The drum roll is happening. It’s countdown time. The last day for students to scamper into school is Monday! Don’t ask me why oh why the schedule was set for us to end classes on a Monday. I’m not one of the “smart” people that makes those decisions.

In a moment of utter and complete weakness, I relented to pressure and agreed to take my sophomores kayaking. Did I mention this included “all” of the ones that want to go? In the past I’ve taken the summer school kids; these kids begged, pleaded, and cajoled me into this.

At the end of June their English teacher and I are going to be heading to Wisconsin with a large group of kids – most of whom have never been in a kayak. They will hop into a kayak and almost immediately be facing their first small rapids. Many will topple into the water. Others will find themselves turned around and going backwards down the river.

I’ll be giggling at their antics and having a fantastic time watching them doing something out of their comfort zone. We aren’t going until the end of June; I’ll have to write about it after we survive the trip!

Peace

Wednesday’s adventure involved water and light – Thursday was a repeat. What, oh what, shall  happen today?

I cannot adequately express the horror I felt when I turned on the faucet in our bathtub to fill a watering can for my plants. It spit at me – no, not the watering can – the faucet. The damn thing spit, sputtered, then spewed black ugly goo water. I jumped back wondering if the damn thing was possessed, but then it stopped and clear, sparkling water began to flow.

A few minutes later I turned on the kitchen faucet – the same thing happened. I ran from faucet to faucet checking out the spitting black ickiness and watching as the water changed from white, to black, to white again. I was puzzled, but absolutely certain that whatever was going on – it was going to be ugly and expensive. All I could think of was that co-worker who lost her ability to flush not so long ago.

I began plotting my move to an apartment far far away from the country and all that is rustic.

I picked up the phone and called a friend who has lived with and dealt with wells, septic, and woods far longer than I have. She suggested a possible power outage caused this. With that, I looked and noticed the blinking light on the dishwasher said “PF” – power failure. Who knew that a power failure during the day could lead to black goo when the lights came back on? I certainly didn’t.

Yesterday as I drove up the driveway and pushed the little button to open my garage door nothing happened. The door stayed down, the place seemed eerily quiet. The power was out again. After calling the power company, we found out someone hit a power pole or something and everything around us was out – indefinitely.

The power came back on rather late. In the meantime we took a walk, went out for dinner, watched the sun go down while being chomped on my mosquitoes, and just hung out and talked. Sometimes black goo and power outages force a person into taking doing alternative things. I enjoyed that time with the fam – even though I had to face the ugly black goo later.

Peace

PS – And now, I shall bid you all adieu for a few days. It’s a holiday weekend and I am going to the lake. Have a fantastically wonderfully delightfully good weekend!

Today I am feeling dull. Have you ever just had one of those moments where you sit back and think “what on earth do I blog about today?” If so you can totally relate to me at this moment.

The thing is – I love to blog. I love to read what all of you have been up to. It makes me feel connected to a number of people that I would never have come to know without this medium.

That said, sometimes I’m just a yawner – this is one of those moments.

Even so, I don’t want to see this place fade into nothing so I am blogging.

Once upon a time I was this person that stumbled across the wide world of bloggage. It fascinated me. I found this wonderful little world of interesting people that let me peek into their world. I discovered that behind the words are real people with real happiness, hopes, dreams, sorrows, and just about every human emotion that exists.

I discovered I’m not alone.

I discovered that when I want to vent, someone listens. When something silly happens, someone laughs. When I am sad, someone cares. It astounds me. It impresses me.

To me, blogging is truly about community. I wouldn’t spend time reading and writing if I didn’t believe in that. It’s why I keep coming back day after day.

I was amazed and astounded when Pixie and Rusty started efx3 when our other site was about to go belly up. It takes some pretty amazing people to do that. It takes some real dedication to the concept of community that I found so wonderful about all of you.

I worry as I see less and less entries going up. I worry when I see less and less comments. Call me silly, but I think that’s what the place needs – all of us to do what Pixie and Rusty did – we need to be here. It seems we need to weather a small storm and work together to bring back the community aspect and let each other know we are here.

Wow, this wasn’t my intention at all. Nope, it’s what happens when I sit down to ramble for a bit.

Peace

Random thoughts from a random evening…

I have a fun little part time job that I didn’t apply for. Yeah, I’m still teaching, but I get to play at a local greenhouse for fun. What can I say? I love dirt and things that grow in it.

The hub took both boys off camping and fishing over the weekend. They slayed the fish, froze their asses off, but had a fantastic time. I think Babycub and I had more fun just being on our own for a few days.

I was tickled pink to see how many birds were swarming my feeders. I was ticked off when a giant black bear show up to feast at my feeders. I was a bit alarmed when I realized that the bear is taller than me and has absolutely no fear of humans. No matter how much we yelled and stomped for it to go away, it just stood there and munched. It finally wandered off when the hub fired a gun over its head. My feeders are back inside for a little longer.

The kids at school are utterly restless and anxious to get the hell out of school. I’m anxious to say g’bye to them for the summer. I love most of ‘em to bits, but it truly is time for all of us to have some time apart.

I’m scared. The governor is threatening to withhold school funding. We’re already broke beyond belief. I know one of these days will be the final straw and my school will be forced to close its doors. Sometimes I worry and wonder if I should think of a new career.

I hate funerals. I had one today – obviously, not for me – but I had to go to one.

It snowed last Thursday. It’s supposed to be spring, but I woke up to flurries, I watched them fall outside my classroom, and they just kept coming. It felt like Christmas when I found a notice letting me know that the goodies I was able to order thanks to a giant grant all showed up. My students and I spent the snowy morning giggling and laughing over the new things. It may sound dumb, but my school is sooooooooooo poor – I don’t even have text books so anything new is a major treat. Thank goodness for grants!

I want summer to be here.

Peace

Calling in sick in May is a horror. It seems like every day the building is already full of substitutes because of track meets, baseball games, golf meets, field trips, and last minute personal days – it’s a mess. The rest of us are trying to complete things that need to be covered by the end of the year – taking time off and coming up with something for a sub to do to fill the hour is next to impossible. Needless to say, the closer it gets to the end of the year, the likelihood of my using a sick day would only happen if blood was seeping from my ears or a limb had been ripped from my body.

That said, I WANNA GO HOME! For two days my head has felt like it’s about to explode. Everything above my shoulders is one giant ache. Even the surfaces of my teeth hurt. My eyes are burning and are begging me to just put my head down and close them for a bit. My nose is so stuffy that I sound like some snorkly, freaky frog person from another planet. Having a horrible voice is actually okay; it keeps me from talking too much and my throat is killing me.

Below the shoulders my body simply feels like I was used as a tackle dummy for a group of giant linemen. No, I’m not referring to the sexy butted football dudes that make watching the game fun. I’m talking about the giant oaf types that lumber off and on the field while coated with sweat – not attractive at all. These aches and pains are nothing from which a good fantasy can be created.

For a couple of days my diet has consisted of water, juice, Nyquil, and Motrin. Actual chewy food like fruit or veggies hurts as much going down my very sore throat as it does coming back up after my urgly, gurgly tummy decides to purge it from my bod. Suffice it to say, I seem to have stumbled across a nasty diet plan – I much prefer doing Pilates to wrapping my arms around the porcelain potty. However, if I don’t eat – I don’t hurl – therefore, I drink. That seems to work.

So I am here – at work. Ironically, whatever this is seems to be making its way through other tortured souls in my building. If I say “my head hurts”, I hear sympatric murmurs coming from any number of empathetic souls who are feeling the exact same thing.

So yes, pity me, pity me. I’m an aching, crabby, hurting, whimpering, whining, dying Deej right now.

Peace   

It’s probably not a good idea to flash your daughter’s fiancé at all – much less on Mother’s Day. Yet, I figure it was unplanned so it really doesn’t count. Right?

There I was, happily pitter pattering around my backyard. With the exception of four legged and flying critters, nobody can see me when I’m in the yard. That means I tend to be rather casual in my appearance. I usually don’t worry about the cubs, they are used to me and my wardrobe foibles.

Today’s apparel involved panties on my bottom – just panties – because I’d recently spilled water on my jeans so I just peeled ‘em off and tossed them a chair on the deck. My top half was covered by a tank top with no bra underneath. Let me just add, it was a might bit cool outside.

In the midst of dumping black sunflower seeds into a feeder, I heard my older daughter saying “Happy Mother’s Day”, and there they were – my daughter and future son-in-law – standing a few feet away with a gift, card, and a cake. Luverly!

What does one say in this situation? I resorted to small talk about my songbirds as I edged toward the sunroom door. I very nicely told them I’d be right back and slipped inside to toss on one of the hub’s rather large jackets. Game over – I was “presentable” – at least my bod was. My hair was still a jumbled mess of clipped up swirly ponytail and I wasn’t wearing any make-up.

Such is life in the woods on a Sunday morning.

Peace

There is this snotty little brat-faced bully of a thirteen year old that comes to school daily to torment the other people in the building. She is vicious and cruel. She’ll slap a smaller kid as she passes them in the hall. She’ll swear and/or make faces at staff, kids, or anyone else that crosses her path.

Yeah yeah, I know there are those of you that are going to be like I “was” when I first met the kid. I immediately focused on “something has made her this way – we need to save the child”; you’re probably doing that too. That sort of thing is for another post on another day. This one is simply the nastiness of the psycho girl from hell.

Yesterday one of the older boys verbally gave it back to her in spades. I didn’t see the incident; I heard about it from some other students. Apparently, he really socked it to her. When I saw him later, I forgot that I was an adult. I guess I’d just wiped too many tears from too many kids that had been the object of meangirl’s viciousness.

I walked up to the boy and said “I hear you were picking on Meangirl earlier!”

(I used my “official adult-in-the-building” look and voice)

He stopped, looked at me, and immediately started to defend his actions.

I just turned, started to walk away, and said “Well done!”

He was still stammering as I walked away.

Sometimes those bitchy nasty kids just deserve what they get. Nobody deserves it more than Meangirl.

Peace

Tonight is the Academic Awards banquet, and I’ve been selected by a student as “her” teacher to honor. It’s a compliment, but I’m feeling like an utter shit because I truly have no desire to go. I want to stay home and play outside. We’ve spent a chunk of time batting a volleyball around out there today and now the party is over – I am waiting for my hair to dry so I can get dressed and head out of here to make nice-nice with the grown ups. Shame on me! I truly do really like the girl that picked me. She’s an awesome young woman who will wow the world when she graduates. Her parents, the ones I’ll be sitting with, are friendly and easy to talk to. I’m just wishing I could go back outside for a wee bit more sunshine.

I think I’m feeling ornery because my next three weekends are booked and I am not a happy camper about it. Next weekend is the fishing opener. The hubster is heading out with his friends for their annual, crazed camping thingy. No kids allowed. That means Boycub, who is itching to drown a worm or two, can only go if I take him to the cabin. I’m taking the Cubs to the cabin. The following weekend the hub is taking both of our sons camping and fishing. Normally, that’s an awesome weekend for Babycub and me. We play all weekend. This time, Babycub and I are going to have the grandbaby spending the weekend with us. The following weekend it’s back to the cabin.

I love GrandbabyCub, but she just turned one. One year olds are a lot of work. If we take her outside, she’ll be shoving every leave, twig, or rock into her mouth unless we watch her like a hawk. It’s not my idea of being a total bum while the boys are gone. It’s not what we do at all.

I know I sound like the worst gram ever. I am consumed with guilt when I even think out loud that it’s going to be inconvenient to spend the weekend chasing the baby around. It would be sooooo much easier if she were just a couple years older. I don’t want to deal with diapers or Gerber.

There you have it; why I’m feeling a wee bit of a cranky-pants at the moment. All this, and I still have to correct papers on the Napoleonic Code tonight. *insert yawn* It’s going to be a long night.

Peace

PS – Do you like this design? I think it’s rather sharp.

Today was glorious. It wasn’t the perfect, warm day that I’ve wanted to cherish, but it was sunny and warm enough. I got to play outside.

The cubs and I did some yard work. Somehow I managed to get my ponytail stuck in a branch – it hurt like hell when I tried to escape.

I watched Canadian geese paddle around my pond.

I filled bird feeders.

We put up the volleyball net and played a wee bit.

It was good.

After a rather yukky week, this was bliss.

It helped me forget about the embarrassing hospital adventure with my pregnant student.

It made me forget that I haven’t slept an entire night through.

It made me forget that I have a silly case of pink-eye.

It made me forget that I want to smack a few people silly.

The sun was shining, my flowers are coming up, I got my hair out of the tree, and the frogs are chirping in the pond again.

Life is good.