Decorating From Scratch

We have started over many times over the past 11 months.  When all your worldy shit burns up, you get used to starting over.  We have started over with pets, for example.  We are on our 3rd hamster, and now have accumulated 2 cats and a killer albino bunny.  We are talking fencing in the yard and getting a couple Beagle puppies, but that is a year away or so at least.

We have also started over with clothing, computers, kitchen stuff, collectibles, art and furniture.  It's the exhaustive list that never seems to be done:  we ran out of money before we replaced half of it, so now we are just accumulating stuff as we go.

One thing I didn't anticipate was decorating for the holidays.  We had just bought a new Christmas tree last year, along with a butt load of decorations, which of course, burnt up a month after Christmas, along with all of our new presents and everything else we owned.  So, we had nothing to get out to decorate the new house.  Thank God for moms, though, and grandmas who come to the rescue.

Mom gave me a whole box of Grandma McCoy's home-made decorations for the tree, so we had to buy a new one.  Son #2 insisted on a white tree, so that's what we got.   It goes very well with the navy blue and pearl decorations, and as soon as we buy the right kind of lights for the tree, it will be quite stunning. 

But dammit, I miss my old decorations that I had been accumulating over the years:  the ornaments with the boys' baby pics; the "play that funky music, white lamb" stuffed lamb I bought at a craft fair; and my Santa doll that i got on my first birthday that STILL played music. 

So, once again, as I WAA WAA WAA about SHIT, life goes on.  Life will always plug along, and occasionally drop those memories that make you both feel whole and sad at the same time. And in the meatime, we decorate the house from scratch and begin to make brand new rocking-chair memories.

Fall in 3D

Photoshop is my friend. I resized all these images to fit in an easily downloadable file.

Morning After Thanks

I'm thankful for my solid, green poop.  Don't know how the red Sangria or the blonde turkey could turn it green, but I'm thankful for it nonetheless.

And I'm thankful that I have advertised my love for scatological functions in previous Thresholds.  But in case you missed it and are just now catching up on this third journey, here is a refresher course from freedictionary.com:


scatological
Also found in: Medical, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia 0.04 sec.
sca·tol·o·gy (sk-tl-j, sk-)
n. pl. sca·tol·o·gies
1. The study of fecal excrement, as in medicine, paleontology, or biology.
2.
a. An obsession with excrement or excretory functions.
b. The psychiatric study of such an obsession.
3. Obscene language or literature, especially that dealing pruriently or humorously with excrement and excretory functions.

See defintion number 3.

The New Cast and Cutting

So I have an editor who admitted to being a relapsed cutter in a public blog. 

I also have a beginning photographer who was up half the night after his mother was hauled away for being abusive to her drunk husband.

I also have another editor who is in counseling because her step-dad had an affair.

I had two students cry during newspaper Burning Issues discussion, and said-cutter ran out of room after declaring her hate for her brain medications.

I have students who didn't want to go to their family Thanksgiving dinners because they get ugly.  I have students who would rather be eating school lunch than going home.  I have special education students with great needs, largely going unmet in my classroom.

But personally, I have much to be thankful for.  Making Fred the turkey tomorrow.  That oughtta make a good story.

Procrastination as a Virtue

I think I put the "pro" in procrastination.  I'm an expert at it now...used to be pretty good, but I've refined it into an art now.  We are 4 weeks into the term, and I have yet to check a paper or get the grade book set up on the computer.  One of my annual professional development goals this year is to implement that damn gradebook "with fidelity" which means having it current up to 2 weeks. 

I failz.  Big.  My kids are being patient, but they deserve feedback in a timely manner.  My only excuse is I can't seem to rub two brain cells together to get 'er done.  As usual, my lesson plans are motivational and flawless by now, but the stacks of papers breed on their own and have turned into one gargantuan pile that I can't seem to attack.

Instead, I play now on plurk, facebook, gmail, skype and youtube.  I used to think it was bad when I'd spend 5 hours on this social networking addiction, but now I can play all day long...clicking between tabs and windows and spreading the joy joy joy. 

So, I am going to embrace procrastination today as my friend -- a friend who keeps my brain from harm.  This virtuous friend will eventually allow me the brain power to attack that pile of papers -- especially when grades are due tomorrow. 

ACK and uff-duh and fuck my life.  Time to get grading, checking and marking purple marks all over 11 assignments times 36 kids.  If I poop enough purple I will have accomplished my goal -- albeit without fidelity and flying in the face of all that I know about being a Master Teacher. 

So, I ask the Goddess and Sister Procrastination to release me from your web and allow me the brain cells to survive the day. 

Obligatory Update

Steakboy is proud of me, I think.  I can do shit now;  I have learned.

I am well into my fifth year of this journalism gig, and I have to say that I am very good at teaching the basics of Photoshop and InDesign.  That is, if my technology ever cooperates with me; this week the mother board went out on my brand-new teacher laptop and I had to use a very awkward set-up in order to teach. 

There are still many things I cannot do, like make a consistent box around something or wrap text around a photo.  As a matter of fact, it took me 5 minutes to remember what "text wrap" was called.  I can't seem to size an ad in Photoshop and make it retain its sizing in InDesign.  I still supervise more than I have hands-on time, which makes it hard to internalize and reach automaticity with many of these things.

But I can edit a photo and repair a photo and create an illustration fairly well.  I need to tackle Illustrator next, and eventually Dreamweaver -- then I will have mastered the evil Adobe Creative Suite software package -- the nemesis that haunts my dreams to this day. 

When one looks at my resume' one sees a 5 to 7 year pattern of switching careers.  Not just jobs, but careers.  I've been a traditional English teacher, an alternative educator, a sex educator, a grants writer and a philanthropist, to name a few.  This journalism thing has been fun, but I am getting the proverbial "itch.

In scratching said itch, I feel a career switch.  (rhyme unintentional)  I long to get that doctorate degree in Sexology.  I feel a pull to help parents talk with their sexually active teens and to help people live healthy relationship models.

How to get from point A to point B is where this journey lies. 

Grandma McCoy & Gingivitis

Alzheimer's is a nasty disease. My Grandmother McCoy was the sweetest woman on the planet until the age of 85, when it took over and made her threaten to beat up her own daughter. Her body finally caught up to her brain...and she died yesterday morning. I've had the sads for 26 hours now, and it has further been complicated with a diagnosis of a cavity AND gum disease from the dentist this morning.

This is my first cavity, and the loyal reader will remember the cracked tooth. (Yeah, I waited a whole two days to begin part three. I've discovered I need this blog, and its' associated audience, to assist my random brain in sorting things out.) She, the dentist, scheduled me in next Wednesday to fill the tooth, which will as a result fix the chip. The rest of the story involves words like "planing" and "insurance doesn't cover."

So it's been a shitty coupla days. But Three is my favorite number, and you gotta start somewhere. Only problem is now I gotta decide if I wanna quit smoking and please the dentist, or keep smoking and please myself as I feel as if I've avoided Alzheimer's by taking my fate in my own hands.