Dog Hair in my Coffee

Winter Solstice - December 22 (12:30 am)

2011-12-22T14:10:00.000-05:00

Picture taken from http://www.juliamccutchen.com/uploads/blog//wintersolstice_stonehenge.jpg

Today begins a new year.
While I know January first is the traditional beginning of a new year, there are several other "New Year's" dates that are far more important to me personally. September, because I am a teacher, is ALWAYS a new year, a fresh start, at school. And, the Winter Solstice, is by far the MOST important new beginning for me - the day the light begins to return to the earth. Seconds at first, then minute by minute, gradually earth, and we with it, turn our faces to the light once again, a little more every day. Though it seems, where I live, that winter has not even yet begun, and lies still too many long months ahead ahead, I take comfort in the fact that even though we may eventually be in for snow and winds and storms and many bitter cold days, we are, in fact, actually doing so with more light in the world. That's strong encouragement. Too many bad things happen in darkness, and many more good happen in the light. According to the ancient Celts, the year could be divided most simply into "the dark half," beginning at Summer Solstice, and "the light half," beginning at the Winter Solstice. Many, many cultures celebrate the bringing of the light into the world in some way or another this time of year, and although I strongly, strongly believe and hold fast to celebrating the Savior of Mankind's birth as that of bringing the MOST light to a dark humankind, it doesn't, in any way, preclude me from celebrating the physical return of a few more moments of sunshine on the snowy ground, either. I love the winter solstice. It is magical, and doesn't require that I buy the perfect present, stress over how many different types of cookies to bake, or worry about getting my cards stamped and in the mail on time. It's a joyful new beginning, just when the world, and I, needs it most.

A New Year Blessing - by John O'Donohue

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.
And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life."

Picture taken from http://blog.thepartybazaar.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/winter-solstice.jpg

High School Boys, and Their Cookies

2011-12-10T21:13:00.000-05:00

In an effort to get into some sort of Christmas spirit today (I always feel like I owe it to my family, at least), I have begun some baking while listening to soothing Christmas music on Pandora radio. It has taken all day, but I’m softening. Oddly, it was discovering that on Pandora (an internet radio station my kids put me onto last weekend) I CAN just listen to quiet, instrumental music, not the awful stuff played on the radio that completely sets my teeth on edge. That helped. And although I made a list and shopped for items needed for Christmas baking later this week (hopefully I can mix up a batch, one per evening, or SOMETHING at least…), it wasn’t actually Christmas baking I ended up doing today, and this isn’t even a Christmas story. But where I ended up in my head today was nostalgic, and a little sad and a little happy, and I felt like sharing.

I’m not exactly sure how it started, but I have baked cookies a couple of times this fall for some kids at school, high school boys, former students of mine in 3^rd and 4^th grade, or 5/6, depending, and for the past few weeks they’ve been seriously BUGGING me for more. I have felt sooo blah that baking was just not even on my radar. I bake when I feel good, when I’m happy, and I’ve just been in such a funk for weeks that every time they poke their heads in my classroom door to ask, hopefully, for cookies, I’ve started cringing, because I just don’t WANT to bake. Last week, things got serious – they took my giant (stuffed) husky dog that I keep in my classroom hostage. Of course, I didn’t notice until the hostage post-it note was left on my computer, but I have to admit, it was pretty funny. These kids have grown up with my dog, (especially my husky dog-Alaska) obsession, so they knew how to get right to the heart of me! And I decided this weekend that I really SHOULD bake them some cookies, so, despite not really “feeling it” today, I did finally whip up a batch of the requested peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies. As I was putting the cookie dough on the sheets to bake, and thinking about the guys I was baking for, I was overwhelmed with a huge wave of deja vue, and nostalgia.

You can't tell, but all of the pink notes stuck to my board behind my computer are notes requesting that I PLEASE bake cookies... notes which I have been ignoring...

This is what I found stuck to my computer LAST week...

So, I guess it's serious, now...

When I was in 6^th and 7^th grade, three of my good friends at school (a K-12 school, with less than 500 kids, so everyone knew everyone) were guys who were 5 and 6 years older than me. Mark A. was a Senior when I was in 6^th grade, and Ron F. and Rob J. were both Juniors. I had a crush of sorts on all three of them, but I was also genuinely friends with them as well. All three of them were good Christian guys and I looked up to and asked a lot of questions of them, as I searched for my place in the confusing world of religion and faith. Not an easy task for me growing up, for too many reasons to go into now, but needless to say, all three of them were patient, kind and encouraging teachers and friends to me. They, all three of them, made a HUGE impact on my life in such positive ways – I’m so very lucky to have had them IN my life as I was growing up. Anyway, I got thinking about them today, because I used to bake all three of them cookies and leave brown paper lunch bags of them in their lockers at school, on the little top shelves. My dad worked at school, so I used to get there early, and go up the back stairs, technically not allowed until after the bell rang. Ron and Robbie’s lockers were at the top of the stairs by the math room, and Mark’s locker was down in the very first set of cubbies, closest to the elementary wing. I remember feeling sort of sneaky as I opened their lockers, put the bags up there, and then watched for them in the halls, in between classes the rest of the day. There they’d be, carrying their little brown paper bags, or even just a big handful of cookies with them, happily munching away. They’d grin at me, or yell a loud “thank you” across the noisy crowded hallway. Sometimes I’d get a hug, always praise for my baking, and sometimes even a thank you note scribbled on notebook paper. Those notes always really made my day, since I did have that little bit of a mad crush on them, a hand written note, well, THAT was something! And I could keep it, and re-read it a million times over, closely studying how they had written the L in my name, or how they had signed it or whatever (ok, I was 11 – give me a break!) I guess I never realized until I had 2 hungry high school boys of my own how much boys like cookies. And now, baking for some of my favorite high school boys, even though they steal my husky dog and leave me ransom notes, I realize that boys are ALWAYS hungry, and anyone, girl, teacher, mom, ANYONE, who makes cookies just for them and fills that constant cookie-hunger they live with, it seems, is a hero in their book. I could use a little more being a hero, some days.

The nostalgia, thinking back to Mark, Ron and Robbie today, and my early beginnings as a half way decent baker, was nice. Except a little sad, too, because although Mark would now be 54, nearly 55, and Ron would be 53, almost 54, I think, if they were still alive, the fact is, they are not. Ron died quite a long time ago, I bet it was at LEAST ten years ago, if not more, of a brain aneurysm, I think, if I recall correctly. And Mark also passed away, suddenly and unexpectedly, probably about five years ago, if not more, of a heart attack, I believe. Both deaths were very sudden, very unexpected, and so very sad, as they were both so young. Rob, though, thankfully, is very much alive still, and lives nearby, though I haven’t seen him in many, many years. I was able to recently reconnect with him through Facebook though, and that makes me feel good, to re-establish a relationship that was so important to me many years ago. I should probably tell him “thank you,” while and since I can one of these days – for the impact he made on my life, for his patience and kindness to a girl who quite obviously had a pretty serious crush on him. Not one of those three guys EVER made me feel foolish, or made fun of me, or talked poorly about me. They were genuinely nice guys, and even if they were not able to return the feelings of an intent, overly romanticized 11 or 12 year (!), they were able to make me feel that I was a friend, a real friend, even at my tender age. It was nice to think back on those days today, and I realized tonight that while I now have a container of cookies with which to negotiate the return of my giant husky dog, I also feel a little better than I did before I started baking today.

Maybe I don’t bake when I feel good. Maybe baking MAKES me feel good. Just in case that’s the case, I think I’ll try it again tomorrow. Lord knows I need to get those feel-good endorphins SOMEHOW, and baking is easier than exercising!

Thanksgiving Week Thankfulness

2011-11-22T14:56:00.012-05:00

1. Part of growing up spiritually is learning to be grateful for all things, even our difficulties, disappointments, failures and humiliations.--Mike Aquilina (Love in the Little Things: Tales of Family Life)

2. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.--Melody Beattie

      A lot of people have been posting on Facebook this month something they are grateful for every day, between the beginning of the month and Thanksgiving day. It's a nice idea. And awhile back, I had planned to start doing as my niece tries to do, a "Thankful Thursday" post every week. Neither of those things has yet happened for me. My life, if nothing else, is not organized or structured nearly enough to help me accomplish those two things, but, maybe I'm thankful for that. I'm not sure. I WANT an organized, more structured life, but I'm afraid that it is really at odds with the creative and impulsive juices that flow through me and make me who I am. If it would mean sacrificing that, then I'm not sure I would be as happy with rote structure and routine as I think I would. Part of growing older is learning who we REALLY are, and accepting that, instead of fighting it.
     I have so many things to be grateful for, and far too often I don't think about them enough. I think I think about them more than many people, but not enough for my own good. This has not been an especially good year, in too many ways. It's been very stressful. And continues to be. AND, I know that the worst is yet to come, at SOME point. But, that doesn't mean it hasn't been a year without abundant blessings as well. It only means that I have been too caught up in the daily struggles to SEE my blessings as clearly as I have been able to other times. It also means, upon a little reflection and soul searching the past few days, that the things I think I could and should possibly be the MOST grateful for this year are not necessarily the things that stand out most clearly. What I am MOST thankful for, though, is that I am beginning to be able to look at some of those difficulties and challenges and times of pain and frustration, now or in the future, as actual blessings. THAT change in attitude and view point is a sea change for me, and although I'm still a bit shaky on the ideas and concepts of it all, I am grateful that it appears to be coming into focus in shades of greys, with even a pink streak here and there, instead of all blackness, as it has seemed previously. The hinting of light, or promise of light, even in the midst of darkness, is a thin string of hope, and what could we possibly be more grateful for than hope? Without it, I am nothing at all, and of no use to anyone, least of all myself.
     So - every day blessings? Children, family, employment, friends, food, shelter, warmth from cold days and nights, clothing, my dogs, the country of freedom I live in, those who are willing to take up arms and leave their families to defend my freedom, laughter, glorious sunrises and sunsets. Yes. To all of them. I am most definitely grateful. Even on my worst days.
     But less obvious sources of gratitude, the deepest wellsprings for me right now are people who truly, truly understand me, inside and out, the bad, the negative, the ugly,and the good, and who, instead of judging me, seek to encourage me and try to make me see my own beauty. Not an easy task, and truthfully, I'm not sure I can ever be convinced of my own worth, or beauty, but I appreciate so much the rare person who seeks to make me see it.
     I am grateful for the currents of creativity that run so deeply throughout my soul. They have often been a source of deep frustration, and even outside ridicule, but I'm coming into my own. I can almost celebrate them these days, and to not be so deeply ashamed of them. I NEED to live creatively and differently from so much of the world. I don't care if that is weird. I'm tired of trying to conform to what "normal" people think is good and right. I'm grateful for having that knowledge re-awakened, and for not ignoring it this time. I've had "teachers" of this along the way, and although none have stayed the course of my entire life with me, I'm grateful that I have only allowed that knowledge and teaching to lie dormant, not die. It's still there. It is being whispered awake again. I'm grateful for past, present, and future teachers and see-ers.
     And, on a totally tangible note - I celebrate this week good blood test results for the first time in years. Health-wise, it appears that MOST things are working as they should be. Finally. And, I celebrate that one of my closest friends is now appearing in my life in a different role in addition to being a friend for over 40 years. It makes me very happy. It will make my Thanksgiving one of my best ever, I think, and for that, and all other things, good and bad, in my life, I give thanks.
   Now, if only I could get my family to FEED the turkeys, instead of eat them, all would be well...

dedwydd diolchgarwch

For You- (as I promised)

2011-11-02T18:52:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I Get Really Scared

2011-10-31T21:48:00.000-04:00

I have found that the things I feel the deepest about, I either can't write about right away, or sometimes not even at all. I guess the things I can't write about are there, still there, too deep to bring out. and other things just have to settle a bit, settle like sand sifting to the bottom of a lake, fitting itself in and around the bigger rocks and pebbles. Last Thursday was a day that has taken me til now to be able to ALMOST brush off. And yet, the fear that I felt then isn't really gone, it's down there, settling amongst the rocks, but not really gone. It just isn't on the surface anymore, like it was for a couple of days, so I can ALMOST laugh it off. And if I can't really even convince myself yet to laugh it off, at least I can take it out, examine it in words, and see what I can make of it now.

We have a week in October every year when two presenters come in to our 5th and 6th grades from a group called Project KNOW. It's a week where the 5th and 6th graders begin to learn about their bodies, the physical differences between boys and girls, puberty, learning to make healthy choices, self-esteem, etc. It doesn't really matter what it is for the purpose of my issue, but that's what it was. On Tuesday, one of the presenters checked with me to make sure that I would be at school that evening for the Parent and Child meeting of Project Know. I guess it is simply school policy to make sure there is a school representative there when an outside group uses the school to meet? I don't know, but I did volunteer to come back to school for it, since one of the other teachers lives out of town about 15 miles, and the other one who lives in town like I do has small children at home. I double checked the time with him, assured him I would be there by 6:45, and then went about my day. I never once gave that meeting another thought. Not once. So by the time 3:00 rolled around, I went home, cooked dinner, did whatever it was I did on Tuesday night that did NOT include going back to school for a Project Know Parent-Child meeting.

Had I remembered it Wednesday, I might have been able to write it off as just a silly lapse of memory. But I not only went through my entire day Wednesday, including sitting in on part of the presenter's session with the 6th graders without having it click, but it took me until a full four periods into the day on Thursday before it dawned on me that I had TOTALLY forgotten the meeting Tuesday night. I think maybe one of my 5th graders said something - something very small - that triggered it, and all of a sudden, I realized I had not given it a single thought since we had talked about it Tuesday morning, 48 hours previous. It was like it had never even been discussed. I got that terrible hot and cold and sick to my stomach all-at-once feeling, thinking I had forgotten to go the night before, went to one of the other classrooms immediately to confess, only to have the OTHER presenter coldly tell me that it was "actually Tuesday night," and then turn away from me to go back to her lesson.

I went back across the hall to my empty classroom, shut the door, sat down and had a mini-meltdown at my computer. See, I tend to be very forgetful on a typical basis. My kids tell me things ALL. THE. TIME. that I simply don't register. They will tell me, or ask me, to go someplace "on Saturday night," and then Saturday night rolls around, and I don't have any idea where they are planning to go. Typically, they sigh and say "But Mom, remember? I TOLD you..." and then, oh yeah, it clicks. Sometimes. But sometimes, it doesn't. But that happens ALL the time, not just sometimes when I'm busy. I also NEVER remember a book after I've read it, a movie after I've watched it, and half the things the kids say that all start with "remember the time when..." and half the time or more, I shake my head and think, or say, "No, I DON"T remember that." Its been really frustrating to me for years, feeling like my brain is made of swiss cheese. I have told my kids at school, ever since I started teaching elementary instead of high school more than ten years ago, "ask me or tell me something over and over. I won't be mad at you. I just won't remember unless you do." Like, if they ask me for an eraser, if I don't, or can't get it right that second, I won't remember 30 seconds later. If a student asks me to go to the bathroom, two minutes later when I go to do attendance, I have to ask, "Where is so and so?" and the rest of the class will say, "You said he could go to the bathroom, remember?" and then it dawns on me that oh yeah,. I did.

But Tuesday night's obligation? NO recollection of it. And the overwhelming feeling of shame that I had forgotten, had let down some adult whom I knew not at all but who was counting on me, as well as the parents and kids that did show up (probably not a lot, truth be told), and my two administrators who were also expecting that I would be there was quickly overtaken by a wave of chillingly cold fear. Fear absolutely and positively GRIPPED me - I must have Alzheimers. This is it. This is the beginning of it. All the years of general forgetfulness, of a sieve-like brain for facts and recall, and now, this one, identifying moment - it's clear it is probably the beginning of Alzheimers. Is it early onset? Do I, at my age, qualify anymore as early-onset?

Since I was sitting in front of the computer, sobbing away, big heaving scary sobs, I quickly reached over and typed in "Alzheimers symptoms" and came with a check list of ten things. And it seemed to me that day that most of the ten really and truly DID fit. I know lots of people are forgetful SOMETIMES, but I sincerely do not know ANYONE who is as forgetful in general as I am. For years I have forgotten appointments, like dental visits and hair cuts. I just feel like I can't remember ANYTHING, and it is so very scary.

My mom had Alzheimers. My aunt - my mom's sister, and at least one of my uncles, her brother, also did. There was a pivotal Christmas when we all realized it, realized something was very wrong with my mom, and that something turned out to BE Alzheimers. I thought, on Thursday morning in front of my computer last week, that forgetting that evening event at school was MY pivotal moment - that from that point on, people would use that to mark the beginning, the noticeable beginning, of my decline. Of course, that meant I spent the rest of the day wondering about the rest of my life. I'm not quite 50 yet... far too long to lose my memory, given that my physical health will have me living probably another 40 years. I can't bear the thought of being in a nursing home not knowing anyone for the next 40 years. My kids are too young to "lose" their mother. Will I be able to finish my next 6 years of teaching, or will I have to retire early? Do I have things I need to take care of now, before it's too late to think about taking care of them? Should I change my life if it is going to come to this, or should I stay with the security, such as it is, of life as I've known it for so long?

Maybe none of this makes any sense to anyone else, especially if you don't have any history of this devastating illness in your family, but I can honestly tell you... I'd rather fight a cancer diagnosis than one of Alzheimers. Maybe if you have a history of cancer in your family, you are hypervigilant about every little mole on your body, or are religious about getting your yearly mammograms in a way that I am not, because I have no history of that. Oh yeah, I get my mammograms sort of regularly, though when I went this summer, I think they told me it had been four years since my last one. But I went in knowing there would be nothing wrong, and came out with that just that exact assurance. It's hard to worry about cancer. It's just not in my genes. I do know it doesn't mean it CAN"T happen to me, but when I have an overriding family history of heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and Alzheimers, why would I worry about cancer? Especially when my cholesterol level is through the roof despite taking medicine for it for years, and watching what I eat. It DOES seem like heart disease is far more likely. And while I do worry, a little, about a heart attack, knowing they CAN kill, I don't worry as much as I do about Alzheimers, because there are things I CAN do to help prevent or at least reduce the likelihood of heart disease. There is NOTHING I can do to ward off Alzheimers, and nothing I can take to cure it when it does come. I guess my unspoken prayer has kind of been, "Dear God, please don't let me get Alzeheimers any sooner than I have to, and I really would like to be old already when I do get it, if I have to get it."

Nearly 49 is NOT what I call old, and no, I'm not at all ready.

So, do I have it? Am I showing signs? Is it early-onset? Did forgetting about Tuesday night's meeting until Thursday mean that I likely am hitting close to the pivotal moment when everyone will look back and say "it started then - we noticed it when she forgot that meeting at school"? Thursday, I would have told you yes, I believed that, was afraid of that, sobbed my little heart out about that in between classes most of the day (and applied an ice pack to my eyes before my kids came back to the room to cover up the damage that crying does. A meltdown at school is NOT a good idea, and one I avoid at all costs, whenever possible).

Letting four days pass, I can now say, "probably not." I don't KNOW why I forgot it. I DID go buy a monthly/weekly/daily planner over the weekend, and am now trying to write down every single thing that I need to attend or remember. I was given a post it note on Friday that said "Grapes and 2 large pumpkins" - my reminder of what I needed to bring in to school today. We bought the grapes on Friday night, and I sent my son to buy the pumpkins yesterday afternoon, so I did NOT forget those things. Does that mean anything? I don't know. Can I got back to teaching and not cry in between periods? Yep. Can I forgive myself for the stupid mistakes I made typing up Friday's vocabulary quizzes? Friday, no. Friday I was convinced it was one more sign. Today? Yes. Today I realize that I typically make errors when I type quizzes and papers up for my kids, because I am usually trying to do it in a hurry, at the last minute, and have 27 other things on my mind. I'm also under a lot more pressure at school this year because of a forced "team-teaching" situation in two of my four major classes. And there is a lot more pressure in my life in general right now. Not that my life is worse, or even as bad as, many many others. I just know that stress DOES affect me. I also know that I have pretty severe ADD, and always have. Maybe instead of worrying about Alzheimers, which is probably a stretch at this point, maybe I should go back to the doctor and try a different ADD medicine. It did help before, but the side effects were god-awful. But before I face a permanent sort of melt down, maybe I should give that a try again and see if it helps noticeably.

It's Monday. Despite the fact that it's Halloween, not ANY elementary teacher's favorite day to be in school, it was definitely a better day than last Thursday. I remembered my two big pumpkins and my bag of grapes. I didn't make any mistakes on their vocabulary list I typed up over the weekend, and I remembered to buy candy to hand out for trick or treating tonight.My thoughts and anxieties have settled a bit, sifted down through to the bottom of the lake of fear for now.

The fear, however, does remain. It's a cold hard ball, and one that can,and will, rise again, bubble to the surface, way too quickly, given the opportunity I'm afraid. The trick is going to be figuring out how to LIVE with this fear, rather than being crippled by it.

Awesome Autumn

2011-10-24T21:00:00.000-04:00

When you teach writing to kids, it's hard to not spend a lot of your own time "thinking like a writer." I only wish THEY would spend half as much time at it as I do! .
Last Friday we began something called "showing, not telling," whereby I am trying to get them to add details to their writing to allow the reader to FEEL what they are writing about, not just read ABOUT it. Some of them "get it" and some of them don't (and never will, I'm afraid).
Saturday morning, when I got up to let the dogs out just before 6 am, and then again about 8-ish, I had the bold thought (I know, it's a big one, and before coffee, even) "It's Fall." And then, like a writer, or rather, like a writing TEACHER, I thought to myself, "Really, Laurie? How do you KNOW that? SHOW me."

In the summer, when I open that door to let the dogs out, the air is warm on my face, the sun halfway above the fence already.. Today, the air is not only much cooler, but it is crisp, crystally. The air feels chill, as though there were a frost last night, and the last of the icy crystals are just now evaporating into the feeble,distant, thin sunlight. The mist-covered sun, though, is just beginning to be visible through the trees, low to the horizon, behind the fence. It is rising, but it is not up high enough yet to actually spread any warmth. The trees by that back fence, a thick mass of green in the summer time, are now covered in golds and russets and oranges, leaves that still cling, tenaciously, to the uppermost branches, not shaken loose yet by the autumn winds that have passed through. Brown and yellow leaves litter the ground underneath, and rattle like skeleton bones as the dogs run over them, through them. The chill in the air has made the dogs quite frisky - three of the four of them chase, tumble and run past each other as they chase around and around the yard, while the fourth one, too old and achy in the joints in this crisp morning air, stands stiffly by my side, barking out her encouragement to the younger ones. I shiver, involuntarily, standing there in my thin tshirt and jeans, and wish the coffee was already done, wish I had a warm cup to wrap my hands around, tendrils of coffee steam spiraling upwards for me to inhale.. Breathing in that fresh, clear morning air, smelling the lingering scent of wood smoke, left over from last night's fire in the wood stove, feeling happy as a few geese in a straggly V formation honk noisily overhead, I realize that fall has come to New York.
It's autumn here- colored leaves stand out brightly on the hillsides against their dark evergreen counterparts, crisp morning air greets you and lingers until mid morning at least, crunchy tart apples in bushel baskets beg to be eaten, the bright orange globes of pumpkins on front steps and the yellows, rusty golds and reds, purples, whites of fall mums in beds hold a beauty so singularly breathtaking it is hard to soak it all in. Fall is such a short season here, but a glorious one.

The view from my friend Holly's house; taken by Holly LaBenne

Grapes

2011-10-21T16:19:00.000-04:00

Concord Grapes. Did you know they grow on trees in Western New York? Well, at least in MY back yard they do. Look closely. Can you see them there, hanging overtop of the bird house, in the tree above my fence? What? You've never heard of tree-grapes before? Never planted a grape tree?

Yeah, me either. But I AM lucky enough that the neighbor's vines, behind my fence, grow up OVER my fence, and on up into my trees. Except that the higher they grow, the harder they are to pick!

But they are oh-so-sweet, and make the best jam ever. And since my neighbor works even harder than I do, and has less time off, and not enough time to use them all, I'm free to claim as many of them as I want. I think THIS weekend will involve some home made grape jam, some home made grape JUICE, and some grape pie.

Grapes growing in trees in my back yard. One of the sweetest things about fall in my area. Literally!

Ch-Ch-Ch- Changes...

2011-10-20T16:48:00.000-04:00

I have saved these pictures since the end of August. Some days I look back at this first picture of my 16 year old, and still can't believe she looked like this. My beautiful baby girl.

When she first had this hair cut done, and arrived home, (I intentionally did NOT go, but asked her sister to take her, as I seldom "appreciate" her funky ideas for hair styles...), I could not believe that this was still my daughter, my last, my baby, my little girl. Seriously? A Faux-hawk? And BLUE? And BLEACHED? Holy cow... what a lot of extra swallowing I have had to do with this one, to allow her to be herself, to allow her the freedom to express herself in crazy ways that harm no one, but are not MY choices... (no body piercings, no tattoos, no skanky outfits, etc. allowed... but her hair? Eh, it'll grow back...)

And now, it's settled in to THIS, below. THIS? I can live with this, without having to roll my eyes, or even PRETEND to like it. I DO like it. She has very delicate, pixie-like facial features, and this has ended up being a great style for her. I've even come to like the blue she adds now and again to keep it bright.

Still, I can't help but think of the David Bowie song every time I look at these pictures. Sigh. My baby and her crazy, wild ideas.

Stress, Oh How I Love Thee

2011-10-17T18:54:00.000-04:00

Lately I've been repeating a quote to my older daughter so many times it has become a mantra of sorts: "When you're going through hell, keep going." Little did I realize that the mantra may have been as much for me as it was for her. I'm not sure it's helping either one of us, truthfully. But on the other hand, what other choice does one have, really, other than to just keep going on, one foot in front of the other,getting through each day.
I guess the problem is two-fold - part of it is when expectations come up against reality, and the two don't match. The other part is that I guess I never really expected such a large part of my stress at this point in my life to still come from my children, who are now all nearer to adulthood themselves than childhood still. Sure, when they were 1,3,5 and 7, there was lots of stress. And even when they were 11, 13, 15 and 17, they were the requisite handful that one would expect out of raising 4 children that close in age. I expected that, and was not disappointed in the least! :)
But I guess, as they began to get old enough to head off to college in the past few years, and did do just that, fairly easily enough, it seemed, I began to prepare myself for a year with just my last one left at home. We've talked about it a lot in the past few years, what it would be like when it was just her left. And as the activity level around my house has decreased greatly, (along with the food bills, the piles of laundry, the mess and noise in general), I began to look forward a bit to that "empty nest" syndrome. I loved it when my house was full of noise and kids for all those years, and it has taken me a very long adjustment time every time one of them has left. But eventually, I DID adjust, and kind of got used to it. And it is sometimes nice to just MISS your kids instead of having to deal with the constant bickering between them, and such.
So as the third one went off to college this fall, my eldest, who graduated in May, ended up coming home, due to lack of a solid career or further education plan on his part. I won't bother going into the details, but suffice it to say, though I love him to death, I am NOT happy to have him home again under these circumstances. He has a degree, he SHOULD have planned better, should have studied harder, SHOULD have done a lot of things he didn't, and because he didn't, he is now living back at home, working 30 hours a week at a minimum wage job, trying to figure out the next course of action for his life. OK, so the job market sucks for everyone these days. I get that. And it makes it a LITTLE easier not to be completely pissed at him, and to be fair, he does try to do a little more around here now than he did when he was growing up. But, it's not what I expected. At his age, I had graduated, had my first real job with my first real income, was living on my own, bought my first car and had a car payment, bills, and was in grad school. I am worried mostly that he will STILL be living here, STILL not gainfully employed at 30. That worries me.
And the girl, now in her third year at college, a college that becomes more and more difficult to pay for in this economy, (no little part of my insomnia many nights) the girl who has had the same room-mate for both of her first two years, best friends and "roomies for lyfe" as they always put it, now that they have moved into a triple, instead of the double they shared, is the one who is "going through hell." Suddenly, out of nowhere, not only is she not getting along with her roommate, but her roommate has teamed up with the other girl in the triple, AND the three in the room next to them, to pretty much launch an all-out attack on my daughter's personality. It's hard to feel good about yourself when there are 5 people confronting you about how much they suddenly hate you, and everything about you. It's been absolutely miserable. And, in the end, today, my daughter is moving across campus into a new room with a complete stranger. It sucks. The whole thing sucks. And although I know her personality has its quirks and I know she can be annoying as hell at times, she also has a heart as big as all outdoors, and does NOT deserve this. I just want her to get settled in, and for her life to settle back down. Unfortunately, it's a small campus, and I don't know that moving is going to make life all good again. So, although it's her drama, it has taken a huge toll on me, worrying about her, listening to the crap her room-mates have been putting her through the past couple of weeks, and really not being able to do anything at all for her, except listen to her cry over the phone, 300 miles away. It sucks.
Meanwhile, the boy in Ohio, 7 hours away, has decided that there is simply no way he can live 7 hours away from home. He has burned through all his money that was supposed to last him for at least an entire semester by coming home nearly every weekend, because he can't stand to be out there, that far away from his life here he loved, with nothing to do. He doesn't like the school, doesn't like being away, doesn't want a job out there because he just wants to be home. So, while dealing with the issues of the older two kids, there has also been this, ongoing with him. It came to a head this weekend, while I was away at an EMS conference. I was on the receiving end of dozens of texts and phonecalls this weekend, begging me to let him come home. On his own, he applied to a tech school near here last week, to transfer to in January, closed out his bank account today, withdrew from college out there, packed up his entire apartment full of stuff, and is currently on his way home.
And then there is child number four, my senior in high school. The one who was looking forward to being the only one at home for a year, who now has to share that time with both her brothers. She has been looking for a college to apply to for next year, and although we visited one in Asheville, NC this summer that seemed like it was going to be "the" college for her, it was not. So last weekend we took a 12+hour trip to Maine and Massachusetts to look at two more "perfect" places. Now, she "doesn't know." Seems like that should be HER worry, HER concern, but again, as a parent, her worries and concerns ARE mine. Not only that, but since she has doubled up her last two years of high school and bundled her junior and senior years into one, and is actually graduating a year early, will, in fact, be 16 when she enters college. That is a HUGE concern to me regarding her choice of a college. I can't seem to divorce myself from worrying about any and all of my kids and their issues. I know, that's normal, and I would be worried about my ability to be a good parent if I WEREN"T concerned about them. But lately, it just seems like every single one of them has such BIG issues, and all four of them together, that I feel like if I don't keep moving, don't keep "going," though this current little hell, if I stop to think about any one of them too long, I'll drown. But I'm getting tired of constantly swimming alone against this current, too.
And it's not like I'm without my own every day issues with work, finances, and life in general. I think I could manage to deal with those better if I didn't just feel so overwhelmed by so much else, by all my kids' problems. I think about taking some time out, taking a weekend off, and do, in fact, have a quiet cabin weekend coming up in two weeks, but instead of looking forward to it, hoping it will help me to step back and breathe again, I know it will only be full of trying to get caught up on the school stress of not having papers corrected and lesson plans done, while at the same time worrying about THREE of my kids being at home together with no adult supervision to keep them on task and not bickering and fighting with each other all weekend. They are nearly adults, so I shouldn't HAVE to worry about that. But they are NOT adults yet, just bigger, taller, heavier versions of themselves at younger ages. And as I struggle to find my place again in this unexpected, unplanned, world of THREE of my kids living at home again when I had only planned for there to be 1 left at this point, I know they, too, are struggling with the changes they hadn't counted on, either.
Thankfully, I guess I should be glad that home is still their sanctuary, still a place they WANT to be, still the place that is their respite from stress... but I pray they are not all still here when I retire in 6 more years, or there will be hell to pay then. And I will NOT keep going - I will stop and demand that they GET OUT. No, not really. But lordy, I do hope things start taking on a brighter hue, a better tone, soon. I don't swim well to begin with, in fact, don't even like to be wet. And right now, I'm barely keeping my head above the puddle.

I Want LAST Weekend Back Again...

2011-10-06T21:21:00.000-04:00

I'm not a big Zinnia fan, but I thought these were beautiful anyway.,

Last weekend, well nearly TWO weekends ago now, since tomorrow is Friday again (where DO my weeks go???) was filled with flowers, cookie making, fresh fall apples, and lots and lots of productivity.

Behind the Gladiolas I bought from a local flower farmer, you can see the piles of laundry I folded. HATE folding it, but love having it done, even though it only lasts a day before the piles of dirty laundry start building again. I love starting my week with the laundry done, folded and ~~put away~~ taken upstairs to sit in piles for another week or two.

The Glads were especially beautiful, and at a quarter a piece, I think they're a steal. They remind me of my childhood. My next door neighbor, who stood in as my adopted grandfather as well, grew rows and rows of beautiful Gladiolas every summer in his garden. He made sure my mother had a vase-full throughout the summer. He also grew cucumbers, and would always pick tiny ones for me to eat fresh, dirt and sun's warmth included free of charge. The Glads brightened up my weekend, both in their own beauty, and in that of bringing back a treasured memory from long ago.

Fresh Cortlands say "Fall." Yum.Crispy, a bit tart, but filled with all the sweetness of autumn in western NY.

All four dog houses got stained, twice., and their new lids 3 x. Love the way they look, all fresh and cleaned up for a new season. Love that the dogs don't have to be hooked out or use their houses all summer, but glad they have them, all warm and cozy, in the fall and winter when I'm in school.

Got some good tug of war time in with my gorgeous Bramble dog. She loves nothing more than playing, playing, playing, and I always feel guilty that I don't provide her with the level of activity she craves and needs. So I'm always glad when I have time, or MAKE time, to play with her. SHE was thrilled! And loves her new pink tug of war rope from Tractor Supply.

Other puppies were glad to be outdoors as well. It was a BEAUTIFUL weekend, for all of us.

And THEN, there was LAST weekend.

It rained. ALL weekend. Which was ok on Saturday. I did go to that big craft show/farm market Saturday, and it was cold and rainy and brisk, and it felt good to be outdoors in the weather. Even though it was, in some opinions, a crummy day, I felt refreshed by the wind and rain and cooler temperatures. I had a great day. I bought nothing but a jar of black currant jam (I want to plant black currants, but wanted to make sure I liked the jam. I did, so planting them will be a good choice), and a used book that I need for one of our book club selections later this year. Oh, I bought a pumpkin spice latte to drink while I wandered about in the rain, which also buoyed my spirits. Nothing better than the beginning of "pumpkin-flavored EVERYTHING season"!

But Sunday? That was a different story. It continued to rain, but I was locked indoors, in my classroom, trying to get ready for the week, and trying to STILL get caught up.

This is the view from my classroom window this year. Yeah, beautiful., I know. More like, DEPRESSING, with a capital D. My room looks out over the roof to the cafeteria, and has all these vents and blowers and other half walls. UGLY. And with the rain, and being captive in my classroom all day, from 10 am until 7:30 pm, and leaving then STILL not even CLOSE to being caught up, it was a dreary, dreary, DREARY, and oh, did I mention DEPRESSING Sunday? Sigh.

Oh yeah, and then, to top off the just "perfect" weekend? I lost half a tooth while munching away on Jordan Almonds. Losing a tooth = an automatic call/trip to the dentist. Honestly, I'd rather give birth again. There is simply NOTHING on earth I fear more than going to the dentist. The split second I realized I was chewing on a part of my own tooth, I got hot, then cold, then sweaty and clammy, and felt like throwing up, THE DENTIST. Double UGH.

Could I PLEASE just have last weekend back again? You know, back when life was all about playing tug of war with my dogs, and painting dog houses, and eating apples? Because I COULD eat apples back then, not just the apple SAUCE I've been sucking down this week because I can't eat anything hard? Yeah, THAT weekend. A formal request for a weekend do-over has been filed.

A Rough Kind of Day

2011-09-28T21:58:00.002-04:00

Tequila, also known more frequently as "Fat Cat"

Well, it's been an interesting week so far. Hopefully, it will grow LESS interesting as the days continue to pass. Not only did we have a student suicide last week, but there was also one in Buffalo, a 14 year old boy.. That one, sadly, made headlines, as being connected to bullying issues. And then someone, not sure who and I guess it doesn't really matter, decided to call a Buffalo news station to let them know about "our" suicide, so that it, too, could be linked to bullying (a fact which is totally un-knowable at this point. It is pure conjecture, as Lee did not leave a note to explain his reasons, and some kids say yes, he WAS a target, other kids, including my own, say no, he had lots of friends and seemed like a pretty happy kid. IF he was bullied, his family was not aware of it, which would seem rather odd to me. Whatever. At this point., I'm really, really SICK of the whole topic, tired of people arguing about it, tired of people blaming the school for not stopping the bullying, tired of people in the school blaming the parents. Tired of blame, period. It's a huge issue, but it encompasses SO MUCH. Having the TV crew come to my little town, my little school, did NOTHING but enflame people, fan the fires.I feel for my Superintendent right now, who is taking many of the hits on public forums - like it is somehow solely HER fault. I stopped by her office yesterday morning to check on her, and found her pretty upset. It only got worse as the day went on. There were, by the end of the day, rumors that

Annie. I love her smiles!

the mother of the child who died had called the news herself and was showing up at the Board meeting last night, also, along with the news again, to begin the process of publicly blaming the school. Oddly, and uncomfortably, her father, the child's grandfather, has been our longstanding School Board President for many years. I could not figure out how that was going to go. Again, there is SO MUCH BACKGROUND to this whole story that comes into play, and it isn't even worth it to attempt to go into it all. Nothing could be better than to take what we can from it to try hard to ensure it doesn't happen to others, and then move on. Dwelling on the negative, feeding on it, is like swallowing poison and then passing the glass around.

Yeah, the grass needs cutting,, but it was too nice a day to do that

In addition, as if that weren't enough for my Super to be dealing with, apparently there was another issue last week as well, that only came to public light this week. A bus driver for our pre-K program left a three year old on the bus, strapped into her car seat, in the seat directly behind her. How she missed her, forgot her, I have no idea. But the fact is, she drove the bus into the bus garage, got off the bus, and left the little girl alone on the bus. Sadly, she was also ONLY discovered when another parent called the bus garage because her son left his backpack on the bus, and the transportation supervisor went to check for it on that bus. Thank GOD. Literally, thank GOD that child forgot his backpack. THOSE parents were DEFINITELY on the agenda for last night's board meeting. By early afternoon yesterday, it was pretty clear that as many of the faculty and staff , as many of us, who could show up to present a supportive front for our Superintendent, our school, our transportation supervisor (who felt HORRIBLE, absolutely positively HORRIBLE about the bus driver, though it was no more his fault that she left the child on the bus than the superintendent's fault a child committed suicide) would be good, and necessary. The day was an unsettling one, to say the least..

I love watching the sun go down in the west, over my side fence, through the trees.

It made me glad I had had such a good weekend. I kept going back to it yesterday, in my mind. It was a tense and long day. It ended ok. There were a lot of us there. I was proud of that. We are good, most of us, and do ANYTHING we can to stop and address bullying. We don't deserve the "rap" we're getting. ONE of us even has a letter in her file for attempting to stop bullying a year or so ago (yeah, I can KIND of laugh about it now, but it's STILL a sore subject) . There were no news crews there. The Board President thanked us all for coming to support our school. The parents of that poor baby left on the bus were there, and when they went into executive session with them to discuss that personnel issue, it was clear nothing bad was going to happen. We were able to head home.
But it was the picture of my fat cat, and my smiling dog, and the sun going down in my back yard Sunday that somehow were able to keep me grounded yesterday. I had a GREAT weekend. It's not been a great week, but I think it's getting better.

A Week Done

2011-09-23T19:49:00.000-04:00

It's Friday, Cue sigh of relief...
Another week done, and a better one in so many ways, for the wider community of school and town. I'm thankful. Not so much my own family - still some serious issues that need attention here, and a big one that popped up out of nowhere this week. But, we'll deal with them. And I feel comfortable in my role of Mama Bear - "Don't you mess with one of my cubs, because I will rip you to shreds in a heartbeat." Well, maybe not quite in the mode in which I'd LIKE to, but I do think I have resources to fall back on, places where help can possibly come from, and if I can't SHRED someone, at least I am hoping to be able to HELP my child. But, I can't do anything until Monday. So, between now and then is a great-looking weekend. There's NOTHING in it that is required of me, if I don't feel like it, except being prepared for, and showing up to, work on Monday.
Oh, there's a ton of laundry and dishes and vacuuming and the never-ending cleaning to be done. The lawn needs mowing. The rabbit needs brushing and plucking. The coop could use a cleaning. I'd love to take the dogs for a walk, or at least a good romp and a few games of tug of war in the back yard. I need to find the bedroom that I believe might exist in that room, that place, that my second son, the one now off at college, existed in for the past few years. I'd like to reclaim it as a bedroom for him, not as a second garage, a workshop for engine repair, that it became in the past few years. And then there are still all the projects half completed that need finishing, but they won't see completion, any of them this weekend. It's complicated, but it's also not. Since I can't do a lot of things I need to, and should, I will do a lot of things I'd rather. I have two good books started, and need to get a copy, soon, of a third one I should be reading, also. I have a few shows taped that I'd like to watch, and two movies I need to preview for my classes at school for background on Appalachia in the 70's. I have peanut butter cup cookies to bake, and maybe a large craft show and farmer's market to wander around in tomorrow, if I can make myself get up that early to get there. Since there is no chance I CAN complete some of the projects this weekend, I intend to force myself to simply do the things I WANT to do. That's so much harder for me than it sounds like it should be. We'll see what the score is, come Sunday night!
It's a quiet house this weekend, a laid back one. I'm looking forward to it. The cats have already gotten an early start on THEIR big plans for the weekend. .

September

2011-09-16T18:59:00.000-04:00

Summer is over. I wrote nothing this summer. I'm not really sure why. I guess it was a combination of just BEING in summer, instead of analyzing it, thinking about it, writing about it. It was also not a super happy summe for me. There wasn't really anything particularly or specifically bad about it, but I struggled with some left over grief over my dad's death, and struggled to face and accept some of the changes I knew were awaiting me at the end of the summer. And the longer I went without writing, the worse I felt about not writing, which made me even less able to start again. Finally, this week, I knew I wanted to write again, and decided who cares if I haven't written for two months. So, here I am again, for better or for worse.

Sadly, September is always the month of adjustment for me anyway, and I was struggling, as usual, already this month. It's hard to get back into the habit of not being able to get enough sleep, of having to give up doing things I like in favor of things I HAVE to do: correcting papers lesson plans, jumping into my days with a bunch of noisy 9 year olds instead of quietly sipping my coffee on the front porch, listening only to the roosters crow. I think it would probably be easier, in the long run, if I had a 12 month job, instead of having my summers off. I just enjoy them way too much, and DISlike aspects of my job way too much to ever be able to make a graceful and smooth transistion. But, I was working on it, and this week was better, or would have been better, than last week. And next week is bound to be slightly easier still. It's the way of things.

Or, it is, until you throw in a teen suicide of a student in your youngest child's class on Monday evening of this week just past. Then, the week gets far more difficult than you ever could have anticpated. Only, unfortunately, I DO know what it's like. We all do. It's the second suicide of a classmate of one of my children in 4 years time. And the pain and wounds and hurt the first suicide caused have not yet healed over, and now there is this one. A terrible, violent ending of a life not even fully begun. No answers to the why, no answers for his parents, grandparents, brother. No answers for his friends, classmates, teachers. And when the adults have no answers for the kids, how do we comfort them, help them, teach them to grieve? How do you comfort those big, tall boys wearing their work boots, and Carharrt Tshirts, who don't know what to do with that terrible, open pit of sorrow?

I don't know. I don't have any answers this week.

I'm not sure there ARE any answers. Welcome to September. October will be better.

I'm All In

2011-07-02T17:07:00.000-04:00

     It wasn't the 6 am start I had hoped for, and planned on. It was nearly ten am by the time we left the house. But, it's summer, and the extra sleep was needed, available, and felt so good this morning, so I simply said, "oh well," and let it go. It's summer. Who cares about self-inflicted schedules? We hooked up thefriend's boat we were towing to the lake for her, and rolled off into the bright country morning , windows down in the truck, good country music blaring, fields, and cows and swamps and people beginning their Saturday rolling by on the twisty back roads. I had not a single serious thought or concern in my head. The morning began to get steamy as we neared noon, hot bright summer sun shining overhead. Dropped off the boat, stayed a few minutes, played with some ducks and some dogs, and then turned around to make the reverse trip home. The truck was loud, the country music louder, and my thoughts were all very quiet. I even dozed a bit on the way home, sun on my face. The orange Tiger Lillies are bountiful, as are the wild daisies along side the road, and I can't think of a place more beautiful today than right here, right now.
     Last night we had a campfire out back for a couple of hours, myteen-aged kids and some of their friends, and I. We made smores and toasted marshmallows until I, at least, was stuffed. While it doesn't bode well for the "healthy eating for summer" kick I embarked upon yesterday with a public and official weigh-in, it did wonders for the soul. The stars and fireflies were both out in force. There was no place I would rather have been last night but right here.
     I have meant to do my dishes for several days, and the lawn needs mowing. But the cat had kittens yesterday. Despite the fact that I feel incredibly irresponsible for letting one of my animals slip through my fingers unspayed, the miracle of birth, even that of unneeded kittens, is something that the world needs to stop for, and marvel at. At least, in MY world. So I did, for most of the afternoon. But it's summer, and it was the best place to be yesterday, and so the dishes went undone and the lawn unmowed yet another day this week.
     The day before that, I had animals that needed to go to the vet; there, and back and a return trip and back. That, and some grocery shopping, and an ambulance run, pretty much took up THAT entire day.   And Wednesday, well, that was my sister's birthday, and although I've never been particularly stellar at remembering to send cards, or do gifts for my siblings, I decided once my dad passed away this spring, that now that all we have is each other, I NEED to do birthdays. I NEED to celebrate my siblings, and remember and honor them, for me, for MY continued sense of family. I don't want my parents to have been the only glue that held us all together. I vowed to not let a single birthday of theirs go by unacknowledged and uncelebrated by me. So I took my sister out for lunch. It was so much fun.
    And Tuesday, the first day after my last day of school, well, I don't even remember what I did that day, except perhaps laze around, recover from the end of school and graduation, and I think maybe I made my TO-Do list for summer. I think I napped a lot, too.
     So, those dishes? Yeah, It think I'll do them tonight. And maybe mow the front lawn at least. And then, when I'm done? I'm going to sit on my front porch with a frozen drink, and watch the sun go down and hopefully pull with it some of the blistering heat of the day, and celebrate summer, and happiness. Here's to it - and to being here, and to living in the here and now, and for being happy with it all. Here's to learning to relax, and let go of artificial plans and schedules and structure for a few weeks. I hope my summer holds more days like today, full of sunshine and country music and road trips with no time line along dirt back roads lined with local wild flowers. It may take me a week to make the transition. I think I might have said, only once or twice though, I'm sure, that I just don't "do" change well, not even GOOD change. But, I think the change has occurred. I think today was the final slipping away of ten months of routine and all that goes with that part of my life. I think that's behind me, now. I've rounded the corner and I only see summer ahead. Maybe I'll bring some wild daisies in and put them in the blue-sky vase on my kitchen table. Once I can find it again. You know, after I get the dishes done and clean up the kitchen.

OH! There You Are, Melanie Gould!

2011-06-11T18:21:00.000-04:00

I don't know any details yet, and I'm not sure how many, if any, we'll ever know, but Melanie WAS found safe and alive today, after having been missing for 11 days. I have no idea what the "story" is, but I am relieved and grateful that God answered that prayer for so many thousands of people. I hope and pray that all will be well with her.

Where Are You, Melanie Gould?

2011-06-10T20:24:00.003-04:00

There is an old Willie Nelson song, "My Heroes have Always Been Cowboys." In my mind, the song long ago became "My Heroes have Always Been Mushers,"

and they are among the few real heroes I have. Mushers are REAL people, as down to earth and friendly and helpful and kind hearted a group of people as you will ever meet, most of them. I like a person who had dog hair on his or her coat and is unapologetic for it. And, when you've followed mushing as long as I have, and read all the bios and stats and everything else you can find on them, and follow all their races, either in person or online, those people become real to you, as well, You feel like you "know" them, even when you've never actually met them. It's a community of people I would be proud to be a part of, if that were possible.

Last week, one of "them" went missing from her home of Talkeetna, Alaska. Melanie Gould. She's run 6 or 7 Iditarods, and by all accounts, is an all around pretty great person. Quiet, but really nice. Helpful. Conscientious. A hard worker. A good friend. And a musher who would never leave her dogs unattended and uncared for, as she did last Tuesday when she disappeared. At the moment, the details aren't really all that important here. I've read and re-read the Facebook page set up by her friends a hundred or more times, scanning for all the details I can glean for myself. I have questions, lots of them, but have to trust that the people searching for her have had those same questions too, and are actively seeking answers to them. The questions circle around and around, trying to drive hope away, and open the door to doubt.

I read this quote on that same Facebook page today - "Hope never abandons you; you abandon it" (George Weinberg) and it helped. I realized that I MUST keep hope alive. If I were in her shoes, would I want everyone to just give up after a certain number of days had passed? Of course not. I also have felt a little bit faith-shaken. Not in a big way, just a little of the "I know GOD knows where she is - why won't He give US a clue?" kind of way. But, then, I remember that we are suppose to pray unceasingly, and continue to hope, so I will do that. Or try to. Try hard to. It's all I CAN do. If I lived in Alaska, I would put on my hiking boots and join the search. I would post fliers everywhere. I would offer to help feed the dogs, water the flowers, take care of the yard, anything at all I could DO to help bring Melanie home, and to keep hope alive in a physical way. It's HARD to wait, hundreds and hundreds of miles away, with nothing tangible to do to help. In times of need, or sadness or frustration, I'm a do-er. I bake. I clean. I DO. And it is driving me out of my mind that in this case, there is nothing I CAN do. Nothing that would be of any use from the thousands of miles away I am.
Another woman went missing outside of Fairbanks just a couple of days after Melanie, and another young girl disappeared from a British Columbia campground about the same time. So why am I not gripped by those Missing Person reports as much as I am by Melanie's? I guess it is because I feel a kinship with Melanie that I don't with the others. I don't "know" the others, or know anything about them at all. I don't feel any connection to them, other than sadness that they, too, are missing. Melanie lives by herself in a small, remote cabin with no running water, no electricity. That's about as off the grid as you can be, and still have friends and a job and a community surrounding you. I envy and identify with that lifestyle.

In addition, she has dogs, and is, gosh darn it, a musher, two things I again can identify with, and aspire to. I keep thinking of her dogs - do they wonder where she is? Do they miss her? Mine would. They don't eat much when I'm gone, and only return to their normal eating and sleeping habits when I'm here. No one can take care of my dogs the way I do, and the dogs know it. It's hard for me to leave my dogs for long, knowing this, so I feel certain that she would feel the same way.
Oh, my heart just aches for her dogs, for her, for her family and friends and community, and even for Alaska. Alaska is a funny place. It's big, but it's tightly knit when it comes to "one of their own,". I know all of Alaska, as well as half of the rest of the world, it seems, is watching and waiting and checking and hoping that THIS will be the day Melanie comes home. My days have become a ritual of ongoing mental prayer: thinking of Melanie, picturing her, picturing God knowing where she is and holding her and keeping her safe and strong and not afraid, not irretrievably hurt or injured, just holding her, and her terrible circumstances, close in my heart.
I light a virtual candle every 48 hours for her on line, but starting tonight, I'm going to light a real one at home as well. I will let it burn for an hour every night until she returns. I know it's not much, but lighting a candle will symbolically let me DO something. A friend on her facebook page (http://www.diamonddogsracing.blogspot.com)(I feel like we are ALL friends on that page, though I know no one, but we are all strongly united in our hope and concern for Melanie and that pulls people from all over together, I think) put this one on line, and I think it is just beautiful. She allowed me to repost it here.

So, to Melanie, keeping the faith and hope alive, and the candles burning, until you come home... I pray it will be tomorrow.

(The other pictures on this page I took from the page started for Melanie as well: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Have-you-seen-Melanie-Gould/160060884060648?sk=wall)

(Almost) Wordless.... Monday?

2011-06-05T22:33:00.000-04:00

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength."
St..Francis de Sales

This is a friend of mine from high school, who has become a really awesome man, husband, father, stepfather, and grandfather, as well as friend. This is his granddaughter, and when I saw this picture on his facebook page, it instantly made me think of the above quote. I loved it so much I stole it, the picture, that is, though I'm sure he wouldn't mind, and could not wait for Wednesday to put it up here.

"Thankful Thursday"

2011-06-02T16:17:00.000-04:00

Simply Positive

To over-think about love & positive life possibilities is uplifting, energizing, & motivating. To over-think about negative situations & problems is depressing, exausting, & paralyzing. Your brain can only focus on ONE set of thoughts at a time. One set makes you feel worse, one better! Decide today which set you want to focus on. Want to be tired? Or gain energy?

The above is a quote I took from one of the facebook pages I see every day. Lately, I've found a ton of great quotes. I love a good quote - they always make me think a lot, and I like thinking. They also express fairly succinctly what I feel. I've never in my life been accused of being succinct though, so I like how someone else can summarize for me a great volume of thoughts and feelings into a tidy little package. This one is meaningful to me because as this school year comes to a close (unlike "normal" people, I have always measured my year from September to June, not January to December) I realize that I have been inordinately happy this year, happier than I can really recall ever being in the past. It has little to do with my teaching load this year. It's not a lot different than last year, with the exception of having passed along to 7th grade last year's miserable, impossible 6th grade class. I don't miss them, but they didn't ruin my year. My classroom has also gone from housing 4 of us (teachers) to only two, as two of my coworkers moved across the hall at the end of last year. That was a move that caused a bit of hurt, and apprehension last year about this time. But it also appears to have been a turning point for me, although I don't think I realized it at the time. It was when I ordered my books on Positive Thinking: The AWE-Manac, The Happiness Project and several others. Funny thing is, I never really sat down and read them, cover to cover. I glanced through them, picked out some things here and there, but mostly what really changed is my ATTITUDE. I went from letting outside circumstances control how I felt, to realizing that what I disliked most in negative people was just that - their negativity in how they reacted to circumstances. It's when I realized that I can't change a lot of things, but I CAN change how I think and feel and talk about them.
The other thing that I began to do more and more often is to think about all the things I am grateful for, all the blessings and happiness that is already IN my life. Instead of focusing on the fact that I don't have goats, I focus on how glad I am to finally have chickens! SOMEDAY I'll have goats. :) Instead of passing by all the kids' artwork on display at school while on my way to the copier, thinking gloomy grumpy thoughts, I stop and pay attention to the silly little paper mache birds clustered on the top of the display table, and they make me smile. The fact that we have an awesome art teacher at school makes me smile. The fact that we have some very talented Senior High artists and I wish I could have half their talent makes me feel very good for them. How lucky they are to BE so talented. Instead of being bummed that I keep finding all these great crafty projects that I do not feel good enough to do (like an AWESOME chicken quilt - gosh I wish I knew how to do applique and quilt more than just simple patterns) , I am grateful that finding neat craft ideas to think about, and challenge myself with "someday" bring me so much pleasure. Sometimes, when I am sick of correcting papers and doing lesson plans, etc, I web browse looking for things just like that - and I find cool ideas. I print them off, put them in a file folder, and they are there for some other day when I have more time, more ambition, more money, less work, etc. Just LOOKING at creative ideas makes me feel lighter, happier, better.
Being grateful, being AWARE of being grateful, makes me happier. Looking around and thinking about all of the things that bring me joy makes me more consciously happy, and that, in turn, works its way into my psyche, I think. I FEEL happy. I FEEL happy, because I consciously CHOOSE to look for and think about and be grateful for those things that MAKE me happy. And the bad things? Yeah, there are those, still. They haven't disappeared, by any means. Just look back at my past few months. There were lots of bad things, and there are, still, things that annoy and irritate me daily. But I TRY to choose to say, "so what?" and let them go. I try, hard, to just let the unimportant things roll off me. Someone didn't notify me about a meeting I was supposed to attend, and so I didn't show up on time? Oh well. Teachers didn't tell me about a change in our daily schedule that directly affects me, but I can wing it and it's not a big deal? Yep, treat it as such, rather than getting all worked up about it. There are just so many times when I could worry, but choose not to. What good does it do? I could choose to get in a total tizzy over things that would legitimately be ok to BE in a tizzy over, but why bother? It's not that I don't care, it's not that I don't ever say or feel negative things. I do. Probably a lot more than I THINK I do, especially at home. I still need to work on home. But I'm a lot better than I used to be. And I think, for real, it comes from having focused on the positive, having focused on all that there is in my life to be grateful for, to be excited about, to look forward to. It feels so good to be happy so much of the time. Like pinch-myself happy inside. Gosh that feels good. Who would NOT want to be happy? Who would CHOOSE to be miserable? Actually, LOTS of people. Some people even seem to thrive on it, on being unhappy, on seeing the dark side, on making things worse, on fretting, stewing, and feeling justified. I don't get it. That really USED to be me, but I'm grateful to be able to say, it's just not anymore. Maybe it's that little blue pill I take every day? But hey, I've been taking that for YEARS, and it is only this past year when I have consciously focused my energy on being positive, on being grateful, that I have felt THIS happy, this peaceful, this calm and content, and well, well, just HAPPY. Maybe it's being 48, and having had some significant losses of people that has made me realize with a clarity I've never had before how short and precious and wonderful and fleeting life is? I don't know, but for now, I'll attribute it to, and continue to look for, being appreciate of all the small things that make me happy, things like a Triple Venti Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce Latte with soy, no whip - or my annoying but lovable Border Collie Bramble, or adorable pictures of my niece's dog Buddy, or the fact that THIS year I have new raised beds for my garden (when last year I didn't even get a garden planted... ) and finding a chicken quilt on line that SOMEDAY I will make for myself.
My niece usually posts a THANKFUL THURSDAY post on her blog (http://matthewandmeghan.blogspot.com/search/label/thankful%20thursday ) and her younger sister, who is an English teacher of high school kids makes her 9th grade students write a Thankful Thursday list in her classroom as well, I think. I am going to have MY kids, my 5th and 6th graders, do that next year too. What a cool idea that is. So, this week for Thankful Thursday, I am simply thankful to be happy, and thankful to have become so focused this year on gratitude. From now now, on TT, I will just list whatever it is that has made me happy that week. I challenge you to look around, and realize what things make YOU happy and be conscious to be GRATEFUL for them. It might just change your life!

Even better, I bought this happy little journal to keep track , my Gratitude Journal, and jot down when something makes me happy.

And can I just say, the first entry SHOULD be, "This JOURNAL makes me insanely happy. I am a notebook/journal "collector" (as well as my coffee mug and tshirt collections...) and I am happy to have found this one and to have the perfect use for it!

Wordless Wednesday - Summer's Coming, But Who's Counting?

2011-06-01T18:35:00.000-04:00

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

2011-05-25T21:48:00.002-04:00

Life Goes On

2011-05-21T10:07:00.000-04:00

The sun is shining this morning! Yes, that IS worthy of an announcement, given the number of days it has rained lately.And the number of days in the upcoming forecast calling for MORE rain. Today is, in fact, the only day NOT scheduled for moisture. Hallelujah. For real. Webbing is growing between my toes, and I feel slightly soggy. (Not nearly as soggy as I was last Saturday, after spending two hours in the pouring rain at my son's outdoor college graduation. Do you suppose that some, just some, of the outrageous tuition money we sent them 4 years running might have been funneled into renting tents for that momentous occasion? Guess not....)
Today is the first day of... um, well, a return to normalcy, however temporary that may be in MY life. It feels good. Really good.
Today, my brother is not in the hospital. No one I know is. And he is healing well. Other than hearing loss, which may, unfortunately, be permanent, but I think it's a small price to pay for all he went through. His body and neck brace have been exchanged for a soft neck collar for the next three weeks. And life goes on.
My father has passed away. His calling hours are tomorrow, but I'm not too concerned. I am so relieved that his struggle is over, that the misery, mentally and physically, are done for him. He is in heaven with my mom, and there will be no more second guessing on our part as to whether we are doing enough, whether he is in the wrong place and we should move him, etc. I do not need to make any more sad visits to the nursing home to sit by his bed and wish that this were not his life anymore. Life goes on.
EMT class, and both tests are done. Those Tuesday and Thursday nights, from 6-10, learning all those acronyms like AVPU, BSI, OPQRST, SAMPLE, etc. and stuffing my head with how many compressions per minute per child vs adults, when to insert an orapharyngeal vs a nasophryngeal airway, etc. are over. I passed the lab portion and took my final written State test Thursday night. I think I did well, and think I passed, and whatever happens now (I have to wait 6 weeks to know for sure and to get my certification), it's all done.
My son was driven to Baltimore, 6 hours away, following our Thursday night test, to join his Senior class on their trip. He could not leave when they did Thursday morning because of the test, Thursday night, so we sped him down there,deposited him at 6 am Friday morning, turned around and came home, were home by noon yesterday. That's done.
College graduation for my oldest is done. His mini-vacation of three days is done, and he is back on campus for his summer job, which began yesterday. High school graduation for my second son is still a few weeks away, as is the end of the school year, and beginning of summer, for me.
I don't have pneumonia anymore. I don't even have bronchitis. I DO have a cold, and could not taste my Starbucks coffee I treated myself to yesterday morning on the way home from Baltimore, but it's only a cold. And, only a head and throat cold, not even a chest cold. No dr. visit required, just more vitamins, and some sunshine will help speed it on its way. That, and some extra sleep, and some lack of stress.
Wait, I have TIME for extra sleep now. That's cool. And as I look around me, and ahead of me, there seems to be no stress in sight. That's also very cool. When I look back at what the past five months have brought, and from which I have been delivered into this bright, sunshine-filled May morning, today, I am filled with so much gratitude that I don't know what to do with it all. I not only survived, I rose above. I wanted to quit, but did not. I did the best I could, sometimes failing, but continually trying. I loved hard, I showed up each day, and got through.
I think I'm going to simply go sit on my front steps in the sunshine, pour one more cup of coffee this morning, and soak it all in, while I make my TO-DO list for the days and weeks ahead of me. There's more rain forecast for tomorrow, so maybe today, I'll mow the grass. I have time for it, and time to do normal things just seems GOOD. Better than anything, as a matter of fact. Life goes on, and it is good.

Of Cardinals and Bluebirds

2011-05-19T10:29:00.002-04:00

Once, about 25 years ago or so, one of my favorite priests gave a lesson one Sunday morning on appreciation that I have never forgotten, It was about cardinals, and probably other things too, but I remember the cardinals. His point, that morning, was that there are lots of birds in this world, many of them rather nondescript, even drab, looking, and that's fine. But God made cardinals a bright, beautiful red when he didn't have to, and that we should never forget to thank God for the beautiful things he has given us simply for the sake of beauty. For the longest time, I actually DID remember to say, literally, "Thank you, God," out loud every time a male cardinal flashed across the road in front of me. I suppose the same should be said for rainbows, and roses and other miracles of nature that take your breath away. My mother and I both shared a love of cardinals, and they never ceased to bring her joy, especially in her later years when she spent a lot of time sitting in her chair at home, watching the birds out the window. She would always remark about the cardinals, and how beautiful they were. My dad got so that he bought her cardinal "things" whenever he saw them, and so, in addition to the lesson I learned about being grateful for unnecessary beauty in this world, I also have long associated cardinals with my mom. I know it doesn't make sense, because it is the male cardinal who is the brightest and flashiest, but whenever I see one, I feel like my mom is nearby, making her presence felt through that beautiful scarlet streak as it wings past. When we took my dad to the hospital for surgery the last time, I saw several pairs of cardinals dip and flit across the back road, and took it to be an "omen, " a good one, that my mom was with him, with us. Silly, because I don't really believe in omens, either. But, I do know that we have ALL been grateful, my dad, siblings, and I, for the cardinals in our lives, because it has kept thoughts of my mother close at hand.
A week ago Sunday, as I was sitting in my dad's room at the nursing home, passing some of his last hours with him, I was watching some birds coming and going from a bird house on a pole outside his window, nest building, I suppose. The sun would catch the iridescent blue on the wings or their tale feathers, and initially, because of the blue, I thought they were bluebirds. I should have known they were not, because they weren't really that bright blue, but bluebirds, even here in the country, are a fairly rare sight. I don't know when the last time I actually saw one was, but I know it's been years. My brother told me they were house swallows when I asked. I was disappointed that they weren't bluebirds, but not really very surprised. Their tail feathers were too pointy, really, and the blue, more of a metallic black-blue. Tuesday, after my father had passed away, and I was on my way home from my brother's house late in the afternoon, I was driving along the Back River Road and a bluebird flew across the road in front of me. An honest-to-goodness bluebird, this time, and there was NO mistaking it. It was smaller, rounder, red chested, very compact, and a stunningly- blue color. It made me laugh out loud to think I had actually mistaken the swallows for bluebirds earlier that week. Once I saw this one, there was no mistake.
So, I'm not sure if I saw it because bluebirds were on my mind? Sometimes that happens. You don't see things unless you have opened yourself to the possibility of them, true enough. But it's hard to think I would have missed other opportunities to see and appreciate that beautiful flash of bright, bright, blue just because I wasn't thinking about them. That blue, like the red of a cardinal, and the yellow of a goldfinch in summer, is an in-your-face notice to sit up and pay attention, and, give thanks.Hard to miss, even on the worst or most distracted of days. No, rather, I think that maybe because I had been bird-watching while my dad spent his last few hours on earth, thinking that there were bluebirds outside his window for a time even though they weren't, perhaps God sent me that one, lone bluebird on that day out of all others, to let me know that my dad has not only taken flight, but is also something to be remembered connected to beauty as well. Another "omen," of sorts, even though I don't believe in omens. Maybe there is simply a better word for omen that I DO believe in? That seems logical.
All I know is, I find comfort in thinking of my mom when I see a cardinal, and try to remain vigilantly thankful for those brilliant flashes of red that didn't have to be, and now, if and when I am lucky enough to see another bluebird or two, I will also think of my dad, thankful for the beauty his life brought to mine, and thankful that God decided to give us not only the red, but that blue as well. I changed my picture on facebook this week to a bluebird, in honor and memory of my dad, and the beautiful things in my life, and a friend wrote this on my wall this morning:

"Love the blue bird taking flight, soaring above it all. Free from the confines of earth that bind us. Free to pursue higher, deeper, richer things. Quietly and gracefully joining the heavenly skies. He wings

are spread as if to wash those of us below with a peace that passes all understanding. Simply breathe!

2/18/21 - 5/17/11 I Love You, Dad

2011-05-17T21:46:00.000-04:00

‎"May flights of angels lead

you on your way to paradise

and heavens eternal day! May

martyrs greet you after

deaths' dark night and bid you

enter into Zion's light!

May choirs of angels sing you

to your rest with once poor

Lazarus, now forever blest"

latin gregorian chant

FLYING COLORS...

2011-05-11T22:00:00.000-04:00

...is what I passed my 6 lab station practical hands-on exam with tonight for EMT class. I am pretty darned excited. I still have the written test to go, a week from tomorrow night, but I have a week to prep for that, and I USUALLY do better with written tests than hands on, and I was an absolute nervous wreck tonight before and during the practicals, so I am SOOOO SOOOO glad they are done, and that I did well, even though I was totally and positively convinced I would not. Whew!

Sunday, Room 216

2011-05-10T08:44:00.000-04:00

Distorted, muted sounds of several TV's driftly loudly and out of synch, different channels, different programs, from down the hallway, outside your door.

Voices call back and forth to each other, workers in opposite rooms, their words in bass tones, indistinguishable, but their laughter staccato soprano, high-pitched, out of place in this mostly-silent resident hall.

The day outside your window is bright but full of clouds, not sure whether to go on by, or gather. The pointy-tailed irridescent blue swallows and golden yellow finches busily go on about their springtime business, oblivious of this world on the other side of the glass, our world, my dad's and mine, where, in this room, it is you and I.

You were present when I was born, and it is only fitting that I be present at your leaving.

You are restless here, not able to stay, but not quite ready to go, caught, trapped by your body, between two worlds, this and the other.

Your hoarse raspy breathing says 'asleep,' your half-open eyes say 'awake," but you neither see me nor respond to me when I look into you. The eyes give the most telling sign that you are slowly going away from us. They are filmy, veiled, grey-blue, not alert anymore, almost done with us.

Your fingers move, twitch, reach, grasp - at nothing mostly, but sometimes you catch the sheet or blanket or my hand. The warmth is there but the grip, the strength, is gone.

Your lips move, but I can't read the words on them. A prayer? Talking to someone who waits for you? No meaning, just movement? I do not know.

Your breathing, rattly, raspy, too loud for this room. Everyone is kind. Too kind to bear, almost. My occasional tears are not for the end that is now in sight, but because the leaving taking takes way too long.

The Last Week of March, Part 2

2011-05-06T14:53:00.002-04:00

Here's "the rest of the story." This was harder to write about than what actually happened. I think you'll understand.

I believe in miracles, but I think the term is used far too often and too loosely. I believe in them, but don't want to sound as though I am constantly looking for and seeing them everywhere. I'm not talking about the miracles like "the miracle of birth," as that happens daily, and is no less a miracle for it's frequency, or the daily morning miracle of sunrise. I'm talking honest-to-goodness Miracles, capital M miracles. But let me tell you about the part of the story that got my brother TO the hospital. It still gives me goose-bumps.

First of all, you have to know a couple things about my brother. He is 57, the quintessential woodsman/outdoorsman. Has been since birth. He is 9 years older than me, and all my life, from my earliest recollections of him, he has been trapping, hunting, cutting wood, etc. He is also the epitomy of "Independent" - stubborn and set in his ways and a genuine curmudgeon might be better-fitting terms and ones he himself would apply liberally as well. He's a good guy, but it's his way or the highway. He's also an expert in the woods, particularly with safety. He has been cutting wood all his life, nearly, and has NEVER had a careless accident. He is the type of person for whom careless accidents simply do not happen. I'm not trying to build him as a larger-than-life person, but it's critical that it is clear that he does not take risks in the woods, ever.

Equally important is the fact that, until a year or two ago, my brother did not OWN a cell phone. Didn't believe in them, thought people who had them were generally rude and stupid (I TOLD you he was opinionated), as they were constantly talking or texting in public, and there was just NO POINT to them. OK, whatever. Not my opinion (though I do agree that common politeness has gone out the window when many people use their cell phones...) But, a couple years ago, my brother began dating a woman who lives in New Hampshire, and suddenly, quietly, he not only had a cell phone like the rest of the modern world, but became rather an expert texter as well!

So, on that day, that Tuesday back in March, he had cut a tree down near his back door, and then had gone across the main road, down the dirt road diagonally across from his house and up into the woods to drop some trees for firewood. Thankfully, his girlfriend in NH knew where he was, knew that he was alone, and so... had the unthinkable happened, we would have at least known by nightfall, as their plan was for her to text him on her way home from work, and if he didn't answer her text, she would worry. (I assume at that point the "worry" would have translated into a quick call for one of us locally to go check on him...at least, I assume that was the point of their check in system?) Regardless, he did have his cell phone with him, something which, two years ago, would NOT have happened, given his previous exhortations about the ridiculousness of cell phones. Miracle number one. If you knew my brother, you would GET that this, in itself, was a miracle. He makes many proclamations, and seldom in my lifetime has EVER gone back on one. If he says it, he means it, and does it. Thank God the cell phone one is one of the very, very few that he didn't stick with.

So, cutting trees down. Something happened. We STILL don't know what, and probably never will. He always checks for loose branches, branches hung up, widow-makers. He DOES remember doing that this time, as well. But suddenly, something happened. Whatever it was, he was hit from the right side, and knocked about 15 feet away from his chainsaw, according to where the EMT's found him. You can't tell from the trees that are down what happened, so I guess that part of it is always going to be a mystery.

Somehow, regaining consciousness for a brief period of time, he managed to call his friend, at work an hour a way, and tell him "You gotta help me. I'm hurt bad. I don't know where I am." That friend called his wife, who lives locally, and SHE called 911. He also called other friends of my brothers who live in town, I think, or maybe my brother made a couple of other phone calls. THOSE friends immediately drove up, outside of town, to his house, where they spent time looking for him around there. Based on the tree being down, but not yet cut up, by his back steps, they assumed he was hurt there, and laying someplace near by. After that, the story is pieced together from what people involved have said happened, but none of this is first hand to me. What I BELIEVE happened is, when his friend's wife called 911, she said she didn't know where he was, but gave them his cell phone number. 911 called him back, and as long as his phone was on, they used it to triangulate from the various cell towers where his signal was coming from to get a general location. He was apparently in and out of consciousness much of this time. 911 toned out the two rescue squads from the towns on either side of him - the closest one does not have an ambulance, but DOES have an emergency response vehicle and trained EMT's, so they actually were the ones who eventually reached him first. I guess, based on the responders knowing my brother, knowing the area, and using the cell phone tower signals, they could tell what road they thought he was on. From there, when he WAS conscious, the 911 dispatch people asked both rescue teams to turn on their sirens until he said he could hear them. Then they had one turn their siren off, and the other leave theirs on, and vice versa. Based on which siren he reported hearing each time, they could narrow down their search area for him. They drove down the dirt road, not knowing exactly where in the woods he would be, but then the guys on the closer rescue squad happened to see three-wheeler tracks through a tiny patch of snow that was left (most had either melted or been washed away by early spring rains and warmer weather at that point) heading into the woods. Either knowing, or just following a hunch, I don't know which, they went in after him there, where they saw the tracks. They found him, immediately back-boarded and c-collared him for obvious spinal cord injury, and called for Mercy Flight. MF landed in a cleared area of field used for a log landing zone, and... the rest you know.

Thinking about all that went into that rescue, all the variables, the intuition, the skill, the friends, the coincidences, STILL makes me shake a bit. If I DIDN"T believe in miracles before, MIRACLE miracles, I do now.

Currently, nearly 7 weeks after the accident, he is still in a body brace (that, in itself, is a miracle - we were so very afraid that "he-who-knows-all" would decide two weeks in that he knew better than the doctors, and would not live the necessary time in the wildly uncomfortable brace.) To the best of my knowledge, he is still in it. I THINK he has another 1-3 weeks. He has been in NH with his girlfriend for the past month. Flying to Boston in a body brace, with two spinal column breaks, a few weeks after the accident was NOT what any of us felt was in his best interest, and we made that profoundly clear. But, he's a big boy, and because his girlfriend had a stroke, and then heart surgery once they discovered the stroke was caused by a hole in her heart, though we didn't agree, we also couldn't very well blame him for wanting to be there with her. Apparently it hasn't caused him any real harm. The only residual at this point SEEMS to be hearing loss in his right ear, and he does have an appointment to get that checked soon. If that is the worst he ends up with, then that is small potatoes. He is a lucky man, indeed.

“I think miracles exist in part as gifts and in part as clues that there is something beyond the flat world we see.” Peggy Noonan

WRITTEN DURING THE LAST WEEK OF MARCH; just not posted til now

2011-05-05T08:48:00.000-04:00

This is one of those times when I know exactly why I blog. I need to write things down to make sense of them, to get them out in the open, to look at them, to turn them around in my hands, in front of me, to take them apart and put them back together again, a hundred times if necessary, before I can wring the meaning out of them, and then let some of them go. It will be a long time before the nightmare of this week fades, of that I have no doubt. And I know there is no chance of ever letting it go.

Life is full of irony. I spent last Monday night, from 6 - 11 pm, in the Emergency room of the small hospital closest to us, about 20 miles away, doing part of my EMT observation time, and Tuesday, at work, had even begun a few words of a post about that experience. It was, above all else, incredibly boring. The irony lies in the fact that less than 24 hours later I would again be in an emergency room, observing, again, but this time, in the middle of the ultimate of life and death situations, and not as a bored observer, but as an active participant, an advocate for my brother, who was strapped to the backboard in the trauma bay. I can tell you, I learned more about emergency medicine in my 8 or 9 hours there than I ever wanted to know, and there was no objectivity to it as there had been the night before when I held a three year old's legs down so he could get stitches in his cheek.

That Tuesday, after school,I was in my room, talking with a teacher briefly about joint planning for a book, trying to hurry out of there to go home and get ready for class that night. My cell buzzed in my school bag on the floor, but I didn't catch it in time. Normally I would have let it go, figuring it was one of my kids and I was on my way home anyway, but for some reason I picked it up to look at. It was the older of my two brothers, which, when I noticed that, raised an immediate red flag. We don't talk frequently, and for him to call me on my cell phone at 3:30 in the afternoon is just out of the question - he's at work, as a carpenter and job foreman, and doesn't have time to make phone calls then, much less chatty ones. I assumed that it had to be something to do with my dad, although that didn't really make sense. I didn't have to wait long to find out. Listening to my voice mail message, it was brief and to the point: "Laurie, Dave got hurt in the woods this afternoon, a tree hit him or something, he's being Mercy Flighted to Strong right now."

I had already planned to be out of school the next day, so I ran to make a few last copies for my sub and to let the teacher I share a room with know what was going on, called my son to see what the pager had said about that 911 call, let him know it was about his Uncle, flew out of there, picked him up at the bottom of the driveway, and was on my way to the hospital, an hour and a half away. In retrospect, I see that my immediate reaction to possible tragedy or shocking news must be denial, because although I drove a bit faster than normal, I didn't feel worried, or really even very nervous. I guess I must just shut out the possibility of anything bad, because I felt like I felt fine. Concerned, but not the sort of nervous that hearing "Mercy Flight" should immediately create in someone.

Oddly, it only took me about an hour to get there, so perhaps I was driving faster than I thought? I parked in the parking garage, and from there, the route to my brother was endless. It was like walking in waist-high water in slow-motion, movingmovingmoving, but not going anywhere. I walked to the information desk, walked outside, down and around to the ER, waited in line, was sent to another line, was sent back to a different information desk, was passed on to a security guard further back, and finally saw my older brother, the one who had called, sitting on a bench outside the trauma ER. He handed me his pass and said, urgently, "Get in there and see him." Suddenly, where I was, and why I was there, and the fact that my big, BIG, brother (he is 6 foot ten, or something like that, - he's a pretty big guy!) seemed pretty shaken up, started to sink in. A nurse took me back, where he was laying, backboarded and C-collared on a gurney, bleeding, swollen, broken. I stepped up, touched his cheek with a fingertip to make sure he was still breathing, made eye contact, spoke reassuringly for a few moments, and then, just like that, got a lesson in what happens to a body fueled by adrenalin when the adrenalin leaves. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't stand, I couldn't speak. I sank to the chair, head between my legs, trying to breathe in and out. It wasn't until the same exact thing happened to his girlfriend when she got there a few hours later that I realized what it was. One of the many things I learned firsthand, not from a book, in the trauma room that night.

By early in the morning, when a room in the Intensive Care Unit was finally ready for him, around 1 am? 2am?, time eventually lost any meaning, his injuries clocked in at: several skull fractures, a deep gash on his skull which needed staples to close it, facial fractures which were quickly blackening his right eye, a broken C-1 vertebrae (the first one, right under your brain), another vertebrae farther down that was a compressed fracture, broken ribs, and a slow brain bleed. A repeated brain scan, 6 hours after the initial one, showed that the bleed on his brain was not getting any bigger, a good sign. Oddly, my several months of EMT training led me to know that as long as he could wiggle fingers and toes, could feel all of his fingers and toes, and had pulses in all four extremities, that he was not in any way paralyzed, which was my biggest, biggest fear. You have to know my brother, but it is no exaggeration to say, he would rather be dead than paralyzed, and knowing his lifestyle, I get that. For his sake, and his alone, I, too, would rather he was dead than paralyzed. I thank God from the depths of my soul that neither of those very viable options were reality. That they were not is simply miraculous.Throughout the night, and the next day, his pain was ever-present and unrelenting. The worst of it was not the pain itself, but the muscle spasms in his neck by the broken vertebrae that caused the pain. Initially they could not give him strong enough pain meds, or a muscle relaxant, because they needed to continue to check the head scans, and to make sure he was not going to have to go for surgery. After about eight hours, when things became more "stable," and the necessity for surgery on anything was finally ruled out, the pain meds increased, and with the muscle relaxant, the spasms eased up a bit, and he could doze for a few minutes at a time. The night was long, one of the longest I have ever endured on anyone's behalf. How helpless you feel to watch someone you love so very much in so much pain, and not be able to do one damn thing to ease even a moment of it. Keeping vigil was all we could do, my sister, his girlfriend and I. I sent my son home, and my big brother went home for a few hours , and we stayed until after 5 am. We went to my sister's house and got two hours of sleep and a cup of coffee and then went back to spend the day, each taking our own turn with being strong or breaking down. Just out of nowhere, tears would begin to leak, then pour, out of one of us, and an hour later, it was someone else's turn. My brother was brave, and stoic, and good. He never rated his pain, his terrible terrible pain, higher than a 4 on the nurse's scale, and when I questioned that, he responded that his pain was nothing compared to someone who might have 3rd degree burns all over their body, or someone who had lost an arm or a leg. The nurses learned to interpret HIS "4"'s equal to someone else's "7"'s, God bless them.

     Wednesday, Thursday, Friday - fitted for a body brace to keep his spine stable, ambulance C-collar exchanged for a more sturdy and comfortable (?) hospital C-collar, out of bed, sitting in a chair, walking, using a cane, managing the headache - Saturday - discharge to home. From 2:30 Tuesday accident time to 2:30 in the afternoon on Saturday, he was whole, broken, fixed, and sent home, a living, breathing, walking miracle. I'm so glad. I kinda like my big brother. Who am I kidding? I really love my big brother a lot. My family is awesome.
   There's another miracle, a big one, involved in his initial "rescue" from the woods. I'll post that story soon, too. Another story for another day.

Lunchtime

2011-05-04T13:10:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, when you're feeling sad, for lots of reasons and for no good reason, the best thing you can do is eat a bowl of pasta slathered in basil pesto for lunch. It can make you happy, for a few minutes, at least. If I could only take two foods to a desert island with me, it would be pesto and chocolate. (If I could only take one, so long, pesto...)

http://icookpasta.com/2007/08/31/presto-pasta-al-pesto/

Hi. My Name is Laurie and I am an Adrenalin Junky!

2011-04-24T15:06:00.001-04:00

So I went on my first ambulance call today. Finally. And it was a good one to go on, to cut my teeth on, because it was a one-car, no injury, sign-off accident, which means the driver in the accident said there was nothing wrong and he did NOT need ambulance transport, (and he was right) so the EMT in charge took his vitals, checked him over while I filled out the PCR form (Pre-Hospital Care form) - and I was soooo nervous that I filled half of it out wrong, the other EMT was telling me some of what to put in, and I didn't have my reading glasses with me so I couldn't SEE half the form (but there was an extra pair of reading glasses kept on the ambulance - cool! )
All in all, it was a VERY calm situation, both EMT's were VERY calm and good, and helped me a ton, and I did ok. Not great, by any means, but ok. And, I found out something I have been very unsure of for the past 4 months: I AM an adrenalin junky! I guess that is going to be something very much in my favor, if I manage to pass the tests, both written and practical.
I STILL can't say I am glad I stuck with it, because I still have about another month to go, and I'm sick to death of classes, sick of studying, sick of doing labs, and, now, TERRIFIED that I will, after all these months, fail the tests, which would make this a HUGE waste of time, but... there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it is growing brighter with each passing week, we are getting closer to done, and I DID stick with it. Not to toot my own horn, because that's really not me, ever, but it is hard to ignore the difficulties that I have endured the past few months WHILE trying to complete this monumental task. I know everyone has their own issues, many of which we simply don't see and never know about, but it is hard NOT to think, upon some reflection, that my row to hoe these past few months might have been one of the more difficult ones of people in my class. I'm not trying to minimize anyone else's accomplishment in finishing this class - 172+ hours of class and lab and clinical time is a huge accomplishment, and a very selfless one, for ANYONE to volunteer to undertake. There is a high school girl in there. God bless her - that's a ton of work when you are only 18 years old. . There are people in there, most of the people, juggling full time jobs and families. The other half of the class is made up of college students. While I personally think theirs might be the easiest of everyone's, I also know it probably isn't. SOME of them are in pre-med, and I know Organic Chemistry has been a tough class for them to get through this semester. Overall, I know it doesn't matter for whom this class has been the biggest challenge. I do know it has been, legitimately, far more of a challenge for me to complete than I ever thought, in January, it would be, simply because I had no idea what else would land on my plate these last few months. I just need to know I have done well, done my best, despite it all. I NEED to feel good about this, because it is worth feeling good about, not minimizing. My biggest hope, at this point in time, is that I can manage to make the time I need to study hard, and deep, and well, and that I will pass. I would really like to be an EMT. There, I said it out loud. Now, if I fail, no, wait... no negative thinking allowed. I will NOT fail.
I would LIKE to be an EMT, and god-willing, in another month, I will know if that is to be.

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T09:49:00.000-04:00

Favorite Easter Book

2011-04-22T20:23:00.000-04:00

This book was one of my very, very, very favorites from when I was little. The illustrations in it, when I look at them now, are like looking at them yesterday, like being 5 years old again, yesterday.

This was, I think, my favorite illustration, the rooms full of all different kinds of eggs. It was a double spread, but I could not find a picture that included both pages.

The egg Mother Rabbit is holding in her hand is like
the one in the picture below. I remember we had one like
that at home when I was little too. It had yellow frosted
trim on the outside, instead of pink like this one.
You could look inside to a scene, of what I don't remember.
But every time I read this book, I remember that egg. It
used to sit in our cupboard above our stove, wrapped
in a plastic baggy, all year round, only taken out at Easter time.

And I remember the beautiful pink of the sky in this, and from the next illustration, and distinctly I recall the buds on the trees.

   Yesterday, the day before our four day Easter break, I pulled the book off my desk shelf at school and was feeling sad because I didn't have anyone to read it to this year. I totally would have read it to my 5th graders, but we are in the middle of a unit on Fairy Tales and are only a week away from State testing, so I really couldn't justify it, even to myself...
   ANYWAY, I still had a class with 4 second graders to come, and what I normally do with them is follow a scripted phonics program for 42 minutes in that teacher's classroom. But yesterday, their teacher was in meetings and had a sub, and a terrible student teacher, and it is pretty chaotic in there anyway, so I made an executive decision. I pulled my 4 kids out, went back to my room across the hall, sat on the carpet and read The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes to them, and then we colored pictures of Easter eggs WE would deliver. I justified it by the realization that, three of the four of them are smart enough to get the new lesson I skipped in ten seconds, and the other one wouldn't get it if I spent ten class periods on it, so...it was a wash. And I got to share my favorite book, and hoped that someday, maybe those kids would see that book at Easter time as adults, and remember the story and the illustrations and be glad that someone read it to them when THEY were little.

http://www.rookno17.com/

And, as an added bonus, while I was looking for pictures of and from this book on google,
I ran across this blog where the woman made these cool little cupcakes to go along with the book.
I won't be doing that THIS Easter, but it is a neat idea I would love to do next year. The shoes come from a chocolate mold, are chocolate, and just covered with gold luster dust. Even I could handle that, I think!

Good Friday

2011-04-22T15:31:00.003-04:00

copied from http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Articles-on-Christian-Science/2011/0422/Good-Friday-a-time-of-trust-and-blessing

I just really liked this, thought it was worth reposting, and is something I will want to keep to reflect back on this time of year in other years

Good Friday: a time of trust and blessing

I don’t know about you, but if I knew someone was planning to betray me and that others planned to murder me – and soon – I’d be inclined to get out of town by the fastest possible means. On the day that has since been designated Good Friday, Christ Jesus knew that betrayal and death were coming his way.

But he didn’t run out of town. Instead, he went to the garden of Gethsemane and prayed. In doing this, he was presenting a totally different model for human life and hopes. His model is described in this passage from Matthew’s account of Jesus’ prayer that night: “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (26:39).

Jesus had spent three years healing people with all kinds of diseases and verbally sparring with Jewish officials who didn’t especially appreciate his ministry. He had even raised people from death. Now he was facing the final examination of all he had stood for and all that he wanted humanity to perceive about God’s love and power. The crucifixion at first looked as if he had failed. Many of his disciples were terrified and went into hiding.

But hatred symbolized by the crucifixion didn’t have the final word.

Buried by grieving followers, Jesus was free of the tomb three days later.

This is a message that bears repeating in a world where sorrow, sickness, dishonesty, and hatred seem to have full sway in so many places. So often Good Friday is seen as a day commemorating sorrow only. But there is a profound reason for remembering its spiritual message of ultimate hope.

Through his willingness to yield his own will to the will of God, which is always good, Jesus shined a light on the divine power and authority he had already proved in his healing work. He was ready to stake his life on God’s ability to save. Despite the hate that was directed at him so much of the time, and despite any fear he may have felt as the hour of reckoning drew nearer, he was ready to prove that Love was the master of hate. And his success showed that trust in God’s goodness, in the inevitable triumph of divine law, was not in vain.

By Rosalie E. Dunbar, News editor for the Christian Science magazines / April 22, 2011

"Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?"

2011-04-21T16:53:00.002-04:00

The Dead Sea Scrolls:
And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the Chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Buddha:
If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature.

Albert Camus:
It doesn't matter; the chicken's actions have no meaning except to him.

Darwin:
Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically predisposed to cross roads

Emily Dickinson:
Because it could not stop for death.

Freud:
The fact that you thought that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

Grandpa:
In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken had crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

Ernest Hemingway:
To die. In the rain.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:
I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

Dr. Seuss:
Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad?
Yes the chicken crossed the road,
but why he crossed, I've not been told!

And my favorite?
Colonel Sanders:
I missed one?

Astrological Chickens

Zodiacal Influence on Chicken Crossing Behaviour

PISCES (February 19 to March 20):

Pisces chickens are dreamy and sensitive. They are blessed with deep intuition and a wealth of emotion. Pisces are romantic, creative and full of love with a potential for great happiness and lasting joy. Their imagination is so strong that it frequently merges with fantasy. They usually cross because they had a vision telling them that this is the means to the happiness they are striving to achieve.

Two weeks ago tomorrow, while my dad was undergoing surgery and I was waiting for hours on end in the hospital waiting room, my friend and "roomie" from school, was sending me random chicken jokes via text messages (clearly neither of us are SOMETIMES very focused on our work, but it makes for better days, believe me! In our defense, she said she missed me that day....) I was reading her texts and chuckling away, but BURST OUT LAUGHING when she sent me the above horoscope for my chickens, which she prefaced by stating, accurately enough, that she bet I had never thought about what my chickens' horoscope said about them.... and you know, she was right. I had never given it a thought. But found it VERY funny to think about my chickens HAVING a horoscope. AND, she picked the accurate sign under which they were born. Now THAT"S a true friend, someone who remembers your chickens' birthday.
All jokes and horoscope taken from:
http://www.weirdity.com/jokes/chicken.shtml

Spring Break

2011-04-18T09:43:00.000-04:00

Are you kidding me? I just spent a delightful, wonderful hour, sipping coffee, typing up my "spring break." I wanted to correct an out-of-place apostrophe, hit "backspace" and my ENTIRE POST was deleted. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

You'd Never Know Now My Dad Was the Son of a Very Strict English Minister!

2011-04-15T17:01:00.001-04:00

So apparently the alphabet game has a new twist added to it when you are 90 years old, and partially senile. It goes like this. My sister writes down each letter of the alphabet on a notebook sheet of paper, and, in an attempt to help occupy our dad during his most recent recovery time in the hospital, says, "Name a food that starts with each letter of the alphabet." Blank look from dad. "Like, this, " she says, "A. Apple. Your turn. Name a food that starts with B."
Dad: "Sonofabitch."
Sister, laughing, "No dad, that starts with S. You need to use a B word."
Dad, "Bitch."
Good thing we didn't state the category as "Curse Words."

Why Yes, I WOULD Like Some Whine with my Pneumonia...

2011-04-02T13:28:00.000-04:00

I am just running out of energy. I feel like I am hanging off a ledge and just barely holding on by my fingernails. I
also feel like I have no right to complain or feel bad, but by denying myself even that, I feel worse. Maybe it's ok to whine JUST a little, to wallow JUST a little, and then to go back to being strong and positive again?
It's been a really long month or so, it seems; a really long winter. If I just had more energy to deal with it all, it'd be fine, but since I am so prone to debilitating anxiety, not doing, not being able to Do, just adds MORE stress.
Thinking and worrying are my two worst enemies. Doing is positive, and I'm too stressed and too sick at the moment to DO anything.
A couple weeks ago was my brother's severe life-threatening accident, which I have tried to write about, and have not yet been able to. With lack of sleep and stress that week, I came down with a terrible, terrible cold. No real big deal, but I haven't been able to pull it back together, health wise, mentally OR physically, since then. I don't know why.
Last Friday, I took my dad to Rochester for a pre-surgery appointment. It went well, but apparently was also more stressful when all was said and done than I had anticipated, and I got sicker, MUCH sicker, last weekend. So I started out this past week down on energy. I went to EMT class Tuesday night, but felt really crappy. By Thursday morning, after getting dressed for school and then sitting on the couch and crying for a few minutes because I just felt SO BAD, I realized, "Oh, you know? If you feel this bad, maybe you should make a doctor's appointment." That was sort of a revelation, since I don't often go to, or think of, the dr. So, after school I did, only to find that I have pneumonia. Again. I'm not unfamiliar with it, being prone to it, but haven't had it in a couple of years. I tried to get a chest xray and bloodwork done right after, only to find the lab already closed, and by yesterday, I was just too sick to get up off the couch and drive myself there, so I skipped that. I hope it doesn't really matter. I also skipped class on Thursday night.
Now, I'm just totally stressing over school work that I am waaaay behind on, the EMT class work which is SO draining to me - twice a week, four hours each - which is part of why I am SO far behind in my lesson plans and correcting, and probably why I am not getting any healthier.
In addition, my house is not only a mess, but dirty as well. 19 chickens in the bathroom who need to be moved to the barn, but I've been too sick and too busy to put the coop back up in the barn. The carpets all need to be not only thoroughly vacuumed but steam clea
ned, and I simply have no energy to even contemplate that. The entire house is a disaster. And in another week or so, I don't even remember when, my oldest is coming home from college with 4 of his friends for a night on their way to somewhere else, and I can't imagine letting ANYONE in this house right now. I would die of embarrassment. But how, and when, will I POSSIBLY find time to get it clean again?
My dad goes in for surgery this coming Friday, so normal routine gets turned upside down yet again.
Usually I can figure out how to slow things down, make choices, drop things, fix things. Right now, I don't know how to do that. Common sense tells me to drop the EMT class, since that is the most stressful thing on my plate right now. And honestly, I'd LOVE to, since I can imagine the relief it would bring me, almost instantly. But I only have til mid May until I'm done. Should I have put in this much time already, and drop it now? Seems a waste. But I don't know what else I can do. I can't drop teaching - and grades are due no matter what else in my life is going on. The parents of my students don't want to hear hear about MY life for the past month or two - they just want me to do my job. I'd like to do it, too.
I can't NOT be with my dad for his surgery and after care time in the hospital. That would leave my sister all alone with that, and that's not fair. At least I have the week off - for her, it's the week before her break.
I'd hire a cleaning person, except I don't know any, I can't afford one, and my house is seriously too messy and too dirty to even allow a cleaning person in. And the chickens? I don't even KNOW what to do with them, but they can't stay in my bathroom much longer. I KNOW that's part of what is making my house smell, in addition to the carpets needing to be scrubbed.
I can hope, and assume, that I will feel better from the pneumonia, after another few days of antibiotics, but meanwhile, grades are due Tuesday, I need lesson plans for Monday, the State ELA tests are coming up, I'm behind on my EMT stuff and feeling too crappy and sick and tired to take in any more information anyway.
I just don't quite know what to do. I'm hoping a small amount of feeling sorry for myself today will be the kick in the butt I need to see things more clearly tomorrow. Othewise, I just don't know what to do.
June is my salvation, but June is just too far away to be of any use right now.

My Dad Makes Me Laugh

2011-03-27T14:04:00.000-04:00

My dad on his 90th birthday back in February

On Friday, I picked my dad up at the nursing home to take him to Rochester for a cardiologists appointment. He needs to have major surgery on a cancerous growth growing on his left ear which is very painful, and growing very fast. He needed clearance from the heart doctor, due to his heart issues (attacks, stents, pulmonary hypertension, etc.) before the dermatologist would administer anesthesia. It's a 4-6 hour surgery. We're not really worried about the surgery itself, well, speaking for myself, I'M not, because there is no other choice. He CAN'T live any quality life with a hideous, huge, painful growth on and in his ear, and he is 90, and has fairly advanced dementia, and nothing would make him happier than to be with my mom in heaven, so... either way, whatever the outcome, I know we are doing what is best for my dad.

I was worried about driving him to Rochester Friday, though, because the only vehicle I had available TO drive that day was his car, he beloved Honda Accura. My dad has "car issues." In his dementia, he constantly asks about where his car is, where he left his car keys. He is always telling the nurses and aides he is leaving, that he is going to drive home in his car. After my mom died, my dad used to "take a ride," as he called it, every day, often more than once a day. He would just ride and ride and ride. Occasionally he would get a little confused about where he would end up, or he would get going, only to realize he had left the tea kettle on, and turn around and come home. Near the end of his driving time, he made some very poor decisions based on his attachment to his car, and that one thing, above all others, has stayed with him. So consequently, my sister and I were pretty nervous about me driving him to Rochester in his own car that he hasn't seen in over a year. Other options were tossed out and explored - should my sister drive down from Rochester and pick him up in her car? That seemed ridiculous to make two full trips, so I threw that out. I considered borrowing a friend's car, but most of my friends have Jeeps or trucks that would be difficult for him to get in. I even looked up and considered renting a car for the day, for $65.00, but in my frugalness, decided that was a waste of money too. So, I decided to gamble, and if he asked, I was simply going to say I was driving him to his appointment in his car - and leave it at that.

Imagine my flabbergasted, jaw dropping surprise, when, 40 minutes into our trip, my dad says, "I don't think I've ever ridden in this car before. Where did you get it?" Seriously? Wow. Totally unexpected. And not being a super fast thinker on my feet, all I could come up with was the lie that it was one of my husband's cars from work. He doesn't HAVE any cars from work, at his job. But, it seemed to do the trick. He told me it was pretty nice, rode nice, was nice and quiet, and that was that. Wow. I think my sister and I decided we seriously overthink things too much these days.

And before I left that morning, as my son was on his way to school, he was giving me a litany of precautions: "Be careful driving in the city. Be careful driving the Accura - the roads aren't great..." etc etc. And at the very end he said, "And remember, Don't let Grandpa Drive the Car." All I could think of was the book title, Don't let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.

Should I write a book of my own, called Don't let Granpda Drive the Car? I bet it would be a best seller!

After the appointment, on the way home, as we were driving down the expressway, I passed a car that had a bumpersticker on its trunk. I saw it, but didn't think my dad had. It was quiet for afew minutes,and I had quickly turned my thoughts to other things, and then my dad said, "That is a funny word to have on a car trunk." Without really thinking, I said, "What word, dad?" and he replied, "Fuck." It is, indeed, the word that was on the car trunk, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine my dad would SAY it out loud. And he gave no idication that he knew what it meant, or even that it might have been a not-so-nice word to say. It gave me a quiet little chuckle, that my father, who never said a bad word in his life, could have lost enough restraint to blurt that out, unknowingly. Kind of reminded me of when my youngest child, who was then three year old came wandering out of her playhouse saying that same word at that top of her lungs, having no idea that it wasn't a word for polite company. I washed her mouth out anyway. Should I have offered my dad some soap, I wonder?

Some days, it's all you can do to find the humor where you can, and savor it!

My Friend Jen

2011-03-12T14:51:00.000-05:00

"A circle is round

It has no end

That's how long

I will be your friend"

Sometimes in life, we get really lucky. I grew up in a small town, only a few miles from where I live now, and went to a small school. There were only about 50 kids in my graduating class, and high school, though ok, was NOT the best time of my life. I was not super popular, and had the normal trouble trying to feel like I fit in. I know, now, from this vantage point in life, that I was certainly not the only one. It's pretty normal to feel the way I did, and the kids who sail through high school are often the ones for whom high school IS the pinnacle of life. When I graduated from highschool, oh so many years ago, I felt that I really didn't care too much about staying in touch, or seeing most of my classmates ever again. There were a few exceptions to that, and my friend Jen was one of those. We even shared an apartment together for awhile at the end of college, and that was one of the best times in my life. I loved our little apartment (a pig barn turned into apartment, including low ceilings and dark, handhewed beams, and a bathtub/shower too tall with the low ceiling to stand up in properly) and I loved having Jen as my room-mate. (The BEST memory of those months together were the weekly trips to Friendly's, where, because I was so not worried about my weight back then, I only ever ordered the gigantic Reeces peanut butter sundae. THOSE were the days!)

Over the years, life happened. Jen got married, I got married. Jen had a son in Januray; I had one in May. She lived in the same town where we grew up, I moved ten miles down the road. Our little guys were pretty good friends for a few years. Another mental snapshot that is one of my favorite's is a Halloween parade at our old school, with Spenser as Santa Claus, and Keenan right next to him as a penguin. That photo still warms my heart. Then,life continued to happen. Jen got divorced, moved about half an hour away, met new people, got remarried, had another child, and we stayed friends, stayed in touch, just not as close.

Then, Jen moved three hours away, and we really kind of fell out of touch, although I knew where she was. But it was hard to stay as close when her kids and mine were growing up apart, and our lives didn't really intersect at all. I missed her. I just didn't know how much I missed her until she - hooray - moved back home again. Well, back to the town that was half an hour away, but compared to three hours, that's "back home." When she returned, I was happy, but not necessarily hopeful that we would be as close again. I'm not always great at putting in the time necessary to keep friendships strong, much to my sorrow. But life had happened to both of us, and suddenly, she was close again, not only in physical proximity, but in-touch close.It was probably the first time in both our lives that we had SO MUCH in common. How does that happen, I wonder? That's when I realized, I think, how very much I had missed her the years she was away, and how much you DO need some people to remain in your life, always. There's something so good about realizing that you have a shared history with someone. That your parents know each other, that you lived in the same town, played in the same creek, explored the same woods, had the same elementary teachers, know the same stories about kids you went to school with. It makes me happy beyond explanation that I still have in my life a friend whom I have literally known since before I attended kindergarten. That's nearly half a century of being friends. And the stories from growing up we share are just amazing stories - miles and miles of bike rides, farm days bringing the cows in and drinking milkshakes from cans, eating Zots, endless, endless summers.

Now, Jen STILL lives about half an hour away from me, but I had never made the trip to see her new old house that they are remodeling. We stay in touch through phone calls, occasional trips to do something together, emails and facebook messages. Her job brings her to my school, occasionally, and my job takes me to her school sometimes. I don't know WHY I hadn't made the trip - she has goats. That, in itself, should have taken me over there sooner. I guess because life is just, well, you know, happening. There never seems to be a lot of free time, and when I have some, I just don't MAKE the time to go anywhere. Too bad, really, and something I need and want to change.

Because of a cool craft idea Jen has (she's an amazingly talented artist and a crafty person, and I admire and envy that part of her personality), she got three of us (also two other people we went to school with - thank you, Facebook)) together with her at her house to show us and talk about this idea. SO, finally forcing myself outside of my social phobia small comfort circle, I went. And I can't tell you how glad I am that I did. Did I mention that Jen has GOATS? :)

Not only does she have goats, but she lives in the best. place. ever. I am SO envious. She lives down a dirt road, with pine trees on both sides, out in the middle of nowhere. She has a pine-lined driveway, that winds up to the house, which is like this big old barn on the outside, and just super cool on the inside. I LOVE the house. I LOVE the location. I LOVE Jen's goats. I LOVED Jen's driveway that actually winds on up PAST the house, past the barn, and wanders off into the woods, woods that just call out to be walked through. (Hmm, how many times has Jen told me that, and asked me to come over and walk with her?) Little tiny white Christmas lights are hanging from the pines along the drive, and in the barn, and make the whole place just look like a fairyland. If I were artsy at all, I would have thought of that, but, of course, I never would have. It's gorgeous and magical.

And we had pizza that night that was literally the best pizza I have ever eaten. I've never had a pizza that tasted so fresh and perfect. It didn't have sauce on it, just an oil mixture. And fresh tomatoes, and spinach and olives and sliced whole mozzarella. Oh my gosh, it was soooo good. And I split a bottle ofgood red wine with one of my friends, a couple of glasses to go with the pizza.

Sometimes, things just all collide to be the perfect time, and that night at Jen's was. It just makes me extremely glad, and super thankful, that I have been lucky enough to have Jen in my life all these years. I'm glad she came back. I'm glad we've grown over the years. I'm glad I know she will always be a part of my life. She's one of those friends you can go weeks without talking to, but then pick up the phone and continue on with the conversation as though you had just set it down to take an apple pie out of the oven a minute or two ago... or had to run out and feed the goats....

Jen keeps me grounded. I know her well enough to seriously envy parts of her life, and yet, to realize that it isn't all magical fairy lights and adorable goats. We have a shared past, and future plans as well. Some of those are to go do some fun things together, and some of those, at least from my end, involve nothing more strenuous than feeding goats, walking through the woods, and making more pizzas.

Sometimes in life, we just get lucky. I'm lucky to have had Jen in my life, my whole life.

"Make new friends

But keep the old

One is silver

And one is gold."

Waiting Faithfully

2011-03-02T20:20:00.000-05:00

I HAVE BABIES!!!!

2011-03-01T12:48:00.000-05:00

Last night two eggs were pipped, and I wanted to stay up and watch, but I was afraid it would be a lot like human labor... many hours worth of worried waiting, so I went to bed. Good thing I did. I got up (LATE) at 7:20 this morning, and rushed downstairs (priorities, you know) to check on the eggs, and there were still no babies. Thank GOODNESS I didn't stay up! But the holes were bigger, I could hear peeping, and I could see the egg tooth coming and going through some of the holes, and there were more holes in more eggs. I was SO excited! I definitely did not want to come to work. But... staying home to watch chickens hatch probably doesn't merit missing a day of work (well, ok, let's be truthful - if I had a "desk job" type of job where I didn't have to spend several hours writing tedious sub plans, and if my "sick days" weren't in need of constantly being rationed, I totally WOULD have stayed home today...)

So I rushed home at lunch, an hour ago, as soon as my morning classes were done, and found two adorable black, sticky wet babies flopping around the incubator. I am SO SO psyched. What an unbelievable "high" witnessing this new life is. I don't care if I AM the dorkiest person around. I am just so thrilled that three weeks ago these were eggs, just plain eggs that anyone could have cracked open and scrambled up for breakfast, but instead, just a mere 21 days later ON.THE. DOT., I have baby chickens.

What a miracle this is. Wow. And there were five more pipped, too, so IF all goes well, I will have been able to hatch out at least 7. I have 43 eggs in the incubator, and I know from candling some of them that not all were fertile. And some I couldn't candle because the shells were too dark. But three days ago, I was afraid this wasn't going to happen at all, that none would hatch, terrified that I had inadvertently done something terribly wrong, and now, today, I'm on cloud 9.

Unfortunately, my motherinlaw took back her camera that I had been "borrowing," so my pictures, from MY camera, above, are really crummy, but at least I do have a documentation, however poor, that I was able to do this. I am so in love with baby chickens. Good thing I like the grown up version, too, or this wouldn't be quite as exciting! Wow, I'm excited.

I totally wish I had some little chicken cigars to hand out to people here! :)

Monday's the Day. I Hope.

2011-02-26T18:29:00.000-05:00

Look there, to the right of my (very messy) desk. Yes, that IS an incubator. A "Hova-bator," to be exact. My friend's dad, who got me started in chickens to begin with, loaned it to me last year, to see if I might want to try hatching some eggs. Last year, I was kind of afraid to, since I really knew nothing at all about incubating eggs, and there were no directions with it. Well, directions for that exact model of incubator were eventually found on line, and this year, on total impulse, I decided on my birthday weekend three weeks ago that I wanted to give it a try.

I was scrolling through Craig's List that Friday night, found some lady not too far away from me who had eggs for sale, made contact, and on that Sunday, my birthday, I drove 30 minutes away to make an egg purchase in the McDonald's parking lot. I felt a little bit "bad," - you know, handing a stranger in a jacked up, dirty black Jeep cash while she pulled four egg cartons out of the back hatch to slide clandestinely into my back seat. Yeah, I know - I doubt the FBI was watching, either, but hey, you never know. I DID give her 40 bucks in unmarked bills, two of them.

So, it is now the end of the three week incubation period. I'm in the three-day countown, the three day "before the hatch" time. I had to add water to bring up the humidity in the incubator today, rolled them for the last time, and am carefully watching and adjusting the temperature. But, I am TERRIFIED. I am so positively afraid that none of them will hatch, due to my inability to keep things perfect for three weeks. Actually, that's not true. I'm not afraid that they won't hatch. I'm afraid that they WILL hatch, a few, and that they will be deformed, or not be able to get all the way out of the shell and die, or be stuck to the shell because the humidity was wrong, or the temperature fluctuations will have really messed them up. I SO hope that's not the case.

Not gonna lie, I will be hugely disappointed if none of them hatch, to be sure. But I hope that if they DO hatch, that they will be well. My only other hatching/incubator experience was when I was in 6th grade. It didn't end well. Someone in my class brought in a goose or duck egg, or something, from their farm. My dad , at my request, quickly constructed a foam ice chest incubator, heated with a light bulb (how did he know how to do that, since that was way before the advent of the internet? I'm pretty sure we didn't just happen to have a book laying around our house entitled How to Make an Incubator. I mean, how did he know how to get it to the right heat? What wattage bulb That it needed humidity? Maybe there was something in our old encyclopedia? Hmmm. I had never really contemplated that big question til now. ) ANYWAY, it hatched. I was SO excited. It was wet and goopy and weak at first, cute, and really one of my first real experiences with a "miracle." One of the other 6th grade teachers told me it needed water, now that it had hatched. My dad had put wire on the bottom of the foam chest for the egg to sit on, and it had had water under it while the egg was incubating, and it had dried up, so I thought he meant to put more water there. I did. The duckling or gosling, whatever it was, was thirsty, tried to get a drink over the side of the wire, and got it's little head caught between the sharp wire side and the side of the foam chest, and drowned. I was devastated. I had witnessed the miracle of birth, and then killed it, the same day, in just a few short hours. We had a long-term substitute at that time, and I know it didn't help that I didn't like her anyway, but that day, she seemed particularly heartless. I don't know what she said, or didn't say, but I know she wasn't the least bit sympathetic. Pretty much all I remember was running to the girls bathroom down the hall and around the corner, and sobbing my little 6th grade heart out over the death of the innocent little goose baby. Soooooo, like I said, my only other experience with an incubator was definitely memorable, but not happy.

I'm hoping Monday brings a happy incubation experience.

If nothing happens at all, Tractor Supply gets in their fuzzy poultry babies on Monday as well.

Fingers crossed!

A Break is a Wonderful Thing

2011-02-21T16:58:00.001-05:00

Forgive the absence. Life has been CRAZY busy with the EMT course. That, for me, in the middle of the winter, is a good thing. I do well with being so busy that January and February are now almost done. The winter blues catch up to me at some point, always, but this year they lasted, oh about three days. That's all I had time for.
But this week, I have the week off, and it's perfect timing. I love February break so much better than Christmas break, because there's no Christmas to prepare for, no Christmas to clean up after. There's NOTHING going on, which I love, so it's a real break. My eldest has the same week off from college, too, so he's home. It's going to be a good week off. I still have EMT classes two nights this week, and I think Bramble and I are going to restart training lessons again on Wednesday night, but other than that, my days are my own. So far, I've been particularly thankful for:

being able to celebrate my dad's 90th birthday with him at the nursing home, with my sister, both brothers, my brother's girlfriend from New Hampshire, and three of my four kids. We brought dinner to him, and he ate an entire steak, a whole baked potato, fresh green beans, and two HUGE pieces of cake. I could not believe how much he ate. He seemed happy I think.
having found a phenominally good book to read throughout break. I have many lined up to read, but this one, The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, is one of those "can't put it down, keep sneaking back to read just one or two more pages" kind. I've never read anything by him before, and it's totally not in my usual repetoir, but I LOVE it.
ten inches of snow last night that was predicted, and that we DID get, that would have sent me to bed hoping and praying for a snow day today had it not been vacation, but that would not have resulted in a day off, so all the more reason to be thankful!
Irish chicken stew for dinner last night
sitting around in my cozy little living room this afternoon, watching a really stupid and funny movie with my all of my kids, and NO ONE is fighting
having a friend of my son's come, unasked, and plow out the driveway (not the first time he's done it this winter, but the first time I managed to get out there and give him some money for his kindness)
having time to crochet some on the afghans I started last winter (while watching movies with my kids this afternoon). That, to me, represents the ULTIMATE in "free time." I NEVER have free time enough to just sit and watch movies and crochet. Never. Well, last winter when I was sitting in the hospital rooms with my dad for many days, THEN I did. And I guess I should be grateful I haven't had THAT kind of time since then, but I DO love to crochet. It's just as the bottom of the list of free time activities (especially when I have a good book to read...cough cough, Pillars of the Earth,cough cough)
seed catalogs, CSA's, and summer gardening dreams...
time to blog again

It is winter, but it is nearing the end. Mornings are lighter earlier, dusk comes later now, I'm busy, healthy, happy. My chickens are laying up a storm, each of the 8 girls laying nearly every day (one of my "girls" just decided s/he is a rooster, after having owned her/him since last May.) And I don't have to face lesson plans, or teaching five periods in a row, for another 6 days. AWESOME. Life is ok right now. No, to be honest, life is good. Really good, despite the fact that it is still winter and that we have ten inches of new snow (grr, just a little!)

The Three Amigos

2011-02-07T13:28:00.000-05:00

Willow, Anvik, Moose

This is just a random picture from a few years back, when I still had Moose, and before Willow was getting old, and before Annie put on the weight she has now. I had checks with this picture on them for awhile, and it's just a picture that makes me smile. I don't know how anyone lives without dogs in their life.

Brain Stretch

2011-01-17T13:14:00.000-05:00

     So that small pile of three books there - a text, a workbook, and a little review "bible" = $126.00   Thank goodness the fire department pays for them, in return for being a volunteer EMT for them when you finish. I also had to have a physical, which was fine, except for the update needed to the tetanus shot (ugh), the first of three Hep B shots (THAT stuff burns like crazy going in, making the tetanus the LESS painful of the two shots, oddly enough) , and needing to go "give" some blood for the MMR titer, and if that is not current, then I need more of those as well. THAT sucks. (My 17 year old son, who I am taking the class with, sat in the doctors office worrying himself to death about maybe having to get a shot himself, and then finally announced to me that if he had to get one, he thought maybe he just would drop the class. I thought that rather ironic, that he would be willing to work to save someone's life, but NOT willing to get a tetanus shot??? Luckily for both of us, he didn't need any updates, and we're both still in the class.)
     First module test is tomorrow night, the first 5 chapters of that NYC phonebook-sized text on Emergency Care. It is not nearly as overwhelming at the moment as it seemed it would be the first night. I am "getting it," mostly, except for Chapter 4, The Human Body. Holy cow. What IS it about bone names: femur, tibia, fibula, radius, ulna that makes me unable to remember where they go in my body? Not only that, that's not the hard part. The thing I am TOTALLY not hanging onto yet, and need to by tomorrow night, is trying to use the terms to describe where an injury on a patient's body: midline, medial, lateral, bilateral mid-axillary, anterior, posterior, ventral, dorsal, superior, inferior, proximal, distal etc., etc.
     I think it is because it requires putting several pieces together at once: I have to remember if it is the front or back, upper or lower, and the name of it - and if I could just say it is on the inside of his upper left arm, that would be ok, but I have to take THAT knowledge, and then, mentally transfer it to it's proper names, and put them all together, like "it's a broken tibia on the anterior dorsal side, medial to the whatchamacallit." And for someone with ADD, that's a lot of steps to think out, and say, quickly and calmly. Hopefully, with practice, that will come. Either that, or I'm simply praying no one in my town EVER suffers a broken bone - only heart attacks and stomach pains.
Just kidding. Maybe. I'll see if I'm kidding AFTER tomorrow night's test!!

In the Night Kitchen

2011-01-12T15:09:00.000-05:00

For some reason, this title has stuck in my head. To my knowledge, I had never read the book before, though I am very familiar with other Maurice Sendak titles (such as the beloved Where the Wild Things Are). I picked it up to read the other day when I was in a book store, and it is a REALLY dumb book. It is just about a little boy who falls asleep and dreams that he falls through the floor into the kitchen, and falls into the cook's dough batter, and the cooks think he is their milk. Dumb. But nonetheless, the title rolls around through my head every single night, as I stand in MY kitchen, in the night. Thus, In the Night Kitchen, MY night kitchen, I guess.

I go to bed around 9, and fall asleep by between 9:30 and 10, at the latest, every night. By 11:30, Bramble barks to let me know she needs to go out. So, I hop out of bed, stumble downstairs, and let her out the kitchen door. And then, I must wait for her to go do whatever it is she needs to do. I ASSUME she needs to water the grass (or snow, whatever the season's ground covering.) So, my choice is, either stand there, impatiently, and shivering, or... do something. Puritan work ethic pulls through for me, even in my sleepy state. I usually either fill up the coffeemaker, and get it ready for 6:50 am, or sometimes I will switch a load of laundry from washer to drier. Occasionally, I will open th dishwasher and unload the top rack. Or, sometimes, I will put away the pots and pans that have been washed, and are drying on the counter. Normally that one activity is enough time passed so that I can open the door, retrieve the dog with a whistle, and go back upstairs, crawl back into bed, and fall asleep again.

Always, she wakes me again, usually somewhere between 3:30 and 5, to go out again. This time, depending on whether it is closer to 3:30, or closer to 5, I am either TOTALLY out of it, or beginning to feel like I "could" stay up for the day (not that I ever would. 5 am? Are you KIDDING me?) I follow her downstairs, let her out again, and do SOMETHING to pass the time. I either unload the bottom rack, throw a load of clothes IN the washer, switch drier loads, or something else that catches my attention in the kitchen. Seldom is it anything too important, because I don't want to really wake up too much. The house is cold and dark at that time, except for the stove light I leave on because I know I will be up twice, and I don't really want to stumble around in the dark, tripping over the water bowls or stepping in the litter box. But if I just stood there, waiting, I'd freeze to death, and then it would be even harder to go back to sleep. I suppose I could put on a bathrobe and slippers, but that would really take too much cognitive function from me, and would seem too much like really having to get up. I'm not sure why filling and setting the coffee pot, or doing laundry loads in the middle of the night does not really seem like getting up, but I do know I AM grateful, at 7:15 when I come downstairs, dressed and semi-ready for the day, that I have hot coffee waiting for me.

Sure, I COULD set it before I went to bed at 9, but THEN what would I do in my night kitchen while waiting for the dog?

Last Year was Good- Maybe This Year Will be Better?

2011-01-08T11:23:00.000-05:00

I am not a fan of "memes" most of the time, but I saw this one on my niece's blog, and really liked it. It seemed to be a good way to organize my own reflections of last year, and thinking/planning for the new year, so I copied it from her: http://matthewandmeghan.blogspot.com/ SHE got it from here: http://www.sundrymourning.com/ so to be fair, I need to give credit to both. My version is long, so don't feel compelled to read it all the way through. It's helpful for me, to set my direction for the coming year.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?
Wow - um, nothing, maybe. THAT needs to be remedied immediately, so that I can't say the same thing next year at this time.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't think I really made any last year. At least I don't recall any, so either I didn't make them, or they were not successful enough to recall. I DEFINITELY have some for THIS year, though: 

lose the next 30 pounds
get more active (as opposed to now, where I literally do NOTHING more active than getting up and down from the chair by the heater in the living room! :) )
make goat's milk soap
***figure out how to be happier at my job and not hate it so much***
be more organized at home (this involves planning out meals, getting them cooked earlier, getting dishes done right away, a better system for laundry, grocery shopping, etc.)
get my Christmas shopping done earlier - I did a TON better this year, but there was still HUGE room for improvement
Send Christmas cards (I bought cards two years ago, got them out and signed some this year... next year, I'd like to actually SEND them?!)
Get my EMT certification
Start ONE on-line course toward my Vet Tech license, which I want to have completed by the time I retire in 7.5 years
camp overnight at least a COUPLE of times this coming summer
finish the chicken coop so it is unescapable and I won't lose any chickens to escaping/wandering dogs this year
get raised beds built, and a garden planted this year, instead of letting that slip through my fingers
get help opening the pool this summer from someone who actually knows how to do it right so that the kids can swim in it this summer if they choose
get our finances FIGURED OUT... please, GOD, let this be the year we get it under control...somehow
OK, so I don't think these are ALL my goals for the year, but there are enough there, and they are concrete enough, most of them, so that I can come back to them a year from now and measure how I did this coming year. Goals help. Lists help. Good exercise for me. Now I need to post these where I will see them so I don't forget any of them, too. And I might add to them, if I think of more later that I've forgotten. Whew. Hard work. Need more coffee!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Nope
4. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully, no. I would not have bet last winter/spring that that would be the case, so I'm grateful it was.
5. What countries did you visit?In my mind? Sweden, and Ireland/Scotland/Wales. In reality? None. Sigh.
6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?FINANCIAL. SECURITY. (Or at least a reasonable picture of how we might reach that sometime before I die... rather important, since we are struggling mightily now, and still have two more kids to put through college, the last two of whom will go when my second is still there, meaning there will be THREE tuitions to figure out how to pay, instead of the two we struggle with now. SIGH.
Oh, and I'd LOVE to be happier at my job, WITH my job.
7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?January - when my dad had his first heart attack, went to the hospital, and then ultimately moved into "assisted living," instead of living on his own in his own house. April, when he had to move into an actual nursing home instead of assisted living anymore. August - a conference in Cleveland, Ohio for three days and then immediately after a friend from far away visited. August 31st - first time ever in all my years of public school, as a student and a teacher, that I have had to go back to work WITH STUDENTS before Labor Day weekend. I was TRAUMATIZED, I tell you!
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Learning to be happy more often than not; learning to just let things go, to not sweat the small stuff. OH, and taking the first step to attempting to get finances under control, at long last.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Probably not being able to get our finances under control and to let worry about them rule my life for months on end. Still worrying. Really almost worried myself into that awful black hole again. It even penetrated my dreams with a recurring theme that is traceable to worry about money.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?No. My health is awesome. Thank the Lord. Even my sinuses are still holding out pretty well after surgery nearly two years ago. Not great, but not bad like before. Some colds, but hey, who doesn't catch those.
11. What was the best thing you bought?Without a doubt, chickens.
12. Where did most of your money go?College tuition, groceries, college tuition, car payments, college tuition, stuff for the kids, like lunch money, clothes, stuff at school, school fundraisers. Oh, and did I mention, college tuition for two kids?
13. What did you get really excited about?
SUMMER VACATION. I LOVE my summer's off, like most people could not possibly understand. It is like a reprieve from jail, sort of. It is all the things I love - quiet, warm, sunny mornings; time to spend at home with my dogs (instead of the guilt I feel hooking them out to their runs in the mornings, and not being home with them til after 3:00. I KNOW they're dogs, but I still feel guilty leaving them all day); all my kids home (though, yes, there are times when that is NOT exciting, but stressful, admittedly!), etc. etc. I don't know that my chickens EXCITE me, but they do make me feel very happy. And having work done on our land in the woods - trees cut down, driveway work being done - all on the barter system, all a few steps closer to being able to throw up a cabin over there for escape from town, THAT excited me! Probably some other things too, but in general, I am not a person to get "excited" by things - just fulfilled, and happy.
14. What song will always remind you of 2010?
"What do tigers dream of, when they take a little tiger snooze. Do they dream of mauling zebras, or Halle Berry in her catwoman suit. Don't you worry your pretty stripped head we're gonna get you back to Tyson and your cozy tiger bed. And they we're gonna find our bestfriend Doug and then we're gonna give him a bestfriend hug. Doug, Doug, Oh, Doug Douggie Douggie Doug Doug. But if he's been murdered by crystal meth tweekers, well then we're s-hit out of luck."
OK, so not technically a SONG-song, but it is from the movie THE HANGOVER, and my girls sang that song INCESSENTLY this past year. It cracks me up, every time. I've never even SEEN the movie, but the song, sung by my girls, makes me laugh, and just will represent last year for me every time I DO hear it.
15. Compared to this time last year, are you: – happier or sadder? Happier. A million times happier. No good reason, just am.
– thinner or fatter? Thinner. Yay! My niece, the nutritionist, helped me lose 20 pounds, and I am soon to start on the other 30. Now I KNOW I can do it!!
– richer or poorer? Well, I'm not any richer, but I'm not sure I COULD be any poorer. Well, yes, sure I could, for real, but I would say, really, probably just about the same.
16. What do you wish you’d done more of? 
Nap. Garden. Sort and get rid of stuff. Walk regularly with my Border Collie. Take on something new, like beekeeping. Camp. RELAX. Sew. Embroidery.
17. What do you wish you’d done less of? Waste time; let time get away from me. Spend so much time online, on the computer, aimlessly. Worry. Suffer from guilt over my dad. Talk.
18. How did you spend Christmas?
At our house, this year, first time ever. We normally go to my MIL's for Christmas Eve, dinner, gifts, etc., and she is no longer able to do that, so we had dinner here that evening. Christmas day was here, just our very own little family, no one else. Then my girls and I went to visit my dad in the nursing home where my sister and my nephew were also visiting.
19. What was your favorite TV program?Favorite program is ALWAYS Law and Order, SVU. Hands down.
20. What were your favorite books of the year?I read so, so, so much, that I could not possibly pick favorites. I have read so many books in the past year I don't even remember many of them. I have a few ALL-TIME favorite books, and I know nothing I read this year even began to compare to any of those, so can't really answer this one, I guess. I miss reading a book that just jumps out as an all-time best book -
21. What was your favorite music from this year? Girlyman. Concert in April was great. Always Girlyman! And Celtic Women at Christmas was pretty good too. Other than that, anything that is on Hits 1 on Sirius Radio that I listen to with my girls in the car becomes my temporary favorite at the time, simply because it reminds me of them, and of the times we've spent going places together in the car.
22. What were your favorite films of the year?Film? What's a film? That sounds very hoity-toity, cultured almost. God knows I have NO culture in me! OH - MOVIES. Hmmm, I don't watch movies. I did go see one by myself, and hated it. I don't even remember what it was. It was something about the afterlife, and had a huge tsunami in it, but it was awful. The only other movie I watched at all was Despicable Me, and that was pretty funny, so I guess that would have to be it, by default.
23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?I turned 47 on February 6th, and I have NO IDEA what I did for my birthday. Birthdays are not a big deal here for adults, and I totally wish they were. My mom always made me feel like my birthday was the most special day on earth, and so I always look forward to it, get excited by it, am really hopeful that it is going to be this awesome day, and then... reality sinks in, and I realize that it's really not all that big a deal anymore. Not at MY age!! But I wish it was. Maybe I should take control and choose something to do for my birthday myself that would make it fun, and meaningful. Hmmm. There's an idea to think about.
24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?If I did not have to pick up teaching 5th and 6th grade writing this year. If I could have stayed with JUST teaching reading, or better yet, just remedial, that would have made my JOB much more satisfying, and since my job is what causes me the most stress, that would have made my life much more satisfying. I AM going to ask to NOT teach both 5th AND 6th writing next year.
25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?My personal "fashion concept" can be described in one word: COMFORT. If it isn't comfortable, I won't wear it. And if it isn't blue jeans, sneakers, flip flops or boots, a tshirt, sweatshirt, or cotton, I won't wear it. This is fine for work, since khaki pants and all my shirts and sweaters are cotton, and are just "teacher clothes." Where this fails me is for the rare wedding, funeral or required dress-up, adult function. I simply do not own, and will not wear, clothes that are TRULY appropriate - I make do by trying to dress up what I have, but can never really pull it off because I just don't own, and won't buy, dress clothes. Don't own a single pair of heels, or a pair of pantyhose. I had to borrow clothes from my sister this summer for the fancy trip to Lake George.
26. What kept you sane?A close friend to talk to, my dogs, reading, writing, summer vacation, my chickens, my sister.
27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. 
RELY on family. Especially a sister if you are lucky enough to have one. Work together to make decisions so no one has to bear the brunt of decisions and their repercussions alone. If someone is down, bring them up. If you are down, allow someone you love to bring you up. This is life - we are all in it together. It is fragile, not to be taken for granted, and short. Live it to the fullest that you can. Appreciate every day. Take time for the small things. If something makes you happy, revel in it - flavored coffee, a special coffee mug, the last rose of the season on your windowsill, an awesome tshirt that you want, pretty smelling soap, tucking in your chickens at night, not fretting if there is a dog hair in your coffee, because it means you are lucky enough to have a dog in your house to love and who loves you beyond measure. LOVE LIFE.

In 2011, I RESOLVE to......

2010-12-31T21:06:00.002-05:00

THE FOLLOWING IS TAKEN FROM GRETCHEN RUBIN'S Blog, (she of The Happiness Project book) http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2010/12/5-questions-to-help-you-make-effective-new-years-resolutions.html

5 Questions To Help You Make Effective New Year's Resolutions.
Forty-four percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, and I know I always do. I’m more inclined to make resolutions than ever, in fact, because if my happiness project has convinced me of anything, it has convinced me that resolutions – made right – can make a huge difference in boosting happiness.

So how do you resolve well? This is trickier than it sounds. Here are some tips for making your resolutions as effective as possible. Remember, right now, you’re in the planning stage. Don’t feel like you have to do anything yet! Just start thinking about what would make 2011 a happier year.

1. Ask: “What would make me happier?” It might be having more of something good – more fun with friends, more time for a hobby. It might be less of something bad – less yelling at your kids, less nagging of your spouse. It might be fixing something that doesn’t feel right – more time spent volunteering, more time doing something to make someone else happier. Or maybe you need to get an atmosphere of growth in your life by learning something new. (These questions relate to the First Splendid Truth.)

2. Ask: “What is a concrete action that would bring about change?” One common problem is that people make abstract resolutions, which are hard to keep. “Be more optimistic,” “Find more joy in life,” “Enjoy now,” are resolutions that are hard to measure and therefore difficult to keep. Instead, look for a specific, measurable action. “Distract myself with fun music when I’m feeling gloomy,” “Watch at least one movie each week,” “Buy a lovely plant for my desk” are resolutions that will carry you toward those abstract goals.

3. Ask: “Am I a ‘yes’ resolver or a ‘no’ resolver?” Some people resent negative resolutions. They dislike hearing “don’t” or “stop” (even from themselves) or adding to their list of chores. If this describes you, try to find positive resolutions: “Take that dance class,” “Have lunch with a friend once a week.” Or maybe you respond well to “no.” I actually do better with "no" resolutions; this may be related to the abstainer/moderator split. A lot of my resolutions are aimed at getting me to stop doing something, or to do something I don’t really want to do -- such as Don't expect gold stars. There’s no right way to make a resolution, but it’s important to know what works for you. As always, the secret is to know your own nature.

4. Ask: “Am I starting small enough?” Many people make super-ambitious resolutions and then drop them, feeling defeated, before January is over. Start small! We tend to over-estimate what we can do over a short time and under-estimate what we can do over a long time, if we make consistent, small steps. If you’re going to resolve to start exercising (one of the most popular resolutions), don’t resolve to go to the gym for an hour every day before work. Start by going for a ten-minute walk at lunch or marching in place once a day during the commercial breaks in your favorite TV show. Little accomplishments provide energy for bigger challenges. Push yourself too hard and you may screech to a halt.

5. Ask: “How am I going to hold myself accountable?” Accountability is the secret to sticking to resolutions. That’s why groups like AA and Weight Watchers are effective. There are many ways to hold yourself accountable; for example, I keep my Resolutions Chart (if you’d like to see my chart, for inspiration, email me at gretchenrubin1 [at] gmail.com--don't forget the "1"). Accountability is why #2 is so important. If your resolution is too vague, it’s hard to measure whether you’ve been keeping it. A resolution to “Eat healthier” is harder to track than “Eat salad for lunch three times a week.”

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This is great food for thought for me, and something I have been thinking about since Wednesday when I read it the first time.I'm not a huge fan of New Years as a holiday, but I DO like to think about ways to "start over," or make things better, at least once a year. I take MAKING "resolutions" pretty seriously, and have been trying to decide how best to go about it this year. I think I have my goals down, pretty well. I'm not going to go huge, I don't think. For starters, these three top my list:

Figure out how to be happier at work and not hate my job so much that it makes me absolutely positively miserable
Lose the other 30 pounds by the end of June
Eat/cook more healthily/responsibly

But then, there are other things that are not as important, that I wonder if I SHOULD make goals for this year, things like make sure to build square foot garden forms and get garden planted this year; get my elderberry bushes ordered and planted this year, figure out how to work in SOME form of exercise/fitness that I can live with, make the "Courthouse Steps" quilt I've been thinking about, etc. etc.
I guess I'm not sure how far to go with resolutions - what should resolutions actually be? What are resolutions, what are just plans, what are hopes, what is wishful thinking? Are there any differences between them? Do I throw everything that means anything to me in the pot, or just focus ONLY on the first three I listed above? And that first one, "figure out how not to be miserable at work" - it is the most critical one for me, and the most abstract. That's the one I'm going to try to focus on for the rest of the weekend, so that when I return on Monday, I can at least begin with that. Beyond that, I'm just not really sure... I WISH I could resolve cool and fun things, like "Sleep in 4 days a week;" "adopt more chickens;" " simplify each room in my house," "teach the Border Collie to make my coffee in the morning," but... alas... I think I'm stuck with trying to figure out how to get from now until June without hating my life 7 hours a day, 5 days a week. Oh, I should probably throw in something about dealing with the financial issues in my life as well. Whew. I have a LOT of work to do in the next two days.
So, I'm curious. Do YOU make resolutions? Do you think a lot about them, or just make ones that seem to be quickly appropriate? Big ones? Small ones? Do you write them down? Look at them a lot? Check back on your progress?
I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do yet, but I know it's important to me to do some of these things. I made some really big changes in my life this past year, changes that have been so, so good for me, that have made me much happier. I want to keep that going, and to continue on that positive path. I'll resolve to check back in, soon, maybe at the end of the month, at the end of every month, to track my progress this year. THAT's the first step, I guess.
Happy New Year, whatever your resolutions are, or aren't!

The New Roo in Bethlehem

2010-12-30T19:48:00.000-05:00

Last year's Christmas present from my my oldest sits underneathe my computer on my desk at school, a molded plastic Border Collie and a couple of chickens and a set of chicks. They are more than a pleasant reminder of several of my deepest loves; they are also mildly entertaining, in that I sometimes actually move them around and play with them (especially when avoiding correcting papers and/or entering grades on line!)
The other chicken on the left, the rooster? He's not part of the group. He'll show up again, though.

Yeah, THAT rooster, the one who is now sitting in my tiny little Adirondack chair that usually holds my cell phone. He's some sort of porcelain or ceramic thing, which I purchased for $1.99 at Walmart. NOT to sit on my desk at school with my other crew - nope. They rejected him. Who needs a rooster, the hens both said.

But I thought our creche set needed a rooster. We have a lot of animals, the requisite goats, sheep, camels, and even a red cow, but I realized as I passed this little guy in the store that there surely must have been hens and roosters in the barn where Jesus was born. And, given my recent jump into the wonderful world of poultry, I felt I needed to add him this year. So I did. And I waited to see who else would notice. It wasn't too long before one of the kids did, and moved him here:

Apparently, a conversation with a goat was needed? Not sure what they were talking about, but I felt he was lonely for the manger, so I immediately moved him back. Where he was moved back to the goats again. It was a-war in a manger for a week, but then, baby Jesus came, the rooster crowed, the goats rejoiced, and all was well. He'll be packed away with the rest of the crew now, this week, to hang out and wait for next year. I'll pack him with the goats.

Nollaig Chridheil - Nollaig Shona (Merry Christmas!)

2010-12-24T09:43:00.000-05:00

I've kind of lost my big burst of "Christmas Spirit" the last few days, but it's ok. It's carried me through most of the season this year, and it's been a gift beyond measure. The three songs that have been my far and away favorites this year, this Christmas, are the three below. I love anything Celtic, and Celtic Women and Celtic Thunder are no exception. I think I like these two songs best because they are NOT traditional for us, but do speak to the thing that is most important to me - being "home" for Christmas. My children are all home and safe and loved, my dogs have a nice warm home and family who love them, my chickens will have fresh hay, food, water and corn in their "home" tonight - the concept of home is a lot of things to me, probably to us all, and it's not just about a building. I love that these first two songs are about a bigger "home," - the country, and town, and families that are there waiting for them to return. I love that they carry that concept of "home" in their hearts, wherever they are, and that home is calling to them at Christmas, like it does for all of us. Like the Manger in Bethlehem called to Mary and Joseph so many years ago.
And the Bing Crosby/David Bowie song - I have no real explanation for that, except that I just love the song. It's my all time favorite Christmas song ever, and I think it was pretty cool that when I turned the radio in the car to Christmas songs this year for the first time, the day after Thanksgiving, it was the very first song I heard. I always take things like that as a "sign," although of what I couldn't tell you!
And the Celtic Women version of Silent Night I added because it IS the traditional, classic, gorgeous Christmas song for all of us, world wide, I think, and I especially love the Celtic words. One of my goals this coming year is to finally begin to learn SOME Gaelic, because I think it is a beautiful and storied, romantic language. It just holds something very deep I for me that I can't explain.. Maybe next Christmas I will be able to say "Merry Christmas" in Gaelic without having to first look up the words!

Happy Christmas, Dad

2010-12-22T21:14:00.000-05:00

What changes a year, this year, have brought to your life, to our lives. We would, as a family, say that none of them have been good, all of them sad, but that's not true. At least this Christmas, I know now that you are getting your medicine regularly, daily, and none of us has to argue with you that you are not taking it when you believed you were. We are no longer making you angry on a daily basis. This Christmas, I know you are getting three meals a day, at least two of them hot and all of them well-balanced, even if you don't eat them all. You are not surviving anymore on peanut butter sandwiches, and Lean Cuisine frozen microwave meals. No more will you break my heart by eating a burger at
McDonalds sitting all by yourself - you are surrounded by people for your meals and your days. No longer do I have to worry about you driving and hurting yourself, or someone else, or getting lost and not being able to find your way home. No longer do I worry that something terrible might happen to you in the middle of the night, or the middle of the day, and you can't reach the phone and no one would know for far too long. I know that living in a nursing home is NOT how you would have wished this year, or any, to be for yourself. It is not how any of us would have wished it, either, Dad. I wanted nothing more than for you to come live with me, and let me take care of you as best as I could, but I also know that nothing was more important to you than holding on to your complete independence as long as you possibly could, and you did. Right up through the very end of last year. Beginning early last January, this year brought many changes, MOSTof them sad, but not all. Most of all, this Christmas, I still have you here on earth with me, and that is more important than ANY of the changes that come about from one winter to the next.
Merry Christmas, Dad. I love you.

And Bear Snores On

2010-12-14T19:00:00.000-05:00

You can sure tell it's December. All I want to do is hibernate, and no matter how much sleep I get, it doesn't ever seem to be enough. I was laying in bed last night, at, oh, about 8 o'clock, just before falling asleep, thinking about the nap I was going to take after school on the couch TODAY. How sad is that. And I was mad yesterday, because for the first time ever, I beat my daughter to the couch after school, and got the comfy blanket, AND the remote. SCORE!  (She's been in the habit of coming home after school for the past week or two and snuggling under the blanket on the couch, turning the TV to something RETARDED, like Spongebob,  or something on Disney. The girl is 15 for heaven's sake, not 5! and then falling asleep on top of the remote so no one can change the channel. I totally think the need for hibernation has befallen the household, not just me.)     So yesterday, I purposely beat her there, and since I had been sick most of Sunday, figured it was my due.  Being the nice mom I am, I did let her curl up with me, end to end, although my toes were cold while hers were covered, and I DID keep the remote. We both fell asleep, and I swear it wasn't more than five minutes before the phone rang. I ignored it. Then my cell rang, so I figured it must be important. I tried to make her get up and get it. No deal. I struggled out from the back side of the couch, answered the phone, and then went back to the couch - where she was sound asleep, stretched out, with the whole blanket. I gave up. So the girl got my couch, my blanket and my nap yesterday. Here it is 6:30 tonight and I'm already thinking constantly of bed. The first time I wondered if it was near enough time to go up to bed for tonight was an hour ago, about 5:30. I have TRIED to do school work, I'm behind on grades which are due Friday, and I have MUCH Christmas preparing still to do. We don't even have a tree yet. And I want to care about all of that, really I do. But instead, all I can think about is sleep. A warm bed, and sleep. It's cold here - at the moment it is 16, which is probably the high for today, since it started out about zero this morning. It's so cold I didn't let the chickens or the dogs out for the day. Well, I let the dogs out, but didn't leave them out today. I gave them the couches until 3:30...but I hid the remote so there would be no squabbling.
     And the other part of hibernation, the eating, the stocking up the personal larder, before hand? Thankfully (really? did I just say that?) a stomach bug is running rampant through school, and got me Sunday, so I have had little appetite for anything other than gingerale and oatmeal, or half a dry bagel. I guess I'm thankful that it didn't hit me as badly as it is getting the kids. They are flocking to the nurses office like animals for the ark, with garbage pails hugged closely to their little chests. It makes one nauseous just to watch the parade. I guess it is probably due to over-exposure to every little germ that means it is affecting most of the teachers a bit differently. Most of us have not had the vomiting that the kids have. What we HAVE suffered, I'll spare you the details, but it has been unpleasant and appetite-diminishing in it's own ways. I have lost several pounds since Sunday. And logged many more sleep hours. Not nearly as many as I crave, but more than seems remotely necessary in, say, July.
     It's now 6:57, and close enough to call it a night. I just have to go hit the pre-warmer on my electric blanket so that by 7, I can crawl in. Maybe I'll get up early tomorrow and work on my grades. Ha ha ha ha ha ha hahaha. Good night, all!

Gingerbread Men, Matchbox Cars, and M & M's

2010-12-07T20:20:00.000-05:00

     Last year, like many, many years before (too many - and this year is the DEFINITE, clear exception to too too many years), my overriding feelings before and about Christmas were akin to that of "The Grinch." As I mentioned, it isn't because I am not a religious or kind person. It is, in fact, because I simply feel too much pressure to "perform", and am SO afraid of disappointing people. I feel like I am the world's WORST gift giver, that everyone I give gifts to, especially my kids, will be secretly - or NOT so secretly - disappointed and think, "wow, she really sucks at knowing what I would like," even though every year I try REALLY hard to get it "just right." I also hate the HUGE expenditure of money, preferring instead the smaller, more meaningful aspects of the season: baking cookies and fudge, watching seasonal Christmas specials together (my favorite? "The Little Drummer Boy." I STILL cry when the donkey gets run over by the cart.), creating handmade or a specially selected gift that has meaning, not just money, behind it.
     I am not really sure where the biggest change of heart has come from this year, or whether it is maybe more a series of small things, but in thinking about it all, I remember clearly something from last year, that has carried over into this year, two things, really.
     About this time last year, I had posted on my Facebook page a status that was a quote directly from the movie, "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas":
"The avarice never ends! "I want golf clubs. I want diamonds. I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored and sell it to make glue." Look, I don't wanna make waves, but this *whole* Christmas season is (shouts) stupid, stupid, stupid! " It generated a lot of comments - people who shared my feelings, people who kidded me about not being in the Christmas spirit quite yet, etc. But the one comment that really resonated, for some odd reason, was one left by a former classmate from elementary and high school .He mentioned that he remembed that when we were in 5th grade, a matchbox car and a bag of M and M's made me pretty happy. Must have been a classroom gift exchange all those years ago, and for one thing, I was totally blown away to think he REMEMBERED giving me a Matchbox car all those years ago. Seriously, who remembers what you did when you were ten??? And, I was really warmed by the fact that he did remember that, and that he chose to share the gift of that memory with me. THAT sort of thing is what means a lot to me at Christmas...
So last year, late in the season , I bought a couple of Matchbox cars, and put them on my desk at school, to remind me of the simple things that mean the most to me, and to remind me of the gift of friendship that Mark and I still share, all these years later (hmm, 37 or 38 years later? Instead of making me feel old, I simply feel blessed that I have friendships that have endured so many years)   This year? To repay him for the gift of "saving Christmas" for me last year, and the daily reminder of his gift of friendship over this past year, I am sending him this:

Anonymously. To his school address (he is a teacher, too.) I think he will probably "get" it, but it feels fun to me to do that. I feel a little like an elf.

***********************************
In addition, last year, another friend from the past (I used to babysit for him, his little brother and baby sister, and I ADORED them - I spent SO much time at their house with them when they were growing up) sent me an email and mentioned that he had hung the gingerbread ornament that I made for him for Christmas the year he was 9 on his tree again this year.I had no idea what he was talking about, so he took a picture of it and sent it to me:

I have no recollection of having made or given him that, but I do remember my "ceramics phase," so clearly I did! I decided that since he is now married and has two little girls of his own, I'll send him a new "gingerbread man" ornament every year, also anonymously, also to HIS school, where he is a principal. I am pretty sure he won't "get it," wont know it's from me, although he might. I thought about putting his name on it with a permanent marker or something, but decided that would be too much of a giveaway, and since I want the ornaments to be for his whole family, I decided to leave it as it is. I've also decided that, after this year, I will make the ornament every year - felt, painted, whatever. This year, it was just sort of a spur of the moment idea when I saw this one, so...

It will have to do.

Both these things make me feel more giving, more lighthearted, more in the spirit of Christmas. Every year I seem to look hard for the real meaning of Christmas in little things. This year, two simple gifts from last year have carried me through the year, and on into the season this year. THOSE are the gifts that mean the most to me. This year, it's been easy.

Home

2010-12-04T21:29:00.000-05:00

" How is it we find our homes, that sometimes these are the places we are born to and at other times we need to search them out? How many times have I heard Alaskans say that when they first came to this state (or that mountain-rimmed town or that tucked-away rocky cove) they had the overwhelming sense that they had at last found their home? I suppose people say this elsewhere, too, perhaps everywhere, though I have a hard time imagining a person entering an eastern city and making this claim with the same heartfelt enthusiasm.
To me, this sense of homecoming has to do with making very elemental connections, with responding through our senses to something we realize on a visceral level- perhaps only from deep within our DNA. We come from somewhere else, but we recognize from some remote human memory, by that condition evolutionary biologists have come to call biophilia, the smell of budding cottonwood, the purple brilliance of firewood fields, the snorting of bears, even the deep silences and the dark of moonless nights: the constellation of sensory impressions that defines our true home. We recognize it and we want it - we need it. We need it more than we need what we're born to, the familiar, family. We may love our people, but we can't stay with them, not in a place that does not touch us on a deep enough level."
-Nancy Lord Fish Camp, Life on an Alaskan Shore

I read that last night, just before sleep, and all I could do was breathe an "Amen" into the darkness as I gratefully closed my eyes. Someone understands, someone more talented than I put beautiful words to my deepest feelings, words that I wish were my own. They're not, but I own the feelings. Those feelings above, those words about Alaska, about home, are MY deepest, most intimate, feelings. Someday.Last night, and every night from now on, I can sleep, knowing someone, somewhere, understands exactly how I feel.
Whereever you are at this time, in this season, I hope you are home. Truly home. And if, like me, you're not, yet, I hope you can make the best of where you are, until you can go home. And I hope home finds you soon. I know where mine is. I'm ok that I can't be there yet, but it waits for me. I know it does. ALaska, I'll be home soon. Please wait for me. Thanks.

All in a Days Work

2010-12-04T09:07:00.002-05:00

"Mrs. P, I think I might be going home early today."
"Really, Shane? Why?"
"Well, I either have fleas or lice. If it's lice, I haffta go home."

Don't Worry, Be Happy

2010-12-02T20:46:00.000-05:00

     I'm not quite sure what's going on, but I have been seriously HAPPY for ... hmmm, almost two solid weeks now. Weird. I don't know why. It's a little bit frightening to me. I'm not generally a "HAPPY" person. Happy enough, but not SO happy that people comment on it, and not SO happy that I actually stop to think about it. I tend to usually be a little bit on the "low" side. Not depressed, by any means, but just always a little low, a little tired, unmotivated, disinterested at times. Blah., Just blah. And, you have to understand, this time of year, especially, lest you think that is what is making me happy - THIS time of year, is normally cause for a major funk. Christmas is SO not my thing. I am usually so miserable at the mere mention of Christmas that I can barely function. I feel guilty even thinking about how much of a kill-joy I usually am at this time of year. I've managed to really ruin Christmas for everyone several years. So, what's up this year? I guess I haven't really had enough time to sit and analyze it yet, to get to the bottom of it, so in the meantime, it's just kind of freaking me out, but in a good way.
     Usually, this time of year, I"m looking for something, anything, to drag myself up out of my morose anti-Christmas pit (it's not Christmas itself I hate - it's the too much money spent, the over commercialism, the desperate fear that my gift choices will be all wrong, or that I won't have enough, that my kids will be disappointed, etc. etc. I just am so consumed by my fears of buying the wrong thing, or worse - forgetting too many things - Christmas, with all that needs to be done, bought, wrapped, baked, mailed, stocking-stuffed, remembered, is serious hell for someone with as serious a case of ADD as I have- is just not fun - it's hard, hard work for me, and so stressful...)ANYWAY...
     One of the things that I try to do that helps is to buy a new Christmas CD every year. I don't listen to music much anymore, Another long story for some other day, but I do still listen to Christmas music - either to try to be happier, or, in the case of this year, to extend the happiness on purpose. I've gotten lucky some years, have discovered some really good musicians and some really unique and beautiful Christmas music: Shawn Colvin, for one, and Nettwerk Christmas, Sara McLachlan, Bare Naked Ladies. Some, not so great. I picked up James Taylor's Christmas album a year or two ago, and HATE it. I used to love JT, but not so much anymore, I guess. (You know you're getting old when the music you like best is "old" music, or a musicians "old stuff." ) Last year, I "discovered" the Christmas music of "Straight, No Chaser" and that was fantastic. I shouldn't say "was" - I still love it, and will get it out soon. But today, I made an intentional purchase of a Christmas CD, and it did nothing but totally boost my already awesome mood, all the way home from a workshop I went to for school today: Celtic Woman: "A Christmas Celebration."

A couple of years ago, just by chance, I caught a Celtic Woman special , live on PBS, Christmas Eve evening, and it was just plain magical. It was at a castle, I think, and the lights, and their beautiful wispy scarves, their gorgeous dresses and their voices, their movements, everything, just sort of came together to be so ethereal, so beautiful. How I forgot about it, I have no idea, and why I happened to remember it, to remember their music, this year, I also have no idea. But I'm glad I did. Walmart. $10.00. I put it on in the truck today, and it is every bit as beautiful as it was live on TV. Worth every penny. It would make me happy if I were feeling miserable, I know it would. But since I am NOT miserable, since I am mysteriously, weirdly, boyantly HAPPY, it was even better. I can't wait to put it on at school tomorrow, on my computer, and make my roomie at work deliriously happy as well!! :)

I Fell in Love Friday

2010-11-28T22:17:00.000-05:00

Normally, when I get a chance to go to Starbucks, which is rare because of the distance from me ( 1 1/2 hours, any direction I choose), I get a Cinnamon Dolce Latte. But then, a few weeks back, I happened to check the number of calories in one of those, and holyschmoley, decided I wouldn't be getting those, however rare an occasion it might be..Granted, had I thought to order it with nonfat milk (or soy, which I prefer, though it has more calories) and remembered to tell them NOT to put whipped cream on it, I could have drastically reduced the calories, but the syrups are not sugar free, so I can't make it a no-calorie drink, there...) And my new love, discovered Friday, was definitely not sugar free either, but, that's the best part - I can now make them , easily, at home, sugar free (almost) and I can indulge myself to my heart's content!

I don't know what possessed me to order, or even ask my daughter about, a Chai Tea Latte, especially since I don't even really LIKE tea, and, I had no idea that Chai tea was spicy, which I love, but somehow, it just seemed like the right thing to order. And boy, am I glad I did. I LOVED it. I triple, superduper, ADORED it. Something about the flavors, the right kinds of spices, soy milk - hot. Yummmm. It will never replace coffee, any kind of coffee, as my favorite beverage, but as a low-cal, sugar free hot drink for the winter nights ahead, I'm SO glad I "discovered" this drink. Oh, wait, I got ahead of myself. How can I possibly drink this at home, and how can I make it sugar free, when there is no Starbucks near me? Because after my daughter realized how much I loved this drink, she told me about, and then bought me, this:

from Walmart! Sugar free. All I have to do is pour half a mug full, add soy milk to the other half, nuke it for a minute 30 seconds, and ta dah! Hot Chai Latte at home. And it's sooooo good. I'm in love.

I Really Want this Dog...

2010-11-23T20:35:00.000-05:00

...but I know I can't have him. Not only can I not add another dog to my family - I have 4 large dogs already - but they probably would not allow me to adopt him anyway, because like my other four, he would be hookd out to a run M-F from 8 am until 3 pm, and although my dogs have each other for companionship, ample runs which allow them to get plenty of exercise during the day, and sturdy, tight dog houses with small doors and fresh straw all winter long, I'm sure to someplace looking to adopt him out, that would not be deemed good enough.

Which is really too bad, because I know, deep in my heart, I could provide for this little guy pretty much everything he needs for his life. (Wait, I just looked it up, and it IS ok to be gone more than 4 hours IF you have another animal for companionship. How about 4 other dogs? Would that count? Maybe!)
The ad reads like this:

"WE ARE LOOKING FOR A SPECIAL HOME FOR MUTLEY!
MUTLEY: A 14 month old Border Collie, possibly Aussie m...ix, Mutley is the sweetest guy, super friendly and easy going. He is a doll and everyone who meets him, agrees...he is one very special boy. Mutley loves taking walks and loves to play with other dogs, too. An all around wonderful dog, he is need of a special home where someone is not gone many hours. Mutley has under-sized kidneys that mean he has to go outside often and while he is totally housetrained, he can't hold his urine for long stretches. He would do great with a doggie-door or with someone around since he gives the perfect cue to go out. Mutley has lived in one home since a puppy but now, both guardians work too long outside the home so are hoping he can find a new life better suited to his situation. They will provide $250 toward his medical care as well as his current meds which help his kidneys work better. Mutley's vet would also be happy to provide the medications to any new family and would be happy to explain his situation further. He will not have a long life since his kidneys are congenitally deformed but he sure could have a happy life with someone who is up for all the fun he has to offer! Mutley is about 45 pounds and good with cats. He lives with a 6 yr old child now and is very tolerant of all the hugging!"
By:Glen Highland Farm http://www.glenhighlandfarm.com/ (Great site if you are a BC lover )

I have a Border Collie, Bramble, who is the love of my life. I waited more than 22 years to get a Border Collie, wanted one ever since I saw a shepherd and his border collie in a Dewar's ad in a Newsweek that many years ago.

(This ad is one from the same series that I saw back in about 1987 that had a shepherd in a tweed coat and cap, walking across a Scottish glen or field with sheep and a Border Collie. I have searched the past few years and can find this, and others from that ad series, but not the exact ad that I remember. It was that one specific ad that lit the match of desire in me to someday own my own BC)

She is a high, high, high energy dog, and seriously deranged when it comes to "resting." She doesn't "get" resting. It is a challenge, and admittedly a huge pain in the ass even, sometimes, to keep her busy. She gets a Kong toy filled, several times a day, just to keep her busy for a few minutes emptying it out. She gets a bone, or occasionally a rawhide chew, though I don't like them much, every day to keep her busy chewing for awhile. We play tug of war inside with dog rope things. We play tug of war outside with large chunks of branches, sometimes even a piece of firewood she tries to run around with. I throw a ball for her over and over and over. I chase her. She chases me. She chases and plays with the husky sometimes, but not as often as I would wish. The husky annoys her, because while Annie is chasing and tackling her, her main goal is to get away from Annie so that she can get back to ME, to continue playing with ME. Annie would prefer to play with another dog - Bramble prefers to play with me. 24/7.
     One of the things that has been difficult for me to deal with, with Bramble, though, is her incessant need to pee, constantly, it seems.   Housebreaking her was NOT an easy task, and I can't even say that she IS completely housebroken. She is fairly trustworthy IF I follow a strict and unvarying schedule. This includes making sure that she sleeps upstairs with us at night, and putting a baby gate across the top of the stairs. If she can't get downstairs when she has to go out, she will come to my side of the bed and give a muffled half of a "woof" to let me know she has to go out. Most nights it is twice, usually early-ish around 11:30, (I go to bed on the early side, and would go even earlier to read, and possibly to sleep really early some nights, if it weren't for trying to stay up later for the dogs' sake) and then again between 2 and 3:30 sometime. Then she will bark around 6:30 if we are not up, on weekends, because that is usually when ALL the dogs go out in the morning.My other three dogs could easily go out at 8 pm, and then be fine until 6:30 or 7 every morning, so it baffles me that Bramble needs to go so often, still. And it's not just a "habit" as it has been said that I have "indulged" her in, because if she sleeps downstairs in her chair, which she actually prefers, she leaves several wet spots on the rug letting me know that she truly DOES have to go out at night. Letting her sleep downstairs gives me my beauty sleep, but ruins the carpet, so I'm just used to getting up to let her out every night. I also happened to hear from another BC owner today, randomly, who saw my post of Muttley's ad on my FB page, and she said her BC has the same kidney issue as Muttley. NOW I'm beginning to wonder if that might not be Bramble's problem, too. Maybe it is a breed tendency that I wasn't aware of. I need to talk to my vet about this at some point.
     Now, before you question why ANYONE would feel it necessary to write an entire post on the urination habits of a dog, let me just say, it's the WHOLE reason, or most of it, for feeling so deeply pulled by Muttley's plight. I feel like "hey, I'm up anyway a couple times a night. I bet he doesn't have to pee anymore frequently than Bramble does, so if I'm up with her, why not get up with him, too?" As opposed to someone else taking him in, and then getting annoyed to have their sleep interrupted in ways that they aren't used to, or weren't necessarily planning on. I don't want someone to get disgusted with him, and since I've been doing this for a year and a half now, I am used to it, and wouldn't mind adding one more to the mix. Bramble exhausts me, and I know I was not prepared for her energy level, and I know I often let her down. I feel like getting her was a bad thing for her, like she got a bad deal in me, because I don't have sheep for her to herd, and I'm not even very reliable about taking her for a long walk every day. Granted, she does have the back yard to race and tear around in after I get home for work, and I do TRY to make sure she has an outlet every day for some of her energy, both mental and physical, but I KNOW I fall short, and that makes me feel so very guilty. So why would I even dream of taking in another Border Collie? I. DON'T. KNOW.
     I wish I could explain it. I wasn't looking for another dog. I don't even skim rescue sites, or Petfinder, or Craig's List EVER, because I am at my limit with 4 large dogs. My children do not love the fact that we, I, have a house full of animals. They LOVE the animals, but do NOT love the hair, the noise, the chaos, the mess. Our house is a difficult one to bring friends home to for, say, movie watching, or hanging out - because the dogs just make this house always feel so ... full. They are just always there, in your way, at your feet, in the same room. I do feel a bit guilty for shortchanging the kids a bit, too, in this regard, although they do, as I say, love the individual dogs and cats. Adding one more would not only be a bad idea but would make them pretty unhappy, I think. (Though I do only have 2 left at home for another 8 months, and then only 1 for a year and 8 months, and after that, none) I have less time left at home for my kids than the life expectancy of this new dog, however limited.
     Which brings me to another thought I've had. If his life expectancy is shortened due to the kidney issues, then it wouldn't really be like taking on the lifetime responsibility for another dog with a normal lifespan. It wouldn't be like adding the responsibility of another 12-15 years of dog care to our life. It seems as though his life span might be more in line with that of my older three dogs, who, at the moment, are about 8 or 9, 7, and about 5.I think it is likely, if Bramble DOESN"T have this same kidney issue, but is just a peeing kind of girl, that her life span could reasonably and far exceed that of the other three, and Muttley, too. I just feel this deep, nearly inexplicable need to take in Muttley, love him, care for him, maybe have Bramble as a playmate, and take as good care of him as I can for the lifetime he does have.
     But I don't DARE bring it up around here. I just KNOW it wouldn't fly, and it makes me sad, because this isn't a dog I want for ME, but because I could be good for HIM. I could be Muttley's best chance. If someone else could give him an even better home, I would be ecstatic. I don't need the stress and hassle of another dog, just for the fun of it. But I would be more than willing to take him in and do the right thing for him because I know I could. And he's adorable. Who could not love that face? A Border Collie's face is one of it's most endearing qualities. Those eyes. Sigh. I love and adore BC's.
     The other thing that always worries me, though, too, is that I wonder when you reach that actual "animal hoarder" stage, where you think you're doing the right thing, and you truly love the animals you take in, but your intentions are very misguided. I don't know when you get there, and I'm pretty sure that you don't recognize it in yourself, but I think it's pretty clear to other people. I don't think 5 dogs (and 7 cats -indoor/outdoor, and a dozen chickens - NOT house pets...) qualifies me just yet, but I do worry. I think you have to be unable or unwilling to provide proper medical care, proper food, etc. and live in kinda gross conditions, and that 's not me. Given enough warning, I'd still invite almost anyone to my house... but then, like I said, maybe you just think you're normal and the way you live is normal, still, and so maybe adding another dog, even out of the best of intentions, would put me more into that hoarder category? Or, maybe if you're worried about it, then it CAN"T be you (much like when I was having panic attacks, and was deathly afraid I was going crazy, but was reassured that if you are truly "going crazy" you're usually not worrying about it, and if you're really worried that you are losing your mind, you're not...) SO does that mean that if I'm worried that I might be an animal hoarder, then I'm really not, and I COULD adopt Muttley?
     I really wish I didn't feel these compulsions, these convictions, to SAVE everything under the sun. I spend a lot of time wondering what my life will be like when I can get back down to ONE dog and ONE cat, you know, a NORMAL kind of life. But then, I sort of chuckle, because I really don't think that's probably ever likely to happen, for real. A girl can dream, can't she? Of both fewer animals in this house, and, perhaps, one more - a dog who really needs her.

Gosh, I want this dog.

What I Want to be when I Grow Up

2010-11-13T09:17:00.000-05:00

Lately, I have decided that I want to be a princess....

but find that I am still a frog. Sigh.

VETERANS DAY - November 11, 2010

2010-11-11T10:13:00.001-05:00

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave." -Elmer Davis

“They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.   Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning    We will remember them.” - Laurence Binyon



“We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” George Orwell

I can not even begin to put into words the deep and profound gratitude I feel for the men and women of our military who voluntarily leave their families, their friends, their beds, their wives, husbands, children, their home, towns, country, to serve our country. I never take their service for granted, never forget to pray for them, and could not be more proud of every single one of them than I am. There is something deep within my soul so deeply grateful for the freedom they bring me, the freedom they protect for me. For every one who has served this country, who has protected me, kept me safe, allowed me to be free, thank you. There is just no way for me to ever repay the debt, but I want you to know, every single veteran - those still living, and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, that I appreciate it, appreciate what you do, what you have done, every single day of my life. Thank you.

" A Veteran is someone, who at one point in their life, wrote a blank check

payable to the United States of America for an amount up to, and
including, their life. That is beyond honor, and there are way too many
people in this country who no longer remember that fact.
If you are a Veteran, know a Veteran, love a Veteran - remember them today. And every day."

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org

http://www.greenbeanscoffee.com/coj/

Thank you, Brett - USMC. Thank you, David - US Army.

THANKS, Matt!!! - You Rock!

2010-11-10T18:30:00.000-05:00

So, I have friends. Yeah, really, I do. Honest. Real friends that I can go horseback riding with, and walking with, and can call up if I feel like it (which I don't, because I have a general phone phobia and really HATE talking on the phone, except sometimes to my sister, with whom I can pass an hour or more before I know it, but yeah, she's about the only one I ever call or answer on purpose. No one who REALLY knows me takes it personally - I'm just afraid I sound dumb, or won't be able to carry on any witty reparte, and if you WANT something, ok, call me, but if you just want to pass the time... yeah, I'm not so good with that) SO, anyhoo, I really do have friends. But I don't spend a lot of time with them, because in general, I PREFER solitude, and I'm not a terribly social person. I love to read, and write, and think and just "BE." It's hard to do those things in tandem with someone else. But I also have "blog friends," and sometimes I think those friends are actually better, closer, friends than the people here in my life. No, they are actually just EASIER friends - that's really it, I think. Not better. That's not fair. The expectations are less. That's easier. And we share similar characteristics, or at least with the few blogs I follow regularly, I feel like I have something in common with each person behind the blog. Some more than others, that's true enough, but enough of something important to me to keep me coming back.And, luckily, thankfully, I feel like I have some really good friends in cool places these days. ANYWAY (god, does it take ANYONE longer to get to the point than it does me???) - one of these good friends (thanks, Matt!!!) fed my coffee (cup) addiction, and sent me this awesome, awesome Denver coffee mug. It is now my mug of choice at my desk every morning before classes. I get to slink off into my Rocky Mountain reverie, and think of a good, good friend at the same time, AND stoke up on my favorite hot,caffieinated beverage in a sweet mountainy mug before facing my ~~horde of monsters~~ class of delightful students.

Again, thank you friend.

Along with my coffee, I finished the first book in the Suzanne Collins trilogy, Hunger Games, this morning. (And THAT would be why I have to spend this upcoming weekend correcting a month's worth of ELA papers and noteboks - I am the QUEEN of procrastination, always choosing a good book over correcting papers, until the weekend before report cards are due...) But it really WAS a good book. Can't wait to dig into the second and third volumes, except I've heard the third is just so-so. But it will have to wait a couple of days...

because

"Christmas" came to me at school today, again via my wonderful librarian! The first four books, out of another pile I asked her to inter-library loan for me, arrived. This batch is the perfect mix. The Hundred Dollar Holiday (my distaste for what Christmas is these days, and distaste is putting it mildly, could fill a hundred blog entries in and of itself...and probably will, the closer I get to the dreaded holiday) will hopefully give me some ideas of how to DE-emphasize the commercialism of Christmas in order to allow me to regain some joy in the holiday. A Writer's Notebook I ordered to get some ideas for how better to have my students use and keep THEIR writing notebooks. Angels in the Wilderness, which I started last evening and will likely finish tonight, is a quick read about a woman hiking alone in the Siera Nevadas who fell and broke both legs, a hip, etc. in a remote, untraveled area, and her unlikely rescue. And last, Sew What! Fleece, a sewing book with super easy patterns for things like mittens, hats, vests, etc. made out of fleece. It's not awesome, so I'm glad I didn't buy it, but does have a couple quick patterns I will copy and hang on to for future use. It really does always feel like Christmas to me, the BEST part of Christmas, not the commercialism and grinchy parts, when the librarian dumps a new pile of books on my desk that I am allowed to read, and absorb, and use, but didn't have to purchase.

And tomorrow is a day off, so I can spend it with my hot coffee, new coffee mug, and new books. Ahhhhhhh. THANK you, Matt! :)

What Dreams May Come

2010-11-07T16:22:00.000-05:00

     Everyone dreams. I know I always have, but it is only this past year and a half that I am remembering far more of my dreams than ever before, because my sleep has been interrupted once, twice, or used to be early on, even three times a night. The Border Collie in my life either has a very weak bladder, or, more likely, just too much energy to sleep through the night, and when she barks, I get up and let her out. Interrupting my sleep in the middle of dreams means that I am remembering them more clearly. And I know telling someone about a vivid dream as soon as I wake up cements it in my conscious world for days. I didn't really start paying attention to what my dreams are, or what they might mean, in earnest, until I realized, just recently, that I have been having a recurring dream. That kind of made me stop, and wonder about it., about dreams in general, and about my own, specifically.
     The one that STILL sticks with me, even though I dreamed it probably three weeks or more ago now, was SO strange. I even tried to sketch out a picture of it when I awoke. Basically the dream involved my parents' back yard/garden. It was a large square patch of dirt between our house and the neighbor's house, and in its last few years as a garden, before it was turned back into lawn, my parents let my neighbors plant whatever they wanted in it, too. It was too big for my parents (my dad was never the gardener - just plowed and tilled it for my mom, who loved the idea of gardening, more than she did the weeding and upkeep, I think). Well, in my dream, these neighbors hauled in this HUGE wooden structure that my parents had apparently told them they could put over top of their part of the garden, but it was SO big that it covered the garden diagonally, which covered much of our part of the garden. It had some sort of green tank hooked to the underneath part of it, which was over my head, shaded the whole garden, and there was a room the full length of the top, which you had to get to by wide steps that were angled, like deck steps. It was like a large open-sided, roof covered second floor deck, over the garden. This, in itself, is strange enough. I have no idea what the structure itself was for, or why you would want something to completely shade your garden. But the strangest part of the dream was my reaction to it. Within my parent's house, where I was watching this structure be hauled up the bank and into our yard, I was filled with rage. Not anger, not irritation, just pure, absolute, burning RAGE, the likes of which I have NEVER seen in myself, and had no idea I was even capable of. I screamed and screamed at my parents to stop this, I yelled the "F" word over and over out the porch door at the neighbors, who are really good people (and.in reality, seldom use the "F" word - my daughter commented recently she has only ever heard me use it 3 x in her life, which I think is good. Obviously it would be better if she could claim to have NEVER heard it, but... then there IS reality...) In my dream, I actually threw myself on the floor, and rolled around in rage and an all-out five year old temper tantrum. I have no idea how the dream ended - I'm guessing it probably ended abruptly when I was awaked by a "yip, yip, grumbleyip" in my ear. But still, even at this point three or four weeks later, I am still STUNNED by the ferocity of my anger toward something totally weird and bizarre in that dream. I've never been angry at my neighbors in my life. Clearly, the dream was SOME sort of symbol, and I think I might KIND of get the idea of repressed anger. I didn't give it a lot of heed til this week.
     THIS week is when I realized I am having a recurring dream. I have had it AT LEAST four times now that I can remember. It deals with an upper floor in a a building, some sort of barn, usually, although this last time it was like an attic floor. The floor is unsafe, and has places where you can't step, can't walk, because it is soft, unsupported, dangerous. In the dream, I am terrified to step out, to walk, because I know I can easily fall through. The last time, in the attic, I was directing someone else those unsafe places, worried that they were walking around, unaware. I was scared to step out, scared to walk to the other rooms up there.
     My biggest question this past week, before I afforded my dreams any more thought (other than to toss it out at work as to what the scary floor might mean) was to wonder if dreams really DO mean anything, or if they should really be lumped into the same category as astrological readings, horoscopes and palm readings. I guess the difference is, those are things people tell you ABOUT you, but a dream is actually FROM you, so I had a suspicion that a dream might mean more than what being an Aquarius is all about. A friend, who knows far more about the psyche than I do, confirmed this. It's really pretty interesting. In a nutshell, I guess your brain has to sort of make sense of daytime events and emotions and responses while you're sleeping to make sure you are healthy and ready to face the next day. That makes sense to me. Like, the example she gave me is, if you were to get in an accident, and were angry about it, it wouldn't really be an appropriate response to take out your tire iron and use it to dissipate your anger upon the person who caused the accident, but that anger emotion that flared up needs to "go" someplace to be used up, so that it can be called up again when it is needed. Therefore you might dream about being in a fight or something else that uses it up, in your dream, and then it's there, again, in real life, when you might need it. That makes perfect sense to me.
     So, I have no real idea where the rage over a nonexistent gardening issue from my childhood comes from. I do have things in my life that I am angry about, deep down and long-lasting anger, and because I have learned, been taught, over my adult lifetime, that anger does not serve me well (i.e. don't bother arguing, because you won't "win") and therefore have come to run away from ANY sort of confrontation, I'm sure I DO have bottled up anger. And I am smart enough to realize that not every aspect of every dream is a metaphor for something in real life. I simply could not pin what the large, snake-like wooden structure with a long, green water tank underneath, covering up my parents garden plot could possibly be in real life. Nor do I think the rage in my dream, which was directed at my neighbors, was really and truly directed at my neighbors. No one could ask for nicer people, and I can't imagine I would ever be mad at them for anything, horticultually related or othewise.
     The unsafe floor? Yeah, I now have a pretty good idea what that's about in my life. I'm A) pretty instrospective to begin with, so I'm relatively in-touch with what goes on in the underworld of my life and B) not "going there," as that would simply require confrontation and all, and yeah, well, that's just not going to happen. So, I guess I will be dreaming about shaky, unsafe floors the rest of my life. I wonder what the consequences are for refusing to deal with the issues in your dreams? ARE there consequenses? Does that mean I will fall through next time? Will I break a leg in my dream? Maybe the garden structure will somehow come into play in the next installment? Better than all of those suppositions, perhaps the Border Collie will somehow develop a bladder and a need to sleep 9 or 10 hours in a row, so I can go back to NOT remembering my dreams!

Good Kids

2010-10-30T18:10:00.000-04:00

I looked out the living room window the other evening, wondering if my boy was in the yard working on his truck so I could call him in for dinner. He wasn't, but these guys were. All just hanging out, talking, checking out the high powered dirt bike that one of them had unloaded off the back of his truck. Our yard, and one of his friend's yards just around the corner, have become total "hang-outs" the past year or two for boys in the neighborhood and from school. A scene like this one is not unusual. The kids are a variety of ages, and from a variety of backgrounds, but they all have in common a love for working on cars and motors and riding fast bikes and four wheelers and snowmobiles and talking motors and trucks and cars, ripping things apart and putting them back together. My yard is a mess. It's full of tires, and old cars and trailers and all kinds of projects I would LOVE to have gone. I really would love my lawn to be a lawn, not the front yard of a chop shop, or in need of a fence to hide the car parts from the poor neighbors across the street. However, when I looked out at these guys, I knew every one of them, and know that ANY one of them would give you the shirt off his back if you were in need of one. They are all good. kids. They carry in my groceries when I come home from the store if they are here. They help themselves to a bowl of stew if it's on the stove and they're hungry. The chase my dogs and bring them back when they get out. They don't use bad language around me. When my boy goes off to college next summer, I'm going to miss having my lawn back.

Do You Know This Man?

2010-10-29T16:22:00.000-04:00

Do you know this man? Funny story. I didn't. Not at all. A friend emailed me a picture of himself, standing next to a large, lfe-size cut-out of this guy. I thought to myself, "Who IS that man? He SEEMS familiar. I feel like I know him, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Is he a famous actor?" Two different friends came in to my room at school while I was puzzling over it, and I asked them. Neither of them knew. One said, " Sean Connery?" The other immediately said no to that, but couldn't come up with a name, either. I sent it on to my best friend who teaches at another school, and she immediately emailed back and said, "Oh, that's the Most Interesting Man in the World."

Really? What makes him that, I had to ask. So she sent me a link to Wikipedia, and from there, after reading about him, and the Dos Equis beer ad campaign (VERY successful and smart advertising, I think), I came home and watched Youtube videos of the guy. I have never once seen ANY of these ads on TV, or heard of him, or seen anything about him. (Maybe because there is never anything on in our house except Fox News? And I'm thinking beer adverstising is probably not a big deal on that channel?) What a shame, because suddenly, this guy, and his created "persona" gave me all kinds of great, imaginative ideas for my life.

The premise is, this guy, who is no one famous at all in real life, just a bit-part actor in lots of past shows like Dallas, and old crime dramas, is, in each of these ads, "the world's most interesting man" ! He leads a life so full of adventures that he does things like have "an awkward moment once, just to see what it felt like," and is so interesting, "sharks have a week dedicated to him." I think it's very funny.

And, it's made me decide that I'm free to, in my mind, create "the most interesting woman in the world" persona for myself. Imagine the adventures I "could" have, if all I had to do to have them is to create them!

I can become the first woman to dogsled across Siberia in deepest winter. I can be so talented I can build my own cabin in the Rockies by felling and stripping my own trees, or could brew the most award-winning beer in the world by using the coldest, freshest springwater from the deepest, coldest lake in interior Alaska, which I hike to, in a short period of time, because I am so physically fit that, well, you know - I've won multiple triathalons and marathons and all...

The list in my imagination is endless. And who's to know?

He closes most of the ads with the catchphrase: "Stay thirsty, my friends," which I assume is meant to a be a double entendre - since he IS adverstising Dos Equis Beer, he would want you to be thirsty for this beer, but since he is ALSO the most interesting man in the world, with multiple adventures under his belt, I would think he is telling you to "stay thirsty" for the adventures life holds as well?

I have no problem endorsing the latter. I LOVE adventures, and would love nothing more than to live a life half as exciting as his.

However, I hate the taste of beer. I'm wondering if Maxwell House or Folgers would be interested in sponsoring MY ad campaign? I could run much farther and faster, leap much higher, with caffeine pulsing through my veins, than beer.

From now on, when I post my "interesting adventures" here ('cause yeah, there are oh- so-many of them), you'll never know if they are real, or just fodder for my own race to become "the most interesting woman in the world."

"Go for the bold, my friends - in coffee, in life." I need to work on my slogan.

Have I Ever Mentioned, I'm Not Much of a People Person?

2010-10-27T20:21:00.000-04:00

I had an epiphany today. It was a really good one, as epiphanies go, and even more welcome because I haven't had one in a long while.

An epiphany (from the ancient Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia, "manifestation, striking appearance") is the sudden realization or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something. The term is used in either a philosophical or literal sense to signify that the claimant has "found the last piece of the puzzle and now sees the whole picture," (Thank you, Wikipedia)

I am alway envious when someone says they "love" their job, and conversely, have always felt guilty that I DON"T love teaching. Teaching is supposed to be a calling, right? Teachers who don't love their jobs are bad teachers that we don't want in the classroom, working with OUR children, right? And yet, yet, those things are NOT me. Oddly, I am GOOD at teaching. I really am. I know what I'm good at, and what I'm not, and I DO know, I'm a good teacher. I care beyond measure about my students as individuals. I care what kind of a home life they have, and how that impacts my ability to teach them, and their ability to learn, or even care about learning. I am constantly striving to learn new things, teach new lessons, become more creative, to be more centered, reach out and add new things to my plans that I seem to have not been as strong on in the past. I go to relevant conferences, I read professional books and research, blah blah blah. SO, I know I'm GOOD at what I do, but yet, I don't like it.
     Even that is a conundrum for me, because I LIKE my students, LIKE creating lesson plans, LIKE teaching the material. So, what DON"T I like? What makes me feel like I don't like teaching? Well, I've always been clear that I hate correcting papers. I HATE having to give up every evening of my life to correct papers, enter grades, plan lessons, etc. THAT part makes me really mad, because there are so many people who get to just come home at 5:00 and have a life from 5-10. I don't, and if I do, it means I'm shirking my work and that leaves more for the weekends. Oh, and did I mention that I HATE having to do school work on weekends? EVERY weekend? I spent from 9 am to 3 pm in my room on Saturday, spent all day Sunday sitting here correcting, and still have a backlog of work to do. I either do school work every single day, OR, I have hours and hours to do when I get around to catching up on it. Either way sucks.
     But my epiphany today led me to understand WHY I hate teaching, and it's so clear I can't believe I haven't realized it in all these years. I've always said it just isn't a job that "fits" me, but never really examined what that meant to me. Today, I GET IT! I hate people. Really, I do. Well, ok, not really HATE people, but in general, I really am not a "people person." And every day, I have to leave my quiet, calm, dark, peaceful home to go to a place that is lit very brightly, is noisy, and FULL of people. My classroom, for the first two periods of my day, has at times, 33 people in it. 29 students, and 4 adults. And four of my students get up and leave my class for the first thirty minutes, and when they come back in, another student leaves for 30 minutes, and the speech teacher is in there trying to work on speech with 4 other students while I am teaching, and the Special Ed teacher is trying to work with her 6 students, and the teacher's aide is trying to help the Special Ed teacher, and oh, then there are the students who leave in the middle or come back in the middle of those two periods for band, piano, guitar or voice lessons. It's NOISY. It's CHAOS that is beyond my control. It is FULL of people, little and big. And then, the bells ring, and the halls are full of people, noisy people, and can I just say... I don't deal well with noise, with chaos, with having to keep tight control of things that so often feel totally beyond my control, with people. It stresses me out. And then, omg, throw in a fire drill during my prep period (a period which is not even quiet and calm in an empty classroom because, remember, I SHARE a classroom, so when it COULD be quiet, even for those 32 minutes, it's not because SHE has noisy kids) - I can't even begin to describe the inhuman sound of the fire alarm at school. Sort of like an old air raid drill noise? Or a grating,honking, buzzery noise? It's awful. Truly. AND, it means I have to leave my noisy-ish room to walk through the hall with MANY noisyish children and go stand on the playground with HALF THE SCHOOL. (Did I mention that I'm really not much of a people person?) Having to play the ROLE of a people person is VERY stressful to me.
     Now, I am NOT complaining, even though I sound like I am. I really am not. Complaining at this stage of the game would be ridiculous, with only a few more years of this to go. Thankfully, the majority of my career years in this misplaced field are under my belt. AND, complaining is not my "thing." I am seriously and appropriately trying very hard to be positive in all things this year. A good attitude really does pay off, much of the time, and it certainly makes me a better, easier person to be around. Most days I can even stand myself!
     All I am saying is, this epiphany, this realization, that came to me today, makes so much sense. It ISN"T the kids I dislike, it ISN"T the job itself of teaching I dislike, even though there are things about it that seriously annoy me. It is the circumstances, the physical circumstances, that do not mesh with my personality - my need - my craving - for peace, for quiet, for calm, for low lights and quiet voices and no bells ringing and no alarms cranking in my ears, and my huge, huge, huge desire to be alone, or to at least have limited contact for limited amounts of time with a limited number of people. YES. THOSE are the things that make me watch the clock slowly, torturously slowly, creep it's way to 3:08 every day, as though 3:08 is my time of salvation. It is. And it isn't to be away from kids I don't like, or to be away from a job that is horrible - it is to zip home - to where peace and quiet and a roomful of 4 dogs replaces a roomful of 29 noisy, happy, exuberant children. At home, I can think. And today, when I literally had to roll the stress of school off my shoulders as I left, that's when I realized what it is that actually causes teaching to just be not my thing, to be so stressful for me. How sad, that we come to these life-changing , epiphanies a little too late sometimes, but how lucky I am to finally realize where the issues lie. It eases a lot of the guilt I have felt for many years, and... with some quiet time at home to think about things, I might be able to restructure SOME of the things that SEEM out of my control. Maybe not all of them are, and maybe I CAN fix a few of them to de-stress a little bit of my physical surroundings.
     I think I might need to take a sick day to sit here quietly and think about it all though. Tomorrow is sounding really, really good for that. Cough, cough. Oh look, I even have a slight tickle in my throat. I MUST be coming down with SOMETHING that will require a sick day...

Random Question

2010-10-25T20:51:00.000-04:00

Why is it that the people who have the LEAST amount of disposable income have the biggest, most elaborate, most commercial, most expensive, holiday displays?

Corollaries to this:

I did not even buy a PUMPKIN to put on my front steps this year, as I can't really justify the five bucks just for something I'm going to throw out, or have smashed, for decorating purposes when I don't really care about it. When my kids were little, and it mattered to THEM, then absolutely. We had not just one, but at least 4, jack-o-lanterns every year, and scarecrows, and corn stalks, and HOME MADE tombstones in the front yard, and even a full-fledged haunted house in the bottom of our barn that was so legitimately good grown up kids STILL talk about it today. But we didn't spend a lot of money on our decorations.
For the record, I'm talking those huge, blow-up, decorations that cost anywhere from 50-100 bucks or more, have to be tethered to the ground, and these people have, like, 10 of them in their front yard. And lights. More orange and purple and black lights than I OWN in related Christmas lights. Oh, and it seems like every singing, musical, bouncing, electronic item known to man, is hanging from their front porches. I go around from room to room turning off the lights in ANY room in my house that no one is in. Who can afford the extra electric bills?
If I cared enough about this random question, I would actually post pictures from my town to show you what I mean. And of the 5 places that come immediately to mind, may I just say, all 5 families with these lavish holiday displays have children in school who are on free and reduced lunches, AND three of the five families could, in good conscience, spend a little more on weather appropriate clothing for their children. I'm not complaining about the free lunches. I just don't know why you don't have enough money to pay full price for lunch, but you can spend hundreds of dollars to decorate your yard? For real? Hello? Priorities?
I hope this does not come off sounding elitist - it is a serious, and legitimate question - I honestly do not understand why people who qualify as low enough income to need assistance spend their "extra" money on something as silly (in MY opinion) as huge, commercial holiday decorations - why not buy a couple more outfits for your children, or a set of snow pants to plan ahead, or some extra food for your cupboard? But then, maybe the answer is, this is simply my opinion, and despite the fact that I have this unattractive tendency to believe that my opinions should always be that of the majority, maybe there is some other way to look at this that I'm not able to see at the moment. Hmmm.
This being said, I love this time of year - I have enough Celtic stirrings in my soul to know not to call my children's names out loud on Halloween night, and to circle my house three times that eve asking a blessing on all within, to bake Soul Cakes for the following day, to understand how thin the veil is that evening between this world and the other. That night sets my imaginative and creative self on fire - even without spending a dime on a pumpkin for my porch or a blow up purple witch with a green cornucopiea of warts on her gigantically large nose, tethered to my front yard.

Live!

2010-10-17T10:10:00.000-04:00

This morning : Sunday morning. The house was quiet and very peaceful when I got up. No one else was up, no TV noise on, no one talking. I let the dogs out, flicked the switch to turn the coffee on, and cut up the big Cortland apples I had left from a bushel I bought a week ago, and put them on the stove with some sugar, water and cinnamon to cook down for applesauce. Then whipped together another apple cake, this one for my neighbor who is always baking and doing for us. I poured myself a cup of hot Green Mountain Pumpkin Spice coffee, and went to check on the dogs. The air was crisp, and chill, and the scent of someones' wood smoke drifted across my back yard. The sun was just coming up through the trees behind the fence on the eastern side of my lawn. I just stood, with a hot cup of coffee in my hands, and drank it in for a few moments. This is the very essence of Autumn, I realized. In fact, isn't this the very essence of life? To drink it in, savor it, realize what a gift it is to us EVERY day? I used to HATE fall, because of the chilly temperatures, the cold rains that dropped the colored leaves and left the world grey and dreary, and because it meant the coming of winter. How I came to love winter, instead of hating and dreading it, is another long story in itself, but I guess the point is, as I get older, I appreciate or TRY to, every day, every season. Sometimes it is easier than others. Today, it is easy to appreciate the colors and scents and tastes of fall. I'm in my glory with cinnamon, pumpkin, and apples and wood smoke. But wood smoke smells even better when it is carried on frosty winter air too, and I need to remember that. And if the world is grey and dreary outside, in November, then I need to remember that I have a warm, cozy house and crocheting projects I started last winter to work on inside, and appreciate the time a dreary world outside gives us to work on inside things. This morning is a reminder of all that is good in my life, and a reminder to live cognizant of all that is good in my life EVERY day, even when it doesn't stand out as clearly, even when the Pumpkin Spice coffee has been replaced by plain old Maxwell House or the right coffee mug for the day is in the dishwasher.
My favorite book right now is called, simply, Life is a Verb. And it is, so get up early, savor the coffee, appreciate the cool air on your face as you look to the sun, and live it today.