On a side note, I got a teaching job! A REAL one. You're reading from Middle School's newest Health/P.E./Coach! I can't wait. I anticipate my first year to not be quite as dreamy and sugar-coated as I'm hoping for. But I dont even care. It will be new, and different, and they actually still send me a check even if Im sick and need a day off. They give me more than one day off for Thanksgiving and Christmas and they even pay me still, while im on Holiday. Maybe thats the norm for you, but THIS worker bee is used to a life of no work = no pay for the last 4 years that I've been completely on my own. Im also excited for the challenge of it all. I am going to miss my personal training clients soooo much! Pat, Shannon, Ann...you ladies mean the world to me. But its definitely time to move on. Im so in love with teaching, and personal training hasn't been quite the brain teaser that it once was when i first began.
Also, my grandpa (Pa) passed away. He was 93. I'll miss him. He was the last grandparent I had, and I loved him a lot. My dad's dad, and my mom's mom were the best. They both had colorful lives in different ways and i love hearing stories about them. He spent his life working under some intense physical labor and its fun to see pictures of how tough he was when he was my age. I remember going over to his house and he'd "need" me to clean out the change in his sock drawer. Then he'd always let me keep the change. We used to split coconut pie at the Smokehouse. When he got older and quit going to the Barber shop, he'd let me cut his hair...which was probably way more fun for me than him. Im glad I got to see him one last time on fathers day. And he was himself, watching baseball and cracking jokes. I keep a book of quotes and a few years ago I was at his house, calling him an Old Man since he had a birthday, and he said, "Well, I guess the older you get, the longer you live."
I know he didnt mean anything profound by that at all. But it kind of was. I worry so much about the looming age of 30, thats like this black rain cloud above my head, inevitably waiting to pour down. But that's why I've got to see and do all I can while I can. Tolstoy said, "I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence...I found in myself a superabundance of energy that found no outlet in our quiet life". Therefore, Alaska is next on my bucket list. I've got a buddy up there who is a tour guide so I'm gonna go check it out. The longer God lets me stay on this earth, the more I get to LIVE. And, I feel so alive when I'm traveling. I love coming home at the same time. It's strange that the feelings of going out and coming home are so powerfully wonderful.
Here's Pa...post haircut.
