Brittney's Birthday & my little turkeys

Brittney turned 15 last week. Such an awesome kid. Smart, cute, kind, funny... what more could you want? We had a family party Thursday, friends over for a sleepover Friday, and dinner at grandma's with extended family (grandma, Scott, Wendy, and cousins) on Saturday. She got 3 days of birthday, lucky duck.

Her big present was a phone, and she was very thrilled.





I don't know what it was, but 3 out of every 4 pictures I took that night were goofy looking. Goofier than usual. Some highlights:













Since it was supposed to snow and get really cold, I decided to pull out the garden. In November! So weird. I probably threw away easily 50 green tomatoes. I know you can ripen them, but I had to throw away ripe ones. I'm the only one that eats them, and I can't eat that many. I'm not domestic enough to bottle them or make homemade spaghetti sauce or whatever. So anyway, when I pulled the rest of the potatoes out, I pulled up this monster. Awesome!



I've been home with Josh the last 2 days. He runs a high fever at night, but during the day he just sniffles and coughs, but feels pretty good. Which means he gets bored. Which means he is driving me crazy!! Lexi, too. I get nothing done when I'm home with sick kids. I get a little thing here or there, but mostly I just get too distracted. Someone doesn't feel good, someone pees their pants, someone wants to get out the DevilDoh and I have to explain six different ways why hell no we're not playing with playdoh today, there is fighting, there is hunger, there is more fighting and more hunger, there is naughtiness and messiness and I just don't get much done. When Sean stays home, otoh, he cleans things up, rearranges the furniture, does the laundry, works on a project outside, has dinner cooking, brokers world peace... One of the teachers at work came back after I think a 7 week maternity leave, and someone said, "Oh it must have been hard coming back." She was like, "Heck no! That's a much harder job than being here. Changing diapers all day? That is a terrible job." It cracked me up because I just always think it's funny when people say what they're not supposed to. I am not great at being at home, that's for sure. I enjoy it, but it's probably good that it's limited to a couple months out of the year. For everyone's sake.

I have more crazy substitute problems than anyone I know. Probably because I'm always calling in at the last minute with a sick kid, so I just get whoever, not someone I know. This morning I got a call at 6:30 am from the lady who was supposed to be subbing for me, saying she couldn't anymore. So I had to get ahold of the secretaries and get them to resubmit the job for me and pray that someone would take it at the very last minute. Luckily it got picked up.

So anyway, Courtney and I have been wanting to make some Thanksgiving cake balls, so we decided that yesterday was the day. We had it all worked out, but nothing went quite as it was supposed to. We just kept having stupid weird problems. We spent like 5 hours on it off and on, and ended up with a less than stellar result. I don't want to see another cake ball for a long time. At least until Christmas.



This little guy was actually pretty cute in person, but in picture he looks like a deranged turkey on crack.

I'm so excited! Bon Jovi tickets go on sale tomorrow morning. Brittney reminds me twice a day about it. So excited.

Hunting, Hospital, Halloween, & How I'm a Dork

A few of Sean's hunting pics. Looks like a huge mess. I don't mind the mud... I just hate the cold.





Courtney started at the hospital last week, and she seems to be liking it a lot. I'm really glad that she's doing what she wants to be doing, but it worries me to have her working those 12 hour graveyard shifts at the UofU and then driving home, and then she has to go to class before she can sleep, so she has to drive home from Weber. I worry until she texts me to let me know she got where she was going safely.

It was just the little guys for pumpkin carving this year. Lexi predicted that when we cut open the pumpkins there would be candy inside. I imagine that was a disappointment.





These 2 small ones that Josh did, along with the bigger green one that I did, came out of our garden.









Josh and Lexi ready for trick-or-treating:



It rained on us pretty good, but that just made it more Halloweeny. I love the rain. I kept coming across whiners on Facebook and elsewhere cry-babying about how Utah was celebrating the holiday on Saturday instead of Sunday... Hello?! Who the freaker wants to do Halloween on a Sunday night? No one who has kids in school, a job, or is in school themselves, I'll tell you that. Halloween should be on the weekend every year.

Three more weeks-ish of my student teacher, and then I get my classes back. I'm ready to be teaching them all again. Not that I couldn't use more time to do a few projects. I'm trying to put together a whole grammar curriculum from scratch, but I haven't had nearly the free time I was hoping for with a student teacher. Oh well. That's how it goes. I have this student who just loves to try my patience, but he's one of those with enough charm that he can get away with it. Another teacher who also has him told me one day that she overheard him tell a friend, "I love Mrs. Chamberlain. She's like my mom." ROFL I guess I'll let him live, for now. He's a turkey, and I feel for his mom.

I wish I could learn to not be a dork. I had two different encounters with my principal where I was just shaking my head afterward, like, "Really, Shannon? Could you ever just say what you want to say and not have it come out all wrong?" Hopefully I'm overanalyzing it and he didn't notice, but ugh.

I really have to start getting more sleep, and it's all my girls' fault. They are such a bad influence on me. A week or so ago Courtney decided she wanted ice cream at 10:00 at night, so she talked me into going on a Smith's run with her... I come home at 10:45 and make a banana split, and then I'm like... Well holy hell I have to work tomorrow! What am I doing? Last night they made me stay up until 12:30 watching stuff on YouTube. I need to learn not to give in to peer pressure. I guess I'll have plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead... right now I like to hang with my kids.

I have eaten so much crap. I don't even know. It's a sickness. Brittney and I went to Wal-Mart tonight and I swear there is a tractor beam around the donuts that just draws me in, and I am too weak to break out of it on my own. My kids have instructions to say, "Keep moving, mom," when I get sucked in, but tonight Brittney just egged me on. So I came home with donuts. Apparently there was a fight at the front of the store just before we got there, but by the time we got up there they'd taken it outside. I miss all the good stuff.

This week is Brittney's birthday. I need to go shopping for her this week, got to vote, get a flu shot, go out to Salt Lake with Courtney. Brittney is having a sleepover Friday night. That's about it.

A Few Things

Last weekend Sean and I continued our annual tradition of seeing really terrible scary movies at the drive-in. This year is it was My Soul To Take and The Devil. Both were perfectly awful, and it was a fun date.

Sean and Josh are deer hunting this weekend. It sounds like it's really muddy and just not really great hunting. But, honestly, the best part of deer hunting is getting to play around in the mud in 4-wheel drive. So I'd call it a successful hunt, so far. When Brittney blesses the food at dinner, she prays that
they'll come home safely and that they won't shoot any deer.

Courtney starts her new job at the hospital tomorrow. I hope she likes it. I'm worried about her working that many hours and going to school, but I'm optimistic.

October Goal Review:
I did, in fact, read a trashy novel every week.
I did try some new donuts from Madbrook.
I did go on my Halloween date.
But... I didn't maintain weight. I gained a few pounds. Whatever.

November goal:
Don't make any goals.

Random Stuff Rolling Around My Head

This has been a strange year. June was too cold for boating, but the first weekend in October was perfect boating weather. We headed out that Saturday for one last drag around the lake, but it was a disaster. The best thing about the whole day was these pictures before we left. We should have called it a day right there and we'd have been better off.





Another weird thing about this year is that I haven't had a single ripe tomato all summer--until now. It took until the second week in October to get red tomatoes on my plants. The plants themselves are monsters. They have had huge, beautiful, green tomatoes on them for months, and now they are finally ripening. My lettuce is up and ready to eat, too. It's all kinds of mixed field greens, so I just take my scissors out and cut some salad. The pumpkins are starting to turn orange, so hopefully they'll be orange by Halloween.

We went up this weekend and put the cabin up for the winter. It's so pretty up there right now.







I wish it was a year-round cabin, because every season up there is beautiful. Some day.

We've been hitting the late season yard sales, and we've picked up a few good bargains. Yard sales are a quirky kind of entertainment, I think. You see some strange people and strange things. My favorite recent finds: a wakeboard, a wine rack, wrought iron candle holders, and The Office season 1 DVD. I really have no place for the wine rack, honestly, but I wanted it, so I bought it.

The 2 tatoos I've been wanting forever:





I still haven't pulled out my Halloween decorations. Maybe today is a good day for that.

September Wrap Up and New Goals

Time is flying by! September is all but gone, and I know October will go fast as well.

October is deer hunting season, so I declared this year that we were having the First Ever Official Annual Girls' Weekend while they went hunting. We decided we were going to Las Vegas to see Criss Angel. We were going to have major amounts of fun. That was wishful thinking, unfortunately. With Courtney's school schedule and work schedule it would be difficult. And we'd have to find a babysitter for Lexi, and I have no money. All around, it's not looking good. So we're trying to think of something else.

Sean is a crazy person. He was working on the trailer tonight and hit his head on a sharp corner. So he comes in the house with blood running down his face, which I cannot deal with. Courtney looked at it for him, and it was a good gash, but it stopped bleeding enough to get by. So he said, "I'll just put a hat on and it will be fine." I was like... "Um...???" and he said, "I gotta get this project done," and went back out to work. Alrighty then. It was still bleeding a few hours later, but not gushing, so I guess he figures he's fine as long as he doesn't pass out or hit into walls or anything. That's just how he is, though. One time he was fixing something in my old Mazda and sliced his hand up good on a piece of jagged metal. He came and told me he needed me to drive him for stitches, but first he wrapped a rag around it and finished fixing the part he'd been working on.

Work is... huh. Can't go there tonight. There are just a lot of balls to keep in the air all the time, but such is life. Nuff said.

I just finished reading The New York Mormon Regional Singles Halloween Dance and enjoyed it. It was kind of fascinating to me because I can't really relate to a lot of her feelings and views on things.

September goal confessions:
I'm not sure if I lost 2 lbs... depends on the day.
I did not really save money on groceries. Nothing significant, anyway. We spend the annual salary of a person in a small third world country on groceries every month. I have no idea.
I did not get caught up at school. Maybe a little bit.

October goals:
Read a trashy novel every week
Try a new type of donut
Annual Halloween date with Sean
Not gain any weight

Ridiculous and Ridiculously Awesome

All of these things are ridiculous or ridiculously awesome. I won't say which is which.


Brittney Chamberlain, superstar

I don't know what Lexi was doing, but the other day her pants were starting to fall down, so she just pulled them down further and went walking into the parking lot at school with her little butt cheeks to the world.

I got this really weird rash-type thing on Labor Day for seemingly no reason, and when it didn't get better and in fact started to spread by this week, I went to the doctor. He stared at it all puzzled-like and had no idea what it was, so he just gave me a prescription for some oral steroids. And I wondered as I had it filled just exactly what this medication is usually used for. I mean, is it usually used for strange unidentifiable rash-type things? Because I always wonder if it's usually prescribed for acute gonorrhea or oozing toenail fungus or something and the pharmacist might be sorta looking at me askance while I'm not looking. Maybe I should have lifted my shirt and shown him the rash just to be sure he knew. Anyway, the steroids are done and the rash is almost faded. I hope it keeps going and stays gone. I said yesterday that I felt like punching someone and Sean started teasing me about my roid rage. Pffft. I feel like punching people all the time. Like that's anything new.

With my steroids, I was taking a total of 4 prescription meds last week. That's just too many for a relatively healthy person.

Sean's birthday was last week:







Lexi after her cake:


Thursday isn't a great day for a birthday party, but we had dinner at the Spring Chicken Inn, cake, presents, and lots of love for Sean.

I have a student teacher. I think that I demonstrate what not to do as often as what to do. I just don't feel like I've got things nailed down to where I should be showing anyone else how to do it. I have taught him how to make changes when you have a curve ball thrown at you and how to make adjustments to your teaching as you go. I just think back to my own student teaching and I get a little irritated. I had 4 different classes to plan for, and my cooperating teachers pretty much said, "Here are the teacher's editions (for English; I didn't have anything but the textbooks for the law and govt classes) and good luck to you!" I prepped it all by myself, and my English cooperating teacher wasn't even around most of the time. I made all my own copies, etc. I didn't have a desk. I carried my stuff around with me, and used the library for my prep time. My student teacher gets sooooo much more help from me than I ever got.

I wrote something on my blog last week about being annoyed by future teachers and parents talking to me about school stuff. I think I was imprecise in my wording. I'm not bugged by all people who I talk to about teaching and school. Just sometimes. For example, my student teacher will watch me teach a lesson, and I can tell that he thinks it looks pretty easy... and then he gets up there and tries it and it wasn't as easy as he thought. It's a different ballgame between watching and doing. It just is. Or when a friend will tell me, "I don't know why the teacher gives that assignment," or, "I don't know why the teacher can't just do XYZ," and I'm thinking... I know exactly why.

I do not understand why on earth there was any sort of controversy or issue about the president giving a Welcome Back speech to students. It's absolutely ridiculous, and anyone who has a problem with the president speaking to school children is ridiculous. I'll say it to their face. I don't even care. My school district is actually pretty progressive, apparently, because they're one of the few (maybe the only?) in Utah that didn't feel the need to send home letters and opt-out forms to parents. Seriously? But when they showed the speech at my school, they told the kids that anyone who didn't want to watch it could go to the cafeteria. So of course 2/3 of the school went to the cafeteria. Why on earth were they given an option? Since when do we ever give them an option? It's school. You do all kinds of stuff whether you want to or not. Parents can check kids out at any time, of course, but generally speaking kids aren't allowed to opt out of guest speakers, assemblies, videos, whatever else. One of my students came in and said, "I hate Obama. I'm not supporting him by watching the speech." I snapped back at her, "This isn't about supporting or not supporting President Obama. It's about listening to the president of your country speak." I felt bad because she knew I was pissed off, and I usually am able to keep my cool.

We went camping this weekend.

Lexi on the way up:











This is what Brittney thought of camping:



I had to buy her Dr. Pepper and M&Ms to bribe her to come. Courtney was working the graveyard shift, so she wasn't there.

Both of my teams won today. Chicago beat the Cowboys, and in Manning v. Manning, my Colts won. It's time to get ready for another week of work, and that for sure goes in the ridiculous column.

A Massive Bunch of Stuff

I love blogging. I wish I did it more often. I don't journal, I don't scrapbook, I don't have a good memory. So blogging is the only way I preserve any memories. Sometimes, quite often, I blog about dumb and boring stuff. But it's the one place where, if I write something down I will always know where to find it.

So, let's see. I had a birthday last month. It was very mellow and laid-back, just the way I like it. My family got me everything I wanted... nail polish, treats, Scentsy wax, an assortment of awesome scents for my Wallflowers, a watch to replace the one I lost, and other fun little goodies.



Sean and Josh went fishing with Dennis, Steve, Kaden, and Spencer. Josh absolutely loves his cousins Kaden and Spencer. I wish they could grow up across the street from each other. They get along so well.


This reminds me... Tomorrow is garbage day, so I need to sneak out to the freezer and toss those fish in the trash while Sean isn't looking.

Heather had her baby early at only 31 weeks. I'm so glad that she and little Jake are doing well. He's such a stinkin cute little peanut. Her whole pregnancy was just a crazy ride, from beginning to end.

Over Labor Day weekend, we went to Lava Hot Springs and stayed over in Pocatello for a few nights. It's a favorite family tradition. I hope we'll still be doing it when our kids have kids. This year the older girls wanted to go down the Portneuf River, so we rented a 4-seater tube. I stayed back at the pool complex with Josh and they took Lexi down, but she apparently screamed, "I want mommy!!" at top volume the whole way down, so they brought her back to me. Then Sean swapped me out and I went down with the girls while he played with the kids. This is the first year ever that no one went off the towers. Courtney and I are afraid of heights, Brittney was too exhausted after tubing (lots of walking and hauling a heavy tube up the river path), and Sean doesn't like doing it enough to go do it by himself.





School is going pretty well for everyone this year, I think. There have been a few rough spots, but overall nothing tragic. Brittney doesn't have lunch with her best friends, but she met a cute boy; Courtney got a parking ticket (of course! this is Weber!) but hasn't dropped out yet, Josh loves his teacher, which is always a big plus. I have scheduling issues with trying to get everyone and myself where we need to be, but I'm hoping to get that all ironed out a little better.

I have a student teacher this year. So far, so good. It's always a little amusing (and sometimes annoying, depending) to talk to people who are wanting to become teachers, or people who are just observing the classroom for whatever reason. Parents with kids in school. Whatever. From the outside looking in, you think all kinds of things... until you actually do it full-time, day-in and day-out. Then it's a whole new ballgame. My student teacher, bless his little heart, watched me marking papers with my trusty purple felt tip marker today. And he informed me (in a conversational way-- he's a super nice guy) that they teach them in their ed classes not to mark papers in pen, and not to use red. Because it makes the kids feel bad. (There was a fancier edu-speak way of saying it, but that's what it boiled down to.) So they tell them to use colored pencils. Two comments on that: 1)I can see that advice for elementary school, I guess. The sucky thing about secondary ed classes is that they are almost all taught by former elementary ed people, and much of what they do is geared toward elementary. They say it pertains, but honestly, it doesn't. So anyway, maybe in elementary the kids care about that kind of thing. But... 2)In high school, 50% of the kids won't even look at their paper when you hand it back. Perhaps glance at the score, and then it's in their binder, backpack, or garbage, never to be seen again. Of those who do look, I sincerely doubt they are thinking... Well, I got a 58% on my paper... but she wrote it all in pretty pastel pink colored pencil, so I don't feel bad at all! Or... Oh no, I got a 58% on my paper, and it's written in red! I wouldn't have felt too bad, but the red! Now I feel like a failure and will drop out of school and become a hobo. Whatever.

I'm always such a goober. I swear. I wish I could be all classy and polished, you know? Like today, I wore this skirt that I love. It's just the right length and amount of flippy that it flies up all Marilyn Monroe white-dress-over-the-vent whenever a wind comes up. And somehow I only seem to wear it when it's windy. I've flashed a few people, I'm sure. Oh well. Just doing my part to give someone's day a little thrill, right? Today I let the door swing shut in Lexi's face because I was trying to grab my skirt before I flashed the school parking lot.

So, August goals. Let's see, shall we?
--I did not get caught up on birthdays. Not. at. all.
--I did get my hair cut and colored.
--I did not get a pedi. Don't look at my feet.
--I did not sign Josh up for swim lessons. Doing that this month or next.
--I probably swam in the backyard with the kids a total of one time after I made it a goal.
--Spend $200 less on groceries? Are you kidding me? Ha! Hahahahahahahaha! No.
--Did not develop a senior writing curriculum. Thought some thoughts about it in my head, though.
--I did finish my job list, though! Yay, me!

September goals:
--Lose 2 lbs.
--Save money on groceries!!
--Get caught up on all the crap I need to do for work