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.