer experience instead, so we'll see. We move about every four months, and so my moving spirit is itching to go!

Jeans

Please, ladies, tell me your philosophy on jeans. I broke down today and shelled out $65 for Silver jeans, because I have started to feel like I get what I pay for in the jeans department, and I usually don't spent that much (and it was all birthday money, so I could justify it there as well). I have been wanting a nice pair for a while, and most of my jeans are getting really old or don't fit me the way I want them to anymore. I love my new jeans, and I'm wondering if this expensive purchase is something I'll just have to get used to!

How much do you spend on jeans? What brands do you like? How often do you buy them? Tell me all please!

On other notes, a post coming later about my fabulous birthday weekend, complete with a complimentary meal from P.F. Chang's because our wait was AN HOUR AND A HALF (and that's 15 minutes past the time they told us). Worked out well for the poor college students, actually :)

slump

I am in a blogging slump. I find myself thinking about the blog and realizing I have nothing I want to say. Or thinking that I'm too tired to blog. Or having too many other things to do first. It's really surprising when I have nothing to say, Todd would probably think, but I've run out! I think in the next few months I might be able to come up with some cool stuff to talk about, but you'll have to be patient!

But you want to know something really sad. The heartbreaking thing about working with kids is that you hear things like this: One boy was telling me that he thought he was going to be tall. Thinking his dad might be tall, I asked Jayden his dad's height. He said, "I don't know my dad. He ran away from us." Sad. I have no patience for deadbeat dads, or parents who "don't have time" to parent. Ugh. And that is the end of this soapbox.

Okay Finally

So, I'm not sick anymore, thank goodness, although word on the street is that this horrible influenza is going around (which I already caught once, thanks), so I'm hoping that I avoid this one completely, especially since I have an impending Utah Jazz game to go to, and Valentine's Day, and a birthday, and a Todd's birthday, and possible a visit from my sister. So, sickness, sickness go away. I think I'll just take some extra Vitamin C every day and hope for the best!

Nothing too new here in Thomason news. When did I last post anything substantial? Oh yeah, Delaware. Well, it is obvious I am not in Delaware anymore, because it IS SNOWING ITS LITTLE HEART OUT HERE. Seriously, it stinks since I have to get up at 6 am every day and drive in it before everything melts. Luckily, people drive pretty good on the roads I have to take and because I leave so early, I avoid all the nasty morning rush hour traffic. I have to say, I can't wait for it to be spring!

So I got the flu (AND a stomach virus) before we went on our skiing trip to Ogden. I seriously thought I was pregnant. It was the FLU, the throwing up part made no sense. So I freaked out for a few days, and then it stopped and I got better, and well, I don't know what that was all about, but I can't say I'm not slightly relieved there won't be a Little Thomason for at least a while. Then after starting school and work again I got a nasty little cold which I complained about in the last post. So all in all, I've been sick 3 (or is it 4?) times since the school year started. Luckily, only the flu part was really bad, and its always occurred over a weekend so I've had time to rest before getting back to the grind. Word of advice: don't get sick. It stinks.

I started my internship and love it. I'm actually a little bored there because I'm so used to substituting and running around like a chicken with its head cut off all day while at school. So to sit back and observe and run a few centers and do a few things at the front of the class is CAKE! But I really like my teacher and the students are great. Those teachers have it so sweet, the class sizes are capped at 20 kids, and they have TWO specials A DAY...that is so much free time for a teacher! I keep telling myself this isn't really preparing myself for the real world, but hey, maybe I'll get lucky and end up someplace like that!

I am also taking a few classes and I love them. My teachers are smart and knowledgeable and they are totally turning around my views on teaching math, science, and social studies (NOT that we teach those anymore, thanks to No Child Left Behind). Even so, I think the things I am learning will be of huge benefit to my class in the future, and I am learning a lot as well. We'll just say the light bulbs in my head go off often! However, I am grateful that this is my last semester in classes at college. I really love Boise State, and it's been fun to be here, but I feel like my time in school is up (um, yeah, finally!)

Todd and I have been glued to the TV following politics, and so when we come and "relax" there is usually Fox News or CNN on in the background. I have decided to not get into politics too much on my blog because I think my "passion" for this year's campaign could probably be construed as rage sometimes. I go off on rants where I call certain people "idiots" and "uneducated" and it's just not pretty. I will spare you all that. However, I do just have to say real quick that my favorite candidate is now a thing of the past, but he definitely took the high road, and it's a shame because I really think something good could have come out of his presidency. And that some of the things the Democrats will do in office are stupid, so i will never vote for any of them. But, we will still be friends, my little Democrat buddies. There. It's out of my system. Moving on....

Yeah, life is pretty much way boring at this point. However, it has been REALLY awesome hanging out with Todd. Every day he gets more addicting. We are definitely still in that honeymoon stage, even after 21 months of marriage. We are best friends, and we have a darn good time when we're together.

Am I forgetting stuff? Probably. Again, it was good to see you Provo girls a few weeks ago, its so refreshing to be around GIRL friends again!

sick...again!!

Maybe if I wasn't getting sick every 3-4 weeks, I would blog more!!

Well, hopefully this is getting that "first year of teaching, sick all the time, poor immune system" thing out of the way for my ACTUAL first year of teaching. And I'm missing a ski trip because of this!

Ick. Hope you all are doing well!