November, So Far

Brittney turned 17 last week.  Last week?  Maybe a few weeks ago.  I'm a slow blogger.  I'm having a hard time with her being that old.  Sixteen was OK. Seventeen, not OK.  She had a birthday party with friends, and then we had presents and her requested dinner and donuts on her actual birthday.  

I'm cranky today.  I'm sick, but still well enough to function.  No one will feel sorry for me or just leave me alone for a while.  Lexi wants to work on a "family project" we are supposed to do for school on Monday.  The only problem is, I never got any information on what the family project is supposed to be.  The newsletter I got yesterday says to bring their family projects back to class on Monday so they can talk about traditions at their kindergarten feast.  So I gather it's about traditions.  But what is it supposed to be????  The kids volunteered in class to bring something to the feast, and I know Lexi volunteered to bring silverware, but I have no idea how much because she says it's for two classes, and I have no idea if they need everything or just forks.  She just drew a squiggly purple line on her paper and said, "Mom.  Can't you see I'm very good at drawing horses?"  "Yes, yes I can."  I need a shower, a good book, and a drink with a lot of rum in it.  For medicinal purposes.  My own version of Nyquil.  Except it's daytime. 

I've been counting calories for a few weeks now, and I've actually stuck to it, amazingly enough.  I've lost a few pounds, which is great.  But I'm getting to that point where it's getting old and getting easy to stop being motivated.  I've probably lost all I'm going to without making some adjustments.  So is it worth it to do all this, to give up things I want to eat, just to weigh 5 lbs less?  To look 6.5 months pregnant instead of 7?  My clothes don't even fit differently.  It's more healthy to eat like I am now, and at least I won't be slowly gaining weight over the months and years like I have been.  But it's so hard to be hungry and know that I'm doing it to maintain a weight that still isn't where I want it to be.  Oh well. 

I'm still feeling a little battered and bruised inside after the election.  Still feeling a little sensitive about all the times I was called "idiot," "retarded," "uninformed," "ignorant," "stupid," and many other things because I didn't agree with others' ideas.  Not directly of course, but it was all out there to read on facebook, personal blogs, newspaper comment boards, etc.   I'm kind of pissed off at people.  They wave the flag of patriotism, but then when they don't like what's happening, they say, "F you America, we'll become our own country."  That's not patriotism.  I love this country, and I love it no matter who is president.  We're not on the right path right now.  So let's work together to get there.  Together.  I got a little tear in my eye yesterday, standing in the auditorium at the high school where I work as the ROTC colorguard presented the flags, and the whole auditorium full of high school kids was on it's feet, hands over hearts, and silent.  These kids are never silent.  But when the flag is in front of them, they are.  And two of our students, a brother and sister, sang the National Anthem.  It was just a beautiful moment.  Patriotism.  Love for my country, no matter if I get my way or not.  And as a Democrat in Utah, I very rarely do. 

On a funny note, some of my students were asking about the secession petitions, and one of my girls said, "My brother and I were talking about this last night.  We decided that it would be cool if Texas secedes.  Then we'll wait like a year and invade them and take them over."  Ha!  It just made me laugh.  Then we were joking around about how if Kentucky secedes they'll be surrounded on all sides by our country, so they'll have to secure the borders against us illegally coming into their country for BBQ. 

Sean and Josh got up early and went "rabbit hunting" this morning, which really means "hike around in a field and look for rabbits but end up shooting tin cans."  I still made them promise not to shoot any rabbits, though.

Josh goes through phases where he's really "into" something.  The last one was making things out of duct tape.   Flowers and wallets, mostly.  Right now it's making weapons out of paper.  He has a stockpile of all different kinds of guns and knives made out of paper.  He finds tutorials on YouTube and spends hours making this stuff. 

I'm unreasonable amounts of excited about Thanksgiving.  I want pie!!  I want to bake this week, but I don't want to eat, so that will be challenging.  I work Monday, and then I have the rest of the week off, and I'm so looking forward to it.  Lexi has an appointment at the Diabetes Clinic on Tuesday, and it takes about three hours all told, right in the middle of the work day, and we need to have time to eat lunch afterward, so I just usually end up taking it off.  Her numbers are not going to be looking good this time.  I was talking to a friend of mine with a diabetic kid about how it feels like the numbers are a judgement on us.  Blah.  We'll see what they say on Tuesday. 

Lexi's finished horse is purple with blue peace signs on its tummy and a rainbow tail.  And she's all, "See, told you I was good at it."  Yes you are, my dear. 

Halloween

The kids had fun trick-or-treating.  Sean had to work, so Brittney and Roland handed out candy for me while I took the kids out.  We went pretty far down the neighborhood this year, so on the way back the kids were exhausted.  Lexi wanted to hit the houses on the other side of the street as we made our way home, and Josh was too tired to walk up to the doors, so he just sat on the sidewalk and waited for us.  Poor guy.

Brittney had a birthday party with a few of her friends last night.  They seemed to have a good time.  She has a cute group of friends.  She made a 6 layer rainbow cake with chocolate frosting and Batman on the top.     



Homecoming Pictures

How did I miss putting Homecoming pictures on the blog?  Thanks for the request, Heather.  I will always take your requests.   Brittney's dress was so pretty.  I love it.  I don't have any pics of her with her date. 

Pumpkin Carving

I have a very boring life, just the way I like it.  It does, however, make it difficult to find things to blog about.  So, let's see, a few things I've done over the past week or two:

• Checked out 4 more wedding venues
• Went to Tai Pan Trading with Courtney
• Went out to lunch with my mom, Brittney, and Lexi
• Went to garage sales
• Read Frankenstein: City of Night, I Can't Keep My Own Secrets: Six-Word Memoirs, A Northern Light, and started The Good Earth
• Worked, cleaned, grocery shopped
• Watched a presidential debate and a bunch of baseball games
• Carved pumpkins

That's all I can think of. 

We carved pumpkins this weekend.  Brittney did not participate in the festivities. 

 

I'm back to counting calories again.  It's such a rididulously easy thing to do, and I'm not hungry when I eat fewer calories, really.  I feel better, I lose weight gradually by being more healthy in a sustainable way.   But after a week or so it seems like I get tired of doing it, and I figure I know how much to eat so I don't need to count anymore, and then after a few days I just go back to eating whatever I want.  I need to not do that this time.  We shall see. 

Lexi needs a haircut in the worst way, but she refuses to get one.  She'll let me cut it, but I'm not that great at it.  She told me tonight she wants to let it grow and grow so she can be like Rapunzel.  Uh-huh. 

Courtney got another job at a hospital, so now that makes three.  We'll have to see how they all work out together and if she can keep them all. 

Brittney's job is wrapping up Tuesday, so she's starting to look for another one.  I hope she finds something very close to home this time. 

Off to change out the laundry and head for bed.  It would be nice if some times I could get to bed before 11:30 at night. 

A Story About My Eyeball

Why does my body hate me so much?  I woke up Saturday morning with a stabbing pain in my eyeball, which isn't unusual for me, but this one was worse and didn't go away.  I was debating whether I needed to find someone to look at it on a Saturday, and then I was curled up in a ball crying because it hurt so bad, and I decided that yes, yes I did need to get it looked at.  So I woke up poor Courtney, who had only been asleep for a few hours, to run me to the ER, where they told me I had an acute abrasion on the cornea.  I did that to myself while sleeping. That takes some serious talent.  So basically I had a nice big cut on my eyeball and I couldn't see, so I spent the whole weekend laying on the couch, downing percocet and sleeping and not being able to use my eye.  So today I went in for a follow-up, and he said it looks like it's healing up pretty well, and then he's showing me how I have this little cyst in my eye, too, but it's normal and should break off on it's own and go away, and he's all... and see here is your eye jelly right here... and I'm all, dude, do you really want to talk to me about eye jelly and cysts and crud like that?  Look, I am a Rasmussen sister, man.  We will pass out or puke in an eye doctor's office with no provocation whatsoever, so you really ought to keep your eye jelly talk to yourself.  And Courtney was just making fun of me the whole time.  Nice. 

Ok, so I read this YA novel to see if I wanted to maybe use it in class, and I really enjoyed it, so I read the whole trilogy.  The third book is over 800 freaking pages.  So I've invested probably a good 1500 pages in these characters all told, I stayed up until midnight on a school night to finish the last one, and the author turns the only truly likeable character in the book INTO A TREE.  Seriously?  What is your problem, author lady?  Gah.  I hate her.  I picked up some books at a yard sale.  One of them is a romance novel.  I knew it would probably be sort of terrible, but I got it anyway, probably for free even, and oh my goodness it is surely the most terribly written book I've ever read.  Just cheesy.  It's like if the Church tried to write a romance novel.  Like the most cheesiest stories ever included in RS or YW or FHE manual.  That's what it's like.  I'm only on the first chapter and I don't know if I can make it any farther.  But at least this author won't be turning anyone into a tree. 

Things I Would Like To Know

Something I would like to know: Why does anyone care about anyone else's religion? Who cares what anyone else believes? I don't understand why some loser would spend millions of dollars making a movie portraying Islam and the prophet Mohammad in a negative light. I don't understand why anyone would want to stand out front of the Brigham City temple or the LDS Conference center in Salt Lake handing out fliers telling people why their religion is wrong. I don't understand why anyone would picket the funerals of soldiers and gay people. Why not spend your time in Christlike endevours? I mean, if someone wants to educate someone else about their religion, fine, if the person is interested in having the discussion. But the insane need some people have to tell everyone else why their religion (or lack thereof) is wrong is beyond me.


Something else I would like to know: How come every. single. time. our new assistant pricipal comes walking by, I'm doing something I'm not supposed to be? Gah! Nothing scandalous or anything, but walking down the daycare to give insulin, leaving a classroom full of kids to their own devices for a few minutes. Or taking a phone call out in the hall.

Another thing I would like to know: Mitt Romney went to Hong Kong for a fundraiser Thursday. How? Wha? Why is anyone OK with this? Apparently I wasn't paying close attention, because I didn't realize that he had already held fundraisers in Jerusalem and London this summer. I knew he was over there pissing people off, but I didn't know for what purpose. Is this something common for candidates to do, and I just never noticed before? I mean, I realize that there are U.S. citizens in those countries, but it's ridiculous to me for a presidential candidate to be having fundraisers IN OTHER COUNTRIES!!! Am I the only one?? I was curious if this is common, so I did a quick search and found out that President Obama's campaign has sent people to Europe for fundraisers. Again, I realize they are raising money from American citizens abroad, but it still just seems wrong!

I went to an advanced pump class last Monday afternoon. I feel like I need to be back in the basic pump class. Well, not really, I mean I know how to use the thing. It's just I don't have need of the advanced functions at this point. I hate classes like that, because you get all of those people who are all, "So, my daughter wakes up high, and then she eats breakfast and two hours later she's low, but if we dose her she's high by lunch, and then last week when we were in Disneyland she was high at 2, 5, and 7, so we dosed her every 3 hours at night...." and on and on and I'm contemplating whether I should take my pen and stab myself in the face so I have an excuse to leave, or stab her in the face for being a pain in my butt.

Parent-teacher conferences tomorrow. Blech. I don't have any papers to grade, so I will have some time to plan and maybe read in between parents. Or maybe just sit and goof with the teachers that sit by me. I need to read Ender's Game but don't really want to. I just finished A Countess Below Stairs and A Great and Terrible Beauty. Liked them both. Perfect for silent reading books for my students, but much more likely to appeal to the female contingent. Need something for the boys.

We went up to East Canyon camping this weekend. It was really pretty with all of the fall leaves, and the weather was nice. We went for a hike and did some fishing and lots of relaxing. Courtney and Brittney had to work all weekend, as usual, so they stayed behind.

Miscellany

My new crop of sophomores are so cute!  I love them so far.  I heard some rumors from the junior high that this was a rowdy, disruptive bunch.  I don't know if they've just grown up since junior high or if junior high is just so hellish that it makes kids into demons, but they are great kids.  Of course, it's only the second week.  They could all turn on me like a pack of honey badgers still. 

We've never had a garden as good as this one.  I've had to throw away so much produce, and it just feels so sinful to throw away food when people go without.  I always tell myself that I'm going to use it all up, and then a week or two goes by and it's bad. I'm too lazy to can/bottle it or cook mountains of baked goods containing zucchini.  I've thrown away at least a dozen giant zucchini, tons of bell peppers, a little corn that went bad before we got to it, tons of cucumbers, quite a few roma tomatoes, red peppers, anaheims, and I think that's it.  We've done well at eating the asian pears, carrots, potatoes, onions, beets (gag), and most of the corn.

I started reading The Book Thief the other day.  I was really excited to read it because the reviews are all good and the critics are all "life changing!" and I'm 10 pages in and thinking I must be a dimwit because I don't get it at all.  Maybe my tastes in books are the literary equivalent of Spam, and this book is just too sophisticated for me.  I don't know.  All I do know is that, so far, I don't really care about Death and find him rather confusing and pretensious, and I don't really know what the deal is with the book thief and it feels like torture to have to read far enough in to find out.  It feels like the author is trying too hard to be poetic or unique or something I don't have a word for, and it's just annoying to me.  I flipped through to see if it got any better, and it looks like more of the same.  Going back to the library. 

I would like to go camping, if Sean could ever get a weekend off.  Or half of a weekend off.  A Friday night off and a Saturday night shift?  The weather is perfect.

Josh has been on this big science kick for a while now.  I think it's so cute, but I hate the messes he makes.  He was cleaning pennies with salt and vinegar, and he must have touched the top of my salt shaker to the vinegar, so now it's growing green salt crystals.  Doh.  The top of it where the salt comes out is copper, so it must have reacted like the pennies do.  Time for a new salt shaker. 

Josh's other big kick is catching bugs.  He's always catching grasshoppers and whatever else he can find.  Yesterday he was googling what to feed them so that he can try to keep one alive for a change.  Gross.  They are out there trying to feed the latest one a carrot. 

Josh and Lexi wanted to go to garage sales this morning, so we set out to find some treasures.  We spent $20 and we bought:  a bread machine, a tablecloth for camping, about 10 books, 6 or 7 Playstation games, an assortment of pots for plants, a batting helmet, a roller skating baby doll (Baby Skates!!), The Office Season 2 on DVD, a Jazz jersey for Josh, 6 assorted shirts/pants for Lexi, 2 pairs of sandals for Lexi, a pair of boots for Lexi, a few skirts and a sundress, a Planet Earth puzzle (unopened), a book that folds into a little stage with different stage sets and Disney Princess paper dolls, a Littlest Pet Shop big toy, a kids art project, a lip gloss & 2 headbands (new, of course), and a pot of fake gerbera daisies for my classroom.