Miss Rumphius

The Lupine Lady was one of my favorite books. I remember the images of the eastern seashore and those beautiful flowers in the book, and of the kind lady who wanted to make the world a better place.


“When I grow up, I too will go to faraway places, and when
I grow old, I too will live beside the sea.”
“That is all very well, little Alice,” said her
grandfather, “but there is a third thing you must
do.”
“What is that?” asked Alice.
“You must do something to make the world
more beautiful,” said her grandfather.

And so it is Easter. We have been given an incredible gift. We have been shown how much we are loved and how infinate love really is, and we are given the message to go and make of all diciples, to make the world a better place, to share God's message that he loves all of us so much that he gave his son to fight and win against death.

Wow. The definiton of love cannot be described in words, but can be passed on through actions.

Life lessons

I came across this blog.

I like to surf blogs, so I was just clicking on the "view next blog" link at the top, and about the 3rd one was this blog by a HR guy. And the very first post was yesterday, saying it was his last post, ever. I think I just missed something really good.

I feel I should explain where I've been... doing, thinking about doing, or totally avoiding my homework for Local Politics...If anyone still reads this.

Anywho, I am looking for some inspiration, divine intervention, a sign, or for God to smack me over the head with something that will get me out of this lost rut I seem to be in, so I turned back to my blog, even though I should be doing my stupid homework, because writing is a way for me to really think things through and get clear on what I want.

So this blog had these short bursts of posts, something I could never do, because I'd totally forget what I was saying, being the cottonball that I am, and a series of them were labeled "Life Lessons" and were taken from "If Life Is a game, These Are the Rules" by Cherie Carter-Scott. And the one post that I happened to focus on said:

"8) What you make of your life is your choice-you have access to all of the tools and resources that you need.

9) The answers to your challenges are available-all you need to do is look, listen, and trust."

Hmmmmmm. What should I be learning from this?

More Peace

I'm in Massachusetts right now with my good friend Carrie. She recently gave birth to her third, a beautiful baby girl with a full head of dark hair and a pleasant disposition. I volunteered to fly out for a week to help out by cooking meals, doing laundry, running interference with her other babies, and of course, snuggling and sniffing the baby to give her a break from the endless handling and holding.

I also came to get in the mood. I always thought I was destined to have a large family, maybe 5 or 6 kids, the more the merrier. After I discovered I was not a glowing pregnant lady, but rather a miserable, vomitous whale with blotchy skin, I was less enthused with the idea of going through being knocked up again. But I quickly forget, mommy amnesia, once that beautiful little girl was in my arms. The second one was no better during gestation, and the adjustment from one to two took me completely by surprise. It was not like having just one. It was not easy.

And then I stayed home with them. And I felt like the smart, intelligent woman with the goals and ambition was wasting away, trapped inside my house, forced to watch cartoons and smell like mac and cheese, and wear sweat pants and fuzzy slippers. And baby three didn't seem all that appealing. I was not in the mood.

I have been fixated on getting a job. I know what I want to do, I just need a job. This staying at home stuff was not for me and I was feeling the mommy guilt. I have been taking it for granted that I am able to stay home with my babies.

I realized that on my trip. I have been away from them for long enough. I have visited with former coworkers and friends and I see what I have missed. They have reinforced that I am doing the right thing, I'm where I should be right now in my life. I am missing great moments with my kids. You hear the cliche about how they will never be this little again, and I didn't realize it, but it is spot on.

Maybe it is the intoxicating smell of new baby, or seeing another great mom making it work with her family and enjoying them, but something has clicked on this trip. I feel like I'm finally at peace with were I am right now. If I am not able to get a job, that's okay, there are much more important things than my career right now, and there is plenty of time for that. So I will need to make the most of the time I have with my babies.

My husband's moment

My lovely, wonderful, thoughtful, husband definitely has his moments. And one of those moments happened the other day as he left me with two freshly scrubbed, naked, unhappy children in a smoke filled house with all the windows open, fans at full speed, at a balmy 5 degree temp. outside. This is what happened:

We woke up sort of late and did not get a head start on our children. By the time I got into the shower, Addie was "happily" sitting on the potty, and Emily was hollering "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy" from her cage of a crib. I hop out, wrap myself in a towel, and start stripping down my very resistant 3 year old. Showers are not her favorite things, but she needed to be clean as we had a doctor appointment at 10. It was now 8:30, and my loving husband, after rescuing Emily, took pitty on me and decided to help me bathe them. I go to get dressed and am greeted by the pleasant smell of toast... yum!

Now dressed, I go to relieve my wonderful husband, and mention, "Oh, you're making toast? Smells good!" He nods, hands a naked baby off to me and starts on the next one. We chat about our happenings, he has meetings and classes and e-mails, I have doctors appointments, meals and poopy diapers. He shaves, I finish and wrap a naked baby in a towel. A door is open and the scent of burnt toast literally rolls in on a cloud of grey smoke...

Here's the malfunction. Our toaster, may it rest in peace, has been on the fritz for years. Many of times would a piece of bread go into its slots, and minutes later it would reluctantly eject it after sparks, jerks, and erratic clunking noises. Usually a flick of the wrist on the push down tab will resolve it, but when left on it's own it would always eventually hork it up. Not this time. This time, it's antics did it in.

So now, with the grey fog lingering in the corners, ceiling fans and box fans in open windows whirring at top speed, the door to the garage open, one cat missing, and the temperature inside the house at 52 degrees, my husband bursts back into the bathroom, which I had shut when I realized we didn't have to evacuate, and breathlessly explains to me that he has a meeting to get to, and he was leaving me... with two naked children, a house full of smoke, all the windows open, and I hadn't even had any coffee... a fine moment!

It still smells like toast...

Ack!

I have not been into blogging lately. I am trying to avoid my homework, so here I am. I am desperately, hopelessly, irrationally, penetratingly struck with writer's block when it comes to my homework!

It is painful for me to eek out sentences, paragraphs. I get all worked up just thinking about the amount I have left to do, and it paralyzes me!

So I set my timer (thank you Flylady) because "you can do anything for 15 minutes!"

And it just went off... so here I go begrudgingly back to work...

Our Christmas Gift

Christmas Eve morning we received a call from a lady at church. She asked us if Addie would like to carry baby Jesus to the manger at mass that night. I squealed with delight! I beamed with pride! I was humbled by the honor! I panicked a little bit... exactly how breakable was baby Jesus?

It was pouring rain this eve of Jesus' birth when we walked into church. The lights were all off, except over the stable, where Mary, Joseph, shepherds and sheep waited for the gift. Wreaths and ribbons and twinkle lights decorated the church, and the choir were singing the classics.

My little big girl, dressed in her new, pink and glittery (of course!) dress with the white fur trim, satin bow in her hair, held her loving arms open and stared in wonder as the statue was placed into her arms. She cradled him as our whole family processed down past the alter, down the middle isle to the back, up the side isle, up the steps to the stable, and she placed him down, ever so gently, into the manger.

She said of the experience, "His arms were out like this," spreading her arms open, "and his feet were together like this," bringing her arms close together, "and he was a really good baby, he didn't wiggle at all!"

Glass Ceiling

I didn't used to think glass ceilings really existed, but I think after today I might be a believer, at least in the world of social studies teachers.

I'm starting to notice many of my colleagues are male and coach very manly sports... not all, but many. Conversations in the lounge revolve around the stats and scores of the latest basketball game or wrestling meet. There is rarely discussion of teaching strategies, assessments or differentiated instruction. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it feels to me like an exclusionary club.

Today I subbed for an english teacher, who team teaches an American Studies class with a history teacher. It is one of the positions I applied for last year, and did not get. I met the man who did get it. He is also a football and wrestling coach. I'm sure my impression was tinted green, but I was disappointed.

The class was studying the roaring twenties, and they were 2/3 of the way though F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby". I went before school to discuss the lesson plan with him, and he asked me if I had ever read it, to which I said it's been a while, but I could brush up on it. I caught up to the class by the time his lecture began. I would have liked to see connection between the book and the events going on, especially discussion about women, culture, racism and post World War I angst. It was a nice powerpoint lecture, with embedded media of jazz performances, images of ads, and quotes and poetry. But there was no passion about the history, or how it relates to today. Instead, there were sports references, which lost about half the students.

He also provided a confusing and inaccurate definition of the glass ceiling for women. How appropriate, I thought. I could give a relevant example right now.

"Uh... what's your major? Mine's football..."