Tis the Season

Here we are, 2 days after Thanksgiving. My thoughts have been leading to my budget quite honestly. I always like to say how I'm planning ahead and almost finished shopping before Thanksgiving is here. I have to do this because I do not own a credit card. It's a plus and a minus. It's a comfort knowing on Christmas day that every gift is bought and paid for. However it takes lots of budgeting and planning. On my slim budget, I have to start about 4 months before Christmas Season.

I am proud to say that I've spoken to Santa and Santa has assured me that Gman's Christmas will go off without a hitch. Santa's only thought on Christmas at our house is how to present the Santa gifts. He'll get it figured out. He always does. Gman is so sure he's going to get a PS2 complete with Guitar Hero guitars and games that there is no guess work. I'm going to talk to Santa about leaving only practical things under the tree this year and then hiding the "goodies" until later. *snickering*

I've bought the customary books for all of the nieces and my nephew. But this year I want to give them each a canvas book bag to take with them when they go to the library. I will personalize each one in some way and I can't wait to go shopping for those things.

I know what I'm going to be giving everyone else and I'm hoping that it will all fit in to the budget along with driving home for Christmas. I haven't been home for Christmas in 5 years or more so we are looking very forward to going there and spending time with family on an actual holiday. We are also looking forward to meeting the newest addition to the family. My brother Dan and his wife and two kids are expecting the third child in the family. We don't know what the baby is going to be, so I will probably wait with Christmas shopping until I get home and know the sex of the baby.

On to teachers. It's crazy. You'd think teachers would be the easiest to shop for, however I think they are the most difficult. Most people give teachers an ornament or some other trinket. Teachers get millions of those things in their years of teaching, so I always like to give them something unique as well as useful. One year I decided to make these fizzy bath salts. I made these beautiful bags for each one to go in to and tied them with beautiful ribbon. There was a small hitch. The mix of chemicals that went in to the bath salts solidified in the huge Tupperware bowl I mixed them in. It took me 4 nights of non-stop scraping that shit in to crystals again. OH MY GOSH! Ixnay on the oapsay from now on.

So tonight I was browsing around on the computer and even though I've found some cute stuff, nothing seems just right. Plus this is the first year Gman has had a male teacher for any of his classes. So I have to take that in to consideration as well. I will think and think and eventually come up with something and if all else fails, each teacher will get the grande bottle of hand sanitizer and a jug of disinfecting wipes for their classrooms.

I finally got a different car. I'm so excited about it....kind of. It's older than the car I have now but it seems to be much more mechanically sound in comparison to the car I own now, which is blowing blue smoke thanks to the oil the engine is burning. The "new to me" car needs a new catalytic converter on it. That's an expensive repair. However, the good news is that if I take my car to U Pull It, my mechanic told me how much I should be able to get out of the car and that will almost pay for the catalytic converter. YAHOOOOOOO!!!!!! I'll still have to put out a little bit of money but not nearly what I was expecting. The seats are worn in the car but I think that some seat covers will do just fine in there when the time comes and I have some extra cash. I just hope this car holds up for a couple of years.

It's kind of crazy. The car doesn't have electric windows, seats or locks. That's going to be a big change. It also has two keys...remember when cars had 2 keys? One for the ignition and then another one for the doors and trunk? Well that's this car. haha

My mechanic asked what I was doing with the old car. I said I was going to try to just sell it for its body. No I don't think it's a prostitute. I told him that the car is seriously on its last leg, needs a new transmission, probably an overhaul, new tires and the list goes on and on. He said he'd pass on that since he doesn't want to do that much work on a used car to give to his daughter.

Anyway, so things are looking up for now. I'm looking forward to going out Christmas shopping here in the next couple of days. It should be fun. The tree is going up tomorrow and with any luck we will be able to go downtown and look at the million lights there.

For Gman's birthday I want to take him out for a nice dinner in the nice part of town and then as a 12th birthday surprise I am going to take him on a horse and buggy ride through the Old Market of Omaha. I think he will really enjoy it.

That's all for now. Signing out fat and happy after Thanksgiving leftovers.

A Request for Ideas

Last year for Christmas I wrote a book for my mother. The book consisted of happy memories from childhood. She told me she loved the book and recently I found out that she reads it about once a week. I had no idea it would mean so much.

The point behind the book was to let her know when she's alive all the cool things I remember about her. The one thing she mentioned from the book that she loves and was surprised to see in there is the 10 things I admire about her.

I want to do another book this Christmas, but I'm kind of having writer's block for things to write in there.

So here's my question to the people who read my blog.

What sort of things would you like to hear from your loved ones while you are still alive? What would mean the most to you?

I'm looking for ideas of things to write about. I'm going to really try hard to remember what I wrote in the book last Christmas and try even harder not to repeat anything I wrote in there.

Parents, what would you want to hear from your children?
Children, what would you want your parents to know before they die? What would you want to say to them?

Any ideas and help would be greatly appreciated.

Damn, my plan failed miserably.....

So I did the Buffalo Wild Wings trivia event tonight. I got there before anyone else and I was so cold from the weather I decided I wanted coffee.....with Irish Cream!! YUMMMMMMMMMMM. I waited for about 15 minutes for people to start showing up and I could feel my blood sugar getting low so I ordered an appetizer to nibble on and share when others got there.


So tomorrow is Friday, the last day of the week and a short week next week. YAY!!
I'm looking forward to having a 5 day weekend. I think perhaps I'll take the big G Christmas shopping for his dad and order my mom's Christmas gift online so it's here and ready to go. After that I'll pretty much be all done shopping. How about that?!?!?!?!?! That's what happens when you choose not to own a credit card and pay for things along the way. It takes a little extra planning but the great thing is that I can relax on Christmas Day knowing that every gift has been bought and paid for with no big credit card bills to have to pay for many months to come.

So I'm off to bed. I have a book that I'm getting ready to finish. It's called Three Cups of Tea. If you are interested in the Middle East at all, it's a great book to read about the culture in Pakistan and Afghanistan, along with learning about the rise of the Taliban and about the determination of one man to build schools and allow for the education of impoverished children, mostly girls. I just wish the book could have also included the fall of the Taliban.

Anyway, bedtime here. Time to close for now.

Special Needs Skills Always Needed

Ok....it's been awhile since I've blogged. I've been busier than a squirrel gathering nuts for winter. Lots of stuff going on.

I do believe that when my son is raised that I should have an honorary law degree at the most prestigious university in the world. My son can seriously find any loophole in any possible rule there is to be had. He's done it in school, at home, with his dad, and with countless others. Lucky for him he's so dang cute because there are days when I'd like to give him to the nearest band of gypsies taking new members.

This week he's taken 3 times the time it would take to do his homework and used that time to try to get out of his homework. Tuesday his resource teacher came and got me to tell me that he had stuffed himself in to his locker because he didn't want to take notes for science. Apparently he was mad in there but wasn't causing problems so they decided to let him stay for the remaining 40 minutes of the day. When I finished with my last class I walked up to his classroom and looked inside the locker. I approached with my most caring self to see what was bothering him. He had refused to do his work in class and refused to go to chorus; which is totally unlike him. I found out he was having girl problems! GIRL PROBLEMS....IN THE 6th GRADE FOR PETE'S SAKE!!! I talked to him until school was out and he seemed to be calmed down.

I asked his science teacher for her notes so we could make a copy of them and he could copy them. When he is in one of his moods I have to be careful about how to approach things. I allowed him to still go to the library but for a shortened amount of time after school. He loves to go to the library after school and hang with his friends along with gaining some independence. I like having time to unwind after work too so it's cool that he goes there.

Before letting him go to the library I told him I'd let him go but he had to do all of his homework plus copy the notes with no complaint before I'd agree he could walk to the library. He agreed, even though he didn't want to. He'd agree to anything as long as he could go to the library.

When he got back he did all of his homework without complaint........until I brought up the notes. His response to me telling him he needs to copy the notes he didn't do in class is that I made a copy of them so he really doesn't need to copy them because there is already a copy there. My simple reply was, "Nice try. Now go to your room and copy those notes."

Seriously, 5 hours later he was finally finished copying down 2 pages, front only, of notes for science. EGADS!!! At the end of the night he was whining and crying that he was sooooooooooooooooooooooo lonely and needed company and a shower and a snack and a hug and all the things he usually enjoys. However I told him that when his homework was finished he could have all those things as long as he was done at a reasonable time.

So he brought me his notes, and he's a smart one. He had copied every other fact down, thinking I wouldn't check them. When I noticed and stated that he missed some very important stuff, his shoulders slumped because he knew he'd been busted. He was sent back to his room to finish the notes and began wailing in utter agony. Finally at 11:00 p.m. the notes were completed to my satisfaction and he was allowed to go to bed. He wasn't even hungry by that time, just exhausted. I snuggled with him for a little bit then left him to sleep.

Today his teacher caught me and told me that it must have worked because there was more of the same to do. I had told her the other day he was up until 11:00 P.M. getting them done. She told me he copied every note perfectly and with no mistakes and no complaints. We both smiled at each other knowingly and agreed that it must have worked, at least for the time being. Hahaha. That kid is something else. He constantly keeps me on my toes.

Then we got to school and I joined my 3rd graders for reading\spelling class. They had been writing story leads all week (like the first sentence of a story and that sentence is supposed to catch the reader's attention). It's been a blast. I love writing and I love helping teach writing. I try to make it fun for the kids and so does their teacher and the other helper besides me. So the leads were finished yesterday and today they were all on 3 sheets of paper. The kids were told they had to pick out their very favorite story lead and circle that one so they can start on a story with that lead tomorrow. One of the boys said, "What if I don't like any of them?" I piped up and said, "Well Caden, if that happens then I'll pick one for you and I already know which one it is!!" He was being a brat so I decided to be a brat too. haha. So of course he asked which one and I said, "It's the one that says, I love my best friend _________________ because she is sweet and kind." Well everyone erupted in to giggles including him, but then he decided that's the one he wants to use about his "girlfriend". We all cracked up laughing at him and the entire class chuckled about his reaction for at least 2 minutes.

I really think all the kids really enjoy writing class even though they would never admit it. It's a very creative class and I love to read their stories. They know that so they show me a lot of the stories they write.

Also, in my school they do a Christmas and winter craft night. Several staff members, including myself, are on a committee to plan this night. I have one craft I made up and there's one craft that was kind of forced upon me. Both are going to be just fine. I was figuring out how much ribbon I was going to need for these necklaces that the kids will be making. Well I have 112 plastic M&M's (this is the project I did not pick), all the beads I will need but I was figuring out the other day how much ribbon I was going to need. So I figured, 112 M&M's and each necklace will need about 21 inches of ribbon to complete the necklace. 112x21=2352. So I wrote down 2352 feet instead of inches! OOOOOPS!!! Can you see where I'm going with this? So the head of the committee went out shopping for stuff last night and asked me this morning about this number. I said, "OH MY!! You're right, I don't know what I was thinking!!!" She chuckled and said, "I think you gave me inches instead of feet." Of course I felt really stupid and then started laughing...we laughed and laughed and then when I caught my breath I said, "Now do you see why I teach special ed? I'd never make it as a regular ed math teacher!" We laughed even harder and both had smiles on our faces to start the day. Now the mistake has been fixed and I am officially ready for craft night on December 5. It's a ton of people that come for crafts but it's so fun!! I can't wait.

I hope all have a good night.

Dipping My Toes In

Having been out of the dating world for such a long time, I find that dipping my toes back in the dating pool and getting serious about perhaps finding a new relationship after so many years has proven to be an interesting experience.

After the end of my latest relationship, which was nearly 4 years ago, I made the decision to do lots and lots of work on myself. I discovered that the only commonality between all of my breakups was me. I needed to figure out why I chose the men I did for myself.

At first I wanted to get right back on the dating wagon, mostly so I could have some affirmations that I was still attractive and loveable. However, at some point I realized that the only way I would be attractive and loveable was to find a way to find myself attractive and loveable. That step in my life has been the most important and biggest turning point since becoming an adult.

Once the commitment was made that self-discovery was not only wanted but imperative for my happiness, the steps to improving the life journey for myself became a winding, fascinating path of so many different branches of what humanity means.

At some point in this journey I became disinterested in dating or any kind of romantic or sexual contact with men outside of platonic friendship. I paid attention to friends in happy marriages and noted some of the similarities they had, the traits their husbands possessed, and the things I found I might want for myself when I decided I was ready to start dating again.

Here I am, just about 4 years later and I find myself longing for companionship now. The nice thing is that since I am confident in myself and tell myself that I deserve nothing less than what I want, it's so much more difficult to settle for the bullshit that so many men deal to women. It's funny, because all too late the man will realize what he's lost and come groveling. What an enlightening experience to look at a man you once really cared about and wonder why you settled. I'm sure men do the same.

In the past year of dating experiences I've met several men. Some were good men, some were turds, some were clueless, some were over-aware. However, none of them were right for me.

I've pretty much given up on the process of online dating simply because it's a process that I have begun to despise. I've found that it's really difficult to maintain any kind of healthy boundaries, open up to each other far too fast and create a false sense of intimacy. In online dating I also believe there is the "Kid in the Candy Store" syndrome. People are judged solely on their picture about 90% of the time. I'm just as guilty of that as any man is of this phenomenon.

Lately I've gone back to the "traditional" way of meeting people. Out on walks, or bike rides, or the grocery store, or through friends of my son. My dating life has slowed way down from what it would be if I were online. However, I find it's so much more satisfying to have a real-life conversation where you don't lose so much in the translation of the written word.

Recently a dear friend of mine broke off a 5 year relationship and she decided she wanted to start up a group of people who could just hang out and do fun things together without the stigma of it being a "singles" group yet you don't have to go it alone out there. Several of us have known each other for many years, but several new people joined the group and it has been such a great experience. The women are outstanding women and the men from what I've seen are all pretty good eggs.

Anyway, I really look forward to getting to know the new people even better. It has been an enlightening experience finally getting to know some guys I would probably never talk to otherwise for various reasons, mostly my own insecurities.

We all get together every few weeks for board games and what a great way it is to get to know other people.

Ahhh an extra hour

I love when the time goes back to standard time in the fall. It just doesn't seem to be as difficult to get used to as when the time jumps ahead. I feel refreshed and ready to face the day right now.

Gregory came in this morning and wanted to wrestle. I don't know why his dad won't wrestle with him to get some of that out of him but he won't so I get to. The only thing is that he's just about matched me in strength at the age of 11. I think I've taught him to fight all too well. He took one whack at me and put me out of commission for about 5 minutes this morning. He felt horrible and I lamented that next time I won't teach him how to slap so well. I've taught him some pressure points, how to slap and where to punch so it will count. Punching is strictly off limits though.

Most of the time wrestling matches become fits of tickling and giggling so we both just sit there and laugh afterward. Today we played bloody knuckles and slaps. I taught him some new strategies. When that was done I was in the supine position and he wanted to arm wrestle. An old canoeing injury in my right arm got my instant, direct and undivided attention as soon as I braced to wrestle him. I didn't break that arm when I injured it but I did major damage to it considering it was the color of red grapes from my elbow almost to my wrist for about a month and then varying rainbow colors as it healed. I don't know what's going on in there now but it's not good. I guess I'll have to break down and go see the doctor about it if the pain persists. I'm surprised that it's back. Thankfully it's not as bad as it was when the canoe accident first happened.

Today I am going for another walk with a friend, then G and I will be going to the grocery store to plan out meals for an upcoming Boyscouts camping trip where he has to be the cook, make dinner and make sure he gets his homework done. I also need to get my room cleaned. It's hideous.

I bought a new scale last night and I hate it. I liked the weight the other scale showed me much better. It must surely be wrong. LOL. That's what I'll tell myself.

Anyway, I need to go hang some clothes up. Happy Sunday!

Halloween Hangover

We made it through Halloween just fine. The celebrating kicked off with a Halloween parade at work\school. It's one of my favorite holidays because I love to see how creative the costumes are each year.
While in reading\writing class one of my students asked what I was dressing up as. I told him I was going to be a big, tall, mean, scary teacher that growls. The eyes of the collective group grew bigger for a split second then they all burst out laughing. I said, "Ok, fine I'm not dressing up NOW." They laughed more. I love third graders.

Anyway, the school saves costumes from year to year for students who either forget or don't have the money to buy a costume for Halloween. When the helper lady came in to our classroom to see if anyone in there needed a costume, Caden raises his hand and says, "Hey can you see what you can find in there for Ms. C? Being the quick witted woman she is, she said, "I'll see what I can throw together for her." That kid cracks me up.

One of my students didn't have a costume so I let him borrow one of Gman's old costumes, which happens to be an Elvis wig, sparkly cape and shirt that I spent hours and hours making a couple of years ago. It made me really happy to be able to let someone else borrow the costume because of all the work that was put in to it.
Here's a pic of Gman when he wore it.


The parade immediately went in to the end of the day Halloween parties for the kids. They all seemed to have a blast and I had fun getting pictures of the SPED kids.

After work I had a couple of hours of down time while Gman went trick or treating with his dad, step-mom and little brother. I took advantage of that time and took a little nap. Once he got home, we went out to start trick or treating. I started talking with the lady across the street and he asked if he could go down the block and start trick or treating. While he was out he ran in to one of his little friends who he doesn't get to see very often anymore since the friend is in middle school this year. They wanted to trick or treat together up and down the blocks close to here. *sigh* I wanted to take him but even more, I want him to have buddies he can do things with and he doesn't have many buddies so I let them go together with the stipulation that he needed to take his cell phone, answer it when I called to check in every 15 minutes and told him he needed to be home before 8:30 p.m. His friend said, "My mom said I can stay out until 9:00 p.m. can he stay out until that time?" Well the friend is pretty responsible so I said it would be fine. Strangely enough Gman was home shortly after 8:30 p.m. and that made me happy. We could go trick or treat for a half hour together. YAY! We went to a few houses and had a nice time doing that.

We came home, ordered pizza (which ended up taking nearly 3 hours to show up....but that's another blog) and then sunk happily in to bed. It was nice not to have to be anywhere this morning until 11.

This morning I dropped Gman off at ballroom lessons and met a friend at the nearby park for a walk. It was so amazingly beautiful that it almost felt like I was in heaven for a little while. The fall colors are amazing this year. I need to remember to take my camera on the walk tomorrow. On our way back, we found 2 checks made out to some lady who was obviously going to be missing a nice chunk of change when she got home. I did a little sleuth work, found a phone number through directory assistance and called them to let them know the checks were in good hands. I was really hoping for permission to sign them and use them but no such luck. haha. The happy lady came and claimed her checks less than an hour later and thanked me profusely. It feels good to do good. Use your powers for good, not evil...it's good karma.

Gman and I were going to go to a movie tonight but when I checked the listings for tonight, I realized the movie was only showing in the afternoons, so we had to put our plans on hold until tomorrow. However we did do some shopping and went out to dinner together.

I needed a new scale in the worst way. My old scale is not only analog but it's nearing 20 years old if it's not 20 years old. I don't remember exactly when I bought it for my hope chest. Remember hope chests girls? Mine was loaded when I moved out. I purchased a nice digital scale and about had a stroke when I weighed myself tonight. Damn I had no idea I weighed THAT much. Criminy! The store I went to was having some awesome sales. I found a much needed fall coat, a scarf, hat and mittens that I could wear in the fall and the winter while out at recess duty. I also found some nicer walking pants for the walks. Capris yoga pants aren't going to cut it much longer.

I looked for something sexy to wear out next Friday night to impress the hottie cop since he's only ever seen me in either my workout clothes and a ponytail, my old security guard uniform or my second job work clothes which are SO not flattering. If he likes me in that stuff he'll LOVE me when I'm dressed nicely. I didn't have any luck though. I thought all the clothes were ugly in there so I'll have to look somewhere else and see what I can find. I do have some nice standbys but it's nice to get something new once in awhile.

So here I sit, blogging when I should be cleaning and hoping the cleaning fairy comes to visit sometime soon. It wouldn't be so hard to clean everything, it's just a matter of getting started. *sigh*

I hope all are having a wonderful weekend so far. I know I am. Tomorrow is going to be a busy but fun-filled day. We will be out enjoying the weather to its fullest potential. I can't believe it's in the 70's in November!!