This and That

Jenn thinks I should be posting more often. It seems this blog serves as entertainment for her, when she is bored and doesn't have anything to do. Except work. So Jenn? Get back to work.

Also? Thank you for reading.

So let's see. Here's a glimpse of what's going on in my head this week:


Things That Make Me Happy

Wading in the creek

Teaching my kids

Weeding my flower garden yesterday, I came across a newly emerged dragonfly. It was gorgeous -- cellophane wings almost six inches across, bright green and yellow body. I was absolutely repulsed at the thought of touching it, however. I mean -- it's a bug. A dragon type bug. Would you touch it?? But it needed help as it was stranded in our too tall grass. (Daddy? Can Mama mow the grass? Because it's really long. No? What are allergies?) I used my clippers to transfer it to a shady spot in my garden and as it crawled up the wall of our garage I think it heard it say Thank you -- and you are beautiful yet repulsive as well.

Being recommitted (again!) to weight-loss. I'm back on track and feel really good about it. It's funny, what actually did it for me. For being overweight, I think I've always had pretty decent body image (translation: I didn't realize how bad I looked.) My mom brought over some pictures the other day and I came across one of me sitting on her wooden swing and nearly barfed all over it. (You would too if you saw it, I swear. ) I promptly stuck it up on my cupboard door with a big BEFORE sticker underneath it and have to walk by it every day. It definitely ruins my appetite, which is great for the diet.

The Office has Webisodes!

Things That Are Worrying Me

This. Egads, people. This keeps me up at night. Even more than the bird flu. Okay, well at least as much as the bird flu. The conflict, the fighting, the families fleeing, the hard line we've taken again. I was watching a BBC news update during a highly non-competitive game of Candyland (also with highly flexible rules. did you know you can jump over the sticky licorice square that makes you lose a turn?) when Sassafras turned around for a moment and saw footage of an explosion. What's that a picture of, Mama? she asked. I distracted her long enough to sell my TV on ebay so that we will never, ever see images of war again.

We entered the war in Iraq when Sass was not yet two months old. As I sat and rocked her day in and day out, I watched CNN and wondered how to reconcile the brutal images I was seeing with the tiny baby in my arms who filled me with such warmth. After the first week, M came home at lunch, turned off the news, and made me promise to quit watching it.

Our finances. Ask me about money and you'll see my lower lip start to quiver. Our budget used to work on paper, but it doesn't seem to even do that any more. I clearly need to go back to work, but the thought of it takes me from lip quiver to full blown sob. Even if I did want to, every district in our area is laying off teachers. The district I resigned from laid off every administrative employee except the superintendent. We could get by with me working just 10 or so hours a week, so I've been scanning the want-ads. See? Lip quivering.

That no one is reading this blog. If you made it this far, drop me a line and tell me what you'd like to see a post about and I'll do my best to oblige. Because I'm just like that....