Hilarious Conversation with my Grandmother

Grandma: "You know 'X' was in the paper today."
Me: "Oh yeah?"
Grandma: "Yeah, for that sport he plays. What is it? Volleyball? I think he plays volleyball."
Me: "Really? I don't think he plays volleyball."
Grandma: "He plays that one where you kick the ball - I think."
Me: "Soccer? Volleyball uses a net. You have to get the ball over the net."
Grandma: "Oh, you use bats to get it over the net?"
Me: "No ..."
Grandma: "Well, I know there's one that uses bats."
Me: "Baseball ..."
Grandma: "No, there's one that uses bats and a net."
Me: "Badminton has a net, and you use rackets that look sort of like tennis rackets to get the thing over the net." (Throwing "birdie" into this conversation would have tanked it completely.)
Grandma: "Well, I knew there was something that used bats and a net. Oh, well, I don't know what he plays."
Me: "Pretty sure it's soccer ... You know, you could get the paper back out and read it again to find out what he plays."
Grandma: "Yeah, I suppose I could ..."

"Hollered" vs. "Hurled"

Back in September/October, I started tutoring a little girl who is in the third grade. We get together once a week so I can help her with her reading. At first, I wasn't sure if she liked me, and I wasn't sure if I was really helping her much, but we stuck it out. Over the last couple of months, I have seen more and more progress, and she seems to like reading more and more. It's been awesome!

I feel I must share with you a happy, yet honestly almost a little sad, moment I had today while tutoring. My tutoree really enjoys the Junie B. books, and we're now reading our second one, Junie B. and a Little Monkey Business. In this book, Junie B. uses the word "hollered" a lot. The little girl I tutor is from Vietnam, not the south, so she isn't very familiar with the word "hollered." For weeks, every time she came to that word, she would say "hurled." So, instead of reading something like "I hollered" or "she hollered," she would read "I hurled" or "she hurled." I always corrected her, but I giggled a lot inside when she said the wrong word. Is that mean of me? Anyway, after a couple of tries today, she started saying "hollered." I was really proud of her for getting it right! I will, however, miss my inner chuckles ... I know, mean, right?

Earthworms: One Good Memory and One Not So Good Memory

I saw two earthworms in the parking lot at work today. Those two earthworms brought to mind two very different memories.

I'll start with the Not So Good memory:

During my time at North Greenville, I learned that a lot of rain equalled a lot of earthworms. I was walking across campus one evening during a particularly rainy period of time. It was REALLY rainy, so that meant there were a TON of earthworms! There were so many earthworms that I had to jump all over the place so my feet had somewhere to step that there wasn't an earthworm! GROSS! I almost cried! It was a horrible experience, but I'm sure I experienced personal growth from it somehow ... I'll get back to you on that one. :O)

Now the Good memory:

When Joel, Shana, and I were growing up (well, I was pretty close to grown up at this point), there was a Sega in our house. One of the games we enjoyed playing was Earthworm Jim. It was awesome! I miss that game! Throughout the game, Earthworm Jim would yell, "HAM!" We thought that was great! So we would yell "HAM!" from time to time. It was awesome! Then one day, we realized he wasn't saying "HAM!"

Sweetgrass Bouquets

HAHA ... I just remembered a dream I had last night, and I needed to share it with someone. Seeing as how it's a little late to call anyone (12:50 AM), I decided I would tell you!

The dream started out with me being at my friend Crystal's wedding (Crystal from camp ... we've been friends for almost 10 years now! CRAZY!). She had these super weird (but pretty cool) flowers. The bridesmaids only carried one, because they were HUGE! It's hard to describe if you're not in my dream, but try to picture a normal, say, tulip. Now picture the bloom the size of a paint can, maybe even bigger than that. They were sort of cartoonish looking. If anyone could pull off flowers like that, it would be Crystal!

So, in my dream, I proceded to tell Crystal that I liked her flowers a lot, and then I told her what kind of bouquets my bridesmaids would be carrying (keep in mind that neither one of us is actually getting married right now in real life, haha). My wedding was going to be on a Charleston plantation, so my bridesmaids were going to carry bouquets of sweetgrass flowers. Some of you may be thinking, "What the heck is a sweetgrass flower?" If you've ever been to the market in downtown Charleston, you've likely seen the women weaving baskets of sweetgrass. Well, as you walk around town, you're also likely to encounter men (typically, but sometimes women as well) selling roses made out of sweetgrass. I think they're really cool. I have two of them that I've purchased on trips to Charleston (a short-lived "tradition" of purchasing one each time I went to Charleston, haha).

So now I find myself actually contemplating what it would be like to have bouquets of sweetgrass roses in my wedding. On some level, I must admit that I think it could be kind of cool! On another level, it could easily look really tacky!! Your thoughts? :O)

A Little Yearbook Fun

Several people on Facebook were going to the website http://www.yearbookyourself.com/, and one of them recommended that I try it out. So I did! Fun times indeed!

Dreams

Yes, it's almost 3:30 in the morning. My dreams woke me up. They often do. I was having a wide variety of dreams. One left me a little sad, as that "genre" of dreams always does. The dream ended with me hugging my sister Shana (only it wasn't really Shana, but that's not the point). We were in our old house. I have a lot of dreams where we're in our old house, which means I have a lot of dreams that we're one big happy family again. I really miss the days when we all lived together, the days before the divorce. Aside from me being a REALLY mouthy teenager with an out-of-control temper, we had a good thing going. I love my family, and it's still hard for me sometimes that we aren't together anymore.

One of my other dreams was just a little weird. This guy and I seemed to like each other. He kissed me along my jawline, which I thought was him just being sweet. Then he told me I needed to lose weight in my lips. Unless my lips grow to the size of Lafawnda's from Napoleon Dynamite, I don't foresee a guy ever telling me in real life that I need to lose weight in my lips. Haha, dreams can be so funny. :O)