One Time Poet

Shutterfly Plug

2010-11-20T20:27:00.002-05:00

This blog post is brought you by Shutterfly - perhaps the most awesome photo related site on the web. We use Shutterfly to host all of Parker's pictures. We created a password protected cite so that our family - namely her Grandparents - can order whatever they want from the shots we took.

That was really the first reason we started with them. Then we realized all the cool stuff you can do. Their photo cards are SUPER-EASY to make and edit. We've used them for birth announcements and holiday cards. We ordered some big collage prints in Parker's early days to capture just how much she was changing, and now all the Grandparents get a Parker themed calendar for Christmas (sorry future cousins - we call dibs).

In a word, or really several - they are great. And best of all, they are running a promotion where if you write a blog about your Shuttefly uses, you get free stuff. Check out the links below and be sure to visit their website.

Christmas cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards

· holiday cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

· Christmas photo cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery

· photo albums to http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-books/simple-path

· photo mugs to http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-gifts/photo-mugs

· birthday party cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/birthday-cards-stationery

· Choose your own card/invitation and URL from our Cards & Stationerypage

Am I Shameless

2010-11-15T23:04:00.001-05:00

Yes.

This is my first blog post in months, and it is mostly solely to earn free Christmas Cards. Thank you corporate America for killing my soul.

http://bit.ly/sfly2010 - Click here to learn how you too can get free Shutterfly Cards.

Note - I do really love Shutterfly. We use them for everything.

Where was I?

2010-02-13T21:47:00.002-05:00

Wed. 2/10 - Barn burner; pep band ensured win.

Thurs. 2/11 - More basketball; more tired; less pep.

Fri. 2/12 - Real teachers just do it, duh.

Sat. 2/13 - Parker loves her grandparents; I nap.

Tuesday 2/9

2010-02-09T19:35:00.001-05:00

Snow Day, but not for Suellen.

Note - If I could some how make a smilely that looked like it was saying "Ha Ha", I would post that as well.

Monday 2/8 in six words

2010-02-08T21:05:00.000-05:00

Brer Rabbit would beat Beowulf, barely.

New attempt at blogging begins again?!?

2010-02-07T16:39:00.002-05:00

So the other day, I read this article on NPR.org about a book of 6-word autobiographies. I haven't read the book, but some of the excerpted ones were pretty cool, and since seeing the story, I've been trying to mentally sum up each day in six words. Here are my entries for this weekend.

Sat 2/6 - Saw many houses; please buy ours.

Sun 2/7 - Sitting on couch until big game.

Pretty exciting life huh? Not really.

Regardless, I think it's a cool writing exercise to try.

And...if you care about:

a. writing

b. me

c. all of the above

then you might be interested in a writing workshop I'm giving Tuesday night, February 16 at 7:00 at University High School (116th St between Michigan and Towne Rd). It's part of our faculty speakers series.

How's that for a shameless plug?

Untitled Rough Draft #1

2010-01-21T21:34:00.001-05:00

It is 6:15, and I can already hear it. Grandpa’s bird song is a hard-to-miss melody of airy whistles, something that barely resembles a chirping noise, and the word ‘hey’, all compounded by the fact that he calls both of his parakeet’s JJ and consistently feels the need to personalize his morning tribute. It is summer. We are at my grandparent’s. There is no need for an alarm clock.

Enough sunlight filtering in through the yellowed curtains that I can see my way around the double bed where my mother still sleeps, past my brother’s cot and out onto the landing. In the winter, this is the only heated room on the second floor of a drafty farmhouse, but for now the breeze through the dormer window suffices for temperature control.

I pull the door shut quietly and tiptoe down the stairs as the song ends. Grandpa doesn’t see me as he shuffles out to the kitchen to finish his breakfast of Wheaties and prunes before strapping his feet into work boots and heading out to the shop and the long day ahead. I don’t notice it yet, but the signs of age are already tattooing themselves in his bones. The dark spots on his arms. The grunt as he lifts his leg to tie his boot. The imperceptible quiver of his hand as he raises the spoon.

But I am young now and think of him only as big and strong, a figure more than a person. One who rises early, leaves for the fields, comes back only to eat and maybe watch a little professional wrestling on TV before going to bed.

Grandma is much more real. A softer and quieter being. A practiced listener. She turns from the sink as I enter the kitchen and says ‘mornin’ while wiping her hands on the soft blue cotton of her housecoat. She offers to make me eggs, a rare morning treat given the terse quickness of suburban adolescence. I ask for two, but not ‘soaky’, as she calls them. At this point I’m still a food compartmentalist, someone who believes in the strict separation of toast and yolk. She pulls the fry pan out from the drawer beneath the stove and crosses the worn brown carpet to the refrigerator without another word.

The kitchen is bright with sunlight now. It is warm. Grandpa leaves the back door when he goes. I cross back past the birdcages into the living room and dial the antenna to pick up cartoons on the console television. I am happy now. Content. I don’t know that in another tens years he will slowly lose his body and mind to palsy. That in fifteen she will barely be able to walk across the rented trailer we move them into. That the January before I turn thirty, I will drive to visit them lying under a blanket of snow and break the ice off their headstone with bare hands as my own daughter sleeps in the car, never having met either of them before they died.

Instead, I think only of the smell of bacon frying and the sounds of the birds preening themselves, of the static on the television screen and the day ahead. Later that afternoon, my cousin will come over and we will kick stones along for a quarter-mile up the road to the main farm, only turning around to taunt my brother as he stands at the edge of the yard, telling him he can't come with, we are walking all the way to California.

Is Anybody Out There?

2010-01-19T20:01:00.002-05:00

In the spirit of the new year (yes it takes me until Jan. 19th to get around to 'new year' spirit), I've been thinking about ways to improve my life. Call them goals or resolutions or what-have-you, but I've been thinking of them nonetheless. And, all this thinking inevitably led me back to the goals I set at the start of 2009. I'd thought I'd reflect a bit on them before launching into another series of high aims and low ambition.

1. Lose weight. I did this. I lost 30 pounds last year, then gained 10 of it back. Hopefully this year I can net a bit more.

2. Read. It took me a bit, but I mostly accomplished this as well. Last year saw me read 20 Something Essays By 20 Something Writers, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (by Salman Rushdie), Lamb (by Christopher Moore), Everything is Illuminated (by Jonathon Safran Foer), and a host of other poems and such.

3. Make a financial plan. Ok, no real plan here. But we did make a budget we sometimes keep, and we got all our insurance/retirement ducks in a row.

4. Figure out just what we would need (and could afford) in a second home. Well, our house is on the market. We aren't looking yet - mostly because no one is really looking at us - but we do have a wish-list and a price range. And, we've been watching a bunch of House Hunters

5. Collect all my thoughts about conceiving Parker, having Parker, and now raising Parker into one coherent piece of writing instead of just keeping them in bits and pieces here and there and in my head. Yeah..no. I'm moving this one from 'year goal' to 'life goal' and we'll see how it goes. If it works, lesbian parenting is a pretty niche market so maybe I can get book deal.

6. Attend at least four arts events in the city. 75% Done. I heard Elizabeth Alexander read at Butler. We saw A Christmas Carol at IRT. And I tried to take a group of students to hear Charles Simic read, but it was cancelled so I ended up making them write their own poems and then had them read their pieces on the steps of the Carillon at Butler.

7. Find a church. I'm calling this one 75% done too. We found one we like and are in the process of talking to them about joining.

8. Write more things down. I have done this. Has it led to anything? No. I have mostly just found that I am now too busy to remember things without writing them down. But, I am giving a talk on recreational writing for the general public in February. If anyone wants to come, let me know.

9. Blog more. Three = number of blogs in 2009. I'm going with a no.

10. Take Suellen on a trip for our anniversary. Did it. We went to Chicago for 4 days. It was perfect.

11. Take a vacation with Parker. Did this too. A whole week in Leland, MI. It was more family perfection time.

12. Start playing the trumpet again. Does UHS Pep band count?

13. Go back to New Hampshire for a bit. No luck here. But there's always this summer...

Now, to start on 2010.

Don't Look Too Closely, I'm Just Acting

2009-02-23T22:10:00.003-05:00

So I've kind of sucked it up on my goals this past month. I'm still reading the book I started reading over winter break. I clearly haven't been writing, our finances are no much more settled than earlier, we have not taken a trip (thought that is a summer goal in my defense), and the only trumpet playing I've really done was at University basketball games (which isn't pretty and doesn't count). BUT, I have crossed the 20 pound mark on my weight lost quest (that goal actually began in October, so I get to count from there), and I have dreamt a good deal about what I want in a house, though sadly we can afford none of it.

Things look fairly pathetic; however, in all my insane prep work for school, I did come across some poems I wrote a few years back the last time I taught the poetry course I'm teaching right now. They both come from in-class exercises I used to do with the students, but I don't remember the exact details. The first one (which I don't really like) had something to do with a newspaper article about uncovering a slave cemetery in New York City. It made me think of "For the Union Dead" by Robert Lowell (which you'll have to read on your own time), and is a pretty poor knock off. The second, which I think is half way decent, was probably based off a homonym exercise since it involves 'pairing' and 'paring.' (Side note: I am mildly obsessed with closely related words that mean opposing things. For example, 'cleave' is like the best verb in the entire world since it can mean both "hold on to" and "force apart".)

I'm posting them both here to: a) give the impression that I've actually been writing, b) fulfill my own constant desire to obsess over poems I've already written rather than write new ones, and c) to see if anyone even still reads this blog.

Cheers!

Rebury the Dead

The cityscape will gain a few
more players soon. Bulldozers have
scratched in the street
all morning, their long arms
clawing through urban farmland
harvesting lamp poles, tilling stone. And
where do we replace the bones beneath our street
so long ago left to be awoken
this way? Who will sing their songs
under the asphalt? Who will hear their stories
pound our foot soles? Not so much

has changed

in a hundred years, in fifty years, in
four days. A ditch is still
a ditch. How many more
years until we find ourselves
unearthed in the role of progress
a lot awarded to the highest bidder.

All around the tiny burial ground
new finless fish slide by the pavement
covered with grease.

Paring

You phoned last week
to tell me about the dinner
you had six months ago. Next year
I will return your
call and we will continue down,
paring our discourse
until all that remains is the hum
and static on the line
between our gapped breaths
and unmentioned loves. It is amazing how
I haven’t seen you in years but felt
the brush of your skin (we
never touched
enough) on my face. Such absence –
two stalks set
in such a difficult pairing.

Goals check

2009-01-25T20:30:00.002-05:00

I've pretty much sucked at several of my goals so far. I have been reading more. I started a book called Heatby Bill Buford. It's a personal history about how he tried to become a chef by throwing himself into all these crazy kitchen jobs. It's quite good. I haven't done much else - save one thing - yet, and I'm blaming Jterm, which is this intensive three week course thing we do at my school that basically becomes a giant time void if you are teaching one. But I did get this note written for Facebook, which I'm counting as part of my 'collecting my thoughts' goal. And now if I post it here, it will be like it's part of my 'blog more goal too'. Yea for double duty.

Correspondence is my downfall. I suck at keeping in touch...with anyone. Facebook reminded me of this the other day when I was friended by a grade-school friend who, while she only lived down the street from me for most of high school, I never really saw past 1994 (Kim - I suck for that).

In fact, over the last few months, I've been friended by oodles of people I haven't been in contact with since college or high school or grade school or CCD in the second grade. It's been great to see what's happened to everyone. To look at where people ended up, how cute their children are, how much more fascinating than Indiana their lives have become. However, when it comes time to actually catch up with anyone, I some how get a mental block and end up sucked into a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon or looking up odd facts about C.P. Cavafy on the internet or changing the laundry or anyone of the many time-voids in my life. I hate this trend.

So, I'm writing this note with the intent of 'catching up' all of you kind enough to say hey recently. If you've wondered what's happened to me since grade school, read on. And if you have a second shout back. I'm going to try not to suck at responding.

Ch. 2 - High School

Much to my parents' chagrin (they never really got over me not going to Marian), I graduated from Thornwood High School in 1998. Overall, it was a relatively un-scathing experience. I think that I learned a fair amount, and only really managed to piss off my freshman English teacher, Mrs. McNaughton, who was convinced I was a closeted hooligan who would never learn to spell. At the end of it all, I gave a very cliched speech at graduation in which I read from Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken", a poem I now realize is grossly misinterpreted.

Ch. 3 - College

I attended Butler University in Indianapolis and vacillated between majoring in music education and English for most of my time there. After my first private trumpet instructor told me I should find an instrument I was better at (I'm paraphrasing loosely), I took stock of my options and decided that majoring in creative writing would yield endless job opportunities and riches beyond my wildest dreams. Or maybe I just liked it better. Either way, I graduated with a poetry emphasis in 2002, having met my partner Suellen by falling down in front of her during marching band practice. At least I got something good out of all those music classes after all.

Ch. 4 - Post-college

Frustrated by the lack of people wanting to hire a poet with little experience at anything, I decided to continue life as a student. That's not entirely true. Suellen was nice enough to take a crappy job in New Hampshire so that I could go to graduate school and really focus on writing. While I liked my work at the University of New Hampshire, the east coast eventually proved to be a bit too far from home - and too expensive - for us. I took an overload of courses to finish early, and after an expansive job search by Suellen, we ended up back in Indianapolis, where I began my luxurious stint as a urine drug screen collection scheduler. Jealous? You should be. Apparently studying with the man who went on to become the Poet Laureate leaves one highly qualified to say "Come in at 10 and piss in a cup". Who knew? Luckily, I started teaching night courses at the community college, and eventually landed my current job, which leads me to ...

Ch. 5 - Post-post-college, or current life

Now I teach English and creative writing at University High School, a progressive college prep school in a suburb of Indianapolis. I live with Suellen on the outskirts of Indy in a house that cannot stay warm enough this frost-bitten winter. This past September, Suellen gave birth to our daughter, Parker Alyse who keeps us very busy and very tired. I love teaching, I love my family, and yes Mrs. McNaughton, I never did learn how to spell.

So that's what's happened to me in the last 14 years. I wonder if Buffy is on..

Thursday Thirteen

2009-01-15T20:57:00.002-05:00

Hello again blog stalkers. You thought I was dead didn't you? Nope. Just busy recuperating from the holidays. Everyone wanted to see Parker, so it was quite a busy break. The transition back to school these past weeks has also been a bit hectic. I'm co-teaching an 3 week intensive Jterm class (on top of teaching refresher sessions for my AP classes). Suellen has returned to work after almost seven months off, and Parker started her 'day care' with Aunt Lauren. We've been busy with all that.

I have, however, been thinking a lot about a number of things, which is I guess is appropriate for the start of a new year. In that spirit, I've come up with 13 things I want to accomplish this year. I'd call them resolutions, but I'm not resolving to do them. They are more goals for myself.

1. Lose weight. Cliche? Yes. Too bad. I've been overweight pretty much my entire life, so I'm not looking for miracles here. Just maintaining more healthy habits and distancing myself from the heart-attack-at-40 danger zone. Suellen's family started this weight loss challenge thing in mid-October and I've lost 15 pounds since then (which I think is good considering the major eating holidays were in there). I've also begun tracking my daily caloric intake with this nifty little program for my iPod. All in all, I'm hoping this goal is attainable.

2. Read. I'm pretty sure I own more books than some small town libraries...and I've probably read less than half of them. It's hard during the school year to find time to read anything other than what I'm teaching, but I'm hoping that since we are watching less mind numbing TV now that Parker is here, I'll find more time for something I actually love to do.

3. Make a financial plan. I think Suellen and I have always been good with money. We save a bit each month, don't carry a balance on any of our credit cards, and aren't really the type of people who make big splurges. That being said, conceiving Parker was a huge cost to us, and if a second baby (and therefore bigger house) are on the horizon, we need to start working harder to achieve those goals.

...which leads to (or more appropriately stems from)...

4. Figure out just what we would need (and could afford) in a second home. This is particularly important to me right now as I sit in our frigid study typing. Clearly a more efficient furnace is high on the list. Heat pumps were not designed to handle this latest cold freeze.

5. Collect all my thoughts about conceiving Parker, having Parker, and now raising Parker into one coherent piece of writing instead of just keeping them in bits and pieces here and there and in my head.

6. Attend at least four arts events in the city. I love going to plays - even tiny obscure ones where their are only like ten people in the audience, ask Suellen - readings, performances of most kids, but we rarely ever go. Granted it is harder now that we have a baby, but I think a goal of one every three months is attainable.

7. Find a church. Now, let it be said, that I am not wholeheartedly a big fan of organized religion, but I do consider myself to be a religious and spiritual person. And, more importantly, I want Parker to have some sort of environment in which she can learn about God. This is difficult for us given that there are few churches in central Indiana that are waiting to welcome the lesbian family (and some of the ones that are, are a bit scary), but I'm fairly confident that we can find the right place for us.

8. Write more things down. Notice I did not say poems. I've kind of accepted the fact that I will probably never find the time to do the writing I once thought I would, but I at least would like to do a better job keeping record of my reflections on things, particularly now that Parker is growing up.

which does lead nicely to

9. Blog more. Fifteen days into the new year, and I'm just getting to this one. Yeah. This one might not happen.

10. Take Suellen on a trip for our anniversary. We will have been together 10 years this September, and I want to do something nice for that.

11. Take a vacation with Parker. Nothing far and nothing fancy, but I want to see the world with her, so why not start now...well maybe not in the frozen tundra of right now, but at least this summer.

12. Start playing the trumpet again. Suellen and I were fairly involved with playing a bit around town right before Parker, and I had forgotten how much I loved it. I like to reopen that creative outlet.

13. Go back to New Hampshire for a bit. While I do enjoy the fact that snow outside my window will melt before April (in NH, there was literally snow on the ground from November to April), I miss the Granite State. Moving there was a coming of age moment for me. Suellen and I never had a wedding or ceremony or anything, so moving there was kind of like our big 'life will never be the same' commitment step. I know we didn't always enjoy being so far away from home, but the time there was very meaningful for the both of us.

Ok, now I'm going to click 'Publish Post', and that will mean that someone out there will read these, and then I have to do them. We'll see how that goes.

Photo Tag

2008-12-16T07:47:00.002-05:00

Thanks Joe...I'm supposed to be grading...

The object of the picture tag is to:

1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer
2) Select the 4th picture in the folder
3) Explain the picture
4) Tag 4 people to do the same

NO CHEATING! (cropping, editing, etc!)

This is Parker's first bottle in the NICU. I am clearly struggling with the burp cloth. I look like one of those snoody waiters opening your napkin for you.

I'm tagging Krysten, Andrea, Lauren O. and Kristin K. (who's blogs I often stalk).

Proofreading humor

2008-12-14T14:27:00.002-05:00

Since I've been drowning under a deluge of grading these last few weeks (or maybe it's a month by now). There hasn't really been time for blogging, and there probably won't be for at least another week. However, I did come across this on the internet the other day, and I think it's frickin' hysterical. Of course my enjoyment of it maybe slightly skewed by the fact that I've actually read this type of paper.

The man on the left is Taylor Mali, an English teacher and award winning slam poet. the man on the right is Billy Collins, former US poet laureate, who I actually had the chance to introduce when he read at Butler.

It's a bit crude at times, but enjoy!

Untitled draft of something...

2008-11-18T21:27:00.003-05:00

So I do this quasi-performance-art-exchange-of-narratives-club-thing at school. We call ourselves the Rubber Duckies - don't ask, there isn't a story behind it - and we craft these performances for various assemblies and events for the school. Anyway, here's the piece I did last Friday.

Seven. In case you are wondering. It’s seven. The number of times I can say the Lord’s Prayer in one minute. Seven.

Why do I know this?

Because I’m stuck here. In a hallway surrounded by what appear to be very large vending machines filled with medical supplies like intubator kits and IV bags, forceps and sterile gauze, waiting. For her to be prepped for surgery. And from here it seems, I can do nothing, but watch the clock. And pray.

It’s not a big surgery. Not one of those moments from a primetime TV drama where some renegade, but likable, doctor is going to swoop in at the last second with some absolutely genius way of removing a live hand grenade from a man’s chest cavity.

No.

It’s a planned c-section. One decided on in a small room, in a calm and rational manner without threat to either the mother or my daughter.

My daughter – that’s odd to say. Don’t get me wrong, I really wanted to have kids, but to be a parent, that’s something I’m still not sure I’m ready for.

Huh.

It’s funny, you know, because here. In this hallway. Legally. Technically. She isn’t my daughter yet at all.

But here I am, trapped between triage rooms and pre-sterilized scalpels, praying. For something that isn’t even born.

Just thought I'd share it here since I'm apparently too uninspired to actually blog.

Things that have happened since my last post

2008-10-21T19:38:00.002-04:00

If you've been following Suellen's blog, you mostly know what has been happening with us, but I thought I'd throw in a few additional things that have happened to us over the last few weeks.

In no particular order....

1. I got caught up with my grading in time to write academic updates. This is actually a very big deal. I'm a big supporter of more writing yields better writing, which of course means more grading. And considering that I still had papers that were turned in when I was out with the baby, I was pretty pleased that I managed to get them all - over 500 pages - marked so that I could write my narrative comments for each of my 79 students.

2. Suellen got severe head cold, which was painful for all of us since she needed her rest and couldn't take the lead on normal nighttime baby duties on school nights (she has been extremely good at letting me sleep as much as possible when I have work the next day). Parker, thankfully, is not at risk to catch the cold since she's already receiving the anti-bodies Suellen is producing through the breast milk. Who knew? (well, actually all you blog-stalking moms probably did).

3. I got a severe head cold. No anti-bodies for me, but I did get to miss school today. Guess I should have been breast feeding. Actually, that's quite gross.

4. I managed to spill coffee all over a shelf of books, a stack of student papers, the carpet and an armchair while attempting to get up to attend to a screaming baby. Fun times.

5. I am now again woefully behind on my grading. Thank you head cold.

6. We surprised my mom by driving up to Chicago and bringing Parker to her school. She celebrated her first overnight trip by making a giant stinky green poo right in the middle of Greenwood Elementary.

7. We took Parker to get pumpkins and I carried her around in a Baby Bjorn complete with dangling orange pacifier attached to it. That brought my dorkiness to a new level.

And I think that's about it. Sleeping, grading, pooping, eating, fussing, drooling, sleeping, repeat. All of us doing all of that over and over again. That's my life. Awesome.

Friday Fill-ins

2008-09-26T21:02:00.002-04:00

1. Picking pumpkins, changing leaves, slightly frost weather and FALL BREAK are some of the things I'm most looking forward to in October.

2. Sometimes I am amazed at Parker, and at the fact that it's been 15 days and I haven't severely damaged her yet. Whew!

3. When I spent almost a year collecting urine and watching government employees and suspected drug users pee in a cup, I was convinced I'd never find a job I liked. But now I haveand that's why there is a saying, "never say never"!

4. When I'm down, I I like to either read while listening to music or watch really superfluous movies (like X-men) over and over.

5. At school is where you'll find me most often. It sucks a good deal of my time.

6. A rainy day is good for napping on the couch!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to getting up with Parker every 3 hours since I no longer have the excuse of needing to work tomorrow (there's sarcasm for you), tomorrow my plans include napping while a friend comes over to sit with Parker and going with Suellen to the grocery store and Sunday, I want to do so much grade that my hand cramps up and falls off!

13 - well 11 - Songs I've Changed the Lyrics to When Singing to Parker

2008-09-25T19:34:00.003-04:00

1. Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep Parker baby. You are tired and s'are your moms, and we all need to sleep. (to the tune of 'Lullaby and Goodnight')

2. Hush little Parker, it's time to go to sleep. Your mommy's getting crabby and she really needs some sleep. (to 'hush little baby, don't say a word)...are you noticing the sleep-related theme?

3. Uh! I don't want no chubs. A chub is a baby who has too much to eat. (TLC's 'Scrubs')

4. P Baby can you hear me? P Baby can you see me? P baby can you please go to sleep? (to 'Papa Can you Hear Me from Barbara Streisand's Yentl)

5. No wonder, you're fussy, you won't go to sleep ('No Wonder He Loves Her' also from Yentl...it was on TV last night)...I realize these are lost on you if you haven't seen Yentl, but at 10:00 when you are sleep deprived - it's hysterical!

6. All my friends wear a little diaper. Hook: Poop a little bit. Poop a little bit. Poop a little bit with me. (Low Rider)

7. Don'cha wish your baby was cute like me. (from the Pussy Cat Dolls)

8. Oops, I did it again. I pooped on myself, and cried and I screamed (Brittney Spears)

9. Baby P is not a fuser. She's just a girl who needs to e-eat right now. Because the ki-id is a chub (Billie Jean by Michael Jackson)

10. Because I'm Chubs. I'm Chubs. You know it! (Either 'Bad' by Michael Jackson, or 'Fat' by Weird Al - either is appropriate)...no, I'm not trying to give her an eating disorder.

11. My baby don't mess around because she wants to eat and this I know fo sure. (whatever that Outkast song was)

.......and I know I've done way more, but I've had to get up too many times while writing this post to think of them.

Thirteen Stories from Parker's First Week

2008-09-18T21:24:00.002-04:00

Our little baby P is already one week old. She's growing up so fast (tear!). Well, maybe not that fast, but Suellen's doctor did joke that she'll be walking by the end of the week since she's so friggin' huge. Any way, here are 13 little P stories from her first week of life.

1. Parker was so big after her birth that the NICU nurses had to hunt around for size 1 diapers just to cover her big 'ole booty.

2. She's as big on the top as she is on the bottom. The standard issue hospital hats were too small as well, so Parker got a funky little knitted hat to keep her noggin warm.

3. For the first few days, Parker would only open her eyes in the presence of her uncles. If Eric or Stu wasn't there, we weren't getting any eye open time.

4. We purchased this cute little outfit with matching hat, onsie, mittens, booties, the whole shabang to take her home in. When we dressed her up on Monday and finally put the hat on, she gave Suellen and I the most disgusted look ever. It was like "What the hell is this crap?" She is totally our daughter.

5. On two separate occasions, Parker has put her hand to her mouth, removed her pacifier and held it up in the air. I know that's really random movement, but I like to thing it's the beginnings of genius.

6. Keeping with the hands theme, occasionally P will put her pinky finger up to her mouth in a very Dr. Evil way.

7. She also randomly throws her arms up above her head. We can't decide whether she's thinking "Hallejuah" or "Touch Down". Of course if she's really a Bears fan, it's probably both simultaneously.

8. The first time we took her into the nursery was to change her diaper. I was talking to her and narrating all the decorating we'd done, and as soon as I said something about the cute frog cover on her changing table, she peed all over it.

9. After the pee incident, we put her in her bouncy seat. About an hour later, she pooped all over that. When we took her into the nursery to clean her up, she got poop all over the changing table. Within six hours of being home, we were already on our last changing table cover!

10. She goes from sleeping to ravenously hungry in about 60 seconds. When she gets frustrated, she face plants into your sternum. Suellen and I call this 'looking for the mythical 3rd boob'. Clearly that's where all the milk is.

11. In fact, she was so hungry the other day, that as I was rubbing her cheek, she turned and latched on to my finger. She's got some really suction going on because I had to use my other hand to pry her off.

12. She makes the most horrid smelling farts ever. Ever.

13. I don't know if i's gas or what, but when you talk about her and you say something stupid, she lifts her one eyebrow at you. It's like she's already got a BS detector. You go P.

Wordless Wednesday Parker Pics

2008-09-17T09:19:00.004-04:00

Update

2008-09-14T14:52:00.002-04:00

Thank you to all for the congrats and good thoughts.

Parker is in our room now and doing fine. She was released from the NICU around 2:00 pm yesterday. The final diagnosis was transient tachypnea of the newborn - not pneumonia - it's a wet lung disease that happens in about 1% of babies, most commonly in c-sections (which she was).

We had a fairly decent first night. Parker is a champion sleeper, partly because she's still recovering from all of the uncomfortableness of tubes. Of course we completely flipped out with every noise she made; so at about 5:00 am we finally sent her to the nursery so we could sleep. We didn't want to do it sooner because we were just thrilled to have her.

Both Mommy and baby will be discharged tomorrow, and we're glad will get a few days here with her to work out all the feeding issues. Suellen is trying to nurse and we are making slow progress. I'll spare you the details.

The wireless at the hospital won't let me post pictures for some reason, but I'll try to get them up soon.

Thanks to all who have called, texted, visited and sent love. We appreciate it!

Introducing...

2008-09-12T16:51:00.004-04:00

Parker Alyse LaMagdeleine Sharp
Born Thursday, Sept. 11 at 9:16 pm
9lbs 11oz, 21 inches

She has curly reddish brown hair (a lot like Suellen's) and hasn't opened her eyes yet so I don't know the color. Parker was delviered by c-section. It was not an emergency, but Suellen's labor was not progressing after 14 hours, and Parker is moose, so the doctor didn't want to mess around. Parker was taken from delivery to the NICU because her oxygen levels were low. She was screaming when they pulled her out, so she most like inhaled a bit of fluid. She was started on oxygen through a CPAP (or something close to that, it's the tubes you see in her nose in the one photo). She was weened off the CPAP this morning and is being monitored without. All seems to be well, but she has to stay in the NICU until at least Saturday night. We'll know more then.

Thanks for all the good thoughts. Keep them coming!

Alicia, Suellen and Parker

Current Problem

2008-09-05T08:58:00.002-04:00

We need to have this baby. I cannot focus.

I do okay when I'm actually talking and teaching during class, but when I ask a question, and a student starts to answer, and I should be listening, here's what happens in my head:

babybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybaby.

Then they finish, and I say 'OK, and what do you think?' pointing to yet another child and beginning the process again.

TGIF

2008-08-29T15:04:00.003-04:00

It's been the world's most hectic week. Monday, we took the cats to the vet because they had been puking for about a week. Now they had stopped by Monday, but we still thought it warranted an appointment. The vet told us it was probably because we had recently changed food. She said we should switch back. Well, we aren't switching back. At least not just yet since apparently they've adjusted.

Anyway, I caught the stomach bug on Tuesday and spent all night in bed. Wednesday, I managed to pull myself out of bed and come to school because I felt I really needed to be here for Back to School Night. I've been secretly hoping that Suellen would go into labor prior to Back to School so I wouldn't have to attend, but no such luck. It went well, but it was a long night.

Last night was an equally long night, but for better reasons. I got offered a free seat in the 15th row on the 50 yard line at the Colts game. Now, the game pretty much sucked because it was the preseason, and I don't even really like the Colts but the new stadium is pretty awesome, and the seats were amazing so I couldn't pass it up. If you are thinking I'm horrible for leaving Suellen alone, she wasn't alone. She got to hang out with Amy, and she even gave me permission to go; so, I'm choosing to not feel guilty about it.

And now I'm tired and very thankful that it's the end of the day.

Very Quick Update

2008-08-23T11:25:00.003-04:00

Suellen is 36.5 weeks along.

The baby already weighs 8lbs 10oz.

This is causing Suellen's back to spasm repeatedly.

I am now fully into a back to school head cold.

Both our cats are stressing out and puking non-stop.

In an hour and half the women doing our adoption home study is coming to decide whether or not I can have legal rights to the baby that's already going to live here anyway.

Awesome!

Friday Fill Ins

2008-08-22T07:40:00.002-04:00

1. Dancing to the radio while being completely goofy because I haven't slept in 4 days makes me happy.

2. The last time I went to the doctor with Suellen I nearly fainted. At 36 weeks our baby weighs 8lbs 10oz!

3. When I drive I sing to stay awake, and I swear...a lot.

4. I saw zero moose standing anywhere in New Hampshire. For the whole year we were there, everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - said we'd see moose. We didn't see any the whole time. We even spent our last night there in the car in the woods waiting and nothing! Last night Suellen and I found this particularly funny since now she is apparently going to birth a moose.

5. Give me lower gas prices, give me more time to read and write , give me a good night's sleep.

6. Next week I am looking forward to potentially having the world's largest baby.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to cleaning in preparation for our adoption home study, tomorrow my plans include our adoption home study and Sunday, I want to nap and grade and prepare to have the world's largest baby!

Confession

2008-08-20T21:26:00.003-04:00

I've been in a funk lately. If I've seen you lately, I've probably expressed my extreme desire for Suellen to have this baby soon since neither of us has been sleeping now that she's entered the uber-pregnant stage. That, combined with the start of school, has left me really drained. We did go to the doctor today (visit 2 of 3 this week) and Suellen got some pain meds for her lower back spasms so hopefully I'll get some sleep this evening.

But lack of sleep is not what's bumming me out.

I'm pissed because I can't find this poem I wrote when my cousin died. I've been looking for it ever since Kate passed away for no real reason other than I just feel the need to have it. But, it appears to be no where. In searching for it, I re-read a bunch of stuff I'd written in grad school. Then I got more pissed because: A. I haven't written much of anything since grad school, and B. I haven't been able to really access the feelings I'm having lately because of it.

And now I can tell you that pain meds are not solving our sleep problem. Better go try to help.

Thirteen observations about the start of school

2008-08-14T19:52:00.004-04:00

Yes...we started school this week. So, here it goes...

1. When I drink a lot of coffee, I pee a lot. I wasn't really drinking coffee over the summer because I was reasonably well rested and the coffee isn't good for my heart. Now that I'm back to school, my trusty cup of Joe is constantly by my side. We were only about 3 hours into the first day when Amy asked if I was going to continue peeing every 5 minutes. Yes. I apparently am.

2. It is dark at 5:45 in the morning. I'm sad about returning to the time of year when it is dark when I go to school and dark when I come home. At least there is still sun for the evening commute right now.

3. It has been over a year since we moved into our new $8 million building, and the roof still leaks when it rains. Right over my desk! How's that for symbolism!

4. I need to control my potty mouth. Now, I do teach in a pretty relaxed environment, and I do teach mostly upperclassmen, but I need to reign it in. It's not like 'driving in Chicago traffic swearing' (which if you've ever ridden with me, you understand) but it's creeping there.

5. Teaching multiple sections of the same class is kind of boring. Now, I am finally in a position of luxury this year in that I am actually teaching some of the same classes twice a day (instead of having to make a completely separate plan for EVERY PERIOD). I'm probably sniffing a gift fish here, but I'm already sick of saying the same things.

6. I can actually get a fair amount of work done at work. I'm trying to keep control of my work better so that I don't get swamped this year and so that I spend more time at home with our family. I guess in previous years, I spent more time than I thought goofing off. Granted, I'm also not on 5000 committees for the first time in a long time, but I'm actually being productive. Who would have thunk it?

7. Though I am getting a lot done, I have serious ADD. I can't seem to do something for more than 10 minutes without needing to get up and do something else. I guess its good that I have to pee so often.

8. I heart Amy Pfanschmidt. She may hate all our clapping and crazy scheduling, but I'm glad she's at University, even if she did volunteer to sponsor the prom and quit all in the same faculty meeting.

9. Our building is either freezing cold or smelling like feet. I wish they had built it with windows that could open.

10. Seventy-five new students in a school of two hundred is a large amount. I used to be able to recognize everyone's face pretty much in the first week. That's not going to happen this year.

11. Having your baby shower announced at the opening assembly is odd. I turned red. I'm not sure I've done that very often before.

12. Witty sarcasm will save anything. That's about it for that one.

13. My school community is really really good at taking care of what matters. If you haven't heard, one of our recent graduates passed away last week. It was hard on a lot of us, but the community really came together, and it's good to get back to a sense of normalcy again.

Friday Fill-ins

2008-08-08T16:25:00.002-04:00

1. You know you're old when sleeping in 'late' means 8:30.

2. My heart is divided between my devotion to my family and wanting to do a good job at work.

3. A good night's sleep is what I need RIGHT NOW!

4. I have felt the wind on my face in the Alps, I have known the depths of the deep end of pool of the Willowbrook Swim Club.

5. Gah, won't these people stop with the forms. Adoption is a lot of paperwork

6. Sleep as soon as you can!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to free pizza for teachers, tomorrow my plans include errands and schoolwork and Sunday, I want to eat casserole at the UHS pitch-in!

One Word Distraction

2008-08-06T16:57:00.002-04:00

It has been a hard day for me and my UHS family. I'm trying to keep my mind off of things and working on a plethora of distractions.

USING ONLY ONE WORD.....
1. Where is your cell phone? pocket
2. Your significant other? preggo
3. Your hair? blonde
4. Your mother? worried
5. Your father? sick
6. Your favorite thing? books
7. Your dreams last night? none
8. Your favorite drink? diet
9. Your dream/goal? stability
10. What room you are in? living
11. Your hobby? sleep
12. Your fear? spiders
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? basement
14. Where were you last night? band
15. Something that you aren't? fit
16. Muffins? no
17. Wish list item? house
18. Where you grew up? 'hood
19. Last thing you did? facebook
20. What are you wearing? jeans
21. Your TV? on
22. Your pets? lathargic
23. Friends? amazing
24. Your life? tiring
25. Your mood? sad
26. Missing someone? yes
27. Your car? dirty
28. Something you're not wearing? dress
29. Your favorite store? Borders
32. Your favorite color? blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? Fogo
34. Last time you cried? today

A) Four places that I go to over and over: school, home, Kroger, gas
B) Four people who email me regularly: Amy, Carolyn, Vicky, Facebook
C) My favorite four places to eat: Palomino, Bistro, Aesop's, Bucca
D) Four places I would like to go right now: bed, Leeland, East, England
E) Four TV shows I watch all the time? Scrubs, Runway, Shear, Will

What You Will...

2008-08-03T15:43:00.003-04:00

Adapting Twelfth Night for high schoolers in two days when you were supposed to have spent the summer on it is hard.

'Nuff said.

"If music be the food of love, play on!"

Friday Fill-ins

2008-08-01T13:32:00.002-04:00

1. If I could travel back in time, I'd go to the late 50s and early 60s, spend sometime in New York at the peak of the beat movement, live mostly in poverty, and witness the significant cultural changes of the period.

2. Give me more time to cook or give me cheaper, healthier fast food. It's no real secret that I need to lose a few pounds, but we've been pulled in so many directions lately that most of our meals have been on the run. I'm hoping that the school year will regulate us a bit. Baby carrots here I come.

3. I am listening to reruns of Will and Grace. They are great to nap to.

4. Somewhere, someone is thinking 'I wonder if LaMags will notice that I didn't do my summer reading'. Every year I have kids try to fake it. Sorry Charlie, I'm not that dumb.

5. I'll always be tired, but I really don't mind it - except for the headaches - because it means I'm doing things and mostly being a productive member of society.

6. My idea of a good time includes a good meal and a good movie.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to Suellen's family coming into town and lawn mowing (can you hear Julie Andrews singing 'My Favorite Things' - I can't), tomorrow my plans include baby errands and Sunday, I want to try to forget that I need to finish an adaptation of Twelfth Night before school starts (I haven't really started that yet)!

Daycare Dilemmas

2008-07-30T22:28:00.003-04:00

So we - or rather I - have been slightly MIA lately due to a number of factors: more small home improvement projects, the fact that I start school on MONDAY (holy crap), a baby shower in Chicago, and what has sucked up most of our time - a daycare search.

If you are out of the loop in our saga, part of the original plan was that if we were really surviving on just my salary (which paper calculations say we can) then Suellen was just going to extend her leave for the entire next year, as opposed to returning in June. Well, last week Suellen found out that IPS is going to transition her in to a new Elementary position in 09-10 (a position she's wanted for two years); so, now she pretty much needs to return in January in order to secure that spot. Thus, we've begun looking for daycares.

Now, what I didn't realize is that to get decent infant care, you pretty much need to look for day care spots before you ever get pregnant. Most places have been laughing in our faces when we say we need care in January. Great. We've got a few leads, but nothing we are completely sold on and nothing that's really garaunteed, but I'm going to list our narrow options with the hopes that all you blog stalkers can lend some advice.

Option 1 - The Goddard School in Brownsburg. We have friends who sent their son to a Goddard (not this one) and loved it. He is literally the smartest 5 year old I've ever met (of course his parents are also two of the smartest people I've ever met). Anyway, we liked it. The kids were engaged; the staff was friendly; the place was bright and cheerful. They weren't optimistic about an opening, but they didn't laugh, so we are on their waitlist. They are probably our first choice, but they aren't cheap (around $900/mo.)

Option 2 - A woman who runs daycare out of her home that three of the teachers at my school use. She has an assistant and there aren't any more than 12 kids in the house at a time. She seemed really nice and on top of things, but it is pretty much a one woman show. She may have an opening (and should know soon), but we don't know how we feel about the in-home idea. She is the cheapest at $600/mo.

Option 3 - A larger, privately owned and operated center that is literally right on my way to work. Things here were a little more chaotic then the Goddard school, but it felt like more of a family atmosphere. The staff was much younger than the other centers we looked at, and the woman running it has less education (just a CDA as opposed to a 4 year degree) than a director at a corporate managed center would have. I know that schooling doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it does give me a bit of pause. There is no oversight (beyond state licensing) than what she provides, and the fact that it's the largest center (twice the size of anything else we've looked at), I'm worried that the management might not always be on top of what is going on. This is the most expensive center ($1024/mo.), but it's biggest draw is that they HAVE a spot for January that I can gaurentee today if I prepay the first month. Tempting.

So there it is. Any thoughts?

Crawling out from the dust

2008-07-21T22:27:00.005-04:00

If you regularly blog-stalk Suellen or I, you've probably noticed that we've been a bit silent lately. It's because we've been trapped in home improvement land, which is otherwise known as the nesting phase of pregnancy. It appears as though we've replaced sleeping and puking with hammering and painting. Oh Joy!

Here are a few shots - though I took them at night with the flash so some of the color is off.

This is the crib all sheeted and bumpered and what not. While I enjoy our crib, standard attachments don't exactly fit it well. Notice the semi-janky mobile.

This is a shot of the new window valence and 'heavy-duty-light-blocking shade'. Since the sun rises on that side of the house, we wanted to make sure that the baby could sleep as much as possible. The large empty space in the corner will be filled by a glider (hopefully).

And this would be the other side of the room. We're a little bummed that the changing table doesn't match the dresser as well as we'd hoped. But it was about $75cheaper than the poorly reviewed one that came with the set, so it's not all bad. We do have wall decorations, including some shelves to flank the windows, but those are still in the painting stage.

Speaking of shelves, this is the additional shelf we installed in the laundry room to hold all the things we displaced when we clean out P's closet. I'm pretty impressed that we actually got it in level.

And here's the big project - our new wood laminant floors! This is a shot of our living room. We were going to wait to get a rug, but we found this one on sale at the Lowes on one of our many trips there for extra 'fill in the blank' (trim, sealant, whatever).

This is the opposite view of the living room. The wood continues around to the front door, and if you look closely near the glowing eyes of Kitty Maxx, you'll see that we kept the carpet in the study. There was no way we were moving the world's largest book case.

And this is a final shot of the kitchen. All in all, I think it looks really nice. And at least now you know we weren't just sitting around picking our noses. Ewww. We were actually doing stuff!

Update Haiku

2008-07-15T22:16:00.002-04:00

haven't been blogging
in-laws in town laying floor
much dust needs settling

they brought the dog too
both cats living in our bedroom
litter smell fills air

shower was days ago
we are thankful for friends
rainbow without storm

too tried for poem
sleep now
bye.

Friday Fill-ins

2008-07-11T14:14:00.002-04:00

Here we go...

1. Oh, I can't wait until I have a a baby. Duh!

2. Milk is the first thing I see when I open my refrigerator. It's normally old and moldy things in tupperware, but I've cleaned the fridge recently so now it's just milk, which Suellen drinks by the tanker truck load.

3. I never leave home without my phone and a pen.

4. If I were a condiment, I would be either light mayo or ranch dressing because you are what you eat, and I eat a lot of those.

5. Tardiness is really high up on my list of pet peeves. It hate things that start late.

6. The last thing I thought of before I went to bed was why am I forcing myself to stay awake just to watch bad television. I do this a lot. I'll crawl into bed and turn on something completely mind-numbing to help me fall asleep. It works, I start getting sleepy, but then I refuse to actually go to sleep before the current show ends.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finishing a few more P related projects, tomorrow my plans include enjoying a baby shower with all our Butler friends and Sunday, I want to hang out with friends who are still in town and nap, so I can prepare for the floor installation that is happening next week!

Thirteen Preps for P

2008-07-10T21:48:00.002-04:00

It's been a busy day today. We spent a lot of time running errands and completing things we need to get done before school starts and P joins us. In that spirit, I'm listing off thirteen things we've already done to prep for her arrival.

1. Repainted. We did two rooms (one of which will be hers) and the hallway. See a previous post for more details.

2. Installed window treatment in nursery. Our crib set came with a valence so we bought a heavy duty rolling shade to block our the light. It might not be the most stylish choice, but the sun rises on that sight of the house and we wanted to keep the room as dark as possible.

3. Cleaned out the closet in the nursery. This closet was previously home to the Suellen M. Sharp Memorial Empty Box Collection. Seriously, we must have had 30-40 boxes just hanging around. There was a short mourning period, but I think Suellen will live with out them. I should also confess that we still have a tiny bit more to do on this one, but I'm counting it done for now.

4. Installed an additional shelf in the laundry room to hold all the stuff we wanted to keep from the nursery closet. This consists mostly of all the new games we've acquired since we started hanging out with Amy and Ben so much.

5. Purchased a new digital camera and rewired the computer desk so that we could actually removed the pictures from it and print them off. This was actually much harder than it may sound since the computer desk is very small and for whatever reason all of our electronics have cords at least 6 feet long.

6. Enrolled in class taught by Crazy Jane. Again, see below.

7. Completed a full scale cleaning - down to toothbrush grout scrubbing - of each bathroom. I'm not sure what this had to do with the baby exactly, but we were on a nesting roll so we just kept it going.

8. Begun collecting diapers. Every time there's a coupon, we buy a pack. It's not like they're going to go bad.

9. Went to a lawyer and set up wills, co-parenting agreements, powers of attorney (both for money and to make medical decisions), a domestic partnership agreement and second-parent adoption papers. Basically we had to spend a great deal of time and money to do what getting married does for your automatically. And, there's still no guarantee that whoever is in power will recognize our wishes.

10. Started filing out P's baby book. Suellen's mom got us one that's a 3-ring binder style in stead of a bound book. It came with an extra "About My Mommy" page so that we could customize it for us. (Note to all you stalkers out there - the book is pink, and I am tolerating it.)

11. Cleaned out a drawer for bibs. This really wasn't that momentus since it actually used to be full of towels but they were all dirty. What will be more momentus is finding cabinet space for bottles and food.

12. Designated specific areas in each room for baby things. I know that we will eventually succumb to baby toy sprawl, It's inevitable. But we have a small house with hardly any storage (no basement, no real attic), and I'm hoping that if we start with a plan, we'll have a better chance of sticking to it.

13. Picked out and purchased an outfit for P to wear on her homecoming day. This was probably the cutest thing we've done. We've been blessed by so many gifts that we haven't really bought anything for her on our own yet (aside from some furniture), so it was nice to pick out some special clothes together.

I think that's it. I was originally going to list the 13 things we had left to do, but that became too negative. As crazy Jane told us yesterday: you need to think of excitement, power and progress (as opposed to fear, tension and pain). And who wouldn't list to a dirty old woman?

Crazy Old Women Should Not Teach Birthing Classes

2008-07-09T21:55:00.004-04:00

Let me introduce you to Jane.

Jane teaches our Childbirth Preparation. She teaches three sessions a week for two hours as session.

She has been teaching these classes since 1977, before Suellen and I were born.

Jane is also a retired nurse. She assisted with her first delivery in 1947, the year my mother was born. My mother is 61 years old. I'm guessing that this makes Jane somewhere in her mid-eighties.

Jane talks a lot. I think she's afraid of silence. I think she thinks she's making people feel comfortable. She's not. I'm pretty sure every one thinks she's crazy.

While sitting in Jane's class tonight I thought of a poem by W.B. Yeats called "Crazy Jane Talks With the Bishop". I'm pretty sure I was the only one in the class thinking that. Here's the poem:

"Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop"

1933

I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
"Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty."

"Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul," I cried.
"My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.

"A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not be rent."

Now, admittedly, I didn't really remember much beyond the title while sitting in class, but I did remember it was about some crazy chick named Jane. However, when I looked up the poem at home, I found it even more fitting.

As you may notice in the poem the bishop warns Jane that perhaps she hasn't been living the most pure or chaste existence, and perhaps she should start thinking about the fate of her soul. Jane, having a sorted sexual past, is quick to retort that the very acts the bishop is reprimanding her for are in fact the culminating point of a love between two people. Without boring you with an English lesson, it's a poem about sex.

Which is good. Because sex is all retired nurse turned childbirth educator Jane wants to talk about.

Allow me to give you a few choice Jane quotes:

"Mothers you must know about spreading your legs apart. It's how you got pregnant in the first place."

"Dads don't you worry about her being as big as the Grand Canyon forever. It'll change back. I know it's a concern."

"If you are doing dishes, you can still practice the pelvic tilt (here is when she begins thrusting against the table). Just do what got you pregnant in the first place."

Eww. And I have three more weeks of this.

More stuff for Baby P

2008-07-08T22:04:00.002-04:00

I'm not doing particularly well with my blogging every day goal. This is mostly due to the fact I blew out my back last week. If you've read the other posts, you know that I was trying very hard to avoid going to the doctor; however, I did go yesterday. She's pretty certain I tore one of the ligaments that holds the muscle on to your pelvis. Fun times! So now I'm one more muscle relaxers and some large pink pain pill that's kind of like generic Vicodin. All of this is making me feel much better, but it also makes me semi-catatonic. I've spent a lot of time sleeping on the couch.

I did, however, venture out with Suellen today to go to Babies R Us to pick out some gifts for the other pregnant folk in our lives and bought a few things for baby P while we were at it. Most of you who have children already know this, but kids apparently require a lot of stuff. When we painted last weekend, we stuffed all of P's accumulated gifts into her closet and I think things are now spilling out the door. And we've only hit 2 of the 5 baby showers being thrown for us! Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the gifts, but I have not idea where we are going to put everything.

Fortunately, P's dresser was waiting on the porch when we got home. It looks very nice (pictures will come later), and only took three hours to assemble! Of course, part of that time was spent unscrewing all the pieces I screwed the wrong screws into, a mistake I made during not one, but two separate steps. Seriously, why do you need to have 13 different types of screws? I mean there must have been three separate styles of 3/4" screw. Why not stream line that? I'm sure spending three hours hunched on the floor screwing, unscrewing and rescrewing screws into 'oak-like' pressboard was not what the doctor order for my back, but hopefully we can get better organized now.

Mission Accomplished...kind of

2008-07-06T15:41:00.005-04:00

If you've been to our house recently, you know that there is a large 'master summer to do list' hanging on our fridge. It contains basically everything we need to do before P arrives. While neither Suellen nor I actaully did much of the work this past weeked, we did accomplish repainting the office/guest room, the baby's room and the hallway, all thanks to Suellen's sister Stacy. Here are some shots, but both rooms are still in progress (i.e. we haven't rehung things or decorated yet).

This is the new green (officially called 'Summer Rapture') in P's room.

This is the room formerly known as 'orange' (if you've been to our house in the last two years, you know what that means). We squeezed the twin bed in here with the computer. It does take up a good deal of space, but it's the only place we had for it.

And this is the new hallway color, albeit it's not much different than the old color. We made the drastic move from 'cream' to 'beige' (or 'Baked Brie" as Lowes would call it).

I think that's all for now. My back is feeling better thanks to some leftover muscle relaxors from a previous injury and a good dose of ibuprofen. It still flares up a bit everytime I do something for more than 10 or so minutes, but I'm getting kind of bored laying around. Perhaps I soon feel good enough to tackle another project of the list.

Oww!

2008-07-05T10:59:00.002-04:00

No post yesterday, partly because we had the modem disconnected while painting and partly because my back is still wrenched and I am in a good deal of pain. I know I should go to the doctor, but I'm going to spend another day convincing myself it will go away. Then I'll give up and go in. Great logic huh?

Thirteen Irrational Fears

2008-07-03T18:38:00.002-04:00

So in the spirit of my blogging friends who do these things, I'm doing a Thursday Thirteen. Granted, I'm not really sure what a Thursday Thirteen is officially, but I've gleaned that it's just a list of thirteen somethings. I mean it's not rocket science.

Anyway, here thirteen irrational fears I have about the baby. I figured it would be good to vent them.

1. That the baby will actually be a boy.
2. That the baby will not be healthy.
3. That the baby will be ugly (Suellen has caused this fear because she's certain our ultrasound pictures showed a hooked nose).
4. That the baby will be a unhealthy, ugly boy. This is kind of the trifecta of the first three fears.
5. That the baby won't love me.
6. That the baby will love me, but will then grow up and start following some cultish religion that teaches her she can't love me causing her to stop loving me.
7. That the baby will like pink girly things. Barf-o!
8. That the baby will cause us to become even more broke than we are (which will probably happen), and that I will have a massive panic attack as a result (also a good chance of this).
9. That the baby will get pregnant while still in high school. This is a new one that suddenly came to me in the car last night.
10. That something extraordinarily crazy (tornado, plague, sci-fi like virus epidemic a la Michael Crichton) will hurt the baby and I won't be able to stop it.
11. That the baby will suck up my entire life (again, this will probably happen).
12. That the baby will suck up my entire life, and, despite my best efforts, I will come to resent her for it (I hope to God this doesn't happen).
13. That I will do something stupid that results in hurting the baby, like mistakenly feeding her poisoned plants or bad cheese or something close to that.

Ok. I feel better now. Well, spiritually and mentally at least. Physically, I'm in a great deal of pain because I managed to pull my back, get this, throwing out a toothbrush. I know that's not the real reason - the real reason is that I spent all morning on my hands and knees cleaning the bathroom, including scrubbing the hard to reach places with said toothbrush. So, the garage didn't get cleaned today like anticipated, and we are a little more behind getting ready for Paintfest 2008, which is how we are spending our 4th. But, Suellen's sister Stacy is due to arrive soon, and she's a hoss; so, hopefully she can help me finish moving the furniture. Woo Hoo!

Our very first P-Day

2008-07-02T21:18:00.002-04:00

So the memory that's been on my mind a lot lately is the very first time we went in to try for P (which is what we are calling the baby right now).

Sidebar - I was apparently confused about whether or not we were telling people the name Suellen and I have picked out. I thought we were, but we are not. This has landed me in a bit of hot water; so, if you want to know any other name hints, talk to Suellen. I'm not saying anything any more.

Anyway, we first started trying back in June of 2007, which for us really meant a lot of meetings. And interestingly enough, a large discussion about whether or not Suellen was immune to Rubella (blood tests were taken, screwed up, taken again, shots were given, it was not a fun time). So, we had finally arrived at June and were ready to give it a go. We had picked out a donor. He was a dancer with blond hair and blues eyes (like me - the hair and eyes, not the dancing) and didn't have any family health issues. Of course, we had picked him, had him shipped on ice, and then decided we didn't like the fact that he was short and skinny. But, we figured we'd try (you can't really return it), and if it worked then it was meant to be, and if it didn't, then God was giving us a chance to change. None of this really has anything to do with the story.

So, it's June. The nurse comes out into the waiting room and calls us back. Suellen has to double check and sign that the vials match what she order, and then it happens. The nurse hands me the vial of baby juice to 'keep warm'. Eww. While I am pleased to be part of the process as 'baby juice warmer', this completely weirds me out. But we keep walking down the hallway and arrive at the exam room, all the while I am holding this little vial of pink-dish-soap-looking baby juice in a vice grip for fear that it might suddenly get a chill. The nurse ushers us in to where Dr. DHM has readied several instruments that look more painful than I want to think about, including some that light up, and leaves.

So here I am, holding the baby juice, squinting at it, trying desperately to decipher whether or not the swimmers are even in there while Suellen gets on the table, feeling quite squeamish and very nervous. Then Dr. DHM comes in. There is a small amount of explaining of the procedure, none of which I actually understand, I hand over the juice and pick up Suellen's hand, and Dr. DHM starts to do her thing.

Then this little thing clicks in my head. I am scared shitless.

Don't get me wrong, I'm being supportive. I'm standing there, telling Suellen it will all work out. But in my head, I'm doing one of those slow motion movie moments where the hero leaps across the table screaming 'Noooooooooooooooooooo' and knocks the world-ending device out of the villian's hand. Yeah. That's me. In my head, crazy light up torture devices are flying everywhere.

Of course, I'm really doing nothing but standing next to Suellen, holding her hand and looking awkwardly at the floor.

Needless to say, we did not get pregnant that try, which means we will not have a freakishly small dancer baby. (hahaha - "Tiny Dancer Baby" - oh Elton John how I love you). And, I was not nearly as scared for the other attempts. In hindsight, it's probably better that I had a little extra time to get mentally ready.

Now I need more time to get physically ready. Tomorrow's to do list involves, cleaning the bathrooms, moving furniture for painting, buying the paint so that Suellen's sister can help us this weekend, and cleaning out the garage. Yikes!

Write about the baby

2008-06-30T21:36:00.001-04:00

I was on the phone with my boss yesterday (who is also a friend and who still believes in the illusion that I am in fact a writer despite the fact that I really haven't written anything since teaching absorbed every spare moment of my life), and he asked if I've written anything about the baby.

Well, I haven't, but it's not because I haven't wanted to.

It's because I'm nervous and excited and scared and busying myself with five million things to get ready for the baby so that I don't have to think about the actual baby, and all of that leaves my very tired and generally 'uncreative'.

I've always been kind of a gestational writer. I tend to mull ideas and lines over and over (and over and over) in my head before I write them down. This is probably one of the reasons poetry suits me well - if I tried to write books, I'd never remember all the lines. But, it's time to actually get thoughts on paper before I forget everything I've been thinking about; so, I'm going to set myself a goal of writing each day this month. I probably won't be as diligent as Amy, but I'm going try. And, we should be home for most of this month, which will help things.

Look for feeble insights to come later, blog stalkers. For now, it's off to grocery store!

And we're back

2008-06-20T17:21:00.002-04:00

For those of you that stalk Suellen's blog, you may have noticed that we've spend a good deal of time out of town recently. Well, we're back, and none of the crazy family time managed to kill us (nor did my mowing of our hugely overgrown lawn when we returned - though the lawn mower did go on strike for about 4 hours in the middle).

Anyway here goes...

1. A smile is sometimes hard to do on command. I'm not a good 'on command' smiler. I always look stupid. This made the baby shower particularly painful.
2. Life Boat is my favorite board or card game, though I usually end up dying.
3. I would love to have more time to read in my life and less work related stress.
4. When I think of the Summer Solstice, I think man it's getting hot outside. Where did we buy this house, on the sun?
5. I just remembered I need to figure out how much mulch to buy tomorrow.
6. One of my favorite song lyrics goes like this:
you'll fight and you'll make it through
You'll fake it if you have to
And you'll show up for work with a smile
And you'll be better
You'll be smarter
More grown up and a better daughter or son
And a real good friend. - Rilo Kiley
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to going to ComedySportz to celebrate my birthday (yea oldness!), tomorrow my plans include moving furniture and remulching (yea sore back!) and Sunday, I want to remember what it was like to be young and not have a bad back!

Almost Done!

2008-06-06T08:27:00.003-04:00

I'm squeezing this in on my last Friday of work before summer. Yippie!

1. Idle hands are...wait....I don't think I know what those are.
2. I love standing half-asleep in the shower. It's a great way to wake up
3. My favorite time of the day is when everything is done. Unfortunately, that's about 30 seconds before I fall asleep.
4. The last tea I drank was yuck I hate tea.
5. I like to sit on our deck in the Summer. It's my new favorite place.
6. My mother always said be sure to say 'I love you' before you hang up the phone with someone you care about. Ok, well, she didn't actually ever say that, but she always did it.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to shopping for graduation gifts, tomorrow my plans include University's graduation and a tour of parties and Sunday, I want to sleep, but I'll probably have to mow the lawn!

Tornado Ridden Friday

2008-05-30T22:24:00.002-04:00

Before beginning the pleasantries of the Friday Fill-ins, let me say this: I HATE SEVERE WEATHER. I don't know what it is, but I am terrified of big storms and possible tornados. In fact, I am sitting in the closet under a pile of pillows with my whole family - Suellen, soon-to-be-baby P, and both cats - as I type this. I only hope I can finish soon seeing as there is no outlet in our closet and my battery is dying.

1. For me nothing is the opposite of creativity. I really do think that you can be creative at anything (cliched as that may sound). You just have to find a different way to approach it.
2. The Undercover Economist was the last excellent book I read (except, I'm still actually reading it, and have been for 6 months - it's hard to read during school).
3. I like fill-ins because they make me write and think about something other than school for a change.
4. In nature I like looking at small mammals or corn fields. It's a toss up.
5. A Democrat should win the US elections.
6. The last time I laughed with all my belly was in AP English on Wednesday when a student asked me how much size mattered. He meant in terms of his essay, but none of us could keep it in.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to hopefully not dying in a tornado related incident, tomorrow my plans include grading and whacking down the chest high grass on our easement that I now found out I have to mow and Sunday, I want to sleep, but I have to drive to French Lick to play for a friend's commitment ceremony!

No Tag Backs

2008-05-24T07:15:00.002-04:00

So Amy tagged me to this task, and since I feel the need to make up for not posting on Friday (and since Amy guilted me on her blog), I'm going to give it a try.

What were you doing five years ago?
Five years ago I was finishing my graduate coursework, and we were getting ready to move back from New Hampshire. Suellen packed up the apartment and moved early in the summer while I finished my final actual classes; so I spent a month sleeping on the floor, eating take out, and taking care of our cat Maxx who had recently broken his ear.

What are five things on your to-do list for today?
1. get up a butt-crack of dawn and go to Suellen's school (already accomplished as I am sitting in her office right now)
2. 'chaperone' IPS All-City Marching Band in the 500 parade (see previous post)
3. grade the monstrous pile of work that has stacked up over the week while 'chaperoning' the 500 Parade
4. set up our new grill which my parents are finally bringing down from Chicago today
5. visit with my parents while enjoying our new grill and deck

What are five snacks you enjoy?
1. Nachos, of any kind, from virtually anywhere
2. Sour cream and onion potato chips
3. Cheese and crackers (or really cheese and almost anything)
4. Cheezy-weenies (a LaMagdeleine, and now Sharp, holiday gathering food, which while extremely yummy, I've never managed to make cosmetically appealing)
5. Carmel sudaes with whipped cream, nuts and a cherry

What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?
1. buy a bigger house with a basement closer to work
2. buy my grandparent's old farm for my Mom to retire to and to take the baby to in the summers
3. reserve donor 5668 to have another baby
4. pay off our college debt and start a college fund for the babies
5. set up a foundation to support education initiatives for low to middle class families to attend different schools if their public systems aren't meeting their needs.

What are five of your bad habits?
1. bitting my fingernails
2. compulsively checking my email
3. not responding to email (or other messages), which is odd because I compulsively check them
4. losing my temper too quickly
5. stressing out when I shouldn't

What are five places you have lived?
1. South Holland, IL
2. Butler (and various surrounding crappy apartments)
3. Dover, NH
4. Behind the WalMart on 86th (won't be doing that ever again)
5. Brownsburg, IN (well, it's not technically Brownsburg - it's a Brownsburg-Clermont-Indianapolis hybrid no-mans land of suburban sprawl)

What are five jobs you've had?
1. Andy's Hot Dogs
2. Jo-Anne Fabrics
3. Butler Campus Operator
4. Toxicology Collection Scheduler (a.k.a. pee collector)
5. teacher at UHS (by far the best of the group)

What five people do you want to tag?
Alright, I'm copping out on this one, because I'm not sure anyone actually reads (or stalks) my blog since I post so infrequently; however, if you read this, consider yourself tagged.

Ok - I'm behind

2008-05-24T07:01:00.006-04:00

Blame Suellen and the Manual High School Band

1. On my laziest day I like to go out to a late breakfast, read and watch a movie with Suellen!
2. Making lists of things I've really already mostly accomplished and then crossing them off makes me feel like I'm being productive.
3. I love little old fashion glass bottles of pop and big beds.
4. This summer I want to get everything set up for the baby before school starts.Yikes!
5. The desire to pretend to be a writer again made me start my blog. You can see that I'm doing so well at it.
6. Red Starbursts and orange circus peanuts are two candies I hate.
7. And as for the weekend, last night I played at the Manual High School graduation, today my plans include loitering at various places while 'chaperoning' the IPS All-City Band in the 500 parade eventhough I'm not allowed to walk with them through the parade or stand in the staging and demarshalling areas, and Sunday, I want to grill!

Friday thoughts

2008-05-16T11:22:00.003-04:00

1. There is absolutely NO way you can get me to kill a spider! I am deathly afraid of them.
2. Squirrely students remind me that summer is almost here!
3. I cannot live without my blue jeans.
4. Snorkling and living abroad are two things I'd like to try.
5. When life hands you lemons you eat them down to the rind. Or at least my brother did.
6. My brother being born is my favorite childhood memory.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to University Prom!, tomorrow my plans include eating cake in honor of Suellen and Sunday, I want to grade things! Yippie!

On time

2008-05-09T08:07:00.003-04:00

I'm giving myself big props for doing this on Friday.

1. The pasta had an extra secret ingredient; it was cheese! Those are pretty much the two staples of my diet.
2. Looking out through my window, I think how the hell can the grass grow so fast in the back yard when it's dying in the front yard!
3. Right now, I need June.
4. The Manual High School band concert is where I went Thursday night; it was a great way to remind myself how good of a teacher Suellen is. And a great way to kill time. I assumed myself by touching every button on the light board.
5. Why do migranes hurt so much?
6. All I can think of is the baby!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to possibly a cookout with Barb and Kathy, tomorrow my plans include baby stuff and house cleaning and Sunday, I want to nap!

Getting closer...

2008-05-03T10:12:00.003-04:00

Ok - It's Saturday this time, so that's a whole day closer to my new goal of posting on Friday.

1. Two of my favorite ingredients in a drink are...well my previous answer would have been skim milk and splenda in my coffee, but since too much coffee and too much stress have reeked havoc on my stomach lately, I'm not drinking coffee any more; so, I guess it's whatever two ingredients make up diet coke.
2. Quiet often amazes me. One, because it happens so rarely. Two, because it can be quite profound.
3. You can keep doing that forever, the dog is...not here!?! We don't have one.
4. Lay it all out, mix it all together and voila! You have the giant mess I create each weekend when I try to get my grading done.
5. If I had a yard with a garden, I would love to grow fresh herbs.
6. Pets are best au naturel. I hate animals in clothing.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to playing Once Upon a Mattress, tomorrow my plans include the Kahl's baby shower and playing Once Upon a Mattress and Sunday, I want to not play Once Upon and Mattress, which is good because I don't have to!

Let's pretend...

2008-04-27T22:17:00.002-04:00

I know it's not Friday, but I'm going to pretend it is. And I'll pretend that I was able to keep up my New Year's resolution formore than eight days.

I'm stealing this from Amy..

1. When I fell in love I also fell down - because I'm horribly clumsy. Lucky Suellen was standing next to me.
2. I have to start mowing again when the flowers bloom and it heats up outside!
3. Oh no! The internet connection is down, how will I ever procrastnate while trying to school work!
4. LOST is the craziest tv show ever. I'm completely hooked on something that ISN'T trashy reality.
5. Cheese and nearly anything makes a great meal!. (Sorry Amy -not anything!)
6. I wish someone would put a garden in our back yard, and then come in and care for it regularly since we never seem to be able to keep plants alive.
7. And as for the weekend, I'll be 'on the mattress' at UHS all week. Then sleeping after.

Five Things I Love About Teaching Writing

2008-01-08T22:32:00.000-05:00

Many of you know that my school is a tinsy-bit different, and right now we are in the middle of our J-term which means that I'm spending my entire day teaching 12 kids about the New Yorker Magazine. That's the whole day straight for 14 days, and it's really pretty cool to see how much they can grow in such a little time when they really get working. It makes me happy - which is very good because if I wasn't happy, I'd be tired.

5 - Writing is nothing more than speaking on paper. Most students won't write much when they get out of school, but all of them will speak - probably a lot. Spending all day honing in on their writing skills has actually helped my students speak better. They think faster, they think on a deeper level, and they've stopped saying 'like' (I hate 'like').

4 - Writing is not math. No offense to people who like math (I was once a high school mathlete, so I kind of get it), but math pretty much always works the same way. Writing rarely gives you a straight consistent answer. I like that.

3 - Writing is not life or death. Some people are just designed to life or death decisions all the time. They become doctors, or EMTs or nuclear war button pushers. I'm not. If the writing sucks today, nobody dies. It will just get better tomorrow.

2 - Writing can feel like life or death. As much as it doesn't matter whether or not you chose to use or abuse the serial comma, writing does matter when you put yourself behind it. Writing is taking a risk to say what you believe. If people don't respect your opinion (respect is not agreement), then I think that is like dying. And that matters.

1 - Writings is all about telling stories. Stories are all about life (I mean it's pretty hard to write a story about something that doesn't ever do anything or have anything done to it). That's why we tell so many stories to children. So they know how to live their lives. What's not to like about that?

Post New Year's stuff

2008-01-07T17:44:00.000-05:00

So after getting blasted for requesting more frequent blog posts by my friends while never actually posting on my own, I feel as though it's time to give regular blogging more of an effort. I also read a very cheesy article in the "Living" section of the Indy Star about blogging and how you should develop a distinctive blog style - something like making every post a list of 5 things or being a huge snark (the paper did actually use the word 'snark'). I figure I'm a reasonably intelligent person. Certainly I can come up with 5 things to say each day.

To that end, we had a guest speaker in class today, and one of the things he said was that he is someone who is never bored. That struck a chord with me. I get bored a lot, or at least I think I do. What I really probably get though is lazy. So without further ado, here's a list of 5 things I'm going to try doing to stop being lazy. Consider it a late New Year's resolution.

5 - Take a short nap every now and then. As most know, there is nothing better than a nap. Maybe they will keep me rested so that I am less inclined to plop in front of the TV when I too tired to do anything else. And at least when I'm sleeping, I won't be bored.

4 - Blog more. See above.

3 - Read more. If you've been to my house, you know that the number of books I own is a highly contested point in my relationship. The fact that I haven't actually read most of them makes Suellen even more upset. I figure since I've got a wealth of knowledge sitting on shelves that I keep lobbying to keep, I better read them.

2 - Play more games. This is a recently acquired geeky trait I've gotten from Amy and Ben, but I figure that if I'm playing a game, I'm not zoning out in front of the TV, allowing myself to slowly die in the wake of its pale glow.

1 - Maybe - just maybe - I'll write poems again. I'm actually hoping that this will be a result of the 'bullocks to laziness plan'. We'll see how it goes.

Insignificance

2007-10-14T22:08:00.000-04:00

Been a long time. Been a hard week.

My grandmother had a stroke on Tuesday. Somebody asked me if we were close. It's hard to think about. What does close mean?

I don't see her often. I rarely ever call. I've thought for the last few years that every time we said goodbye would be Goodbye. But as we drove the six hours out and back this weekend, I realized I wasn't ready for it to be.

Losing someone is hard, but I think knowing you can't do anything for them is harder. Maybe that's selfish.

As I sat in the hospital room while she slept, I searched for anything to say that would show her what she means me. How strong I think she is. How much I hope to live long and well and full like her.

All I ended up with was silence, but I think she knew it was love.

I hope to tell her that soon.

Lawn Mowing - and why it blows chunks

2007-09-10T21:27:00.000-04:00

After a brief period of blog-death, I decided that something exciting (i.e. frustrating) enough has happened to warrant posting.

Let me preface this by saying that start of school has kicked me in the behind in every sense of the phrase - including the 10+ hours of grading I did this weekend so that I could post grades for our first set of academic updates. It has been a good first four weeks, but I am pooped!

Anyway, after a faculty meeting and trip to the grocery store for someone much needed cat food, I arrived home today to find that everyone on our street managed to get their lawns mowed. Great. It's bad enough that we suck at all things requiring a green thumb, but now our jungle-length, patchy lawn stands out even more agains the nice, pretty mowed lines of our neighbors. We now look like the uncivilized heathens of lawn-care that we are.

So, since Suellen can't mow due to all the waiting, I don my tennis shoes and head out after dinner for my least favorite household chore (please God, give me laundry any day!). Now, my father was nice enough to get me a brand new, shiny lawn mower for birthday since we were on our second hand-me-down mower and it wasn't cutting it (cutting it...hahahaha...I'm amusing myself). However, since it's been so darn hot all summer, I've only used it twice and I've never done anything but mulch with it. Given the fact that our grass is tickling my legs well above the ankles in some places, it's clear to me that mulching just ain't gonna cut it. So I pull out all the various attachments and decide on the little side shooty thing. The grass maybe long, but surely it can just spit the long grass back out? That way I can just run it over with the mower again in some sort of faux-mulching action. This all makes perfect sense in the drive way. Reality, it turns out, is suspended in my drive way.

So, I succeed in mowing our tiny front lawn and most of the left hand side using the side-vent. I'm just putting along, merrily spewing grass chunks until I enter the 'deep woods' of our back yard. After the mower stalls for the 5th time, I decide to switch to bagging, WHICH IS MY ABSOLUTE LEAST FAVORITE THING EVER! Needless to say, I'm pretty pissed at this point, but I drag out the lawn mower bag and a the enviro-friendly paper bag to put the trimmings in, and start the mower up again. I walk about 10 feet and stop again. Why do you ask? Because our lawn is so over-grown the grass trimmings are forcing the bag away from the body of the mower so that it clogs up anyway!

So (yes, this is now the 3rd paragraph I've started with so) to make a long story somewhat shorter. After an hour and forty-five minutes and 12 re-starts of the lawn mower, we can now show our faces in the neighborhood. I am so thrilled to have done my part to keep America beautiful.

Now it's off to bed, where I will lie awake trying to thing of intellegent things to say about the literary merit of the pilgrims tomorrow. If you have any thoughts, I'm open to telepathic communication.

Coming at You Live from...

2007-08-17T21:02:00.000-04:00

Amy and Ben's kitchen. Baby-sitting on a Friday night. Wahoo! (I'm only joking. Between crazy game convention and a high school football game, watching Bryn is definety the best option.)

It's been a bit of a week for me. In fact, I think it's been one of the roughest starts to school that I've had. (This is the point where all my public school teaching friends groan and tell me to get over it). Now, I know that I see only a fraction of the students that my large, public district compatriots do, but my student load has doubled this year, I'm teaching twice the number of classes, have twice the number of mentees, and am sponsoring two independent study projects. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. I love every piece of the 5,000 things that make me feel like a train has run me over by 1:37. I just wasn't quite ready for this week. I thought I was, but I forgot about the emotional drain of teaching. I get so energized for 45 minutes at a time that I crash afterwards. Who knew teaching writing had so much in common with herion addiction? Strike that. A lot of writer's did.

Well, whatever the week was, it's over. Suellen and I have safely navigated our charge to slumberland. I've finished grading a stack of essays (yep, I am that jerky teacher who assigns homework on the first day), and I'm betting that once Amy and/or Ben returns, I'll be off to slumberland as well.

The End of Summer

2007-08-11T22:36:00.000-04:00

For me, summer officially ends tomorrow. We have our all-school picnic, and the kids come on Monday. Needless to say, I'm quite ready. While my lessons are planned, and everything is set on paper, I'm not mentally up to the task quite yet. Hopefully a yummy breakfast will kick-start me tomorrow, or something like that.

In other exciting news, this week has not been very exciting at all. I had meetings most of the week, and then Suellen and I drove to Bloomington for what is now know as the 'wine rack debacle.' So, about 3 weeks ago,my brother orders me a birthday present (bear in mind that my birthday is June 22). He doesn't tell me what it is, only that it's being shipped to his dorm. Then I get a call. It's too big to fit in his car, and could I please come pick it up. We couldn't coordinate schedules then, so he agreed to call me later. Well, he called later. Much later. As in Thursday afternoon on the day it had to be picked up by 4:00. So, Suellen and I move everything around to drive down there to find that my brother has bought me a 6 ft tall wine rack. (How he ever thought it would fit in his Geo Prism is beyond me). Now it is a very nice gift, but it's huge, and it won't hold all our bar ware/stem glasses. To cut a long story short, we drove 3 hours round trip to pick up a box that barely fit in our SUV, drive it back to Indy and take it directly to the Target and return it. Very thoughtful gift, made for a very long afternoon. But we found a replacement wine rack that fits and is functional, so it's not all bad.

That's about it. So much for summer.

Mice, Not Mickey...or...D-Con Danger

2007-08-04T20:50:00.000-04:00

Since our house was built in what used to be a cornfield, it makes some sense that every summer we get a little visit from some furry friends. Now the first year, they left willingly. I moved the nest, and they didn't come back. Last year was more involved. I stumbled upon newborn (I mean so newly born they looked like worms) mice. I couldn't bring myself to move them (and there by sentence them to death by neglect), but luckily my dad was coming down later in the week. I made him move it to a very safe space somewhere far away where I'm sure they lived happy mouse-lives until the end of their days. Despite being a traumatic experience, they mice left after we moved the babies and we had no more signs.

Until this year that is. For several weeks we've seen them run through the lawn while mowing. I'll admit. I ignored them for a while hoping they'd go away, but they didn't. So I set out to search the vast internet for humane ways of getting mice to leave. (I did not want to face the idea of picking dead mice up out of our lawn.) To my surprise, I found a vast array of products from 'sonic blasters' to stuffed owls to Predator Pee (yes, folks that's a brand name). Intrigued at the idea of covering my problem areas with bobcat urine, I ordered Shake Away Critter Repellent. I arrived in a discreet brown box and I shook, and I waited, and I shook again, and I waited. And, you guessed it - shocker - mice really aren't all that afraid of pee when they are already comfy living in your yard.

So we set out to find the main nest and resort to more deadly methods. I had been dismantling our rotting woodpile for a few weeks, and Suellen's brother Stu is in town so he helped me moved the rest of it today. I was sure we'd find them there. No luck. So Stu and I (well pretty much just Stu) lifted and moved our "patio" (by patio, I really mean the 3x3 ft concrete square outside our back down since we had to spend a bunch of money on cat surgery - see below - and couldn't afford to put in a patio this summer). Guess what. Mouse central. And they have probably already burrowed under the slab for our house. So Stu and I traveled to the local hardware store to seek defensive measures.

I should note here that I am a very paranoid person. If there is something to worry about - tornados, avian flu, bankrupcy - I'll generally worry about it. This partly why I didn't want to use mice poison in the first place. I'm afraid that our cats will escape and it eat. Or our neighbors' dogs THAT ARE CONSTANTLY IN OUR YARD (no anger there) will eat it. Or the kids next door will eat it. Or the baby birds on our porch will eat it. Or I'll accidentally get it on my hand and eat it. And then we'll all die. But I can't take the mice anymore. And I know I won't be able to take it if they decide to try and come in for the winter. So, Stu did the manly duty of placing mouse bait in the proper places, and now I'm waiting for D-Con to politely persuade my furry friends to live elsewhere.

Until then, it's just wait and worry.

So...Yeah...

2007-07-31T23:32:00.000-04:00

Ok, so much for the summer-long deadication to the art of Blogging. A whopping 3 posts. How prolific. But, I did find this easy enough to use as an English project, and it will really cut down on the lower back injuries that result from carrying a crate of paper journals around all year. So, I guess it wasn't all for naught.

A few other updates...

Kitty Finn, our beloved, fat, transgendered cat, tore her ACL. You might be asking yourselve how a cat tears her ACL. To answer that puzzle, I've composed the following dramatic re-enactment starring Finn and much more athletic brother, Maxx.

Maxx: Hey Finn. How's it going?
Finn: Zzzzzzz
Maxx: Wanna run around and howl today?
Finn: Zzzzzz merp zzzzzz
Maxx: No, huh? So how 'bout I just bite your head? (bites head)
Finn: Merp merp (runs away)
Maxx: Oh yeah? A runner, huh? (chases fat cat)

(Fueled by terror, Finn mounts the counter top, then the fridge, then the cabinets, and finally lands on the 9 ft plant shelf)

Finn: Hiss Hiss Merp
Maxx: Oh! You want to play mountain-climbers. I LOVE that game

(Maxx follows Finn's path to the plant shelf)

Finn: (now petrified by fear) Merp Merp Merp Merp
Maxx: Isn't this sweet? We're up so high.

(Finn misinterprets Maxx's small for threatening cat-calling, and tries to scale down the opposite side of the 9 ft shelf, but she's too fat to combat gravity)

Finn: MEOW (drags legs around on carpet, hobbles off)
Maxx: What? You don't want to play.

FIN

And that's pretty much been my summer.

And S is for Shingles

2007-06-28T21:55:00.000-04:00

As if a rousing weekend full of softball wasn't enough, I decided to give myself an extra special birthday present - shingles. If you don't know what shingles are, they are a kind of adult chicken pox; but in addition to itching, they burn...a lot, and all over. My mother has been thinking of getting the new shingles vaccine for a long time, and now I've encouraged her too. This is one of the most painful things I've ever had. The good news is that I'm on a bunch of medication now that makes day-to-day work barely livable, and I'm not contagious. Unfortunately, I don't have the energy to do a whole bunch. But maybe now that it looks like I'll have some free time on my hands, I'll actually get some lesson planning done.

Summer is for Softball

2007-06-23T22:30:00.000-04:00

If I had to choose one way to spend my birthday, it would not be getting up early, driving to Cincinnati and watching a 16 & under girls' softball tournament. In fact, the only birthday agenda worse than that would be getting up early, driving to Cincinnati, having the tournament get postponed due to rain, and spending the day in crappy hotel in Kentucky. Which is what I did yesterday. For my birthday. Oh boy.

Suellen and I have now watched her sisters play softball in five different states, and every time we attend a tournament I am amazed at the spectacle of competitive travel sports. Since the most athletic I ever got in the summer was park department sports and swimming lessons, the idea of packing my whole family into an SUV and caravanning around the country to sit in the sun and dust is less than appealing to me; however, to die hard softball fans, like the ones I spent my birthday with, it's the best thing since sliced bread. It would have to be I guess, seeing that they spend almost every weekend of the summer on the road, with softball gear and no fewer than three coolers in the trunk. While I will probably never understand the need to yell along with dugout cheering or the desire to motorcade to the next destination, I have begun to appreciate the sport, which is actually a lot more strategic than I ever realized in the 6th grade. With the rotation of players, pitchers and batters, it's more of a chess game than a contest of strength. At least chess is something I can understand.

You Gotta Start Sometime...

2007-06-18T18:13:00.001-04:00

So I've decided to submit to the pull of the internet and start blogging - partly for keeping in touch, partly for writing pratice, and partly to see if I could blogging a viable classroom project. I don't have much to say right now, but check back soon. I'm sure I'll have something to say then.