Don't you want wildly inappropriate stories that you can't tell your children?

I was telling my students that the secret strategy to journal writing is just to set a time and do it at that set time no matter what. So always on Wednesdays at 2 pm, you are going to write in your journal.

Unfortunately, I don't take my own advice, so it's been a long time since I've blogged. I've been thinking about it. There has just been so much to sort through, that I haven't been able to write anything down.

So strange story #1. I was watching TV (a little too much these days, I probably shouldn't admit) and saw a show called "Clean House." Are you all aware of this? The premise is basically that this team goes in to very very messy houses and convinces the owners to sell their stuff at a yard sale and then uses the money to fix up the house, clean it, organize it, and redecorate. It's like a traffic accident, I just couldn't look away. I was completely amazed by the horror that these people were living in. And I realized, that is exactly what this apartment would look like if I wasn't here. My roommate would choose to live like that. The Horror!

Story #2. I started my first summer class on Wednesday. This will branch into several stories. I say that just to warn you, and so that you don't start thinking that I have problems with organization. So, in order to start class on Wednesday, I went into work on Tuesday to get everything prepped. When I got there, around noon, everyone was immediately in a little bit of a tizzie, telling me that all my students had shown up for class that morning. Part of me just thought, well that's stupid, it's a Mon/Wed/Fri class. But then I was just worried that I had somehow screwed everything up. But fortunately it wasn't me, it was my boss.

So all 16 of my students did show up on Wednesday, and we had a great class. They all have good attitudes and are willing to talk and participate, so that has made the last two classes really easy.

It is always interesting to talk to the students and find out why they are in the class. Most of this class - 14 of the 16 - are returning to school after a long absence, so they have some interesting tales to tell. One of the older ladies (65-ish) told me that she is taking this class so that she can write a letter to her son who is in prison. He wrote her a letter 3 months ago, and she hasn't been able to answer it because she "can't write."

One of the other students is blind. He kept us all entertained yesterday with a story of his daring exploits as a security guard and the time he had to tackle a suspect in the parking lot. Yes, I know what you are thinking, how does a blind guy get to be a security guard? I have no idea, but no, it wasn't this incident that caused the blindness.

In other news, I'm getting very excited about my house. I'm nervous about closing, which is supposed to be this Friday. But I don't have a time yet, so I hope it all goes ok. Despite that, I have been checking out things at all the good stores (I went to the high end stores to gather ideas, so fun). So now I have all kinds of fun decorating ideas. I even found towels and bath mats that match my comforter at Target, but I'm wondering if that's a little too matchy-matchy.

Decorating thoughts?