let's just go with "i'm color blind..."

so today . . . my clothes don't match.  that's why i'm blogging.

i started to write a status update on facebook about the terrible mistake i made this morning, but it was too long.  i could have shortened it, but really... if i can't say it the way i want to say it, then why say it at all!

i was sitting in ms. martha's class while the kids were having music time.  i was sitting instead of leading music, because in a moment of weakness, ms. martha and ms. michelle agreed that if i would do chapel every tuesday, they would cover the music time for the rest of the week!  that's right, people, i only have to do music one day every week!!  ...and tell the bible story, but still, it is a good deal for me!

so, i was sitting there, in a teeny tiny chair, when i happened to look down.  and that's when i saw it.  my top did not match my pants.  at all.  before i could stop myself, i said out loud, "my clothes don't match!"

(perhaps this would be a good place to remind you that i have certain ocd tendencies...  i need things to look a certain way!  i can't even explain my "rules" of how things have to go together.  i just know what is right and what is not..  and if i have to walk out of the house and something isn't right?  it will bother me all day long--translation: i will feel cranky and annoyed. all. day. long.)

ms. martha just looked at me.  "my clothes don't match," i repeated.  "i thought these jeans were red, but they are not.  they are orange!  and there isn't any orange in this top, just some red.  and pink and ivory and brown and, and, red!  and the red is dark!  it isn't even a sort of orangy red that could maybe go with these apparently orange jeans!  it doesn't match!!"

and then, ms. martha, my dear friend and co-worker, said, "well, it doesn't look (insert big pause here) ba-ad."  and yes, when she said the word 'bad' it had two syllables.

anytime it takes a person two syllables to say the word 'bad,' it is not a good thing!

"oh thank you!" i said, "because that's just what i was going for when i got dressed this morning.  i really wanted to come to school looking 'not ba-ad!'"

ms. leigh anne walked in about that time.  ms. leigh anne is new.  she is still getting used to me, so she did not offer an opinion on my choice of wardrobe.  she probably couldn't figure out what the big deal was.  as i said, she is still getting used to me...

but ms. martha knows.  in an attempt to salvage the day, she fell on her sword and offered up her own outfit as an example of something that didn't match.  (yes, she really is my friend.)  to be honest, she was right.  her outfit didn't match.  but it didn't help, because she had a perfectly good reason as to why her clothes didn't match... which i would tell you if this blog was about ms. martha, but it isn't.  it's about me :)

the ironic this is, i spend my days surrounded by tiny children who don't even know if my clothes match or not.  they aren't oblivious.  they constantly comment on what i am wearing, but it mostly sounds like this-"ms. julie, i like your bracelet,"  or  "ms julie, i like your dress," or "ms. julie, i like your sparkly shoes."  which doesn't necessarily help, because really, can you trust the judgement of someone who can't even tie their own shoes or who wear their shirts backwards?!?

so now i have a problem.  i do not have red jeans.  i have orange jeans.  what exactly does one wear with orange jeans???  i can't wear black, because orange and black are halloween colors.  clearly i can't wear red--i tried that today and it didn't work out that well.  brown?  i guess that would be ok, but that feels like fall to me. i thought about a white top and a yellow sweater, but that would make me look like a piece of candy corn...

i guess i'm going to have to give color blocking a try.

but color blocking is dangerous territory for someone like me.  not every orange looks great with every purple... or green... or pink???  especially when i think the orange is red... and it sort of is under some lights...  i mean, i could spend hours in my closet trying to come up with the right combinations.  i would never be on time to work... or anyplace else!

and i know that right now some of you are saying to yourselves, "what is the big deal? just throw on some clothes and go out the door!" and while you may be right, i can't seem to do that.  i can't!  well, i can, but only when i am wearing my pre-arranged, pre-approved "throw it on and go out the door clothes."  which, i'm not kidding, i have...

and perhaps you are wondering why this is a problem at all?  why on earth would someone buy a pair of orange jeans??  this is a very good question, because i would never buy orange jeans.  but again, i thought they were red!  i tried to convince myself that it was just the lights at school that was turning them orange, but when i went outside at lunch time (yes, i ventured out in my mismatched duds--when i'm hungry nothing gets between me and jack in the box!) i'm sad to say that they were still orange...

so i guess i am going to have to go shopping for something that will look right with orange jeans.  because after wearing them all day, i've decided that i kind of like them.  they are different.  everyone has red jeans, but who has orange jeans?!?!  (no one in their right mind, you say...  i know, i hear you...)  and i'm thinking i should probably wear the jeans when i go shopping, so i can be sure that whatever i choose will actually look ok with the actual color of the jeans, and not just the color i think they are in my head!

of course, this means that i am going to have to find something in my closet that i can wear with them when i go shopping... now where did i put that top i wore today...?

;-)

jury box or jump house?

so today . . . i was surrounded by super heroes and princesses. tiny ones... yes, it's halloween again.

halloween is not my favorite holiday for many, many reasons, but one of the main ones is tiny children coming to school in costume. i know, i know, i sound like the halloween scrooge, but tiny children in costumes result in cranky teacher miss julie. partly because tiny children in costumes tend to be very rambunctious (not necessarily a good thing when there are a gazillion of them in a classroom--at least it sure seems like a gazillion,) and partly because it means it is harvest festival day...

harvest festival day is second only to sports day on my list of most miserable school days, with picture day running a close third... but those are blogs for another day. today was harvest festival day...

here's how it works. first, most of the children come to school in costumes--costumes with numerous parts to them. there are tiaras and swords and helmets and magic wands and pompoms and cowboy hats. none of these things are easy or comfortable for the children to wear, but they are part of the costume. and so, while they want to wear them, all that stuff just gets in their way. but they want to wear it! so they wear it for a while. and then about the time we get outside and get involved in the activities, they decide they don't want to wear it anymore. and guess what happens then???

and then there are the activities. usually there are five or six different stations, and we have a schedule. each class spends about 20 minutes at each station. which would be fine, except the picture taking station only takes about five minutes, and the kids would stay at the jumper station all morning! and while the face painting station only takes a few minutes for each child, it can easily take 20 minutes to paint the faces of a whole class. which means getting your face painted for 3 minutes and sitting and waiting for everyone else for the next 17 minutes. if we are lucky. because it is halloween! and they are in costume!! no one is going to sit for 17 minutes, waiting patiently for their friends to get their faces painted. and so it is a constant juggling act between hurrying to get done at some stations before our time is up, and keeping a class full of four and five year olds occupied at other stations with nothing to do... let's just say, we sang every song i could think of... some of them twice...

and this year we had the added bonus of fishing--for real, live goldfish. the kids loved it! i am not so sure their parents are going to love it. because assuming that the fish lives until the end of the school day, those parents are going to have to make a stop on the way home to get a fish bowl, fish food, and colored rocks (because you cannot have a fish bowl without colored rocks! and who knows how long it will take them to choose the perfect color!!) on a day when they need to get right home and get ready for trick or treating. and then, before they get home, that fish will have a name. and then, tomorrow morning, the fish will be dead...

call me a pessimist, but it's the truth.

sleeping beauty's plastic jewels kept coming apart. the sequins on the cheerleader's dress were blinding everyone in the sunshine. spiderman didn't want to go to the bathroom, because he would have to take his costume off for a few minutes. spider girl (who even knew there was such a thing! but there she was in all her pink, tulle glory,) informed me she was not spider girl! she was afraid of spiders, so she was the black widow--even though there wasn't a spot of black on her costume, and she had no idea what a widow was. and when i tried to tell her that a black widow was a kind of spider (because i'd left my brain in bed this morning,) she started to cry. normally i am immune to crying, but she was working her way up to a full blown melt down, and it was harvest festival day, so i did the only thing i could do--i agreed with her erroneous 4 1/2 year old thinking. fine. you want to be the black widow, which is not a spider? fine. just stop crying...

i'm so ashamed...

and then there was the child who didn't wear a costume, telling the cheerleader in the sparkly dress "your costume is ugly!" as the cheerleader's dad came into the classroom to tell his darling daughter "have a nice day..." and the cute little girl who i thought was dressed as a cowgirl, only to find out (after i had complimented her on her costume,) that she wasn't wearing a costume. and the boy in my class who is consumed by angry birds mania, but wouldn't wear the bird costume for the picture, because it was blue. because, as everyone knows, the cool bird is the red one!

and then, again, there was spiderman... spiderman is my wild child this year. we try to keep one of our eyes on him all the time, because he is fast, he is impulsive, and we never know what he is going to do next. but today, in his spiderman suit, he was much calmer. i don't know if it is because the suit was somewhat restrictive when he tried to move (meaning almost too small,) or if it came with special spidey powers, but i am thinking of asking his mom if he can wear the suit every day...

i thought i might miss the harvest festival this year. i am scheduled for jury duty this week, so you know, there was a possibility... i don't think i have ever wished that my number would get called for jury duty before, but this year, a nice quiet day in the waiting room at the courthouse, reading my book sounded like a lovely alternative to the somewhat chaotic (and this year, HOT) harvest festival. i even did my jury orientation online over the weekend so that if i was called, i could sleep in just a bit on the first day. but today was not my first day. and tomorrow won't be either. so now i am back to hoping that they don't call my number for jury duty...

...unless they could do it on picture day ;-)

the siren song of the ipad...

so today . . . i was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when ethan came over and said, "what's that?" he was pointing to my ipad. i said, "it's my computer." he looked at me and said, "that's not a computer! what is it?"

oh, apple people, somehow your world-wide domination of the tablet computer market has totally missed ONE four year old...

i've been having computer issues. i now have an old netbook (whose fan is going to go out any day now, which i am sure is going to result in it's self-destruction, a la mission impossible,) a newer laptop (which can burn dvds and has a nice big screen and is so pristine that i don't want to transfer all my messy files to it,) and an ipad. i know, its ridiculous. i would love to just use one device, but i can't seem to get everything organized and transferred. so my netbook is currently holding almost all my digital files hostage, while the newer laptop just sits there because it is too big to carry around. and then there is the ipad...

i sort of love the ipad, even though there are things it can't do. it doesn't have a memory card slot. it doesn't have a usb port. and you can't play anything that requires flash player on it. to me, those are three BIG issues. and yet, i have an ipad, and i sort of love it.

i looked at other tablets made by other companies. they had memory card slots. they had usb ports. and they would play flash player. and yet what did i get? an ipad.

i think apple is evil. really. where do worms live? in apples. what did the evil witch give to snow white? an apple. what did adam and eve eat that was the beginning of all our problems?!?!?!?! the apple.

do you see my point?

and really, if you think about apple devices, they are evil too. they are arrogant. they are flashy. they don't play nicely with others--it is either all apple or no apple. they don't just want your money, they want your soul...

and somehow they get it. even now, i am continually frustrated by some of the shortcomings of my ipad--i can't view everything on the internet that i want to see. i can't transfer digital files easily onto it or off of it. it won't let me manipulate my photos. i can't even sync my iphone to it!!!! realistically, i should be putting it in a garage sale and buying a xoom or a galaxy!

and yet, i sort of love it.

there is no logical reason for this. well, unless you look at the apps. the free apps. oh. my. goodness. i was a little embarrassed when i went in to the apple store to get some help, and they saw how many games i had. did you know there are four different angry birds games? that i know of?? i don't even know how to play all those games! and yet, i check the app store every few days to see what else i can download for free.

i think i might need a support group...

i didn't want to love my apple devices. it's that rebel in me--everybody else thinks they are great, so i will not! but i did. they continue to torment me with their unfamiliar (to me) operating system. they lure me away from the things i should be doing (like sleeping) with their unlimited apps. they remind me of all that they are capable of doing, if only i will purchase a data plan. they are sleek, and cool, and they make me feel tech-savvy (which is quite a trick considering that i have no clue how to make them do anything they don't want to do...)

the first day i took the ipad to school, every child in the class came to my desk at some point and said, "oh, you have an ipad!" they were impressed. would they have been equally impressed with a xoom or a galaxy? i don't think so. they kept trying to touch the screen. this is a problem. it is a problem that i never had to worry about with my laptop. my kids can't seem to keep their hands off the stuff on my desk, and my computer is no exception. but if they touched the laptop, not much would happen. with the ipad's touchscreen though, STUFF HAPPENS! which of course makes them want to touch it again! and again...

and how do they even know what an ipad is. they are tiny children! they can't even read yet!!! one little boy said, "i'm getting an ipad for christmas." now i know that could just be wishful thinking, but sadly, i don't think it is out of the realm of possibility. a five year old with an ipad.

apple wins.

and yet, ethan could not be convinced that my ipad was a computer. finally, i pulled my netbook out. i had both computers at school today, because if i need to print something, i need a computer with a usb port! which, as i may have mentioned, THE IPAD DOESN'T HAVE!!! so i pulled the netbook out, set it on my desk as ethan was saying, "yeah, yeah, yeah..." and opened it up. "now that's a computer," he said.

so maybe apple doesn't have everyone's soul. maybe just because i have fallen prey to their siren song doesn't mean everyone will. maybe others will be stronger and able to resist the sleekness, the cool factor, the illuminated apple icon...

then again, maybe not.

just ask my mom :-)

a rainy day blog...

so today . . . it rained.

i know it rained, because when i pulled out of the 7-11 parking lot this morning, my tires skidded on the wet pavement.

you know that song, "it never rains in california..." well, it is almost true. almost. but not today. today it rained.

rain was in the forecast for tomorrow, but not for today. so when i looked out the kitchen window this morning and noticed that the ground was wet, i thought, "oh wow, it must be getting cooler. the water from the sprinkler hasn't evaporated yet..."

(this is how i know i am turning into a california person. an oregon person wouldn't even notice that the ground was wet! oregon's ground is wet most of the time in the fall! but rain doesn't even enter the mind of a california person--we immediately think "sprinklers!")

i finished gathering up my stuff and went out to the car. i opened the garage door and noticed the driveway was wet too. and getting wetter by the second. and then i saw it. rain.

to be clear, it was california rain--there was water in the air, but it was still safe to wear suede boots. i didn't know how long it was going to stay that way though, so we took the preventative measure of putting electrical tape on those two small cracks that have developed in the roof of my car. thankfully rollie was working from home today and could help me, because since we moved, i'm not sure i could find the electrical tape. i know it is in the garage (which is rollie's territory,) and so i know it has a specific place (like all of rollie's stuff.) i just don't know where that specific place is...

it took a little time to complete the rainproofing of my roof. thankfully i had the time. i have learned that if i set my alarm a little bit earlier and only hit the snooze button once, i have time to make a quick stop at 7-11 and still make it to work on time...

yes, i said on time!! i haven't been late to work once this year! of course, i've only worked seven days, but i think i have turned over a new leaf. apparently being docked 15 minutes of pay isn't enough to get me out of bed earlier, but the promise of a gigantic diet lemon cokesi is! of course, i wish i could survive the day without that infusion of a fizzy, caffeinated drink, but i've been so tired since i went back to work that i've NEEDED it. of course, maybe if i slept a few more minutes in the morning instead of going to 7-11, i wouldn't need it...

but i digress.

i walked in and out of 7-11 without the aid of an umbrella (you see, i am still an oregon person at heart,) but again, to be fair, i did get the parking space right in front of the door. my brain was still not really registering the fact that it was RAINING! how could it be raining?!?! just yesterday i was wearing tank tops and flip flops. i had acquiesced to the cooler temperatures today by donning boots and a sweater, but still... and then my tires squealed out of the 7-11 parking lot...

i was not going terribly fast. however, there were cars approaching me, and they were going terribly fast. so when i hit the gas and felt my tires spin but did not feel my car move, i knew it must be raining. i should have registered "rain" when i had to turn on my lights or use my windshield wipers, but it was early and i was sort of on autopilot (remember, i only hit the snooze button once!) my tires finally gained traction and propelled me toward the first of four stop lights that have become my arch nemeses...

i hate those four stop lights. really. if i could rat them out for their inconsistent and inconsiderate behavior and send them off to traffic light jail, i would. they are never green. never. i always have to wait. and sometimes i have to wait through two or even three rotations at the left turn light. this morning i had time to tweet and post to facebook about my squealing tires before i finally got through that light! (i'm pretty sure it isn't breaking the law to tweet while you are just sitting still at a stupid red left turn light. i think tweeting while sitting at a red light might be the only thing between certain motorists--who shall remain nameless--and road rage...)

i got to school with my diet lemon cokesi (which is no small task, considering that the cup is so big it won't fit in any of my cup holders, so i have to put it in the passenger seat and prop it up with my handbag. which i hate to do, because my handbag is cloth and i'm always afraid that when i turn a corner, my soda will spill on it. or worse yet, completely tip over and spill everywhere! that happened once. it was awful. so to try to prevent that, i put my right hand on the cup to steady it when i go around corners. which wouldn't be a big deal, except my car has a manual transmission which requires me to use that same right hand to shift. it's a good thing i am coordinated...) i knew it was going to be a long day. tonight was open house and i wasn't quite ready. it was also art day. art day on the same day as open house!! what was i thinking?!?!? AND since it was raining, we were going to be stuck in the classroom for recess, which meant energetic kids with nowhere to expend that energy...

i slurped my diet lemon cokesi and hoped for the best...

we got through the morning without any major catastrophes. and then this afternoon i went into the classroom next door to help a teacher who had a screaming, crying three year old who would. not. stop. so i was talking quietly to the child and patting him on the back and just generally trying to get him to calm down and be quiet. because sometimes crying is contagious--especially if you are three and were just awakened from a nap that was not quite long enough! he got a little quieter, but he wouldn't stop crying! and i needed to go back to my own class to finish getting ready for open house! but since i had come in to help, i didn't feel like i could just leave without accomplishing my goal of turning a wailing three year old into a smiling one... so i started talking to the other three year olds sitting at his table having their snack. we were talking about what they were eating, when one precious dumpling looked right at me and said, "i eat boogers!"

okaaayyy... not really information that i wanted to know, but it got the attention of the screaming child, who momentarily stopped screaming to see what was going to happen next...

here's what happened next. "did you see the rain this morning?" i asked.

yep, i deflected and redirected. and it worked. this time. because to a southern california three year old, rain is a BIG deal! he might remember the afternoon it rained last spring, but odds are he doesn't really remember it raining before today. oh, he's heard people talk about it, like they talk about snow and colored leaves falling in october and wide open spaces, but he has had very little, if any, experience with it.

and so, we talked about rain. and the crying child stopped. and the booger-eating child ate his crackers instead. and i managed to escape back to the relative calm of my own classroom...

...just in time for a birthday party. a birthday party in a classroom full of kids who have been inside all day because of the rain. i looked at the clock, breathed a sigh of relief, left my class in the capable hands of others, and headed out into the rain...

...only to be pleasantly surprised by dry ground and sunshine.

yep, it never rains in california... at least not for long :-)

a day in the life...

so today . . . i went back to work.

it started off pretty good. i didn't have too much trouble waking up--i only hit the snooze button once! I had everything ready to go, so i was up and out the door in about half an hour. but before i could even get out of our neighborhood, i had to turn around. i had my computer bag, my books, and my lunch... but i forgot to grab something for my breakfast. i would have loved to just swing by 7-11 and snag a brownie, but i am trying to eat better now that i am getting back to work. so i turned around, went back home, and found a hard boiled egg and a cheese stick in the refrigerator and headed back out, confident that now i wouldn't starve...

it took me longer than i anticipated to get to work. even though i still live just a mile and a half away, now i have to go through four stop lights instead of two... and one of those is a left turn... and i am driving on much busier streets, which means more cars sitting at those lights, which means there is a risk that i won't get through on the first green. and then there was construction (although, it was going the opposite way i was going, but still...)

i got to school and went to clock in, but i couldn't find my time card. which was really unfortunate, because for the first time in a long time, i wasn't late. in fact, i was about 7 minutes early, and i wanted it documented!! but my time card was not at the bottom of the rack where it usually is.

my time card position is a bit of an issue for me. i have worked at this particular school for 8 years, but my time card is always at the bottom! other people have been hired since me, but my time card is still always at the bottom. my time card never seems to be able to work it's way up the ladder, because i don't work in the summer. occasionally during the school year, it will manage to go up one or two spaces, only to lose that coveted ground in july when i don't show up for work for two months. then in september, there i am, back at the bottom. this seems so unfair, but i have finally resigned myself to the situation and have tried to embrace it with the thought that at least it is always quick and easy for me to find my time card. which is especially important on those days when i am playing "beat the clock." but since my card wasn't there in it's usual spot at the bottom, i just thought maybe they had forgotten i was coming back today. after all, i am three weeks late starting school, and we have someone new working in the office, so maybe she forgot...

as it turns out, she didn't forget. she promoted me! because there i was, in time card slot #3! yes, i am now #3!!! i cannot even tell you how awesome this is... and i know, you are all sitting there thinking, "this girl needs to get a life! who cares what slot their time card resides in?!?" well, clearly i do! AND not only was my time card now in slot #3, but i clocked in EARLY.

and no, the world didn't end at 7:56 this morning.

my day was off to a pretty good start. then i walked into my classroom...

let me just say here, that i had an awesome substitute while i was gone. really. there are only a couple of people that i would have felt comfortable leaving with my brand new class for the first three weeks of school, and i got one of them. but she hadn't been in the classroom since friday afternoon, and i think gremlins had gotten in...

the tables were moved. there were work papers everywhere. i am pretty sure that on friday afternoon, those work papers were organized, but by this morning, let's just say they were somewhat more randomly arranged. i started trying to make sense of it all and find the things i needed to get through the day. but i also had a room full of preschoolers that hadn't had play time in my room yet, so they were somewhat exuberant in their explorations and needed some supervision.

i continued to move furniture and plow through papers. and then i realized it was time for music...

i love music. i hate leading music time at school. ms. martha and i have finally figured out a schedule that makes us both hate it just a little bit less, but that schedule has me doing music on mondays. and today was monday. which meant i was going to be leading music today. ok, i thought, this won't be so bad. i haven't led music all summer. maybe it will even be fun to do some of the songs i like. so i put a cd in the player and got started. but all of these children are new to our classes. they don't know our songs yet. and as much as i hate leading music, try leading a bunch of kids who don't know the songs yet, while one of them continually runs around swinging his arms, hitting as many kids as he can. yes, my day was going downhill fast...

--the new table arrangement for the pre-k kids was not working out.
--the bathroom light was burned out, and the janitor doesn't come in on mondays.
--we had wheat thins for snack. (i love wheat thins. four and five year olds do not.)

and then it was time for language class. this is one of my schedule changes this year. the kindergarteners go to the same language class as the pre-k kids, which means that on monday, wednesday, and friday i have a 45 minute planning time. YIPPEE!!! i sure needed it today! i spent 15 minutes at the copy machine, 20 minutes moving tables in and out of the room (because something HAD to be done with those pre-k kids,) and ten more minutes looking for the top of my desk under all those papers. but at least i was alone in my room, and it was quiet. briefly.

actually, it was quiet longer than i expected. because usually the kids come back from their language classes at 11:15. but today they didn't come back. and i didn't go looking for them! i just said, "thank you Jesus," and kept shuffling papers. and then suddenly, there they were, all lined up in the hallway and ready to go outside.

some things had apparently changed in the last three weeks...

it was cloudy today, which made for a nice time outside. until i saw a little girl take a nosedive over the front of her scooter and plant her face on the sidewalk. she cried. and bled. and bled and bled and bled. thankfully none of her teeth fell out, but i couldn't tell that immediately because of all the blood! i don't do well when kids are bleeding from their heads. i was the first teacher to reach her, but i quickly handed her off to ms. jessica (my friend who bumped me up to time card slot #3.) ms. jessica is fearless and can handle anything! she saved my bacon more than once today. because later in the day, our toilet (in the bathroom with no light) clogged and overflowed. i don't do well with bathroom incidents either. (i know what you are thinking--why do i teach in a preschool when i can't handle blood and bathroom issues. my answer is, usually i teach kindergarten where we have very few of those issues. but add four year olds to the mix and things are quite different...)

the day did have a few bright spots.
--my lunch time was changed to 12:00-1:00. not only did i get a whole hour (instead of my usual half hour,) but i got it during the kid's lunch time! which means i didn't have to serve lunch. or try to convince them to eat their veggies. or put them down for their naps. ms. jessica got to do all of that :)
--i didn't call anyone by the wrong name. of course, sometimes i avoided using a name if i wasn't sure... but the point is, i didn't call anyone by the wrong name!!
--i got the homework out on time and only had to ask one parent to wait for it. and that only happened because they were early.
--i found the top of my desk. it took me until 5:15, but i found it.
--i have a class full of cute kids. they aren't going to be easy, but they are going to be fun. i think.

and let's not forget that no matter what happened today, or what happens tomorrow, my time card is in slot #3!

i am now just two slots away from being #1...

hehehe...

some weeks i laugh, some weeks i come unglued...

so today . . . i realized i haven't blogged in several days. again. i've been a little distracted lately...

we need to buy a house. like right now. after looking at several, we put an offer in on one that we liked. the owners finally accepted and signed our offer, but it took a court order to make it happen. and time. we have spent a lot of time just waiting. but finally their signatures are on the right lines...

this was no simple task. first the wife signed, but the husband wouldn't. so the wife took him to court and the judge ordered him to sign. so he did. but not on the same document as the wife. or on the correct line--he signed on the buyer's signature line, not the seller's...

i'm starting to think that he doesn't really want to sell this house...

but the judge ordered the papers to be signed last monday. so we scheduled the home inspection for friday afternoon. we were pretty excited. we made a plan. rollie was going to follow the inspector around so he understood all the technical "inspectory" stuff, and i was going to take photos like crazy and measure everything! because we want to have new windows installed upstairs, and some grass put in the back yard, and some carpeting possibly replaced. and we will need window coverings and a security system. so if i take pictures and get measurements, we can have all that scheduled as soon as we know when we will get the keys!

which was a great idea, until we got the call on wednesday saying the home inspection had to be postponed, because the husband's sister, who is living in the house with their parents, was sick. and apparently was planning to be sick through the weekend. so we had to put all our excitement on hold for four more days...

four more days is an eternity to me right now. patience is not one of my virtues. in fact, patience doesn't even try to hang out with my other virtues! (hey! i have other virtues... i'm sure i do...) so of course, all i have been able to think about since wednesday was the house. and not being able to see it. and mentally placing furniture in it without knowing if it would actually fit. and wondering if milo will be able to haul his chubby little body up the stairs since they aren't carpeted. and worrying that the inspection will uncover insurmountable issues and propel us back to square one! and we will have lost three weeks in the process! and we will have to live in a tent in the park!

this is why i haven't blogged. i am not so much funny right now, as sort of starting to come apart at the seams.

and i don't have time to come apart at the seams, because buying a new house is not the only thing in my life right now! i wish it was!! but it isn't...

school is winding up for the year in just five weeks. open house is next weekend, which means producing copious amounts of amazing artwork, mounting it, and hanging it on the walls. which means taking down all the stuff the kids have been randomly taping up for the last several weeks. which seems kind of backwards to me... so now i have to decide how to incorporate the amazing artwork i am sure we are going to do this week, with the "artwork" they have been producing on their own that they are so proud of, and display it all! and clean the room from top to bottom. and prepare my presentation for prospective kindergarten students. AND complete the curriculum that we have to complete this week. and then spend four hours at school on saturday morning AT the open house...

oh, and create a photo album of one of diandra's weddings for an impatient bride. i say impatient, but she is just excited to get her album. and we promised it to her by the weekend, so i have to get busy! i should have started it weeks ago, especially since i am using a new program to create it which will take time to figure out. but as i said, i've been a little distracted...

and then, assuming we get to do the inspection tuesday afternoon, you know where my mind is going to go... it is going to go into house fixing overdrive!! and then there will be the packing to do. and now i am freaked out about packing anything, because after the cock roach blog, my mom said to be careful that we didn't take any WITH us!! YIKES!! i hadn't even thought of that! so now i am afraid to pack my boxes in case those sneaky bugs (and i'm not really sure they should be called bugs, because they are waaaay to big to be squashed...) try to hitch a ride and move with us!

and so, i haven't blogged much this week. i didn't think you would enjoy hearing me whine about my life every day. so, to spare you, i just crammed it all into this one whiny blog that covered the whole week.

lucky you ;-)

so many excuses... so little time...

so today . . . i got up extra early. so of course i was late.

i have decided that if i want to be on time, i need to get a late start. if i get up early, i seem to have this feeling that i have plenty of time. so i don't move very fast. and i don't watch the clock. and then, before i know it, i am late. again.

whereas if i get up late, i know i have to hurry! i zip around with one eye on the clock. every minute has to be productive. there is no time to stand in front of my closet and decide what to wear--i just have to grab something and throw it on. there is no time to make a lunch--i just have to grab a hot pocket out of the freezer and go. there is no time to straighten my hair or put cream cheese on my breakfast bagel or apply mascara or have a conversation. if i get up late, it is all about getting out the door as quickly as possible.

these are inevitably the mornings when conversations happen. these are the mornings where i can't tell if the tights i pulled out of the drawer are black or blue--and inevitably discover that even though they looked black, they were navy blue. which would have been fine, if i wasn't wearing black skirt... these are always the mornings where i can't find my car keys--my one and only set of car keys. these are the mornings that the traffic is bad, and i miss both of the lights on my one mile drive to school.

these are also the mornings when i go off and leave the homework folders at home--the homework folders that have to go home TODAY!

THIS is why we have to buy a house that is close to our current neighborhood. because i fear that if we move more than a couple of miles away, i will get fired for chronic lateness. plus, i need to be able to drive home, retrieve whatever it is that i have forgotten (homework folders, lunch, cell phone, reading books,) and get back to work before my 15 minute break is over...

i'm spoiled. i know i am. there are thousands of people in l.a. who drive clear across town to their jobs. in traffic. during "rush" hour. and i just have to drive a mile. i have had jobs before where it took me half an hour to get to work, and oddly, i was rarely late. but now... now that i can practically see the school from my house, i am a few minutes late almost every morning.

i try to blame the traffic, and sometimes it isn't a ridiculous as it sounds. sometimes i miss the light, because there are a couple of cars ahead of me and one of them wants to turn left. sometimes i can't get out of our neighborhood because of all the cars turning into our neighborhood to avoid the traffic light. sometimes there is a pedestrian... slowly walking across the intersection where i need to turn. and sometimes, sometimes the school crossing guard gives me attitude and makes me wait. and wait. and wait.

and that is just the first crossing guard. two intersections = two crossing guards.

sometimes i think maybe i will be able to blame a parent. that is always a good excuse. because if a parent of one of my students happens to drive into the parking lot at the same time as i do, then i feel it is only polite to wait for them, and talk to them. you know, connect!

this rarely happens.

sometimes, if i am only a minute or two late, i try to blame it on ms. martha. ms. martha is the keeper of the door buzzer in the morning. this is not as easy as it sounds, because for some strange reason, the little thing she has to push to unlock the door when it buzzes, only works when she stands in certain places and puts the thing up against her chin before she presses it. and sometimes, even when she does everything perfectly, it still doesn't open right away. so yes, some days my tardiness can be attributed to faulty door buzzer operations...

this happens a lot. the problem with this is that i am rarely just a minute or two late.

i see no solution here. as i said, i've tried getting up earlier, but i just do more things and so i'm still late. i've tried setting my clocks ahead--and you know what a ruckus that caused. i've tried tricking myself into thinking i have to be at school 15 minutes earlier. but then i just get confused and end up forgetting what time i am really supposed to be there.

maybe they should just change the time i am supposed to be at school to 15 minutes later.

and not tell me...

deja vue...

so today . . . i was mean teacher ms. julie.

mean teacher ms. julie doesn't show up very often, but today i did not feel good. not good at all. i probably should have stayed home, but there were things to do at school today, and i needed to be there. so i got up, got myself to school, and tried to get through the day--which would have been easier if all of my students had just stayed home!

it isn't that they were "bad." they were just active and distracted. they wouldn't stay where they were supposed to be. they kept touching and poking at each other. two little boys decided to "moon" the whole nap room. and no one seemed to listen to a word i said!

i gave directions, and they played with their pencil boxes. i reminded them it was time to do their work, and they just talked to the kids across the room. i gave directions AGAIN, and they said, "what are we supposed to do?"

i wanted to scream.

most days i take these things in stride. most days i am patient and kind. most days i talk in a quiet voice and facilitate good decision making.

today was not most days. today i just wanted them to listen to my words and then do them! today i did NOT want to repeat the same words over and over and over again--which, let's be honest here--is a large part of my job. today i wanted them to just GIVE ME A BREAK!

but they are five years old. they are egocentric and totally unaware of my wants and needs--even when my sinuses are trying to kill me. and so as the day wore on, we found ourselves at odds--more than once. it reached the boiling point at reading group time...

...when i am doing reading groups, the kids know they have to wait to ask me questions until i am between groups. they know they are not supposed to interrupt. but today, i was probably interrupted ten times--during the first reading group!! i kept reminding them that they had to wait, but then someone else would come over. i managed to stay calm and use a quiet voice, until one child was interrupting me for the third time!! and then i sort of lost it.

i didn't exactly yell, but i asked several questions in a row, without waiting for an answer. "why do you keep interrupting the reading group? are you supposed to do that? what are you supposed to do while you wait? why are you over here? AGAIN?!?!?!"

the little guy i was talking AT, just looked at me. he couldn't quite figure out what was happening. i could almost see the speech bubble above his head--"who is this, and what has she done to teacher ms. julie?"

that is when i decided i had to get some help, so i emailed my doctor. she emailed me back and said i had to get an appointment to see someone, and that i should see someone either today or tomorrow. so i called the appointment line, and found that the first available appointment was for the middle of march! now what was i supposed to do?!?! my next step was to call the nurse advice line. at least when i call that number i get to talk to a real, live person instead of a computer. eventually, after being on hold for longer than you can imagine, i got to talk to a nurse. she said she would make me an appointment to be seen at urgent care, if i could just hold for a little longer.

again, i wanted to scream.

when she eventually came back on, she said, "well, they were no help!" and then she told me they didn't have any available appointments either! so my "plan for treatment" turned out to be a trip to urgent care to take my chances among the masses. after an incredibly short wait, the doctor there agreed that i was sick and gave me a prescription (for an antibiotic, although my kids might think a mood enhancer would have been a better choice.)

and so now i am back home, with drugs in hand and a smile on my face. i am not going to school tomorrow. there are still things that need to be done there before i go out of town next week, but i like my kids too much to subject them to my sinusitis crankiness. i am just going to stay home, rest, drink plenty of fluids, and maybe even get out the sinus rinse...

there is listening, and then there is listening and thinking...

so today . . . i was once again surprised by the five year old mind.

we have been learning about different countries in our social studies curriculum. this week we are learning about china. i always find this a little bit ironic, considering the majority of my students are chinese by heritage. and although many of them were born here in the united states, their parents were not. so i am sure they know waaaay more about china than i do. and really, what we learn about each country is kind of superficial--climate, exports, location, stuff like that. but when i am teaching them what our curriculum says about china, i always expect one of them to say, "that's not right!" it is compounded this year, because my assistant is chinese--really chinese! she has only been here for a few years. i was reading about chinese new year last week, and i kept expecting her to say, "that's not true!" but she didn't. it probably helped that the book i was reading was written by a chinese lady, but still...

i don't know why i expect that the books will get it wrong. it is just that sometimes the generalizations that are made seem kind of simplified--like saying chinese children like to jump rope and play ping pong! really?? that is kind of like saying american children like to play jacks and baseball. i was an american child. and let me just say, baseball was my worst nightmare when i was in school! so when i am teaching the curriculum, i pick and choose what i tell the kids.

today, their paper had the chinese character for "big" printed with red ink. their task was to copy it. but the really cool thing that happend, was that when i showed them the paper, one little girl's face lit up and she said, "oh, oh, i know what that says! that says BIG!" she was so excited! and so was i, because this little girl isn't chinese--she is philipino, but she takes chinese class in the afternoon. and she knew how to read the chinese character for BIG.

i am amazed by this. when i first started working at this school, i thought i would stay late in the afternoons and learn chinese with the kids. it sounded like a great idea, but i quickly gave it up. there was no way i was going to learn chinese. it is way too hard!!

but apparently it isn't too hard if you are five years old...

so anyway, i explained the paper and what they were supposed to do. this was a task that should have taken them all of 30 seconds to complete, so i was kind of surprised to see kevin still working on it ten minutes later. when he finally brought me his paper, this is what i saw.i really like kevin, but like several of the boys in my class this year, he doesn't always listen to my directions. and clearly he hadn't listened to them this time. "kevin," i said, "this is a very cool picture, but you were supposed to draw the character for BIG." he looked up at me and very seriously said, "but i drew God. he was the biggest character i could think of!"

i laughed. it was just too cute! clearly he had been listening, his brain had just tweaked my words a bit. and the really funny thing? kevin is chinese! he should have known what i was talking about, even if i hadn't taken the time to thoroughly explain it.

we sing a song in music time called, "my God is so big!" and i guess kevin got that message. because in his picture, God is definitely the biggest one. he is huge! but the thing that makes me smile, is all the tiny little people crawling all over God, standing on his foot, even balancing on the top of a cloud. i love it!

kevin just kept saying, "what?!" as i laughed. i'm sure he couldn't figure out what i thought was so funny. but i loved it! i loved that God was the biggest thing kevin could think of. i love that the people are all over God. but mostly, i love that kevin has learned that God is big! and we can crawl all over him, and he doesn't mind--he still smiles.

i guess he was listening after all... kind of...

a collision of holidays

so today . . . i realized that this is the holiday week from... well, someplace i would rather not name.

you wouldn't think of february, with it's mere 28 days, as being capable of creating such chaos. but the planets and calendar have aligned in such a way as to make my week a nightmare of projects.

let me just say, i am not a fan of projects. in fact, i hate them. projects, by their very nature, require waaaay more teacher involvement than i think is appropriate. but valentine's day is coming, which means my students have to make cards for their parents. and since i teach in a school where most of the students are chinese, we cannot really ignore chinese new year, which is also this week. AND tomorrow is groundhog day...

ok, well maybe i could ignore groundhog day, but i love groundhog day! i know that it is a totally meaningless holiday. in fact, since no one gets the day off work, we don't give or receive presents, and there are no special foods or songs or decorations, i'm not even sure we can legitimately call it a holiday. and yet, it is one of my favorite days of the year. i mean, how can you not love a day that is all about a guy in a top hat pulling a big, fat furry animal out of a cage, watching him squint into the light, and waiting for the official pronouncement of when spring will arrive?!?!

my kindergarten kids don't quite get this. i explain the whole thing to them, but they just don't get it. they won't accept what i tell them--they keep asking questions. why is the groundhog afraid of his shadow? how can the groundhog tell when the weather will get better? what is a groundhog? how do they pick the official groundhog? who picks the official groundhog? how do they know when he will come out? what if he doesn't come out? what is spring? (well, to be fair, our spring weather isn't all that much different from our winter weather.) there seems to be no end to their questions...

it would be much simpler to just ignore groundhog day. no one would probably even notice--especially since the groundhog and his shadow are pretty much irrelevant if you live in southern california--but it is a part of our culture. so whether it makes any sense or not, i feel compelled to talk about it every year. and do a project, because i have this cute little pop-up groundhog they can make...

which would be fine, if chinese new year didn't happen to fall during the same week as groundhog day. because i also have a couple of cool projects for chinese new year that i want to do. and then valentine's day is just around the corner. AND we still have our normal school work to complete, which is just a lot to get done.

so the result of this is, today we talked about groundhog day and did a quick activity, and also did the first part of our chinese new year project. tomorrow we will make the groundhog project, finish up the chinese new year one, and start on the parent valentines. by the end of the week, i figure they will be totally confused--is it going to be spring because the chinese dragon saw his shadow? is the groundhog the one who gives them the red envelope with money in it? do the hearts mean the new year is here or that it is spring? and why do we call that shape a heart when our heart isn't shaped like that at all?

life is so much simpler when chinese new year comes in january...

tan lines... what to do, what to do...

so today . . . i realized i am out of the habit of blogging every day.

but then, you already knew that, didn't you ;)

i'm not quite sure how this happened. i guess i can mostly blame it on my weakened physical condition, which weakened my mental capacities, which made it nearly impossible to blog!

i thought about it. a lot. but when it came time to put "words on paper," so to speak, it just didn't happen. but i did have a lot of thoughts, which even resulted in some blog attempts. which will probably show up in the future when my brain power is turned back on, and i can finish them.

but what worries me is being out of the blogging habit. i like to blog. i don't want to stop. but i am having trouble getting started again. so i am going to ease back into it by reposting something i wrote a couple of years ago on myspace, before i had a "real" blog. i chose this particular one to post today, because it was HOT! i know it is december, but it was over 80 degrees here. and let me tell you, when you are standing out on the playground, in the sun, waiting for your turn to go on a break, your mind kind of wanders...

this blog was originally posted on myspace thursday, march 13, 2008.

so today i am out on the playground, watching the kids in my class run around and annoy each other--because that is what they do. they call it playing, but it isn’t really--they just interact with each other until somebody does something unforgivable like touching someone’s hair, and then it begins: "i’m telling teacher" "sorry" "well, i’m telling teacher" "i SAID i was SORRY" "TEACHERRRRRR!!!" "SORRY! SORRY! SORRYYYYY!!!" so, you know, there are days that i just can’t listen to it, and i admit it--even though i am watching them, i mentally check out. There will be no help from the teacher today unless you are bleeding, so just go play! have fun! sheesh!

maybe i need a vacation.

ok, anyway, while all this was going on in the background, i was enjoying the sunshine. it was only supposed to get up to 74 today, but i am sure it was warmer than that, because even i felt hot. so i am standing there in my short-sleeved shirt (because it WAS going to be 74 after all) and the thought occurs to me "what if my arms get tan?" now normally you might think this would be a good thing with summer coming. but my shirt was not sleeveless--it had SHORT sleeves. so if my arms do get tan while i put in my time on the playground, my shoulders and upper arms are going to be white--and believe me that is the part that needs tanning the most! so now i don’t know what to do--do i just go with the lower arm tan and try to catch the rest up later, or do i go stand in the shade for now and wait until sleeveless shirt weather to hang out in the sun. you see, these are the sort of random thoughts that come to a person sometimes. i know there are other more important things i could think about, and maybe should, but sometimes i just don’t want to think about global warming (unless it is warming my face.) so my mind settles for dealing with the little questions that pop into my head, like should i go stand in the shade . . .

it is really easy for one's mind to wander when standing in unseasonably warm sunshine. there is just something relaxing (yes, even on a playground full of rowdy children,) and a little bit decadent about getting to wear short sleeves in the middle of december.

have i mentioned lately how much i love living in southern california...?

misc. midnight thoughts...

so today . . . it is almost midnight, and i haven't blogged.

i planned to blog today. one has been rolling around in my head about packing for our trip tomorrow. i've probably blogged about packing before, though, and as i said, it is almost midnight. so i am going to sleep. i will blog about packing tomorrow... maybe while we are sitting in traffic on our way to las vegas. i am pretty sure it will be a parking lot, so i will need something to distract me.

besides, i need my sleep tonight. tomorrow is our thanksgiving feast. there will be 44 people in my classroom for lunch. yes, 44. tomorrow we are not only feeding our students, but also their parents, grandparents, tiny siblings, and apparently whoever else wants to come along. i anticipate chaos. i don't do well in chaos. this is one of the few times i wish i had mood altering drugs--the kind that make you relaxed and happy--like nitrous oxide... i love nitrous oxide...

i am kind of wishing for a snow day. my mom had a snow day today. in fact, according to what i read on facebook, all of oregon had a snow day today! i think i should have a snow day tomorrow. then i wouldn't have to "feast" with 44 people in my classroom. i wouldn't even have to pack! i could just sit in front of the fire with a festive beverage and my book...

snow. in southern california. for thanksgiving.

it could happen...

another step closer...

so today . . . MY NEW GLASSES CAME!!!!

ok, well sort of. the frames came. do you remember on friday when i said i spent almost half an hour on the phone with customer service and they promised my frames would be delivered today? well, they delivered on their promise...

so this morning, there i was, slogging my way through music time. i lead music every monday. this is not my favorite part of the day. i don't think it is the kids' favorite part either, but it is part of our curriculum, so we do it--day after day after day. some days are fun. the kids really get into the music and we dance and sing, and it is kind of fun. and then there are other days... the days when all they want to do is lay on a table or talk to their friends or annoy the kid standing next to them. yeah, those are the days i dread.

today was kind of a middle of the road day. most of the kids were engaged, some of them were smiling at me, but i was feeling a bit sluggish and slow--monday mornings tend to be like that. and then the director walked in with a small box. at first i didn't know what she was saying... sometimes we have communication issues--she is chinese and has a bit of an accent, and my hearing is not perfect. and of course, this morning while she was telling me about the box, we also had music blaring. she repeated herself repeatedly, until finally i got it! my glasses had arrived!!

i was so excited. suddenly i felt a bit better. i finished up music time, sat the kids on the rug, and grabbed the scissors to open the box. we talked about when i fell and how my glasses broke. i took them off my face and demonstrated how broken they were. the kids were excited to see what was in the box, so we opened it. and inside was another box. we opened that one, and inside that was a case. we opened that up and inside that was a cleaning cloth, and then finally the long awaited glasses!

the kids all ooohed and aaaahed.

they are so great--the kids, i mean! if i am excited about something, they will get excited too. i finally sent them off to work and put my box away.

temporarily. but i kept thinking about them. and taking them out and looking at them. pretty soon, i took off my broken glasses and put the new ones on--even though they only had plain, clear lenses in them. they were so comfortable. and beautiful.

but i couldn't see very well. that was kind of a problem. so i put them back in their box and did some more work.

at lunch time i got them out again, just to look at them. i really, really like them.

after school, i took them to kaiser for lenses. i didn't get my exam at kaiser, because i needed an immediate appointment (i thought--that was a month ago! it is a good thing rollie managed to sort of fix the broken ones!) i took a number, waited my turn, and finally sat down at a desk with an optician.

he did not like me. i think he was offended that i had my exam someplace else. he squinted at my prescription. he questioned me about it. he acted like it couldn't possibly be right. i was starting to think i should have just paid $5 more and had another exam... he kept reaching into the inside of his lab coat, and i thought, "what is he doing?!?!?!" he finally came out with a pack of gum--which he then chewed. RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! (i mean, i didn't want a piece of his gum, but i think it might have been better to wait at least until i wasn't looking...) he cautioned me that the lab might destroy my beautiful new frames (they'd better not!!!) he told me it would probably take at least two weeks to get them back, since i didn't choose one of their frames. i am telling you, he did not like me. he finally sent me to the cashier (gulp!) and then sent me on my way.

so. apparently i will have my new glasses in two weeks. i, of course, expect they will be ready in three days. which means i am going to be disappointed every day for week and a half after that, until they show up. i do not really have hope that the prescription will be right--the optician has shaken my confidence in that. and i did not get the transition lens, so i am going to have to get sunglasses. and soon...

...because we are going to las vegas for thanksgiving. and rollie says he is going to read by the pool while diandra and i run around doing wedding stuff.

diandra and i. running around doing wedding stuff. in las vegas.

you can hardly wait for those blogs, can you...

:)

or maybe just deerskin pants?

so today . . . we started talking about thanksgiving at school.

it is a little hard to get into the spirit of the holiday when it is so warm outside, but temperatures have cooled slightly, so we are making the best of it...

i always start the discussion about thanksgiving by talking about native americans. four- and five-year olds tend to think of american indians as loin-cloth wearing men with feathered headbands whose only mode of communication is that sound they can make by fluttering their hands over their mouths (a sound, btw, that drives me CRAZY when my kids do it!) while riding really fast horses... so i always start out by discussing what native american life was like, and how the tribes were different.

i was explaining that where they lived determined their lifestyle--what kind of homes they had, what they ate, what they wore, how they lived. we had discussed housing (wood in the pacific northwest, adobe in the south,) food (fish and seafood for those tribes on the ocean, wild animals and crops for those who didn't live near the water,) and finally got to clothing. i said, "the people who lived where it was cold needed warmer clothes, so they would leave the fur on the animal skins they used for their clothes." we talked about that for a while, and then i asked, "so what do you think the tribes who lived where it was hot wore."

and one precious child raised his hand and said, "sunglasses!"

california kids... :)

do i LOOK like the white rabbit...

so today . . . i was on time for work. again. it is starting to freak me out just a little bit...

i have to punch a time clock at work. real teachers are on salary and don't have to punch a time clock. but i teach in a private school, and the rules are different here. we punch a time clock.

i understand the reasons why this is a necessary evil--the truth is, if there were no time clock, some people would take advantage and always be either arriving late or leaving early. i admit, i would probably be one of the former. there must be something in the nether-reaches of my family tree that predisposes me to lateness (at least that is my story!) i am not one of those people who are so late that everything has to wait for me. oh no, i am always just slightly late--you know, five minutes, seven minutes, never more than 10 minutes, but still late.

i usually don't plan to be late--i plan to be on time. and yet it never happens. as i have talked to other chronically slightly late people, two things emerge... we are all oddly married to people who think being on time means arriving 15 minutes early, and we are almost always late for the same reason--on our way 'out the door' we stop to do 'just one more thing.' but we do that several times before actually making it out the door.

i would love to blame my lateness on rollie. i think i can make a pretty good case for that. i don't like to be the first to arrive at an event--too much pressure for socialization--and his time frame always makes us the first to arrive. so when he says to me, "are you ready to go?" at the time we have agreed to leave, my response is always, "yes, as soon as i get my shoes on." or "yes, just let me grab my (fill in the blank.)"

one day, after hearing that response from me for the gazillionth time, he said, "why do you always say yes you are ready to go when you aren't?" i just looked at him blankly. "i don't," i said. "why do you think that?" "because," he said, "you say you are ready. i get my keys out. i walk to the door, ready to leave, but you are nowhere to be found. and when i ask where you are, you are always doing something. you are nowhere near the door!"

i guess we have a difference of opinion about what being 'ready to go' means. to me, it means i need to put my shoes on (which means a trip upstairs,) turn off whatever electronics i am using, find a jacket or sweater (which means another trip upstairs, since i didn't think of it the first time,) retrieve my phone from wherever i laid it down (which isn't easy, since it could be ANYWHERE! and don't say call it, because i usually have the ringer muted,) check to make sure i haven't left anything out that the dogs might enjoy chewing up, decide if i should use the bathroom before leaving, look for my chapstick, and finally grab my purse.

to rollie it means walking out the door.

you can see we have a problem. and it is compounded by the fact that rollie has finally made an attempt at compromise by generally agreeing that being 'on time' means arriving at the stated start time for any event. this means we have no margin for error. or phone retrieval.

my response is to send him to the car.

now when he says, "are you ready to go?" i still say yes, but then i add, "go to the car. i'll be right behind you." he fell for this the first time. he even went for it the second and third times. the next few times, i think he had his doubts, but he still went along with it. finally he came to the conclusion that it was a lie--i was not going to be right behind him--i was going to be at least another two or three minutes... maybe five.

BUT i can't really blame rollie's need to be early for my lateness, because i tend to be a little bit late even when i am not going anywhere with him. and this is most evident every weekday when i head to school...

in my defense, the time clock and i have been at odds for quite some time. the last couple of years it has been five minutes fast. we have whined and complained to the powers that be, but they are convinced that the clock is set by some atomic device and cannot be wrong. i am of the opinion that all of our cell phones (which, btw, all show the same time) cannot be wrong. and yet, i am not the one in charge here. so every morning i rush around, think i am leaving on time, only to find that when i punch the time clock, i am late.

this causes me much stress. i've tried setting my alarm earlier. i've tried tricking myself into thinking all our clocks are slow. i've even occasionally left the house with a naked face! and yet, every time i stick my time card into the hated time clock, i find i am late.

this year, at our first staff meeting, we were informed that the time clock had somehow gained three more minutes. so we were going to be given a few minutes of grace to compensate. this was a nice idea, but i still felt late--only now i felt really late!

and then, a few days ago after my usual mad dash to school, praying my way through mostly green and yellow lights, i punched the time clock only to see that i was...NOT LATE!! the time stamp actually said 8:01 instead of 8:08 or 8:10! i was stunned. it had to be a mistake. i must have left earlier than i had thought. but on the third day of not being late, i finally asked someone about it and learned that somehow, miraculously the time clock had been reset.

HAAAA-LE-LU-IA!!!!!

i like not being late anymore. although i'm not quite used to it yet. i still look at the clock in the kitchen as i am grabbing my breakfast and think, "i'm late! i'm late!!" and then i go rushing out the door...

which is probably a good thing. because as you may have noticed, i am still not exactly what you could call early...

moving. AGAIN!!!

so today . . . i am tired. i am sore. i have no brain.

i have lived at school since wednesday. i worked thirteen hours on wednesday and thursday with just short food breaks, and today i worked eleven hours. my feet are killing me...

why, you ask?? because we found out just a couple of days before school was starting that some of us had to switch classrooms. and if you are a teacher, or know a teacher, you know how much stuff we tend to accumulate. so moving has been no small feat!

this is the third year in a row i have had to move to a different classroom! and the last two times, circumstances dictated that i could not move all of my things. which was a pain, because i had to choose which materials i really, really needed and leave the others. so i took the more useful ones and left the more fun ones--not really the way i prefer to teach, but it's just the way things had to be. but this time, i was able to move ALL of my stuff. i'm excited to have easy access to more puzzles and games and toys. as i was moving stuff, it was almost like christmas! ("oooo, i forgot i had this!" ) but it was a huge job to accomplish in a short amount of time, while also trying to keep my classroom functioning and training a new assistant...

i am so tired, i cannot talk at the same time i am doing anything else! really!! my brain cannot seem to process language while i am thinking about what i am doing. this morning i was just standing in the kitchen, trying to figure out how to get cream cheese onto my bagel at the same time i was trying to talk to rollie, and not doing either one successfully! rollie finally said, "just talk--i'll fix the bagel." and he did.

i got to school, faced with what i hoped would be my last day of moving AND teaching a new class of 12 little dumplings, and was soon immobilized by the enormity of the task. i just stood there and looked at the half-filled cabinets and the tables stacked with puzzles and toys and books and art supplies. i couldn't organize my thoughts as to where to put anything! so i did the only thing i could do... i drank a diet coke.

i came home about 7:00 tonight, dropped my aching body onto the couch, and wondered how i would get up. i plugged in my computer (because i haven't been on the internet since my lunch time on wednesday!!!) and tried to catch up on my internet activities, but my brain is oatmeal...

so i am going to bed. and i am going to sleep, sleep, sleep for three days. i will probably not blog--unless something really funny happens. but what could happen to me if all i do is sleep??? probably not much...

so have a great three day weekend, and i'll be back next week--hopefully with cute stories from my new favorite kids!

back to school--and it's still june!

so today . . . i am sitting here, wishing i had engaged my brain last week when i was asked to substitute this week. because if i had, i am sure i would have said no . . .

friday was my last day of teaching my class for the summer. i had a busy weekend, and then got up early and went in to sub on monday morning. it was fine.

and then i spent the next three days on summer vacation.

usually the beginning of my summer vacation is busy. i start out doing all the stuff around the house that i don't have time to do during the school year. this year there is a lot to do, because i was sick so much last year. so i have been scrubbing bathroom fixtures with a pumice stone, organizing and putting away my school stuff, and vacuuming nooks and crannies that i don't always take the time to do.

but most importantly, i have been staying up really late :)

yes, that is what i do in the summer. i stay up late. whether i am working on a project, or watching tv, or reading a book, i almost always see midnight come and go. which has been the case the last three days.

but last week, while i was still teaching, i was asked to substitute monday and friday of this week, and next monday. it seemed like a good idea at the time--it would help out my friends at school, and although i would have to get up early, i would be home before 2:00 each day. so i thought it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

i was wrong.

monday wasn't too bad. but now that i have had three days off, the thought of getting up early and going in tomorrow is not very appealing. i want to stay up late tonight. i want to keep working on my projects. i want to VACUUM!

i just want to stay home.

but they are expecting me at school. the early birds will be all alone if i stay in bed. twelve kindergarteners will run amok if there is not someone there to corral them. i have to go. just two more days.

and then i will be done. really. finally.

WOOHOO!!

sooooo tired. oh look, a gnome . . .

so today . . . was technically my first day of summer vacation. i say technically, because i actually went in to work this morning.

last week was jam-packed with end of the year activities. monday was totally dedicated to graduation practice, complete with tiny little pink, blue, or purple graduation gowns and hats (yes, i am rolling my eyes.) tuesday was a total loss, because the kids were all excited about graduation that night. wednesday was field trip day, and thursday and friday were busy days of cleaning and closing down the classroom. so by friday, i was pretty tired.

and then it was the weekend. i would have liked to spend it recuperating from my week, but that was not the way it went down. friday night was movie night at the church, saturday was consumed by diandra's birthday activities, and sunday was church and then father's day activities. it was a lot of fun, but by sunday night, i was totalled! if a mac truck had rolled over me, it would have been an improvement.

and THEN, today i had to get up even earlier than usual, because in a weak moment i had said i would substitute for summer camp, which meant getting to school by 7:30 this morning!! after working harder than i had planned to for almost six hours, i came home and drove diandra (who is kind of sick today,) to the post office and then the ups store.

after that, my plan was to take a nap, but it never happened.

and here it is 11:00 at night, and i am still awake. and blogging. which is proof that it is actually my summer vacation, even though i got up early and went to work. i figure i can sleep until lunch time tomorrow, if necessary . . .

rollie had the sense to go to bed a couple of hours ago. i am still up, because even though i am too tired to go to bed, diandra and i are watching tv and doing computer stuff, and i am wishing for barbeque lay's potato chips. we decided to take a short break so that diandra could move her car into the driveway--thus thwarting the parking police--and i could go to the kitchen in search of salty snack food.

i know there are no potato chips in the kitchen, but i went to look anyway. i thought nuts might be an ok alternative, but i know we don't have any nuts either, and yet still i opened the nut container to look. (i am thinking it might be time for a trip to costco.) as it turns out, it was my lucky day! i found two almonds . . .

when diandra came back into the house, she had a package. we looove packages at our house. in fact, i have decided that is why i buy stuff from shopping tv--just so i can get packages in the mail! however, i figured this package was for rollie, because the return address said angels baseball. but as diandra pointed out, it was addressed to occupant. we decided that meant US! so we opened it. and this is what we saw peeking out of the end of the mailer . . ."a garden gnome?" diandra said. well, that is what it said on the box top, but it seemed too good to be true. we pulled the box all the way out of the package, and it sure looked like the angels had sent us one of their garden gnomes.i noticed the date on the box was from a few weeks ago. in fact, now that i think about it, we had tickets for that game but were unable to attend. so perhaps not too many people went to angels stadium on garden gnome night. i don't know why--a garden gnome seems much more useful than some of the stuff they give away . . . but did they really send out garden gnomes to everyone in orange county? or were we just one of the lucky few?

we opened the box, and there he was--the coveted angels garden gnome! diandra picked him up and looked him over. she handed him to me, and said, "i'll bet you could get high from sniffing him." (did i mention how late it is and how tired we are and that she is kind of sick today?!?) so of course, i had to sniff him. let's just say that i am fairly certain he is made from some sort of petroleum product, because he does have a distinct odor--which will hopefully dissipate now that we have released him from his box . . .and i know he looks a little scary, but that is what happens when a flash goes off inches from a person's (or gnome's) eyes. we decided it was good we had opened the package, because we were way more excited about this little guy than rollie would have been. i am sure that in a few years he is going to be valuable, because we are keeping him inside. i'll bet lots of garden gnome recipients will put their gnomes right out into their gardens--where they will fade and crack and eventually end up in the trash. but not us. we will treasure him right along with the rest of our sports memoribilia.

which has nothing to do with my extreme tiredness, except it gave me something to blog about, which is why it is now after midnight and i am still not asleep!

blast the angels and their garden gnomes . . .

a perfect day for a field trip

so today . . . schooooool's out. for. sumMER! (that's a song, in case you don't know . . . )

yes, today was my last official day of school for this year. i am going to be helping out a couple of days with the summer program next week, but my duties as kindergarten/pre-k teacher are over for this year.

it has been a busy week. i am exhausted.

and yet, i blog.

i just wanted to share a few photos of our field trip to adventure city yesterday. we had a nearly perfect day. the weather was awesome. there were only four large groups there, instead of the usual 20-25, so there were no lines for anything. the kids were really good. and we had a wonderful day together!

i didn't know how the kids were going to do with the rides. i have a couple that i thought would probably spend a large part of the day standing in line saying, "i don't think i want to do that." so we started off slowly with the small ferris wheel-like ride and then went to the airplanes. i almost lost one there but after convincimg her to give it a try, they couldn't get the the next ride fast enough! they were fearless!!

i like the balloons, so we rode those a few times.
i taught the kids how to ride with their hands in the air to enhance their riding experience.it enhanced it all right! their little bodies were sliding all over the place and they laughed and laughed.because our resident professional photographer was unable to come with us today, i had to do all the picture taking. as we were sitting in the balloons, i realized that meant i was not going to be in any of the pictures. so i handed my camera to the girls and said, "take a picture of us!" and so they did.because there were so few large groups today, there were NO LINES! in fact, the roller coaster operator just kept letting the roller coaster go around and around and around. a normal ride is two times around the track, but one time he let it continue 8 or 10 times!! after the fourth time i looked at him (because i was not riding that thing! the kids love it, but it is too herky-jerky for me!!) and he said, "hey, there is no line. as long as none of them look sick, i'm just going to let it keep going!"i could not believe they were able to take it! but every time they came around, they were laughing even harder . . . and let me just say, it was HARD to get a picture, it went by so fast!!

finally i made the kids stop for lunch. usually we arrive at the park around 10:15 and by 10:45 the kids are starting to ask about lunch. because, you know, for a field trip the moms pack all sorts of delicious food for them. but this year i couldn't get them to stop to eat. finally at 12:45 i just said, "it is lunch time--let's go eat." when we were done, one little girl said to me, "you need to drink some water. you didn't drink any!" i always tell the kids to bring water, because i know it will be warm and they will need to hydrate. but i had an unfinished soda from breakfast (i know, but graduation was the night before and i needed the energy,) so i had finished that. i just looked at her. and then i said, "what? are you my mother?!?" without even batting an eye, she just looked straight at me, handed me my water bottle, and said, "drink this!"

i love her! she is going to be a great mom someday!

when we finished and went back into the park, they immediately wanted to go to drop zone. i thought that might be a bad idea, in light of what we had just consumed. so i made them ride the carousel. yes, i know it wasn't very exciting after the morning we had, but it is always a good photo op . . .we ended the day at drop zone. by this time most of the groups had left, so the operator just let us ride and ride and ride . . .
i know i whine about my job. there are times when i get very frustrated by some of the things i cope with. but i am very lucky to get to spend my days with tiny little humans who, at the end of the day, just want to have fun. and today we did. we had tons of it! i am really going to miss them . . .