I’ve been fighting through a series of missed opportunities the last few days and they are driving me nuts.

#1 My dang blog:

I don’t know how many times I’ve changed this blog title with the day of the week. I’ve got cute “Thoughtful Thursday” and “Wondering Wednesday” stuff going on, so each time I start writing and DON’T finish, I have to change the title. It’s not a matter of ideas, because moving to a new school, there are SO MANY THINGS to talk about. No, it’s been more a “whole hell I’m tired” kind of thing. We’ve struggled getting here when we want, which means we are staying later, which means everything at home gets pushed back too.

Plus, I had gotten myself all ready to write this week, then realized that my Slice of Life blog was late because the Monday blog threw off my whole sense of timing for the week! Argh!!

Any more, it’s just a dang dude, just write to get myself motivated enough to get words on the page!

#dangdudejustwriteshouldbeonabumpersticker

2) My work

I knew this wouldn’t be easy. My wife told me as much. I just didn’t expect it to quite so hard, but in a good way. I’ve not taught math and reading for a while now, and throw in a class of new students, a class of new students who are predominately Spanish speaking, it makes for a tired teacher! My stress is now coming from trying to understand students, working to meet on their level, and checking a whole bunch preconceived notions at the door!

I will say that today, I had two firsts: 1) Had a student bring me lunch. It was a tortilla filled with shredded chicken, veggies, salsa, and a big chile embedded inside. It’s was SO GOOD! 🙂 2) I’m walked down the hallway, minding my own business, and a little first grade waves, then runs up and gives me a hug.

#whoareyouandwhyareyouhuggingme

Apparently, the Hispanic culture tend to be a little more huggy, as I learned in Wal-Mart one day when one of my wife’s kindergarten students from last year saw her and gave her a big hug. Then, she looked at me, and did the same thing! Teaching old dogs new tricks is the name of the game! 🙂

3) Concerts

With the passing of Jimmy Buffett last week, the conversation about missed opportunities has been in our house a lot. We don’t live in an area where we get many (any) big name groups that come through, so it’s a lot of travel for us to get something like that done. Many will come to Chicago, Kansas City, the Twin Cities, and even Des Moines, but Waterloo/Cedar Falls, not very much. With Buffett’s passing, it adds to the list. ZZ Top, Prince, The Grateful Dead, and Tom Petty are all musicians who passed away far too soon, all being ones that we’d have loved to seen live.

While we can’t do anything about it, we can change our general attitude. We are going the Twin Cities in October to see Owl City (remember Fireflies) on a whim. I saw the concert and mentioned it to my wife. She shocked me when she said, “Get tickets before they sell out,” which they did not long after we got tickets! There are other bands coming into the area that I’m going to suggest because life is too short just to hang around.

Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes has been on my mind a lot. How to turn those miss opportunities into new experiences. We’ll be celebrating our anniversary next summer in a foreign country and are looking at immersion vacation opportunities because of our teaching situations. Yes, we’ve missed out, yet, I feel like we are discovering ourselves and giving our lives a little more direction.

Now, if I could find that cheeseburger in paradise, I’d be set! 🙂

#abigwarmbunandahugechunkofmeat