Move on over to http://angelinaswim.wordpress.com ... like many others I am a bit tired of the constant waiting for Blogger to be consistently up and running. Bear with me as I shift things into categories and get posting again (as though I've been posting regularly - ha ha) but there you are. For all 2 of my known readers, you have to add a new URL to your bookmarked list.
After much research and a determination of how much I really need to be carrying around I have found what I believe to be my all-purpose school bag. Click here to see it. I customized mine to be navy, gray, storm blue. It's plenty large, has a padded shoulder strap, is 7 inches deep, and has a flap I can throw over the bulky stuff. I think hoping my lunch sack will fit in there is futile. But I can deal with that. And it's blue. I can make it whatever color I want!
I have recently encountered a situation that is rather controversial so I'm asking everyone out there - parent or not - corporal punishment for children yea or nay?
I'm personally nay on that one but I also see a gray area. While I never intend to strike a child and I never will, I see certain benefits to getting a slap on the rear when the child is young simply because the child might not understand the reasons for "No, don't play with the scissors" or whatever the situation may be. I am EXTREMELY anti-using-other-objects be they switches, rulers, belts, and what have you. Especially for children who are old enough to speak and understand speech. If they understand words, use them. Take the time to explain why jumping from the top of the stairs is a bad idea, or why sometimes we have to work harder than we want to on schoolwork, or why playing with that friend is not a good idea at that moment. But what exactly does a parent think he or she will accomplish if the parent resorts to physical force?
Discuss.
Another Monday yet again. Weekends have become my recharge time. This weekend I slept almost 27 hours and for once since I started teaching I actually feel human on Monday morning. It's nice. I wonder how long it'll last? Yesterday afternoon I cooked our meals/planned our meals for the week and I must say, this week we will definitely be eating better than we did say ... last week. Last weekend we weren't home and therefore there could be no shopping nor planning. This week, we had the time. Last night I made one of JJ's favorites, penne with lots of spinach, cheese, garlic and chicken. It's a pretty simple dish and one that, I'm proud to say, I invented myself. For the more sophisticated palate I would assume that it's quite one-dimensional but I can deal with that. After all, my husband loves it. Tonight we're having bruschetta and when I get home from school (hopefully at 4:30 and not at 6) I'm putting chili in the crock pot for lunches this week and maybe for dinner tomorrow. I will also hopefully have time tomorrow to make meatballs and that way JJ can have spaghetti and meatballs for lunch sometime this week. I also made homemade tzatziki sauce for gyros. I happened upon a minor mishap with the sauce but hopefully it's still fine. I wanted to blend it to make it smoother for JJ (who doesn't like lumpy things in sauces such as the cucumber in tzatziki) and as I predicted, it got quite watery. Hopefully some of that will float to the top and I can skim it off.
I have come to enjoy the silence of 6:30 in the morning when there's no traffic outside our apartment (and for people who live in an apartment facing the street that's really quite nice) and my dog is still dozy and therefore not jumping or licking and while I find the jumping and licking affectionate and cute most of the time, sometimes at 6 am it's a little much.
The Steelers are playing Monday night football tonight. Eventually they will not be playing a game in primetime and I will actually get to see a game.
The gray pants and khaki pants I bought from Kohl's split again. Does anyone out there have a sewing machine I can borrow to put them back together? My hand-basting just isn't working.
I think that's it for a Monday morning.
It's been a long long long long time. For me. Since I blogged I mean. Oh well. But what does it tell you that it's 6:45 in the morning and that's when I've decided to blog because that's when I have time?
The good thing is ... not much has been going on that's really that earth-shattering. Last night we went over to Benji and Amy Lynn's amazing house for their daughter, Anna Grace's, 9th birthday party. We got Anna Grace books. Lots of books. They were some of my favorites in the 4th and 5th grade and I feel like Anna Grace is much smarter than I was when I was that age so I went ahead and bought them even though she's only a 3rd grader. They were all Roald Dahl - Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Modern classics loved by all, if I do say so myself. For dinner Benji grilled chicken marinated in something tropical tasting and while I'm not big on fruit flavored main courses, it was pretty good. The crowning jewel of the night, and Rachel agrees with me - just ask her, was the corn-and-mandarin-orange slaw. Again, note my usual distaste for fruit flavored dishes that were originally salty but this was the best slaw I'd had in some time. We came home after Anna Grace opened presents.
If you read Sabrina's Blog you'll see that she did a 101 in 1001 update. If you read the comments on Sabrina's Blog you'll see that even though I was the one that gave her the idea, my list has fallen by the wayside. Not only that, but I can't find it anymore. So this weekend I will be posting 50 in 50. 50 things I want to do in 50 months. I feel like, for me, this is a much more realistic goal. I also feel like my life is tons more stable than it was when I wrote the original list about 15 months. Some things, like see one of Genna's dance recitals or gymnastics performances, will remain the same. Others will go away. And some will hold more promise than they did in May of 2005. So we'll see.
I'm blissfully enjoying school. Last week we did the chapel program and my third graders were lovely. I'm so blessed. We also finished (mostly) our quilt project for our fall benefit and auction. My amazing room moms have offered to put together a quilt depicting Jesus' life story and have each of the students, plus me and the principal, draw a square. The kids finished their squares Friday. I finished mine yesterday afternoon. We should see the quilt in a couple of weeks. If you're interested in bidding for the quilt at auction let me know.
After getting to bed later than I really wanted to because JJ's friends are here to visit, I wake up at about 12:45 to *drip* *drip* *drip*. I love thunderstorms, I love rain and I love the sound it all makes. I DO NOT like the sound of the thunderstorm coming into my house. In our bedroom (thankfully not right over our bed) we have a leak. It dripped. Then, it ran, like a little faucet in our house. Then, it dripped some more. And spread. Then, the ceiling got mushy. Thankfully, the ceiling did not fall down. Whew. I call the emergency maintenence people and I'm not kidding, I'm telling them what's going on and the guy on the other line says this,"Sounds like you've got a roof leak." Noooo, really? In the maintenence guy's defense, it was 1:30 in the morning and there was really nothing he could have done about it at that hour. My suspicion is that the light touch from Tropical Storm Ernesto on Friday probably damaged our roof. The heavy rains from last night did the rest. Hopefully, they'll get it fixed soon. And by "soon" I mean "before there's more rain." The good news is that it stopped dripping sometime after 2 am. The bad news is I slept less than 5 hours last night. Oh and as an aside ... Who did JJ and I think of last night when our ceiling sprung a leak? We looked at each other and were like "I feel like Scott ... where are the bees?" But that's another story.
Before I get started let me just apologize for the lack of posting lately. You'd think I was ... I dunno, Josh Hall having a posting marathon or something. ;-) But my point is busy as I've been I haven't had much time to get these out.
Does anyone else there have that 1 person that he or she is constantly worried about? That one person that persists in being the thorn in your side, not because he's annoying, but because you constantly wonder "Is he okay? Did he have a good day today? I wish I could help, I wonder what I can do?" Well, I do. His name is Bryant and he's been my younger brother since June 1, 1984. And why do I worry about him? Well, let's see. I don't think he's happy, for one thing. I understand that most of us can't be happy all the time and that some of us are happy most of the time, some more of us are happy less than most of the time, and the rest of us are miserable all the time. As far as I'm concerned, I'm going to guess that mood and general life satisfaction, like many other things in nature, can be characterized with a normal bell curve so there's a range there that characterizes "average". I think JJ is way above average. We're talking 2 standard deviations, maybe 2.5 or 3. Me? I'm somewhere in the average-above average range. Right on the mean or maybe .5-1 standard deviation above. I'm pretty pleased with that. I will say that with my new job I am happy-ER so maybe I should re-evaluate at some point.
At any rate, my original point was that my brother is not happy. How do I know this? Well, he's never said to me, "You know, I'm just not that happy these days," but I am pretty sure my guess is right on. Why? Well, if you read his blog for one thing. And for another, he never has anything positive to say about anything. School? Sucks. Work? When he is working, which isn't that often, sucks. Friends? He says he doesn't have any. Roommates? Suck. Life in general? Definitely sucks. And it worries me because I'm not sure he has any real reason to get up in the morning.
I get up in the morning partly because I want to live another day, partly because when I open my eyes I see my fabulous husband, partly because if I don't my dog is going to lick me awake anyway, partly because I have 18 eager faces who expect to see me every day, but mostly because it's one more day that I can go out there and see what God has waiting for me. I can't wait to get up in the morning (on the days I've had enough sleep) because I never know what's coming next and I like that. There's a certain amount of routine to my life and my day: walk the dog, take a shower, have breakfast, make lunch, dry hair, pack bag, go to school, come home, make dinner, relax for a few minutes, go to bed. But there are a lot of exciting things that happen each day, too. Like ... I never know if my dog is going to do something cute. And ... I never know if I'm going to get an unexpected hugs from one of my kids. Or ... I never know who I'm going to hear from that maybe I haven't heard from in awhile. So I worry about Bryant because I don't think he likes his classes, I don't think he enjoys his time off, and I don't think he particularly has any reason to get up in the morning.
I have all hope and faith that he's going to one day decide that life really is pretty great. I have hope and faith that he's going to make some friends. And I have hope and faith that one day he'll laugh and smile because he's joyful, and not because he knows he's supposed to. When that happens it'll be like the winter has passed, and spring has come. The rain and snow and dark clouds will have given way to fresh grass, sunshine and flowers. And then hopefully Bryant will be able to see past the thorny stems and breathe in the scent of red, red roses.
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