100 day.... otherwise know as the stupidest celebration in elementary school

It is 100 Day. Only the younger elementary school set celebrate this milestone, so after I survive it with one kid, I manage to forget about it for a couple years- until the next kid brings home the note informing me that we are supposed to find 100 things of our choice and then find a way to creatively display said 100 things and send them in to school.  Generally I see the note the day that the project is due to be turned in, rendering me into a completely panicked mess. 

This was bad enough with the previous two kids, who went to afternoon kindergarden while I did not work yet. That at least gave me a few extra hours to work with.  This time, I found out at 6:30am, and we needed to leave at 7:30am.

Ok, I thought. Not a problem, I thought. Screw creative. We'll draw a number 100 on a piece of construction paper and glue a hundred little pieces of cereal to it.  Good plan.

Until I discovered that we did not have any elmer's glue, anywhere in the entire house.

We tried a glue stick. Nope. Stuff didn't stick right. I called my husband, hoping he could save the day. He was too far away already, lucky man.  I went to take my shower, hoping inspiration would strike and I wouldn't be forced to send the kid to school project-less and look like a bad bad disorganized mom.

Inspiration struck, but it was my smart husband who had the brilliant idea, not me.  He called me up and said, glue gun! Use the hot glue gun!

The day was saved, the project completed, and all the kids made it to school on time. I call that a successful morning.

Homework... It's worse than laundry!

I finished up the IDEA legislation paper, turned it in, and (praise God) it passed. So I did the good student thing, and looked to see what's next on the to do list for earning my three credits in Diversity and Inclusion.  Let me just say that ignorance was such bliss.....

It's not the assignment itself that is a problem for me. I can write essay after essay after essay. But the laundry list of how many sources I must use, and exactly how many of each specified type, and must cite each and every one in my paper somehow, welllll, that's a little bit of a problem.

Ten pages on two minority cultures I am likely to teach and how characteristics of those particular cultures are likely to affect classroom interactions? Not two bad, until you throw in the exact and nitpicky requirements for the ten or so sources I'm supposed to use. And not one of the sources I want to use can be found at the library I work at. And I'm only allowed to borrow two at a time through Inter Library Loan at the library I work at. So, after a year and a half at WGU, it is finally time to use those library fees I've been handing over, and learn how to use the ELibrary. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

Homework, Housework, and Work

My life in a nutshell, lately.  Homework, housework, and work.  I am working on another incredibly mind numbingly boring essay on the IDEA legislation.  Recommended length is five pages. I have seven so far, and I'm not done yet.  I may have to reduce the font size to oh, about 6..... hope the grader have good reading glasses!

Happy Birthday, Baby Taz!

Three years ago today, our family became complete.  Our little Baby Taz arrived, rocked our world, turned it upside down, and wrapped every last one of us around her little finger.  Life has not been the same since.

She is defiant, independant, and very sweet.  She is tough, mischievious, and so very smart.  She seems to have boundless energy, and will run until she collapses.  I can't count how many times I've had to pick spaghetti out of her hair or clean chili out of her ears.  She refuses to be left out of anything her big sister or brothers are doing.... regardless of the consequences.  She's very little for her age, leading people to believe she's only barely two, but she's certainly as mature as any other three year old.

Tonight, we will have cake and ice cream. We will watch her open her presents. And we will marvel at where the time has gone so quickly.  It seems like just yesterday that I was nursing a squishy little baby, and now she's doing it all by herself.  Sigh.

New Year's Happenings

What a wonderful, relaxing weekend!  What a great start to the New Year!  I played computer games with Bug and Hubs, cleaned the house some, read book one and half of book two of the Percy Jackson series with Bug.  I put together a puzzle Hubs Santa gave me for Christmas with Monkey-boy, and that inspired Baby Taz to start trying her hand at puzzles.  She's still getting the concept, but I'm proud of her for trying.

Here's Our Sign....

Yesterday afternoon, Bug asked if he could play a computer game.  I told him sure, but don't be surprised to get kicked off soon, since Daddy is on his way home.

Blink. Blink.

"Did Daddy get fired?"

"Noooo, why?"

"He never comes home before bedtime. Are you sure he didn't get fired?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

I think that our sign that the man works entirely too much.

Hello again

I work in a library. I am not a librarian. I wish I were a librarian. Maybe then I might get paid enough to cover a bill or two. No, I have a fancy title, “Law Library Assistant” that nets me minimum wage and some very strange questions from the library patrons. One of the most memorable of these would be the gentleman who wanted me to help him ascertain if he is married.

I am not kidding.

I have been married twice, and divorced once, and yet somehow, I have never been confused as to what my marital status might be.

So. Four hours a day, Monday thru Friday, I pretend to know something about the law, and pretend to be working. I get a lot of homework done here at work. Which is good, since it doesn’t happen so much at home, what with the kids and husband expecting me to do silly things like, ummm, feed them, and give them a clean house to live in and such.

I’ve been absent a very long time. I’ve been busy. We moved to Colorado to help take care of my mom, who, as it turns out, only wanted our help in theory. The reality was a tad different.
We moved back, thankful our house didn’t sell, and hoped to pick up where we left off. Feel free to drink the Kool Aid with me, it’s some good stuff.

Hubs worked three jobs for awhile, and I job hunted like mad til I landed the library gig. Hubs’ dedication to work wound up screwing up his resume by making it look like he couldn’t hold a job- none of the HR idiots bothered to read the dates to see that he held three at once, not three in a row. He finally got on at Rimrock drilling, which he loved, then got laid off. After a couple months of him going so stir crazy that he painted the house purple (again, not kidding, our house is now a landmark), he landed a job at a certain soft drink company that I can’t name for fear they’ll fire him since I don’t have one single nice thing to say about them. We thought everything would be better, but really, he’s on salary and the company he works for that shall remain nameless seems to think that salary means they own his ass. He has gotten one full weekend off in four months. He works more now than he did when he was a driller and gets paid less than half what he got paid as a driller. Good times.

This past year, I have been rejected many time while job hunting, and for a promotion too. No big deal. Dealt with the family fallout of choosing my kids over my mom. Really, not impossible to handle. Waded through financial woes like I’d never had to deal with before. I think we’ll survive.
Through it all, I leaned on God, and prayed a lot. I thought I had this faith thing all figured out. Now I know the truth. And the truth is that I’m a naïve, trusting, idiot. While I still believe in God, I no longer believe that going to church is really in my best interest, or that of my family. Because that’s where I got the knife in my back that will probably never fully quit bleeding. Put there by my former pastor.

So, I’m back to my blog, a little wiser, more bitter (but trying not to be- don't worry, I'll get past it), but hopefully tougher than before. I’m back because I want to remember the happy and the good as well as the crappy. I want to look back and think, I survived that so I’m sure I can survive this. And I want to remember all the cute, funny, and downright maddening things my kids do. Because they are already getting way too big, way too fast, and my steel trap of a brain has given way to a steel sieve of a memory. So here I am again.

All better.... sort of

The pain became too much to handle pretty quickly, so I dropped off the older kids with my in-laws and headed down to the ER. Turns out, I had a temp of 100 and mastitis in both br**sts. I also was diagnosed with postpartum depression. Not a huge surprise, considering I'd been see-sawing between crying jags and temper tantrums for at least a few days. Today is my first day on the Zoloft, and it feels very strange.... kind of like my head is in a fog. Hubs was very surprised when I told him, but when he really started thinking, he agreed with my suspicion that this has been going on for a couple of months now. He actually seems kind of relieved to have an answer to what is wrong with his wife.