I love my...

Welcome back to the second edition of I love my Mondays. I'm going to have to dig deep for this one. I mean, everyone hates Mondays, but today was one for the record books. I was awakened mid-dream, which is almost like waking a sleep walker, or taking the virtual reality headset off of someone: dangerous. Right after I got to school at 7:15, there was a knock on my back door. It was one of my practicum students from the University, fifteen minutes early. Now, I don't like to speak in the morning. My dad used to get mad at me because I was silent in the morning. This girl talked my ear off. We went to college together (term used loosely), so we knew each other. Still, I wasn't up for so much cheery conversation that early. Her presence, however, reminded me that I had practicum students coming at all. This added stress. I then remembered (or was reminded by my computer) that I had to teach the special ed class that afternoon during my planning period. Added stress. Later in the morning, I spent an hour in the hallway trying to keep kids quiet as we waited for the storms to pass over.
Later in the afternoon, I got an email saying that all after school meetings were canceled. Well, I had scheduled my choir parent meeting for tonight. This meeting is super important. I look at it as a sales pitch. I need to sell these parents on the whole idea of Choir. I've already sold their kids, but I needed to sell them and get them pumped about supporting and participating in the choral program. When I received the email, I went ahead with plan B. I sent an email to the parents informing of the cancellation. I changed the date on my website. I then found out that I didn't "have to cancel if I didn't want to." .... really? The damage had been done. No parent meeting. I was a little upset, but it's probably for the best. I'm not sure many parents would've ventured out in this weather anyways. I say all this to say that it's kind of hard to think about things that I love on this Monday. However, I know that I am abundantly blessed by the Lord, so here goes:

1) I love Mellow Mushroom: Nothing helps you better wind down after a long day at work than a pint or two of a top dollar brew, for not-top-dollar. Every Monday and Wednesday, Mellow does "Pint night" where all of their draughts are two dollars. Respect.

2) I love my "surrogate" nephew:



I stopped by my good friend John's on the way home from Tuscaloosa yesterday. I finally got to hang out with his son, Matthew. He's awesome. He might be the cutest kid I know. His parents call me Uncle Dan. He dances when I sing. He pushes a dump truck until it crashes into furniture. He can throw a tennis ball harder than I can. This picture was taken shortly after our Axle Rose impersonations.

3) I love my guitar: While I was visiting, John played a recording of some songs I had recorded at camp this year. I was going through some nice equipment that made my voice and my guitar sound really good. I get proud when my guitar sounds really good. It's one of those weird things. Maybe I'm proud that it sounds better than it should, given how much its worth. I don't really know, but it makes me very happy when she's recorded right.

P.S. Don't ask me why the first section of this post is underlined, as if it were a hyperlink. Somehow, it got linked to the picture. Placing pictures mid-post is one of the more frustrating things I've experienced. LJ, any advice?