Bang Head Here!

Yep!  I have this sign posted in a visible place where I will see it daily.  Most people find it amusing.  Some want it for themselves because they find it humorous.  I personally think it is a sad statement about me that the sign is not a joke for me…I actually use this sign and lately more so than usual.  It’s back-to-school time again and with it comes the usual transition from lazy (or at least very relaxed and unscheduled) days to a lifestyle that moves at warp speed. 

Add to this, that I’ve just sent my first child off to college which is both a blessing and a hindrance all of which equates to one big adjustment for the family.  As if we haven’t been through enough adjustments in the last few years.

I guess the statement, “The only constant is change” really is more true than not.  I should after all this time be getting used to it.

The reality?  I haven’t written as often nor as well as I’d like here of late. 

Currently, I’m working on a piece about the significance of phallic symbols in post modern society.  I know.  I know.  People think I’m crazy, but while the ancient Egyptians were quite open and unreserved about phallic symbols, we as a more evolved culture are less so or so it seems.  I have some theories about this.  I don’t think we are less interested in them.  In fact, I think, if we just look phallic symbols are everywhere.  But then maybe that’s just me…

Stay tuned.  When I get through this next week and I get time to really research this topic, I’ll let you know what I discovered.  In the meantime, if you’re so inspired and you have any information you’d like to add as I develop my thoughts, don’t hesitate to share your insights in a comment here.

February

I’m not much for winter.  It isn’t that I dislike winter, it is that I hate the darkness of the days in winter.  Now, I suppose this would be different if I lived in a place like Colorado where it snowed a lot and the sun shone often in spite of the frigid temps.  The combination of the snow and the sun would effectively ward off all gloominess associated with the dreary winter days that are oft experienced in certain parts of the Pacific Northwest.

I can handle winter up until New Year’s Day.  Then I’m ready for Spring, and more better, summer!  Every year, and especially this year, I party pretty hard through the holidays and winter doesn’t bother me much because I am distracted.  January was easier this year due to The Beau; he distracted me quite a bit this last month. In spite of the distractions, the early nightfalls and scraping the car windows every morning before work (when I’m already late and don’t have a handsome, considerate significant other to help me out with that) really create some serious resentment when it comes to all things winter. Never mind that I love the warm winter evenings near the fire.  That’s good only so long as there is firewood.

As I was driving my oldest home from her job the other evening we both noticed that behind the cloud cover and peeking through at points there was still light in the sky.  This cheers my soul.  This means, the worst of winter may be over for us and within two months spring will be here. 

I love February for this reason.  The cold, freezing biting frost begins to give way to the drizzly, cozy, coffee sipping days of February which magically turn into March leading us ultimately and inevitably to those wonderful days where I do not have to get up at the crack of dawn every morning (though I often do, just because I can) and can spend my days as I wish doing all the things I didn’t have the free time to do during the school year.

It also means quite a few months before the summer heat wave hits that I can save money by not using heat and not having to cool the house either.  That rocks!  

P.S.  My heat bill usually hits $400 a month.  By heating with wood and turning my heat way down during the day and only up when absolutely necessary, I was able to cut my gas bill in half.   It sure helped all summer to scavenge that free wood off friends who needed help clearing their properties.   And the little tip about turning the furnace down overnight even when we are here was golden!

P.S.S.  The upside to winter is there is no yard work, well, not as much anyway.

Glorious! Glorious!

There are days that just go so gloriously well it can’t even be imagined.  There are other days that become so gloriously comical it can’t even be believed.  Then there are other days that just so beautifully and gloriously shine indications of summer upon you that you can’t despair.

Today was all of those for me.

It went gloriously well in spite of many opportunities for potential disaster.  No disasters.  All success.

It was gloriously comical in that after I completed the wonderful parenting presentation to parents…I went home and had immediate cause to implement everything I’d talked about in order to keep child 3 from destroying child 4.  Well, maybe destroying is quite and extreme term but if you are a parent, you know exactly what I mean.

And, as I traveled home for a brief break between school and evening presentation the sun hit my rear view mirror at just the right angle as to be blinding.  The entire late afternoon was swathed in gold reminiscent of a summer sunset. Had the temps outside been something other than the 50 degrees they were, even I might have mistaken this afternoon for a midsummer’s afternoon dream.  Sigh. 

I hate the months of January, February and March.  I’m such a summer and fall type person.  Today had every indication of being a beautiful summer day, except for the dismal number on thermometer. 

I am enjoying the longer days, the later sunsets and the increasingly warmer temps.  I long for summer. 

Summer is simply glorious!

Into Every Autumn Some Leaves Must Fall…Somewhere…In My Case Everywhere!

Ahhh, the beauty of autumn.  It is truly my favorite time of year.  Alright, the fact that I’m writing this just about two weeks before Thanksgiving might qualify this time of year as winter…for many…but for me…it is still autumn. Besides that, I think winter doesn’t officially begin until sometime in December anyway according to the calendar…but…who cares? It was definitely the perfect autumn day in my small town the day I pulled out my new leaf blower.

It was the perfect day to try out the blower I purchased for 25 bucks at the local Wal Mart.  The blower proved to be much better and more powerful than the one I had before, which gave up the ghost several months before.

I had a blast, until I realized that I had purchased a blower that had a much smaller blowing capacity than the two feet deep leaf cover I had going in my backyard.  Okay, even after that realization, I still had fun…even though it took me three hours to blow the leaves and clean them up.

The next day, just as many leaves had fallen.  The following week brought heavy rains and a great deal of fog ot our valley…and the leaves continued to drop.  The backyard now looks just as it did before I blew the leaves last Saturday.

I don’t even care.  I love trees and I love my new blower.  There’s just something about a good power tool!   Guess what I’ll be doing this Saturday, that is, if it isn’t raining?  That’s right. Blowing my yard clean of leaves. Why?  Because it’s just weirdly fun to have a clean yard that’s why…plus I just like the idea of blowing leaves around all day.

The Middle of the Night

So, can anyone out there tell me what exactly qualifies as “the middle of the night”?  Is it the middle of the night from the official sunset till the official sunrise or is it simply midnight?  For some people midnight is simply bedtime and the middle of the night for them would be four in the morning.  I don’t know.  All I know is right now, I’m here typing on this dorky little laptop I borrowed from school for the summer.  It is pitch black.  My kids are asleep out in the backyard on the trampoline.  It is dead silent out there and I am WIDE awake.  I have to do something to pass the time till I get the drowsies.  I’ve tried reading.  That didn’t work.  I’m trying this now.  I could probably go take a massive amount of Valerian root and see if I even wake up in the morning.  Hey, j/k, I never take more than the suggested amount of any medicine or supplement, unless a medical professional has advised me that it is safe to do so.  Case in point, I routinely pop four Ibuprofen at a time (200mg.) at certain times of the month and on back to school days.  My mind is also racing, because I spent a good deal of my day checking out blogs.  It is a bit of an artistic venture and I really like looking through them to see what people do with them.  How they title them and set up their various pages, how they write and what they write are fascinating to me.  But then, I suppose, I am easily fascinated.  I’m also stewing around about the fact that tomorrow is the last day of July and then it is back to school month for me.  While I don’t have to head back to school till the 25th of August, it still feels like it is coming up so quickly.  Too quickly.  I have so much to do.  I have more to do this summer than last (Yes, teacher’s always have stuff to work on over the summer.  If they don’t they are dead meat by the second day of school and the school year becomes very brutal very quickly.).  This year I am changing grade levels from first grade to fourth.  I’m excited about it, but this means all my forms, letters, graphic organizers and things I usually post in the classroom have to be recreated with the “cool” grown up fourth grader in mind instead of the wide-eyed, nearly petrified first grader.  (It’s really sad that the first graders don’t get that the teacher is often just as petrified on the first day of school as they are, well, for a few minutes anyway.)  This year, I am also changing classrooms so that will requires some additional effort in terms of thought and unpacking. Then there is that reality that all the stuff I’d created digitally over the last eight years, powerpoints, lessons, plans, schedules, templates, forms, etc. were lost when my jump drive gave up the ghost.  Sigh.  Everything has to be recreated from scratch.  I haven’t even started that project yet. And it is so silent out there.  Even the tree frogs are still and the crickets, while I can hear them, seem to be a long way off.  These are the things I ponder in the middle of the night and even after pondering, I am still no sleepier than when I began.  I mean, I really tired hard to bore myself.  Now, where is that Valerian root?