Spider Monster

Last weekend was extremely uneventful. To most people, an uneventful weekend can be quite disappointing, but I welcomed it with wide open arms. This next weekend the craziness begins of busy weekends, visitors, vacations, and traveling until the middle of April. I was grateful to have one last weekend where I had absolutely nothing to do; and that is exactly what I did!

I only had one “highlight” of my weekend. On Sunday morning I was home alone looking through some papers/books on the desk in my bedroom. I turned over my last book on my shelf and there sitting on the cover, was an extremely huge SPIDER. I instantly jumped back and screamed bloody murder!!! It looked like one of those huge rubber spiders you put on your teachers desk on April fool’s day; only it wasn’t April fool’s day, and it definitely wasn’t made of rubber. I gave myself a little pep talk, pumping myself up to kill this huge spider on my desk. Usually I’m not such a girl about killing spiders or other bugs here, but this spider was massive. I grabbed my sturdiest shoe and began to think of how I was going to kill it. The book was angled in a strange way, so I didn’t think I would be able to kill it with one swing of my bright pink Nike. But, I might as well try, right??

While screaming, I took a huge swing…and MISSED. The spider crawled rapidly fast along my desk and onto my wall. It hid right behind my flashlight. I was in utter amazement (and possibly fear) at how speedy this spider was! This was going to be harder than I thought. I mustered up some courage to move my flashlight and swing at the spider. I quickly moved my flashlight out of the way and started to take a, hopefully, fatal swing. While swinging (and still screaming) I watched in horror as the spider JUMPED from where it was on one wall, to ANOTHER wall a FOOT AWAY!!!!!! But I didn’t really have time to process that it just JUMPED A FOOT because it was crawling rapidly fast and high up my wall. I took one last scream-filled swing and killed the giant spider.

I just stood there and stared at the dead spider with my mouth hanging open. A spider just jumped…a FOOT!!! I know I have heard of spiders jumping, but never EVER did I think I would witness it!! I just kept thinking, what if it decided to jump on ME?? I was definitely LESS than a foot away from it! The worst thing I kept thinking was what if it jumps on me in the middle of the night while I’m sleeping?!!! I force that thought out of my head every time I crawl into bed.  

This week has been equally uneventful, even though yesterday was Valentine’s Day. The school banned all candy since the children have really bad issues with rotten teeth, so ……Valentine’s Day just wasn’t the same this year! Apparently the students don’t even celebrate it in their classrooms, but I wasn’t about to let that happen. My students made valentines for their parents, shared home-made valentines with each other, and had Valentine’s Day word searches. I also made my own version of whoopie pies for all my kids—they loved them!

This coming weekend our school is having their Fiesta Tipica celebration. Everyone dresses up in typical Honduran wear, students perform dances/songs, and parents sell typical Honduran food! A lady is actually making my personal Honduran traditional dress!! I’m pretty excited. I just pray no spiders eat me in my sleep before I can wear it!