We're not in Kansas Anymore, Toto.

What to expect when you're expecting to turn 40.

2012-01-26T21:34:52-06:00

File under: Things they never told me; Things we don't discuss around women of childbearing years.

(Warning: This is not a shiny, happy teaching/education/funny kid stories, share with the guys kind of post. So you can click away now, dad.)

Back in November, I stopped taking my birth control pills. I don't need them anymore for, you know, birth control (see also: husband, snipped), so I guess I was mainly hanging on to them for habit's sake. I always felt like I needed to have that control over my hormones, to force my body to do what I wanted every 28 days. Without that, what my body really wanted to do was have no set cycle schedule and create cysts on my ovaries which grow and explode and HURT, just for fun. In short, the pill kept my body from trying to kill me, and it allowed me to know with certainty that it would be okay to wear white pants.

I found this useful for many years.

But this fall, I decided enough is enough. So I quit taking it.

Meanwhile, and mostly unrelated, the tremors in my hands have been getting worse. My handwriting is horrible, especially if I have to go slowly, or trace something. Not only can I not hold a camera or decorate cookies, I can't tweeze my own eyebrows. I can barely put on makeup, and to do that I have to be leaning over the sink looking into a stationary mirror, I can't hold a compact mirror with one hand and apply mascara with the other. On most days, this is simply annoying. It is also part of the excuse I use for putting on my makeup while driving in the car, at red lights. Mostly.

But back to December. One morning I went into the urgent care clinic at my doctor's office thinking I had a UTI. This is not abnormal, I get bladder infections 2-4 times per year. Who knows why. But this time, I saw a different doctor in the rotation, one I had never seen. One who apparently read my chart, unlike anyone else in that office recently. And so she knocked and came into the little room and sat down and said, "You don't have a bladder infection."

"Oh, yes I do," I countered, because I am That Patient, The One Who Always Knows Better.

"No, actually you don't," she said. "And you haven't really had one since 2009."

"No," I'm still in charge of this conversation, lady. "I get them a couple of times a year. I know what it feels like. I just need an antibiotic."

She cleared her throat.

"Let me be clear. You do not have a UTI. You haven't had one in two years. I've looked through your chart. The last 5 times you've come in here and peed in a cup, it hasn't actually grown any bacteria. So there's no infection." (note: they do a quick pH dip in the office, and then they send it off for a five day culture. Apparently nobody was following up.)

Shut. The. Front. Door.

And so she sent me to see a urologist, for the weird, painful bloating and the having to run to the bathroom suddenly, ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Finally, this week I had a CT scan and a visit with the urologist. (Who, for the record, is younger than me. DO NOT WANT.) He diagnosed me with Overactive Bladder and sent me home with a new prescription.

So. Let's tally it all up, shall we? I gave up the birth control prescription of my youth, and traded it for something to keep me from peeing my pants when I sneeze and running for the bathroom every five minutes. I may, in the near future, also have to start taking a prescription to help me deal with the shaking, for it is driving me crazy. Youthful Bountiful Girl: 0; Shriveled up and Damaged Old Woman: 2. I went straight from preventing a baby to trying to avoid being like one.

A woman's body does strange things, things men don't have to deal with. It's not just the Bringing Forth New Life miracle, either, although I suppose it's connected. Your body never fully recovers from forcing a watermelon through the eye of a needle, and I don't think it matters if you have one or twenty. Things just don't quite fall back into place correctly. Nobody tells you this, when you're young. Nobody tells you, look, that getting up in the night to pee thing? That's not just to prepare you for what it's like having a snuggly little screamer around at 2am. It never goes back. I guess if they did, nobody would want to have children anymore and then we'd die off as a society.

My point is, and I know you've been waiting patiently: 40 Sucks. I hadn't really worried a whole lot about it, it's just another birthday. But now I think turning 40 is like having a car with a 60,000 mile warranty. Once you hit 60,001 things starting falling apart.

And apparently, I just clicked over.

Teaching Change.

2012-01-12T20:20:50-06:00

I am a Gen-Xer. I was told in college that I would have three, four, maybe five different careers before I retire. I heeded that advice, and indeed, it gave me permission to look for that change. I get stagnant, I get bored, I let my ADHD get the best of me, and then I start looking for ways to move on to the next career. I always ask, What's Next?

It's either that or rearrange my living room again.

Even though it's been three years since I left the recruiting business, I still think like a recruiter. And I have something to say:

Corporate Recruiters are missing the point: the idea that careers are going to jump around, the career coaching that my liberal arts professors kept hitting on, nearly 20 years ago. They want to hire employees who have only had two jobs in ten years, or less, for some, but 5 years at a job seems to be the magic number. Even in technology hubs of California, there are companies who will not hire someone who has had three jobs in five years, who is “a jumper” in recruiting terms. But these companies are getting stagnant themselves, because the people they hire want safety before innovation. They’ve hired brilliant engineers on H1B visas who fear losing their job and being sent home, who literally are not in charge of their own destiny. It is the golden handcuffs. It is a cruel and unusual punishment for wanting a better life and having the IQ and skills to get it. And it is forcing these companies into mediocrity. Innovation means change, it is inherently not safe. There are really very few companies who get this.

I digress. I do that. Oh, look at the kitty!

Look, I’ve done corporate, I’ve done small business, I’ve done non-profit. I've seen it from all sides. Now I’ve made the jump to education, which funny enough, is what I’ve always said I wanted to retire from. When I was 22 I said I want to be teaching when I retire, but who knows what will happen in between. I didn’t really care. I was thinking I’d be teaching Shakespeare's influence on pop-culture at the time, but I’m teaching computer skills to elementary kids, instead. Okay, good enough.

And I love it. I’m teaching technology to the next generation of change agents. But teaching them how to cut and paste in Microsoft Word is, in some ways, doing them a disservice. I feel like I need to be teaching them how to look for change. How to look for and become a master user of the next great thing the digital age spits out. And then to find the next thing. But half the time I have to teach them to just click and see what happens first, they are terrified of making a mistake. They are scared to think. We're working on that.

But still, the world of Education isn’t meant for innovation, either. There’s not enough money to innovate. Change has a lot of red tape, and you can’t test fearlessness.

Then I read a couple of articles about a group of people who are defining change.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/162/average-time-spent-at-job-4-years

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/162/generation-flux-future-of-business?partner=homepage_newsletter

Very thought provoking stuff. I've come across some education focused websites which are committed to teaching teachers and students how to innovate, without fear of all that “bad stuff” the internet introduces to our kids (speaking of fear - you should see this next generation of parents. They are ruled by fear. But that's a different post.) Sites like Edmodo, Glogster, Storybird. There are so many more popping up each day, it's breathtaking.

And I am going to teach them to my students - maybe they'll learn how to be fearless in the process. It's not just a career lesson, or a classroom skill. It's a life lesson.

PS - Want some more fun but educational sites you can trust your kids on? Try ABCya, and Kerpoof!

I.am.still.here.

2011-12-20T16:06:42-06:00

Whew. Well, that was an interesting fall.

School's out for winter break. Tomorrow we officially move into winter. I have enough candy and chocolate gifts from students to send me into diabetic shock (Thank you for them all.) I have enough wine to get me to Sunday, so I figure I'm all set to make it through Smowmaggedon, should it actually manifest itself.

Merry Christmas. See you on the other side, kids. Here's hoping that 2012 sucks a little bit less for my family, and perhaps even seeing the return of my writing mojo.

And you may say, How did I get here?

2011-10-27T14:55:23-05:00

I've been writing a lot of posts into the Notes app on my iPhone, but I haven't posted any of them here. One is a Dear John letter to someone who really is named John, a very raw letter that is mostly about the rage, confusion and sadness that I can't seem to get over from a situation he had no control over. But he probably doesn't want to hear it. And most of the others are just bitching, venting, trivial little annoyances, First World Problems that I don't think anyone wants to hear about. The reality is my life is pretty damn good, and I forget that day to day, when the dog pukes in the kitchen, or I have a cold I can't shake even after two rounds of antibiotics, or my youngest son climbs a tree in the wilderness behind the neighbor's backyard and emerges covered in poison ivy.

Maybe if I'd been really good at still posting here all along, even the little things, instead of telling those stories to Twitter or Facebook, it wouldn't feel so fake to pull up typepad and try to put together a post. It wouldn't feel like so much effort to write something of substance. But it does.

2011 has been a banner year in my house, if by banner you mean truly weird and kind of schitzophrenic. We've had really big highs, really hard lows, and a range of emotional tugging that would send even the most stoic of personalities into therapy. And I, as you know, am not the most stable person you've ever met. And therapy isn't covered by insurance, don't EVEN get me started.

My job, which I adore, is only stressful in that the hours are inflexible, and adjusting to that has been harder than I thought. After 10 years of having Fridays off and the ability to float early for doctor appointments and long lunches, now I'm 8:15-4, and to arrange to be gone from work requires getting a substitute to cover me. If you know me at all you know that I generally find it much easier to do things myself than to explain it to someone else, and the thought of someone coming into my space and messing up what I've been working on sends this control freak into a tailspin. So I don't do it, unless I really have to. The measure of what causes me to miss work has been raised exponentially.

Perhaps that all would have been easier had my husband's job not taken him four states away Monday through Friday, leaving me mostly to single parent, and to beg and bother friends for carpools and favors that I really can't repay right now. But this is the hand we were dealt.

No, this is the hand we took, actually. As someone used to say, we bought our ticket, we knew what we were getting into. I try not to complain about that because I sent him off, knowing it was for the benefit of our little family overall. But we may have overestimated our stamina for it.

I'm reaching a point of meltdown, but I'm trying to keep my head down and just keep moving. It's like I'm running a marathon I was unprepared for, but I'm determined to finish. I don't know what shape I'll be in at the end.

Or maybe the problem is that there's no end in sight. If I could see the end, I could know that I could get there, pace myself correctly, dig deep only when I really have to. But I find myself digging deep just to get out bed in the morning, too many mornings.

I have friends I want to see, spend some time with over lunch or drinks or coffee, but there's always something else within my own house keeping me from taking that time for myself. I'd like to get to a yoga class, but there's too many soccer practices or trumpet lessons or frankly, I'm just too damn tired on the nights we have no activities to even stretch out into some yoga positions on my own bedroom floor, and I fall into bed, literally, every night. I've never been so tired.

I've gained ten pounds. I snack all the time. I feel like I need fuel to push through this. I've never been an emotional eater, I was always someone who stopped eating when stressed this heavily, and yet I can't keep my hands out of the kid's snacks in the pantry. And yet my body isn't moving enough burn the calories needed to keep up wtih the intake, because I'm so tired. It's a catch-22 I don't know how I fell into. Or how to get out. My metabolism came to a screeching halt a few years ago, and I knew it then but had the flexibility to make that a priority. Now, like I said, I'm just trying to push through. Apparently by puishing down 3000 calories a day.

Today and tomorrow I don't have to work, school is out. As a para instead of a fully certified teacher, I'm not required to be there - pretty much anytime the kids are off, I'm off. So I had some time to take a bath this morning, and go to Costco leisurely, and run some laundry without feeling like I was gonna fall over into the basket snoring. Halloween is Monday, Thanksgiving is a month away, and Christmas break just a few weeks after that.

I can do this. But maybe I need to let myself vent a little more, regardless of whether anyone cares to hear it.

Today in the car I heard these three songs, in this order, and then I felt better.

"Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down.."

"And I want to thank you, for giving me the best day of my life."

The song just makes me happy. Granted it reminds me of someone who's no longer here, someone who should be. Someone who gave in to the demons, who forgot what this song was all about.

"Never give in. Never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." ~ Winston Churchill

We have met the enemy, and it is us."

I'm trying not to be my own enemy.

Reservoir Dogs.

2011-09-27T21:49:23-05:00

A couple weeks ago I was delivering Drew to a boy scout campout, early on Saturday morning. I got lost, despite having a GPS in the car, because the other scout dads with which I had chatted that morning before we all took off in our own cars said "Oh, just go to La Cygne. It's not that big. Then turn right at State Line, or something? Its right there.

I should have known, right then, that I was in trouble. Also, the lat/long listed on the website for this location was wrong, and had too many digits. Again, a sign I should have heeded. But no, I am adventurous mom! So I just took off driving for La Cygne and figured I'd find it.

Yeah. Not so much.

After finally getting a hold of a dad with a clue and an internal GPS chip in his phone who could text me the lat/long of his exact location for the love of God, We started down the right highway. For the record, the place we were looking for isn't actually in La Cygne, Kansas, or anywhere really near it. It's actually in Missouri. That would have been helpful.

As I turned off of highway 69 onto 52 toward Amoret, I saw traffic stopped up ahead, and what looked like a black calf running down the middle of the road. No kidding, I thought it was a baby cow. As I got closer I realized it was a dog. A very big one. Being who I am, and if you've ever read my Facebook profile you already know this part, I pulled over.

Drew sighed and said, "you're going to put that dog in the truck with us, aren't you, mom?"

"Yup. Get the extra collar out from under the seat."

I stepped out of my truck, clapped my hands together and said, "Come here, baby." He galloped up to me and put his face in my hands and tried to walk between my legs. He was trying to get into my lap, while I was standing.

He was hungry and muddy and cold, it had been raining lightly for a while and was cold the night before. But his toenails were trimmed and his coat was glossy, this was a well cared for dog. I didn't really know what I was going to do with him, but I wasn't going to leave him running along that highway looking for someone to take him in. I opened the hatch of my truck, tapped the floor with my hand, and he jumped in without any more encouragement.

We went on to drop off Drew at the scout campout. Boy Scouts apparently love a good dog rescue story. Somebody pulled a pan of leftover scrambled eggs out of the trash, and the dog ate it all in about a minute. And then he laid down at my feet, and rested. The boys named him Scout.

Here's the thing. As I pulled over on the side of the highway it hit me. This is why I was lost - I was supposed to find this dog. If I had been on the right route and not wasted an hour finding my way, I would have missed him.

God speaks to me in tiny epiphanies. I haven't heard much from him lately, what with leaving my job at the church and the drama that went down as part of that (which I will not be discussing here, but trust me, there was drama.) When my grandmother died and we went to Springfield for her funeral and visited with family, I heard nothing. But for some reason that Saturday on the side of a country highway, I got the message, loud and clear.

I brought him back to Kansas City with me, unsure if I was doing him any favors. I've talked to some vets down in that area and a local rescue organization in Louisburg. He had no collar, and wasn't microchipped. People, listen to me. MICROCHIP YOUR PETS. It's easy, it's relatively cheap (we paid $45 for Max when he was a puppy, and they did it while he was under anesthesia to be fixed so he didn't even know.) Some rescue groups even do it for free.

Speaking of Max, when I introduced him to my new friend, they sniffed each other for a few minutes and then settled down together under the kitchen table, at my feet. Uh, yeah, I'd say he's comfy with other dogs.

We've been calling him Bear, because he's as big as a black bear. Remember, when I first saw him I thought it was a calf running down the road. He is not a petite animal. He's kind of an oaf. But a sweet, very loving one. But he needs a home. He's being fostered for the time being by my brother, but they've discovered he needs a much bigger house and probably is used to running on some land. He needs more space. He needs somebody who likes big dogs, and who knows how to handle them. He needs somebody who wants and 80 lb. lapdog, but can let him run outside. He's not very graceful around breakable things (the tail, it wags hard enough to knock the remote off the coffee table.) With kids, he pretty much just rolls over so they can climb on top of him and rub his tummy. If this dog were to hurt someone, it would be out of a total lack of awareness of size and strength.

I was supposed to save this guy for a reason. I just don't know what it is yet.

Remember Jackie, what I told you.

2011-09-08T22:11:07-05:00

My parents are those odd people who like to look around in cemeteries. Sometimes they are looking for ancestors as my mom is very into genealogy, and sometimes they just like to putter around in quaint little cemeteries in forgotten little towns. Recently, my dad came across a tombstone in one of these little places that intrigued him. Hell, it intrigues me. It was a tombstone of a woman, and under the name and the dates was inscribed:

Remember Jackie, what I told you.

Now I don't know about you, but that is the kind of thing that blows my mind. The randomness of it - who is Jackie? What did she tell her? Why did Jackie need to be reminded of something so much that this woman had it engraved on a tombstone? Think about it - she needed Jackie to remember. Was it tangible, like - here's where the money is hidden? Or was it more emotional, like -Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get?

Did Jackie even ever see it?

I bet she did. And I bet she remembered. I bet it was stamped on her brain, just like it was stamped on that piece of granite. Never, ever forget. It was that important.

****************************

My grandmother died last night, after 10 days at Hospice House of Kansas City, an amazing facility, with amazing nurses and caring people.

This past June, a week before I left for San Diego, she was diagnosed with tumors in her lungs, a recurrence of the breast cancer that had metastasized. She'd had mammagrams every six months for the last eleven years, and they all came back clean. Suddenly one day she can't catch her breath very well, and it's because there's no space to pull air into the lung, a tumor is in the way. She didn't want to fight it. She was a nurse, after all, she knew better than any of us that at 94, the treatment would kill her anyway, and rob her of what she had left. No.

Eleven years ago, as I was about to deliver my first child, my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 83. She'd found a lump, which turned out to be a swollen lymph node, which was surgically removed and then she did radiation for six weeks, "as a precaution" the doctors said. Really nothing major.

While she was going through radiation therapy, her husband (my grandfather) was dying in hospice. She'd been nursing him herself until she couldn't lift him, and then hospice came in. And then she was diagnosed with cancer herself, and he had to be moved to a hospital against his will so that she could come to Kansas City and be treated. It was rough.

Anyway, he was dying, she was taking radiation, and come that July, I had a brand new baby I didn't know what to do with. Everybody needed a lot of attention. It was a very stressful time for my mom and dad. But my mom had a solution. So for that first week I was home by myself after my husband went back to work, my mother would deliver grandma to my house after her radiation treatments, and she would hang out with me and the baby for a few hours. I needed the company, she needed to feel needed, and my mom needed a break for a while. Everybody wins!

Together, my grandmother and I were like one whole person caring for this tiny baby. I had lost a lot of blood in delivery and was severely anemic, barely able to move from one room to the next without sitting down to rest. She was tired and weak from the radiation therapy. But together, we could make it work. We sat and talked, we took turns feeding and burping him, and she helped me smear vaseline on all his various parts that needed it. We giggled about how hard it was for either of us to even lift him out of his crib. We were silly together. It was really a nice time.

When Drew was three weeks old, my grandfather died. At the graveside, she sat in her little folding chair with her head held high while the preacher talked. At the end, my dad said quietly, "Mom, are you ready to go?" She said, "I've taken him as far as I could take him. I've done what I promised I would do. I believe I'm ready to go now."

She spent a few more years living alone in the house they built with their retirement money down at Truman Lake, outside of Warsaw. But then she had a bad fall, and nobody could hear her crying out for help. It scared us all. After she recovered from (miraculously) just a couple of broken ribs and collarbone, she decided it was time to move to the city and be near my parents. She moved to an assisted living complex in Leawood, and instantly made new friends, played bridge three times a week and got her hair and nails done regularly. In short, she loved it.

Last year when she fell (she was totally pushed) and broke her shoulder, I got to spend time with her again while she stayed a a rehab nursing facility near my house. Nearly every morning I stopped by to visit on my way to work, even if it was just for a few minutes. I treasured those minutes, and so did she. It was a chance for me to step out of how crazy and busy my life was, and just visit pleasantly about the weather, the kids, whatever. It was a chance for me to catch my breath before going onto the next thing. For her, it was attention and company she needed, and someone who could help her with difficult things like putting new batteries in her hearing aides and fitting them into her ear that she couldn't reach. We needed each other then, again.

She doesn't need me anymore. She doesn't need anything. She's got her husband back.

She told me, back when we were caring for that tiny baby who is now my middle schooler, "Do you ever get blue? It's okay to feel blue, lots of new moms do. You need to know that it's okay to feel that way, and that it goes away."

She needed me to know that. She had felt it herself. Here she was, sick and weak and missing out on her husband's decline, and she was worried about me. She was probably feeling it then, so helpless and out of control of all these different situations. But it was tangible, how important it was to her that I know that feeling depressed was part of the post-partem process, and that if I felt down enough to be bothered by it, I could talk to her about it. It was stamped on my brain. She understood, and it would all be okay.

I still remember what she told me. I always will.

Best laid plans.

2011-08-27T21:24:50-05:00

I was going to catch up on my writing here today. Since school started I've been in this whirlwind of get the kids out the door-work a full day-get the kids to their activities-feed the dog-fall into bed. So no time for writing. Or even walking the poor dog.

So that was my plan for today, after going to the grocery store and doing some laundry and visiting with some family who is in town for a last visit with my grandma, who is now going downhill unfortunately fast. Big plans.

All of which fell apart when I awoke this morning and started throwing up into a toilet I hadn't had time to clean lately. (filed under, Too late, the things you notice.) So instead I spent my day moving slowly from bed to couch, or sitting on the kitchen floor tying my kid's soccer shoes on his feet while another mom waited in the driveway to take him to his game.

Generally, I am a planner. I like to have things laid out. I like to have menus planned to help organize my crazy week, I like lesson plans laid out, I like everything I need to accomplish in my day in my iPhone calendar and on a To Do List. It's how I survive.

But sometimes things go wrong. I try not to be one of those people who can't handle a monkey wrench being thrown into their plans. I try and keep my kids from being those people, too, but teaching them how to move to plan B, and how to make a plan B on the fly. And that sometimes it's okay to give up and move on. I keep my car stashed with extra bottles water, camp chairs, and ziploc bags. I have a bag that lives in the car that it labeled "things which may come in handy" which includes scissors, tape, a sharpie, silver change, some zip ties, a whistle and a multi-purpose tool. That's part of my planning - I plan for worst case scenario. Or at least I try to.

I don't always stay on top of things like I'd wish I could. I try, but I often fail. And because I know I'm not perfect, sometimes I plan not to make plans. Sometimes, I plan to wing it. I would much rather plan to wing it than be forced to wing it. So if I know I'm going into a situation where I don't have a lot of control, (Hi, I'm a control freak) I tell myself, be prepared to change course here. Take a breath, let it go. Keep moving.

But sometimes, whether you plan to wing it or not, plans go awry. Sometimes, nature kicks you in the gut and says, "Hey lady, you ain't getting out of bed today. You lose." And I'm not afraid to call for reinforcements. I'm a single parent while my husband is working in California, and today my mom was busy with out of town company. So I called on my friends.

I have awesome friends. They fed my kids, they drove them to soccer, they brought me milk and Gatorade from the store.

Tomorrow I'll be better. Tomorrow I can get back to my plans, and get ready for my week. Until of course, everything comes to a screeching halt for my grandmother. And then we'll just have to see.

My faith in teachers.

2011-08-08T11:49:45-05:00

I had some pretty crappy teachers as a kid. I had some good ones, too, people I have gone back to visit over the years. But unfortunately, as happens, the scars holder deeper memories. Part of why my parents decided to move south in 1984 was for better schools, and I hope to this day they realize that decision saved me; it was the best parenting decision they ever made, perhaps second only to allowing me the freedom to choose a college as far away as I was could comfortably go, which I'm sure was past their own comfort zone, nevermind the price tag. "If you love something set it free" works. But I digress.

After we moved I fared much better, but then I was in middle school - a pretty difficult time for any kid - and again, I had good experiences and bad experiences. But the bad ones, save for one science teacher who tried to break me (Fuck you Linda Beaman) really weren't that bad, I learned to rise above. The best thing I learned in middle school was somebody is always in worse shape than you, get over it.

It wasn't until I got to high school that I came to know teachers who really cared about the students. They cared not just about if we were successful in school, but in life after school. They cared about making sure we had tools for the real world. Some of these teachers did things that were unconventional, and probably against some chart of rules developed by suits who hadn't taught kids since the 50's, but they did them anyway, because they knew they had to break through. They were unafraid, because their goals were different than the suits - they weren't just trying to get us through with the best test scores, they were on the front lines watching the generations of kids change. These teachers knew that socially, those high school kids were exploding - sex and drugs and too much money and not enough attention from busy parents were driving my generation. The good ones understood you couldn't just stand up there and lecture, you had to make them learn.

It's a passion, teaching. It's about being creative. It's being flexible, it's being willing to try things differently, instead of just doing the same old thing and hoping it sticks.

I logged onto Facebook this morning to discover one of the good ones is gone. Not everybody loved him, he could be kind of gruff. He was a yeller. He didn't follow the rules, he broke them on purpose. He didn't pander to parents, and he didn't give a shit how much money you had (or didn't have,) it bought you nothing in his classroom. He didn't cut you any slack, unless you showed the courage to ask for help. Then he bent over backwards to help you, while still pushing you to do your best, then do better than that. Shut up, do it again. Don't stop.

I've spent my entire adult life knowing I wanted to be a teacher, but not really knowing why. In every job I've ever had, I have drifted toward the teaching, counseling and confidence-boosting of the people around me. It is maybe an inate trait. But it is also because of people like Mr House. And Max Brown. Teachers who gave me chances, and held me responsible. It is because of my cousins in Joplin, Missouri, who are now trying to not only teach, but locate the families who need more than an education to survive. It is because of the early childhood/special ed teacher in the Everman school district outside Ft. Worth, Texas, where families didn't come to parent/teacher conferences not because they don't care or can't be bothered, but because they're afraid they will be discovered and shipped back to hell on earth. She taught them as best she could, as if they were her own broken babies. From her I learned the good, and the bad: You can't save them all. You can only help them change their path.

My faith in teachers has shifted as an adult. As a child I thought teachers were evil, egomaniacal overlords who's job it was to break the thinker in you and make you get back in line. And then I met people who knew their job was to MAKE you think. Their influence has been great and evident in my parenting, my job choices, my empathatic nature, and I bow to them on this next leg of my life journey.

* I started to call this post "my faith in the education system." But I do not actually have faith in the education system, I instead have faith in people who choose it. These things are not the same.

Friday Wine Goodness: Welcome to Kansas, Trader Joe's.

2011-08-05T15:47:55-05:00

And the people said, "Awww, yeah."

So yeah, I finally made it over to Trader Joe's and for a Friday afternoon at 2pm, it was insanely crowded. I'm glad I wasn't here to try and go in the first few days it opened. Us Midwesterners, we like to swarm new things. The good news all the freaky people who just wanted to try it will go back to HenHouse soon, and the rest of us can get our Two Buck Chuck without the hassle. But this was pretty cute - happy wine! (Note my fav - the La Crema in the background is only 16.99 here. Normally it's over 20.)

* Actually, it's welcome to Missouri, if you want to buy wine. The TJs on the Kansas side is grocery only, because Kansas is a little backward. Don't get me started.

What a long, strange trip it's been.

2011-08-02T16:50:46-05:00

Well, it's August now. I feel like I went straight from June to August, since July was spent driving across the country and relaxing at the beach. We got home late last week, and promptly threw an epic backyard party for our friends who were staying in our house, visiting from New Zealand. Now they are gone, too, and I spent the day washing sheets and towels and re-making beds and trying to avoid going outside, as it's 108 degrees. Record-breaking heat, the news says, and I don't doubt it, since it feels like you're standing under a hair dryer.

As much as I loved being at the beach, it's not always roses in a city the size of San Diego. I forget sometimes how insulated we are in the suburbs of the Midwest. Last week, as I was walking out of the nail salon admiring my freshly painted toes and sipping on the last of my Chai Tea Latte, I passed a homeless man eating from old California Pizza Kitchen boxes that he had pulled out of the trash right in front of the restaurant. The box and the pizza was crawling with ants, he was eating it anyway. He didn't seem to notice. My heart broke.

Perspective can be a bitch, sometimes. But I have it.

I am glad vacation is over, and happy to be home, despite the heat. It's been a good summer. I am refreshed enough, I have drank plenty of wine with old friends, I have done as much yoga as I could fit into my schedule (and that my stupid bum knees and shoulder will allow.) Since my return I have spent some quality time hanging out with my grandma, in what appears to be her last summer with us. I both wish for that and loathe the thought of it, drifting between not wanting to see her go and not wanting her to suffer.

I do wish that I were there again in San Diego, for BlogHer. I originally tried to make it work, when San Diego was announced as the city hosting the conference, to fanagle my vacation so that I would just stay for the conference. But in the end I couldn't justify the extra week, and I wouldn't have gotten to see my lovely friends from New Zealand. Another time.

Besides, now that I'm home and the house is quiet, I'm realizing that school starts a mere two weeks from today. I need to get organized. I need to start planning out my classroom and my lesson plans, I need to make sure the boys have shoes that fit and clothes that aren't torn or stained. And I need to make other plans, too, and here is where the other shoe drops.

My husband recently started a new job, back in California. North this time, in Silicon Valley. Right now, he is commuting, flyying out on Monday mornings and returning late Friday nights. We don't know yet if we are going to move out there or not, for now we are just playing it cool, making sure that the opportunity is what we think we signed up for, seeing how it goes. But it's likely that sometime in 2012, we will move back to California. The bottom line is that I'm functioning as a single mom with a full time job right now, or at least, when school starts in two weeks. I've never had this kind of day to day, hour to hour inflexibility in a job before. Thank God for my mother, who has become just as familiar with the Orthodontist's office as I am.

I'm excited and ready for the adventure, but I am also apprehensive and disappointed, now that I have this new teaching job I've wanted for so long. I worry about the boys, they are getting to an age where it's harder to start over and make new friends. They are just as excited and also apprehensive as I am, so far. But they miss daddy. We need to be a family.

So that's our big news. It's going to be an interesting year.