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This girl

This girl has always been a challenge for me. And this last weekend as we were on our way out of town, I got a phone call telling me that this girl had been out the night before at a party. Doing things you hope and pray your children won't do EVER or at least until they're in college. One of her friends was hit by a car and had broken her leg. She had to have surgery. My girl was physically fine, but sobbing and barely able to breathe when she called me to confess the bad choices she had made. The hardest thing for me was that I wasn't there to hug her. I wished so badly that I could reach my arms through that cell phone and hold her tight. Also, the shock of it was so severe. It was like my whole conception of the world had been knocked askew. I second guessed everything. I felt so helpless.
Being away for the weekend helped me to bring things into perspective. It gave Mark and I a chance to think, and pray and discuss our options. We made a plan. And so far, it seems to be working pretty well. At least it is from my limited point of view.
Then, later, I checked my email and there was a prayer request from a dear friend about a family whose 4 year old son had drowned. He was in a coma and decisions were being made about if he should be disconnected from the breathing equipment. Oh so suddenly, my family "tragedy" paled in comparison. TLast night, this family lost their youngest child. And although my youngest child had put herself in great danger, she was still here for me to hug and chat with and drive to appointments and kiss and occasionally yell at. I am so thankful for the blessing of my headstrong, wild-hearted girl. I hope and pray that I can help her to live a life of joy and kindness and love and compassion. I hope I can be a good enough mother to help her to make good choices. To be her best self. Please God, help me to do this.
And, if you have a child, go and give him or her a hug.

Love, Nancy

Thankful

I am thankful for so many things... but on a day to day basis I tend to forget and become enveloped in the annoying, the irritating, the unimportant. So, for today, I am making an effort to be thankful. Here are the things on my mind:

1. That my children are both at home safe. Bad choices have been made, innocence shattered, adulthood tested. But for now, they are home. They seem content. We are together. We ate dinner tonight at the table. Everyone ate. No one glared. Giggling happened. There was witty banter. Plans were made.

2. I had a lovely evening on Tuesday. I learned that I am not the only one. That many suffer from the same woes as I. I drank lovely white wine. I chatted. I listened. I ate some seriously tasty tacos.

3. For 7 days in a row I have worked out. My body occasionally aches, but I feel my heart growing stronger. My waist is as small as it was back in March.

4. That tomorrow we will celebrate the beginning of summer with ice cream for breakfast.

5. That I took my crazy little dog for a walk today.

6. That Mark accompanied me on my weekly grocery shopping trip today.

7. In 9 days I will be on my way to Cabo. And sweet and sassy Kristin and Levi are coming with us! I can't wait.

8. That I got to spend time last weekend with some of my dearest high school friends. That Michelle is reveling in motherhood. And I saw Danette 3 times in the last 3 weeks... that must be a record!

9. That it has been sunny here for 2 days straight.

I hope you are enjoying your summer!
Love, Nancy

En espanol, por favor!

So, almost all the way through his 2nd year of Spanish 1, my dear boy has not picked up much to say. Tonight we spent hours going to 4 rooms and saying about 5 lines in each. We had to video it.
Then, I could not get the video (which is on 4mm) onto a VCR tape. TV's just have too many cords these days. I hope his teacher gives him credit. We both worked pretty darn hard on it.
I didn't get any of my work done and the days are ticking by. Only 6 more...

Girls' Night

In just under 4 hours I will be happily (and hopefully a little tipsily) sitting in the movie theatre watching this movie. I think it will full of laughs and just the kind of night I need.

Special thanks to Cindy for loaning me all her DVD's and getting me caught up on the series!!

11 more days

I am busy laying around thinking about all the things I should be doing but don't have the energy for...... But here is a pic of one of the sweet duckies. None of which I am in charge of anymore! I really miss looking at them and watching them swim and waddle about, but I sure don't miss cleaning out their cage or laundering all of the poopy towels. One thing about ducks... they poop A LOT.... and it's pretty smelly.

Is there anybody out there?

If so, I would like to profusely apologize for neglecting my duties as a blogger. But I must warn you... the next 3 weeks things are gonna be pretty sparse around here. I am a CHRONIC procrastinator, and I have 6 months of memory book pages for 17 kids to complete before June 12. I do have duck photos and prom photos and grad photos from my nieces college graduation. But you will not be seeing them anytime soon. I just can't do it! Sorry, and I hope to be back to normal soon!

Love, Nancy

They're hatched!!

So on Saturday I had to work for a few hours getting to know new Kinders for next year and letting parents know what to expect as well. As soon as everyone left for home I pulled my tray of eggs out of the incubator and headed for the bathroom with the flashlight to candle them. As I was walking I heard this little, "peep, peep......peep" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I about jumped 10 feet in the air and my heart started pounding like crazy! I looked a little closer and noticed that about 4 of the eggs had little holes in them. I couldn't believe it! They were supposed to hatch on Monday. Here it was only Saturday and they were peeping and had broken through the shell. After looking up some very helpful info on the net (how did I ever survive without it!) I learned about internal pip and external pip and figured they would hatch out on Sunday or Monday.
On Sunday we were spending the day in Hayfork at my Granny's (a 3 hour drive) so we stopped by the school to check on the eggs' progress. I raced into the classroom and across to the incubator and saw that 2 of the ducklings were hatched out! They looked horrible and slimy and couldn't move very well. Partly because they were weak, and partly because the incubator is tiny and barely fit 8 eggs. I pulled the tray out a little and removed the shell that was close to the wiggliest ducky to give him a little more room to maneuver. Then we set off on our family trip.
On the way home around 6 pm, we stopped again, and all five of the eggs that I thought were viable had hatched. It was so crowded in there now , it was nearly impossible to even count the ducklings. I checked the 3 eggs that I thought were duds at the 8 day candling (but was too paranoid to throw out), and disgarded them. Then, I got rid of all the shells and wiped the guck out of the incubator. While I was busy, the ducklings were kind of wobbling around in their box, but they didn't look very happy, so I put them back in the incubator and left them there overnight.
In the morning they were even slimier looking than the night before, but when I placed the incubator tray in the box they took off running around. By about 10 am they were looking quite a bit fluffier. By 2 pm they were drinking their water. After school I went and bought some starter food, so by 4 pm they were pecking granules out of my hand (although they seemed much more interested in eating my wedding ring!).
Today they were all pretty active. They eat quite a bit and drink a TON of water. They run around, and are pretty good at darting away from my hand. For the most part they don't like to be held. Although Cindyanna charmed a couple of them after school. :)
Hopefully tomorrow we will pick out names for them. There is a black one with black feet, a bigger brown one with a yellow chest and yellow feet, and 3 brownish yellow ones. One of the yellow ones has some left over guck on his head making it look like he has his "hair" parted. They are completely adorable.

Photos will come as soon as I get my 4 rolls of film developed!

Busy weekend

I so look forward to my lazy carefree weekends.... sleeping in, reading, working out, puttering around the house. Unfortunately, this weekend will be nothing like that.
Tomorrow I will be at work getting to know the sweet little 4 year olds half of which will be my future students. That will last a few hours. Then, I will be working even longer getting my classroom ready for Monday.
Tomorrow night I am going to a benefit dinner for my wonderful friend Barb's Relay for Life team. Hopefully I will get to sit by Cindyanna :)
Then Sunday, it's off to Hayfork to spend the day with my fabulous Granny and all of my other relatives.... including my Mom, thank goodness since it's Mother's Day. That is at least an 8 hour thingy with driving time worked in.
Finally Sunday night we are headed to Mark's mom's house for Mother's Day cake and coffee.
When will the shopping get done? What about laundry? Who will clean the bathrooms? I hate to admit it, but most likely none of those things will get done. And the cleaning that doesn't get done this weekend has no chance of getting done during the work week, so it'll be no clean socks or sparkling sinks around here.... better not stop by or you'll get a nasty shock!

Confession #7

I don't think I will survive my childrens' adolescence.

I was OK at mothering babies. They were kept warm (enough). They were breastfed. I didn't give them solids or sugar until the recommended ages. They had their immunizations and check ups. They were loved and cuddled and talked to and read to.

I loved the toddler years. Watching them get so exicted over discovering the simplest of things. Hearing their little voices form words and sentences and GREAT BIG IDEAS. Seeing their eyes light up when I came home from work or even back into the room they were in from doing laundry. Ahhhhh, that was such a great age. And still there was reading and cuddling and hugging.

The school age years were good. I adored every page of turtles or princesses drawn in marker with chicken scratch writing. I applauded each new nugget of knowledge about dinosaurs and space and how honey is made. I basked in the sound of their voices as they struggled through their first reading of The Cat in the Hat. I even survived my baby girl's chemo and procedure after procedure after procedure. Through all of it we were there together: reading, loving, talking, enjoying each other's company.

Now things are different. I cannot predict the moods of these two. If I sense something is wrong and I ask about it. I am usually rudely dismissed. I am considered an embarrassment. I am begged to be "normal"... don't say this.... PLEASE don't do that. Worst of all there is no reading. No cuddling. Little Hugging. I take the bits and pieces of talking they throw my way and treasure them. I linger over each and every hug. Savoring the seconds. Because it may be days before I am granted another. I want so badly to interact more. To enjoy more. To be more involved. But most nights we sit in separate rooms doing separate things... TV, ipod, computer, treadmill. We do come together for dinner. It takes about 10 minutes, maybe 15. I am holding on to it for as long as possible.

Someone recently told me that this distance, this void between parent and child is nature's way of sending the child out into the world on their own. And that makes sense to me. After all, if they stayed as sweet and wonderful as 4 year olds, and never stopped seeing me as the center of their universe, I would never be able to let them go.

Confession #6

I like to drink too much. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't have a drinking problem... I am not an alcoholic. But for the last 2 Fridays I have had little girlie cocktail parties, and I have had soooooo much fun! So much fun that I have not been able to do much of anything on Saturday! The first week I made the "Fuzzytinis" and they were pretty much just vodka with a spritz of peach schnapps and a peach slice. Deadly. And not even very good tasting. It got out of hand. Last night I served only champagne, wine, beer and cherry coke zero. It still got out of hand. Also, I forgot to eat, so a double whammy on my sensitive tummy. Both nights, though, were filled with laughter and crazy girl energy. Which is something I miss since I have moved so far away from my wonderful Twain Harte girls. It has been a balm to my lonely soul. I would like to have these parties every Friday night, but I fear the loud talking has permanently scarred my 16 year old son. He insists I have the loudest voice in the bunch and he asked me not to carry on with my weekly plans. I guess as a mom I will have to oblige him. I don't want to be THAT mom anyway. But, I will miss it. Maybe we should have a 8:30 curfew.... All the fun you can imagine for 2 1/2 hours.... then done. Maybe the boy could go to a movie the next time I have friends over. Hmmmmmmm, I will have to put more thought into this.

Knocked Up

This is my adorable friend Cindy... and she is having a baby!! We are all soooooo excited! The news has been kept on the down low for over a month, and I have been just about to burst! I can't imagine how excited she must be! Can't wait to meet the new munchkin on or around Nov. 11......

and one of my favorite quotes

"There are lives I can imagine without children, but none of them have the same laughter and noise."
-Brian Andreas

House shopping

As we wait and wait and wait (and wait) for our lovely Mi-Wuk home to sell, we are kinda having fun house shopping. We have collected 4 pages of "possible" houses on our favorites over at a real estate web site. In addition to that we have now started frequenting Open Houses on Sundays. We are technically doing this to relieve our poor agent from having to haul us around for no good reason since we can't buy anything yet, but actually we really enjoy it. It's kind of our version of a Sunday drive which is a really big tradition in Mark's family. :-)
Today on my way home from work, I made M come with me while I checked out several houses on the outside just to refresh my memory of what was out there. He got pretty cranky with me and was unpleasant for the rest of the ride home.
Lately my head is just filled with visions of lovely homes I feel eager to own, so I am hoping my wishes, dreams, prayers will come true and our "old" house will sell.

Happy Tuesday! Love, Nancy

Confession # 5

I hate parent teacher conference week.
It's not that I don't like parents. Or have great things to say about the wonderful students in my class. I am always pretty well prepared with things to show... like assessment results and journals and such.
It's just that talking to people I don't know very well is DIFFICULT for me. It takes so much energy to be friendly and upbeat and a good listener and funny and thoughtful to person after person with out much of a break. I am like Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice..... "I certainly have not the talent which some people possess of conversing easily with those I have never seen before." The difference between me and Mr. Darcy (at the point in the story where he makes this assertion) is that I do practice at it, and I think I am getting better at conversation making, but it wears my out. I am entirely weary today. WEARY.
And my poor family has taken the brunt of it.

Duckling Update #1

Today I placed my long overdue duck eggs into the incubator to begin their development. I had purchased 9 eggs with my incubator and auto turner. They kept not arriving... weeks went by. Finally, I emailed the website I got them from. On a Monday (a while ago) I got a phone call in the middle of my teaching day saying the eggs would be here in 3 or 4 days. Seven days later I called the number on the website. Message machine. I left a message. The next day I tried again... machine. This time I did not leave a message. I hung up. A few minutes later they called back and we chatted about my issue while my class sat quietly on the carpet awaiting news of their duck eggs. It turns out the guy had sold his website, and I was not his customer, but that of the new owner. We straightened things out and he gave me the new owner's number. I called. He said the eggs had been shipped 7 days ago and should be here... I said, Are the ducks going to hatch after being in the mail so long? He said they lasted 10 days. He encouraged me to call my local post office. I called my local post office. They were helpful but couldn't do much with out a tracking number. I called the egg guy for the tracking number. He needed to call the farmer and get back to me. He called me back and said that he would send me a new batch of eggs. The "old" eggs arrived on the 10th day. I did not incubate them. I waited for the new batch. They arrived on Friday. I put them in the incubator this morning... all except one which was cracked. So, 8 little duck embryos hopefully to turn into 8 little quacking ducks in 28 days...on May 12th. I am a wreck of nerves.

Confession #4

This week was the first time I ever tried Ben and Jerry's ice cream. The sweet Cindyanna brought me a container of it because she was apalled that I had lived 39 long years without ever having the pleasure of one of her favorite desserts. The flavor was Mint Cookie something. My first response was, "Wow, it's not green!" (of course since it's all natural, that makes sense) My second response was, "It's pretty good." I ate 3 good size scoops of it. I liked it. I haven't gone back to the refridgerator at school to have any more. I guess I don't love it. It might just be the flavor, though. If it had been the yellow cake batter or something with brownies in it, this might have been a completely different post. As it is, I am just too cheap to spend that much money on ice cream when Breyer's tastes perfectly delicious to me! Sorry Cindyanna!

Edwin

So tonight while I was making dinner, I looked outside and saw a bunch of people standing in the street. It was weird, so I kept looking. Soon, I noticed they were all looking one direction, so I looked in that direction and saw a great big peacock strolling right down our dead end street, stopping occasionally to peck at the ground. During dinner, the street was empty, and Mark & I were telling the kids about it, when I noticed the peacock had flown up onto the house right across the street from us. There it sat, gazing about in that cold, avian way.
Kyla says, "Can I keep him?"
"Sure," I say, "If you can catch him, you can keep him."
"I'm going to name him Edwin," she says.
That's one of the things I love about my silly girl. Her great ability to imagine, fantasize, dream.... what a gift.

Confesssion #3

I think all American women have some sort of shopping addiction. Not necessarily clothes shopping or shoe shopping (which is what most people assume), but some kind of thing that they compulsivley buy no matter what state their finances are in or how it will affect them. My addiction is not clothes or shoes, although I am trying to spend a little bit more money on these items and buy a little more thoughtfully (not just what is on sale or clearance, but something I really like that is somewhat flattering and hides my muffin top) since I have been occasionally watching "What not to Wear" and Project Runway. I have come to realize that my TWO shopping addictions (yes, 2) are:
1. Scrapbooking supplies
2. Classroom items

Let's dive a little deeper into this idea.... shall we? First the scrapbooking supplies. I have one of the largest room in our house almost filled with stuff. I have piles of cardstock (stored vertically, of course), 2 shelves of patterned paper, numerous empty albums awaiting photos, flowers of silk, paper, felt, chipboard, acetate, buttons in several containers, hundreds of yards of ribbon, untold numbers of eyelets, snaps, brads, etc. I have letter stickers, hundreds of old decorative stickers, word stickers, rub ons, tools (label makers, punches, circle cutter, paper cutters (3), exacto knives, cropodile, etc) a container full of old metal embellishments, paints, mica, clay, texture paste, transparencies, lace, fabric, old fibers, boxes and boxes of rubber stamps with the inks and powders to go with them, and an outrageous number of other embellishments I cannot keep track of. I am sure that is not even all of it. But I cannot throw anything away, and every time I go past the scrapping aisle at Target or into Michael's or onto a scrapping website, there I am looking at all the fun and beautiful NEW stuff. If I get a gift certificate, that's what I'll use it for. I love to shop for it. I love to come home and open up my bag and spread everything out and look at it. I love to find places to keep my new supplies. Occasionally I even get inspired to use them!

Now for the classroom stuff. This is a completely different category all together. I do not usually impulse buy these items. When I plan the activities in my classroom, I work really hard to make everything as active and engaging as possible. If I need something to do this I will buy it. I will go to the store at 10 pm. I will put things like moon pies for a space unit or seeds and soil for a plant study or plastic farm animals for a classifying activity on my credit card if there is no money for them in the checking account. I will spend $20 on a timer at the grocery store at 9:30 at night because it makes a ticking sound and we need to play the "hide the timer" game tomorrow to strenghten our listening skills. I have even been known to tell my own two children, "No, you cannot have that _________ (fill in pretty much anything here: money for snacks, package of lead for your mechanical pencils, new tshirt) until payday, while at the same time I have purchased a bag full of items for my classroom. This shopping is NECESSITY for me. I NEED each of these items to make my classroom the best possible learning environment. I want my student to have everything they need to learn.
So, there are my 2 shopping addictions. What are yours?

Confession #2

I am a horrible driver. I accelerate too fast. I brake too suddenly. I always go 10 miles over the speed limit (but not more than 10). My favorite speed to drive is 75 mph. It just feels so comfy and right whizzing by all of those slow pokes out there. My bad driving habits have often haunted me. I have been in several accidents/mishaps.
1. I accelerated at a stop sign without looking both ways and hit a car with 1 woman and 4 kids in it BEFORE I had my license. This happened in my mom's Mustang
2. I was trying to back down a long, curvy driveway at night and got stuck to a cement wall (like the whole driver's side of the car was hugging up against the wall). This happened in my mom's sivler Nissan.
3. I was crying really hard because of my at-the-time-on-again-off-again boyfriend and I hit a deer in my own little truck.
4. I fell asleep at the wheel after spending the evening at my aforementioned boyfriend's house watching a boring movie and rolled my dad's truck over a few times. At the time it was our family's only vehicle.
5. I got 2 flat tires the first year while commuting 67 miles (one way) from Twain Harte to Modesto for my first real teaching job.
6. I ran out of gas 2 times in the second (and final) year I commuted from Twain Harte to Modesto.
7. I got a speeding ticket for going 50 in a 35 while trying to get my son to soccer practice in Twain Harte (we were coming from Modesto).
8. I got another speeding ticket for going 80 in a 65 (I was actually going about 87 or so) while driving home from Eureka to Twain Harte after some family holiday.
The last 2 are the reason why I never go more than 10 over. It's my personal mantra.

Happy driving! Love, Nancy

Confession

I am a total loser, I know, but I have allowed myself to become hooked on "Rock of Love 2" It happened while I was randomly flipping through the channels, and I saw Megan from "Beauty & the Geek" up there in the pilot episode getting a VIP pass. (Please don't ask how I know Megan was on Beauty & the Geek). From there, I would catch it once in a while as I flipped through the glut of yuck on every night. Then there came a time when I would actually LOOK on the TV Guide channel to see if it was on... Now I actually know the new episodes come on Sunday nights... so there I am, a faithful watcher.... dying to see what the crazy wild looking girls (with their fake boobs and tatoos) of 20 some years will do for a bandana clad (most likely BALD, why else would he never take that blasted thing off) makeup wearing pervy man in his 40's. Last week was quite a sight... those girls were waaaaaayyyy too drunk to be on TV. This week I think they're going to Vegas... maybe you should tune in too!