Random Train of Thought

My thoughts have been all over the place lately. Seriously, if you could spend one hour in my head these last few days, you would be spinning and begging to get out. I have been all over the place. But thought I would share one of my very random thoughts with you all because it has really got me thinking.
I was doing my grocery shopping the other day and as I pulled into the store parking lot, I had to slam on my breaks to make way for a family of ducks crossing the lot. The poor little guys looked so lost and out of place but they were really so cute. I immediately starting thinking of that book, Make Way for Ducklings. Do you remember that book?

It really is such a sweet book about a mommy and daddy duck finding a good home for all their little baby ducks. If you ever go to Boston, you have to go to the duckling statues, it is so sweet!

Than I started thinking of other books I loved reading and looking at when I was a kid. Like: Harold and the Purple Crayon, Corduroy, Alexander and the Terrible, horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Where the Wild Things Are, Where the Side Walk Ends, The Bernstein Bear books. Then I thought of The BFG by Roald Dahl. Do you remember this book? I LOVED this book. I wish I owned it right now because I would read it...right now. To me, Roald Dahl opened up many doors for the Harry Potter books. The BFG, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches...seriously, they are all classics and written with such great imagination. Than my brain shifted a little and I started thinking of when my third grade teacher read The BFG to us for the first time and that was when I was hooked.

Yes, this is me in the third grade.
My third grade teacher, Mr. Craven, was by far my all time favorite teacher. The third grade was my all time favorite grade. I remember every Friday, all the 3rd grade home rooms would get together in one classroom and we would all sing camp fire songs and Mr. Craven would bust out his guitar to lead us. At the beginning of the year, he told us that if we caught him make a spelling error, grammatical error or any kind of mistake we would get a little mark on the board and when we accumulated something like 50 marks, we would get a pizza party. We did get our 50 marks and I remember staying after school and eating Black Jack pizza (yes, I even remember the pizza brand) and watching, The Frog Prince. He wouldn't tell us what movie we were going to watch, it was a surprise, but for about a week he would sing randomly throughout the week, "When the moon hits your eyes like a big pizza pie; that's amore!" That was our hint on what movie we were watching. It really was a fun time. My really good friend Heather had a birthday party and she invited Mr. Craven to come because we all thought he was soooo cool. In the 5th grade, I was in the nurses office and learned that I was going to have to wear glasses. I was devastated (though, I tried really hard to hide it) and Mr. Craven, saw me as he walked by and he came in and started telling me how really cool people wear glasses. And really smart people wear glasses. Mr Craven wore glasses. After his little pep talk, I was okay with wearing glasses...I wasn't thrilled, but I was okay. I mean, you can't be all that uncool if Mr. Craven wore glasses too right? I have dreams of being a teacher some day and while I don't think I have the patience to teach elementary school, I would love to teach high school but do it in a way that Mr. Craven would be proud. You could tell he loved his job.
Anyways, that is how 6 little ducks in the grocery story parking lot got me thinking about my favorite teacher ever. The End.