New Adventures (And I'm not talking about my hair this time)

 Here's to new adventures!

I've worked in education in one way or another since 1998. Throw in a little retail on the side, and that's really all I know how to do. Next week I will begin a new chapter that doesn't involve education. I don't know what it will look like, what it will be like, but I suppose I'll figure it all out.

In the meantime, if you're a praying person, please pray that I don't screw anything up too horribly! :)

Little Old Men

Have you ever had one of those days? You know, the kind where you don't want to speak to anyone unless you speak to them first, only want to see a few select people, and otherwise just want to be left alone? That was my day today. To say that I was a crankster and a half is TOTALLY an understatement.

Today was my first day facing the real world since late Friday afternoon. I'm rarely sick, but my entire head got infected (OK, maybe not my ENTIRE head...my brain was fine. Although some might argue that it's never fine, but that's another story for another day, I digress. Anyway, everything located under the brain and above the goozle-you know, the little hang downey thing in the back of your throat-was under attack by germs!). Fever! I got the fever, not the kind for more cowbell. And when I run a fever, you know it's bad. Like bad for anyone who dares to come within a 29 mile radius of my whiney, grouchy, needy, please give me a hug (but don't you dare touch me unless I ask you to) little butt.

After three days of my feet barely skimming the floor, I had to get up, shower, wash my hair, and get dressed in something other than a t-shirt and elastic-waisted pants of some sort. (Yes, I slept 18 plus hours each day, and I'm kind of proud of myself...that's record-setting sleep for me. All except for last night, and the steroid shot was in FULL effect. I felt like Elf. I might have gotten a full 30 minutes.)

So in true Jody-lack-of-sleep-fashion, I slept in as late as I could before rolling out of bed and dragging myself to the gym to teach yoga at 5:15 am. If y'all know me at all...you know I am NOT a morning person. Not in the least. In fact I am SO not a morning person that I have a special coffee mug at my mom's house featuring Grumpy (you know, one of the Snow White's little pals), accompanied by a definition that more or less calls me ill-tempered in the mornings. I drink out of the that cup proudly!! And I get a little irritated, on top of the already morning-grouchiness, if anyone else uses my mug while I'm at my mom's. It's mine!!  Keep your grubby mitts off. Y'all get the idea.

Anyway, back to the story. I was grumpy because it was the first time I'd had to get out of bed since Friday. I didn't sleep well at all last night. But all was well with the world when I made it to yoga on time and saw some of my favorite morning people...seriously, I love my Wednesday morning class. They keep me on my toes and make me smile sleepy-headedly. That smile quickly faded as I made my way back home. I had to go to work...like my REAL job. I started thinking of all the things I had to do when I actually made it to my office. I hadn't answered emails since Friday. There would be hundreds. And phone calls, too!! And then it hit me: I had an 8 am meeting. There's nothing worse than sitting through a meeting when you know you have a bazillion other things you could be doing. Oooooh, I was getting extra grumbly.

And don't even get me started on what steroids will do to your body. I tried on everything in my closet and felt like the little teapot, short and stout. So I settled on some boy-cut pants and a baggy sweater, even though the temperature was forecasted to be a balmy 90 degrees (and it didn't disappoint). I topped it off with some heeled sandals, you know, to lengthen my legs and make me appear less "stout" today. I was a hot, sweaty mess all day long!! My office felt like a greenhouse, I was having massive hot flashes (thank you medication!), and I'm pretty sure my deodorant may have worn off somewhere around noon.

Finally, it was time to leave the office for the day! But I couldn't go straight home. I had to run errands that I hadn't done since I was lounging in bed eating ice cream for days on end. Plus this weekend just happens to be Bikes, Blues, and BBQ in Northwest Arkansas. It's an event that funds great organizations that help our community. But I wasn't feeling it today. Bikers were everywhere!!! I didn't want to be cautious of bikes on the road. I didn't want to be a courteous driver. I just wanted to get my junk done and get home! Eventually I made it to my last stop. Aldi. The cheap grocery store! Because 1) it's on the way home and I don't have to turn into traffic (Mama don't laugh if you're reading this, I know I make fun of you for this all the time), and 2) because yellow and red bell peppers were on sale, and that rarely happens!

So I whizzed in, mall-walked across the parking lot and beat a couple of slow-pokes through the front door, charged toward the produce section, and there he stood. Parked behind his buggy. Barely moving. A little 90-something year-old man dressed in a little-old-man-plaid-button-down was all that stood between me and the peppers. I silently grumbled to myself, thinking 'Why? Why does this ALWAYS happen to me? I just want to go home. Maybe I can reach over him without knocking him over. Maybe I could just squeeze in next to him and give him a nudge.' I swear he must have read my mind because he slowly turned toward me and asked in the sweetest voice, "Am I in your way?"

Ugh. Of course I had to say no and tell him to take his time or else I would have looked like an impatient little brat. He smiled, slowly looked down at my shoes, and asked, "Can you dance in those high heels?" I was a little unsure how to respond. So I told him it depended on what kind of dancing it was. As soon as those words came out of my mouth, he let go of the buggy, and I felt a soft, wrinkly hand grab mine. He twirled me around so quickly in the produce aisle that I'm pretty sure I almost landed on my rump. Literally, my head was spinning. Because you know, infected from the brain down...balance problems. It wasn't at all because God gave me two left feet (on a good day).

With my head still spinning, I looked up and noticed that everyone within viewing-range of us was watching this spectacle unfold: some smiling, some looking at us like we had both lost our marbles. One of them happened to be a parent of students I'd known for years. I wasn't sure what to say or how to react. I mean it's not every day that you see your kids' high school counselor dancing in the produce aisle with a little old man, right? So I just smiled and jokingly said, "I guess you never know what counselors do when they leave school for the day," and smiled all the way through the check-out line.

On a day that I was in such a rotten mood and probably hadn't sincerely smiled since 6:15 am-ish, this little man filled my soul with joy!! He didn't know he did it. Or maybe he did. Maybe he knew just what I needed somehow.

PS: I think angels exist, disguised as little old men in grocery stores. Read this blog from almost 6 years ago, if you don't believe it. https://ontheedgeofarkansas.blogspot.com/2011/06/old-men-make-me-smile.html

PSS: In case you're wondering, three days without washing curls like mine almost resulted in the dreads I've always wanted. Twenty-five years too late.

PSSS: One of my all time favorites. May we all stay forever young.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2p84Xdx8ck

Is it FRIDAY yet??

Scary Sunday

If I ever eat another Ghost Pepper, it will be too soon.  I'm fairly certain I would have died today, if I had eaten just one bite more.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a lover of spicy foods.  Some of my earliest memories of snacking include Pace Picante Sauce, my dad, and Star Trek on Sunday nights.  I would patiently wait for my mom and sister to hit the sack, the news to end, and my dad to move toward the kitchen.  I knew the time had arrived!  I listened intently for the cabinet door to open, the fridge to crack, and the clink of the glass bottle tapping the edge of the bowl.  I  knew he was pouring some picante and grabbing the tortilla chips for our show.   He always brought me a bowl (smaller than his, of course), so I could enjoy a little late night snack that we would have gotten in trouble for otherwise.  It was an unspoken agreement; a little "don't ask, don't tell" midnight snack, if you will.  I would devour the stuff, onions, peppers, and all, scooping up every last yummy little bite that I could with my chips.  Sometimes I even licked the little bowl.  (OK, maybe that is an exaggeration.  Y'all know by now there's no way I'll lick any sort of bowl...GERMS!)

As I got older, my love for spicy foods continued.  I would drag every willing friend I could find to Tran's Oriental Palace for hot and sour soup and spicy fried rice.  I went there so often that I didn't even have to tell the waiters what I wanted!  Even today when I go to Thai restaurants, I order all dishes at a five for heat.  (PS: someone remind me to blog about the Buffalo Chicken Panini's from a couple of months ago that incapacitated my guests.  I felt kind of bad for scorching the lining out of their esophaguses, but it tasted good to me!)

Anyway, back to the Ghost Peppers.

One of my husband's friends, Renee, knows that I LOVE all things spicy.  A couple of months ago she sent home some peppers...and let me tell you, they were awesome!  Sweet, hot, orange and red goodness in a crunchy bite-size package.  All for me!  I  put them in everything!  Salads, sauces, pastas.  I ate every one of the them.  About two weeks ago she sent home some more.  They looked very similar to the first batch, only slightly larger and a little more wrinkly.  Right after I got the new peppers, I was going to my sister's birthday party.  She requested that I cook Corn Dip (it's a gooey amalgamation of cheese, corn, and peppers).  I got busy chopping and stirring only to discover that I was out of Jalapeños half way through.  I threw in one of Renee's fresh peppers, the first I'd used!  I knew it would be a little more spicy than usual because Caribbean Reds are hotter than Jalapeños (and that's what I thought she sent me), but I used about a third of the amount that the recipe typically requires.  I finished the dip and hit the road to the birthday party.  Everyone arrived at my mom's house (she throws the BEST parties), and the food was served!  The food was awesome, as always...Italian beef sandwiches, several dips, chips, veggies.  Corn Dip is hard to resist, especially when served with fresh corn chips (Scoops, please!), so everyone dug in.  I should have noticed something was up when Matthew backed away from the dip after one taste.  My mom even mentioned how spicy it was this time (she typically doesn't mind spicy food)!  By the time my cousin's husband made it to the Corn Dip, he shouted, "This is too dang hot.  I don't know how y'all are eating this!"  He promptly went to the trash can and scraped it off his plate.  Now, I'd tasted it by this time, and granted, it was hot.  But it certainly wasn't THAT hot.  Although slightly unusual, half of the baking dish of Corn Dip was left when the party ended.  So I took it home and scarfed it down...not all in one night, but pretty close to.  I woke up the next morning with a stomach ache and a horrible case of atomic toots (don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about...they're toots that you hope and pray won't slip out when you're anywhere near another living creature because the stench could singe the hairs right out of their nostrils).  I tried my best not to stress out about it, and I'm sure I walked with my cheeks squeezed together for the majority of the day.  I blamed it on the massive amount of Italian Beef I ate the evening before since red meat and I don't get along.  I never even considered the Corn Dip might be the culprit.

Today started pretty much like any other Sunday:  I drank coffee, deep cleaned the house, started laundry, and went for a long-ish run.  After I ran several miles, I zoomed back in the house and went right for the kitchen.  I was thirsty and starving!  I was bound and determined to eat healthy today, all day.  I gobbled a banana while I reached in the fridge to grab some turkey, a pretty red pepper, and cilantro to construct a turkey bowl.  I was still super hungry, so I bit in to the pepper, just to tide me over until I was finished cooking lunch.  And boy, what a mistake that was!!  I must have swallowed pretty fast because by the time the burning sensation hit, the pepper was already on its way down.  I immediately drank a huge glass of water, thinking it would calm the burn.  WRONG.  My lips were burning so badly that they tingled...I washed them furiously with kitchen soap!  I ran to the bedroom, where Matthew was playing a video game, and told him to kiss me so I could see if the pepper was still on my lips (I thought about telling him to lick my lips, but that would have been weird).  It even burned his lips.  Second-hand burn, this was bad.  Lips blazing, I went back to the kitchen and finished cooking lunch (with the remainder of the pepper, not my smartest move).  I got three bites down (probably) before the most intense burn I've ever felt swept through my mouth and nasal passages.  Have you ever experienced the too-much-wasabi burn?  The burn that takes your breath away for a few seconds?  That was happening.   I was a fire-breathing dragon!  My eyes were watering.  My nose was running at the rate that water cascades over Niagara Falls.  My lips were numb by this time.  Somehow I managed to cough out a request to Matthew to text Renee and ask what kind of peppers she gave me.  Ghost Peppers: that was her reply.  And at this point, I did exactly the same thing my cousin's husband did to the Corn Dip, I trashed it.  I tried futilely to extinguish the burn in my mouth, to no avail.  A memory from my teenage years finally surfaced, a time when I suffered from ridiculous stomach ulcers...MILK!  Milk would quell the burn.  I hate milk, but I chugged a huge amount.  Finally, a little relief.  I decided lunch was over and headed out to work and run a few errands.

I called my mom on the way to work to tell her what just happened.  She was laughing hysterically as I was recounting my lunch experience and explaining what happened with the corn dip.  I was trying to laugh along, but somewhere around Don Tyson Parkway, a rumbling hit my upper stomach that resulted in a furious burping episode that I'm too embarrassed to recount.  It was bad.  Just when I thought things were getting better, I started drooling like a mad man.  I'm not talking slightly salivating, I was drooling like a rabid dog! I put a piece of gum in my mouth to try to control the drool, nothing.  I put in another to help out the first; nope, didn't do the trick.  And then the pain hit, clearly the milk had worn off.  My poor stomach.  I wheeled in to work like one of the Duke Boys and ran for the bathroom where I gulped down water straight from the faucet.  I'm not sure why I drank from the faucet in the bathroom instead of the water fountain...I wasn't thinking logically at this point.  All I knew was that my stomach was in major pain!  I thought about taking myself to the ER, but I was too humiliated to tell the medical staff what happened.  After all, this was just a case of indigestion.  I went back to my desk and tried to push through the pain, but I was seriously worried that my co-workers might find me tomorrow morning on the floor, frothing at the mouth, and smelling like atomic toots.  Then a sudden wave of nausea washed over me, I was going to call Ralph.  And it was going to wind up on my desk if I didn't hurry to the bathroom.  I was so sick that I laid down on the bathroom floor with my face pressed to the tile.  I bet I laid there for at least 20 minutes.  Thank goodness no one came to the door.  Covered in floor germs and too exhausted to work, I finally recovered enough to make it to my car in an upright fashion.

It's been seven hours since I ate the Ghost Peppers.  And my stomach still hurts.  I bet I've drank half a bottle of Pepto Bismol in the hopes that it will settle my stomach.  I can't walk upright.  I'm worried about what might happen when these peppers make it to the other end of my digestive tract.  Something tells me fire poops are in my future.

Ghost Peppers, y'all.  They're scary.

If Monday had a face, I'd punch it

Let me just say for the record: I love turtlenecks.  Like, I really, really love turtlenecks.  Cardigans, too.  And I have the old school pictures to prove it.  When I was a child of the early 80's, my favorite shirt (for many reasons) was my green turtleneck bearing Oscar the Grouch and a thermometer on the front.  I would beg to wear it.  I would plead with my mom, with all of my 4 year old begging skills.  I wore that sucker every day that it was clean, and some days that it wasn't, with my swishy bell-bottom corduroys (I'm a tad embarrassed to admit that I still love cords.  When you have OCD and something feels right, you wear it...for decades!).

Let me go back for just a minute to two weeks ago.  As I stood in my closet one morning, pondering what to put on for the day, I noticed tons of clothes I hadn't worn in a while.  Now, by a while, I mean a long time.  Like a long, LONG time...I'm embarrassed to admit how long they'd been hanging there.  Some even had a layer of dust along the arm and leg creases that folded over the hangers.  It was atrocious.  Dust bunnies were growing on the clothes that didn't meet my picky standards!  So I decided I needed to clean my closet of un-cool clothes.  Two boxes later, I was shopping online looking for stylish, yet affordable clothes.

Enter Forever 21.  The Cheap Store, as we fondly call it around my house.  I shop there some, when I want trendy pieces but don't want to pay a lot of money.  Which is always because I'm the cheapest person on the face of the Earth!  The only problem with this fabulously cheap store is that their return policy sucks!!  You can't get a refund.  SERIOUSLY??  Who even does that anymore??  Forever 21, that's who.  You better be certain you're FORVER going to love your purchase, because they won't take back that $3.99 cami, even if it hits just under the boobs and it's marketed to hit at mid-hip length.  Just sayin...  But I threw caution to the wind, and perused the website because I refuse to go in to the store.  It has no organization, items are cram-packed on racks in non-ROY G. BIV-fashion with no care given at all to organize items by sleeve length or texture, and it makes me more than a little panicky.  Anyway, the website. After hours of searching and comparing cheap sweaters, I finally decided on one!  It was a turtleneck (my fav)!  In a nice, dull tan color.  It looked trendy enough since it was the retro-chunky-shaker-sweater look (I thought that style went out with my middle school years, but guess who's back, back again?  No, not Slim Shady, shaker sweaters).  So I ordered it!  I counted the days until it's arrival.  Finally, it came.  And I carefully tucked it away for a cool day.

That day was supposed to be Monday.  Joe Pennington told me so the Friday before.  YES!!  Sweater weather.  Or so I thought.  My day started off like every other: stagger to the kitchen to suck down coffee, drag my half-awake self to the closet to make a clothing selection, and continue with my morning routine.  All was going well, my nifty new sweater cut my closet time in half since I only had to pick out the bottom portion of my outfit!  My shower took less time too (I'm afraid to scrutinize this topic too closely for fear of realizing that I might have forgotten to wash something), my Sonic Care was fully charged, and my hair looked like it was going to be cooperative: I was kicking Monday's tail!  So with reckless abandon, I yanked the tags off my sweater and got dressed.  This is where things went south really quickly.

I put on all pieces rather uneventfully and saved my sweater for last.  I realized there might be something odd about the sweater when I put my arms into the sleeves and they jutted out of the opening much sooner than I anticipated.  My suspicion was confirmed the moment I tried to push my head out of the turtleneck.  It got stuck!!  Seriously.  My head is big, but it's not THAT big.  (Although my mom refers to me and my siblings as Rottweiler Heads...we are so loving with each other.  But I guess she would know, she gave birth to me.)  Anyway, back to my head...I couldn't get it through the miniscule neck opening!  It wouldn't stretch a bit.  But I pressed and pushed relentlessly and somehow forced my ginormous head through the opening, with minor scrapes on my nose, where I was met with the longest turtleneck I've ever worn.  At this point I made a sad realization: the inside of the sweater felt nothing like the outside...it was scratchy, that was going to be a problem.  And the further I forced my head into the turtleneck, the more it scratched.  I thought that turtleneck was never going to end...it was as long as a knee sock.  It felt like my face was stuck in an exfoliating tube!!  But finally my head emerged out the other side.  I made it!  I turned to look at myself in my snazzy new sweater fully expecting to look like the Cheap Store model.  Boy, was I wrong.  The sweater was boxy, the turtleneck was excessively huge and needed multiple folds, and those sleeves!!  They hit at mid-arm, making the sweater look like it was sewn for a T-Rex or had misshapenly shrunk.  Who makes a turtleneck with shorty sleeves, anyway???!  For a split second I thought about attempting to rip it off and picking out something new, but I quickly decided I couldn't handle the ordeal of my head squeezing through the abysmal turtleneck again...I wouldn't have been functional for the rest of the day.   So it stayed (Forever 21 wouldn't have returned it anyway).

Then I noticed my hair in the reflection.  My hair that seemed cooperative just 20 minutes before was now standing on end like someone had rubbed a balloon all over my head.  Static electricity.  When your hair is as curly as mine, it doesn't need any extra assistance in the volume department.  I was horrified.  I added extra mousse, I patted it down, I coaxed it with water.  It had to look good!  The Voice was coming to school to record a shot at our pep rally today.  What if I was on TV in a T-Rex sweater and with bushy hair??  Oh my gosh.  I'm not sure how I even mustered the courage to leave the house Monday morning, but I put on my favorite shoes and went to work.

I knew as soon I stepped out of my car in the parking lot at school that my outfit was not appropriate for the weather.  It was humid, it was warmer than I remembered Joe Pennington telling me it was going to be the last time I watched the weather.  I was sweating by the time I climbed 4 flights of stairs to reach my building.  The humidity was causing the sweater to feel extra scratchy around my neck and my hair to pouf up again.

So I did what any normal person would do.  I went straight to the bathroom, attempted to wrangle my hair into a ponytail, blotted off the sweat, and cuffed up my sleeves to look as normal as possible.  I went to the pep rally with a smile, a pony tail that was a little catty wampus (all right, it was a LOT catty wampus...it rivaled Cindy Lauper's side pony from the 80's), and a body that felt like it was stuck in a sauna (thank goodness the scratchiness of the inside of the sweater sopped up the sweat and prevented armpit sweat rings).  At least my shoe game was spot on.

I should have known better than to rip the tags off of something without trying it on first (but, hey! It looked good on the Cheap Store model) or choose an outfit without having my regular morning conversation with Joe Pennington (see prior blog about my meteorologist chats if you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about).  But I did both.  And I paid for it.  All day.  Lesson learned.

Sometimes I wonder as I wander

Hi FRIENDS!!

I haven't blogged in a while.  I don't know why.  Yes, I do.  I didn't feel like I had anything important to say.  Today I do.

Last was an ordinary night.  Friends.  Dinner.  The norm.  A fun night, to say the least.  As I pulled the car in to the garage, I realized I had forgotten to stop by Walmart and pick up birthday cards for this weekend (3 different birthday celebrations...whew).  Matthew was too tired to tag along, or so he said.  That sounded like a pretty reasonable excuse, since he's typically in bed by 9 pm (and it was almost 10 pm when we got home).  Maybe he feared he would have sudden fits of narcolepsy while strolling through Walmart, maybe he feared the car would turn in to a pumpkin if the clock struck midnight, or maybe it was due to the fact that he hates going anywhere near Walmart with me because I like to meander down each aisle as I shop.  So anyway, I let Matthew out of the car, wheeled it in reverse, and sped off to pick out cards.

There were so many to choose from!!  Funny ones, ones that played music, some that made no sense at all.  I'm pretty sure it took almost an hour to pick out 3 cards.  I had to find just the right one for each person!!  Then I decided I'd go ahead and get what I needed for the birthday party this weekend, which tacked on an additional 20 minutes or so as I carefully perused each aisle, gathering the food I needed.  I probably should have gone back to Walmart today with a list; I felt like I was on a scavenger hunt trying to find the ingredients for corn dip while balancing more things than my hands could carry.  It's a good thing Matthew had an excuse to stay home, but a few extra hands would have been nice.

I've always had a fascination with American Sign Language...I watched Mr. Holland's Opus and knew I was meant to be a special teacher of some sort.  I'm not sure how I knew I wanted to be a special teacher when I was only 17 years old, but I knew it, with all of my 12th grade knowledge.  Allow me to introduce Mr. EJ Penn.  He was the first person I met when I enrolled at Paris High School as a 10th grader, he was the counselor.  He took me under his wing, and eventually I became his office aide during my junior and senior years.  He understood me.  He knew me.  I wanted to be him, or someone who had the ability and capacity to love others like he did (regardless of where they came from). He helped me identify a school where I could learn American Sign Language and teach it to others.  Of course, as plans sometimes do, mine changed.  My choices led me to be a Mama (which taught me more about life, love, and responsibility than any college experience ever could).  Going to a school out of town to become an ASL teacher wasn't an option any longer, so I became a regular teacher: math and science (because I'm a nerd), and cheer coach (because, ahem, I'm peppy)!!

So, back to last night.  Fast forward to the pitch-black parking lot.  I wandered across the parking lot in the dark, wondering why I parked so far away from the entrance (but knowing its because my dang OCD causes me to park in the same row, in roughly the same space, every single time I shop).  I walked to the car as quickly as I could without looking weird, threw the bags in my car, and immediately locked the doors.  Because, HELLO, dark parking lots are super creepy.  As I was digging in my purse to get my keys, someone knocked on my window.  Rather loudly, I might add.  It startled me so badly that I flung my hands in the air, knocking my rear view mirror askew, spilling the contents of my purse, and ripping the USB cable right out of the dashboard (I'm not really sure how it got tangled up in the mix, but it did).  I'm sure that was a sight to see, because as I looked out my window to see what the commotion was about, I saw a man standing there, waving and laughing.  Cautiously I rolled down my window.

Now, I know what you're probably thinking:  Are you stupid???!  It's after 11 pm, a strange man just beat the crap out of your car window, and you roll it down?  I didn't feel scared, I didn't get a bad vibe from him.  So I did it, I rolled the window down.  And man, am I glad I did!!  I met a man, about my age I would guess, who made me realize how thankful I am for the ability to speak and hear.  Something I haven't thought about since the last time I watched Mr. Holland's Opus.  He was trying his hardest to speak to me, but I couldn't understand him.  At first I thought it was some kind of joke.  And then it happened.  He signed!  He was deaf.  That explained my inability to understand him.  That explained the horrendously loud knock on my car window.

I learned the ASL alphabet in elementary school and knew a few signs for words.  So I was able to say hello and tell him my name.  I think he must have gotten excited and thought I was fluent in ASL because he started signing like a maniac!  He looked like an air-traffic controller in the parking lot!  He was going to town.  And I couldn't understand a thing he was signing to me!!  It didn't take long before he realized our communication was totally one-sided.  So he grabbed his Walmart receipt and  began furiously writing.  We had a nice little conversation on that Walmart receipt.

As I drove home, I thought about how thankful I was for something as simple as the ability to hear and to speak.  It's something I've always taken for granted.  I thought about how fortunate I am to be able to hear the sounds I love: the wind when I'm running, my favorite songs on the radio, and Paige's sweet voice.  I thought about how lucky I am to be able to speak to other people whenever I want and for them to be able to speak to me in return (which is pretty often...I like to talk to people).  I also wondered what kind of parakeet the man had, his receipt listed parakeet food as an item he purchased. Haha!!

I think I have a new appreciation for something I've never noticed the importance of until tonight, until I met someone who didn't have the same ability.  What a challenging life he must have! And how brave for him to freely approach other people and reach out in an attempt to communicate.

Cold stinks. And so do socks.

Oh my gosh. It's been so cold. News flash!! Because, you know, winter. And I hate it!! It's been so cold, and I've been so cranky, that I've put off this blog for one week and one day hoping for some sun to deliver a much needed dose of Vitamin D and improve my mood!

I mean, I really REALLY hate cold weather. Last Thursday, especially. It was 5 (degrees, not AM) when I woke up Thursday morning. 5!!! I was sitting in my half-wake/half-sleep stupor sucking down coffee, and as soon as Joe Pennington told me the temperature, I knew it was going to be one of THOSE days. (Yes, I firmly believe the weathermen are speaking directly to me through my TV.) And by one of THOSE days, I mean a day when it's so cold I'm required to wear socks and layers of clothing. And that just doesn't work for me!! Getting out of the house with layers, socks, and OCD is ridiculous.

The clothing layers were strangely OK for the most part. I pulled on a long sleeve school t-shirt, zipped up a fleece, threw on a scarf, and called it good! No twisted sleeves, nothing too tight or restrictive, just cozy layers. I was rocking out the cold-weather clothing...or so I thought.

I pulled a coordinating pair of shoes out of the box and pondered my sock options. Workout socks are always OK, I even kind of like them...compression socks typically don't have a toe line thing, and they don't bunch at the toes or in other strange places like other socks do. But ankle length compression socks don't cut it when the temperature is in the single digits.  Then I scoured through my mid calf athletic socks, those are sometimes OK. In fact, I have one pair with a paint stained toe that have been a trusty go-to since 2004.  But they were MIA!!  So I moved on to regular white pull on sock choices...they are typically warm, functional, and I have a hearty collection of various brands, thanks to my mom! Even though she knew of my sock issues (she forced socks on to my feet, with me screaming bloody murder, every single day of kindergarten-there's a cold weather blog about that from last year's polar vortex), she stuffed my Christmas stocking full of socks. For years!! But none of my pull on white socks felt tall enough to stop the up-the-pant-leg draft on a near 0 degree day. I was going to have to go all out, for the whole enchilada, and find some tall, warm socks. Oh boy.

I tried on an expensive wooly pair that Matthew gave me. They were too itchy. I tried on a pair of spotted knee socks. The dots felt funny on the inside of the socks that touched my feet. I tried on a pair of heavy hiking socks, they felt too thick with my shoes. I was running out of time!! I was going to be late to work. I imagined the embarrassment as I explained to my principal why I was late to school. I was beginning to get super frustrated. I had kindergarten flashbacks and thought I might burst in to tears! I had to calm myself down by imagining my dad singing This is the Day (like he used to do on the way to school after every sock debacle), as I dug feverishly through my sock basket. I pulled out 5 warmish pairs and ran back downstairs to try them on with my shoes. None of them felt right, but I was out of time. So I pulled on the ones that felt best out of the 8 pairs strewn by the door. The tops were a little stretched out and baggy from pulling them on and ripping them off, but I was determined to make them work. Then I noticed the toe line. It was hideous!! It wasn't symmetrical on each foot. I could cover it up with my shoes and be OK...right?! Wrong. I bet I took my shoes off under my desk at least five times to straighten the toe line thing. I'm sure my office-mate thought I was insane.  I counted down the minutes until I could go home and rip the socks off my feet, but I made it. I survived another cold weather sock day. Barely.

I was sure to wear only compression socks through the rest of the cold snap that lasted an entire week.  I didn't care if they matched my outfit or my legs got a draft. At least they felt OK.