December

I know it's so cliche to say, but man has the end of this year flown by. I feel like I'm just hanging on for the ride. Like they say, fun times when you're having flies. I know the saying goes something like that.

I went to upload my Thanksgiving pictures, and I only took one. And it's not even of people. It's of the turkey Wendy made out of fruit. Pretty freakin cute.



Thanksgiving was an epic feast, just how I like it. Lexi is so excited to go to grandma's house on Christmas day because she says it will be just like Thanksgiving.

I bought an amazon gift card at the grocery store the other day, and the cashier, who is younger than me I think, asked me what amazon was. And I was like... Um, really? Ok, well, it's a huge online store that has books, clothing, lots of stuff. And she says... Is it used? Um, yeah, I'm buying a gift card to give people used stuff for Christmas? No, it's not used. Like, seriously, who under the age of 60 doesn't know what amazon is? I hate that cashier anyway. One time when Josh was a little tot with his bad excema she said that her little boy got really dry skin, too. So I was like, Yeah? What do you do for it? All excited to get a good tip for a new type of cream or something. And she looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "I put lotion on it." Oh, well, lotion. Why didn't I think of that? Der. She's just kinda rude and crusty all the time and I avoid her line when I can. I like the two nerdy guy cashiers. They totally know what amazon is because one of them told me all the gaming stuff you can buy on there last time I went through his line.

I've got so much work to do by the end of the term. I think I'm going to have to do a lot of it over the break. How will I force myself? I don't know. I have to grade essays, and these suckers are going to be really bad. They are struggling so hard on them, and I'm really not sure why. Next year I'm giving them about 100 pre-approved topics to choose from because they are choosing stupid stuff, and yes I do know why they are struggling... because of the topics they are choosing. Why do almost all teenage girls want to write about eating disorders and abuse? And abortion, but I refuse to read any more of their horrible papers on abortion, so I've banned that topic. Seriously. It's an argumentative paper. You can't write about eating disorders! So then they try anyway, and it doesn't fit the criteria, so they have to change topics in the middle, and argh. Anyway, got some other stuff to grade. I have two online classes that have to be finished by the end of the term. One won't take much, but the other will take a little time, so I probably ought to do it over the break. I had to apply for this exemplary teacher thing, not because I'm exemplary but just because... well, just because, but I got the paperwork done today, so that's one thing down. And I was in charge of the charitable giving campaign and sent that in this week. Yay! Got a few things checked off the list.

Was supposed to go to a derby parents' meeting last night, but ditched it in favor of Christmas shopping. Gotta finish the Christmas shopping. I'm almost done, but it seems like I buy one thing and remember two more.

Sean and I are coming up on our 20th anniversary. That's just nuts, yo. So strange. We've been through a lot over the last 20 years. My wedding ring got too small-- well, I got too fat-- and I stopped wearing it a while ago, and Sean lost a diamond in his. So we were going to get them both repaired, but then we decided to buy new rings. He likes tungsten carbide, and I want something other than a diamond. So I'm looking at just a band or maybe a different stone or even a CZ. I just don't want any conflict stones or metals, so I have to do a little research to find out which stones and metals don't come from conflict mines nowdays. It seems like everything does. Even metals for electronics and cell phone components. Ugh.

Off to go watch my new favorite reality show, Storage Wars. Gotta love Netflix.

Holiday Traditions

Birthdays

Today was a day I don't want to repeat. Parts of it were good, but Josh and Lexi were mentally exhausting. Josh woke up super hyper, which means that for most of the day he'd be bouncing off the walls, pulling Lexi along with him, then he'd either get too wild and hurt her, or he'd start teasing her, and either way she'd scream. I deserve a medal for not losing my mind or smacking anyone.

Brittney turned the big 16 this month. With Halloween and several of her friends also having birthdays, it seems like it was one big party for a few weeks. She had a Halloween party at our house, one at a friend's house, several friends' birthday parties-- one at a hotel-- was taken out to dinner by friends, a party at grandma's house, presents and pie at home... Hopefully it was a pretty good birthday.









Courtney took the little guys to the Treehouse Children's Museum last week. They thought that place was pretty cool.









Lexi was sick last week. That was a special kind of fun. Diabetes makes everything such a party. She had no appetite, which caused her blood sugar to go low, which caused her not to be able to have insulin, which caused ketones to build up. She had a moderate level of ketones in the middle of the night the first night, and that's scary to me as someone new dealing with this. She wouldn't eat so I could give her insulin, and she finally drifted off to sleep, so I was like... do I wake her up and try to make her eat or can I wait and let her sleep finally? So I called up to Primary Children's to ask for some advice from the on-call doctor. She was not very happy to be awake, it seems. But I wasn't very happy to be awake either. I never knew we'd have so much in common. No one else has been sick yet. Crossing fingers.

Josh's birthday was today. Eight years old. That's so hard to believe. He wanted donuts for dessert instead of cake, so I bought him a giant donut. But I didn't let him eat it all. Fun sucker.







Brittney cut her own bangs today. I think she looks cute. She thinks she looks like Mr. Spock.






This is a short week at work and school. Something to be thankful for, right there. Last week wore me out, but Friday in particular. Somehow I got dragged into dramas that were not mine. Why? Why me? One class told me about something that was said in another of their classes that offended them, and that needed to be dealt with, so I spent some time tracking that down and telling the other teacher what these students had heard so she could deal with it. Then I ended up spending over an hour after school trying to help sort out a drama between three of my students who aren't all even in the same class of mine, but two of them came to me with it, so I had to see it through. I just want to teach some English, yo. I gave my students an article to read about Occupy Wall Street and then they had to write some stuff, and some of them are just so clueless it kills me. It was really straigtforward, I thought. One of my students was all... I don't even know what I just read about. Like, I don't even really understand what taxes are. And I was like... Just... No. Just go back under your rock and think about Jersey Shore and Teen Mom for awhile while the rest of us talk. Yeah, that's how great a teacher I am. No, I explained it all as basically as I could, but it just wears me out.

Sean has been working on the go-cart he is building for Josh. I wish he had taken some before and after pictures. He's kind of pretty amazing. He bought an engine that needed a complete overhaul at a yard sale for $10. He's systematically gone through and rebuilt it, and I think he finally got it running the way he wants it tonight. So now he's on to the frame. The engine could sell easily for $150 now, so I said sell it and buy Josh an Xbox or PS3, but Josh said he wanted the go-cart. Bummer. It's hard to break your arm or crack your head open playing an Xbox. He's going to have to wear a motorcycle helmet and full body armor before I feel good about this.

October

I love this little guy, but he's getting to be not such a little guy any more. :(



Well. Many things have happened in the last few weeks. Nothing juicy. Just life.

The Trace Adkins concert was so much fun. I might by tickets again for next year. They're pretty pricey, but I think it was worth it. He sang all his fun songs, and he sang "You're Gonna Miss This" which of course made me cry. I tried. I didn't wanna. But I did.

Sean and Josh went deer hunting two weekends in a row. They had fun and didn't shoot anything but cans and bottles. Win-win.



I found some cute pictures on Sean's phone of the fishing trip he took with Josh, his dad, Steve, and Steve's boys.






Brittney had a Halloween party at our house Saturday night. They had lots of fun from the sound of things. We carved pumpkins Sunday and then did trick-or-treat on Monday. Nice weather this year for a change.







Went to a derby meeting tonight. O-Town Derby Dames is merging with Junction City Roller Dolls, so now the juniors will be merging with the Doll House Wreckers. We'll see how it all plays out. There's been a lot of drama, so I'm just hoping things will settle down and we can get some of the kinks figured out.

I decided that I need to make a whole blog just dedicated to my social awkwardness and the dumb things I say. So here are the 3 latest "doh" moments off the top of my head:

At derby tonight one of the skaters (Your Mom) walked by and stopped to talk and she said, "You are beautiful." OK, I am not beautiful, and no one has ever told me that I am. That just doesn't happen to me, so I looked at her, and then I looked around, and I was trying to figure out what the hell she was talking about or who she was talking to. I figured I must have heard her wrong and she was talking about someone else. So I'm sitting there with this "duh" expression, and then she said something about Brittney and I are beautiful and we look alike, and I stammered out a "thank you that's a compliment to me," and felt like an idiot. Ha! Brittney and I were laughing so hard after about how awkward I felt. I hate when people tell my girls they look like me. I'm thrilled, but I don't think they really like it. It's not such a compliment to them, yk?

Next, a co-worker was talking about her pending divorce and what a butthead her husband is being. I wasn't really in on the conversation, but was aware of what it was about. She asked me how I was doing, and I said I was exhausted, and we were commiserating. And then I said something like... But, you know, I'm just grateful for my life. Life is good, right? And then I just felt stupid because life isn't good for her right now. Blah.

OK one more... I made an appointment with a clinic up at UofU to have my eyes checked out and find out why I get a stabbing pain in them almost every day. Since it's UofU they collect stats on their patients and she asked me what my ethnicity is. I said.... Um, white? Like, you know, just normal, regular, whatever... Aack! I didn't mean to say that being white is normal and regular and other ethnicities are not normal and not regular! So then I felt like I needed to explain myself but luckily I just shut up and didn't embarass myself further. I just shouldn't speak I think.

Courtney just started a new job, so I never see her anymore. Boo.

City council elections are next week. Two buzz words that automatically make me not want to vote for a candidate: anything about protecting personal rights/freedoms and anything about values or family values. I find that their values/family values aren't the same as mine usually. The "protecting your rights" candidate came by, so I asked him what he meant by that. He said that he would work to secure our personal property rights. Like, for example, he told me that it's against the law in our city to string a clothesline in your backyard, and he thought that was ridiculous. Sure, it may sound silly at first, until you think about it. I don't want to look out my window and see my neighbor's undies flapping in the breeze. Clotheslines are often ugly, and that's what they're protecting against. I just wanted to ask him if he was really upset because he couldn't dry his laundry outside (he has 5 kids... pretty sure not) or if he's just upset for the sake of being upset. We've had so many problems with the house next door to us and been grateful for city ordinances that protect us as property owners living next to it.

So glad tomorrow is Friday. Brittney's birthday! Yay!

Dear Sean,

Makes me think of you.



Love, Shannon

Blacklisted and Black Fingered

We went camping at the beginning of the month. It was so beautiful. October is a lovely time for camping.





I slammed my finger in the car door, because I'm a dork and I do things like that, and it looks so ugly. I'm going to lose my fingernail before too long here. Should be really cute. I go through this cycle where I get mad at myself for not being cuter, more "put-together"... and then I realize that besides not having the budget or the time for being cuter, I just really feel like it won't make a difference. I'll just have a black and purple fingernail and a muffin top and weird hair even if I spend more time and money on it all, so why bother?

I was blacklisted at the library this week. My card was rejected when I tried to go through the self-check. Which is the most awesome thing. I love pretending to be the librarian and checking out my own books. Brings me back to my childhood. So anyway that made me feel like a loser. I had too many fines and a book that was like 2 months overdue. I had tossed it in my D.I. bag. Oops. Luckily I hadn't taken the bag to the D.I. yet so I could just fish it out. And I paid my fines, and I'm off the blacklist. Until next time.

Brittney had her first debate tournament Thursday night. She did impromptu and came home with a trophy, so it went pretty well. I'm glad to have a kid in debate again. Debate kids are a cute crowd. Love them and all their little suits and ties and files full of facts. Courtney and I are going to judge together at a tournament in December. Gonna be awesome.

Sean is almost ready to go deer hunting. He told me that it's just he and Josh this year. His dad doesn't want to go anymore I guess. He told me, "I think he's tired of me yelling at him. But I don't blame myself for yelling at him!" That just made me laugh. As much as Sean loves his dad, he and his dad clash sometimes really bad, and Sean isn't great at holding in his feelings at those times. His dad bosses him around, and he gets frustrated and yells at him. But the two of them are getting really excited to go.

I'm getting really excited for the Trace Adkins concert this weekend. I really, really want to find a new outfit, but I'm having difficulties. Boo.

Really Boring Stuff

Nothing all that exciting has been going on this month. Which isn't a bad thing.

Work is exhausting, and I'm somewhat disheartened by it all right now. I like my classes, I have good kids, things are going well with some new writing techniques I'm teaching them... But I feel like I'm working really hard to improve the things I'm doing and plan curriculum for the things that my students need... I spent a good deal of time at the beginning of the year poring over the new common core we are adapting and looking at how I already align with it in places and where I can make some changes... Then I went to a meeting this week where we heard about more stuff we're supposed to be doing, some of which I disagree with, and it's frustrating. I left feeling frustrated. I'm OK with that, though. Not a big deal. What is a Big Deal is the complete and total disrespect and disdain that a powerful faction of the Utah State Legislature has for public education. They are cutting funding, increasing requirements and regulations, and basically setting public schools up to fail so that they can privatize education in the state. It's become worse every year, and this year it's just ridiculous. I just can't understand why so many people in this state claim to be pro-public education, yet they keep electing legislators in their districts who are very obviously anti-public education. Part of the reason is the fear people here have of the big scary D-word. They'd rather vote for a Republican who actively works against their own values and interests rather than elect a Democrat. Last year Jeb Bush went around the country hawking Florida's system of education reform, which our legislature bought into enthusiastically. So they adapted the Florida system of giving schools a letter grade, but they conveniently forgot about the part where Florida increased school funding and decreased class sizes, and they apparently didn't look too hard into Florida's data. On the surface it may look like their reform efforts have been successful, but if you look a little deeper it's pretty ugly. Their FCAT and ACT test scores are not impressive. In fact, now that I think about it, Utah's average ACT scores are 2 points higher than theirs, so I'm not sure why we should be emulating them. Now there's a bill heading before the legislature next year to privatize any school that earns a failing grade. So let's cut funding, increase class sizes, and then punish schools that fail. Oh, and by the way, let's build schools and buy supplies with public tax money, and then think of a way to turn those facilities over to private business. This is only one of a slew of terrible education legislation that is being thrown about. They are going after the teacher's unions, teacher job security (hey, let's save money by firing veteran teachers with higher salaries!), and playing with the idea of saving money by putting kids in front of computers instead of teachers. There are proposals that would divert public school monies to private schools, and proposals that would lay the complete responsibility for a child's success in college on the high school they graduated from. Not on elementary or junior highs that turn them over to us with deficiencies, not on the parents that don't give a shit about junior's education as long as he gets to play football or gets the grade they think junior deserves, or as long as junior stays out of their way and they don't have to be inconvenienced by taking an interest in his education or handing out discipline when he doesn't do his homework... not on the parents who take a kid who struggles in school and is failing his classes and take him on vacation for a week during the school year... not on the students themselves. It's all the fault of the high school teachers. And there is a bill proposed that would force high schools to cover the cost of college remediation courses for any students they graduate from their high school that need those classes, with the theory that we should have made them proficient before we gave them a diploma so it's our fault. That's enough. I can't write about all this anymore. I could write pages and pages about it. All I know is, I enjoy my job quite a lot, but I'm considering a career change. Things are going downhill, and I'm not sure I want to stick around long enough to see how it all ends up. Because if these proposals go through, it will end badly. And it's not my job I'm worried about. It's my kids' education. I need a different job so I can afford to pay for a good private school once all of the dust settles and education in Utah is privatized. So I'm considering my options. So far I've come up with going back to school and becoming an architect, and being the activites director at a nursing home. Since the second one would pay even crappier than my current job, that's not too realistic. I guess I need to keep thinking. I've always wanted to go to law school, too, but there are way more lawyers than jobs right now, so not a good option.

Other than that, Sean had a birthday. Hopefully he enjoyed his little celebration.

We're going to the Trace Adkins concert next month and I have an outfit in mind, but no money to buy it. Hmmmm....

Sean, Josh, Steve, Kaden, Spencer, and Dennis all headed off for a fishing trip today. I stayed home to clean the house and do the grocery shopping. Yay me?

Brittney started skating with O-Town Derby Dames' junior derby league. Hopefully that will be fun for her.



I'm sure there a million other little things I should write down so that I can remember them, but I can't think what they are when I sit down to actually write.

Labor Day Weekend

We ended up taking just the two little guys to Lava Hot Springs and Pocatello this year. Courtney had to work the whole weekend, and Brittney had Blink 182/My Chemical Romance concert tickets, so it was just us and the little folks. It was fun, but those two... they are loud. And Josh loves to tease Lexi. Oy. They are such stinkers.

Lava Hot Springs









Sean jumped off the highest tower. Props to him. You wouldn't get me to do it. He says he's getting too old to do it much longer, though.

We stayed two nights this time around, so we went into Idaho Falls the second day to mess around.













Sigh. Back to work and school tomorrow.

School, Birthdays, Pineview, Strange Dreams...

So, back in school for a week and a half now. Everyone seems to be doing fairly well. My classes are good so far. I'm liking this year a lot. Brittney seems to be liking high school OK, for the most part. Courtney's classes seem to be going well, too. So yay for school. There are some scary things going on in education right now, from my perspective. I have a lot to say about it, but I'm just too exhausted at the end of the day to write it down. Maybe sometime.

Sean's family had a belated 70th birthday party for Dennis, which was lots of fun. His family always has a good time. I'm glad I get to be a part of it.



My birthday weekend was pretty darn awesome. Sean gave the kids money Friday night to go buy my birthday presents and then took me out to dinner while they did it. Everyone was happy. Win! Saturday morning we went to garage sales. I didn't find any of the things I was looking for, but it was fun and laid back. We did the Saturday chores, and then Sean made me chicken cordon bleu for dinner, Brittney made my favorite chocolate cake, Sean made my favorite cookie bars, and I got awesome presents. Bath & Body, a Victoria's Secret gift card, Yogurt Stop gift card, 2 novels. Thennnnnn, Sunday night we went to my mom's for delicious fajitas, my favorite brownies, my other favorite cookie bars, omg I think I ate my weight in desserts last weekend. So tasty. My family gave me some really fun presents and Sean's parents both dropped gifts off. I was so spoiled with gifts and with fun parties.

I usually manage to stay out of pictures, and this is why. Sean took like 10 pictures and every one was blurry and made me look dumb. Courtney was showing them to Curtis and they were laughing at me. On my birthday! The nerve.



We went up boating yesterday, and it was so very perfect. It's still plenty warm, but there was no one on Pineview. The beach was wide open, and there were very few boats on the lake.











So I've been having that thing all day where you dream about someone the night before and then when you see that person or have a dream flashback you have a weird deja vu feeling that's all mixed up with whatever emotions were in the dream... Last night I dreamt that Eminem was in love with me, and in the dream I kept going back and forth... he's hot... but he's a little too scary and intense... but he's hot. So anyway, now today every time I heard an Eminem song I just kept having this weird dream deja vu. And then so I was thinking... would I get with Eminem? I mean, obviously if I didn't already have a husband and all... I don't know. I've always wondered if he's as serious and angry/sad in real life as he seems in interviews. He was serious in my dream.

I have been so scatterbrained lately. I swear, I can only do well with one thing at a time. If I stay on top of things at school, everything else will be crumbling around me. I forgot to give Lexi her long acting insulin on Monday, and then yesterday I forgot her finger pricker at home. I suck. I really, really am not up for the challenge of a diabetic kid. I need to talk to someone about that... I wonder where the complaints department is. Although, come to think of it, I guess I'll take this challenge over a lot of the others out there.

I don't feel like making any goals for September, so I won't. So excited for the long weekend.

Boating and Back to School

The kids wanted to do some boating this week, but Brittney had to babysit for the neighbors on Tuesday and Courtney had to work on Wednesday, so we went both days to accommodate everyone. Such a hard life when you have to go boating twice a week to keep everyone happy.

Pineview:

I liked the way this pic of Curtis skiing came out...






Wow, who is that really white lady with her nose in a book? She's frightening.


Willard Bay:





Josh started back to school Monday. So far, so good. He's made so much progress reading over the summer. Some things just clicked into place for him. I hope he can keep up the momentum and really keep doing well this year. His brain is organized about like my teenage bedroom... it's all in there, but can he find it when he needs it? It's been interesting to watch and try to figure out what's going on in there.

I started back to work yesterday. This year is the first year where I have really felt like... hey... I've got it under control! It's going to be OK! I've got a few new ideas, I'm feeling semi-organized, I might make it. I, however, have enough experience now to realize that this feeling will last exactly until the bell rings for school to start. It's easy to feel like smooth sailing when it's just me. Once you add in 38 little turkeys who have varying degrees of antipathy toward anything resembling work, all bets are off. It feels good to get back into a schedule, though. If I have to.

Park City

Park City overnighter with the Rasmussen family. Good times. Courtney was working, but otherwise I think we had everyone else there.











We went up and went through the little Olympic museum and watched the ski jumpers jumping into the swimming pool. Brittney thought that looked way fun, so maybe she'll have to give it a try.





This has been such a fun summer. I really am sad to see it winding down. I'm hoping for a Bear Lake day next Sunday, then there's our annual Labor Day trip to Lava Hot Springs. So all of the fun isn't over yet. Trace Adkins tickets for October. Still fun things to look forward to. I'm looking forward to school starting again, but I have so much work to do that it's a little daunting.