"FEEEEEEEEELINGS, nothing more than....

.......Feeeeeeeeelings," (as sung by Steve Urkel whilst accompanied by an accordian).

So, you could say that I've been having mixed feelings all week. I move out of my home and 3 hours away from my family in nine days- and I am not panicking.

I should be.

I am leaving a job that I adore, and a class of toddlers that I adore even more. I just keep waiting for the tears to come - but they won't.

I am registered for college classes, and instead of going into a mad frenzy of stress on account that I haven't so much as sat through an educational lecture in over 5 years....I'm just smiling.

I'm crazy happy. And anxious. I fully anticipate that all this positive energy will evaporate in the fervor of squeezing all my earthly posessions into my little Mitsubishi 'Delilah', and heading off into the sunset. But, for now, I'm happy. And wicked excited.

Yayyyyyyyyyyyy.

Modest is the HOTTEST.

I am so inspired by the women who stubbornly make their mark in the fashion world - by insisting on modesty without compromise. My little sis Nicole pointed me in the direction of Elizamagazine.com (which completely rocks, by the way) and I have been doing an inward happy dance as I've been browsing through it's fabulous articles. I came across this interview with Stevie Nicks (the interviewer was a member of the girl-band Eisley, who I adore). It made me smile, bigtime. Hurray for standards.


You’re known for your mystique in both your fashion and your music image. Did you ever feel the pressure to be more sexually revealing?

The only time I had that pressure was the Buckingham Nicks cover. I was really pushed into doing that. I didn’t want to do it, and Lindsey, my then-boyfriend, was not very nice about it. I ended up doing it, and I’ll tell you something; when I showed it to my dad six months later, I said, “You know I didn’t want to do this, Daddy.” And he said to me, “Well why didn’t you just say no?” I said I just felt like I had no choice. I’m an extremely modest woman. I guess you can probably see it through my clothes all down through the years with my long chiffon skirts and my big wispy sleeves. I always looked at it like, people wondering what was under all that was much sexier than having all that out there.

That’s one thing I love about you. Mystery can be so powerful.

Yeah, and it always works, and now it’s gone so far beyond that; I think it’s got to come back now because I really don’t think they can go any further. But I will tell you, stand up and say, “I’m not doing that!”

We haven’t gotten much pressure at all, so I’ve been really thankful for that.

I know Warner Bros. is a good label and I wouldn’t think they would push that down your throat, but it certainly has been pushed on a lot of people. It has happened to a lot of those women out there, and once you’ve gone into that, I believe it’s hard for people to take you very seriously. I always said, in my musical life I will never be treated like a second-class citizen. And you know what? I never was. I have never experienced being treated poorly except for the time when we did the Buckingham Nicks cover. So from that day onward, I walked out of that studio a different woman. Today people still tell me, “We loved that cover and it was just so amazing and so beautiful,” and I’m like, “Yeah, it was, I guess.” But the grief it caused me was certainly not worth it. So you still really need to hold your ground. You always need to do that.

April Fools...APRIL SHMOOLS.

I have always dreaded April Fools Day. The combination of my generally trusting and gullible nature makes me a prime target for pranks in all shapes and sizes. It's not like I'm Debbie Downer or something, I definitely have a sense of humor. I just HATE being startled! Gahh!

My dear mother is the patron saint of tomfoolery. She is, and always has been, the queen of April Fools day. I live in fear of her on April 1st of each year. Today, she's only gotten me once (by dropping fuzzy lint on me from our second-level landing while I unsuspectingly typed on the computor a few moments ago, which was the inspiration for this blog).

I have to go now, because the "Law and Order" episode playing on the TV behind me has given me a great idea for a prank, and it involves the more-than-slightly creepy mannequin heads I have left over from my stint in beauty school. Bwa ha ha hha. Perhaps some of her impishness has been passed onto me.


(Edit: here's what we ended up doing.... we had it sticking out from under her bed. Her reply? "You guys are SICK.")


Viva La April Fools.

my life is over.

I have discovered two things tonight that are causing me considerable amounts of stress and/or panic.

1. I can't apply for a campus job in Rexburg unless I take more credits. Which I won't do, cause I need money, and more class time will eradicate the purpose of working part time be cause I won't have any time left to work.

2. While searching for jobs off-campus in Rexburg, I came upon the website for Bearworld. It is located within the city limits of Rexburg.


I HATE BEARS. Bearworld (aka HELL) is responsible for a string of recurring nightmares that have haunted me from an anxious, creepy part of my psyche for approximately 6 years.

Let me explain. We decided to stop at Bearworld (heaven knows why) to look at bears on our way home from our last family trip to Montana. My family thought it would be awesome to look at bears. I wanted no part of it. The cabin we had stayed at is in grizzly bear country. I had just gotten over jitters and insomnia caused by fear of waking up and seeing a fat, irritable grizzly standing over ones bed. I wanted civilization. I yearned for the reassurance of the suburbs, where even the largest animal that is within a ten mile radius is not one that can chomp your head off and/or peel the metal from your car like a can of sardines. I did NOT want to stop at BEAR-freaking-WORLD.

It wasn't even an ordinary zoo. There were no cages. It was like some backwoodsy hunter decided to start bringing his catch home ALIVE, and let them play in his backyard. Grizzlies, Black Bears... and Wolves. Wolves, I tell you!!! It was like a beastly petting zoo, with chain- link fences separating some of the different animals. You know, so that they don't all of the sudden start feasting on each others flesh.

So we drove through. Yes, drove through. Next to lumbering, thousand pound omnivores. I think my dad tried to roll down his window. It scarred me for life.

And so, tonight as I googled for employment, I discovered that Bearworld is in Rexburg.

My life is over.

Quote of the day....

(Cameron, 4) "Hey, Teacher? What kind of car do you drive?"

(Me) "It's called a Mirage. It's silver."

(Cameron) "Oh really? 'Cause my parents are rollin' in ESCALADES!!!"

Quote of the day...

I am going to start posting all the cute quotes I can remember from my kids, because - alas! - I have misplaced my notebook that contains 4 years of funny kid quotes. I want to cry.

However, blogging is alot less fickle than a notebook, because 1. - It cannot be barfed on (something that presents a real threat to literary records in my line of work) and 2. - I cannot lose it. Boo hoo for now, and when I find my little pink notebook, all of the quotes from the insightful children I've been blessed take care of will be going on here.

This is actually from friday. There was a freak hailstorm pounding on the roof of the daycare, and I was about to head out to the parking lot for my lunchbreak. To get there, I get to cross through my old classroom of 4 and 5 year olds. Most of them are sleeping on cots, since it's usually naptime when I break. However, there's always a few hardcore hyper kids that don't sleep. As I tip-toed throught the room, Devin popped his head up and said, "Miss Tami! Be sure you watch out for the blizzard! Its CRAZY out there!"

I thanked him, and promised I'd be careful. As I was closing the door, I heard his buddy Cameron whisper desperately, "What do you mean there's a lizard out there?!!! DON'T LET IT COME IN HERE!!!"

A bit of inspiration.

I have been lying in bed all day. I'm not actually sick, I'm not exactly depressed.

I am anxious about alot of things at the moment - school, money, money, boys in general. Money. And when I get anxious, I get a case of the lazies. A BIG case of the "it's alot more convienient to lay in bed and read all day than it is to get up and clean my room, and brush my teeth, only because once I do the basic necessities, it will mean that I have to address the piles of bills and laundry that are stubbornly growing in various corners around my bedroom," LAZIES.

So, I just stayed in bed. It's been a bit of a habit lately, one that hasn't gotten a hold of me in some time. I got on the computor, and procrastinated a bit more by visiting facebook - where my 'Grey's Anatomy' quote of the day profile box made me remember something that Meredith had once said -

Meredith Grey: "A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don't know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I'd have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you're wrong? What if you're making a mistake you can't undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can't pretend we hadn't been told. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying."

I remembered it, and I feel better, and ready to get back in gear. Bless that Doctor's fictional and insightful little heart.

No Cheeks!

At a La Petite staff meeting recently, my boss Tracy was covering a few of the regular topics that staff meetings are called for - cleaning, parent interaction, and dress code. The first two topics were covered fairly routinely, and after a brief spiel on the third topic about collared shirts and dress pants, she said:

"Okay, guys. I really hate to even have to say this, but please make sure that your pants cover your underwear when you bend over. If there is even the slightest chance that your panties are going to be exposed, don't wear anything skimpy. Tanner [her son] saw his first thong right here, at La Petite when he was three. He turned to me after seeing a teacher bend over to pick up a child and said, 'MOM! Why is she wearing undies that have NO CHEEKS?!'
.....and that's all I'm going to say about that."