I am generally of the opinion that you are really only as young as you want to be in your head, but sometimes things happen that just stop that happy train of thought right in its tracks.
I had the strangest experience tonight. I picked Younger Son up from practice tonight after I got off of work, and we made a quick run to the grocery store. We split up so as to make the shopping go quicker, and I was standing a couple of isles away from him when I ran into an old friend of mine. She took a job at another company and I hardly ever see her anymore, so we stood and chatted for a few minutes. Younger Son came up behind me, so I introduced him to my friend and then she said something that blew my mind:
“Oh my, I noticed him in the other row, and admired that he was wearing shorts. What a good-looking young man!”
When she realized that what she’d said out loud, and that she’d said it with such frank appreciation of his looks, she quickly change the subject. Now, I know that at some point soon I am doing to have to beat the girls off with a bat. Younger Son is almost 17, and is a good-looking boy. Older Son is pretty cute too…I’m a lucky Mom that way. However, when my friend, who is a grandmother, starts ogling my kid with something akin to lust in her eye, it’s quite a revelation.
First I had to get used to the idea that I had kids old enough to shave.
Then they started driving.
Now I’ve seen someone older than me look at my child with lust on her face. I can’t decide if I should be proud enough to burst, or if I should make sure he doesn’t wear shorts in public any more. Perhaps a nice ankle-length jacket would be helpful here too.
Or, I could just suck it up because I am almost 43, and I am, in fact, old enough to have kids who are lusted after by other people. I’m guessing that sucking it up would be less effort, but it sure has been a shock to my system!
As all of my Faithful Readers know, I have two jobs. I work at the Cube Farm by day, and The Big Box Store by night…the blue one. I think you know what I’m talking about.
Lately, I’ve had thoughts of defecting to The Other Big Box Store. The red one, with the bulls-eye.
I have a friend at The Cube Farm who has been talking to me about switching over, and I think I just might do it. I have to say, though, that I have been at The Blue Store for long enough that I’m comfortable there. The whole problem with that place is that it’s impossible to get your work scheduling straight, it’s disorganized, dirty and they have such a high turn over rate that there is never enough help. As a result of not ever having enough help, many of us “Floor Help” end up cashiering instead of keeping our departments straight. I hate cashiering, and my right elbow and wrist hate it too.
Every time I go to The Red Store I marvel at how clean it is, how every employee has a scanner to use and that things just seem to be more orderly in general. It’s so tempting to defect, but I would be giving up a lot of benefits I get at The Blue Store that wouldn’t be available to me at The Red Store. Hm…lots to ponder.
Life is full of all sorts of trade offs, and some have been very worthwhile. Let’s take last night for example.
I picked up The Flirt, and we went shopping last night. We bummed around the mall, just going from one store to another looking at stuff. At several points he grabbed my hand and held it as we walked. Wow… have you got any idea how long it’s been since a man has picked my hand up and held it? Oh…many more than I can count. That Flirt is full of all sorts of delightful surprises, and I’m looking forward to finding out what else he has up his sleeve.
So, what’s the trade-off? I gave up time with my boys at home for the evening.
I think the whole trick is to find balance. Sunday evening The Flirt came over for pizza and movies, and we all had a good time. Hopefully I can find and maintain just the right balance, and not let my social life get the better of me.
I think we can do this… Well, I guess we’ll find out!
This whole last year has been full of working every weekend day, but that’s all changed now. I’ve changed my schedule so that I get one weekend day off. I had to take on extra hours during the week to do that, but life is full of little trade offs, and this one was worth it.
Not only did I get to sleep until my eyes felt like popping open all by themselves, but now I get to sit in a quiet house and catch up on my blogs. And, I get to write a post with no interruptions or the boys reading over my shoulder. Now there’s a treat. It’s a little easier to write what I really feel if I don’t have to worry about them walking by and sneaking a peak and making comments.
Aw shoot…I guess I spoke too soon…Older Son just got up, but he’s offering to make coffee, so I guess that’s another one of those little trade offs. Hmm… Coffeeeeee!
This morning is going to be all about The To Do List. Since I’ve taken on extra hours at the Big Box Store, and have stumbled upon my new found amazing social life, my house has really hit the skids. Time to take action, and here’s the plan for today:
Kitchen – (medium bad shape) clean off all flat surfaces of all things accumulated, scrub floors. If time, scrub fridge doors, inside and house, reorganize cupboards and drawers.
Living room -(horrifyingly bad shape) Burn and start again. Nope, too expensive. Dust everything, scrub walls, scrub floors, vacuum rugs, sort bills and papers, reorganize entire room. Hm…maybe it would just be better to burn and start again?
Bathroom – (pretty good shape) Light weekly scrubbing needed only
Entry way – (Not too bad) Sweep and mop floor, reorganize shoes and jackets
My room – (Run away, run away!) Get rid of the last of the things I brought up from the basement during the flood. Sweep floor and vacuum rugs, change sheets, dust everything, organize shelves, organize closet.
Basement (Good grief, what happened to my clean basement?!) Totes need organizing, floors need sweeping, laundry needs catching up with (my poor washer will be smoking and begging for mercy by the end of the day), items need to be put away in my new workspace cupboards.
Outdoors (Uff-da…) Need to have Younger Son finish pulling in the garden, and weed-whack anything that’s over grown. Solar lights need to be put away for the year, and the shed needs to be organized.
I’ve just read over this list, and know that I have my work cut out for me, but so do Older Son and Younger Son -I’ll be keeping them busy today. I’m also aware of this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’m dying to send a text message to my new man friend. He needs a blog nick name….I’ll have to think on that. I’m seriously aware that we are only friends, but I’ve gotten rather attached to him. Could be that I need to reign that in a little bit…if he wants to be more than friends, I’ll let him let me know. Darned flirty man… makes me want things I shouldn’t want right now. For today, I need to pay attention to my house and spend some extra time with my kids.
I hope you all have much smaller To Do Lists, and a spectacularly restful Sunday.
Editors note: So what happens after I get this posted and get ready to start my day? My phone goes off…it’s The Flirt…texting just saying Good Morning. Life is good…
It sounds as though I make it out to be like it sneaked up on me, and caught me unawares. Well, that’s sometimes how it happens…at least for me. I realized recently, that I’d been falling into old patterns and having no feelings other than unhappy. Today I heard stories about two people I work with at The Big Box Store, who have decided to move away because they lost their homes, and most everything in the flood. There’s nothing holding them here, so they are moving to where they have family, and starting over. It really made me think about all the things that I have taken for granted, and how fortunate I have been.
Do I have more bills than I can keep up with? Oh, yeah. Do I run like a chicken with my head cut off most days? Yep. Do I feel overwhelmed all the time? Most definitely. Has my ex-husband served me with a legal motion because he thinks he’s paying me too much, and wants a refund? Yes he did, that rotten so-and-so. Has the heart of my city been destroyed, and so many people I know been displaced and won’t be able to get back into their homes before the snow flies? Yes, and it makes my heart ache. Have I got more things around the house that need doing than I have time and energy for? Oh, man, do I. Did my engine light come on? Unfortunately, it did. Ugh.
I’ve been feeling really down because of all of this stuff on my plate, and didn’t realize how down I was until I realized I have been having a continual internal pity party for quite a while. Hearing about these two families who have had to make such a hard decision really jerked me out of my rut, and I was able to actually get up and do something. Feeling depressed is very much like wearing weights around your neck…it’s just so hard to get up and do anything. I wish I had realized I had sunk down so far before things got so out of whack.
The thing is, I have got so much to be grateful for, and that really should outweigh the bad stuff. Do I have a home to come home to at the end of a long day, that is dry and safe? Are my kids healthy? Am I gainfully employed? Do I have parents that have stuck by me and helped me every step of the way my whole life? Do I have good friends? Did my garden produce food for me, even though I neglected it all summer? A resounding yes to all of these things and much more. I am so blessed, and it’s a huge bummer that I lost sight of that.
Before - ugh!
So, after I got home from working at The Big Box Store this morning, I took Older Son shopping. We came home, and then Younger Son and I spent three hours outside. He changed light bulbs over both doors and washed the van, and I spent my time cleaning up and organizing the rock beds that surround two sides of our house. The front one was especially bad, but it turns out that it didn’t take as long as I thought it would. Since I had extra time, and was on a roll, I weeded out my strawberry/herb garden and found some interesting things.
Rosemary on the right, Thyme on the left
I planted rosemary, thyme and oregano this spring, which grew fabulously. Now I have a nice bunch of fresh herbs to cook with. Actually, I like to just rub them in my hands and sniff them. There’s nothing that drops my blood pressure quick than smelling fresh thyme. Who needs drugs when you have a good kitchen herb garden!
After that was done, I took a look at my VERY over grown vegetable garden. We planted snow peas, corn, carrots and pumpkins. The only thing that did really well was the pumpkins. The vines and flowers are so pretty! Younger Son has been telling me for a couple of weeks about some really strange-looking pumpkins, and he thought the vines might be infected with something and the pumpkins were deformed. I finally made the effort to take a look tonight, and it turns out that not only do we have genuine baby pumpkins, but also spaghetti squash! I had a spaghetti squash that I ended up throwing in the compost heap this Spring, as it went bad before I could eat it. Apparently, they are very easy to grow!
We also have ground cherries and dill that re-seeded themselves from last year. The strawberries looked a little worse for the wear, but were holding their own and had sent out runners. We even had some carrots that survived all the rain we received. Even though Younger isn’t a veggie eater, I talked him into trying a carrot straight out of the garden, since he was the one that planted them. I was surprised that he actually ate it, but he did. I ate some too, and it was a little woody as it should have been picked earlier, but it was good anyway.
So, by 7:30 this evening, the rock beds had been cleared of all weeds, one garden had been weeded and watered, and the van had been scrubbed for the first time all summer (There wasn’t
Whoa! Now you can see the rocks in my rock bed!
much car washing going on with the city requesting water conservation during and after the flood, until just recently), and I was able to sit down and eat supper with a genuine feeling of having accomplished something for the first time in a long, long time.
Yes…yes, I’m still alive. It’s been awhile since I posted, but I have to say I was a running fool. Seems like the whole summer has flown by. While I feel like I have nothing to show for it, I’ve actually been pretty busy. That’s ok…It’s better than sitting around, I guess. And then, when I have time to take a breath, all the fabulous things I had found to blog about evaporate like flood water on a hot July day. Amazingly, I was sitting in the living room alone with no sounds other than my Wood Wick candle burning, the traffic outside and the noise of Younger Son taking a shower. It was a lovely quiet moment, albeit brief. Apparently that was just enough to break my writer’s block. Strange, the things my brain will respond to.
The flood situation in Minot is no longer all about being wet, but now about recovery. Most everyone who was displaced has been allowed back into their homes, and the gutting and cleaning has commenced. We have heard that there is a plan being proposed that will straighten out the river, and provide protection from the river for up to 30,000 cfs (cubic feet/second). We dealt with upwards of 22,000 cfs this go around. Whatever plan they come up with, it will take a long time to put into place, but Minot will be better off for it. More on that as things progress.
Right now we are sitting in the living room watching a movie called Escanaba in da Moonlight. It’s an old family favorite that we got through Netflix. It’s one of those shows we all agree on, and can have a good laugh over. There’s nothing like sitting around with your kids having a good laugh.
Speaking of kids, I had the last three days off so I could get them registered and set up for school, which is starting very late for us this year. The flood took several schools in town so the State has forgiven five school days, plus there will be three more tacked on to that will be made up throughout the school year. As a result, instead of starting school August 24th, school won’t start until September 6th. Older Son is a Senior this year, and so come all things associated with that: Senior pictures, applying to colleges and graduation…amongst other things. Older Son isn’t too hip on the whole graduation tradition, and would rather skip all of the pictures and ceremony. Well, he’s just going to have to tough it out. Some traditions just need to be observed. I think he’s feeling a little overwhelmed with the end of school coming and having to make choices. I don’t envy him…it’s no easy thing to know what you want to do for the rest of your life. I still am not sure what I want to do when I grow up either, and I’m 42.
Younger Son cooked supper tonight. It was a <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/t1IiUAtoNBk“>grilled, bacon wrapped, vegetable stuffed meatloaf. OMG. That kid is going to make me fatter than I already am. He’s also going to make some nice girl a fine husband one day. He’s got that cooking thing down for someone who’s only 16 years old. This is the third time in the last month I’ve come home to find supper grilled and ready to eat. I’m truly spoiled.
My lovely kitty, Harley, got declawed this week. As lovely as he is, he’s got a taste for scratching everything but the scratching post, including box springs, the dish washer, the heat vent in the bathroom, the living room furniture, and anything Older Son owns. It’s not something I had planned on, or liked, having to do, but it was either that or he’d have to go. The good news is that he is making a remarkable recovery and is up to the usual mischief…except without so many scratch marks.
Now it’s quiet again, and all I hear is my tapping on the key board and the wooden wick of my candle crackling away. Pretty soon I’ll have to get up and put my laundry in the dryer, and hit the rack, bringing my rare quiet moment to an end, but I’m enjoying it while it lasts.
Oh yes…only three more days left and then life gets good again. School’s soon to be out for the Summer! Whoo!
What, you say? I like it when school is out? Oh yes. I have always liked it better when the kids are out for the summer. There’s less complication, less garbage to deal with, and all around less stress. Older Son asked me the other day why I liked it better when school is out. “Because I like you guys,” was my reply. And I do like having them around…I’ll be a mess when they move on and get their own lives!
I will admit that they are getting on each others nerves by the end of Summer Vacation, and going back to school alleviates that a bit. This year I don’t anticipate that being a problem as they both are working. With the different schedule’s they’ll have, they’ll be lucky to even see each other for very long at all most days. Sigh…I’ll be lucky to see them at all each day. Still, I like it better when school’s out for the Summer.
This morning I made the coffee, and I did it purely out of self-defense.
Older Son has been making the coffee recently and his idea of coffee, at the tender age of almost 18, is to put so many grounds in the filter that they are almost leaking out by the time the water has finished running through. I don’t often drink coffee right away in the morning, but the one day that I was really needing a cup I made the mistake of not making it myself. It was so strong, it fairly made me break out into a sweat, so I didn’t finish it…I took two sips and there was so much caffeine in that little bit of coffee that I was lit up like a Christmas tree for the whole morning. That might have not been so bad, except it was so bitter that I just couldn’t get it down.
When I made the coffee today, I made it a little strong for me so Older Son wouldn’t feel like he was drinking colored water. So far so good. he finds it palatable, so mission accomplished.
So here I sit, reading blogs and sipping my low-octane coffee. I’m seeing a lot of posts about Santa, and it reminds me of the Christmas that Younger Son was in the First Grade. Younger Son has a very pragmatic, black and white way of looking at the world, and it didn’t take him long to figure out that Santa isn’t real. As the boys stayed with my parents after school, he inquired with my Mother about this, and they had a discussion about the real St. Nick and the fact that he is not with us any more but we celebrate him in spirit. He seemed satisfied with this explanation and all was well.
That is, until the next day when he announced to the rest of his First Grade class that Santa was, in fact, dead. From what I understand, there was an argument, and several of the children cried. Needless to say, the teacher was pretty put out with him when my Mom picked him up after school.
Apparently Younger Son didn’t understand that while you may learn the truth about something, you don’t get to burst other people’s bubbles. I have no doubt that some of these kids will have bitter memories of the Christmas of their First Grade year. I can just imagine some of the conversations that happened around supper tables that night.
So, now that I’ve finished my coffee, and my story, it’s off to work. Happy Thursday!
Before you read the rest of this post, make sure to watch this video. It will blow you away:
OK. Now that you’ve seen this video about this most amazing school, doesn’t it make you want to visit Bali? I would love to see this school up close and personal. I would love it even more if the administrators of the schools that my children go to would latch on to this idea and run with it.
My eleven faithful readers who know that I hail from smack in the middle of the High Plains are probably thinking to themselves, “But Sparrow…you live on the High Plains, where there’s snow and bitter cold most of the year! How could you possibly build such a fabulous, amazing, wondrous school such as the Green School in Bali?” Well, the reality of it is that open air bamboo classrooms aren’t going to be a reality here in North Dakota. However, schools can be built using recycled materials and Green concepts that are adapted, or unique, to each season we experience here (yes, we have more than one season: Winter and Road Construction!)
The thing that intrigues me the most is that the children in the video are given the opportunity to not just go to school, but experience life and really get to understand how everything is connected in their world. They get practical experience for living in their local environment by participating in helping to grow and harvest the food they eat, and I could go an and on, but you get the picture from the video.
Here in the Great White North, schools are dictated by a cookie cutter mentality. If a kid learns differently, they are disabled. Done. End of Story. Do not pass go or collect $200, and for God’s sake, see your physician and get your kid medicated. Both of my children were late bloomers, but they were labeled as learning disabled at a young age, because they didn’t fit the cookie cutter mold that 80% of students slide right into. The teachers insisted that we get our kids on medication to “make it easier for them to learn”. They even talked us into taking Oldest son to a specialist when he was in the 3rd Grade to get him diagnosed, so he would be easier to treat and teach. When the specialist was done testing him, she told us, “he could have ADD, or he could have high-functioning Aspergers…we just can’t tell. That will be $400.00, thank you! Next…”. Meanwhile, the physician we’d been recommended to take him to had him taking Welbutrin, which never worked. None of the other medications we tried worked either.
Soon after that, Older Son cornered me in a quiet moment and asked me if he was mentally ill. By this time Younger Son had hit first grade, and his teacher had insisted that he needed to be medicated too. The Ritalin the doctor had him on caused his behavior to hit the skids. I was at my wit’s end, and that’s when I grew a backbone. My kids weren’t sick, they weren’t broken, or damaged. They were just different.
At first I thought the teachers and administrators must know best because they are the professionals, right? Let me tell you what complete and utter B.S. that is. When I finally got it, when I finally really understood what a racket the schools and pediatricians have going on up here with the whole medicated child idea, I was heartbroken for having gone along with it, and for having medicated my kids, when they just needed extra help in reading and math. They needed a school environment that kept them interested and engaged, rather than sitting in a box all day trying to pay attention to dry subjects that don’t have any real meaning for them because their hands aren’t engaged along with their heads.
When I pushed back and fought against drugging my kids, the teachers weren’t happy. In fact, they if weren’t openly angry about it, they treated me as though I was being a neglectful parent by not drugging my kids. I’d like to speak to those teachers who said my kids wouldn’t make it without drugs. Both are doing well. Not only is Older Son doing very well in school, but he also holds a part-time job. Younger Son, who, as far as his Fourth Grade Monster (ahem, teacher) was concerned wouldn’t ever do well or be much of a reader, manages some how to get on the honor roll every freaking quarter. Success with no drugs…I’d very much like them to stick that in their pipes and smoke it, and smoke it hard.
But, I’ve digressed. As you can tell, education of our youth is something I’m pretty passionate about, given my experiences as a parent. And as a child, too. I didn’t do well in the cookie cutter environment either, but back then there wasn’t the idea of medicating your kid if he or she didn’t fit the mold.
Having said all that, I think Green can have more meanings that just the materials you use to create a dwelling or how you treat your environment. I think Green means fresh thinking. I think it means thinking out of the box. I think it means teaching children how to be live successfully in their local environments by integrating topics across classes. I think it means constructing the idea of schools being more sustainable on their own, and teaching the kids about living sustainably.
Most importantly, kids need to move. Keeping a kid captive in a chair for most of a day without much in the way of making what little movement time they get relevant to what they’re learning is not good. Memory is made stronger when your body is engaged with what you’re hearing and talking about, so what’s being taught will be that much easier to remember and integrate into their daily lives. Teach practical topics along with the three R’s so that it’s all one integrated, meaningful stream of knowledge. Meaningful, I think, is the operative word here. Parental and community involvement is also key. It really does take a village to raise a child. If one leg of the Parent-Community-School triad is busted, it just makes it that much harder for the kids to grow up whole and become ready to face the world as adults.
I think schools in harsh climates have a tougher job, and I see strides toward integrative teaching methods, but there’s more work to be done. I know it isn’t easy, and it’s simple of me to sit here and blog my heart out about it, but I truly think it’s something that can be done. If you found the video interesting, there is more where that came from. Double click on the video and that should take you to you tube. John and Cynthia Hardy have some really good ideas about education, and I hope it catches on across the world like a prairie fire. It’s not just the structure that houses the school that’s impressive, but what goes on inside.
I got up a little early this morning, and both of the boys woke up without any trouble. I’m almost tempted to ask, “What’s up with that?”, but I won’t. I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.
It’s very rare that I don’t abuse my snooze button several times before crawling my sorry carcass out of bed in the morning. Today, I think I only hit the button once, and it wasn’t even a good smash…just a quiet tap. The really bizarre thing is that I don’t feel as dragged out and tired as I have for the last couple of weeks. Perhaps having a couple of days off from The Big Box Store has helped. Even still, I always feel dragged out and tired, so I will not take the gift of some extra energy lightly.
Something that does make me feel a little emotionally tired is what I heard on the radio this morning. Apparently the Republicans gained 60 seats in the House last night. I don’t identify with either Democrats or Republicans…I consider myself Independent. I never considered Nancy Pelosi any prize, in fact, I didn’t like her much at all, but I’m hearing now that John Boehner will be the next Speaker of the House. I find him even less trust-worthy than Pelosi…in fact, I find him downright creepy. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Oh well…if we wait long enough, things will change again. They always do.
I was able to get someone in to fix my broken central air today. It’s been a rough couple of days with no air conditioning, and high temperatures and humidity. I think I could
Courtesy of mofoyo.com
handle the heat, but the humidity is what kills me. Years ago, Ex-husband, in his infinite wisdom (and after I told him not to FOR THIS VERY REASON), insisted on painting the windows shut. Did I mention I was getting new windows soon? Anyway, I digress…I arrived home just after the fix-it guy left, but it’s working again, and the cold air is coming out with more force than it did before and my house is cooling off nicely.
Coping with a hot house is something I hate doing, but remember well from when I was a kid…we just laid there and sweated at night. Poor Younger Son slept with a small fan in his bed blowing right on him, as we couldn’t get our windows open. Older Son got off a little easier since his room is in the cool basement. I took a cold shower and didn’t dry off all the way. I just laid in bed with my long, wet hair dripping all over me and the sheets. It sounds messy, but it sure did the trick. I was actually able to get a decent nights sleep. (Note to self, put ceiling fans in the bedrooms)
So, the bad news is that there was some kind of a leak in the condensation tube and water has been seeping underneath a wall into Older Son’s room, as I described in my last post. Not only is his carpet moldy and ruined underneath, but the very bottom of that wall is moldy and eaten away. It’s one of those slow-growing hidden problems that you just don’t know about until something out of the ordinary happens, like the carpet being wet. There was no smell before, but now that I have pulled up the carpet there’s a pervasive stink in the house I can smell all the way up stairs, even after we dried everything out. So, the carpet is coming out and the wall board is being replaced. It’s a darned good thing that I sealed the cement in that bedroom before we laid the carpet down, or I might never get the stink out. Blech…Thank goodness for bleach!
Still, with all of the commotion this has caused, I can still find a blessing. Today’s blessing? It’s not snowing!
