The Band Kids... Gotta Love'em!!! :)

So yesterday was a band competition for BCHS, and since I'm helping with the band now, I went as a chaperone.  I ended up going on the boys' bus, which wasn't all that entertaining on the way to the competition... But on the way back was a completely different story!

As soon as the bus started moving, they started singing gospel songs... Then they switched to rap, and one of the band directors told them if they were gonna sing, to switch back to gospel and sing about Jesus instead of whatever they were rapping about, so they did.  They were HILARIOUS!  They ended up basically having church in the back of the bus, and they were taking turns preaching.  Brother So-and-so would preach, then they'd sing a couple of songs.  Then Reverend Whoever would take over.  They'd sing a while, then Deacon Fill-in-the-blank would jump in.  This went on until we stopped for dinner almost an hour later!  One of the guys said something to me about how I must have never been to a black church before.  I told him that I'd been to black churches a few times, but I'd never seen anything like this... Then he amended his statement and said I'd never been to a "ghetto" black church before, to which I said I guessed he was right. lol

They were preaching about drugs, girls, alcohol, and anything you could imagine a teenaged boy thinking about... At one point, they started preaching about a woman that showed them the way, how they passed her class and how she taught them things they hadn't known about Spanish and have since forgotten, and asking God to help them with the new Spanish II teacher.  Can you tell they knew I was turned around listening? lol

I loved going on the band trips at the other school I worked at because of the kids... But I think I'm gonna love going on trips with these kids even more!!!  :)

Catching up with friends...

So... I think I might be getting sick.  And I really don't have time to be sick right now... Well, I guess you never just HAVE time to be sick, but you know what I mean.  The fall is just not a good time! 

Anyway... One of my friends came over last night for the first time in several months.  I had a bunch of leftovers from cooking out on Labor Day, so I texted him asking if he wanted to come over and eat.  He ended up staying for like 3 hours, and it was so nice to just sit back watching ESPN and talking.  Things got a little bit awkward between us a few months back, and I basically ignored him for a while because of some stuff he did, but it feels so good to know that we're back to normal now. :)

This weekend, I discovered that the dinky little airline that flies between Memphis and Harrison had roundtrip tickets for Thanksgiving for $98 total.  So I messaged one of my friends from home that's working in Memphis to see if she'd want to fly home instead of making the drive... She said it sounded great, so we both bought our tickets today!  I've never flown on Seaport Airlines, but it's promising to be a real experience... It's a 9 or 10 passenger plane! lol  I've never been in a plane this small, so it'll be interesting.  They have pictures of the inside of the planes on their website, and they look like first class seats!  Apparently these planes are usually corporate jets, but Seaport Airlines is using them as commuter planes, which I think is pretty cool, cause they're NICE! :)

DEFINITELY looking forward to going home even more now... I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH TRAFFIC!!!

It's been awhile...

So it's been almost 4 months since I updated this thing... Now that I know at least ONE person is reading it, I might actually keep up with it a little better.
Okay, here's a summary of what's been going on month by month:
May:
We got out of school and started our summer break.  At the end of May, Poppa was put into the hospital with blood clots in his lungs, and I couldn't go home, because I'd already used all of my sick days when Nannie was in the hospital in November with heart problems and when he was in the hospital in April with his ankle replacement surgery... Let me just say that that sucked!  But he's okay now, and he's been feeling alot better, so he thinks that the blood clots are already dissolved, or at least close to it.  That's about it for May...
June:
Lots of traveling back and forth between Arkansas and Tennessee... I had a few in-service days I had to do in TN, but I tried to spend as much time as possible at home.  I hung out with the boys that I grew up babysitting, and that was SO much fun!  I haven't really been able to spend alot of time with them the last few years, so I was really glad that it worked out that I got to.
I did one of the hardest things I've ever done back in June... I had to make the decision to put my 17 year old dog Sandy to sleep.  I'd had him since I was in the 4th grade, and it was to the point that he was blind, deaf, had no teeth, had arthritis and and when it got to the point that he couldn't walk anymore, Nannie called the vet and asked Joe what we should do.  Joe said to bring Sandy in and he'd check him for us to see if there was anything that could be done, but that we should probably prepare ourselves.  Joe checked him and said that Sandy still had a strong heart, but that the rest of his muscles were shutting down.  We could go ahead and put him to sleep and end his misery, or let him die in the next few weeks, where he'd be suffering the whole time.  We decided to put him down.  I stood there next to him the entire time bawling my eyes out while petting him, telling him how much we loved him, how sorry I was, and what a good dog he'd been for so long.
I know alot of people think it's ridiculous for someone to be so attached to an "animal," but Sandy had become a member of our family.  He had his own personality and he had his ways of communicating what he wanted.  When I was younger, he was the dog that would open my bedroom door during a storm in the middle of the night to come jump into bed with me because he could tell I was scared of storms.  In the wintertime, he always slept in the bed with me because he got cold under Nannie and Poppa's bed.  When the ice storm hit in January of 1999, he slept between my best friend from growing up and I to help keep us warm.  He literally slept on top of me after Ang's parents managed to get into town to church and were able to take her home after almost 4 days.  He LOVED water...  The first time we took him to the lake, he jumped out of the boat as soon as we stopped and were in the middle of the water.  He would jerk me over to the water so he could go swim when we were walking close to it.  We both loved to go swimming.  I had an old body board that I got one year at the beach, and he'd stand up on that in the middle of the water, and let me pull him on it.  He sat in my lap and let me cry into his fur when my grandfather died.  He was the dog that got into the bowl of peppermint while we were at church, and when we came home was running laps around the house because he was so hyper.  When he was a puppy, he liked to get the glass Christmas decorations off the tree and crunch them.  He wouldn't eat them, and somehow it didn't hurt him, but he loved the crunching noise they made when he bit down on them.  He LOVED bread of any kind... If he heard a wrapper in the kitchen, he came running!  Whenever Nannie would go to the store, she'd buy Sandy a loaf of white bread and he knew that he was supposed to get one piece everyday, and sometimes, we'd give him a second one.
I have so many memories of that dog that I could go on for hours, but I'm going to stop there... We ended up burying him out at some of my parents' best friends' house.  They have a farm, and we managed to dig a hole big enough for Sandy down by their pond.  We gathered rocks and stacked them up on top of where he was buried so the wild animals couldn't get him.  We found a big, flat, white rock, and I painted it and turned it into a marker for his grave.  Ugh... That day sucked.
July:
July 3rd was spent with the boys I used to baby-sit... Their parents were going to a concert in Branson, and the boys were wanting to get an early start shooting fireworks off, so they asked me if I'd care to come over so there would be an "adult" there in case something happened.  We blew up so much stuff! lol  The boys' older brother is a huge Star Wars nerd, and when he was younger, he collected all of the Star Wars Legos... When he outgrew them, he gave them to his baby brother, who is now 14... Aaron decided to donate them to the cause and we blew up some storm troopers, R2-D2, Han Solo, and a bunch more... We even blew up Chewy! lol  Yeah, I never put those pictures on Facebook for a reason... The oldest one would come unglued if he knew what we did to his precious Star Wars Legos! lol
The 4th, we went out to David and Barb's house... It was a blast.  I got to help their grandkids shoot off their fireworks, and their grandson is a hoot!  He loved anything that was loud, where his little sister hated anything that made a boom.  They're both really good kids.
Then there was the mission trip with the bunch from Harrison... I was absolutely miserable for the majority of the trip.  The day that I spent mixing cement by hand with a bunch of guys alot younger than me was the absolute highlight of that trip.  All I'll say is that there are a couple people that went on that trip that need to grow up and mind their own business... If you're reading this, you know who you are, and you need to realize that YOU.ARE.IN.COLLEGE.  The little high school drama crap where you have to be rude and hurtful to people who have been nothing but nice to you in order to feel important needs to stop.  That doesn't fly in the real world, and once you get out of the bubble you're living in and into real life, you'll find that out the hard way... And I won't feel sorry for you this time.
Okay, that's all I'm going to say about that trip, because I'll tell the people who need to know, rather than risk them reading it here. 
Mission trip with the group from Knoxville and Virginia... Absolutely AMAZING!  It's funny how much better people that you've just met will treat you versus people that you've known for years and grown up with will.  With the Arkansas group, I felt like an outsider the entire time... With the 2nd group, we were treated like family from the time we met them at the airport and they figured out we were part of their group. :)
That second trip was also the trip where I got to translate for a doctor for the first time.  Think about how complicated medical ENGLISH can be, and how hard some of it is to understand and explain... I was translating that into Spanish! lol  Luckily, I was working with a great doctor who was really sweet and tried to break it down into words that were easily translatable. :)  By the last day, I only had to bother a "real" translator a few times!  I was seriously proud of myself!
So then we came back to the U.S.  We didn't get to do Panama this year, and calling the children's home there to explain why we weren't coming sucked.  I'm going to start saving so that I can for sure go next year.
When we were driving back to Tennessee, I experienced my first blow-out... On a tire that had about 15,000 miles on it.  So I pulled over and got out to look at it.  Nannie was behind me and she pulled over in front of me.  I was calling AAA when a State Trooper pulled up behind me, and Nannie went over to tell him what had happened.  He said that if we wanted him to, he could put my doughnut on for me... So we said yes.  I called and canceled the AAA call, and we started talking to the State Trooper.  It turns out that he has a daughter my age, which explains why he was so nice and didn't care to get dirty to help me.  Seriously, he gave me a hug before he left and told me to be safe. :)
So then we get on our way.  We got to Clinton and stopped at a gas station so I could find a tire place.  It turned out that NO ONE in Clinton had a matching tire for my car...  So I called around Conway... No one there had one either, but there was a guy that said we could call his store in Little Rock and they'd have one brought from the warehouse.  30+ miles on INTERSTATE going 40 mph?  Thanks, but no thanks!  We went to Wal-mart and they had a Goodyear tire that would fit, so that's what I got.  So we got back on the road... About 20 minutes from West Memphis, Nannie's air conditioner went out in her car.  We stopped at Wal-mart to see if they could fix it... They apparently aren't set up to do major work on cars?  Whatever.  So we went to a Goodyear place that they recommended.  It was closing and all the mechanics had already gone home.  We thought the freon was out, so we went to an AutoZone... Turns out a belt had broken, so we bought the belt.  When we took off to find a repair place, Nannie's car wouldn't start.  So we called AAA and they towed us to the only place that was still open at this point... A truck repair place... As in, a SEMI-truck repair place.  They had a mechanic that had worked at a GoodYear type place, and he figured out what was wrong really fast.  The air compressor had locked up, which made the belt break.  We already had the belt, but they needed the compressor... So we went and bought a compressor at some parts place and brought it back.  At this point, it was about 9:15pm.  Nannie and I decided to get a hotel and stay the night in West Memphis rather than drive 2 hours to my house and then have to drive back first thing in the morning.  The next day about 11:15, we were on our way.  We made it to exit 6 on the TN side of I-40, and Nannie called me to say her air had stopped working.  So we turned around and took the car back.  We ended up getting back to Henderson about 6pm, and we had to take her car to a place here to get whatever it was fixed.  It was easy enough, but the truck guys didn't have the stuff to tell what was wrong or something.
August:
School started!  And that's about it...
September:
So far it's been good.  The Razorbacks whipped Tennessee Tech in football on Saturday, and someone gave me the link for a website where I could watch it for free instead of having to pay for a Pay-per-view, so that was pretty great!  Nannie and Poppa came to visit this weekend for Labor Day Weekend, and they ended up giving me my birthday present a few weeks early... A MASSIVE barbecue grill!  WOOOHOOO! :)  I got it yesterday, and I've already used it 3 times!
Learned a good lesson on it when I was cooking lunch today though... Wear shoes when grilling!  I stepped on an ember and burned a hole in my foot.  NOT a fun experience!  It's better now though.

Well, that's about everything... Hopefully I'll update soon! :)

Haven't updated in awhile...

So apparently I'm not doing as well with this whole blogging thing as I thought I would do... lol  Oh well, at least I'm trying! :)

So since my last post, alot of things have happened...  The main thing being...

I survived the West Tennessee Monsoon!  That was seriously a weird weekend.  After going to bed about 1:00 am, I woke up about 4:30 that Saturday morning having had a dream about the sirens going off.  I laid there thinking that that was a strange dream, but that it was probably because of the storm that was going on outside.  About the time that I turned the TV on to WBBJ to see what the Gary/Nick/Mike had to say about the storms, the sirens went off for what I soon figured out was the second time... Usually the first siren means a severe thunderstorm warning and the second time is a tornado warning, which is what this was. (Yeah, I know... Tennessee's weird about their sirens.)  I don't start getting scared until I hear of a tornado that has been confirmed instead of just indicated by radar, but once it's confirmed to be within 10-15 minutes of me, I'm hiding in my laundry room! lol  My friend Olivia gets really scared whenever it's a bad storm, regardless of whether or not the sirens are going off, so I called her and asked her if she was in her closet.  We talked for a few minutes and I told her what the radar meant and everything.  So about 5:30 when all the warnings expired, I went back to bed.

At 7:00 am the sirens started going off again...  So I turned the TV back on and then Olivia called me asking what this siren meant.  It was a tornado warning.  Go figure... A tornado warning that didn't come after a severe thunderstorm warning... Anyway, I looked at the radar, saw it wasn't going to hit Henderson, so I tried to go back to sleep.  A little while later, it went off again and I gave up on going back to sleep.  The sirens went off 5 times that morning...  (5 hours of sleep that night...)

That afternoon it was still stormy, but Olivia and I have a tradition of going to the FHU Tea Party, and we already had the tickets, so when we heard it was still on, we went.  Funny thing was... Most of Henderson didn't have electricity... Neither did the Henderson church of Christ, which is where it had been moved to because of the weather.  So we went to a tea party in the dark and we left when we heard that they were running out of hot water.  We went driving around looking at all of the ponds/lakes that had formed in normally dry places, and it was something to see.

I ended up over at Olivia's house again that evening.  We watched TV and played online and stuff, and I left for home about midnight, cause we usually go to the early service.  I went to bed around 1:00 again... And at 3:30, the sirens started going off again.  I checked the Weather Channel website and it was a severe thunderstorm warning.  They went off again about 3:45 and after I checked WBBJ, I called Olivia because WBBJ said that a tornado had been confirmed in Northern McNairy county... I live in Southern Chester, so that was like 10 minutes from us.  I think Olivia could tell I was getting freaked out cause she just asked me "You coming?" lol  I told her to let me grab a couple of things and I'd be there in about 10 minutes.  So at 4:05 am, I'm driving in a tornado warning going to a friends house so I don't have to be by myself!  I felt like such a wimp! lol  So we watched the radar and heard the sirens go off a few more times, and about 6:30am, decided it was time to go to bed.  We debated about going to church the next morning, cause with 5 hours of sleep the night before and roughly 3 that night, we knew we'd fall asleep anyway... So we practiced our heathen skills and slept until about 10 that morning and then went and got Jack's for breakfast in our PJ's with our hair in ponytails and no make-up. :)  We hung out until that afternoon when I went home and took a shower and got ready for church.

That night at church was kind of funny because apparently everyone had the same idea that we had had about skipping the morning service and coming for the evening one, because so many people got up to take the Lord's Supper that they had to move it from the classroom they normally use to the Activity Center! lol  It made us feel better about being heathens!

Then we found out that Olivia and I didn't have to go to work on Monday because of all the flooding... So we hung out until late that night, slept late Monday, and went to Jackson, even though they had gotten over a foot of rain and a bunch of the roads were flooded.  The flooding on the way was sure something... Cow fields looked like lakes, some roads had 2 or more feet of water on them, and the Sonic in South Jackson had water all the way up to the speakers.  There was a car lot that had a row of the big pick-up trucks, and all you could see of those trucks were the tops and a bunch of their cars were completely submerged.  The Jackson fairgrounds were completely cut off from the roads and that alone was a sight to behold.  The ponds at the entrance had flooded so much that you couldn't even see the entrance to it.  They actually closed highway 45 between Jackson and Henderson while we were in Jackson, but we didn't worry about it cause we could always get home through Lexington, even though it was about an hour out of the way... We wanted to go to Old Town Spaghetti, Books-A-Million, Starbucks, and then go for pedicures... Let me just say... That was THE best pedicure I've ever gotten! :) Definitely worth driving to Jackson for!  When we were done, we decided to head out on 45 and see if they had reopened it... Yup!  It was open!  There was one section of about 15-20 feet that had MAYBE an inch of water running over it, but that was no big deal.

So yeah... That's a first hand account of someone who is very glad that she didn't live in South Jackson or Nashville and that her house is located on very flat land nowhere close to a creek of any kind!

Since then, I haven't really done much... Helped Olivia do her flower beds last Saturday.  I was sooo sore Sunday and Monday!  The gardening part I like... The objections that I get from my muscles the day after?  Not so much!  We pulled out all kinds of weeds, pruned all of her bushes back, pulled up 3 bushes that had been there for several years (one of which was a thorn bush... Nasty little thing!), and then planted all kinds of flowers.  We were so dirty, but it was alot of fun!

That's pretty much the big things from my past month or so...

Ugh!

So I had my first bad day courtesy of students today... For the most part my students are amazing, and they are the most respectful kids I've ever taught.

But there are always that few... :(

I didn't have any ice cream, so I'm eating chips and dip and watching Oprah! lol

Random trip to Memphis...

So last night at church my friend Olivia and I decided to go to Memphis today, as long as the roads weren't bad... When we woke up this morning, it was snowing, but the roads were dry, so we decided to go ahead and go, and pray that the roads stayed good.  It worked out great!  We ate lunch at J. Alexander's, which is a slightly overpriced place, but it's got really good food, a cool atmosphere, and it's a tradition of ours.

Then we went to the mall... Don't ask how much I spent, because I won't tell you, but I did save over half on everything that I bought...  Plus I got some really cute stuff that I will definitely wear the crap out of! :)

Anyway, then we went on to Target, where I didn't spend as much as I could have... Can you tell I'm trying to make myself feel better about what I spent? lol

As we were leaving Target, Olivia asked me if I wanted to fulfill the normal tradition of taking I-40 back to Jackson and eating Italian food... Of course I said yes!  We usually go to Old Town Spaghetti Store, but since we ate there last week, we decided to go to Olive Garden.  We got back to Jackson alot earlier than we planned on, so we hit up Books-a-Million.  I got some Spanish books there, and a couple of the are really fun... They're some that my friends that are always wanting to know Spanish insults will most definitely want to borrow! :)  But I did get one book that I will actually use with my students... The other 2 will never see the inside of my classroom! lol

Anyway, I just got home from Olivia's house.  It had been forever since just she and I had hung out, and it was really nice to just sit back on the drive and talk and catch up. :)

Hopefully the school district she teaches in will get out for the snow tomorrow and she and I will get to cook up a bunch of stuff. (My district's already out...)  Cross your fingers!

Whammy...

Warning: This will probably be confusing if you don't know details about a certain time in my life... and it's pretty all over the place...

So I looked at the date on Wednesday and realized that it had been 5 years since I got engaged.  That was a surreal feeling.  I didn't really tell anyone or talk about it or anything, but I did start to wonder about alot of things.

What would've happened if I hadn't broken it off?
Would "Rob" (not his name) have done it, or would we have gotten married?
What would my life be like right now if we had?
Would we have any kids?
Would I still be as involved with mission work?
Would we even be going to church anymore?

It's crazy how different my life could have been.

If I hadn't gathered up the balls to break it off, I really don't think that he would have.  Rob was a really sweet guy, and breaking his heart was still the hardest thing I've ever done, but he really just wanted to get married.  We started dating in February, and by May he was talking about wanting to get engaged and married by Christmas... OF THE SAME YEAR!  Yeah, that freaked me out cause I wasn't ready to get married yet, and I didn't want to until we were out of school, so we talked about it, and we decided to just see how things went.

For the most part, things continued to go well, but the longer Rob and I dated, the more red flags I started to see.  They started out as small things, but when you look back at just how many "small thing" there were... Yeah, that's how I came to my decision.  It started off that he couldn't get himself up in the mornings, so he was always missing classes.  Being a good girlfriend, I volunteered to start calling him to make sure he was awake for class... Even though I didn't have a class before Chapel most days, so I didn't have to wake up til about 10, and calling him every morning meant waking up about 7:30 or 8:00 each morning.  Then he started oversleeping and missing drill. (He was in the Army National Guard.)  He was supposed to be in Jackson by like 7am on Saturdays and Sundays once a month.  I had the hardest time getting him up to answer the phone, and I don't know how his roommates dealt with the phone constantly ringing at 5:30 on Saturday morning... I would have gotten fed up with it and poured ice cold water on him or something.  There was one time that I called and called and called, and he had to leave by 6:15 or so to make it to the part of Jackson where he had to be... When I realized that I'd been calling for 30 minutes and still hadn't gotten him, I called his dorm mom at 6am and asked if she could get her husband to go wake Rob up because if he missed drill again, they'd kick him out of the military. (Literally, that was the point it had gotten to.)   That night I tore into him about his lack of responsibility and about how if he couldn't get his butt out of bed, he never should've joined the military, etc... and while I continued to call him most mornings, that was the last day that I called him for drill, and I told him to stop relying on me to be his alarm clock, because he already had THREE!

Another thing about him was how he handled his money.  I had a piddley workstudy job and I made about $100 a month... Which, with me eating most meals in Gano, was more than enough for me to go buy food a couple of times a month.  He also had a workstudy job where he made the same as I did, and he also made about $200 a month for the National Guard.  Not bad for a full time college kid!  Before he and I started dating, he had borrowed enough money to buy a top of the line computer, and he was making more than enough money to make the payments.  He rarely made the payments though.  I think he borrowed around $2,000 for it, and when I broke up with him he owed nearly $3,000 on it.  Instead of paying his bill, he bought random crap.  He'd go to Wal-Mart and buy 3 movies off the new release rack.  He'd go to Abercrombie and buy a $100 pair of jeans.  If he pointed something out and I said it was pretty, he'd buy it for me (In the beginning I thought it was sweet, but as I realized what he was doing, I put a stop to it.)  Anything he saw that he wanted, he bought.  It was pretty ridiculous.  Once we got engaged, my mom said something about how when we got married, everything would have to be in my name only, and he got really angry about how he would have his name on everything too because he would be the one providing for us, blah blah blah... I finally told him to shut up because she was right... With his credit, we wouldn't be able to afford the interest rates that would come with his name being on stuff.  He didn't like that very much, but I told him that he was the only one that could change his credit, so if he didn't like it, to do something about it.

The summer that we were engaged was an interesting time.  He spent almost the entire summer at my house in Arkansas, because if he didn't get a job there and stay with my parents, we wouldn't see each other at all during the summer.  I was doing the 6 week study abroad program in Mexico that was required for my Spanish degree, as well as 3 weeks in Panama, and 1 in Honduras, so between trips was literally the only time I'd see him.

I learned alot that summer, and not just about Spanish.  You see, Rob is bipolar, and as is common with people who are bipolar, he would start thinking that he didn't need his meds and that he could control it just fine without them, so he would stop taking them.  When he was off his meds, he was a completely different person.  I could tell when he stopped taking them within 2 days, because he would become this rude, all around jerk.  When we were discussing our plans for the summer, he said that he'd like to stop taking his meds so that he could see if he could control it on his own, and I said we'd talk about it later, not telling him there was NO WAY I was going to subject Nannie and Poppa to the person he was when he was off them.

So one day while I was in Mexico, Rob called me and we were talking.  Before he called, I had been talking to Mama (the woman we were staying with) and some of my housemates like we did all the time before we would all go take our siestas.  I was still sitting at the table and they were still talking while I was talking to him.  I laughed at something that they said and Daniel asked me who I was talking to and when I told him, he snapped back with something like, well I'll just let you go if you'd rather talk to them, and I snapped back a reply that was along the lines of "Well if you're gonna act like that, I don't want to talk to you anyway." And he hung up on me... The first time ever... He hung up on me...

I waited til I knew he would be at work, and I called Nannie.  I asked her what Rob's problem was, and she said that he'd been being short with her too... I asked her what she wasn't telling me, and she started telling me everything.  He'd been lazy, rude, sarcastic, and everything that he was when he wasn't taking his medicine.  I told her if I didn't know better I'd think he was off his meds again.  There was a long pause, and I asked her if she knew if he was off his medicine.  He was... And he'd told her that I knew because we'd talked about it.  I was FURIOUS!  He was staying at my parents' house cost-free, and he was treating them like crap.  Nannie asked him to wash her car when he was out washing mine, and he acted insulted and smarted off because she'd asked him to do something on his day off... This was the woman that bought groceries that she knew he'd like and packed his lunch everyday for work.  Plus, he had promised me that he wouldn't stop taking his meds again unless I knew, and he'd broken that promise.  I told her to have him call me when he got home from work so I could lay into him for everything.

Yeah, that was a fun phone call.  He assumed that Nannie had called me complaining about everything and started going off about her and I told him that he better shut his trap talking crap about my mother, because I was the one that called her asking questions, and since he had told her that I knew about everything, he had no right to get pissed at her for anything.  Needless to say... He got the butt-chewing of a lifetime.

When I got back from Mexico, things were a little better, but there were some other things that weren't adding up, so I asked him about them... Then I asked Nannie about them... Yeah, that night, I went at him screaming at him at the top of my lungs.  Was. Not. Pretty.  (That's actually the only time that I remember ever screaming at someone like that... Including my students... Raise my voice/yell, yes... Scream, no.)

Needless to say... His mom was there 2 days later to take him home for the rest of the summer.

That's not everything that contributed to me breaking it off, but that was alot of it... I'm so glad that Rob stayed at my house that summer, because that was when I realized that I could no longer see myself marrying him.  Sure, I could see myself walking down the aisle at Northside in my dress... But I couldn't picture him standing at the front of the church waiting for me.  I couldn't picture myself as Mrs. Rob... And I really didn't think I'd be happy spending the rest of my life with him.

If we'd gotten married, I don't think I would be as happy as I am now, because I'd still be acting like his mother instead of treating him as a responsible adult.  We'd probably already have a kid by now, but I would at least be pregnant, because we had planned on one by the time I was 27, and another around age 30.  That's a scary thought right there, because I canNOT imagine having a child right now.  I don't think that I'd be involved in mission work anymore because of an offhand comment that he made about how I'd have to give it up once we got married because we wouldn't be able to afford it... Yeah, that comment caused a fight, because I reminded him of who would be making the money in our relationship until he got started up in his career.  Anyway, probably no to the still being faithful church members too.  His family always seemed to have a very relaxed attitude about going to church, and if they didn't wake up on Sunday morning, they didn't worry about it.  Actually, they didn't worry about much of anything, which is how Rob got some of his problems... Learned behavior...

I don't regret the almost 2 years that we were together... I regret not ending it sooner (I didn't know how to, because he'd made comments about he didn't know what he'd do without me, and I was the best thing in his life, and stuff like that... And he'd been suicidal before, so I was afraid to.), because letting it go  only hurt both of us more, but I learned so much during those 2 years, as well as the years after it.  I learned so much about myself in the aftermath, especially about how being independent is a good thing, and that graduating without my Mrs. was a good thing. :)  I learned how much I'd missed having my guy friends (Rob didn't ask me to, but I'd pretty much given up all of my guy friends when we got serious.)  I learned that I really could take care of myself, and that it was okay to do things on my own. (Like flying to Boston on my own, and waiting on Kerri outside of Logan at 11pm!)  I've done so many things that I wouldn't have done if I had married Rob.  I know I wouldn't have made that trip with Kerri.  I wouldn't have been on as many mission trips as I've been on.  I wouldn't still be involved with the children's home in Panama.  I probably wouldn't be the Christian that I am today.  I wouldn't have a masters degree.  I wouldn't have had the learning experiences teaching at Chester County that taught me how to stick up for myself and when not to let people walk all over you.  I wouldn't have the friends here in Henderson that I have now that I wouldn't trade for anything.  I wouldn't have the nice material things that I have, and who knows what I'd be driving! lol  Sure not the car I've got now!  I know I wouldn't be as close to Nannie and Poppa as I am now because truly they didn't really like Rob, but they wanted me to be happy... While they tried to hide it, Rob pretty much figured that out, and so he would have tried to move me to Atlanta (13 away from Nannie and Poppa).  You know, he and I came in together as freshmen, and I graduated in 4 years... He dropped out after 6... I could be married to a Target electronics guy that was about as responsible as a 12 year old, that went to college for 6 years, majored in about 10 different things, and still didn't finish... and probably living in his parents' basement.)

I REALLY learned about what great friends I had the the week before and the first month after I broke it off.  All of my roommates from college came home with me the first part of November to celebrate Thanksgiving with Nannie and Poppa since I was supposed to be going to Rob's.  We stayed up late Friday night, and slept late Saturday morning... 5 of us in Nannie and Poppa's king sized bed.  :)  Everyone was up getting ready and Nannie and I were sitting in their room talking, and we got on the subject of Rob.  I just blurted out that I didn't think I could marry him.  Nannie looked at me, and then looked up and muttered Thank you Jesus!  Then she held me and let me cry.  Gina stuck her head in to ask me something, and when she saw me crying, she shut the door behind her and came running to find out what was wrong.  I remember looking at her and asking "How do I dump Rob?"  Nannie went and got my other roommates and we all sat around on the bed talking and trying to figure out what I was going to do.  That ended up being one of the most memorable weekends from my senior year because of how close I felt to those girls and how they were all banding together to try to help me 1) figure out what I was going to do and 2) feel better. :)  Some of them didn't really know each other that well before, because they'd all been my roommates, but that Saturday afternoon and the next Sunday, it felt like we'd all know each other for years.

The night that I broke it off, I went and found one of my girlfriends and when she asked me what was wrong, I started crying again and couldn't answer her, so I held up my left hand and she saw that the ring was gone.  She called her fiance Tim (who was one of my really good friends) and told him, and he promptly called me, but I was in the shower and didn't check the messages until the next morning... So after Chorale, Tim waited until everyone was done hugging me and everything and then grabbed me and said come on, I'm kidnapping you.  He took me to Shell and bought me ice cream, and we sat there for 3 hours just talking about everything.

Chorale in and of itself proved what a great group of people they were too.  Pretty much no one knew because Rob and I weren't really running around telling people, so when Rob didn't show up to rehearsal, a few people were asking me where he was and if he was coming.  I told them that I had no idea because I hadn't seen him.  I did tell my friend Katie because she was standing next to me and could tell that I'd been crying, but for the most part, Tim let the guys know and Katie and Julie handled the girls... Which was really nice. :)  After rehearsal, everyone was giving me hugs and telling me that they were sorry it didn't work out and that they loved me... Even the people that I didn't know that well. :)

Another group that surprised me were the TV 40 guys.  Rob was the one that got me interested in working down there, and so I didn't know what I should do since we were both working down there.  He Facebooked me and said he wouldn't be there, so I went on to work.  I was the floor director at this point, and Rob was supposed to be running a camera, so I figured I'd just cover for him and no one would notice.  I got down there and did all of my responsibilities and went and got on a computer.  Rob's sister's ex was the sports guy, so he was there and he knew about it.  He came over to me when I was at the computer, put his arm around me and said that he knew we weren't close, but that if I needed a shoulder, he was there.  I thanked him and he went back to practicing his script.  About that time, one of the other technical guys started hollering about where was Rob... Another of the guys knew, and he promptly shut him up and told him that he was assuming Rob wouldn't be there and then whispered that we'd broken up.  By the time the broadcast was over, everyone knew, but they got that I wasn't in the mood for talking about it, so they pretty much left me alone other than telling me that they loved me and that they'd pray for me to find the strength to handle everything. (LOVED going to a Christian school!)  Justin (sister's ex) waited for me to finish my floor director stuff and asked me if I was going to go to church that night.  I said no, because honestly my mind wouldn't be in it and I'd probably sit there thinking about things and then start crying.  He said okay, let's go get dinner.  We went to the student center and we sat and just talked for hours.  He did everything that he could to keep my mind off of it, and when the topic did turn back to either of our exes, we'd start telling stories about the crap we put up with. lol  We were both laughing most of the time.  Justin walked me back to my dorm about curfew (midnight), and said that he'd had fun, and if I ever needed to talk to let him know.

Justin was probably the biggest surprise out of everyone, because he and I had only really talked a couple of times and that was really only because we were dating siblings, and they were always there.  Needless to say, Justin and I talked many times, including spending 8 solid hours in the Student Center in one day during finals week.  We talked a few times over Christmas, and by Lectureship he had become one of my best friends... and at one point was my BEST friend.  While we're not as close as we once were (thanks to a bunch of drama), I'm grateful to Rob for Justin's friendship, because if it hadn't been for Justin's relationship with Rob's sister, he and I probably never would have become friends.

I'm also grateful to Rob for introducing me to TV 40... I got to fulfill one of my dreams of being a news anchor (even if it was dinky TV 40) because of that.  I also learned about all of the stuff that goes into making a live broadcast, as well as a recorded one.  During the Election Day coverage, I got to do more of the producing aspect of news.  In 2006, I was running the teleprompter, sound, writing/fixing the script, and everything was live.  In 2008, I wasn't an official TV40 employee, but I still had friends down there, so I went to help out and I was the one doing the research during the broadcast, writing the stories, and making/finding/stealing graphics.  LOVED IT! :)  One of the guys had to make a TV show for a project, and since he was one of the guys everyone liked, we all volunteered to help him.  I kind of felt bad about my involvement with Last Minute Update (the show), because Rob pretty much dropped out of it when he realized that I wasn't going to give it up, but I was having way to much fun, and it wasn't my fault that he couldn't handle seeing me there... Especially cause he already had a girlfriend at the point.  Boys! lol

Wow... It's kind of funny how well you can remember some things, isn't it?  

Whoa... Just realized how long this post was, so I'm going to wrap it up now... lol



Side note: Last week I was talking to someone who's a senior at Freed that I hadn't seen since middle school, and we were catching up on everything.  When I told her bout my being engaged, she asked about the proposal, and when I told her about it, she said "THAT WAS YOU?!"  Apparently my candle-lighting proposal is STILL being talked about! lol

Inconsiderate People

So you know what makes me mad?  When you ask someone on Sunday night if they want to come over and watch a movie on Monday evening, and they say "Yeah, just let me know."  Then you text them about 6:30 Monday night asking if they still want to come over... And now at 2PM on Tuesday, you STILL haven't heard from them.

This person hardly ever texts me back when I ask her something, and it's really frustrating!!!  I'm about ready to just stop texting her and stop asking her if she wants to do stuff, cause it's starting to get ridiculous!

People even if you're saying No, text back a response to someone inviting you to do something!  It's just good manners!

WHAT AN ADVENTURE!!

Okay, so I did get that phone call last night... You know, the very nice one from the director of schools telling you that you don't have to go to school the next day?  Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about...

Anyway, I woke up about 5:30 this morning and looked outside and there was NOTHING!  I was kind of disappointed because there was no snow, but also kind of glad that there was no ice... I went back to sleep.

I woke up again about 10am, and looked outside and there were about 4 inches of snow and huge snowflakes were coming down. :) I immediately started trying to find people to go play in the snow with.  Some people were losers and didn't want to go play, but Casey and Kristina were all about going to play, so I drove over to their house... My very first experience with driving in the snow!  It really wasn't too bad.

So we went out and made snow angels, threw snowballs, went sledding, and all of the fun things associated with a snow day.  We came back in and while Casey was making hot chocolate, Kristina and I made snow cream! :)  Then Kristina's sister Jennifer had the brilliant idea to mix hot chocolate powder in with the snow cream... AMAZING!!! :)  We enjoyed our snacks while watching Man in the Iron Mask, and then Casey suggested that we order pizza.  I wanted to get home before the roads got slick tonight, so I decided that I'd leave to come home when they left to get their pizza.

Should've left earlier!  We waited until about 10 minutes before their pizza would be done to try to leave, and after about THIRTY FIVE MINUTES of trying to get me unstuck so that they could get out, we gave up.  I texted one of my friends whining about being stuck, but I never thought that he would volunteer to come get me so I could go get the pizza!  That in and of itself was kind of an adventure! lol  On the way there and back he was saying that he thought I'd make it home just fine if he could get my car out of the driveway... so when we got back, he tried to get my car out.  It took him maybe 3 minutes!  I was actually kind of disgusted with myself! :-/  (He is a yankee that grew up driving in this stuff though...)

Anyway, then he followed me home, and he talked me through almost the entire 30 minute drive (it usually takes about 10 minutes)...  I would just like to take this opportunity to point out that I HAVE AMAZING FRIENDS!!!

Okay, so I made it all the way to my driveway and got stuck when I pulled in! lol  So I broke out the shovel that Poppa got me forever ago that I had never used, and proceeded to shovel my driveway so that I could make it into my garage.

So yeah... I'm not leaving my house tomorrow unless someone comes to get me!  I think I'm about to make soup or something warm, clean my house, take a shower, and go to bed!  :-D

WHAT A DAY!!!

Hoping for that call...

So considering that we're under a Winter Storm Warning and Gary Pickens is predicting between 3-8 inches of snow, as well as a quarter of an inch of ice before the snow...

Yeah, I'm hoping for that phone call from the superintendent telling us that we're out!

Just some more randomness...

I have some of the best friends that I could ask for.


I LOVE to travel! (Both internationally and nationally... And road trips are pretty great too!)


When I travel, I love being a nerd... Like finding out that this is where the Navy Seals tried to come in to help in the overthrow of Noriega, but they forgot about low-tide, this is where alot of the British coronations have occurred, the legend of how the Gueyme Indians got their name, this is where Princess Di married Prince Charles, stuff like that.

I've seen the Panama Canal so many times I've lost count... And it's really not as cool as you'd think it would be.

One of the highlights of my year is walking down the road to the Children's Home in Panama and hearing the kids start yelling that I'm coming. :)

At several points, I've had my life all planned out, but things would happen to mess that plan up, so I've pretty much given up on planning it out and I'm taking stuff as it comes.

I LOVE playing in the snow. One of my favorite memories from college is when the Phi Kappa boys took their trucks up and down University Street and packed the snow down til it was as slick as glass... Then my friend Stephanie and I went down it in my laundry basket. It was great til we ran into a car! lol Sledding down the hill next to Porter Terry was pretty great too... That's one big hill!

I think the women with the skunk hairdo are ridiculous! (The ones with that pale blonde layer on top of dark brown/black hair) Seriously, I just want to walk up to them and point out how bad it looks.

I will never do something stupid like that for "fashion."

I refuse to be uncomfortable because it's fashionable... Honestly, how fashionable are you going to look in 20 years when you have to wear those granny shoes with really thick soles because you wore stiletto heels everyday for years? I'll take my comfortable ugly shoes and just wear dressy ones on occasion, thank you!





Man, I'm on a roll tonight!!! lol

Bucket List

Here's my Bucket List:  (aka The things I really want to do before I die...)


1) To figure out what's next in God's plan for me... (He really can be frustrating!)
2) To go on a cruise
3) To take my mom to London
4) To take my mom to NYC
5) Learn to water-ski
6) Go to Italy
7) Niagara Falls
8) Get better at playing therapist
9) Teach English in China for a year
10) Live in Scotland for awhile
11) Go to Abbey Road 
12) Go back to Australia so I can go see my cousins and Sydney
13) Go to Las Vegas
14) Go to an NFL game
15) Go back to Mexico
16) Learn to salsa dance
17) Go storm chasing and see a tornado
18) Go star watching in Hollywood
19) Go to Mardi Gras
20) Go scuba diving
21) Go to Germany for longer than 2 hours
22) New Years’ Eve in NYC
23) Go to Paris, France and see the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre
24) Go see Monet’s Gardens
25) Go to Cedar Point
26) Go to Scotland and be a tourist
27) Learn to snow ski
28) Go to Canada
29) Skydive
30) Go back to Chicago
31) Take my dad deep sea fishing
32) Go to London for longer than 2 days
33) Go back to Washington, DC and wander the Smithsonian to my heart’s content
34) Meet Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Matthew Fox, Christopher Meloni, Sandra Bullock, Marishka Hargitay, and several others...
35) Go to Hawaii
36) Go to Seattle (Home of Starbucks and Grey's Anatomy... What more could you want?!)
37) To become a school counselor
38) To pay off college before I'm 50 (HA!  Like that'll happen!)
39) To find and marry a man that meets all of the qualifications on the list I have in my Bible...
40) Raise my children (don't have any yet...) to be good, Christian, respectful people

Hmm...

I've started several blogs, but then I never really manage to keep up with them... I just created this one, and I'm going to try to keep up with it, but no promises! :)

I don't ever know what to say in the first entries whenever I start a new one, because, to me, it just feels awkward to jump right in with the blogging.

Anyway, here's a little bit of background info on me...
My name's Tara.
I'm 26 years old.
I'm originally from Arkansas, but live in Tennessee now.
I teach Spanish at a high school in a little town.
I am a member of the church of Christ, and that's a big part of my life.
I love mission trips.
I work in a children's home in Panama (the country, not the city in Florida) in the summers.
I love to travel- I've been to Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, Scotland, England, and most recently, Australia.  If you count layovers, I've also been to Germany and Amsterdam.
I love my family and friends and would quite possibly do anything for them.
I love animals, especially dogs, but I'm not one of the PETA weirdos...

Okay, that's enough about me for now...