Plans December 5, 2009

Once upon a time I had a plan.  Sort of.

When I was 23 it was to be a High School or Middle School Choir Teacher.  And then I got the job teaching elementary school General Music.  And I loved it.  It was amazingly rewarding to see kids who wouldn’t necessarily be inclined to make music discover that it was for them, too.  That it’s meant to be part of the human experience.

Then I fell in love with my best friend and got married.  This fit right in with my plan and I kept teaching music to the kids that I adored.  I could see myself teaching there until I retired.

Then I got pregnant.  As excited as I was, I was torn about whether to quit teaching.  I toyed with idea of being a working mom.  My husband and I both had mothers who stayed at home and felt that we’d benefited from it, but I still wasn’t sure.  Finally, a good friend of mine, who happened to be pregnant as well, said, “Nicole, you are the sort of person who throws herself completely into what she’s doing.  If you try to teach and raise your child, you will always feel guilty about neglecting the one you’re not with.”  Or something like that.  It’s been seven years and my memory’s not what it was.

So I’ve had seven wonderful years being the stay at home Mom.  My friend was right and I never regretted it.  Over the years, I’ve had offers to come teach music at different places but none ever seemed to fit my schedule.  I had a new plan.  When the boy was in school full time I’d go back.  I figured I’d substitute teach for a while, and then look for a part time position.

Then my friend (the same one) called and invited me to interview for the part time general music position at her school.  I couldn’t ignore this one.  It fits with my kids’ school schedules, I get to teach general music again, and I still get to have time with the boy in the afternoon.  My husband and family were unanimously excited for me.

So I went for it.  And I got the job.  I am both scared and excited.  It’s all I can think about.  I’ve even started having teacher dreams again; (Gratefully, not the kids-hate-me-and-throw-a-riot dream.  I hate that one.) trying to remember what I used to do.  It’s like a dormant part of my brain is waking up.

I told L today and she rushed over and gave me a hug.  “I’m so happy you got a job, Mama!”  I asked her why she was happy and she said, “Now you have something to do while I’m at school!”  Heh.  First graders are funny.

So anyway, here’s the moral of the story.  The most significant things in my life have never followed my plan.  Sometimes you just have to make the proverbial leap of faith and know that everything’s going to be ok.

(Remind me of this a couple months from now, please.) 

Mapleton Public Schools November 19, 2009

Where’s Mapleton, you ask?  It’s a school district here in Colorado where a good friend of mine works.  I used to accompany choir in Mapleton.  I say used to because they’ve already cut the music program to try and make up for the enormous funding short falls they’ve experienced over the last few years.    And I figure if a dollar helps, that’s less than half a Starbucks latte.  And you might say, why should I donate to a school district where I don’t have kids?    All children deserve a quality education.  I have to believe that a more educated population is a better one.    Here’s an email from my friend explaining it better.

Hi everyone.
I am really not the activist type of person, but I can’t stand it any longer and need to ask for your help.  My school district is the lowest funded district in the Denver metro area. The newest building was built in 1972.  The per pupil funding is 1500 less PER KID (almost a third less) than it is in my own kids’ district.  The property taxes are the lowest in the in the metro area, and the property values are pretty close to the lowest, which is why the funding is so poor. And since the parent population is grossly outnumbered by small business owners and retired folk, we can’t pass a bond, although in the last one we came close, and we failed by 50 votes.
Meanwhile, our kids’ test scores have grown a higher percentage than any other district in the metro area (12.5% district-wide). We are doing more with less, but the inequities in funding are grossly unfair. We have had countless fundraisers, campaigns, and pleas with the state, with businesses, and have tried everything we can to raise the money. We are doing more with less, but the inequities in funding are grossly unfair.  Just look at a school in your own kid’s district and then come and look at ours.  It isn’t right.
Please read the attached email, donate a dollar, and then forward this to everyone you know.  This is our last attempt to keep a $ 32 million dollar grant that we will lose if we don’t come up with $22 million by Dec. 31st.   If you usually donate to a charity during the holiday season, this is a good one to give to.  It’s a real need, and it can do real good, right now.
Thanks for listening.
Love you all.
L

Lindsey Walton
Instructional Guide
Monterey Community School
waltonl@mapleton.usA child of four would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of four.
–Groucho Marx

Fw: “Viral Campaign” information–for My School

“Viral Campaign” information–for My School

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 10:10:40 AM

Please take a minute to read this email.  I really need your help.  This is for real. Check us out.
So far over 600 people have been invited to follow the cause on
Facebook and over 60 have already joined
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169854212794
You can also follow the efforts on twitter
http://twitter.com/helpmapleton

Charlotte Ciancio 11/5/2009 4:00 PM Superintendent Mapleton Public Schools

Mapleton Public Schools just lost a bond election by a total of 56 votes! This loss is pretty devastating. The $22,000,000 would have gone to match a $32,000,000 grant from the state.  The Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) program would have allowed us to completely redesign the schools at the crumbling Skyview Campus.  We have until December 31, 2009 to raise the match . . . so we need your help!

We are launching a “viral campaign” today, asking everyone who sees our call for help, to donate at least $1.00 toward our campaign and then forward the link to everyone they know . . . with everyone’s help, we just might raise the money!

I know this is pretty unusual for a school district to ask for help like this – and we can’t give up!  It’s been heart warming to see so many people rallying here in the district – in fact – I’ve cut and pasted a little email I received this afternoon from a kindergarten teacher at one of our schools . . .

>>> Sarah Gilbert 11/5/2009 12:02 PM >>>
Our kindergarten classes would like to contribute our popcorn profits from this year’s business to the fund raising pool. We won’t make $22,000,000, but in previous years we’ve earned around $500. We have $104 so far (from our sale today).  We’ll have a total by Dec. 15th, but we could provide totals/money each week if that would be helpful -where should we send money (and are lots of $1 dollar bills and quarters okay?)

Sarah

>>>>>>>

Please let me know if you can help . . . here’s the link to forward on, add to your facebook and any websites that will get the word out.

donate.mapleton.us ( http://www.donate.mapleton.us/ )

Gratefully,
Charlotte

OK everyone . . . let’s do it!!!!

Please pass along to everyone you know.  Our tiny school district needs your help.  I will send pictures of my crumbling office soon.  Our school is literally falling down around us and we have no money to fix it.  We need this BEST grant and we need your help to match the funds.–
Carrie Moore

Suicide Pact November 9, 2009

I wonder how many google hits I get for that title.

It seems to me that major appliances have a suicide pact.  Like the year our furnace and our water heater died.  At Christmas.  Or when the oven and the dryer went to that big appliance repair shop in the sky.

The brand new dishwasher.  Is fine.    But the aluminum wiring isn’t.  Next weekend poor husband and father in law are switching out the aluminum for copper.

It makes me afraid for the washer.  Perhaps I can stage an intervention.

When it rains… November 3, 2009

1)  you get to keep your drain.  Really bad rhyme.   I know.  Drain stays till Friday.  I’m back on Levaquin (which the doc stopped a while back to put me on Bactrim) because my infection is resistant to Bactrim now.   Yippee.  I get the overachiever bug.  Anyway, Levaquin is scary expensive, even with insurance (For instance, I’m lucky it *only* costs me $50.) with even scarier side effects (like your Achilles tendon detaching somehow…)  Anyway, I’ve just got to keep in mind I’ve taken more toxic things in my life, like chemo and some really bad stuffed green peppers I made long ago.  I still have 8 pills of Levaquin left from a previous prescription and I’m hoping I can take those (I think he only wanted me on it for 5), so cross your fingers for me that the goddess of cheapness smiles on me and I can use it.

2) Pray for a friend’s mother (who is also my friend) whose Mom is dying.  You are never too old to miss your mother.  Or your grandma.  Or your great-grandma.

3)  Pray for my sister and her husband, for his mother passed away unexpectedly last night.  Death is never easy, expected or otherwise.

4) Pray a bit for me, because tomorrow all their children will be at my house.  I can handle it and it will be fine.  But a little prayer never did anybody any harm.  

Throws Like A Girl October 24, 2009

So my daughter asked me what “Throws Like a Girl” meant.  She’s already heard the negative version at school.   I told her that some people use it as an insult and how it’s not ok to use someone’s gender as a cutdown.   L is a girl and is frighteningly accurate with a ball.  So we talked about how it’s silly to say it and the best response for her would be to say, “Of course, I throw like a girl, I AM a girl.  And I throw just as well as you (annoying little boy, I add in my head.)”

When I named the blog, I had two things in mind.  Using the insult Throws Like A Girl to mean something positive and a clever (or so I thought.  Grins.) play on the knitting aspect of the blog.  I knit by “throwing”.  I’m a girl.  etc.

I am actually quite offended by the idea that being female equals being weak or subpar.  That’s probably why I love Sarah Haskins over at current.com so much.  She is great at pointing out how the media encourages us to stay in archaic gender roles.  She points out the absurdity that yogurt will fix all our problems and that men can’t cook dinner or do laundry without the help of some special cleanser.

I always thought Throws Like A Girl would be a great name for a girl’s softball team, too.

Imagine. September 6, 2009

You’re told you have cancer.  You need life saving surgery that might disfigure you for life.  You need chemo.  You will lose your hair.  You will feel sicker than you ever have in your life.  You might die.

Imagine all this.  Except you’re a kid.

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

I’ve told this story before, but the first person to really help me come to grips with having cancer was Dawn.  Her daughter, Sam, was diagnosed with cancer roughly 8 months before I was.  Dawn was the one to tell me to get off the internet.  Not to look at the statistics.  To ask for clinical trials.  She took the time to help me when, by all rights, she could have just focused on her crisis.  But I’m finding that’s not what cancer survivors do.  We help those who come after.

So I’m helping.  Check out Dawn’s blog and the Miracle Party, a fund raising event for all childhood cancers; leukemia, neuroblastomas, aplastic anemia and a host of other -emias and -omas that children and their parents should never have to face.

Most super awesome week ever – Part 2 July 23, 2009

Helping Mama.

So Tuesday morning rolls around and still we have no power.  We actually lucked out in terms of damage but there was (and is still) a lot of clean up to do.  Taking the children aside, we talked about how when things like this happen, we come together as a family to help make our yard right again.  Got the kids on board and we cleaned up the driveway.  In fact, it was pretty cute.  We have a neat gaggle of children on our block, ages 3ish to 11ish, and they were all at each others’ houses helping with the pick up.  So, when we were done with the driveway, I let the kids go play in the basement.

Here’s where my day starts to droop.

We have one of those ancient bouncy horses in our basement and apparently the kids decided to see if they could exceed the maximum load.  Of course the horse fell over and the kids bonked their heads, but they seemed ok to me, so I finished my conversation with a neighbor and about 15 to 20 minutes later I went to check on them.  Couldn’t find the girl.  I asked her friend where she was and he told me she had gone to bed.  Mama Spidey Sense is starting to tingle now, so I wake her up and she is still crying about how much her head hurts.

So let’s take a reality check here.

1.  Tired kid after hitting head.

2.  Mom on medication who can’t drive.

3.  No power.

After checking with my friend the PA in GA (heehee) who is quickly becoming my medical interpreter, the decision is made to go to the hospital.

Luckily the grandparents were home and one took the boy while the other took the girl and I to the hospital.  L barfs in Grandma’s car.  Mama Spidey Sense is now smashing me over the head with a frying pan.  And I get to hold a barfy towel for the rest of the trip.  We made it to the ER without further incident and took L inside to get checked out.  They got us right in but there was a really long wait for the CT.  (Cat spelled CT not CAT, L likes to tell people when she tells the story.)   The nurses and doctors had L retell the story of how she hit her head a bazillion times and I will say it’s very scary when your 6 year old who usually knows her birthday cold has to be prompted.  The first tellings of the story were very confused, probably sounding a lot like I did last year on chemo.  Much too freaky.

Towards the end, after the CT, she began to perk up and start speaking her little college professor English again.  The last time she told The Story, it started off like this, “Apparently, you’re not supposed to put 3 people on a bouncy horse…”  (Apparently, she has heard her mother use the word “apparently” a  few too many times…)   The other thing that made me laugh was her insistence that the room smelled like barf.  No YOU smell like barf darling.  Because you barfed.  She just couldn’t be convinced that was what it was.

We made it home and their daddy called to see how we were and whether I was still going to Planina.

Heck ya, I’m going to Planina.  Are you kidding?

Oh, and bring some McDonalds please.

Shouldn’t we be eating out of the…

MCDONALDS PLEASE

I had pie for dinner before rehearsal.  I’m such the picture of health.  Grins.

To Be Continued

My most super awesome week ever! July 23, 2009

Ok.  Not really.  It’s been some sort of week anyway.

This weekend I was spiking fevers of 102 and 103 at night, which can be pretty scary.  It could have been a few different things but the Ockham’s razor says that it was most likely an infection to the surgical site which can lead to all sorts of problems.  SO, I had to stop taking my pain meds and not eat or drink on the off chance that the doctor had to admit me when he saw me bright and early Monday morning.  That was pretty brutal.  Luckily, all my incisions look great, so then they sent me off to the regular doctor to see if we could find some other reason.  We’re still not sure.  Could be as simple as a sinus infection or a UTI (woo).  I’m on a pretty strong antibiotic that knocks out pretty much all of the above.

On the up side, I’m down to two drains, which feels like a vacation compared to 6.  I’m pretty sure the last ones will come out Friday.  I’m working on my arm range of motion.  It’s slow but it’s coming.

This brings us to Monday.  Not a bad day all in all.  Kids went to bed.  I went to bed and watched the pretty lightning show off in the distance.  Or so I thought.  Suddenly a chilly breeze came through the window and I realized it was raining.  Really raining.  The kind I called Florida rain as a kid, when you can’t see anything except the rain.  Then the hail started and it suddenly occurred to me to start closing windows.  I turned the light on in the backyard and was just amazed at the amount of hail bouncing around outside.  It sounded like rocks pummeling the roof.  (And yes.  Both kids slept through the whole thing.)  It was the first time I’ve ever watched a hailstorm and felt like I needed to back away from the window for safety.  Then we lost power.  And there was really nothing to do but go to bed.

To Be Continued

Austin Girl Trip 2009 July 1, 2009

Austin TX is beautiful and weird.  And fricken hot.  Sort of like us girls who went there.  Grins.

Disclaimer: the good pictures were taken by my friend, the bad ones were taken by my cell phone because I was too lazy to carry the camera.

We are so well behaved now.

So much good food.  It’s a miracle I didn’t gain 10 pounds.

Why yes. Those ARE marble floors. And leather sofas...

The rental house was amazing.  We were just as happy to sit around there as we were to go out.  Must be getting old.

Franklin was here.

Because my girls love me, they drove me to the Knitter’s Nest.  Which is NOT as near Austin as one might think.

Handspun, compartment boxes and canvas bags, oh my!

Saw some music.

We thought it was pretty cool when he started playing behind his back. Then he did it for the rest of the set. Which sort of looked like he was scratching his butt.

(I can’t figure out why this picture is so small.)

I may or may not have used beer to take some of my pills during the day. (Ok. I'll come clean. They were vitamins.)

 Did I mention it was hot?  Walking back to the house, I mentioned to my friend that I thought I might be burning.  She said, No you’re not red.  And I said, No.  Not sunburning.  I think I might be actually on fire.

I already miss it.

Who Does She Think She Is? May 5, 2009

I read over at Shivaya Naturals that this movie is to be screened here in Denver.

I want to see it.