Goals Achieved! (mostly)

Well, the house is looking pretty spiffy after my week off. No, I didn't clean like crazy.  I decluttered 14 trash bags and 3 boxes full of stuff: 4 bags of outgrown girls clothes, 7 bags of toys, movies and womens' clothes, 3 boxes of toys, puzzles and craft items, and 3-4 (not sure) bags of trash. 

We tore down The Dinosaur (old computer) so we could use the desk for my laptop and scanner/printer. No more charging the computer on the kitchen table hoping the kids don't spill anything on it. 

I bought a new shower curtain, and a couple of new area rugs for my family room and dining room (cause I can always replace them when they get stained). 

I also bought another cubby organizer to go with the one I already have for the girls toys. It works much better than a toy box (or those plastic storage containers) because each cubby can hold a collection of barbies (and accessories), little people, dinosaurs, etc. Everything has a home and is easy to find and easy to put away. 

Phew...

I also sat on my bottom eating cheeze-its and dried cranberries, while reading magazines and looking up bizarre legends on snopes.com. And I got to blog all week! Yep, I made sure to get lots of that done. Gotta keep my priorities straight. 

rain and fog

It's rainy and foggy out today. I love it when its foggy at our house. We can see for a distance, so I can watch the fog roll in and enclose the house. It feels like we are in a different place. And if it's a rolling patchy fog, I can watch it drift and float through valleys. 

Fog always brings on a mysterious air, don't you agree? There was a short story we read in a reader in school about fog. The best I can remember is a child walking down the street in the fog and perhaps playing in the remains of an old house, and there was a buggy or a carriage? I cannot remember what it was called. The story captivated me, because the world really can be a different place in the fog. It can be anything we imagine. How fun!

Here's to a mysterious day of fog, rain, baking bread and simmering soup.

start of gardening

Yesterday, it finally reached 50 degrees (I only go outside when it's a certain temperature, I'm a sissy, I know), so I donned my coat, hat, and gloves, bundled up the girls and went outside to start exavacting for a new flower bed. My house is on an old strip mine, so my yard looks sad. I started a raised bed last year in the back of my house. It did well. For the front, I'm opting for raised berms insteadof a boxy bed so I can make a curved edge instead of a straight edge. I have to import all of my dirt since mine is packed clay and rocks. 

I started on the trench to outline the bed. I used my mattock, the tool of choice with my ground. I'll remove a 2 foot wide strip of sod from around the inside edge of the bed and pile it upside down in the middle of the new bed. Then I'll bring in good soil to pile on top. I'll smooth it out and taper it down to the edges. Thanks to Garden Gate magazine for giving me that idea. I think I'll line my trench with pea gravel to keep the lawn out of my bed. 

I'm so excited. I've tried growing things in my ground with very little sucess. Now with raised beds I can grow a variety of plants, and they won't get lost in my clay like ground. Now I need a garden plan to figure out what to grow and where. 

My week off

My kids are already bored. Emmy said, "today is a sad day for me." She misses her preschool. 

We played "Sorry" yesterday: Oldest was mad she didn't win, youngest was happy just 'cause we let her play, and I was trying to keep the peace between them by saying, "Don't use your sorry card on your sister; use it on Mommy instead." And somehow mommy ended up winning. That'll teach me for trying to mess with the forces of good and evil.

I've been walking on the treadmill for 15 minutes every day for a week now. I don't mind it. 

I attacked my mountain of laundry. I vacuumed. 

I read gardening magazines and am psyched to go outside and create new flower beds. We'll see if the weather warms up.  Woo Hoo!

Easter Morning, weekend and other things

The easter bunny visited us this morning and left rabbit pellets presents. The girls were, of course, thrilled. The easter bunny's brain size must have increased from last year, because she included an Easter dress for my oldest. What a brilliant, ingenious idea: to have a prepurchased dress, with a coordinating sweater, ready to go. Oldest is thrilled with my easter bunny's pick. 

Why oh why oh why haven't I tried this sooner? I've wasted precious years.... Rewind to last year, oldest and I shopping for an Easter Dress. Emmy darling has such  picky distinguished taste. I had long ago lost my patience somewhere between the baby and the young lady dresses. She wants a sundress. I want something a little nicer. And then, all easter dresses are made for 80 degree and sunny weather. So I want a sweater. A sweater would cover up the dress MOM! She wants new shoes. You don't need another pair of new shoes. Tights, slips, choices,  ADVIL. 

So congrats to the Easter Bunny. She saved the day, or at least my sanity. Youngest could care less about dresses, so we bought her an easter outfit: pink shirt, khaki pants with flowers. "Yeah, that's great mom...'PIDER MAN CRAYONS! I got 'pider man crayons!!!" Thankgoodness for Spider Man Crayons. $1 at Target. 

So I have next week off, the entire freaking week. I don't want the week off. With that much time, I'll have to reboot myself in order to start teaching again the following monday. 

Why couldn't we have had Good Friday off and this monday only, and make up our snow days the rest of this week? WHY did we have to work on Good Friday?! Out of 330 students we had 113 absent. I had 2 classes with 7 students! It won't even count as a makeup day, 'cause we had 1/3 of our students absent. BUREAUCRACY RULES! NOT!!!!!!! 

All the same, I'll get caught up with house stuff this week. 

Crack Me Up!

I'll tell you where you can put those doilies!!!!!! 

What not to crochet.

Their posts usually crack me up.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Little Irish drumming for you. I apologize, it's almost impossible to record one's self playing an instrument and not look weird. I am having fun learning how to play the bodhran though!  My goal is to be able to play while the students are dancing tomorrow. I have some dances planned! Woo Hoo!

 

Treadmill

I hate to leave the weekend on such a downer (though my last post should be labeled Outrageous!). So I'll post anew:

Hubby has been determined to purchase a treadmill for me. I've wanted to go walking, but it's difficult to go for a walk with 2 little ones at home. Buying a treadmill though has not been high on my list of purchases. Hubby did all the research and came home with one yesterday. Then he built a platform to place it on since it's in the basement with his bike trainer. Now we can spend romantic mornings together working out. Can you think of anything sweeter? (I'm being slightly sarcastic here, for those of you that recall, my hubby throughly enjoys training for triathlon's.) 

Just to please him, I hopped up on it today and did a preprogrammed workout for 15 minutes, and....I'll grudgingly admit that I enjoyed it. I really feel good this evening. I've had lots of energy and didn't take my usual weekend nap 'cause I didn't feel tired and lethargic. Hmmm, maybe there is something to this. 

'Course, I have been spazzing out trying to get ready for my 1st student teacher ever. She starts tomorrow. As I was typing up some guidelines this afternoon, I was thinking back to my student teaching and remembering how nervous I was. I didn't think I had what it takes. I ended up enjoying my general music placement so well I decide to stick with music education. I really enjoy my job (in spite of Outrageous! LOL!). Now, here I am in the postition of placement teacher and wondering once again, Do I have what it takes? 

I hope the treadmill won't alway cause such deep self reflection..

Terse

It's been tense at work. The Boss smells mutiny. He only has a short amount of time left until retirement, but he's determined to go out with a bang.

Four years of Big Boss's No Discipline Plan at our school is beginning to reap it's rewards. I've lost track of attacks/assults on teachers. We are a rural school and should not see these things. Just these past two weeks, we've had 3-4 attacks (including grabbing and twisting of teachers' breasts), rolling down the hall, writhing during assemblies, running out of the classrooms, running out of the building, specific threats to shoot various teachers, and things I don't know of, because it's all supposed to be a "big secret".   

Big Boss said during lunch in the faculty room, that he quit entering our Discipline Referral Pages into the county's computer program, because our school always had the most referrals. 

One 10 year old student told me "Screw you!" during class. I pointed to the door and out he went, off to the office to tell the Boss, "screw you!" (which he didn't do, too bad). The teachers were in an uproar. Boss and kid came to "apologize" at which point Boss said, "But Little Johnny here says that you said....." and so it goes. 

Little Johnny says he didn't understand it was his group's turn to perform. I said, your entire group is standing up, and you're laying on the floor and you didn't understand it was time to go?! Then when I told your group they did a good job, you reply, Screw you!?!!

Big Boss always brings the kids over to "talk" about it, at which point he says, "But Little Devil Child here says that you said...blah, blah, blah, something to make little devil mad, thus justifying his actions... At which point I say, "But that does not excuse Little Johnny's actions. He should have done the right thing regardless...."

Anyhow, in the particular Little Johnny case mentioned above, Big Boss says to me, "But Little Johnny is improving..." Thus ends conversation, and the consquences (none). 

One week later Little Johnny attacks and shoves another teacher. The consquence? Little Johnny is sent to his homeroom teacher and the school janitor to ask, What should be done when a student pushes a teacher?

Mr. Homeroom teacher responds, "That's assult on a teacher. We have state laws about that. The student needs to be suspended."

Big Boss replys, "It all depends on how you look at the law."  

Mr. Homeroom teacher says, "No, it does not depend on how you look at the law. It's Assult on a Teacher. That calls for Suspension of the student."

Big Boss responds again, "It all depends on how you look at the law." And he walks out of the room. 

So Little Johnny did not get suspended. And we're wondering if he's going to bring a knife to school next. There are a number of Little Johnnys/Little Janes at our school....

Big Boss would rather deal with angry teachers than irate parents. 

And we are counting down the days. 

mac is back

My baby is back, but it's not really my computer. They yanked out the hard drive- picture Indiana Jones when the priest yanks out the guy's beating heart- and installed a new one. My husband was like, wow! they sent it back fast! And I said, it's cause they yanked out it's insides and replaced them with new ones. It's not really my computer! Waaaaahhh! 

Pictures- gone

movies- gone

itunes- gone

word for mac (and all my documents)- gone

By now you have guessed that I never took the time to back up my data.......blahhh, waah, boo-hoo-hoo, AUUUGGHHHHH!

I can recoop most of my pics, they're still on my camera, and I can contact itunes to redownload the music and videos I already paid for, but other things I've lost. 

Yeah, okay, I know, I should have know better. Lesson learned. In fact, I should be happy. Every thing was still under warrenty. They even replaced my operating system with Mac OS X Leopard, the newest system. Still, I mourn. Good bye old Mac. I miss you. 

bugs

We have a bug book, aka, Pest Management Book, at work to report bug sightings. They actually want samples so we're supposed to put the suspect on a piece of tape and attach it to the record page.

I spotted some ants in the room the art teacher and I share, so I discreetly mentioned it to her, thinking I could clean up the ants and collect a sample without distracting her 5th grade class. Boy was I wrong:

"What? Where?!"

I lift up the edge of the carpet, and there's a bizillion ants under there. An unidentified snack from the girl scout meetings appears to be the cause.

"BLAAAAHHHHH!" She starts stomping on them at fast as she can. It sort of reminded me of the Mexican hat dance.

"No, don't step on them! I need to collect them."

Now the kids are looking. She's still stomping.

"Where's the mailing tape?" No response. I wanted the big pieces so I could collect and clean them up faster. "Where's the mailing tape?"

No answer. Now the kids and the art teacher are stamping. Some are crawling on the floor trying to catch ants on their art papers.

"WHERE'S THE MAILING TAPE?!! It's complete chaos and I'm getting ignored, so I go in her desk and find it myself. I rip off a big piece and lay it right on top of what remained of the ants. It was difficult to stick them because they were scattered all over the area now.

"Oh kids, "says art teacher, "Go sit down. Mrs. Lydee is really gross with her bugs."

I ripped off a few more pieces and stuck them to the remaining ants. "I need to collect this for the bug book."

I used a paper towel and cleaned up the area then marched off to the office with my sample. A few of the ants are still wiggling, so I fold the tape over and press down.

A while later I return to the room. One or two kids are still crawling on the floor collecting ants. They've named them and are discussing their behavior. The kids want to know why I love bugs so much. "No", I say, "We have to record them in the Bug Book in the Office. That's the rule."

Apparently the art teacher didn't know about the Pest Management Book. She thought I was collecting the ants to place in a personal bug book!

Since I'm on the dinosaur, I figured I'd post some ancient pics that are on the old computer.

This is Bibi with a tear.



This is a photo I colored with photoshop. That's Emmy in her Grandma's Garden.



More photoshop and Bibi, Bibi, Bibi!




A family christmas photo from a couple of years ago on our front porch.




Emmy when she was 6 months old. I took the pic on a sunny porch. She looks so adorable here with her hair and blue eyes.

The Sick

Yep, I spent some time changing my blog and when I was done my computer froze. I thought the drastic change to my blog put Mac into shock!

Now the other daughter is sick with some sort of GI thing. I dread late Feb and March because we always seem to get stricken with a GI or an upper respriatory thing that we pass around. A few years ago we were sick almost the entire month of March. It was one thing after another. I hope we never have another month like that. The old saying is true: March throws up like a Lion, and poops out Bam! Bam! Bam!