Life's a pretty fast ride...

I feel like I have not had any time lately. My car looks like a disaster erupted in it. There's empty bottles, my school bag is still in there, plastic bags, etc. It desperately needs to be cleaned out before I take my car in on Thursday to be serviced. These past three weeks have been somewhat a blur.

I am FINALLY on break from school!! Praise the Lord! It has been a long, tiring three weeks for teachers and students. I can't remember the last time we had three full weeks of school in a row (so many days off due to holidays/the hurricane/Thanksgiving/etc) and by Friday morning, EVERYONE was just itching to go home. One of the teachers I normally work with for two periods (I work with four in total, 2 of them for 2 periods each) was on grand jury this month so I was her sub. One of her classes was probably the most difficult class I have ever dealt with. Their behavior was atrocious. When you're in 8th grade, I shouldn't have to shut off the lights and wait for you to stop talking before continuing the lesson. And they wonder why they complained they didn't know anything when they took a test two weeks ago. The assistant principal (also the department chair) came in the first week because I told her how they were and then last week one of the deans came in. The teacher is fully aware of how horribly they were for me and is reading them the riot act after vacation. It was not that I couldn't deal with them...they just were so rude & disrespectful.

I ended up giving them their Christmas vocab quiz (which how hard is it to fail when you have pictures AND a word box on it?!) and watched Elf. Easy day for me. A few kids brought me in chocolate and I got a few giftcards to Starbucks & Dunkin Donuts which was a nice surprise! I wasn't expecting anything.

My big plans for this Christmas break (aside from working a few days at CPK) is to sleep, get my car serviced and CLEAN MY ROOM!! Oh my word you have no idea how excited I am! Plus maybe pick up some movies and everything to add to my collection. I really want to buy Elf & A Christmas Story. 

Yesterday, I went out to brunch with four friends, Amanda, Jeannette (who was home from Nicaragua), April and Lauren. We've been friends since high school but I can't remember the last time I saw Lauren. Lauren was actually working on Mitt Romney's campaign and would've been working in/at the White House if he had won (pretty cool!). She just told us yesterday that she got a job working for the Governor of NJ's wife and starts in the middle of January. It's exciting. She was always a politician in school so she has had such great success in working in this field since we graduated college in 2009. It was nice to sit, catch up at brunch with unlimited mimosas! My kind of day!


I helped my mom finish Christmas shopping last night and now I get to wrap EVERYTHING! I love wrapping. Today we're going to my uncle's house in the woods (I'm not kidding...it is like in the boonies of Long Island but it's HUGE) and we'll be home early so I can finish wrapping. Tomorrow, my brother is having us over for dinner and we can just relax. It'll be nice! My mom was stuck as to what to get my brothers Eric & Brian....Eric wants everything thats expensive and Brian wants NOTHING. What do you give someone that wants nothing?! We ended up buying them a flat screen tv for their room since it was redone this summer and it's all Eric has talked about. Brian probably doesn't care (he'd return it if it was just for him) but I think Eric will be pleasantly surprised. My mom said I was one of the easiest people to shop for. I already got one of my gifts last night - sneakers because my mom can't pick them out without me. Can't wait to celebrate tomorrow.

And I am so excited to be going to see Taylor Swift on her new tour in Philadelphia! I am going with Shannon & her sister Meghan in July. We tried to get tickets for the March show in NJ but they sold out so quickly or on stubhub, the cheap seats were $150. We got FLOOR seats in Philadelphia so plan on making a trip out of it. Yay! 

I should probably get to showering/going to the grocery store quick for my mom and wrapping more gifts (my poor SIL isn't getting her gift - a scrapbook yet because I failed on having enough time for it). I just wanted to share the most precious people in my life. These three darlings are my pride & joy and I couldn't be prouder to be their aunt. Merry Christmas eve, everyone! Enjoy the time with your families & friends.