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As of about 2 weeks ago I started working for my friend Keira as her real estate assistant.  I just made my first single listing website and want to see if the link works so here it goes...

CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS AWESOME HOUSE!

Let me know if it works and what you think of it.

In other news I have an interview at the school I want to work at tomorrow. School starts Aug 22 so I would really like to know how early I have to get up!  I took a crazy Middle School Math content Praxis II a couple of weeks ago to help make me more marketable as a teacher. There seems to be an overkill of history teachers in the area so maybe they will like me teaching youngsters math.  The position tomorrow is for Special Ed though. That is what I am finding out I really enjoy working in. Especially the Emotional Disorders group, which is what this school specializes in.

Anyway, just want to see if my handy computer skills worked!

Fantastic Fifteen

Somehow I blinked and my sweet, chubby, blond baby grew up into this handsome, dark, curly haired young man.

Carter turned 15 last week. Got his driver's permit and will be a sophomore this fall. I swear I was just doing these exact same things yesterday!

Carter is so much fun. He and I laugh together and share jokes and music. He is so smart and strives to do what is right. He takes his priesthood responsibilities seriously. He is idolized by his little brother and sister and has a great group of friends. His dimples are the subject of much adoration amongst the mothers of the teenage girls at church and it embarrasses him to know end.

Little do they know how his cheeks used to be so chubby they bounced when he ran.

And he used to call tunnels "the loo," and drove his Thomas train through the Loo and around the figure 8 track for hours.

Ever focused, he could watch a snail crawl along the edge of a bucket for hours in the rain under an umbrella.

He used to puke in the car all. the. time. And still gags when a baby spits up near him;).

Loves to read, although texting has replaced some of that. However he is probably the first boy I have ever met that actually has read every book ever assigned by a language arts teacher. Often reading ahead and finishing before the class. And for those of you who know how hard he has struggled with dyslexia, this is huge. I spent hours agonizing over words with him. Years in the classroom volunteering to build a relationship with his teachers that helped them help him when no services were offered even after his testing showed huge discrepancies in his abilities. More hours reading aloud to him and his siblings every night to foster in them a love of books.

I love you Carter. Happy 15th. I'm so glad I get to be your mom.

In which I reveal an allergy

A few weeks ago a curious thing happened. I ate some of the first watermelon of the season shipped fresh to Alaska on a 3 week voyage from some southern hemisphere country. Afterwards my lips started to tingle. And maybe slightly burn.

I thought maybe they were just chapped or possibly sunburned, but then I remembered our solar rays have the strength of birthday candle and the heat of a refrigerator and was puzzled by the sensation.

It happened mildly a few more times after eating watermelon but I was still in denial that something as innocuous as WATERMELON could actually cause an allergic reaction.

Until I helped out at a missionary luncheon where I was in charge of cutting six large watermelons for 80 elders and sisters. I snitched a piece or two and sure enough the tingle/ burning occurred on my lips but then the unexpected happened. My left hand, the one that got all juicy from holding six watermelons still while I cut them, started tingling too!! Weirdest feeling ever! Sort of like right under my skin was carbonated and bubbly. Not itchy, not as burning as my lips but kind of fizzy.

So, it's as official as I can get: I am allergic to watermelon. I don't know if I should avoid it for fear I might one day go into anaphylactic shock, or just live with mild/moderate tingling sensations when I eat that tasty summer treat.

But a post about a trip to the ER could be interesting, eh my three readers?

Those questions

The ones that drive me nuts are the ones I couldnt possibly know the answer to. Such as tonight, "Did they update the playground because the old equipment was a liability?"

I have no idea. I did not sit on that committee.

Or this one, "How come they call
Alaska the last frontier when it's really space the final frontier?"

Wow. I have no idea.

Then there is the interminable, "Why do I have to go to bed when it's still light outside?"

Because I'm your mother and I said so.

There are countless other questions. When we were kids we watched the original Smurfs every Saturday morning. Whenever there was a journey the Smurfs would ask, "Is it much farther, Papa Smurf?" Papa Smurf would answer, "Not far now." But after the third time that a Smurf asked that question the exasperated Papa Smurf would declare, "YES IT IS!" As kids we would go on long road trips with our parents. Inevitably one of us would ask that question, "Is it much farther, Papa Smurf?" and it would make us all laugh.

I've been listening to the Christian Rock station KLOVE lately. There is a song I've heard called "The Long Way Home." It reminded me of the talk by Elder David Baxter from this last April's General Conference. Elder Baxter quotes a story from President Hinckley about a single mother with seven children. She was feeling the immense burden of all that was demanded on her to care and provide for her family. She asked Heavenly Father if she could come home to Him, just for the night. His answer to her fleeting prayer was, "No, little one.... But I can come to you."

So when we feel like one of the Smurfs, wondering how much farther the long way home is, we just need to ask our Heavenly Father to come to us and join us on our journey.

And He will.

SAFETY!

When I was a a kid farting was just part of life in the Smith household. We called it pooting since farting was a crude word. I'm now learning for me it's a slight intolerance to dairy but I don't know what the rest of the family blames it on. My brothers used to play the "Doorknob & Safety" game. And it has now filtered to the next generation as my kids and most especially my lovely daughter, have picked up on it.

I recently posted about how "proud" i was of my daughters skills on Facebook and was surprised by how many people didn't know how to play. So for the more refined members of society, here are the rules:

1. When you fart you must say "Safety," not excuse me, IMMEDIATLY.
2. Failure to say this before someone else says "Doorknob!" brings on consequences.
3. The consequences are the one who yelled "Doorknob," gets to hit the farter until said farter touches a ROUND doorknob.
4. The shape of the doorknob is apparently important to this next generation of fancy longhandled doors 5. Successfully calling "Safety," after every fart keeps you safe from being hit.
6. It does not however, erase any smell, and you may be properly ridiculed for that.

So proud that from one generation to the next, tradition lives on!

The snow.

We have had a few days in the fifties around here which to Alaskans is kind if like summer. Our just two inches shy of record breaking snowfall this year has left berms taller than our street signs and the median of the highway so full you couldn't see the other side. But those aforementioned fifties have leveled things off a bit.

As we speak.. er... Write... I am sitting in one of my favorite spots. It's at the top of Agony Hill on what I have come to call "Prayer Bench." and since I am typing on my phone and uploading a few pictures from it hopefully you'll see it somewhere in this post;). And as a side note, when I ran these trails in the fall before the snow fell, I was shocked to see how tall this bench really is. Without snow I can't touch the ground when I sit on it.

But all winter as I clamber up this rather aptly named hill, I stop at the top. I drink in the silence and stillness that only comes from a thick blanket of snow and dark. And I always pray.
I give thanks for two strong legs that carry me up here. For a heart beating fast and pumping blood to warm my fingers in single digit weather. I am grateful for the tremendous beauty that surrounds me and the utter peace I find out here. I marvel at the stars and the moon do bright you don't even need your headlamp.

It has been a place of refuge. Meditation and solace.

It's a sacred place for me.

So as the temperatures rise and my trails get icy, I will have to hang up my skis. Hopefully the peace I find out here can be taken with me in my heart and pulled out for those rainy days ahead.

Middle school never looked so good.

I've been substitute teaching almost every day since the end of February. My first day back was in Carter's high school. We rode in together. He texted me between classes and came and got me to eat lunch with him. It was so cute. And I LOVED being back at school. It felt like I was born to be there. It maybe it was just my inner need getting high on pencil shavings.

Since then I have done some teaching at other high schools and Carter's old middle school and the alternative high school for the behaviorally and mentally challenged. In fact the bulk of my days are at the alternative school. The classes are small, the metal detector and isolation rooms are different, but the kids are awesome.

I love it.

But after a week there I've done a few days back at regular middle school. Oh my gosh. The "gangsta" kids from suburbia make me laugh now; they have no idea what "tough" neighborhoods are really like. The trouble makers are nothing compared to the day I had two security guards remove an uncooperative student from my room. The language was Disney compared to the onslaught my ears tune out.

The teaching at the alternative school is so rewarding when the kid I was sent extra security for just in case decides to shoot hoops with me in PE for an hour and then later in the week actually has an entire conversation about The lost Roanoke colony later in the week. And this is a kid who never says anything. Then come to find out he reads books. Like intense big books and no one knew it. Another sweet boy does read books and I gave him a list to take to the library. The one removed from my class? He was so stoked to tell me all about Hunger Games after remembering I wore my Team Peeta shirt last Friday.

These are kids who's lives are really and truly hard. Yet I hope that there is some way can be a bright spot for them. I have always enjoyed working with this demographic. I always sai this is the kind of school I would love to work at.

So to quote the vice principalas she took my resume "Let's see how this plays out."