Ya know...Stream of Conscientiousness

4:48 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
I thought this would be easier. I'm finding that when I turn on this computer, I'm not feeling funny, nor witty, nor bitchy, or anything for that matter. I just don't feel like talking. If I do, I want to whine..and I should be able to do just that, but then I have to be careful what I say so I don't piss anyone off. I've half a mind to close this blog and start all over with a new identity. To become anonymous again...of course I would tell a select few where I am...but it's becomong very difficult to say what I really want to without hurting people. I don't want to speak in code and I don't want to create hypothetical situations. I just want to say what I want to say...but then that's not terribly realistic is it? I've lost readership because I've been a slacker...but then again...this blog has come full circle for me. I used to care about who read what, when and how many times a day. When I started I had all day to read and write and was OBSESSED and now I'm just ....not. The pendulum has swung in the opposite direction...partially because I'm tired...this year has been a difficult one for me with teaching and my leadership roles, and some days I just don't want to. I get home and I'm talked out..or just want to sit and watch t.v. My house is a disaster area and should be condemned...there's still so much to do for the holiday's and I have a ton of great ideas swimming around in my head...I just can't seem get myself organized enough to write them all down. I love this job more than anything I've ever done. I love getting up in the morning and going into work and molding young minds. I'm good at it dammit! Thank God it's only part time!!

This year was a bad one to start all these life changes, but then I guess I'm one to keep life exciting!

Maybe I'm just bored...I never managed to stay with one thing too long. It'll be a year in February since I've met all of you. I do love blogging but I feel like I've lost my purpose, I guess...I don't know.

Remember the pedastal those people who hired me put me on? Well I think I fell off. Maybe it's just the holidays...maybe it's just the rain. Maybe it's PMS who the hell knows. I don't know what I'm going to do...

Things to Do When You're Bored...

9:10 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
...at work




....with waaaayyyy too much...


.....time on your hands!

Happy Thanksgiving

5:21 PM Edit This 0 Comments »


I'll be back on Monday. Have a safe and happy turkey day!

Click here for a special Thanksgiving Day greeting....

Be Careful What You Pray For...

4:21 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
I was in church yesterday morning and I said a little prayer. I have been getting all kinds of compliments for the work I've been doing both at school and for the PTO. So my prayer was to basically keep me humble.

Father read the Gospel and started his sermon. "We need to learn Humility. We pray for the Lord to keep us humble in times like these. But be careful if you pray this prayer because I guarantee you, within the next 24 hours, you will get a lesson in humility." Uhhhhh......okay. My ears perked right on up.

24 hours huh? Wow.

So, when I came home. I cleaned my van, went to a friends house for a playdate and came home again to do some beloved blog reading. I only read this one and had to stop. I couldn't read through the tears, but I did learn something...there was my lesson in humility.

I've been so crazy busy and making excuses for not blogging like I could, should would if I had more time, made it a priority, what have you and then I read this...

(I will resume posting in about a week.)

This hilariously creative man just lost the love of his life to a dreadful degenerative disease and he will resume posting in about a week???

Put's life in perspective doesn't it?

I am busy, and I do love blogging, but sometimes I just run out of time or am to lazy or tired to write about anything. I'm not making anymore excuses..life's too short. But, I will keep up things like friendships and family committments, things that have been going by the wayside because of my schedule. I love all of you and reading keeps my brain constantly thinking. So, though it won't be as regular as I have been, I will keep up ;0)

Please drop by Hoss' place if you can and give him a big ol' cyber hug.

Peace.

What Do You Know About Marshmallows?

9:04 AM Edit This 0 Comments »
I was having a "Full Freaky Friday". Yeah, that's what I call the day before a Full Moon. This really happened on Wednesday, but then my saying would lack alliteration and sound funny...

So, I had a parent filling in for my Assistant on Wed. She used to be a teacher herself and we worked together beautifully. I seem to have gotten the reputation of being "the messy teacher" and today was no exception. We were painting leave with fabric paints, pressing them onto t-shirts in a semi-circular pattern to make tails and bodies for turkey's. When that dried, we were going to paint the outside of their fists red and brown to make the turkeys head and waddle. At the other table we were coloring cornucopia's and cutting them out to put on our Thanksgiving Fest placemats. So for the time being we had 10 kids at one table once again. (oh, I have recently acquired another table to spread these guys out to give them some space)... basically a very cramped situation...and I don't know what it was like weatherwise where you live on Wed. but here it was 75 degrees and the school had the heat on!

So, we were hot, messy and sportin' some serious ADD behavior. No one was listening, everyone was doing whatever they wanted and whining "I can't do anymore." "I'm tired." "When are we going outside?" "I'm hungry".

Oye. It was also getting ready to storm so I changed our routine, which apparently also threw everyone off, and we went outside to play before the deluge of rain hit us.

Wednesday's are out Wacky Snack days. A parent brings in a special snack that has to do with the month's/week's theme. This one happened to be about our color: Brown and our shape: Square. Everyone came back in to a "messy" snack of graham crackers, marshmallow and chocolate. S'mores if you will.

Now, we are a peanut free class room. I have one little boy who is allergic to peanuts, eggs, strawberries, and just nuts in general. He also suffers from Eczema. He has Rice Krispie treats to eat when we have anything that might have eggs in it (ie. cake, cupcakes, cookies...etc.). He is also an only child and very young for his age. Whenever he doesn't want to do something he bursts into tears, screams for his Mom and throws the world's biggest temper tantrum.

This happens just about everyday.

Today was no exception.

We sat down for circle time and almost immediately he starts. "Mrs. Miller, my mouth hurts.

"Okay sweetie, why don't you go get a drink of water."
"Mrs. Miller, I want my Mommy!!"
And so it begins.

I managed to get the kids started on their projects and tried to take him out into the hall. He wasn't having it. I asked him everything under the sun... I even thought that maybe he was sick and he just couldn't express it. But there was nothing he ate that he hasn't had before. He didn't have any hives, his mouth was fine, he was red in all the normal places and certainly itching more from the heat, but all else was fine.

My director ended up taking him out of the room calming him down and bringing him back. He made his shirt, and when it was time to come sit and color, he started with the Mommy thing all over again.

I plopped him in the chair, he rolled out. I sat him outside the door, he got up and stood right behind me. All the while screaming at the top of his lungs he wanted his Mommy. I finally moved him over to the rug and told him to play puzzles, and left him screaming. I was not going to give him any more attention. I went on with our activity and after about 5 minutes he started to calm down.

Next thing I knew he was coughing, got up from the carpet and was standing right behind me...I turned around and he threw up ...just missed my shoes.

Great.

I continued to hold onto him while he puked his guts out. My helper for the day is a Sympathy Puker so she kept the kids while I cleaned up my friend and the floor. Thankfully his mom was in the parking lot and was able to come and take him. She then told me he had been to Chuck E Cheese for the first time the night before and that he was complaining before school of a belly ache.

I felt awful. Something still wasn't right. When I got home, I told my mom what had happened and then she asked about the marshmallow. Were they marshmallow's or marshmallow Fluff?? Huh?

Did you know marshmallow fluff is made with ...egg whites? Me neither and apparently, neither did this child's mother.

Not 10 minutes later, the mom called me with that exact question. And sure enough that was what made him sick. Okay so now I'm the world's worst teacher...or so I thought until the next day when I heard.....

"I want my Mommy!!!"

I want to throw up....I'd just move ...

5:49 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
or sue or sue then move...something. We've got to stand up people...read on.

Here's the link if you'd rather read it from the horse's mouth....

9th Circuit 'Declares War' on Parental Rights
by Pete Winn, associate editor

Ultraliberal court makes outrageous ruling which dismisses the right of parents to challenge what their children are taught.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has told parents with children in California’s Palmdale School District they have no rights when it comes to what their children are being taught — nor do they even have the right to take action against anything they might object to.

"This decision declares war on parental rights," said Liberty Counsel President Mat Staver. "It essentially says that parents have no rights. Once you drop your kids off at school — according to this court's decision — you have severed all of your parental rights until you pick your kids up at the end of the day. But while they're in the public school's jurisdiction, there are no parents, according to this decision."

The Palmdale parents filed suit alleging the school had interfered with their constitutional rights by surveying their elementary-age children without disclosing that the survey contained personal questions about sex.
Writing for the unanimous panel, Appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt said "there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children . . ."

Further, in the court's opinion, ". . . parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."

Staver said the court had the audacity to say that parents may have a fundamental right to decide whether to send their child to a public school, but they do not have a fundamental right to direct how that school teaches their child.

"That's just outrageous," he said. Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney for the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, said prior to administering the survey, the district mailed a letter to the parents of the children, who ranged in age from 7 to 10.

But the letter, he said, simply described the survey as establishing "a community baseline measure of children’s exposure to early trauma."
"The letter," Fahling said, "did not disclose that, of the 79 questions, the children would be asked 10 questions rating areas such as: touching my private parts, thinking about having sex, having sex feelings in my body and can’t stop thinking about sex.

Staver was explosive in his disgust.

"Understand that these are 7-year-old children that are being asked intrusive and controversial and inappropriate questions about sexual behavior," Staver said. "And this judge says, 'That's OK.' Well, it's not OK!"

Fahling said the decision puts the schools firmly in control.

"The court has held that once parents send their children to public schools the children are essentially guinea pigs that the school may do with as they please," he said.
Fahling also said the judge didn't rely upon law for his decision — he cited a few cases and tried to make them fit his predetermined conclusions.
"The court failed even to consider the deception of the school in failing to disclose that the children would be exposed to questions about sex," he said.
Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, called the ruling "an egregious example of judicial tyranny."
"Unless it's corrected, the entire future of public education and the rights of parents are in severe jeopardy," he said.
Hausknecht noted that Reinhardt is the same judge who ruled the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional in the case brought by atheist Michael Newdow.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the 9th Circuit "a bastion of goofy decisions."

"If it's not the parents talking to their children about such sensitive matters, who is it?" Graham asked rhetorically. "And what body has the right to trump a parent? What institution in this country, school or otherwise, has a greater right to provide information to a child than the parent? That's what's wrong with our courts.

"Courts are not elected officials. They should not become mini-legislators. They should not become the culture-setters in the country. They should follow the law. And there's nothing in the law, written anywhere in the country, that says that there's an institution greater than the parent when it comes to talking about sex."

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., agreed that parents have the responsibility of being the primary educators of their children.

"Parents have a right to know and to decide what their young children are being exposed to by the schools regarding sex education," he said.
Hausknecht said this decision certainly underscores the importance of putting judges like Samuel Alito on the bench — judges who are originalists and who understand the role of a judge is to interpret the law.

"Up to this point, parents have been walking around assuming that their children are still their children while they're in school," Hausknecht said. "But this is a wake-up call that Big Brother has other ideas for your children."

Meanwhile, Staver said there has been talk of breaking up the huge 9th Circuit and creating a new court, or perhaps two. The 9th covers most of the western U.S. and has the heaviest caseload of any of the appeals courts. Splitting it up would be a good idea, he said, not only because it's the largest, but because it's also the most liberal.

"It is the most reversed court, bar none, in the country," Staver said. "Hopefully, if this case is appealed to the Supreme Court, the 9th Circuit will be reversed one more time."
TAKE ACTION:Please contact your members of Congress, and tell them that we need judges who will neither legislate from the bench nor usurp the rights of parents. Especially, tell your senators that it is important to give President Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, a fair hearing and an up-or-down vote.


All you Californians out there, please tell me this isn't what it seems. That the world isn't coming to this... excuse me while I go throw up. We've got to take a stand.

Act of Conscience? Or not...

3:08 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
I hit a car in the parking lot this weekend and left.....











....a note! Got ya. Seriously though...I did...leave a note that is. It was a crowed mall parking lot on Saturday and I was with Mom and J-man #2. I of course, was meeting the Hubs (right behind me) with number #1 son and tried to pull into a space that was too narrow for my van. I crunched the bumper as I was almost in the spot.

Damn. Looked like a brand new car too....someone was going to be pissed. I left my name, # and apology underneath the wiper blade and went inside to eat. What else could I do?

Then, my mind started to spin...what if someone just picked up the note ...they would have my name and my home number. Of course, I was kicking myself for being so paranoid, but what if?

When I got back out to the car, it was still there. The car and the note. I took the not back, left only my first name and my cell phone number. I then wrote down the make and model of the car and the license #. Just to CMA. I hate that I had to be so careful, but thankful that I had the forethought to do so.

As of now...no call.

As an afterthought, I started to think...well no one saw me. I could've gotten away scott free! Fleeting thought mind you, and I would've felt guilty as Hell if I hadn't done something.

But what if? Do you believe in what goes around, comes around?

C'mon...confess. I won't tell ;0)

Where'd It Go Mommy?

2:20 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
Had a blast Friday night in Petroville. Momma K threw a big ol' bash at the Ritz for her hubby's 35th. We learned to play Texas Hold 'em and funny thing about funny money...every time I ran out...the dealer kept giving me more! Makes losing a whole lot less painful!! We dranks lot's o' vino and ate yummy food. Momma K looked totally hot...not that she doesn't normally in her jazzercise wear, but the heels and coctail dress really do make a girl ;0) As I was listening to introductions by her family members...this is what it sounded like..'Hi, I'm Cowgirl Up do you bl**?" "Hi, I'm Unga Chunga. Are you a bl**ger?" CRACKED ME UP!!! We live in our own little world here in Bl*gville. Yes we do. And we're damn proud too!

Anyway...my head was killing me as the evening wore on from that lovely sinus infection I'm ignoring and the next day...my voice started to go. Today...it's gone. My kids were yelling upstairs for me and I couldn't yell back...awww darn! They couldn't hear me! Funny thing...they both started to whisper after that. Hmmmm....maybe I'm on to something here.

Anyway, J-man #2 says. "Mommy are you sick?"
"No buddy, I just lost my voice."
"Oh. Well where did you lose it?"
"I don't know honey. I just woke up this morning and it was gone."
"Well Mommy, I'll make you a deal. You think about where you last saw it and when we get home from church I'll help you look for it okay?"

1....2....3.... Awwww! ;0)

Where Does the time Go?

3:41 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
I don't know how long I can keep up this pace. Things need to slow down soon or I might just konk out. Today was the first day I haven't had to set foot out of the house. I clean my bathroom with a sponge on my hands and knees...did 6 loads of laundry dusted all the shelving upstairs, cleaned out the boys closets and dressers, washed and changed all the sheets, washed walls and I'm still not finished. I think I have a sinus infection which makes bending over pretty damn painful and we just can't seem to get over these colds!! I keep meaning to take a break from life and just come down here and type but I see some mess that needs to be cleaned up, or a phone call that needs to be made or it rings, or someone needs something. It's never ending.

Got a phone call from a close friend this morning who says we've both been really busy and need to make a concerted effort to get together...I totall agree but when?? Her daughter doesn't get home until almost 4:30 and by the time home work is done, it's time to get dinner started, eat, bathed and bed. I know my social life is suffering but I don't want to stress over it either. Things are getting much easier and now that my house is finally clean, I can think better too! Thank God I don't have to worry about laundry.

This cool little thing happens every Wednesday when I leave for work. I come home and all my laundry is done!! That's right the Laundry Fairy comes in the form of my mother every Wednesday!! Thank God too because I would be buried at the point if it weren't for her. Now if I can just figure out where she keeps her magic wand.....

We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.

2:46 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
So said ~Franklin D. Roosevelt 32nd president of US (1882 - 1945) and I believe him.

I'm doing something right and here's how I know...

Yesterday was to begin with a mad dash to the store to exchange some clothes, J-man #2 in tow, while the hubs took J-man #1 to a local boy scout event. They were supposed to deliver bags to houses in our area to collect food for the needy for Thanksgiving. We were then going to meet at J-man's soccer game at noon and then I was to take both boys to a birthday party at 2. BUT, the pack that went to another town took all the bags with them, so boy scouts was cancelled...the hubs decided to take both boys to the park then the game and gave me cart blanche with the credit card 'til the birthday party time! Wahoooo!!!

Mad shopping ensued as I found that the store I had been at 1 day prior was having a 50% off sale until 1 p.m.!! I handed over my receipt from the previous day and voila $87.52 back on my credit card (actually mom's...;0) MORE SHOPPING!!! I was like a kid in a candy store, picking up all kinds of stuff for Christmas for dirt cheap! For example, I found J-man a Spider Man winter coat originally $60 for $24! Not bad me thinks.

SO, when I got home I was in a great mood ready for the birthday party which turned out to be quite chaotic, but the kids had fun. A few kids from our neighborhood were there, but most of the kids I knew from working with the PTO. One little boy in particular walked up to me and apparently couldn't get my attention so he yanked on my shirt and said...

"Excuse me! Hi Mrs. President!"

I figure if I can get all the kids saying that now I should be able to run by 2016 or so and win hands down. Gotta get 'em while their young ;0)

A Love Story

12:06 AM Edit This 0 Comments »
I will seek and find you...
I shall take you to bed and have my way with you.
I will make you ache, shake and sweat until you moan and groan.
I will make you beg for mercy, beg for me to stop.
I will exhaust you to the point that you will be relieved when I'm
finished with you.
And, when I am finished with you, you will be weak for days.


All my love,





The Flu

Now, stop dreaming and go get your flu shot!