Umph.

Yesterday, for the first time in two weeks, I forgot to blog. I don't forget things often, so I'm not gonna let you make me feel guilty, and it was for a few pretty good reasons. Okay, they're "acceptable" reasons. My husband has been sick, and has come home with a fever three nights in a row. So I've just been feeling overwhelmed. I have so many Christmas cards to make, and I realized yesterday that all the stupid green cardstock I bought is not appropriate. I wanted some nice sage-y, mossy, organic looking greens and I thought there was some in the package, but what I got was crazy, exuberant, bright greens that screams (like a three-year-old), "HAPPY CHRISTMAS I'M A BIG GREEN CARD!" instead of, (in a British accent) "Hello, darling, I'm a lovely Christmas card made by an adult who possesses many papercrafting skills."

So I mistakenly took a day off of blogging (although not a day off from being thankful) and realized that I just needed some "umph." Most people and silly dictionaries spell this word with two 'o's but I prefer the 'u.' (I know, that's very German of me.) Some definitions will tell you this word means "sex appeal" but today we are definitely just talking about regular ol' appeal without the sex. Yep.

Today at work (see picture below!) I was tutoring a student and told him his paper needed some umph. This guy likes to give me a hard time (he's an older man, taking classes through REACH, blah blah blah, you don't care.) and he asked me if "umph" was an academic word.

I said yes, of course, because I like to give him a hard time too. But I said yes, it's academic as a descriptor of academic work, or an element of academic work, but not a word used within or inside of academic work. We laughed about it.

And then I gave myself some umph by talking to my boss for over an hour about the Storytime project (she also announced that my new name is the Storytime Queen, which is so unbelievably rad I can't even tell you. Seriously.) And then I gave myself even MORE umph by downloading a whole bunch of new fonts which will: a. Help me feel better about all the stupid green cardstock because I can at least have pretty lettering and b. Allow me to make posters for the tutoring center and possibly for Storytime, etc. If you're wondering, yes, I used one of my new fonts on the little quote I made.

So there you go. Today (and yesterday!) I am thankful for umph. It's so awesome it counts for two days.

Worky work & Mockingjay.