School Supplies

I don't usually post more than once in a day, but today was school supply shopping day. My dear daughter takes after me and gets very excited about such things--clean notebooks, unsharpened pencils, a fresh bottle of glue...wonderful stuff ;) Today though, she cracked me up. Apparently these days, when you get to 5th grade, your accessories (meaning pencil sharpener, pens--you only get 2 in 5th grade, eraser, etc.) must all MATCH...what?! Who does that?! Apparently my child does, and it all revolves around the "home" in which they'll be living...if the pencil bag is brown and blue apparently everything else must be brown or blue...I tried asking why you couldn't use coordinating colors as well, such as pink, but I just got a "moooom"[insert disgusted, you'll never understand, how can you be so lame to even ask, tone.] Anyway, I gave up trying to understand and figured as long as things weren't costing any more that it was really none of my concern. And then a few minutes passed and I thought...hmmmm, maybe it's not such a bad/crazy idea--coordinating products--my classroom would look very trendy...watch out world the Bellus(-Penz) ladies are on the loose...

Dreadful heat...thoughts

I walk/run about 4 time a week (mostly walk these days...then try to run, just to see that my achilles still hurts and then end up walking). I always take the same route and listen to MPR Mid-morning...it's really my only intellectual stimulation. Sadly most of my life I'm an underknowledged (see...is that even a word?!) individual. So today, the heat made me suffer a bit on my walk and the talk on mid-mornign was about CEO's...yes, they make too much...blah, blah, blah...what's there really to discuss on that front (nothing in my eyes) ...So to get my mind off the heat I started to think about something my sister was talking about the other day. She teaches highschool and I think the story goes that at the end of one school year (after their senior speeches when they told stories about their lives as teenagers--their struggles/insecurities/etc) she gave them a little talk and told them that she wished they could see themselves how others saw them...I'm guessing she meant--funny, athletic, intellectual, etc. So today I started to think about how we see ourselves as adults...now being more mature (hopefully) do we have the knowledge to see ourselves as others see us? And if not, at this age do we see ourselves in a brighter, or more dim, light than others see us? Do we see ourselves as we want to be? Do we see ourselves as we used to be, refusing to see ourselves how we have changed? I guess you don't really know the answers to any of these questions unless you know what others think about you...and very rarely do we really tell people, especially the negatives. But I think we could learn a lot by taking a moment to at least reflect on who we strive to be and whether our actions truly match that outcome. Anwyay, enough thinking for one day...I am a sweaty mess (that damn heat sucked the life out of me...and apparently all the sweat!) and now it's time to get back to reality and hit the HGTV :)