:::Vera Catherine Murray:::

To the corn fields of Illinois I go! Excited to celebrate my grandmother Vera Catherine Murray. (6.23.25-11.21.08)

She was well loved and lived well

 Can't wait for this awkward family reunion and playing with cousins and brother in the fields at sunset!

Have a fantastic weekend! 

:::Pretty Princess:::

Ok. I'm over babysitting. I feel old enough to be going WITH the parents rather than staying at home with their children. I babysat Saturday night as a complete favor for my roommate. There was zero excitement (sorry Kelly) in fact a tiny bit of resentment because I could have stayed out on the lake longer or seen the new love interest a little earlier. 

But then I remembered the other reason why I had agreed ($$$) and sucked it up. I must admit...three year olds aint my thang. I have said before that I'd rather spend all day with 120 twelve-year-olds than 3 hours with 6 three-year-olds. Im too sarcastic for them. I make them cry. I also am too competitive and get frustrated when they want to MAKE UP THEIR OWN RULES for a board game. "Im sorry...thats not how you play monopoly..." aaaaaand what 3 year old decides its a good idea to play Monopoly anyway. Its NEVER a good idea to play Monopoly for the sole reason that you are still playing Monopoly 5 hours later! Thats another story, another time. 

Saturday night I went to see a 10 year old who I adore and a 3 year old that hates me. I think we made progress. She "let" me wear her crown and every piece of jewelry from her Pretty Pretty Princess game.

I felt honored. Despite my previous feelings on the matter, I had fun. She then let me put every piece of jewelry on her and I have decided that God couldn't have created anything more beautiful than little girls playing dress up.

Thanks God! :)

:::Penny Trees:::

Today in class each student planted two lima beans in their own cup of soil. After they were finished we put a penny over the area where the lima beans were buried.

 I inform the students, "Over the next few weeks we will be observing what happens to the penny"

"Kyle" my "ghetto, good-looking for a 15 year old and knows it" student pipes up in all seriousness, 

"Hey Miss! We growin dat penny tree?"

I, of course, hold back the laughter which resulted in an embarrassing "snort" of sorts and respond

"yeah and then we are gonna take it on down to the penny forest where all the penny elves live and frolic with pennies beneath the rainbow"

"Miss! you know pennies do on grown on doese trees"

What?!?! is that a sentence. Try that again in English "Kyle".

A student looked up from his work in reaction to our conversation. 

"Oh-my-Bama....." 

:::Happy Birthday Katelyn:::

Happy Birthday dear friend!

I miss you through and through. 

I hate that you are so far away from me now. 

I can't wait to see you in August.

I love everything about you.

Have a blessed birthday.

(say hello to Corey for me)

There are 6 ROTATIONS in the SKY

Whilst watching "So you think you can Dance" (aka, the reason I live) the thunderstorm warnings kept popping up all over the screen. I have UVERSE (get it) and the most amazing feature is you can cancel those warnings and go back to regular t.v. I had to do that about 69 times which was a little more than frustrating. Then they cut to the weather on an Austin News station. Apparently...I was exiting out of tornado warnings. They showed the storm cloud with 6 ROTATIONS above my house.

So I screamed from my bedroom
"KELLY....there are SIX ROTATIONS!!"

"what?"

"There are SIX ROTATIONS!"
She laughs...alot and then said "Taylor I love you. What are we supposed to do about this?"

I respond urgently and pacing around "We need to come up with a plan. Our plan... Pantry or closet. Its not big enough for both of us so we might have to split up"

She looks at me and laughs again. "Concernicus, FINE lets go to the closet"

What do you bring with you when there is a tornado and you are going in the closet..I mean when i was younger my brother and I once got our bikes from the garage and brought them to our tornado shelter in the closet under the stairs. My parents werent too pleased. They let us keep the helmets.

Well here's what my brain gathered this time around
ALL of my bedding (6 pillows, a body pillow and my comforter)
Laptops (naturally)
Handtops (iphones)
A LANTERN
and chocolate chip cookies (duh) This is how my brain works.

Then I look up and on the back of Kelly's closet door is a shoe rack. All of her stilettos turned into daggers instantly. Poisonous projectiles I vividly imagined taking my life during the tornado that was to demolish our house.
UM death by shoe? Say there was a tornado..and lets say it came to our house..and maybe lets say the adorable red heel from top left plummeted down and took my life... I'd want to be classified as death by shoe. No tornado casualty here. no ma'am. It was not the tornado that killed me....it was that shoe from the top left.

For future reference if this situation were to EVER happen (unlikely) I want it in the Newspaper as "Death by Shoe"

:::The art of Texting:::

I am over texting. I'm too impatient. I definitely don't expect an immediate response, but I do expect a timely response. ESPECIALLY if I did not initiate the conversation. I understand not being at your phone, being busy, whatever...I am not always by my phone either, but the world is getting lazy with text messages. 

Since when is it ok to not answer a question? and what is it with guys especially? Do you look at the text message and literally wait 3 hours to respond EVERY TIME. But when asked you say "girls like it like that" and wink with your adorable smile. 

UMM NO. actually...I dont. I dont care if you are Brad Pitt, or that sexy lead from the Star Trek movie, or even James Morrison....I dont like getting a text 69 hours later that doesn't even answer my question. I wish I could say this is an isolated incident.

I am over flirtexting. I'm too impatient.

:::Lucy Liu is NOT Lisa Ling:::

It can get confusing. Father and I had a discussion about them today. Father said Lisa Ling is a tv journalist who was in Charlies Angels. I said that is Lucy Liu. It resulted in a search of Wikipedia. 

Lisa Ling is a t.v. journalist and a host on The View

Lucy Liu is a movie actress on Charlies Angels and Ally McBeal

Can you tell who is who?

:::Happy Birthday Jen:::

Happy Birthday Jen. You are determined, adventurous, hilarious, beautiful, brave, brilliant and the best friend I could ever ask for. I wish we lived in the same city. BUT that might be a little dangerous. 

I love you

:::I want you:::

:::Things that make me completely happy:::

1. Speaking in British accents

2. This cup of hot chocolate

3. Men in scarfs

4. Notes from my students

5. Saving money

6. Sonic Sweet Tea

7. Being productive

8. Fantastic nicknames (I was just named, "The Beast of the Serengeti"-and its in for the long run. I'm not letting this one go)

9. The 4th of July

10. Getting goosebumps

11. Making up words

12. Pandora

13. Buying things on sale at Anthropologie

14. Someone else driving so I can be the passenger

15. Smores

16. Not having to wake up to an alarm

17. Seeing guys read books

18. Going to my students after school activities

19. Poppies

20. Being surprised

21. Singing and thinking "Man, I sounded good just then"