How much do we hear, in some version or another while talking with people, "My life is so unsatisfying." People are lonely and depressed. As a culture, we are bored. We spend so much time and money; buying things, joining clubs, playing games, chatting and texting and facebooking - desperate to get some kind of enjoyment out of our lives. And one thing I am so guilty of myself: complaining about the monotony and just overall dissatisfaction. I also have heard a lot, and seen in practice, that the more you involve yourself in daily activities, the less negativity you feel, and the happier you are in life. I've always thought this was because if I'm busy all the time, I don't have time to think about how bad my life sucks. This was a depressing thought all it's own, because my life isn't any better, I'm just ignoring it. It felt like a form of denial.
But now I'm starting to understand that it's not doing things; it's the things you do. Busying yourself with unfulfilling things still leaves you feeling unfulfilled. Facebook is fun, online games are entertaining and doing those things seem like ways to enjoy my life, but all they do is take up some time - my life is not changed by them in any way, just put off. Cleaning the house for half the day makes me feel better; not because it's taken up half the day, but because my house is clean. Because I've worked diligently, and can see and enjoy the benefit of that work. If my daily activities don't change anything, benefit anything, or provide anything useful, it's not a wonder I start feeling useless and unsatisfied with my life.
When I first started knitting, I was excited about it, but I also felt more upbeat and positive - I was using my free time and talent to create something beautiful and useful for my family. After a while though, the slow, slow stitches seemed like a chore, and I thought, "Well, I was just doing it for fun, so I can quit if I want to." As soon as I started viewing it as "just for fun" it was no different than wasting an hour on the computer - unimportant, unsatisfying. But mostly I'm seeing that putting in that extra effort - like cleaning the house - really pays off in the satisfaction with the completed project. I think that effort might even be one of the most important parts of the equation. I worked for this, it benefits me/my family/the world; I did this hard thing, and it was worth it. How empowering and satisfying and rewarding!
I'm not giving up my FarmVille any time soon, nor am I willing to exhaust myself with busy things, but I am making a point to fill the gaps in my time with more useful activities, even those that require a lot of work. The more difficult projects, new skills, and even little (but still a mountain) jobs I take on, the more satisfied I feel with my life, my home, my family, myself. It is self-sacrifice, when you think of the work involved, but it doesn't feel like a sacrifice at all when you reap the joys and benefits of your hard work. Kind of like parenting, isn't it? I'm parenting my life.
Showing posts with label just my life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label just my life. Show all posts
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Trick or Treat!
We approached Beggar's Night this year the same as we always do, by putting off making or buying any costumes or accessories until the last minute, to ensure the highest stress level possible. Cadence remained undecided about what thing/person she intended to dress up as until 2 days before. Chad skipped this year, he's "too grown" for it I guess, but kept saying things like, "Well maybe I'll go, just for a while," and, "Well I could just do some simple costume." Riley has wanted to be a cheetah since August.
So 2 days before the big begging day, we shopped for materials and accessories. Cat ears on the list, but all they had were black and striped - no spots. Hell, I'll just make some, I thought. After an hour at Walmart, Cadence settled on "Reaper" and I figured what we couldn't make, we could do with makeup. I bought some cheetah-print material and two small makeup kits. By then, Chad was insisting I told him he wasn't allowed to go begging, and refused to do so. (Whatever?)
So 2 days before the big begging day, we shopped for materials and accessories. Cat ears on the list, but all they had were black and striped - no spots. Hell, I'll just make some, I thought. After an hour at Walmart, Cadence settled on "Reaper" and I figured what we couldn't make, we could do with makeup. I bought some cheetah-print material and two small makeup kits. By then, Chad was insisting I told him he wasn't allowed to go begging, and refused to do so. (Whatever?)
Of course I couldn't get to any actual sewing that night, or the next day. So there I was, on The Day Of, Googling some easy sewing instructions for a hooded robe and wondering if I could use a pajama pattern (or SOMEthing) for Riley's cheetah. That's when I found this page - it's a Jedi robe, but a robe is a robe right? The "pattern" amounted to body-tracing, no real measuring or anything. This worked so well for Cadence's robe, I repeated the process with the cheetah fabric, tracing around the legs instead of leaving it open. Stick on a tail and sew a couple triangle ears to a headband, and voila! Halloween costumes were done in less than an hour.
(Cardboard scythe and candy buckets not shown)
(Cardboard scythe and candy buckets not shown)Now, before you go thinking the whole thing came off without a hitch, this photo was taken AFTER a night of trick or treating, because, as usual, we left about a half hour late. And froze our butts off in the first 20 minutes (it was 36 degrees!!), and drove instead to a "safe, indoor trick or treat" at a local mall. And wandered the entire mall for an hour, just for 5 tootsie rolls and 3 stickers, so that whole thing was a huge disappointment. The kids only got about 1/4 of their little buckets filled during the whole night.
After we got home, Vic told me to get the kids cleaned up and into pajamas and said he'd be right back. Too tired and frozen to care where he was going, I set about taking pictures and washing off makeup. 20 minutes later, Vic came in with a grocery bag full of candy. "Wow, you kids should have taken the car trick or treating!" he told them. "I was only out a few minutes and look at how much I got!" So I still got my chocolate fix the kids still got some candy, and all is right with the world again.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The Tough Stuff...
Every month, I pick up a box of food from Angel Food Ministries. $30 for a box of bulk-purchased food that they say will feed a family of 4 for a week, but I have no problem stretching it out for my family of 5, even if some smaller people are eating more than the bigger people. It's easy to incorporate the contents of one of these boxes into our monthly meals, and makes a huge difference for our food budget. Often there is an ... interesting... package of chicken in the box. One month the was a frozen package of "chicken breast pieces" that was exactly that - pieces and bits of breasts, scraps I imagine, but all good meat. This month it was bone-in leg quarters. Usually when we get the bone-in chicken, I just fry it in whatever odd cut comes out of the package. This time I decided I'd boil it down for meat and broth.
Now, I'd never done this before, as much as I'd heard how much money can be saved by buying whole chickens or irregular cuts and boiling them. I'd never done it because I get a bit squeamish with meat, especially when bones are involved. I had the same problem last summer when we were bringing home fresh-caught catfish every week or so. After seeing the fish alive, then picking out bits of bone or skin missed in cleaning, soaking (and smelling) the fish overnight, and handling it repeatedly, I was so grossed out I'd convinced myself the fish was nasty. I couldn't make myself swallow it.
I thawed this chicken and cooked it for a couple of hours in a big pot full of water with a lid. After it had cooled for a while, I pulled the chicken out of the stock to find the meat "falling off the bone". (This term might make a lot of people's mouth water, but in my case, it makes me a bit ill to think about.) I stripped off the skin and picked the meat from the bones with my hands, and for the first several minutes I really thought I might hurl. I was a bit surprised (and not pleasantly, I can tell you) to find other stuff with the meat. Like a bit of spinal bones and a couple of unidentifiable (to me anyway) organs. When I started to feel faint, I called Vic in to help me.
The work was tedious, because I was being extremely careful not to leave any teeny bits of bone or cartilage in with the meat. But I noticed after a while that it was getting easier and easier for me to handle. I was no longer fighting my gag reflex. I realized it was because the more I focused on the job at hand and its benefits, I was thinking less about the gory details. I happily realized I had enough meat and broth for two or three meals here, instead of just the one meal of fried chicken I was used to. I was chatting with my husband, laughing even, feeding bits of skin or whatever to the desperately begging cats at my feet. Holy crap, I was actually having fun. Considering the amount of meat and broth I'd gotten out of the deal, heck.. this was easy. I should do this every time.
There is a homeschooling lesson here. A life lesson, even. If you keep your eyes open, there is always a lesson, isn't there? Because sometimes the idea of doing something you're not used to, have never done, or don't know much about, sounds horrifying. You can pretty easily become overwhelmed with the details, even if it seemed like a good idea when you started. If you focus on all the nasty bits, you become so disgusted that you completely miss the point of doing it in the first place. But when you concentrate on the job at hand, focus on the benefits, all the negatives are at least worth dealing with. If you're lucky, you'll stop seeing them as negatives at all. Just tiny details in a bigger picture - the benefits are what matter.
So now I have about 3 pounds of meat and enough broth for a few meals tucked away in my freezer. I have 3 kids growing into intelligent, wonderful people, even if raising them sometimes seems hard and homeschooling them sometimes doesn't seem worth it. I have a great marriage, even when the stress of inlaws and disagreements make it seem unbearable. The benefits are what matter. We're doing great, and it was easy.
Now, I'd never done this before, as much as I'd heard how much money can be saved by buying whole chickens or irregular cuts and boiling them. I'd never done it because I get a bit squeamish with meat, especially when bones are involved. I had the same problem last summer when we were bringing home fresh-caught catfish every week or so. After seeing the fish alive, then picking out bits of bone or skin missed in cleaning, soaking (and smelling) the fish overnight, and handling it repeatedly, I was so grossed out I'd convinced myself the fish was nasty. I couldn't make myself swallow it.
I thawed this chicken and cooked it for a couple of hours in a big pot full of water with a lid. After it had cooled for a while, I pulled the chicken out of the stock to find the meat "falling off the bone". (This term might make a lot of people's mouth water, but in my case, it makes me a bit ill to think about.) I stripped off the skin and picked the meat from the bones with my hands, and for the first several minutes I really thought I might hurl. I was a bit surprised (and not pleasantly, I can tell you) to find other stuff with the meat. Like a bit of spinal bones and a couple of unidentifiable (to me anyway) organs. When I started to feel faint, I called Vic in to help me.
The work was tedious, because I was being extremely careful not to leave any teeny bits of bone or cartilage in with the meat. But I noticed after a while that it was getting easier and easier for me to handle. I was no longer fighting my gag reflex. I realized it was because the more I focused on the job at hand and its benefits, I was thinking less about the gory details. I happily realized I had enough meat and broth for two or three meals here, instead of just the one meal of fried chicken I was used to. I was chatting with my husband, laughing even, feeding bits of skin or whatever to the desperately begging cats at my feet. Holy crap, I was actually having fun. Considering the amount of meat and broth I'd gotten out of the deal, heck.. this was easy. I should do this every time.
There is a homeschooling lesson here. A life lesson, even. If you keep your eyes open, there is always a lesson, isn't there? Because sometimes the idea of doing something you're not used to, have never done, or don't know much about, sounds horrifying. You can pretty easily become overwhelmed with the details, even if it seemed like a good idea when you started. If you focus on all the nasty bits, you become so disgusted that you completely miss the point of doing it in the first place. But when you concentrate on the job at hand, focus on the benefits, all the negatives are at least worth dealing with. If you're lucky, you'll stop seeing them as negatives at all. Just tiny details in a bigger picture - the benefits are what matter.
So now I have about 3 pounds of meat and enough broth for a few meals tucked away in my freezer. I have 3 kids growing into intelligent, wonderful people, even if raising them sometimes seems hard and homeschooling them sometimes doesn't seem worth it. I have a great marriage, even when the stress of inlaws and disagreements make it seem unbearable. The benefits are what matter. We're doing great, and it was easy.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Thoughts...
"School" was perfect today. Calm. No conflicts with time. No arguments about content. Cadence only said, "I don't get it," six times instead of sixty. I didn't lose my patience one time. Rare, but I can still appreciate how wonderful it could be, if every day were like this.
I struggle with Riley's schoolwork. Through the normal parenting stuff (singing songs, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, "look, radishes! See the sign says 'radishes'." etc.), my youngest child has learned all her letters, numbers, shapes and colors. Essentially, she's mastered preschool content without ever attending preschool. She knows several letter sounds and can sound out a lot of small words. She writes letters to people, asking the spelling of Every. Single. Word. BUT, she is not ready for Kindergarten work. Adding she can do, but put the numbers on paper and she's lost. She lacks the motor skills needed to write "right", and knows it (and it seems she's another perfectionist - great!), so she often refuses to practice writing letters and numbers. Sequencing is easy for her as long as it's a pictorial 3-step easy thing, like a whole apple, an apple with a bite out of it, and a well-eaten core. Anything beyond that and she's frustrated and refuses to do it.
Now before you get the wrong idea, I want it to be clear that I have never, EVER asked her to do any of this directly. She's four. There's no way I'm pushing her at all. Chad and Cadence start their schoolwork and Riley starts begging. "I want schoolwork too!" She loves workbooks, but has declared the preschool workbooks "baby books". When I give her the harder stuff, she refuses to do it, and of course I say, "You don't have to if you don't want to." But she DOES want to do SOMETHING, just not that. There have been a few workbooks she really likes, but I actually take those away from her after a few pages, afraid she'll finish the book and have nothing to do tomorrow.. and then have a huge fit because I don't have anything for her to do. *Sigh*
I struggle with Riley's schoolwork. Through the normal parenting stuff (singing songs, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, "look, radishes! See the sign says 'radishes'." etc.), my youngest child has learned all her letters, numbers, shapes and colors. Essentially, she's mastered preschool content without ever attending preschool. She knows several letter sounds and can sound out a lot of small words. She writes letters to people, asking the spelling of Every. Single. Word. BUT, she is not ready for Kindergarten work. Adding she can do, but put the numbers on paper and she's lost. She lacks the motor skills needed to write "right", and knows it (and it seems she's another perfectionist - great!), so she often refuses to practice writing letters and numbers. Sequencing is easy for her as long as it's a pictorial 3-step easy thing, like a whole apple, an apple with a bite out of it, and a well-eaten core. Anything beyond that and she's frustrated and refuses to do it.
Now before you get the wrong idea, I want it to be clear that I have never, EVER asked her to do any of this directly. She's four. There's no way I'm pushing her at all. Chad and Cadence start their schoolwork and Riley starts begging. "I want schoolwork too!" She loves workbooks, but has declared the preschool workbooks "baby books". When I give her the harder stuff, she refuses to do it, and of course I say, "You don't have to if you don't want to." But she DOES want to do SOMETHING, just not that. There have been a few workbooks she really likes, but I actually take those away from her after a few pages, afraid she'll finish the book and have nothing to do tomorrow.. and then have a huge fit because I don't have anything for her to do. *Sigh*
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Politics...
Help me, smarty-pants political people!
I think every eligible voter in America should vote. I think people should know who they're voting for and why. I also think people need to take candidate's claims with a HUGE grain of salt, considering the lack of actual power the president is allowed. Blaming the president for the faults of the entire government, while placing little importance on the congress is just nutty. Voting for a party instead of a person is nutty. I also think voters should be fully informed on the issues that concern them, and where the candidates (presidential AND congressional) stand on those issues.
That being said, I'm a complete political idiot. Don't get me wrong, I'm not stupid. But until a few years ago I told people, "I don't like politics," just because the subject seemed so overwhelming and confusing I felt it was impossible to understand - so I didn't even try. I don't know the difference between partisan and non-partisan and bi-partisan.. what the hell is "partisan"? What does it mean to be "Independent"? How on earth do we have all these parties, and laws regulating equal coverage and an unbiased media, yet only hear about two parties? Why is the Des Moines newspaper endorsing Hillary? Are they allowed to endorse anyone?
I really want to know more about politics. I want to understand it, so I can be a better informed voter. I feel it's my duty to do so. But should it be so complicated? I'm convinced all these big words and fancy terms and complicated rules put in place to intimidate the uneducated (like myself, unfortunately) and discourage them from voting. I try to watch the political shows, but my head starts hurting, and I start fidgeting, and my mind starts wandering because NONE of it makes any sense to me. Am I paranoid in thinking this is deliberate? I'd like to be involved in political support, working for a campaign office or volunteering with a party office, but a visit to a few party websites only leaves my head swimming with all those weird big words again.
Are there books available to normal people like myself to read and learn more about this kind of stuff? Something written for the average person now, not the average person with a bachelor's degree. I've tried just reading the newspaper and websites and such, but it seems the harder I try to understand it, the harder it is to understand. Politics for Dummies? I hate admitting to my political ignorance, but somehow I feel I'm about 10 years late in learning about it.
I think every eligible voter in America should vote. I think people should know who they're voting for and why. I also think people need to take candidate's claims with a HUGE grain of salt, considering the lack of actual power the president is allowed. Blaming the president for the faults of the entire government, while placing little importance on the congress is just nutty. Voting for a party instead of a person is nutty. I also think voters should be fully informed on the issues that concern them, and where the candidates (presidential AND congressional) stand on those issues.
That being said, I'm a complete political idiot. Don't get me wrong, I'm not stupid. But until a few years ago I told people, "I don't like politics," just because the subject seemed so overwhelming and confusing I felt it was impossible to understand - so I didn't even try. I don't know the difference between partisan and non-partisan and bi-partisan.. what the hell is "partisan"? What does it mean to be "Independent"? How on earth do we have all these parties, and laws regulating equal coverage and an unbiased media, yet only hear about two parties? Why is the Des Moines newspaper endorsing Hillary? Are they allowed to endorse anyone?
I really want to know more about politics. I want to understand it, so I can be a better informed voter. I feel it's my duty to do so. But should it be so complicated? I'm convinced all these big words and fancy terms and complicated rules put in place to intimidate the uneducated (like myself, unfortunately) and discourage them from voting. I try to watch the political shows, but my head starts hurting, and I start fidgeting, and my mind starts wandering because NONE of it makes any sense to me. Am I paranoid in thinking this is deliberate? I'd like to be involved in political support, working for a campaign office or volunteering with a party office, but a visit to a few party websites only leaves my head swimming with all those weird big words again.
Ballot initiative - In political science, the initiative (also known as popularUmm.. what?? I read things like this by substituting, omitting and rearranging in my mind as I go. The same way I read Shakespeare, actually. I can figure it out, but it takes forever and feels like translating ancient Hebrew.
or citizen's initiative) provides a means by which a petition signed by a
certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote on a
proposed statute, constitutional amendment, charter amendment or ordinance, or,
in its minimal form, to simply oblige the executive or legislative bodies to
consider the subject by submitting it to the order of the day.
Are there books available to normal people like myself to read and learn more about this kind of stuff? Something written for the average person now, not the average person with a bachelor's degree. I've tried just reading the newspaper and websites and such, but it seems the harder I try to understand it, the harder it is to understand. Politics for Dummies? I hate admitting to my political ignorance, but somehow I feel I'm about 10 years late in learning about it.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
The Hillbilly Animal Shelter...
I have a weakness for animals. Several years ago, some acquaintance-of-a-frien
d-of-a-friend had a cat they no longer wanted. Vic had seen the cat, and over the course of a couple of days must have asked me 200 times to bring it home. We already had two cats in our little house and I was in no hurry to increase the number of animals we were responsible for. But then the report came, through the chain of people who knew people, that the owners of the cat had stopped feeding her. "We're getting rid of her anyway," they said, "So why buy any more food for her if we're just going to give her away." This is how we got Foxy. Despite her bipolar disorder and overall weirdness, we made a home for her. I just couldn't stand the idea of some poor animal starving.
d-of-a-friend had a cat they no longer wanted. Vic had seen the cat, and over the course of a couple of days must have asked me 200 times to bring it home. We already had two cats in our little house and I was in no hurry to increase the number of animals we were responsible for. But then the report came, through the chain of people who knew people, that the owners of the cat had stopped feeding her. "We're getting rid of her anyway," they said, "So why buy any more food for her if we're just going to give her away." This is how we got Foxy. Despite her bipolar disorder and overall weirdness, we made a home for her. I just couldn't stand the idea of some poor animal starving.Then there was the time we found an injured turtle on the road and brought it home to recover before releasing it again. And the time we bought a ferret at a garage sale because the owners said they didn't take him out of the cage, and confessed they'd never taken him to the vet. And the time we hand-fed baby birds that fell from a nest outside our house. Rescued and relocated baby rabbits. Fed the wild opossums and raccoons outside our back door in the winter. I probably can't even remember everything we've done, often by my begging and whining request, to help an animal.
Then my country friend J called about one of his "juvenile delinquent" chickens. The last hatch this year, there was one light colored chicken in the batch of black bantams. A little hen that was smaller than the rest. J said when he went to close up the chickenhouse for the night, all the other chickens, including the mother hen, were crowded together on the perch, while this little hen was huddled by herself, cold and shivering on the floor. She'd been pecked by the others and was holding one of her eyes closed. If you want to know the truth of it, I think my friend knows my weakness and was using it against me. I think he also knows Cadence shares my love of animals and would be delighted to be the stand-in chicken mama.
So we have a new "pet" chicken. We've yet to name her, but this website says chickens can learn their names and actually be very affectionate. I've yet to see affection from
the little hen, but she is getting more comfortable with being held and carried around. She makes peeping noises constantly, sometimes long after we've covered up her cage for the night. The GBH would love to eat her. The kids barely let her little chicken feet touch the ground. Because of the cold, the lack of a suitable outdoor home, and her small size, we'll be letting her stay in the house through the winter. My plan is to return her to her chicken family at my friend's place as soon as she's big enough to defend herself, probably in the spring. I was thinking of something like this for her to stay in when she outgrows the aquarium:
The bottom lined with newspapers, something like this would be perfect for a little chicken.
the little hen, but she is getting more comfortable with being held and carried around. She makes peeping noises constantly, sometimes long after we've covered up her cage for the night. The GBH would love to eat her. The kids barely let her little chicken feet touch the ground. Because of the cold, the lack of a suitable outdoor home, and her small size, we'll be letting her stay in the house through the winter. My plan is to return her to her chicken family at my friend's place as soon as she's big enough to defend herself, probably in the spring. I was thinking of something like this for her to stay in when she outgrows the aquarium:The bottom lined with newspapers, something like this would be perfect for a little chicken.*Sigh*
Now that we have a pet chicken, I think we've gone past the point of denying we're rednecks.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
A nice light week...
I need a vacation from life right now. I can't even keep up with all the things I'm supposed to be remembering. I have little lists of things around the house. Lists of stuff I need to buy at the store. Lists of books I'll get from amazon if the much-needed help that has so generously been offered and is so greatly appreciated, ever actually comes. Phone numbers. Lists of books to get on our next library trip and books that need to be returned. Circled calendar dates. Little half-sentences like, "bday fri/colored pencils" written on napkins and the backs of envelopes. Disorganized stress-bomb anyone? Wow.
I decided to postpone the imminent breakdown due to lack of necessary materials for our History Odyssey program by a week. We are having a light week. Next week I'll have my breakdown. We didn't do anything at all until Wednesday, which just happened to be the first day of school for our district. I didn't do that on purpose, I was just busy babysitting Monday and running errands Tuesday, so it worked out that way. Wednesday there was much fighting and yelling and, "You stop talking." "No YOU stop talking, I'm not talking." "You're talking NOW. I didn't say anything." "Yes you DID!"
Yesterday, after finishing the second day of only handwriting and math, I'm ready to pull my hair out. Chad has this habit of asking to do something, then bitching that he "has to" do it. Like handwriting. I could personally care less how neat his writing is, as long as others can read it. He writes on his own, making little books or taking notes on books he's reading (this too is his own idea). Cadence loves handwriting practice. Anything in a workbook. So yesterday, when Cadence was doing handwriting, Chad asked if he could re-learn cursive (claims he forgot how). No problem. I spent about an hour digging up some practice worksheets online and printing them. Then today I handed him the "A" sheet only to have him say, "Why do I have to do handwriting?" What the hell? Some kind of juvenile Alzheimer's? I just handed him the cursive sheets and told him to do them if he wanted, use them for reference when writing, or throw them away for all I cared. Sheesh.
We took a trip back to the doctor for Riley again. That swollen lymph node from several weeks ago? Yep, still there and not getting smaller. The doctor was very nice, telling me not to ever read about medical stuff on the internet. "You probably read all about Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma didn't you?" Um.. well, yeah. He was a lot more informative than the last doctor, and explained how sometimes it can be long after the original infection clears before they go back to normal. He said they see this kind of thing a lot, and its very VERY rare that anything comes of it. More antibiotics for now, and if that doesn't work in two weeks we'll do a steroid shot. I guess if that doesn't work, they'll move on to biopsy, but he sounded pretty confident that Riley would be fine well before we need to do that. "She looks really healthy otherwise, no other symptoms, I'm sure it's nothing." I feel a lot better than I did before.
My old and ailing cat is no longer ailing. He's still old. No more puking everywhere though, which is nice because I don't have to worry about him so much, and also because I don't have to clean it off the carpets and furniture (computer, washing machine, bathtub...). Now he's spending most of his time sleeping and doing cat things. Like sleeping. Oh, and eating. And sleeping of course. I think I need a couple of days to be a cat.
I decided to postpone the imminent breakdown due to lack of necessary materials for our History Odyssey program by a week. We are having a light week. Next week I'll have my breakdown. We didn't do anything at all until Wednesday, which just happened to be the first day of school for our district. I didn't do that on purpose, I was just busy babysitting Monday and running errands Tuesday, so it worked out that way. Wednesday there was much fighting and yelling and, "You stop talking." "No YOU stop talking, I'm not talking." "You're talking NOW. I didn't say anything." "Yes you DID!"
Yesterday, after finishing the second day of only handwriting and math, I'm ready to pull my hair out. Chad has this habit of asking to do something, then bitching that he "has to" do it. Like handwriting. I could personally care less how neat his writing is, as long as others can read it. He writes on his own, making little books or taking notes on books he's reading (this too is his own idea). Cadence loves handwriting practice. Anything in a workbook. So yesterday, when Cadence was doing handwriting, Chad asked if he could re-learn cursive (claims he forgot how). No problem. I spent about an hour digging up some practice worksheets online and printing them. Then today I handed him the "A" sheet only to have him say, "Why do I have to do handwriting?" What the hell? Some kind of juvenile Alzheimer's? I just handed him the cursive sheets and told him to do them if he wanted, use them for reference when writing, or throw them away for all I cared. Sheesh.
We took a trip back to the doctor for Riley again. That swollen lymph node from several weeks ago? Yep, still there and not getting smaller. The doctor was very nice, telling me not to ever read about medical stuff on the internet. "You probably read all about Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma didn't you?" Um.. well, yeah. He was a lot more informative than the last doctor, and explained how sometimes it can be long after the original infection clears before they go back to normal. He said they see this kind of thing a lot, and its very VERY rare that anything comes of it. More antibiotics for now, and if that doesn't work in two weeks we'll do a steroid shot. I guess if that doesn't work, they'll move on to biopsy, but he sounded pretty confident that Riley would be fine well before we need to do that. "She looks really healthy otherwise, no other symptoms, I'm sure it's nothing." I feel a lot better than I did before.
My old and ailing cat is no longer ailing. He's still old. No more puking everywhere though, which is nice because I don't have to worry about him so much, and also because I don't have to clean it off the carpets and furniture (computer, washing machine, bathtub...). Now he's spending most of his time sleeping and doing cat things. Like sleeping. Oh, and eating. And sleeping of course. I think I need a couple of days to be a cat.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Update...
Highlights of the last couple of days:
We took lots of pictures of Flat Stanley for Robinella. I've neglected her and her kiddos, and that makes me a very very bad friend. Public apology doesn't even make it right. I hope she can forgive me. We printed and colored our own Stanleys, I even made one. I asked the kids to think of somewhere they would like to take Stanley, and color him accordingly. Riley's Stanley has a very large penis, and several exposed organs. It's like Autopsy Stanley. Stanley Visits the Morgue?? Cadence was very upset about it, but so far, we have no pictures of that one. If we end up taking any of those, I'll post them here rather than email them. My kids are warped enough, we don't have to warp other people's kids. ;) Robinella, I'll get those organized and sent this weekend. I cross my heart and hope to die.
The poison ivy is looking better. Down to just a bunch of scabby spots. That's good right? I seriously don't know how this is supposed to work. I've been washing sheets and clothing every day in hot water. The kids have been showering with dish detergent and we have a nightly routine of baking soda paste. After much internet searching and a tip from Katherine, we discovered the weirdo bug we found was a soft tick, which I'd never even heard of, but apparently aren't known for carrying diseases. The swollen lymph node is "probably virus-related", and being treated by antibiotics (that I thought were for bacterial infections, not viruses). It's still swollen and painful, and we'll be heading to the doctor if it doesn't go away soon.
I am losing my voice. No throat pain or headache or anything, just scratchy and hoarse. It's weird. I'm starting to wonder if it's strep and related to Riley's lymph node thing. Hypochondria anyone?
Last night we went to a "steakhouse" which was really a more of a bar and grill with fancy prices. I had the first steak I've eaten in about a year. It was super good. I then spent the evening feeling lethargic and dumb, reminding me why I don't eat steak. But it was so worth it. Mmmm. I also had a Sam Adams, in an attempt to feel cultured, but quickly discovered culture isn't for everyone.
Hopefully later today I'll get around to actually posting something interesting. Right now I think I'll have some warm tea and a nap.
We took lots of pictures of Flat Stanley for Robinella. I've neglected her and her kiddos, and that makes me a very very bad friend. Public apology doesn't even make it right. I hope she can forgive me. We printed and colored our own Stanleys, I even made one. I asked the kids to think of somewhere they would like to take Stanley, and color him accordingly. Riley's Stanley has a very large penis, and several exposed organs. It's like Autopsy Stanley. Stanley Visits the Morgue?? Cadence was very upset about it, but so far, we have no pictures of that one. If we end up taking any of those, I'll post them here rather than email them. My kids are warped enough, we don't have to warp other people's kids. ;) Robinella, I'll get those organized and sent this weekend. I cross my heart and hope to die.
The poison ivy is looking better. Down to just a bunch of scabby spots. That's good right? I seriously don't know how this is supposed to work. I've been washing sheets and clothing every day in hot water. The kids have been showering with dish detergent and we have a nightly routine of baking soda paste. After much internet searching and a tip from Katherine, we discovered the weirdo bug we found was a soft tick, which I'd never even heard of, but apparently aren't known for carrying diseases. The swollen lymph node is "probably virus-related", and being treated by antibiotics (that I thought were for bacterial infections, not viruses). It's still swollen and painful, and we'll be heading to the doctor if it doesn't go away soon.
I am losing my voice. No throat pain or headache or anything, just scratchy and hoarse. It's weird. I'm starting to wonder if it's strep and related to Riley's lymph node thing. Hypochondria anyone?
Last night we went to a "steakhouse" which was really a more of a bar and grill with fancy prices. I had the first steak I've eaten in about a year. It was super good. I then spent the evening feeling lethargic and dumb, reminding me why I don't eat steak. But it was so worth it. Mmmm. I also had a Sam Adams, in an attempt to feel cultured, but quickly discovered culture isn't for everyone.
Hopefully later today I'll get around to actually posting something interesting. Right now I think I'll have some warm tea and a nap.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Score One for Mom...
I just picked up a whole set of Junior Edition encyclopedias, and an accompanying set of atlases from a freecycler in Des Moines. Yay! I can't say enough good things about freecycle. I've gotten rid of some books and random household stuff through freecycle, and have picked up some huge finds. Freecycle kicks butt.
And speaking of BUT, I had a hell of a time finding this place this afternoon. I was driving on fumes and hoping I had enough gas to get home again, becoming more and more worried about it the longer I spent driving around. Then, to top it all off, I got lost on the way home again.
There are not many places I can get truly lost in Des Moines. Usually I know that even though I'm not familiar with the road I'm driving on, if I keep going North (or West, or whatever) long enough, I'm bound to find a street that I do recognize. Not the case this time. This time, every street I took ended in a roadblock, an accident, a parking lot or a construction site. I was doing really good at not swearing at first, but the longer I drove around, and turned around, the more (and louder) cursing I did. I tried to get on the freeway going East, but because of an accident, all lines of traffic except one were blocked off - the one left open being the entrance to the freeway going West. At this point, I was so flustered I didn't even notice I was going the wrong way for several exits. Ugh. By the time I got home, I was a complete wreck.
It's kind of a dirty little secret of mine that I'm terrified of heavy traffic. I'm not frozen with fear or anything, but I'd rather drive 30 miles out of the way than drive down one street with heavy traffic. When Vic flew to Japan, he flew out of St. Louis and I saw him off alone. That meant I had to drive home again alone. Twelve lanes of heavy traffic, it was a nightmare. I cried until I got back on a good old two-lane highway. Today, the directions to this pickup were from the freeway. I sucked it up and took it, the same way I do when I go to the hospital, or anywhere else downtown. But I didn't like it. This getting lost thing just really frazzled me.
And speaking of BUT, I had a hell of a time finding this place this afternoon. I was driving on fumes and hoping I had enough gas to get home again, becoming more and more worried about it the longer I spent driving around. Then, to top it all off, I got lost on the way home again.
There are not many places I can get truly lost in Des Moines. Usually I know that even though I'm not familiar with the road I'm driving on, if I keep going North (or West, or whatever) long enough, I'm bound to find a street that I do recognize. Not the case this time. This time, every street I took ended in a roadblock, an accident, a parking lot or a construction site. I was doing really good at not swearing at first, but the longer I drove around, and turned around, the more (and louder) cursing I did. I tried to get on the freeway going East, but because of an accident, all lines of traffic except one were blocked off - the one left open being the entrance to the freeway going West. At this point, I was so flustered I didn't even notice I was going the wrong way for several exits. Ugh. By the time I got home, I was a complete wreck.
It's kind of a dirty little secret of mine that I'm terrified of heavy traffic. I'm not frozen with fear or anything, but I'd rather drive 30 miles out of the way than drive down one street with heavy traffic. When Vic flew to Japan, he flew out of St. Louis and I saw him off alone. That meant I had to drive home again alone. Twelve lanes of heavy traffic, it was a nightmare. I cried until I got back on a good old two-lane highway. Today, the directions to this pickup were from the freeway. I sucked it up and took it, the same way I do when I go to the hospital, or anywhere else downtown. But I didn't like it. This getting lost thing just really frazzled me.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
To my Artist internet/messageboard/blogger Friends...
I'm going to sketch on my wall. I can't stand it anymore. See this wall?
Just pale yellow paint and some coathooks. It's begging to be filled with chaotic and unrelated images, no? It's seriously bothering me.
So.. how do I do this so the sketches LOOK like sketches and can still withstand washing of fingerprints and crayon? Is it possible to paint something and have it still look like a charcoal sketch? I considered spray lacquer, but I don't want it to be shiny.
Any ideas?
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Must..Have..Coffee...
I am now plowing through the third day in a row that I've gotten out of bed at 6:00am. Please send coffee. In order to make Vic's new job a success, we decided (well, HE decided) we should go to bed earlier and get up together. He thinks we will spend more time together this way, but I don't know if staring at each other with foggy eyes and muttering unintelligible one-syllable words at each other counts as spending time together.
Normally, I would stay up late. Till 1 or 2 in the morning. This night owl behavior gives me time to get things done. Like reading, sewing, knitting, laundry or whatever, with a clear head and no interruptions. The extra couple of hours after the kids go to bed also give me time to unwind from the constant noise of the day. I need that time to relax enough to sleep. So this getting up early thing is killing me. I find it difficult to go to bed any earlier, since insufficient unwinding leaves me lying in bed for at least an hour before sleep finds me. I figure either I'll become so sleep-deprived that I'll eventually adjust, or I'll go insane. Either is acceptable to me at this point. They have Nap Time in the institution.
My kids have a specified bedtime, but no specified wake time. Their bed time is for my sanity, and their safety as it relates to my sanity. I figure letting them sleep as long as they feel necessary in the mornings ensures they're getting enough sleep. Before this routine of getting up at 6:00, the kids would wake me when they were all up, which was about 9:00 or so. I feel it's important to mention that I'm not a believer in using caffeine to avoid responding to the body's need for sleep. But I'm starting to realize how much of a difference the lack of sleep makes in my brain function. So I'm shamefully drinking caffeinated coffee and telling myself that I'll eventually learn to sleep at night. I will, won't I?
I'll be watching for the men in white coats.
Normally, I would stay up late. Till 1 or 2 in the morning. This night owl behavior gives me time to get things done. Like reading, sewing, knitting, laundry or whatever, with a clear head and no interruptions. The extra couple of hours after the kids go to bed also give me time to unwind from the constant noise of the day. I need that time to relax enough to sleep. So this getting up early thing is killing me. I find it difficult to go to bed any earlier, since insufficient unwinding leaves me lying in bed for at least an hour before sleep finds me. I figure either I'll become so sleep-deprived that I'll eventually adjust, or I'll go insane. Either is acceptable to me at this point. They have Nap Time in the institution.
My kids have a specified bedtime, but no specified wake time. Their bed time is for my sanity, and their safety as it relates to my sanity. I figure letting them sleep as long as they feel necessary in the mornings ensures they're getting enough sleep. Before this routine of getting up at 6:00, the kids would wake me when they were all up, which was about 9:00 or so. I feel it's important to mention that I'm not a believer in using caffeine to avoid responding to the body's need for sleep. But I'm starting to realize how much of a difference the lack of sleep makes in my brain function. So I'm shamefully drinking caffeinated coffee and telling myself that I'll eventually learn to sleep at night. I will, won't I?
I'll be watching for the men in white coats.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
My kids are dirty...
I refuse to take my kids out in public looking like what my grandmother called "crumb bums". (I go into a fit of giggles every time I say that. The kids do too.) One afternoon I left the house in a huge hurry to get to the grocery store before they closed and called the kids from the yard with, "Hurry and get in the car, let's go!" I was so distracted with time that I only glanced in the back to see that everyone was buckled before pulling out of the driveway. I was so focused on the heavy traffic that I never once even did a rear-view check of the kids. After pulling into the parking lot, I turned around to see three filthy children, covered in dirt from head to toe. Mortified at the idea of taking my kids into the store this way, I turned around and drove home. We made a dinner of scrounged-from-the-cupboard stuff and went to the grocery store the next day.
I'm not a clean freak by any means. I don't care if the kids get dirty, as long as they aren't ruining some previously un-ruined clothing. I don't make a big deal out of stains, and the kids have plenty of stuff suitable for dirty activities like camping, fishing, or digging a moat in the yard. I've actually had conversations with the kids that went something like: (Me) What on Earth are you guys doing out here? (Them) We're digging a well. (Me) Oh. Well if you don't find water, fill it in when you're done. I seriously do not care if they're dirty. But the idea of letting the world know that I'm raising a bunch of crumb bums (See how funny that is?) has never sat well with me. What will people think of my parenting if they see my kids looking like filthy little urchins? What kind of gross neglect is that?
I haven't posted too many pictures of the kids themselves here because most of the time they're dirty. I've decided though, that to thoroughly share our lives and experiences, I'm going to have to suck it up. My kids are dirty. Almost all the time. They're not neglected at all, in fact quite the contrary. They aren't models and this isn't a sitcom. They're children, doing what I think all children should be allowed to do. They're free to play as they like, under sufficient adult supervision. And they like to play in the dirt. So without further ado, this is what my children actually look like, about 90% of the time:
And this is what happens when Mom joins in the fun:
Friday, May 11, 2007
Those Crazy High School Days...
All this talk about high school is going around the blogosphere like a case of the chicken-pox, and has me thoroughly appreciating our choice to homeschool. I could share some horrible stories of what I endured from Kindergarten through high school. I could give all the aching detail of the teasing for every stupid little reason in the book. I could explain how my very big home issues impacted that school experience. But instead, I'm going to tell you about my sophomore year.
The summer before my sophomore year, the home issues I just spoke of led me to two "temporary home placements," both about 200 miles away from "home", and attending two new schools. The first school was relatively the same as my old school. Cliques and bullshit. Nothing notable. I tried to fit in, to no avail since the uncool kids must put out some kind of Dork Pheromones and nothing I tried worked for me. In the second school, I abandoned any efforts to fit in and steeled myself to finishing sophomore year with no friends at all. Not much of a problem, really. I decided at that point that if they didn't like me, I didn't have to like them either. I did my homework and went from class to class like a robot, and other people barely noticed I was there.
The door to my science classroom said Mr. Harvey*, and while there was a man always in the room sitting at a desk near the front, the class itself was taught by Mrs. Brown*. The first few weeks, I thought Mrs. Brown must be a student teacher or something and it didn't seem weird at all. After a while though, I started to notice that Mr. Harvey never addressed the class at all, not even for a few minutes. Not even to say "hello," or "sit down," or "go to the Principal's office." Finally I asked another student just what the deal was. Apparently, Mr. Harvey, at the age of fifty-something, had lived his whole life in his mother's house, and she had recently died. Mrs. Brown was brought in as a substitute while Mr. Harvey was on leave, then stayed on to help out in the classroom since he was dealing with so much grief. According to the student in the next desk, he hadn't taught a class or spoken at all for at least a month before I transferred to the school. Sad. And weird too.
A week or so after learning the scoop on Mr. Harvey, he resumed teaching classes. That first week, we learned about Hitler, Kennedy, and aliens. This was a biology class. It started to become obvious that Mr. Harvey was not just grief-stricken. He was crazy. Soon Mrs. Brown, who'd stayed in the classroom during Mr. Harvey's lectures, took over again. This time, Mr. Harvey was not silent in class. He shouted at people who moved from their seats. He sang Camptown Races. He threw paper airplanes around the room. Crazy.
After a couple of weeks of this weirdness, Mr. Harvey befriended a few boys in his various classes. You knew which boys they were because they all carried around The Anarchist's Cookbook, just like the copy on Mr. Harvey's desk. After school and between classes, Mr. Harvey gave demonstrations of various soda-bottle bombs; the smaller bombs inside the explosion box in the classroom, the larger bombs in the football field outside. The boys all thought this was very cool, of course, since most of the ingredients were household products, and wasn't Mr. Harvey just the awesomest teacher ever? The rest of us were growing concerned, including Mrs. Brown and a lot of the faculty.
I began to wonder why Mr. Harvey wasn't fired. Clearly he was not fit to be a teacher and was in no kind of mental state to be around kids. I finally asked Mrs. Brown. She told me it was because the school would be closing its doors for good after this year due to a district restructure. A lot of the teachers would be losing their jobs, Mr. Harvey included, and since we were nearing the end of the school year, the administrators didn't have the heart to fire the guy. In other words, it's only another month, and a little exposure to a man in the process of losing his mind won't hurt the kids too badly.
One Monday right before class started, a girl a few rows over snagged a pen from the boy behind her. They wrestled for the pen in the way flirtatious teenagers do, with lots of giggling and gag-me stuff. Mr. Harvey jumped to his feet and ran to them, screaming at the top of his lungs for the boy to, "LET HER GO!!" The horseplay immediately stopped and the boy reached out to the girl to retrieve his pen. "SIT DOWN!" Mr. Harvey shouted. The boy started to explain, "..but Mr. Harvey, I just--" Mr. Harvey reached across to the lab table, grabbed a scalpel, held it in the boy's face and said, "I SAID SIT DOWN NOW!!" The boy sat. Mr. Harvey returned to his desk, scalpel in hand. Nobody called the police or escorted Mr. Harvey from the room. Instead, we all sat silently for 45 minutes until the class let out. Mrs. Brown didn't even move from her desk. That was probably the most terrifying 45 minutes of my life. Mr. Brown wasn't just crazy, he was dangerously insane.
Mr. Harvey was not in class on Tuesday, and Mrs. Brown informed us he'd been let go. We had a test that day and nobody even complained because the relief was so great that Mr. Harvey was gone. We were supposed to get the test results the following day, but Mrs. Brown said she'd "misplaced" the tests and would get back to us after she'd found and graded them.
On Thursday, I walked into the science classroom to see Mr. Harvey once again, arguing quietly with Mrs. Brown. I joined the group of huddling students in the corner, all of us wondering if we should slip out before something awful happened. I heard snippets of the argument, mostly from Mrs. Brown like, "you should get some help," and "you can't be here." It seems Mr. Harvey had returned to the school late on Tuesday night, stolen the "misplaced" tests, graded them all, and walked into the school Thursday morning with graded tests in hand as if he had never been fired. Soon the Principal showed up and quietly escorted Mr. Harvey to his car. There was quite a scene in the parking lot when Mr. Harvey was asked to relinquish his keys to the building (why didn't they do that when they fired him?), that ended with Mr. Harvey shouting, "I'll get you! You'll Pay!" Again, no police were called.
Mr. Harvey was arrested two days later while attempting to buy very large amounts of the same chemicals (in higher, purer concentrations) found in the household products he was teaching the boys at school to make bombs with. Only then did the school faculty report Mr. Harvey's behavior in the previous months. When my sophomore year ended and I left my "home placement" for my real home once again, Mr. Harvey was living in a secured mental institution, where he should have been months before.
There are many reasons that I homeschool my children. Bullies, cliques and other self-esteem crushing factors come into play. At first though, I thought they were things we could deal with. In fact, by the time I enrolled my son in public school for kindergarten, I'd completely brushed off this horrifying incident as a "you won't even fucking believe this" experience that was rare and would never happen again. But when my son started having problems and the Principal, teachers and even the bus drivers did as they chose regardless of my concerns, I realized that my experience was worth more than a good story to tell to people at parties. It was a lesson. I, along with the rest of my 20 or so classmates that year, watched a teacher literally lose his mind, and were helpless to stop it. We were at the mercy of school administrators making decisions based on their personal feelings instead of our safety and well being. Someone could have been killed. Hell, everyone could have been killed. I realized that my kid was spending 8 hours each day at the complete and total control of school administrators and faculty just like those at my old school. Just like everywhere. People with personal feelings, weaknesses and agendas. Some people with hidden demons like addictions, pedophilia and mental disorders. Human beings that can make mistakes. And I'd be damned if one of those mistakes put my child at risk.
A lot of my friends and family members think I'm overprotective and have said things like, "You can't protect your kids from everything," but I say that protecting my kids is my JOB. And this comes down to the heart of the matter in why homeschooling is best for my family. As long as they are both living and learning in my home, I know every decision that effects them is made in their best interest.
*Names changed partly to protect anonymity, and partly because I no longer remember them. Blocked it out maybe. It was that bad.
The summer before my sophomore year, the home issues I just spoke of led me to two "temporary home placements," both about 200 miles away from "home", and attending two new schools. The first school was relatively the same as my old school. Cliques and bullshit. Nothing notable. I tried to fit in, to no avail since the uncool kids must put out some kind of Dork Pheromones and nothing I tried worked for me. In the second school, I abandoned any efforts to fit in and steeled myself to finishing sophomore year with no friends at all. Not much of a problem, really. I decided at that point that if they didn't like me, I didn't have to like them either. I did my homework and went from class to class like a robot, and other people barely noticed I was there.
The door to my science classroom said Mr. Harvey*, and while there was a man always in the room sitting at a desk near the front, the class itself was taught by Mrs. Brown*. The first few weeks, I thought Mrs. Brown must be a student teacher or something and it didn't seem weird at all. After a while though, I started to notice that Mr. Harvey never addressed the class at all, not even for a few minutes. Not even to say "hello," or "sit down," or "go to the Principal's office." Finally I asked another student just what the deal was. Apparently, Mr. Harvey, at the age of fifty-something, had lived his whole life in his mother's house, and she had recently died. Mrs. Brown was brought in as a substitute while Mr. Harvey was on leave, then stayed on to help out in the classroom since he was dealing with so much grief. According to the student in the next desk, he hadn't taught a class or spoken at all for at least a month before I transferred to the school. Sad. And weird too.
A week or so after learning the scoop on Mr. Harvey, he resumed teaching classes. That first week, we learned about Hitler, Kennedy, and aliens. This was a biology class. It started to become obvious that Mr. Harvey was not just grief-stricken. He was crazy. Soon Mrs. Brown, who'd stayed in the classroom during Mr. Harvey's lectures, took over again. This time, Mr. Harvey was not silent in class. He shouted at people who moved from their seats. He sang Camptown Races. He threw paper airplanes around the room. Crazy.
After a couple of weeks of this weirdness, Mr. Harvey befriended a few boys in his various classes. You knew which boys they were because they all carried around The Anarchist's Cookbook, just like the copy on Mr. Harvey's desk. After school and between classes, Mr. Harvey gave demonstrations of various soda-bottle bombs; the smaller bombs inside the explosion box in the classroom, the larger bombs in the football field outside. The boys all thought this was very cool, of course, since most of the ingredients were household products, and wasn't Mr. Harvey just the awesomest teacher ever? The rest of us were growing concerned, including Mrs. Brown and a lot of the faculty.
I began to wonder why Mr. Harvey wasn't fired. Clearly he was not fit to be a teacher and was in no kind of mental state to be around kids. I finally asked Mrs. Brown. She told me it was because the school would be closing its doors for good after this year due to a district restructure. A lot of the teachers would be losing their jobs, Mr. Harvey included, and since we were nearing the end of the school year, the administrators didn't have the heart to fire the guy. In other words, it's only another month, and a little exposure to a man in the process of losing his mind won't hurt the kids too badly.
One Monday right before class started, a girl a few rows over snagged a pen from the boy behind her. They wrestled for the pen in the way flirtatious teenagers do, with lots of giggling and gag-me stuff. Mr. Harvey jumped to his feet and ran to them, screaming at the top of his lungs for the boy to, "LET HER GO!!" The horseplay immediately stopped and the boy reached out to the girl to retrieve his pen. "SIT DOWN!" Mr. Harvey shouted. The boy started to explain, "..but Mr. Harvey, I just--" Mr. Harvey reached across to the lab table, grabbed a scalpel, held it in the boy's face and said, "I SAID SIT DOWN NOW!!" The boy sat. Mr. Harvey returned to his desk, scalpel in hand. Nobody called the police or escorted Mr. Harvey from the room. Instead, we all sat silently for 45 minutes until the class let out. Mrs. Brown didn't even move from her desk. That was probably the most terrifying 45 minutes of my life. Mr. Brown wasn't just crazy, he was dangerously insane.
Mr. Harvey was not in class on Tuesday, and Mrs. Brown informed us he'd been let go. We had a test that day and nobody even complained because the relief was so great that Mr. Harvey was gone. We were supposed to get the test results the following day, but Mrs. Brown said she'd "misplaced" the tests and would get back to us after she'd found and graded them.
On Thursday, I walked into the science classroom to see Mr. Harvey once again, arguing quietly with Mrs. Brown. I joined the group of huddling students in the corner, all of us wondering if we should slip out before something awful happened. I heard snippets of the argument, mostly from Mrs. Brown like, "you should get some help," and "you can't be here." It seems Mr. Harvey had returned to the school late on Tuesday night, stolen the "misplaced" tests, graded them all, and walked into the school Thursday morning with graded tests in hand as if he had never been fired. Soon the Principal showed up and quietly escorted Mr. Harvey to his car. There was quite a scene in the parking lot when Mr. Harvey was asked to relinquish his keys to the building (why didn't they do that when they fired him?), that ended with Mr. Harvey shouting, "I'll get you! You'll Pay!" Again, no police were called.
Mr. Harvey was arrested two days later while attempting to buy very large amounts of the same chemicals (in higher, purer concentrations) found in the household products he was teaching the boys at school to make bombs with. Only then did the school faculty report Mr. Harvey's behavior in the previous months. When my sophomore year ended and I left my "home placement" for my real home once again, Mr. Harvey was living in a secured mental institution, where he should have been months before.
There are many reasons that I homeschool my children. Bullies, cliques and other self-esteem crushing factors come into play. At first though, I thought they were things we could deal with. In fact, by the time I enrolled my son in public school for kindergarten, I'd completely brushed off this horrifying incident as a "you won't even fucking believe this" experience that was rare and would never happen again. But when my son started having problems and the Principal, teachers and even the bus drivers did as they chose regardless of my concerns, I realized that my experience was worth more than a good story to tell to people at parties. It was a lesson. I, along with the rest of my 20 or so classmates that year, watched a teacher literally lose his mind, and were helpless to stop it. We were at the mercy of school administrators making decisions based on their personal feelings instead of our safety and well being. Someone could have been killed. Hell, everyone could have been killed. I realized that my kid was spending 8 hours each day at the complete and total control of school administrators and faculty just like those at my old school. Just like everywhere. People with personal feelings, weaknesses and agendas. Some people with hidden demons like addictions, pedophilia and mental disorders. Human beings that can make mistakes. And I'd be damned if one of those mistakes put my child at risk.
A lot of my friends and family members think I'm overprotective and have said things like, "You can't protect your kids from everything," but I say that protecting my kids is my JOB. And this comes down to the heart of the matter in why homeschooling is best for my family. As long as they are both living and learning in my home, I know every decision that effects them is made in their best interest.
*Names changed partly to protect anonymity, and partly because I no longer remember them. Blocked it out maybe. It was that bad.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Insomnia...
It's 3:00am. I'm sitting here composing for my silly little blog instead of sleeping, and I'm thinking about four things.
First, why are there so many homeschooling bloggers brimming with confidence when there are so many homeschoolers like myself who find themselves lacking in this area? Are people faking it? Are they deliberately not writing about the feelings of incompetence, doubt and disappointment because of some kind of denial? Are they afraid others will see them as bad mothers/teachers/people because they confess to some humanity? Or am I really in a teeny little minority and possibly AM a bad mother/teacher/person because I have these feelings when most people don't? And holy crap, am I depressing other people with my shortcomings?
Second, why can't I find a hobby I'm passionate about? Other people are passionate about things. I try new stuff all the time and I'm always excited about it. Of course I am, it's new and full of possibilities. Then I get bored and pick a new hobby. I still enjoy all the things I started: sewing, crocheting, knitting, gardening, etc., I'm just not passionate about them. And I really want to be passionate about something.
Third, how in the hell am I going to get everything together for the kids' portfolios that have to be turned in just a couple of weeks from now? My copier won't work because it's a Lexmark, and apparently that company is more concerned about selling printers than they are about whether those printers are compatible with the computer they're attached to. It will print, but it won't scan or copy, and I need about 3000 copies for my portfolios. Some of those copies will be from textbooks and novels, so that rules out Kinkos. I'm moving into full panic mode on these damn porfolios now.
Fourth, and probably most important of all, why is my whole family sleeping peacefully while I'm sitting up at 3:00am wondering/worrying about all this crap? Why won't my (lightly used) brain shut the hell up for long enough to go to sleep? They're all in there dreaming away about fuzzy little animals or floating boats in the stream or something, and I'm not dreaming at all. I don't care if I dream all night about being buried in yarn I've never used or frantically driving from one copy center to another, as long as I can GET to sleep to dream it. This lack of sleep leaves me groggy and grumpy and pessimistic (can you tell? Ha!).
Back to toss and turn for another three hours until the alarm goes off.
First, why are there so many homeschooling bloggers brimming with confidence when there are so many homeschoolers like myself who find themselves lacking in this area? Are people faking it? Are they deliberately not writing about the feelings of incompetence, doubt and disappointment because of some kind of denial? Are they afraid others will see them as bad mothers/teachers/people because they confess to some humanity? Or am I really in a teeny little minority and possibly AM a bad mother/teacher/person because I have these feelings when most people don't? And holy crap, am I depressing other people with my shortcomings?
Second, why can't I find a hobby I'm passionate about? Other people are passionate about things. I try new stuff all the time and I'm always excited about it. Of course I am, it's new and full of possibilities. Then I get bored and pick a new hobby. I still enjoy all the things I started: sewing, crocheting, knitting, gardening, etc., I'm just not passionate about them. And I really want to be passionate about something.
Third, how in the hell am I going to get everything together for the kids' portfolios that have to be turned in just a couple of weeks from now? My copier won't work because it's a Lexmark, and apparently that company is more concerned about selling printers than they are about whether those printers are compatible with the computer they're attached to. It will print, but it won't scan or copy, and I need about 3000 copies for my portfolios. Some of those copies will be from textbooks and novels, so that rules out Kinkos. I'm moving into full panic mode on these damn porfolios now.
Fourth, and probably most important of all, why is my whole family sleeping peacefully while I'm sitting up at 3:00am wondering/worrying about all this crap? Why won't my (lightly used) brain shut the hell up for long enough to go to sleep? They're all in there dreaming away about fuzzy little animals or floating boats in the stream or something, and I'm not dreaming at all. I don't care if I dream all night about being buried in yarn I've never used or frantically driving from one copy center to another, as long as I can GET to sleep to dream it. This lack of sleep leaves me groggy and grumpy and pessimistic (can you tell? Ha!).
Back to toss and turn for another three hours until the alarm goes off.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
What life is like when you're married to a redneck...
My husband is a redneck. Actually we're rednecks, it's just that he's better at it. I'd pass up a cocktail party for a bonfire and beer any old day, but my husband is more than that. He's thickly cloaked in redneck. Ever seen Red Green? That's him. Only he's younger of course, and I must say quite a bit better looking. In fact, I've often looked over his latest project and said, "Well, honey, if the women don't find you handsome, at least they'll find you handy."
Being married to a redneck is a challenge. I have to have a very good sense of humor and the ability to think outside the box. Rednecks come up with solutionssane people others might not have thought of, and usually it works. Looks like crap, but does the job, and doing the job is what's really important, right? Arguing with this logic is futile at best. Once the idea has begun to bloom, a true redneck won't be satisfied until they know if it will work. When you're married to a redneck, you have to be prepared to fight tooth and nail for a somewhat civilized lifestyle. "No," is simply not a strong enough word.
The second year in this house, Vic decided to build a basement under the house. This normally involves some company coming out, jacking up your house, digging underneath it, pouring your basement and then securing your house to it. It's a long-ish process and can be pretty expensive. This would have been even more complicated for us because half our house is built on a slab. But we don't need no stinking house-jacks. Vic dragged a jack-hammer into my laundry room, one part of our house with a slab floor, and jack-hammered a 4 x 6 hole in the floor. He told me it was possible to dig our basement from the inside out, and began hauling wheelbarrow loads of dirt from under my house right out the front door. The neighbors probably thought we were insane people preparing to bury a body or something. After about a week, he began construction on a belt system that would carry the dirt directly from the hole out the back of the house, powered with an old lawn mower engine. Thankfully, the mower engine wasn't working well and Vic decided it was a lot of work hauling bucketloads of dirt out of a 6 foot deep hole. We ended up filling in the hole with dirt again and covering it with leftover bags of mortar. (If the neighbors wondered about hauling dirt out, I wonder what they thought about hauling it in.) I never will know if that would have worked or if my house would have fallen down on my head (thank goodness).
We found a power tiller on the side of the road a few summers ago that needed a little work but was otherwise in good condition. Ever the tinkerer, Vic picked it up and soon was tilling my garden for me. When the tiller broke in the next week, he started making plans to convert the go-cart currently in progress into a tiller. The blades, he explained to me, could easily be fashioned to fit on the underbody of the go-cart. "Then you could just drive around and till the yard!" he told me. Luckily the go-cart was nowhere near running order yet, so I was spared the horror of a drive-able tiller. I think he's forgotten about that one. I hope.
I could to on forever. The time he cut a hole in the back of the house for a large window air conditioner, then ran duct to it so we could have "central air conditioning." How he built a woodburning heater for his tool shed. The hundreds of things fixed with duct tape and the thousands of suggestions I've had to flat-out refuse (you really, really don't want to know).
Beyond the ridiculous, though, lies an intelligent man with remarkable ingenuity. He built me a solid and sturdy bookshelf out of some old wooden doors he picked up on a job. When we took out the chimney, he constructed an entire entertainment center in the old fireplace (in a 950 sq ft house, the space that saves is phenomenal). If something breaks, I need only ask, "Can you make something to fit this?" and he'll wander around his shed full of parts and either find something, or make it for me. And we never would have made it home from North Carolina in the summer of '96 if he hadn't plugged a hole in the radiator with a bolt from the side of the road. His unbelievable redneck ability to adapt has shown our kids how to find a way to make it work, which is a pretty great thing.
I've learned to stop asking, "What will the neighbors think?" I've learned that if I'm patient enough to sit through the process, the outcome is usually worth it. I've learned to only object when the invention in his head is completely out of the question, and then to do so as firmly as possible. ("Hell no! Are you crazy?!") This, young grasshoppers, can be the path to insanity or the path to clarity. I'm hoping I come through on the end of clarity, but we still have several years ahead of us.
Being married to a redneck is a challenge. I have to have a very good sense of humor and the ability to think outside the box. Rednecks come up with solutions
The second year in this house, Vic decided to build a basement under the house. This normally involves some company coming out, jacking up your house, digging underneath it, pouring your basement and then securing your house to it. It's a long-ish process and can be pretty expensive. This would have been even more complicated for us because half our house is built on a slab. But we don't need no stinking house-jacks. Vic dragged a jack-hammer into my laundry room, one part of our house with a slab floor, and jack-hammered a 4 x 6 hole in the floor. He told me it was possible to dig our basement from the inside out, and began hauling wheelbarrow loads of dirt from under my house right out the front door. The neighbors probably thought we were insane people preparing to bury a body or something. After about a week, he began construction on a belt system that would carry the dirt directly from the hole out the back of the house, powered with an old lawn mower engine. Thankfully, the mower engine wasn't working well and Vic decided it was a lot of work hauling bucketloads of dirt out of a 6 foot deep hole. We ended up filling in the hole with dirt again and covering it with leftover bags of mortar. (If the neighbors wondered about hauling dirt out, I wonder what they thought about hauling it in.) I never will know if that would have worked or if my house would have fallen down on my head (thank goodness).
We found a power tiller on the side of the road a few summers ago that needed a little work but was otherwise in good condition. Ever the tinkerer, Vic picked it up and soon was tilling my garden for me. When the tiller broke in the next week, he started making plans to convert the go-cart currently in progress into a tiller. The blades, he explained to me, could easily be fashioned to fit on the underbody of the go-cart. "Then you could just drive around and till the yard!" he told me. Luckily the go-cart was nowhere near running order yet, so I was spared the horror of a drive-able tiller. I think he's forgotten about that one. I hope.
I could to on forever. The time he cut a hole in the back of the house for a large window air conditioner, then ran duct to it so we could have "central air conditioning." How he built a woodburning heater for his tool shed. The hundreds of things fixed with duct tape and the thousands of suggestions I've had to flat-out refuse (you really, really don't want to know).
Beyond the ridiculous, though, lies an intelligent man with remarkable ingenuity. He built me a solid and sturdy bookshelf out of some old wooden doors he picked up on a job. When we took out the chimney, he constructed an entire entertainment center in the old fireplace (in a 950 sq ft house, the space that saves is phenomenal). If something breaks, I need only ask, "Can you make something to fit this?" and he'll wander around his shed full of parts and either find something, or make it for me. And we never would have made it home from North Carolina in the summer of '96 if he hadn't plugged a hole in the radiator with a bolt from the side of the road. His unbelievable redneck ability to adapt has shown our kids how to find a way to make it work, which is a pretty great thing.
I've learned to stop asking, "What will the neighbors think?" I've learned that if I'm patient enough to sit through the process, the outcome is usually worth it. I've learned to only object when the invention in his head is completely out of the question, and then to do so as firmly as possible. ("Hell no! Are you crazy?!") This, young grasshoppers, can be the path to insanity or the path to clarity. I'm hoping I come through on the end of clarity, but we still have several years ahead of us.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Confessions of a skinny woman...
I'm a thin person. I'm currently at the heaviest non-pregnant weight I've been in my life, at 126 lbs. I'm five foot nine. My pregnancy with Chad was the biggest weight-gainer, and the day he was born I was 24 pounds heavier than my 4 week OB appointment. You can count all my ribs and my collarbone is clearly visible from shoulder to shoulder. I'm sayin I'm thin.
When I was a teenager, my doctor said I was underweight. I was the same weight I was the last time I'd visited, and no thinner than I had been the rest of my life up to this point, but he insisted I go on a high calorie diet. So I counted calories. I drank Carnation Instant Breakfast with my breakfast. I ate until I was overfull and snacked between meals on high calorie things like cookies and candy bars (I was a teenager, that's about all I could think of). Calorie counting, as anyone doing so to lose weight will tell you, is just plain exhausting. All I did for two straight months was think about food. Overeating had made the very idea of my next meal nauseating. For the first time in my life, I was aware of how thin I was compared to everyone else. Before, I knew I was thin, but now the doctor had confirmed that something was wrong with me. I was embarrassed by my bony shape. I started wearing loose-fitting clothing, sometimes in layers, to reduce my skinny appearance.
After two months of this kind of eating, I'd gained a whopping 2 pounds, and the doctor frustratedly mumbled it could be water weight since I was having my period. We spent a really long time discussing what I ate, how often, and what kind of exercise I got. He accused me of not sticking to the diet and insisted that my being underweight was unhealthy and that I needed to take it seriously. I cried and insisted that I really had tried. I left his office with a scribbled list of suggested meals and the name of a weight gain product made for bodybuilders.
After a week or so of self-hating, I threw that doctor's list in the garbage. I'd spent my entire first 15 years not worrying about my body, and the last two months had brought me lots of misery and worry with no results. I'm doing nothing wrong - eating properly, getting the right amount of exercise, getting enough sleep. No amount of prodding or force can change my weight much. I'm just thin.
People often speculate on why I'm so thin. Maybe it's because I don't eat much sugar? Maybe I'm under a lot of stress? Maybe I get more exercise than most? Everyone assumes there must be some sort of secret to my thin figure. My grandmother would call me "bony," since she's a believer in food curing all that ails you. Bony. Skinny. Underweight. Skin and bones. A lot of women, often "overweight" according to the charts and maybe only a few pounds in that direction, call me "skinny," and always in that snotty way that says they hate me for it. Actually, I've been told more than a couple of times, "You're so skinny. I just hate you." This pisses me off. Think about that. You're _____. I hate you. Would it be okay for me to say, "Gee you're fat. I just hate you." Of course not. You don't hate someone because they're thin. You hate them because you're not, and you hate yourself for that. You hate yourself because you don't fit into that little imaginary box called Perfect.
I'm done hating myself. Beauty should not be measured in pounds. My body wants to be this weight. And I'm okay with that.
When I was a teenager, my doctor said I was underweight. I was the same weight I was the last time I'd visited, and no thinner than I had been the rest of my life up to this point, but he insisted I go on a high calorie diet. So I counted calories. I drank Carnation Instant Breakfast with my breakfast. I ate until I was overfull and snacked between meals on high calorie things like cookies and candy bars (I was a teenager, that's about all I could think of). Calorie counting, as anyone doing so to lose weight will tell you, is just plain exhausting. All I did for two straight months was think about food. Overeating had made the very idea of my next meal nauseating. For the first time in my life, I was aware of how thin I was compared to everyone else. Before, I knew I was thin, but now the doctor had confirmed that something was wrong with me. I was embarrassed by my bony shape. I started wearing loose-fitting clothing, sometimes in layers, to reduce my skinny appearance.
After two months of this kind of eating, I'd gained a whopping 2 pounds, and the doctor frustratedly mumbled it could be water weight since I was having my period. We spent a really long time discussing what I ate, how often, and what kind of exercise I got. He accused me of not sticking to the diet and insisted that my being underweight was unhealthy and that I needed to take it seriously. I cried and insisted that I really had tried. I left his office with a scribbled list of suggested meals and the name of a weight gain product made for bodybuilders.
After a week or so of self-hating, I threw that doctor's list in the garbage. I'd spent my entire first 15 years not worrying about my body, and the last two months had brought me lots of misery and worry with no results. I'm doing nothing wrong - eating properly, getting the right amount of exercise, getting enough sleep. No amount of prodding or force can change my weight much. I'm just thin.
People often speculate on why I'm so thin. Maybe it's because I don't eat much sugar? Maybe I'm under a lot of stress? Maybe I get more exercise than most? Everyone assumes there must be some sort of secret to my thin figure. My grandmother would call me "bony," since she's a believer in food curing all that ails you. Bony. Skinny. Underweight. Skin and bones. A lot of women, often "overweight" according to the charts and maybe only a few pounds in that direction, call me "skinny," and always in that snotty way that says they hate me for it. Actually, I've been told more than a couple of times, "You're so skinny. I just hate you." This pisses me off. Think about that. You're _____. I hate you. Would it be okay for me to say, "Gee you're fat. I just hate you." Of course not. You don't hate someone because they're thin. You hate them because you're not, and you hate yourself for that. You hate yourself because you don't fit into that little imaginary box called Perfect.
I'm done hating myself. Beauty should not be measured in pounds. My body wants to be this weight. And I'm okay with that.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Yay!
I just got myself a new Canon PowerShot A560. That name might mean a lot or a little to you. To me it means I can now take pictures of our daily life, our learning and who knows what else. I can print pictures of projects right on the pages of detail for our portfolios. I can email pictures to family members. Most importantly, I can know exactly what my picture looks like the second I take it. How cool is that? And I can add some awesome pictures to my boring blog to make it slightly less boring. I'm so excited!
I went a bit overboard today, so the pictures I have to share are silly and unrelated, but hey - I needed to test out the camera right?
I went a bit overboard today, so the pictures I have to share are silly and unrelated, but hey - I needed to test out the camera right?
This is Cadence happily plugging away at her math workbook. I don't understand it; I've always found workbooks dry and boring. She loves them.
This is the painting in my bedroom. (Yes, that gosh-awful pinkish paint is my bedroom wall.) I'm taking offers if anyone's interested. It's a Christian-symbolic painting by Somebody Jensen (I think). I hate it, but keep it because it fills that empty wall. And it's ... you know.. interesting.
This is the shower wall in my bathroom. Vic tiled it with some leftovers from tile jobs he did a few years ago. The floor is pretty cool too, but it was way too dirty for pictures today.
Hopefully I can find way more interesting things to take pictures of. But I had to test the camera right? Yeah, that's it. This is a test. I had a lot of fun playing with it. I'm really looking forward to all the great stuff I can do now that I've moved into the world of technology.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
What I was gonna do today...
Things I was going to do today:
1) Clean off the computer desk, throw out old mail (yes, I'm one of those people), move out desk and everything on it, vacuum.
2) Go shopping for new desk, most likely the cheap kind that will fall apart in a few years, that way I'll be sure it matches everything else in the house.
3) Visit the library. It was Tuesday after all.
4) Organize my pan cupboard. The weirdest thing happens to my pans. I put them away in nice little stacks and after about a month it looks like an oversized junk drawer. Like that closet on Zaboomafoo, you open the door and tons of stuff just falls out everywhere. Ridiculous.
5) Measure the girls' room, design a bookshelf/toy cupboard, and compile a list of supplies needed. Make Vic build it.
Things I actually did today:
1) Caught a stomach bug, or something, complete with massive headache and overall ickiness.
2) Got an early visit from Aunt Flo, who was almost a week late last time. This kind of inconsistency has never happened before. Since I was 11, excluding pregnancies, I've been 28 and 1/2 days. Almost to the hour. I'm not sure what to think of it. Add some cramps and some more ickiness.
3) Lounged on the couch and whined a lot. The kids made their own dinner of pb&j and I didn't even feel guilty. I don't know what Vic ate, nor do I care much. I slept through dinner.
Now I'm awake at midnight, having slept most of the evening. Yuck. I'm hoping the stomach thing might actually be a menstrual side effect so the kids don't come down with it. I'm feeling a lot better now, after my stomach has settled and I've chased the cramps away with Merlot and about half a bottle of ibuprofen (ow! my liver!), so I'm hoping to attack all that stuff tomorrow. If all goes well, I won't have to add "Clean up kid vomit" to that list.
1) Clean off the computer desk, throw out old mail (yes, I'm one of those people), move out desk and everything on it, vacuum.
2) Go shopping for new desk, most likely the cheap kind that will fall apart in a few years, that way I'll be sure it matches everything else in the house.
3) Visit the library. It was Tuesday after all.
4) Organize my pan cupboard. The weirdest thing happens to my pans. I put them away in nice little stacks and after about a month it looks like an oversized junk drawer. Like that closet on Zaboomafoo, you open the door and tons of stuff just falls out everywhere. Ridiculous.
5) Measure the girls' room, design a bookshelf/toy cupboard, and compile a list of supplies needed. Make Vic build it.
Things I actually did today:
1) Caught a stomach bug, or something, complete with massive headache and overall ickiness.
2) Got an early visit from Aunt Flo, who was almost a week late last time. This kind of inconsistency has never happened before. Since I was 11, excluding pregnancies, I've been 28 and 1/2 days. Almost to the hour. I'm not sure what to think of it. Add some cramps and some more ickiness.
3) Lounged on the couch and whined a lot. The kids made their own dinner of pb&j and I didn't even feel guilty. I don't know what Vic ate, nor do I care much. I slept through dinner.
Now I'm awake at midnight, having slept most of the evening. Yuck. I'm hoping the stomach thing might actually be a menstrual side effect so the kids don't come down with it. I'm feeling a lot better now, after my stomach has settled and I've chased the cramps away with Merlot and about half a bottle of ibuprofen (ow! my liver!), so I'm hoping to attack all that stuff tomorrow. If all goes well, I won't have to add "Clean up kid vomit" to that list.
Monday, March 26, 2007
More backyard wildlife...
Last night, Chad came in the back door excitedly telling me there was a huge animal that had walked through our back yard into the nieghbor's yard. The last time he saw a "huge animal," he claimed it was a bear. No, insisted it was a bear, even though I was pretty clear about where bears live, which isn't in little towns in Iowa. Not even towns as little as ours. The last time, it was just a raccoon, and we've become pretty acquainted with them since then.
So, wondering which neighbor's dog had escaped, I took a flashlight and went out back. Nothing in our yard. Nothing in the neighbor's either. We walked around the front of the neighbors tall wooden fence and there around the corner was an animal alright. Its eyes were reflecting the light from the flashlight, but that's all I could see of it. I looked at it. It looked at me. We stood like that for a long time until I finally sent Chad in for the big Maglite. I'd probably been standing there, 20 feet from this thing for 5 minutes by the time we got a good light on him. And it wasn't a neighbor's dog.
It was a bobcat.
I backed up a bit, but not far. It was really exciting and the kids were crowding in behind me to get a better look. While bobcats aren't outwardly aggressive, I didn't want to give it any reason to feel threatened. After a few minutes, it finally got bored and walked away. I'm going to keep an eye out for it the next couple of nights. I'm hoping I can get a picture!
So, wondering which neighbor's dog had escaped, I took a flashlight and went out back. Nothing in our yard. Nothing in the neighbor's either. We walked around the front of the neighbors tall wooden fence and there around the corner was an animal alright. Its eyes were reflecting the light from the flashlight, but that's all I could see of it. I looked at it. It looked at me. We stood like that for a long time until I finally sent Chad in for the big Maglite. I'd probably been standing there, 20 feet from this thing for 5 minutes by the time we got a good light on him. And it wasn't a neighbor's dog.
It was a bobcat.
I backed up a bit, but not far. It was really exciting and the kids were crowding in behind me to get a better look. While bobcats aren't outwardly aggressive, I didn't want to give it any reason to feel threatened. After a few minutes, it finally got bored and walked away. I'm going to keep an eye out for it the next couple of nights. I'm hoping I can get a picture!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Four is a magic number...
There's a Bill Cosby comedy bit, I think from Himself, that describes a very long flight with a little boy named Jeffrey. Jeffrey is four years old and tells everyone on the plane, "I'm four years old." During the wedding rehearsal a few weeks ago, the adorable little ring bearer stood shyly by his mother eyeing Cadence by the snack table. Finally he mustered enough courage to approach her, but instead of introducing himself or even saying hello, he said, "You know what? I'm four."
Four is apparently a very important age. Most four year olds will tell you their age repeatedly, in case you forgot. Riley turned four yesterday and spent the entire day saying, "Now I'm four." Not, "It's my birthday," nothing about presents or cake - other than to ask when we'd have them, and only once all day - nothing about being bigger or asking when others' birthdays would be. Nope. Just, "Now I'm four." It's a big deal.
We never make a huge deal out of birthdays here. No Chuck E Cheese or rented hotel rooms or parties at the water park. The presents don't total more than $50 usually. Thankfully this time, the idea of turning four was way more important than presents anyway. Next month, I'll be 30. You can bet your ass I'll be counting on some presents. ;)
Four is apparently a very important age. Most four year olds will tell you their age repeatedly, in case you forgot. Riley turned four yesterday and spent the entire day saying, "Now I'm four." Not, "It's my birthday," nothing about presents or cake - other than to ask when we'd have them, and only once all day - nothing about being bigger or asking when others' birthdays would be. Nope. Just, "Now I'm four." It's a big deal.
We never make a huge deal out of birthdays here. No Chuck E Cheese or rented hotel rooms or parties at the water park. The presents don't total more than $50 usually. Thankfully this time, the idea of turning four was way more important than presents anyway. Next month, I'll be 30. You can bet your ass I'll be counting on some presents. ;)
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