Where am I?

I have to apologize for my brief hiatus after the holidays. The last thing I remember, it was the day after Thanksgiving and I was just enjoying some leftovers! I grabbed a fork and my 9 inch tin of pumpkiny goodness, I mean, who goes to the trouble of getting an actual plate once the company is gone? Errr... everyone does that, right? And the next thing I know, I woke up with whipped cream on my shirt and a stomach ache and it was five days later! The dreaded pumpkin pie coma!

Rest assured, I am making a full recovering and I am back in blogging action.

That's a wrap!

• Time spent on the road: 6 weeks

• Miles logged: several thousand

• Great students I met: Too many to count

• Another travel season on the books: priceless!

So, I've finished another travel season. It started when it was warm and sunny and the grass was green, and I wrapped this week wearing a winter coat and scraping my windshield. In the time that I spent on the road this fall, I became addicted to fountain pop, Simpson lost a great football coach, I vowed to fight my addiction to fountain pop, the color of the leaves changed... and...er... so did the color of my hair. Well, first of all- if it weren't for the cancer-causing fake ingredients, aspartame poisoning and other miscellaneous damage to my internal organs and tooth enamel, diet fountain pop wouldn't really be all that bad. As it is, it's probably pretty bad, so I am trying to give it up. Secondly, our head football coach Jay Niemann resigned. In my heart it was a sad day- he was a real class act, always respectful and kind, and I wish him the very best. Next, the view from the road is pretty amazing throughout the fall, I love watching the landscape transform itself into a golden, glowing portrait of fall color. Lastly, I have had the same hair color for all of my 28 years. So, in a drastic step, (well, drastic for a toe head like me) I dyed my hair! I don't know why other than it's the season of change- if mother nature can stand to change the color of a few million leaves, surely I can handle one head of hair. (I feel like I need to provide a visual here)



















OK, time for one road story I think. As you'll recall from one of my recent blogs, the wind was a'howling that last week of travel. On my very last travel day of the year, as I was heading east into the now leafless landscape, I came right up on an accident. I literally almost drove into it- I was on scene even before any law enforcement made it. Apparently a semi truck hauling.. I don't know what, hay bales I guess (I'm a city girl, someone help me out here) lost control because of the wind, then jack-knifed, losing his load!

This next pic is proof I was first on the scene! Here is the ambulance en route!OK, here is one final picture of the scene, after the help arrived. I hope everyone was OK, it didn't look like an injury accident.

Lastly, I pose you with with one important question to ponder over this long holiday weekend. This is a time for being thankful. Which frienships in your life are you most thankful for, or might I ask "Who's Your Buddy?"

Oh yeah, you are, my dear "93% Diet Pepsi, 5 % Cherry Coke, 2% Dr. Pepper" fountain pop. Thanks for seeing me through the long hours in the minivan, facing the sun on the way out AND on the way home, listening to the daily cattle prices on the radio, and causing the frequent pit stops in small town Iowa gas stations. Yes, thank YOU for being my buddy.

Perspective

One of the lessons I have learned in life, is that what you see depends on where you stand- both literally and figuratively.

Let's start with literally. Everyone has their "dream concert." For 15 years my dream concert, if I could see ANYONE live in person, was Garth Brooks. As luck would have it, his recent One Man, One City concert occurred in Kansas City, a mere 3 hours from where I live. So, thank you Ebay, because 13 bids and 2 tickets later I had seats to see the Artist of the Century.

My "view" of the concert, if you will, was fabulous. My best friend and I were nestled right smack in the front row (ok, the front row of the 2nd section), for our dream concert. Being so close to the stage, we got to see every emotion that Garth had and it made the experience awesome. I imagine someone sitting in the nosebleed section (poor schmucks) had a different perspective than we did. They would have seen a tiny little figure, kind of resembling an ant, flitting around stage like a firefly.

I imagine that Garth had an entirely different perspective. Whereas we know all about him, his motives behind each song,stalk his every move (or is it just me that does that?), I imagine he just sees a sea of bodies- a mass of nameless, faceless fans huddled like Alaskan Salmon- squirming and fighting our way just to get an inch closer. Another day "at the office." We were both in the same city, same auditorium on the same night and yet.... a difference of perspective.

Perhaps more important, is how our perspective changes figuratively. As my friend and I sat waiting for Garth to appear on stage, we reminisced about days past. We talked about what we were like as freshmen in college, and how now, 10 years later, after our lives have taken us down our respective paths, our outlooks and beliefs have completely shifted. We laughed about all of the things we believed and plans we made. Things we once thought, now seem ridiculous. Judgments we once made, now seem shortsighted. That change in perspective is to me, one of the very most important aspects of college. Degree- yes, that's a big one. Friends, fun, Intro to Medieval Thinkers, yep, those are all important too. But Perspective shapes the course of how you make all of your decisions. There have been many times where I have disagreed with a coworker, family member, friend, or stranger for that matter, and come to find out later that perhaps my perspective on the situation was skewed and if I had tried to see things from their side maybe I would have drawn a different conclusion. There is a saying that you can't know why someone has done something unless you've walked in their shoes... seen their perspective. Good advice I think!

FREE T-SHIRT!!!!!

OK dear readers here's the deal- whoever is FIRST to comment on this blog, as in, this very post, right here, right now... gets a free t-shirt. Period, easy as that! That's it. No crazy hoops, no shipping and handling. Just a comment!

OK, there is one stipulation. Mom, coworkers, student sitting at the desk 15 feet away from me, crazy stalker ex-boyfriend (OK, I made that one up) if you are reading this, you don't count. In other words, the comment has to be from someone who does not really know me in real life, which, I know, that's rare, because I am kind of a big deal. People know me.

Ready...... set...... comment!!!!

ALSO, whoever posts the most original comment (anyone can play, even those who DO kow me) that mades me laugh out loud, not just "LOL" (as in, mildly amuses me just barely enough to make it worth noting in a 3-letter acronym), but honestly, actually, laugh out loud, you get a free gift also!

GO!!!

Can I have a wind advisory with that?

Hello from the road! Wow, where to start-let's see, oh yes, the wind.... Well, my van was doing the cha-cha on the open highway as I struggled to keep it on the road today! Gale force winds were giving me all they had but I prevailed. Well, the van prevailed, my hair... not so much. Every time I had to get out of the van for even a nanosecond my appearance took a nosedive.

By the time I arrived at my destination I looked....fabulous. This is my, "are you kidding me, I'm honestly going to walk into my next appointment looking like this, where is a flat iron when you need one, maybe I can pass this off as a punk look" look.

Speaking of the cha cha. My good friend, colleague and fellow blogger Andy got married this past weekend. It was a beautiful wedding.... until of course... the cha cha. If you haven't been to a wedding in the past year, you may not know of this outstanding phenomenon! It's the Macarena of the new century. Allow me to indulge you: (cue token hyped up drum beat music)
Clap your hands everybody
Slide to the left
take it back now yal
One hop this time
Right foot lets stomp
Left foot lets stomp
Cha Cha now yal!

This is one of those great, group dance things. By great I mean, terrible and annoying with the sole purpose of making adults look like buffoons. Because only one of two things can happen. 1) Either you don't catch on to the dance until 8 seconds before it ends, and in the mean time you have plowed into the groom's 80-year old grandmother- not once but twice, because you cha-cha'd the wrong direction, OR, 2) you actually know the dance and do it correctly, and frankly, that's not actually any cooler, and in fact may actually make you look like a bigger buffoon. Of course, any 8-year old in the house can groove the cha-cha like a celebrity on Dancing with the Stars. Little punks...


Lastly, let's talk about Grease Creatures- my latest way to pass the hours driving. You've heard of people gazing at clouds and looking for shapes? OK, this is the same thing, but you do it with the greasy leftovers of your drive-through food. You can use spent napkins, paper bags, or even that important piece of paper that accidentally touched your food and now forever has the greasy Ring of Doom imprinted on it.



















OK, expand your mind- now what do you see? A dog? A bunny? The Mona Lisa? Keep looking...maybe squint a little... Of course, the immense guilt of eating yet another greasy glob of goodness weighs on my mind and, on the best of days, I end of logging some miles on the treadmill. Then, feeling pretty good about my awesome workout, I head to Coldstone for a double scoop of chocolaty-brownie goodness. What? Would I like to add a dose of cookie dough and a chocolate dipped waffle cone for only 79 cents? Why sure! This probably seems like very unstable behavior to the outsider. Ok, it's definitely unstable... somewhere across town a psychiatrist is cringing... well, that, or a Jenny Craig rep- either way, I'm sure it's bad!