wildflowers in a hobby lobby vase.

"whatever is heavy and difficult, as long as it is borne* properly, also marks the precise weight of life. it teaches us the measure but which we may know our strength and which we may then also apply when we feel blessed with happiness"
- rainer maria rilke.
*borne is the past participle of 'to bear', not just a fancy spelling of born. probably most of you knew this, but i did not.


i can't tell you how many times little kids practically saved my life today. tired, beat down, and sick - i just wanted to go home or crawl in a hole...but it was like everywhere i went something happened to make me want to continue with my day. first of all, if you are EVER sad, kindergartners can help. they are hilarious and i am confident they show the face of God. a little 5-year-old boy said 'miss mann you look pretty' and i about melted to the floor. then in the 5th grade class, an ELL boy was almost in tears because he just couldn't understand his assignment. i got to help him and restore hope and happiness for him in that moment, i can't even tell you what his thank you meant to me. and he was impressed with my football knowledge. i love my freaking job.

easy heart.

i can't stop listening to ryan adams lately. he is devastatingly good. he sings with such sadness but i just can't help feeling alive. AND HE'S COMING TO KANSAS CITY. thank you yes.

ANYWAY. something hilarious. yesterday as i was doin the dishes in mah sink, i noticed some movement in our pool. i thought it was just some wasps that frequent our pool, but when i looked more closely i noticed it was a SNAKE. slitherling around the deep end. we all ran out to watch it; kind of scared, kind of interested. we figured we should help the poor guy out of the chlorine- so lauren got the pool net, reached in and pulled him out. AND THEN catapulted him over the fence! he flew like 20 feet up in the air, i kid you not. he twisted and turned in the air and looked back as to say, what the heck? we felt slightly bad, but come on. seeing a snake fly through the air? awesome.

saturday mornings, ryan adams, and THIS: "actually there is no such thing as a good habit: everything good, no matter how often and how unintentionally such a deed is repeated, is new and spontaneous each time." -rainer maria rilke.

brief politics.

lets make this quick. i don't really like politics, and i am by no means an expert. not even close. but i have been paying attention to the news lately - due to my morning ritual of drinking coffee and watching the Today show, as well as looking at CNN.com at work.

even if you don't watch the news, you have to know our nation is in trouble. big time companies messed up and need a bail out. to me, this seems absurd. if a company is going to pay their CEO millions and millions and then decide they made some mistakes - they need to cover their own. i realize these companies affect a lot of people, so the government wants to bail them out "for the good of the country".

okay, i've made a soapbox just for this post, and i am getting on it.

the government wants to give $700 billion dollars to these big time companies. seven. hundred. BILLION. dollars. "for the good of the people". do you know what $700 billion dollars would do for this country? i have a few ideas. put it into health care, education, families who've lost their homes, ANYTHING other than wallstreet big league companies and see what happens. i bet our nation improves. "Instead of bailing out the companies, bail out the consumers that have lost their jobs, taken pay cuts or are being threatened with foreclosure."

"If the government is throwing around that much money to help these companies, I think they should have thrown around some money for health insurance and the people that need serious help in this country"

this choice seems obvious. am i missing something? it just doesn't seem fair or just to steal from the poor to feed the rich. maybe our government should watch robin hood and get a freaking grip.

i'm off of the soapbox and off to bed. thanks and goodnight.




(quotes taken from: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/25/700billion.irpt/index.html?iref=mpstoryview)

we've got the vision, now let's have some fun.

hello monday. hello 22 of september. hello autumnal equinox.
HELLO birthday weekend. it was the best.

la bodega for dinner on friday night. sangria and paella - i almost felt like i was in spain again.
tomfooleries for a "birthday surprise". (a twinkie with a lit sparkler.)
brookside roasterie for some outdoor coffee. we also got to witness a car get hit not once, not twice, but THREE times in about 15 minutes by some unskilled parallel parkers.
brookside market for a free cookie and a diet coke on sale, to go with our...
loose park picnic, full of photos and poetry reading.
da bronx for a lot of immature happenings with a fun group of friends. AND JOHN. (he's included in the fun group of friends. obviously.)
crosstown station for some klangs/khrusty brothers music.
first watch fresh fruit crepes before church at...
jacob's well. a perfect end to a great weekend.



in case you need more information, please view the following.

a hope.

it doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

[mary oliver]

september thirteen.

there is nothing to say about the GRE other than it is OVER.

there is nothing to say about this picture other than it is AMAZING.

what i've learned.

a lot of learning has been going on this week - and it (unfortunately) it won't be on the GRE.

here are some things i've learned regarding the GRE:

. studying should start WAY before a week before the GRE. in fact, my GRE book says to "take the week before the test easy and slow, reward yourself for your hard work and studying and take this time to briefly review." HA. briefly review. i've been STUFFING MY BRAIN with new vocab words and math concepts.

. analogies are fun. but impossible, one-word analogies are not. here is one of the favorites:
karlie:vocabulary words :: strainer:water. (as in words fall out of my brain the second they are put there)

. the math section should be titled "trickery" - it has about 10% to do with actual math, 90% to do with problem solving and not being tricked. which stinks because i am a sucker for those seemingly easy answers.

. studying can ACTUALLY make you less confident.


maybe come test day, i will walk out of the test with a good score and all of this worrying will be for nothing. maybe i will walk out with a humiliating test score and vow to burn this test from my mind. either way, i will live. and my passions will be lived out somehow, i'm confident in that. i have the trustworthy one to thank.

bring it on.

hello everyone and welcome to GRE week.

t-minus FIVE days until i take this odious test. (don't worry, i had to look that word up. we'll say that i am less than confident in my vocabulary abilities.)
my days after work will be filled with analogies, antonyms, and simple math that i (SHOULD) remember (but do not).

in our household, ever since the olympics, we have snacks that are commonly known as 'michael phelps snack of the day' - but this week i will refer to them as 'GRE snacks of the day'. today my GRE snack of the day was hummus and crackers. good for the brain. and of course copious amounts of coffee. good for the attention span, and blog writing.

tomorrow my school has a half day of students and a half day of teacher planning. i think i am going to take the half day off (since i don't plan anything) to study study study. i may go to the joco library. too bad they don't have a great room like hale does.

it's funny that i have so much motivation for this, and by funny i mean way to wait until the last second karlie. people plan for years for this test. but you know, that's just how i roll. and as my mind begins to change more and more about the type of graduate school i want to pursue (changing to programs that don't require a stupid test), a weight is lifted off my previously crippled shoulders, and i can honestly say to mr. GRE - bring it on, little cuss.

joy and pain; sun and rain.

i visited manhattan this weekend, and it was kind of surreal.
it's like finishing a book and closing it, but then not wanting to be done so you desperately flip back through the pages to remember, but everything is disconnected and not the same as a fresh, first read.

it is made up of memories; some recent and some vague.
i can almost see the stages of my life being played out as i drive around,
almost as vividly as the words in a book.
anywhere i go sparks something in me and fills my mind with replays.

i know this will fade with time, but i am sure manhattan will always hold a special place in my heart. (kind of like wildcats forever, only not at all).

and it only gets better, right?

inspiration.