Christmas 2010

I sure do wish I were inspired to write something really poignant tonight, but honestly, I am so exhausted from making Christmas smooth for everyone, fixing everybody's favorite everything, and saving a piece of myself in the process - that I am just too dang tired to write anything meaningful.

There were a few moments today that I thought a few really witty things, but they escape me now, much like that jar of pickles that exploded all over the kitchen floor just minutes before I planned to announce that "dinner is served."  Oh yea, I almost forgot the relish tray - Judy surely would have said something if there were no pickles and olives on the table.  She almost had a meltdown at the grocery store when I said we didn't need to buy the black olives this year.  She doesn't like black olives, and I can take them or leave them. With everything else on the table that we know we like, why buy something for just the four of us when none of us care about the ding-dong black olives?  But I do love homemade pickles, and it so happened that Dad ran into Phoebe at Judy's workshop on Thursday and netted a jar of her famous homemade pickles.  Worth having a relish tray, for sure.  Good thing I like the smell of allspice because I smelled like a jar of pickles from 4:45 on today.  The kitchen floor is still sticky.  But the pickles really were worth it - even though we only got to have two each - the rest had to be trashed. 

I made something new for the first time this year:  Kahlua/Chocolate Mousse.  OMG - it was amazing.  A little on the rich side, but turned out just great - fresh whipped cream and shaved chocolate on top.  Oh boy - really good.  A great ending to a mostly smooth day.

Also got to watch The Blind Side again - that was my movie of choice for Christmas night.  Such an uplifting movie - love that it is a mostly true story and I want to be Leanne Tuohey.  Hutsbah.  I love that about her (and that Sandra Bullock played her in the film).  Maybe tomorrow night we'll watch Marley and Me - I missed that one in the theatres, and Judy gave it to me for Christmas.

Nothing much witty to say, nothing much poignant or clever.  The main thing on my mind is how mad I am that my mom has Alzheimers and has slipped away from us bit by bit.  She cannot hold a coherent conversation, and she is just outright mean to my dad who is jumping through hoops to keep her with him as long as possible.  He knows how much closer the end is for his ability to care for her.  If I get started on the subject of Alzheimers' and how it is taxing my every last ounce of patience with my mom, I will start to get upset, and that would serve absolutely no purpose at all.

So, I'll just say Merry Christmas.  It was pleasant enough.  My dad was happy and he didn't have to cook today.  I loved that about today more than anything.

Two weeks

Measuring one's life by days and weeks seems like such a futile thing sometimes, but we all do it.  Counting down the moments instead of savoring them is the wrong way to be.  I've done it all of my life and if I really look back on it and think about the times I've willed (and wiled) away, it's kind of pitiful.

But I'm doing it again right now.  In the next two weeks, I've got more things to do than I want to, but once they are done, they can be checked off the list of perfunctory tasks and then I can get back to the business of living my life again for two more weeks.  That's kind of the point of this blog, I guess. 

Two more weeks of work - during which grades must be posted again, 56 pages of yearbook need to be built and shipped, 40 pages of corrected proofs done and returned, projects completed and graded, a newspaper distributed and critiqued and a third one planned.  And that's just the school stuff.  I also need to decorate for Christmas, wrap gifts (and finish purchasing them), bake cookies, attend Christmas parties, and prepare to go to Newport News for the holidays.  Yes.  Much to do. 

I want to enjoy it all - because I really do love Christmas time.  Today I was rummaging for the tree skirts, which is the official starting point of all of Christmas in my estimation - I never found them, but I did find numerous treasures that I have acquired over the year(s).  Some that I bought for gifts, some for myself, some that I have had forever, and it made me smile to think of what a good shopper and keeper of the stuff I am. 

I really do have a lot of stuff - especially wonderful Christmas stuff.  I wish I knew where it all was/is - and it is definitely here in this house because I don't get rid of anything.  I will have to completely rearrange the attic to bring the tree down, but the tree can't come down until I find the tree skirts. 

My very first tree skirt was this quilted round that I made my first year in Lancaster with edging.  I made dozens of them and sold them - they actually go "under" the tree stand, not around it - protecting the floor.  Then several years ago, I happened upon this perfect quilted Santa tree skirt the day after Christmas at Thalhimers - it was handmade and signed, the perfect size (slightly larger than the rounder I had made all those years ago) and I love it.  What a bargain, and it makes me smile every time I find it.  The rounder and the skirt are together - wherever they are, and it isn't time until I find them.

Then, I can do the window candles, put the tree in place and illuminate it.  Once that is done, I can haul the rest out of the attic.  But not until.

So, sometime in the next two weeks, all of this will magically happen, I will begin the journey through my Christmas rituals and preparations for the transformation that only lasts a short time.  I will enjoy it late into the night - sometimes I leave the lights on all night long.

Ahh.  The wonder of the holidays and what it means to so many people all over the world.  And in my little piece of it, my favorite is the twinkle of lights. 

Shopping can be so much fun!

I love to go shopping.  Especially when there isn't anything in particular that I am looking for - I can just look at stuff and decide if I like it well enough to buy it or if I think someone I know would love to have it as much as I want to buy it for them.  That's when shopping is really fun.

I'm not crazy about shopping with a detailed list, though.  "Mission shopping" is torture.  How much was it at that store?  I'm always second-guessing myself when I'm on a budget.  Fortunately, I don't really have a budget like I used to.  Now, if I see it and it's reasonably affordable, I just buy it and be done with it.  If it's for me, I bring it home to try on or unwrap it and put it in it's place or move it around and rearrange stuff to make it just so.  If it's a gift, such as for Christmas, I just stack all the stuff up on the bed in the guest room with post-its as to who the gifts are for and continue on my merry buying spree.  The bag and the receipt are under the gift just in case I find something I would rather give to that person.

It's especially fun to shop for my sister and my mom because I know them just about better than anyone else in my life.  I feel victorious when I find Judy's size or something I know Mom is going to love.  They are both desperate for good looking clothes, and I really try hard to find them things they can wear every day - as well as the fun items - cute jammies or jewelry that will put a smile on their face. 

I remember one year, maybe on Dec. 23, Judy was upset because she lost one of her favorite ladybug pins that she wears on the lapel of her uniform everyday.  I said "Wait.  Hold on.  Just a minute!"  Then I went under the tree and found this little package and I had a new one for her to open on Christmas morning, but she needed it right then.  The LOOK on her face when she opened that ladybug pin that I found sometime in July was more special at that moment than it would have been on Christmas morning.  It might have been lost in the shuffle of gifts on Dec. 25, but on that day, she needed a lift and I had it to give.  She almost forgot about the lost ladybug pin, but I found the lost one after she left for work and wrapped it up in the box from Dec. 23 - so on Christmas, it was in her stocking.  These are the random, priceless gifts that I truly love to give.

Shopping for my Dad is another story.  Sometimes he asks for a specific thing - like last year.  He wanted these two Howland family tiles framed in a shadow box, and he told me this at Thanksgiving time.  Getting things framed is a challenge when places like Ben Franklin have a sign up that say "next available delivery for custom frames:  December 24 at 7:30 pm."  That was a killer gift item.  Fortunately, I got it before that date and time, but I really was sweating that gift.  That wasn't shopping.  That was a mission item and as much as I loved the look on his face when he opened it, I sweated the arrival of an acceptable framing job before I left for NN.

Today was fun.  I had to run to Walmart for some club picture day stuff and other groceries, but I had an extra hour or so on my hands, so I meandered through Walmart willy-nilly and looked at Christmas decorations and prepackaged gift isles with abandon - and giggled.  I picked up a few things today that will make some little people happy - well, if it's not lost in the shuffle or the "stuck-uppityness" of their parents.  Buying things for my nieces and nephews (and great nieces and nephews) lost its luster a long time ago because none of them appreciated squat and I never ONCE got a thank you - much less a note from Indiana, Georgia or Utah. Tim and Tres have ALWAYS been appreciative, but the alphabet side of my family, not so much.

Now that I think about it, I might just have to give those cute gifts to Christmas Mother or Angel Tree so someone who can appreciate them will have them on Christmas morning. 

I wish I could talk my parents into going to Disney World for Christmas this year.  No gifts, just one great family blowout trip and shoot a wad of cash in Florida.  No cooking, cleaning, decorating.  Just meandering through a beautifully decorated happy place and watch Judy's face light up when she sees Mickey and Minnie, Goofy and Daffy, and Cinderella.  It doesn't matter that Judy is 62 years old - she still loves everything Disney and is such a happy human being - no matter what is happening in her world (unless the clocks aren't right).

Yes, shopping can be so much fun.  I love buying gifts for people who appreciate them - and it has nothing to do with the price.  It's the element of surprise, the thought that counted, the pleasure in the buying and the perfect wrapping of a beautiful package - whether it is under the tree or on the Christmas dinner table.

I wish more people in my family appreciated that concept - but they don't.  At least I know that my Mom, Dad and my Judy do, and that really is all that matters.

Weeding the garden

When they are gone, everything looks so much better.

This is why I chose the "handle" for my blog:  weeding a garden is much like improvement in one's world.  It is time to write about my extended metaphor for my life, my career, my world.

Each day in my classroom, it is my goal to improve how we write, how we speak, how we think, and ultimately, how we present ourselves to the world around us.  In English, that is done through words.  In Journalism (newspaper) and Photojournalism (yearbook), that is done through words AND presentation.

As the marking period ends, a good teacher must explain these concepts yet again - while we do it every day bit by bit, piece by piece, at some point we need to review the reasons, the method and the outcomes so that kids understand it.  I did that today with all of my classes, and I think they really understand that it's more than a numeric grade.  They have to learn how to weed their own garden - whichever one they are focused upon at the moment - and the weeds can get in the way of the beauty (or perfection) of it all.

Vision is really what it's all about.  One must define it (the beautiful garden, for example) before one can make it happen. 

I have so many gardens to weed right now, and like the gardener, I can only focus on one at a time.  In the classroom, blocks of time are set aside for each "garden" and one weeds that garden for that period of time.  But to truly make it beautiful, one may need a flashlight.

tbc.  (sorry, readers.  I am too tired to develop my metaphor tonight.  More later.)

Misery loves company

Whoever came up with that expression was really sick.  I am miserable right now and I don't want any company.  I don't want to talk to anybody.  I don't want to be around another human being.  And I certainly don't want to share my pain.

So why am I writing about it?  I keep hoping that something cathartic will come of it - the words that stream from my fingers might find some solace, peace, a more positive vibe to help me get through the night.  It hasn't arrived yet, but I am confident that something good will come of this meandering through cyberspace to make me feel - happy, better, ready to face another day, positive about this deadline lifestyle I've chosen for myself. 

It was a good day as far as days go... Lots of good feedback from senior parents who were called yesterday by yearbookers about the senior ad deadline on Nov. 22 (happy, positive messages and MONEY from parents - and I loved that); another productive day in Yearbook - fixing spreads that needed fixing; Newspaper kids turned in their final drafts and I got most of them - double YAY; and I think I love my 6th block English class - that's really weird.  30 kids at the end of the day and I love them.  They like me, and they like to be complimented - which is easy when they do good work - which most of them do.  A few of them are extremely immature, but what can one expect from sophomores?  At least they are really trying to be good students, which is stellar behavior from college prep sophomores.

So, why is it that I am miserable?  I hate grades.  Bottom line:  I think grades put a quantitative factor on creativity and stifles the spirit.  Every time the end of the marking period comes around, I have to put a numeric value on a student's creative spirit, and ultimately, someone's feeling get hurt.  That is NOT why I wanted to become a teacher.  I can look at a kid and tell you what grade they deserve in my class by their effort - and I don't need a rubric to justify it.  My whole being knows that a kid who has only been in the United States for a year or two doesn't have the same skills as someone who was born here, but they have LEARNED and that deserves a passing grade.  The numbers may not justify it, but the attitude does.  Likewise, a kid (or their parents) who connives and questions every point and hasn't lived up to their ability and can do MUCH more doesn't deserve the extra points or higher grade really gets on my nerves.

I also don't care much for the scheduling of grades.  The nine weeks ended officially today.  Grades are due tomorrow by 3:45.  THAT is outrageous.  Just because the marking period ends doesn't mean that grades can be ready in 24 hours.  Absurd.  Stupid.  Unrealistic. 

Some of us actually teach up to the last possible moment and accept work until the deadline.  Then we have to quantify it. 

Get real, world.  It is to everyone's advantage that a teacher has time to evaluate the numbers once they are in the system.  But first the numbers have to be there, and when exactly is that supposed to happen?  Last time I checked, I don't have a secretary or an accounting executive to put them in for me.  Oh.  That's right.  I have to do that myself. 

Like I said.  I don't want or need any company.  By profession, I am a teacher; by my other hours I am  a homeowner, a sister, a daughter, aunt, and a friend.  I just need TIME to do my other jobs:  receptionist; attendance supervisor; behavioral management specialist; subject researcher of English, Journalism, Photojournalism; design manager; child study reporter; parent notification coordinator;  lesson planner; personal secretary to students, parents and administration (and others as requested); and now, grader and data input specialist.

Catch my drift?  I don't have time to be all of these, and I most certainly don't have time for company.

Glee

I love this show.  Mostly.  I enjoy the singing, but I have to say, I think Sue is a hoot.  She really knows how to stick it to Will and just about everybody she encounters.  Got that principal wrapped around her thumb - not just her little finger.  Love it.  He's not far from the norm of ultra stupid, and that's how principals usually are.  (NOT mine, mind you.  He's not stupid, nor have most of my principals been, but they do think differently when they move from classroom teachers to administrators, and I don't know why that is.  They generally become forgetful about how it was to be a classroom teacher when they make that transition to admin - and I wish it weren't so.  I only know ONE person who remembered his roots as a classroom teacher and he is the perfect administrator.  If he saw this, he would know who I am talking about - Dr. Aaron Spence.  If he googles his name he will see this and know who I am - and that's okay.  If I were just 20 years younger...)

Back to GLEE.  My favorite episode was the Madonna segment of Vogue.  Way too cool to co-mingle a silly unrealistic show about high school with something from the - what was it - late 80s?  Bridging the gap of 20+ years via a dumb sitcom is, well, from my generationally challenged point of view, sheer genius.  And to do it in black and white, duh.  Perfect.  The irony of a 40ish teacher thinking she could "be" Madonna is too funny for words.  But she pulled it off in high style.

Now, as for the students at that school, it's time for some of the Rachel's and the Finn's to graduate and let some new flunkies take their place.  Three years as juniors is a bit much.  Let 'em go, find replacements.  The teachers?  Well, they can stick around because that's what teachers do, but the kids have got to go.  Surely there are some new wanna-be singers out there - younger that Rachel & Finn who can pull off a mature immaturity with good voices. 

We shall see.  In just 25 minutes. 

Impatience

I have learned something new about myself that I really dislike, and that is I am an impatient person.  I don't like stupid, repetitive nonsense or demanding people who just need to be told "no." 

And right now, I am so mad at myself for being impatient with my mother today, I can't even write a coherent thought - though I know it would be very healthy for me to just write it down.

On a more postive note, my Dad is incredibly patient - sometimes too much so.  I wish I could be more like him.  But I am not and that isn't going to change any time soon.

So much to do, so little time

It always happens this time of year.  November swoops in and the brain over-engages.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, gifts to shop for, wrap and deliver, decorating to do, leaves to rake and dispose of, company coming and going and all the cleaning and bed making, washing and remaking, cooking and all that is required - the planning, the grocery shopping, the schedule - what can be done ahead and what must wait till the last.  And that's just the fun stuff.

It's also hugely busy at work.  End of the nine weeks and grading, entering, smoozing, negotiating, make up work, parent conferences, phone calls, the revolving door.  Yearbook deadlines on top of newspaper deadlines, club picture day and more yearbook deadlines.  It's all too much sometimes.  I don't know how to keep up with it all anymore.

Determining what's most important is such a challenge.

At least we have an extra hour to ponder it all on Sunday night.  Yippee!

Fall

I love fall.

I don't love raking leaves - but I love it when they are done.   Actually, it's a pretty mindless task and if I had more time on my hands, I think I could even love doing leaves.  I love the colors of fall, the weather changing, the end of daylight savings time, Thanksgiving food, and the promise of Christmas right around the corner.  I especially love the vacation days, family time, and snow.  I love it once my house is decorated for the change of seasons (which generally doesn't happen as soon as I would like), and the smells of the holidays.  Pumpkin and cinnamon, for example, are especially nice smells together. 

Indian summer in the fall is good, too.  Surprise days of 70-80 degrees make me want to go outside because I can (that sounds like a Bill Clinton thing to say, but it's true).

I realize in the fall that I have some beautiful sweaters, and I have missed them during the spring and summer months.  But to be honest, I hate shoes.  That's probably the worst part of fall and winter - having to wear shoes instead of sandals.  Makes my feet hurt just to think about it.  And I'm not crazy about heavy coats either.  Lucky I have a garage that I can just hop in my car, drive to work, hop out, and it's a quick stint into the building - so generally, no heavy coat needed on a daily basis.

I wish I liked football, but I don't.  Almost everybody I know loves football season for one reason or another, but I just never understood why grown men would want to run up and down a field, bang into each other over a silly ball.  I feel the same way about golf.  Tennis makes sense to me; even soccer - both of those sports require personal control skills with an opponent - and the object of the game is not to hurt somebody - as in the case of football; or to spend hours hitting a tiny little ball all the way over there and get it to fall in that little hole that you can't even see from where you are standing - which is why they have to put a flag on a stick to show you where you are shooting for.  Dumb.

But I do love the sound of my dad, brother and my nephews watching football while I am usually in the kitchen (used to be with my mom) making some yummy snacks and hors d'oeuvres for the guys - and planning dinner or the next family gathering, discussing what we're going to do for Christmas.  That is my recollection of football enjoyment, and I do miss it.  Go to a game?  Not if I don't have to.

This year, fall is different than it has been in the past.  Maybe it will be the same, but certainty no longer exists in my family's world.  Freddy and Nancy have been hosting Thanksgiving the last several years - we've gotten into a really good groove going to their house for the day with Tres, Tim, Anne and the kids, but this year - the plan is in place but Freddy's situation has been a huge obstacle this year and ... who knows what will happen.  Same thing for Christmas.

One thing is for sure:  Change is what fall brings.  The change of seasons, colors, family comings and goings - which all seems to have more meaning this year than in year's past.  As much as I like change, I like familiarity better.

A good eye for design

... is it an acquired skill or is it inherent? 

I've always had the good fortune of having editors who could easily tell the difference between a good design and a crappy one.  Newspaper and Yearbook have two distinctly different design needs - fundamentally because of the paper stock and use of ink.  Newspapers saturate and need less ink and generally use much less color.  Yearbooks, on the other hand, require higher photo quality, more efficient use of white space and knowing when to bleed and when not to.  Both require an eye for composition, entry points, and unity – so that readers aren't confused by where to start.  Font selection matters and how the fonts are packaged; less is more in my world.

Teaching these concepts has been a true challenge this year.  For the first time, I think the newspaper editors get it – more than editors in the past.  When I tweaked their pages, they knew exactly what I had done to make their pages look good (i.e., a pica around all screened boxes and between elements; flush right on all photo credits and flush left on the headlines; justified captions; alignment matters.)  They saw this as soon as it was done on their pages but not before.  "This looks really good!" they exclaimed.  "We did this?"  Well, not exactly, but almost.  I think the next issue will be easier to lock up than the first, and so on.  Today, their designs were okay, but some of them saw a need for more grids on the dummy layout sheets, so I made them a new template to redraw their sketches.

Yearbook editors aren't quite so savvy yet.  They aren't taking the time to study the clippings they want to emulate on the screens.  Too many text boxes all over the place and no sense of space or alignment.  Color?  This looks pretty.  No entry points.  Even the folios are random and different point sizes.  Outlined type on one-word headlines aren't headlines.  They are labels that don't explain squat.  And I haven't read the first word yet.  It's going to be a long year if I can't get them to see that the pages have no unity.  "Let's make a plan."  WHAT?  A plan?  We have a plan.  "No, not exactly." 

I'm having a hard time with the concept of spending thousands and thousands of dollars on a crappy looking design.  I love their cover, endsheet, title page, opening, dividers and folio concept.  But the spreads are ordinary and blah.  The colors are not enough to tie the designs together (blue and gray). 

I need more inspiration and I haven't found it yet.  It better come to us soon as we must ship our first 40 pages in the next two weeks.  Wisdom, I need you NOW.

Module Six

Oh, how I despise training days.  Teaching for the better parts of 33 years, it's hard to teach this old dog new tricks.  Even when you give them a new name, they are still the same ole tricks.  I have known the tricks forever and they don't really do much for me anymore, especially when there is no benefit to me.

Today's lesson was characterization.  I've always been pretty good at picking out the traits of characters and determining the who, what, when, where, why and how they are the way they are.  The traits and the characters, that is.   So today we spent our time analyzing a few characters, most of which were the bad guys.  From my point of view, there are far too many bad guys in the world and we keep letting the bad guys seem to win.  But really, they don't win because the good people of the world choose not to let the bad guys overpower us (note:  I consider myself one of the good people who refuses to give in.)

On another wee tangent about training:  Please don't tell me I'm coming to train on one topic (teaching English, for example) and then sprinkle in a bunch of unrelated/irrelevant technology to make it appear more interesting.  It doesn't.  It is confusing.  If you want to give me technology training, then do that.  But stop muddying the waters with co-mingled crap.  I don't have a promethean board in my classroom and I don't want one.  So I don't need to know how to use it, and you are wasting my time showing me a bunch of tricks I will never use.

I also do not teach grammar while I am teaching literature.  Kids don't like it.  "Here, write a sentence about this book that has something to say about characterization and oh, add in some participial phrases to that sentence while you are at it."  WHAT?   Why would I do that?  In the editing lesson, maybe, but not while I'm trying to get them to find the motive behind a character's actions.  Hello.

Used to be we tried to focus kids on certain concepts and let them delve into them, digging for meaning.  Let's generate a list of qualities about these protagonists/antagonists and defend why/how we think so.  Let's learn how to incorporate evidence from the work to support what we believe our findings are.  THEN, once we write about this, let's learn how to edit and organize, combine sentences, phrases, clauses and thoughts so the ideas that are subordinate become that and our main points become those.

Lordy be.  I need to retire.

Covers: A response to "snail mail"

My dad is an avid collector of covers.  What are covers? you might wonder.

Covers are envelopes with their contents intact.  What?  Who would collect those?  Well, apparently there's a huge following of covers in the world of stamp collectors.  My dad will pay top dollar for a cover with the Howland name on it.  Among his found treasures:  a letter addressed to a Miss Deborah Howland in the 1800s.  My dad's first granddaughter is named Deborah Howland, so this is particularly relevant.

As it so happened, the cover's contents included a letter from a gentleman who was absolutely smitten with said Deborah and sought her return affections.  The handwriting was beautiful, the sentiment even more so.  My father was on a mission to find out whatever happened to Miss Deborah Howland - and he learned that she was not as smitten with the letter writer as he was her cousin and that would not be an acceptable liaison. 

Dad is an avid genealogist, right along with my brother Phillip - who has to do it as a part of the Mormon church philosophy.  My Dad does it because it's fun and interesting for him.  He's tracked Howlands all over the United States, particularly from New England to Mexico and the Sante Fe Trail (that one resulted in me finding a book from the Southern Methodist Library in Texas about the Sante Fe Trail to buy for my dad's birthday a few years back); another batch of Howlands who have spent a lot of time in Africa (Cape Fear) with their merchant pursuits.

All of this resulted from hand-written letters from or to a person named Howland ever since the U.S. Postal service began - which I venture to say was sometime in the early 1800s.  It has given my father thousands of hours of pleasure researching the whereabouts of certain family members so he can add to the Howland history.

I guess the point of all of this is:
1.  Don't throw away the envelope with that letter.  It may be worth something someday.
2.  If you get a personal letter in the mail, keep it in a special place with the envelope.  It's only valuable with the stamp and the hand-written scribe inside.
3.  Computers make it easy to correspond on a daily basis, but the "mass" is nothing compared to the personal communication.
4.  Good handwriting is an art form that is almost lost.

It's been a while...

... since I've blogged, and I can honestly say I haven't missed it but so much.  Life is outrageously crazy in my world.  Family situations, friends betraying strangers, work taking up an inordinate amount of my time, and wine and puppers consuming my off hours. 

Since October 2008, I have lost faith in America, but not in myself.  Each day I wake, wanting to hear good news - yet being disappointed in change that never materializes, a plan for a family in waiting, confidence in a country that I know can be more than it is.  I don't fear because I have faith that God will take care of all things good and necessary, but I wish for more than what our society presently beholds.

I have so much to be thankful for and to give.  Yet convoluted worlds collide daily - and I can't wrap my arms around it all.  So, I just select a piece of my world and say to myself:  "Self, today we will focus on this piece."  And I do.  Somehow that is working for me.