A sweatshirt is NOT a coat

I am going to climb up on my soap box again. Today it is10 degrees out and snowing. Tomorrow will be -11 and snowing. I work at a low income school and many of these students come from Mexico. That is not an excuse for no coats. I asked  some sweat shirt wearing kids where their coats were and they point to their sweat shirt. That is NOT a coat.Many do not own coats, hats or gloves and are standing out in the 10 degree weather walking home. If the school is not cancelled tomorrow, but merely delayed the teachers at our school are going to be upset. We are a neigborhood school and most of our students walk to school so a two hour delay won't benefit them much. Especially when last time we had a two hour delay we had 30 kids sitting in the office who still walked to school at 7 am. They do not serve breakfast on a two hour delay so these kids sat hungry in the office while the office staff babysat them. Many of them had no coats and walked so the office felt bad about having to send them home.  Today a girl showed up in shorts. She walked to school too.  Come on parents SERIOUSLY! I know i have been guilty of sending my kids out without a coat when I thought it was 50degrees and it was more like 40, but not when it is 10 degrees. Today my children had on turtlenecks under the uniforms and sweatshirts AND coats not instead of. My kids hate socks, but today socks were mandatory as well. I saw many students at the school without socks on their frozen little feet.
Yes we have a coat closet for kids to help themselves to, but they were told that they have a coat so they don't bother looking in it. We also have a huge assortment of coats in the Lost and Found, but no one seems to claim their missing coats. I check that thing daily when I find my child's gloves, hats or coats have gone astray.
I am climbing off  the soapbox now.

Let me forget the forgetfulness

         I have not been as faithful to my blog as I originally planned to. Life kinda is crazy in my corner of  the world and time slips away when its left unattended. That certainly doesn't mean that my mind slows down or I found some new kind of peaceful solitude amongst the chaos. This weekend was actually one of the best ones I have had in a while, but one thing did keep rearing its ugly little head all weekend, forgetfulness. I am not old, so why does this problem even plague me. I am so fearful that one day I will leave my house and not remember which street I left it on. I lose my car keys, my bank card (though not as often), even my car in a large parking lot has been known to disappear.  I have lost my shoes, my purse or a particular piece of clothing that I just took out to wear.  My house, with the exception of this weekend, is normally a cluttered mountain of rubbish that eats my things, I am convinced. This weekend we searched all over the house for a pair of glasses and a piece to the fish tank.The glasses turned up, but the impellor never was found. Both items were lost by my sons who had them in their hand at one time and set them down to not know where they left them. I of course am thinking "oh no! Not them too!" Since this sounds like something I would do.
        One solution I have read about is herbal supplements. Seriously!! I hate pills. I hate forgetting more though and the pills may have to win. If the pills are not too big and I gag them up that is. Yes, I am a baby when it comes to pill taking. I have tried brain enhancing "memory" games which I am rather good at.  I have also tried some nasty teas that are supposed to help with memory. You probably have to take drinks of these everyday, which of course I forget to do.
        What I cannot understand is I can remember trivia and facts. I can recite the books of the Bible in order, but not memorize words to scripture. I can tell you scientific tidbits or formulas but I cannot remember how much I spent at the grocery store. I can say hello in 12 languages but cannot remember where I left my keys. There is something disturbingly odd about this. I have always had this ditzy nerd persona, but I fear that it is getting worse. My grandmother had Alzheimer's and my father has dementia as well. I do not want to go down the same path especially when I am not even 40 yet.  All this forgetting of things though make me feel older though. Right now I kinda laugh it off and make it appear funny, but it worries me quite a bit. Lots of things worry me unfortunately, but I will save those for another blog. Why can't I forget to forget sometimes?

Musical Atrocities

    Tonight was my son's first concert in the school band. He plays the drums. Yes, it is a little annoying...the banging, clanging and pounding for practice, but that is why he has a plastic practice pad. It also helps for him to play down stairs.He sounds pretty good to me though I think I am partially tone deaf. He is always playing the "drums" in the car and loves songs with strong beats.
    My first attempt at musical talent was in kindergarten when my grandma thought that her left-handed extremely clumsy, lazy-eyed  grand daughter would be good at piano. Well that lasted one year. I am proud to say that I can now, as an adult, finally play America the Beautiful and Jingle Bells.  I played the violin two years, not consecutively. The only reason I played  was because my best friend played and I went to her house every day after school. So instead of sitting on the stage being utterly bored, or starting my homework, I signed up for the orchestra. Problem was Gretchen was good at the violin and was in the advanced orchestra after years of suzuki violin lessons. I was in the beginner class and quite horrible at it. The violin sounds like a screeching cat and when I played it sounded like that poor cat was in boiling water..
       I then tried play the cornet (a small trumpet-for those of you who are also musical idiots). I wasn't very good at that either and only lasted one year. I was by 7th grade already established as a nerd so I had lots of friends in the band.  They were all better than me. I didn't want to play the cornet, but the rental place only had that and tubas left. I am way too small to play the tuba so the cornet it was. I thought the saxophone would have been cooler and my aunt wanted me to play the clarinet, but no I get the instrument nobody wanted apparently. In high school my two best friends were in the band so I sat with the band at football games, meaning I got in free, but still no musical talent wore off on me.
      My musical atrocities carried into choir as well. I sang at church, but I think everyone is allowed to be in the church choir. I also was a student director for the the musical programs at the church. The only reason for this was I was the most experienced member of the cast and was in every show since kindergarten, so as a highschooler I was an obvious candidate. So where did my son get the ability to play music? I can definitely tell you it is not from my side of the family.

The Doctor

I was pressured today to go to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor. First of all, I know what is wrong with me why do I need to pay someone to tell me. The only reason I go to see one is too get medicine, which I hate having to get. But I know when I have a yeast infection or strep throat so give me the meds already. I also have absolutely no desire to get a shot to be healthy, like the flu shot. If I get sick I figure it is God's way of slowing me down and forcing me to rest some. So I will leave that to God. So far pretty good I might add. I am pretty much immune to most things anyway since I am around hundreds of kids each day. I don't ever get the pleasure of being sick. I say pleasure with a hint of sarcasm though in a way getting sick could be a pleasure for I get to have an excuse to lay around and do nothing. I also hate needles. I have never taken my kids to get shots, daddy has always had that duty.  I had to get a shot in the butt when I had strep throat last time and yes it went away rather quickly. The downside to that is I don't have any amoxicillan pills and that is the whole reason I went to the dr in the first place. I also hate pills but sometimes I do have to take them. It is the lesser of the two evils I guess.I have never had a phsyical as an adult, unless being preggo counts. I sure don't see why I should start. Go ahead and argue with me I just don't know why i need my blood drawn, again that would be a first. I guess there will probably be a day in the future where I will have to, but to me it is a waste of my money. I will climb off my soap box now.

The Good Samaritan

    Today at bible study our leader posed a question to us. How many times in the past year have we done little acts of kindeness? Our discussion was on Luke 10-"The Good Samaritan".  If we do little things daily then when we are faced with something bigger, we will be ready to be of service. This week I can only think of one thing. I asked a child who was sitting staring at his test what was wrong. All the other kids were done and he hadn't even started. He started to cry. Then he admitted that he hadn't slept the night before. I probed some more and discovered he got to school too late for breakfast so he hadn't eaten anything that morning and was hungry too. I took this child to the counselor's office and she gave him a granola bar. I know in this case calling home would probably do nothing, but she suggested that we try. I don't usually do that with a student and I felt good that at least he had some food to hold him over the hour and a half until lunch.
    I don't usually help people when out in public. That sounds uncompassionate but I don't usually see them in need. I know I wear blinders when in public. The main reason is that I am with my kids, I don't want to draw attention to myself any more than neccesary. Believe me my kids do enough of that. So I hurry about my way and don't observe people. I used to be a people watcher and I have turned into a people avoider. I know this is something that God wants to change in me. If someone drops something I need to pick it up as I used to do. Things that make one a good Christian, a good person for that matter, I need to do more of.
   I usually am walking around with my head in the clouds, barely attached. I purposely would avoid situations that made me uncomfortable and  now God is pushing me out of my comfortable box. I am not sure if I will ever be as compassionate as the good Samaritan, but I can certainly get better than I am. The order is "to love your neighbor as yourself ".  I will start with the hardest part of that phrase first, myself. I have always struggled with loving myself so how am I to love others in such a way. If you do not love yourself there is no way to properly fufill this command. I know I have tried and failed. I need to take care of myself before I can help others. This concept sounded foreign to me when I first heard it.  Why in the world would I do that? But now it does make perfect sense, as you cannot give what you do not have.

Oh the dreaded query letter, why do I fear thee so?

        Now that I have an amazing website, I need to kick my butt in gear and send off my query letters. My goal is to send to 50 agents. I can always send to more, but what would be the point of putting all my eggs in one basket by sending it to less than 20.  It sounds easy, but the reality is that I am my own worst critic. I write a" hook" for my book and a synopsis then when I look at it, I sigh in disapproval.  I worry that it will be rejected each time and I fear that my letter will not be up to par with other aspiring writers' letters. Then the letter and my manuscript will go straight to the "slush pile" never to be read or even picked up by an agent's assistant. I wrote my book with such ease, but this is hard. One hard part is my biography, mainly because I do not have any biography to record. They don't want to know that I am a mother of three, a teacher or that I work at my church. They also don't care about my writing career as an amateur either. So I am left more room to describe my book right? Well yes, but try writing a synopsis for a book you wrote that is almost 50,000 words and only getting less than a page to do it in. I am definetly struggling on this. I will get it done and I will try very hard to change my point of veiw and be a little more optimistic. I think I enjoy being a pessimist though. I am going to also force myself to finish one of my other three in progress stories. Then people will have something to read when they come to my beautiful website.  :-)

Glasses

I really need glasses. My recent pounding headaches are evidence of this. I have trouble with seeing anything far away making driving at night or reading words off a screen very taxing on my eyes.   The problem is I hate how I look in glasses. Other people look fine in them, but I look retarded in them. Maybe it is the nerd complex that I am trying to get out of now that I am grown, or perhaps it's my self esteem plummeting to the earth when I put a pair on. My other glasses mysteriously disappeared and fortunately for me the prescription was no longer valid.  One problem with the glasses situation is my size. I have a small face which puts me in the child or teen sizes. Is it wrong for me to be embarrased a little at the thought of wearing the same size glasses as my puny 11 year old?  I have been to five different glasses retailers and my picky self is displeased with every single pair I try on. I did find an acceptable pair at one store, but they did not take my insurance. Today I went to another place and there may be some hope there. They did have a lot of choices, but my children were being far too annoying for me to continue on my search. So until I search again, no glasses yet.  Maybe a second opinion is what I need. My husband and best friend seem to know what actually looks good on me so I may have to just let them pick the darn things out.

No way a monkey could do this

For the last few days I have been working on my website. My best friend is actually doing all the hard work, but he is challenging me to think, making me write and forcing the process of publishing my book. I have been delaying the whole publishing idea because I fear rejection. This is giving me self confidence though to see my words in such a context.  My website so far is amazingly beautiful. He has exceeded my expectations two days in a row. Yes, as he reads this his ego is going to shoot through the roof, but I really did not imagine it to look this nice and professional. Jay informed me that a monkey could make a website. I doubt the validity of that claim.  My experience with monkeys is that they fling poo and pick nits off their mates. I do know a monkey could not have designed my poem page. Keep it up Jay! I love it so far.

All I got was shortness of breathe

      I have always had a competitive spirit. I do not like being 3rd and I hate being 2nd. 2nd is worse than 3rd because now I have a personal vendetta against the person who is first. Not placing at all always irritated me so much that I pushed myself to do better the next time. In high school I ran with the guys at cross country and track, initially that was part of my strategy to become a better runner. In time I became "one of the guys".   Competition makes me a better person if I keep myself in check. Pushing little children aside to be first in a class room race is not going to win me any points. Today at church there was a challenge posed to the kids and of course I wanted to win. The spoiled little child deep inside me was saying "me me me". The challenge was who ever can win the race against a 6 foot tall leader got to have 5 points for their team. I did win, but since the challenge was for the children no points were awarded to the fabulous me or my team. All that I got was a shortness of breath and pain that I will regret tomorrow. I am not a 16 year old cross country runner anymore that is for sure.
     Part of the same spirit that wants to win all the time also does not like to ask for help. I know you are supposed to humble yourself and be willing to be helped, but that is easier said than done. I want to be independent. I want to do it on my own. I can do a man's job, I am one of the guys after all. I was raised with all boys. I am also getting better at receiving help, but I still hate to admit that I am weak and that I do need help sometimes.
     I also don't take criticism well. This has to do with my desire to be first or the best. I know I am not really the best at anything. Please feel free to be my critic as I need the practice. I will sulk in my little corner and no one will get hurt. I am much better at it then I used to be. I guess I put my "big girl panties" on now.

Homework Nazi

Today I put on my uniform and became the homework nazi, kinda similar to the cleaning nazi but without the nerf gun and the big stick. I run around to the three different locations that my children have been plopped and check each little amount of progress that they scribbled onto their paper. When I am done with looking at one child's work I hurry across the room to see any progress that has been made. My oldest absolutely refused to do any homework other than practice his drum which I know gave him extreme pleasure that the pounding banging clamoring noise was actually his homework, he even had an assignment on a paper from the music teacher. The spelling book once again has miraculously disappeared and getting him to read a book is almost as hard as pulling teeth from a crocodile. My middle child did not have much homework so he volunteered to take out both trash cans and feed the dog. My sweet child avoided the homework nazi's wrath that was caused by his older siblings mislaid home work. My youngest simply shocked me, she laid down where she was plopped and did all three assignments. For a split second, before she started rambling on and on and on about a new binder, I thought that maybe I brought home a different child. So until tomorrow, the homework nazi has hung her uniform and sighs a giant sigh of relief.

Chocolate Diet

       Chocolate.....I absolutely am convinced I can live on chocolate. In college I lived on Haggen Daas Ice cream by the pint, had one every night.   I tried the chocolate diet last summer and the results were that I lost 10 pounds. My diet was Reese's Peanut Butter cups, coffee and a Pepsi and then a regular dinner. This diet is not recommended for people with an extremely high metabolism and an inherited propensity for cavities. That is why I lost weight and now I have discovered that I can no longer eat as much chocolate as I wish. My tooth in the back top corner aches and moans when I do now. I am not willing to completely give up chocolate however. So that means a trip to the dentist. Did I mention that I hate going to the dentist, probably even more than going to the doctor?  The doctor does not give you a list of all the things wrong and give you a list that you cannot afford to fufill.

       Back to chocolate....my favorite food, though I am not too keen on mole. I will eat it, but chocolate has its place and on top of meat is not one of them, in my opinion. If I am in a bad mood or having a bad day...chocolate can save the day. Recently a friend of mine made chocolate chip and bacon cookies. I love chocolate chip cookies and I love bacon, but I am hesitant to mix the two. I am not picky about the kind of chocolate either. Yes peanut butter cups are fabulous but so are pretzel m&ms. I also eat white chocolate, but I am not too keen on the white chocolate reese's peanut butter cups. I mainly only have the white chocolate in my coffee, but I like darker chocolate coffees as well. Dark chocolate is also especially tasty and it is good for you. Hmmm...maybe I should have had dark chocolate in my diet. My poor eating habits are finally catching up with me. I gained back the weight and now have a mommy belly to flatten out. It is quite humorous that I have finally grown out of the size 0s and 1s. Yes I owe it all to chocolate, yummy yummy chocolate :-p

Precious Life

      Tonight I was reminded how short our time on earth is....yes some of us live 80-90 years, but in God's perspective it is short.  You don't know just how long you have.  Yes this post is a little more spiritual less humorous and more thought provoking. I do have a serious side after all. One lady in our bible study is being evaluated for cancer and you could see genuine fear in her eyes. She knows the Lord so I don't think her fear is of dying yet somehow the fear was still there. Then another lady told about her 80 year old grandmother and how very close she was to dying and how hard it was for her to find joy today.  This is a lady who spends an hour every day in God's word yet she too was struggling.  Then her husband was talking about his father's resentment toward God because he had a heart attack at a young age and never smoked or drank....Good health is not a gaurentee that you don't or won't get sick.
    I personally hate going to the doctor. I have been having dreams though...dreams that rotate between my husband and I sick or dying. They are quite depressing I admit. I do not enjoy the dreams at all. I have dreams that I have a heart attack and simply fall over at work. Maybe the dream is supposed to be telling me that I need a plan for my children or that my stress level is too high. It could mean that I need to drag my butt to the doctor to get a physical despite my utter dread of needles and doctors and pill taking. I never die in my dream but I am in the hospital and that is why I think it is a sign for me to pay attention to my choices and make better ones.
    The husband dying dreams are unfortunately more frequent. I know I have fears of being alone. I know I have concerns with his well being that aren't addressed so that is probably the root of them. I doubt they are prophetic but how do I know this. The dreams are never exactly the same but I wake up feeling the same. I feel horrible actually.  I do not wish death upon even my enemy (well I don't actually have any known enemies but still...) why am I having these dreams. Maybe the doctor that I might have to see will prescribe me a sleeping pill that will help me with this, since sleep is becoming more of a rarity and a luxury. I really hate taking pills they make gag, but it has gotten to that point of the lesser of two evils.
     I am going to go hug my kids now and then watch a movie with my husband. I don't know how long I will be on this earth but I do know I have my name written in God's Book of life!! Amen to that. I just will continue to pray that the dreams, fear and worries that I struggle with will disappear so that my days here will be more enjoyable.

A Day at the Zoo

       A day at the zoo can go two ways pure misery or pure enjoyment.  It can be cold, rainy or snowy (which by the way I do not recommend). You  may end up having to ride the emergency vet van down to the parking lot only to find out that you left the sun roof of your car open. Or you may be half way through the zoo...all the way up at the top and it begins to snow.  Yes, the weather in Colorado is fickle...close your eyes and it may change. Or it can be hot and sweaty where you run out of breathe easily because our zoo's ascent is the equivilent of a 10 story building. Then you factor in your children. If they are irritable, you end up listening to an hour or so of annoying sniveling whining. They may be extremely excitable, which is often the case of my children....bouncing off walls, running ahead of you and calling from afar "Look mommy look". Excitement is not a bad thing, but it is inevitable that my three are all beckoning me to look in different directions. Another mishap at the zoo could be losing of an item....a shoe from the sky ride, a hat thrown into the lake, a child that disappeared to sit on the train ride and wait for us without informing a soul. Hobbling through the zoo is another thing that should be avoided, especially at our zoo. My best friend, Jay, twisted his foot and then proceeded to walk around on it for a whole hour before even putting ice on it. That would be a good time to take advantage of the zoo tram. I also recommend bringing a hat to wear when visiting the Budgie Buddies...yes I did get a nice present from a bird on one visit to the zoo.
      My children are as unpredictable as the weather here in Colorado, but we have had many enjoyable times at the zoo too. When the zoo keeper lets my daughter, who is in a dress and fancy shoes, hold the snake, when same daughter wants to know what does a carousel eat (We had just fed the meerkats), or when my sons get to feed the tortoises,  the mother in me smiles. Feeding the giraffes and having a wet blue tongue lick you is not exactly enjoyable for me, but to my son it is delightful. The Bornean Orangatan kissing us through the glass clearly makes up for the cold wet shoes due to children walking through every snow drift.
Today was such a day...it was cold, wet and could have been miserable. My sons fought over a jacket and one son threw his hat on the ground (not the lake at least) but overall the day was quite fun and best of all due to membership it was free.

Testing nightmares

I have the unfortunate pleasure of  testing 464 children for the state of Colorado (luckily not by myself). I have some amusing observations from today alone that leave me utterly exhausted. First of all, since when does "one" mean color in every bubble on the page. Then i had a student get up during the test and try to help his non English speaking buddy to do better.....seriously kid sit down!! One child thought his shoe was more important than the test and since he was given the opportunity to test...well we have to leave him be. Then what do you do with the test that little kindie what's his name who drew flying robots and monkeys all over his test....yes you guessed it, you get a giant eraser and get erasing. Then there are the not so know -it-alls who are done first and absolutely refuse to check their work eventhough you know that they got them all wrong. Well until the fun begins again on Tuesday I am going to rest and hopefully I will not repeat test items in my sleep.