Exhausted much? Why yes!

Whew! I have an extremely busy, busy, busy two weeks! At school, we had Homecoming Week, which is always a fun collage of activities on top of an in-service day; then on top of that week, I had parent teacher conferences, which are always nice to have, but man oh man, do they wear me out.

Many of you may not know or remember that I teach in a 4-day a week district, meaning I only have to teach class from Tuesday through Friday. In order to do this successfully without the state breathing down our necks, we've had to cut out any professional development days that would fall on a scheduled school day, so a few days a year, we have to (gasp, I know!) work on Mondays. Another part of working Tuesday through Friday is that our contract times for those four days a week have been extended in addition to lengthening the school day.

I quite like this situation: I have Saturday and Sunday to play with the people I love, and I use Mondays to get work done like cleaning the house and grading. My commute is 120-miles round trip, so that extra day off really does help morale since I'm gone from 5:45am-6:30/7:00pm on an average school day. I also love how quickly the weeks fly by when we're only working four days a week! You wouldn't believe how fast things go by--Wednesday is hump day, yes, but it's the second day of the week too, so it seems like there is no time for "Monday Blahs," etc. Most Thursday mornings or evenings I'm thinking, "wow, it's Friday already?"

Anyway, back to the point: I've had a crazy two weeks. Homecoming was a blast, and by Friday morning, I remember telling a student, "I hope we have a lot of fun today, but man, I am ready for Homecoming to be over!" My school has a great time with Homecoming--we have dress up days all week, small contests, and on Friday, they have a nice day-long jam-packed assembly. I partook in some of hte activities, including imitate a teacher day, which I imitated the school's gym teacher, complete with mannerisms and Sharpied-on tattoo created by an artistic student. There were a few kids who imitated me too, which was quite funny. I actually had to make one kid sit down and take their seat because said kid was trying to run class at the podium.

All week, students were decorating the halls to show school spirit, which I always love. One thing I love about school is when the school gets together to show that they are one, like in pep assemblies, football games, etc. Each class was given a hall to decorate for a contest, and my kids needed me to stay late to help out. I wasn't home once all week last week before 9. Not once, but the halls turned out to be spectacular! I just loved seeing all the green and gold in the hallways.

We started Friday morning out with an assembly in which I had to dress up a freshman boy into a dress for a contest (he was Homecoming Royalty), and let me say, when I was in college, I never thought I'd be dressing up a 15-year old boy in a beautiful formal dress, adding bronzer to his decolletage, or coaching him how to walk in heels. Needless to say, my freshman boy looked better than his sophomore, junior, and senior counterparts.

We ended the school day with the annual tailgate, which I have to say, is my favorite part of the school's Homecoming activities. Each of the classes gets a spot in which they can bring in a car or two to tailgate off of. All the kids bring food, and we all get to mill around and eat for about two hours. Obviously, booze isn't allowed, but it's honestly a good clean fun activity that gets students, parents, and teachers out mingling.

Though the kids were out that day at 1pm, teachers had to stay to finish up quarter end grading. My colleague didn't have a chance to finish her grading, and her class was in charge of decorating the cafeteria for the Homecoming Dance, so I told her I would sit out there with the kids and help them decorate. About 2,500 hand-cut neon foam stars and 15 spray paint cans of graffiti sprayed onto black-papered paper later, I was tired and had a headache--and it was only 3pm. The kids were decorating for a "rave" themed party, so there was neon and black decorations galore, and an abundance of black lights, glow sticks, and glowing jewelry. One of my colleagues who chaperoned the dance said the kids were awesome--they were amazing with the way they pulled the dance together and how well they behaved. So though my head was pounding, it was all worth it.

The game was mercy ruled in our favor, which was kind of sad because this was the only game I'd been to all year. I was running the bake sale for my freshman class, and they did make quite a bit of money, but it was too crowded for me to get to watch more than a peek of a play here and a peek of a play there. The game was apparently awesome.

End of why week 1 left me so tired...

Week 2 started out well--I was proud of myself becuase I had a complete menu planned out for dinners all week, and I was going to be a good little wifey while working hard at school.

Well, my plans were foiled. We went to dinner with D's Dad Tuesday night, leaving me with a bunch of prepped veggies and precooked meat in the fridge, and two days of parent teacher conferences, and a Friday night football game. I ended up freezing the meat and I still haven't made the dish.

Wednesday, the first night of PT conferences, I also realized I had a massive ear infection. Boo. I wasn't too pleased with that, as I was feeling like the walking dead. In all both nights' PT conferences went well, and I was extremely pleased that I honestly had nothing negative to say about my kids. Awesome.

The football game Friday was also mercy ruled in our favor, meaning the boys are going to state championship playoffs. The second time in two years, but prior to their new coach last year, the first time in 20. Again, awesome.

I knew that being a teacher was hard, hard work, but I never really realized how much I would love it until I started doing it. I'm exhausted, feel ragged, but I'm happy to be doing it, and that's what matters...right?

Oscar and the Mean Machine

Okay, so let me preface this little fictional tale with the nonfiction aspects of it. First of all, I have a nine year old cat, Oscar, who is a little beyond "skittish." By saying he's "skittish," we could say that Wilt Chamberlain claimed to be a ladies man. We got him at the local shelter when he was two, and though he's come out of his shell considerably, he's still extremely wary of quick movements or loud children.
































Oscar has a toy that he simply adores. By saying he adores it, I mean it's pretty much the only toy he will play with. I used to buy them at Albertson's when I worked there, but they've since stopped carrying them. Oscar went without said toy for several years until one day, I found them for sale on Amazon.com!

Since I knew about Oscar's love of these toys, I bought 20 of them and had them shipped to me ASAP.

As you can see, these are quite the delightful assortment of heterogeneous toys for my feline friend, and he loves them with all his heart.


...and now without further adieu....

Oscar and the Mean Machine

(July 2007)

Blinding headlight on, rough and tough brush rotating, engine blaring, rumbling the floor…noise, noise, noise! He’s coming now!

I have to find a place to hide!

Back and forth, back and forth, he’s dragging Mandy through the house! He only stops once his tail comes off the wall!

Have you ever had to hide from the big blue Mean Machine?

This guy is vicious! He eats everything in his path with his gianormous mouth! I never know when he will be out, ready to feast! He comes out about once a week, sometimes more, and rips through the house, dragging a frazzled Mandy behind him!

Sometimes, even after his tail is off the wall and its all wound up, he still drags Mandy up or down the stairs and hallways. He can even find his way back to the wall with his tail and headlight back on, brush churning and engine rumbling.

When he is rumbling and moving the carpet all around, he eats everything in his path! I saw Mean Machine eat my friend Slinky Snake Toy with the bright beads and fun bell! I was upset—poor Slinky Snake, trapped inside Mean Machine’s mouth! Mandy was struggling to break free from Mean Machine’s pull to rescue him, but Mandy was able to get away from Mean Machine and retrieve Slinky Snake from his grip. Oh My! Slinky Snake was a pathetic sight indeed! His weak tinkling bell’s sweet sound was drowned out by the deafening roar of Mean Machine.

He emerged: tangled, mangled, sprung. My good friend Slinky Snake lost a lot of beads in that awful carnage, and his golden threads were snagged. Mean Machine saw the frightened look in my eyes, and exclaimed, “I will get you, Oscar Cat!” and then he laughed his terrible, mean laugh.

Since Mean Machine said he would get me, I’ve been terrified. What if Mean Machine gets my tail? It sure would hurt, and I am sure it would harm my beautiful tail stripes. I have to run from him!

I have hiding places all over the house, one in every room. I am really good at tricking big dumb Mean Machine; to each hiding place I zoom!

I hide under the beds. I hide under the futon. I hide under plants on tables in corners.

I frantically claw and paw at the door to the closet until I can open it. After I get in, I burrow down in the corner. I burrow behind the clothes. I burrow until he finds me there.

When he does find me, rampaging toward me pushing shoes aside, I bolt out of there and down the stairs. If I can, I will hide in the closet under the stairs. He won’t find me there. He will not fit. I hide in there, cover my eyes, bite my claws, and shed a lot of extra fur.

I hide even after Mean Machine has been quiet for hours. I don’t want to take any chances. Mandy always calls and calls for me, tells me it is safe. Even after her assurance, I hide.

The overhead rumbling goes on for what seems like hours! Mandy must be exhausted after she is done being dragged through the house! After Mean Machine gets his tail off the wall, Mandy is dragged back down the stairs. Mean Machine takes Mandy into the laundry room…my laundry room! He nestles himself near the furnace, far from my food, water and litter box. As long as he is napping, I am safe. He eyes don’t light up. His brush doesn’t rumble. His mouth doesn’t eat anything.

Instead, he sleeps days, sometimes even weeks at a time. People say I sleep a lot, but Mean Machine sleeps more than me. Cats sleep for hours and hours a day so we can save our energy to hunt.

Slinky Snake recovered from Mean Machine’s attack. Slinky said that Mean Machine wanted to eat him, to devour him. Slinky Snake has joined my partnership in hiding from Mean Machine’s terrible mouth.

Mean Machine sleeps for days and weeks because he is so destructive. All creatures need to hide or they will be devoured by Mean Machine!

...so Oscar loves his toys, and hates the vacuum.

New to the Blogging world!

Hello! Thanks for taking the time to come and look at my blog. I'm a new blogger, so I hope I can get this down quickly.

I'm hoping to use this space to share recipes, gardening feats (and defeats), important events in my life, and just overall record my life. I'm hoping this will take a place of Facebook, as I'm growing a bit tired of their constant revamps that make it almost impossible to figure out what your security settings are.

For those of you who don't know much about me, I'd like to share that information now. I'm a 30-year old woman who lives with her longtime boyfriend of about ten years, D. I don't have children, but I have an (almost) 3-year-old niece, J, and a 2 week old nephew, T. I have a wonderful mom and two sisters, B, 25, (the babies' mommy), and C, 18. I've got a cat, Oscar, who's timid and leery of strangers, and a dog, Izzy, who's a little crazy and in love with anyone who walks through the door. I teach English, speech, and journalism, and I'm an advisor for National Honor Society and yearbook. I'm a second year teacher in a rural school in Idaho, and I travel the 120-mile round trip drive each day so I can live at home in Boise. I love my job, and though I'm still learning the ropes of being a teacher, I don't want to have any other job in the world.

Well, there you are. Let's see how this thing works out for me! :)