This and That...

DH has been working 60-80 hour weeks the past few weeks. It's been stressful, with Mark being in his curious state. DH is ours as of Thursday, though!

We're off to the West Coast later this week! We'll be going to the Oregon coast, Redwood National Park, Crater Lake, Portland, Mt. Hood, the Columbia River gorge, and hopefully Mt. Saint Helens. We got a fancy schmancy baby backpack that we'll be schlepping Mark in for our hikes. We're pretty excited.

My garden has been chugging along, despite incredibly dry weather. (Zucchini, anyone?) I've tried to come up with some profound post about eating local and preserving food-- but it's summer and I can't be profound. All I can come up with is the following:

You think about the resources it takes for low-gas mileage vehicles such as Suburbans and low-wattage lightbulbs. Apply the same logic to your food. I was at my warehouse store recently and saw that the humungo-bag of organic broccoli was from-- China. Think about the resources it takes to haul humungo-bags of organic broccoli halfway around the world! The thing is that it isn't just the broccoli-- peaches from Greece, tomatoes from Italy, grapes from Peru. To boot, I'm surrounded by struggling farms that are progressively falling to developers. By buying local and preserving my own produce, I am conserving precious energy resources and supporting my local economy. That's a very good thing.

I recieved a grant this spring, and I finally finished everything. Happy, happy!

Watching Mark dance 18-month-old style is hilarious. Truly funny, but charming at the same time!

Naughty!

This is my little guy-- who is making me crazy!!! He got into mischief with our laptop (now non-operational). He figured out how to scale his crib and frolic upstairs as he sees fit. He's been tap-dancing on the dining room and coffee tables.

Just when I'm ready to take him in for a trade-in, he flashes a blueberry-stained smile at me.

No fair.

I suppose we'll have to keep him.

Not cool.

I lost one of the stones from my wedding ring.

I know it shouldn't bother me-- it's just a little stone, jewelery stores can order a replacement, yadda yadda.

But I'm upset.

DH and I have been married for almost ten (!) years now.

We knew that this prong had issues.

Gah!

Optimism

I've been wanting to spout off about 'Scooter' Libby, but I can't gripe any more about politics.

It's also been tempting to go off about global warming with the record temps in the Southwest (not to mention the mid-90s I experienced in Maine) and the Live Earth concert coming up.

I feel a need to look at the glass as half full. I've got a garden that is cranking out the veggies (despite disappointing seed and hungry wildlife). Despite the temper tantrums and dancing on the coffee table (how I wish I was joking), my little guy is growing bigger and doing exactly what a kid his age is supposed to do. My husband and I have our household under control-- we're not in debt and we're saving for retirement.

Everything is good. Which makes me nervous.

I remember a gorgeous morning when I felt like everything was great in the world. It was an absolutely beautiful day, my DH and I were doing well professionally, our families were doing well. As I locked my apartment door that morning, I thought about how lucky and blessed I was.

That morning was September 11, 2001. Within two hours, I would be in a panic because my husband can and does go to the Pentagon and I wasn't sure if he would have gone there without telling me.

He was fine. But ever since then, I get really nervous when things are too good. I get nervous about being an optimist now.

Happy July Fourth!

I love living in a country where I can say what I want to say. I love being able to choose my religion, drive where I want to go, choose how many children I want to have, and all of the other rights I have protected under the Bill of Rights.

I also strongly support those that choose to join the Armed Forces. DH currently has two active duty siblings, and one sibling in the guard.

Freedom is not free, and I want to shout out to those that put their a$$es on the line, every day-- especially right now.

God bless the U.S.A., and those who choose to protect this great country.

Vacation

Well, school is over. I celebrated all of that by: finishing a grad class, volunteering to become a new teacher trainer and work part of my summer break, and completing a grant project at my school.

The first couple of weeks of vacation weren't really vacation.

Then the fun stuff started. DH, Mark, and I took a little jaunt up to Pittsburg to see a ball game. (Vijay Singh sat in front of us as we watched the Pirates beat up on the White Sox during the U.S. Open weekend.)

My parents flew out from WY, and we started their time out here by... immediately driving to the GM U.S. Nationals up in Pennsylvania. I did it for my dad. He's restoring a '66 Chevy Bel Air and was looking for parts. So we went to this gigantic swap meet, and he found a couple of manuals and a die-cast replica. (i.e. It was a bust.) The upside was that we introduced my father to ebay. The only problem is that he refuses to touch computer keys. Thanks to ebay and his computer-literate daughter, he's got three more parts for his restoration. Then we went to Lancaster, PA to go to 'Amish country.' This is funny because my parents have Amish friends in MN-- so I knew that they would understand the absurdity of the area that boasts three outlet malls and the Dutch Wonderland theme park (yes, an Amish theme park).

We then brought my parents down to where we live. My dad completely transformed our garage, which is a very happy thing. DH and my dad insulated our garage and put up organizers to hold all of our garage clutter. (Clutter that we really do NEED, mind you-- we do have two acres of land.) Anyway, I won't trip things as I haul Mark under one arm and groceries in the other hand. They also helped clear some of the forest of weeds that is my garden. (They were rewarded with garden-fresh grilled veggies and zucchini chocolate chip cookies.)

After two short days of home-based fun, it was up to Maine to see my sister and her fiance. We went to L.L. Bean, Camden, and Acadia, which were fun. There was also two days of spa-stuff. (It was HOT in Maine, though! I was really surprised by the temperatures!)

I knew that Mark would have trouble re-adjusting to life without people laughing at his antics, snuggling with his parents every night, and having one nap instead of two, daily.

Anyway, Mark was very vocal as we attempted to put him to sleep tonight. We'll see how the adjustment goes.

You know it's been a long school year...

I've had a tough week. It's now June.

I can count the number of days with kids on one hand.

It's time. Bring on the pool, drinks on ice, and sunscreen.

Thank goodness.

Everything's Growing

Here's the Cheeto-smeared face of my favorite boy in the world. In his hands is a tasty bit from the garden-- Carouby de Maussane, of course!

Seriously, though-- it's a snow pea. And of course there's a story behind it!!

I took the advice of DH's mom and aunt and ordered seed this year rather than buying mine at Target. Now, I'm talking Grandmas with more gardening experience than years I've been alive-- each. However, the company they recommended sent me awful seed. As in half of the seeds germinated and grew (I'm used to about an 80%-success rate). Thank goodness I was still tempted by the Target seed. This was a Sean Conway heirloom snow pea that called my name. I answered.

Carouby de Maussane did not disappoint. These are the lovliest peas I've ever eaten. I started popping these in my mouth as I was picking. Yum, yum, yummy.

I was planning on sharing my garden veggies. Now I'm feeling a bit selfish.

P.S. The boy is getting huge. He talks (saying 'they koo' for thank you), crawls on top of the furniture (even training his peer, the little punk), and runs everywhere he wants to go. It's weird-- I'm either totally enthralled with him or repulsed by his punkiness. Summer's going to be fun, though.

Perspective

An aspect of my undergraduate work in history that I absolutely adored was looking at an event from a variety of perspectives and divining out the truth hidden in the subjectivity.

That said, I must say that I have really enjoyed watching Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. I remember that my fellow history students and I would always rag on the historical inaccuracy of popular movies. (So much so that I was was a horrible partner to watch a historic movie with. To the point that I once made an absolute a$$ of myself in a movie theater in Pretoria, South Africa watching Mel Gibson's The Patriot. I was every bit the ugly American that evening as I loudly grouched to my husband about historical inaccuracy every five minutes.) These two movies show how horrible war is-- from every perspective. Dead sons are dead sons. No child should die in a war, and no mother should be crying over a flag-draped coffin.

God bless all of the soldiers stationed in harm's way. And may God bless DH's brother, who is off to Iraq in July.

Mixed Feelings...

I had a strange experience last week and I'm finally ready to blog about it. I live about 12 miles from where I work. My school is in a cute, nice neighborhood surrounded by a farmer's market, a Panera, a nice gourmet food and liquor store, and other niceties. I live south of this area and daily I drive through an area that is struggling economically. I realize that this area has seen gentrification, so I've always made a point to patronize these businesses despite the drug and crime reputation it has.

Last week, I stopped and decided to get a pizza for dinner. I parked in a drug store parking lot, got out the baby, walked to the pizza place, and ordered my pizza. Mark and I then walked over to the drug store and shopped while the pizza was being made. I finished shopping, put the bags in my trunk, and walked back to get my pizza. I waited for a bit once I got inside and made small talk with the lady in line in front of me. She and I chatted about kids, and all of a sudden one of the employees came around the counter to hand me the pizza. Meanwhile, she walked out. As I left, pizza in one hand, baby and purse in the other, I saw the lady talking with a man underneath the sign for the pizza place.

I walked back to my car, put the pizza and my purse in the front seat, closed the door, and began putting Mark in his carseat. You know when you can tell you're being watched and/or someone is approaching you from behind? I got a strong sense of that as I finished buckling Mark in, so I quickly finished and shut the door. As I stood up, the lady I had spoken to previously was right there and the man she'd been talking to was watching her and I from across the parking lot. Freaked me out. She told me that she was homeless and that the pizza place gives out messed-up pizzas to the homeless but that they didn't have any at this time. She didn't have anything to eat. At this point, I begin offering the pizza. She went on with her plea and I continued offering (probably sounding like an idiot-- It's a large! It's got everything on it!).

She finally took the pizza and she hugged me. I hustled my behind out of there.

On my way home, I was still freaked out. I was angry that I'd lost my dinner (I stopped and got a pizza for a reason). I felt violated and threatened. Yes, I offered up the pizza. But when a lady with broken front teeth comes up from behind me while I'm securing my 16-month old and she has a male acquaintance watching nearby, I'm feeling vulnerable.

I'm now ticked. I feel like I got hustled. I'm not going back into that area, especially because this all happened in broad daylight, at about 5:00 P.M. I don't feel safe there.

The scary thing is that it could have been much, much worse.

What do you think?

Wow... It's May!

The May/June schedule came out today. It's exciting, yet scary to think that another school year is coming to a close. In some ways, thank goodness. (That is in the 'I'm ready to be done with keeping track of 28 kids all the time') Otherwise, I think, already? (Most are fun, including my four-!- ADHD students.)

I've already started on some of my summer projects. The office is being painted a milk chocolate brown. DH isn't fond of it, but I'm working on him. I think I can get him to come around. We're also working on replacing the temporary paper blinds in our windows with actual blinds. (It feels a little surreal when you've had leather furniture for a while, but not real window treatments.) Little by little, bit by bit.

OK, I'm officially old...

My DH and I have been discussing the new vehicle purchase for a while now. As I said in my last post, we've been discussing the MDX, Pilot, and Suburban. Phil test-drove the Pilot and Ridgeline, and his general impression was, "Meh."

We talked about buying my parent's Suburban and driving it out here. Then they traded it off for a Yukon Denali on Wednesday night. (Yes, my parents are blingin' in a Denali. It's a strange world, folks.)

So, DH and I went and made a major purchase today. So what was it?

A John Deere.

Yes, people, I own a John Deere. And it's actually pretty cool. We had looked online at 'our lawn and gardening needs,' and my assessment was that we needed more than the basic riding lawnmower. We have two acres, part of our property lies on a slope, and I want to be able to haul bags of mulch, topsoil, and compost around. DH wants to be able to till, aerate, dethatch, and push snow with it. So we went with an upgraded X540 from 2006. We would have paid roughly $2400 more by going with the '07 model. (And it's a tractor, not a car!) I was relieved that we finally had a riding mower, so DH would quit whining about the push mower.

Then I rode it. Wow. Powerful and quick. It used to take us about 3+ hours to mow our lawn. Now it will take an hour. My husband's honey-do list is going to get longer!

Oh, me of little sleep

I'm a tired pup lately.

Mark, my dear overly mobile boy, has been cutting his canines. Just when I thought that our human alarm clock days were over.

I also am taking a grad class at school for recertification credits... as well as finishing a distance learning grad class for recertification credits. I'll be happy when they are over and I will be happy when I am bumped to a new pay lane (yes, based on the number of recertification credits I have).

DH and I have been occupying our free time (late night, of course) researching new vehicles. We saw an Acura MDX we fell in love with. Love the leather, DVD, etc. Don't love the lack of room for the luxury price. Looked at a Pilot and decided that we'll just bite the bullet and get the MDX which is a nicer package if it comes down to that. Drove my parents' Suburban and loved it. Drove a Pacifica (with transmission issues, I swear-- the engine shouldn't rev and pull back when you're at highway speed) and we were disappointed with the space. (Which is exactly why we want an upgrade from our two-Accord present situation.)

Then we rode in our friends'... minivan. And I really liked it. 'Cause I'm a mom. I didn't want to like it, and I really liked it. It has space, you can get leather and DVD, it has better gas mileage than the Suburban and the MDX, and you can even get ski attachments for the top.

God, I'm getting old. I'm going to go to sleep.

Catching up on a good thing...

I tend to join a bandwagon after it's begun.

Case in point: Harry Potter. The second book was out before I caught on. And I'm a teacher. (Yes, that is the ASL letter L I am holding up to my forehead.)

I also caught on to the Sopranos late. When the DH and I were first married and po' as po' can be, we went to the public library and checked out Sopranos videos for free. (What can I say? I was po' and white.)

Well, my most recent late jump on a bandwagon has been Weeds. It's been quite fun in a guilty sort of way. If you knew me in real life, you'd know that I am the sort of person that would NEVER do drugs. Ever, ever, ever.

In fact, the summer before I became a Momma, my girl friends and I went on our first annual girl trip. They decided to torture me and made believe that a bag of oregano was marijuana. Of course I did the total white girl scream. I'm such a sucker sometimes.

The show is fun as it shows the facade of suburbia. The only thing that isn't realistic is that people in this show actually know their neighbors.

Tired of the tears

I'm sad, but also angry about the shooting at Virginia Tech today.

I immediately called my elementary school to see if my paraprofessional's son was involved (he's a VA Tech senior, as is his girlfriend). He was okay, and I haven't heard about his girlfriend. I hope she's okay-- I know her because she's subbed for me several times.

I also talked to my friend, who told me that one of my former co-workers had to rush to get her son because he witnessed a firearm at his high school.

It continues to make me furious, especially as I look at my precious little munchkin, that this is still happening. I'm pissed that I have to do lock-down drills and have eight-year-olds look at me and say, "Mrs. AAK, are we doing this so we won't be shot?" How do you answer that question? My answer is always, "We do this to make sure we're safe just in case something dangerous happens."

Are gun laws the answer? Background checks? I'm not sure.

Having just watched 'This Film is Not Yet Rated' this weekend, I do think that we need to stop enabling bloodless violence to be in PG movies.

I grew up in a house with guns. They were unlocked, but I knew full well to keep my hands off. I knew what the consequences of a gunshot were. And I want my son to know the same.

To all those that died today, may your souls rest in peace in the heaven that you're now in. To the families of those who died-- you are all in my prayers. I grieve with you.

To all those that were wounded, I pray for a speedy recovery. I pray for healing from the madness that you experienced.

I'm tired of crying for murdered students. How do we solve this?

Spring (?) Break

My DH had oodles of frequent flyer miles that were supposed to expire on the last day of 2006. He forgot until during the first few days of January, and figured that he'd give it a shot and see if he could still book something. He decided to shoot for Spring Break. What was the destination? Florida? California?

No way. We were off to the sunny climes of... Minnesota?

Well, there was a reason. We both have family there. The golden boy needed to see both sets of grandparents. There were aunts, uncles, and cousins to see. And then there was my personal favorite, the Twins game. (Mmmm... Joe Mauer, yummy...)

However, Minnesota was not the warmest destination. It made me long for next year's destination: Orlando! I'm pretty excited-- I'll be going down with my folks, my sister and her boyfriend, and my DH/the boy.

I really am excited. I need to thaw out from my vacation.

An update...

Testing is over, thank goodness. Now I get to teach.

It's Spring, the pollen is flyin', and I'm sneezin'. My head has been fighting its yearly sinus battle.

We went and had pictures taken today. Mark was his normal, charming self. However, sit still? Pose? Ha! He saw toys, and toys must be strewn about. So, my son went and ran the hallway. Luckily, our photographer was good at the candids. We got some good shots.

The Babe

My munchkin worries me a bit. He's been on the wee side since he was born, which was a shock to my husband and me. We were both mid-8 lb. babies, and we expected Mark to be the same.

Nope. He was 6 pounds, 8 ounces.

And he continues to be small. Which we find weird. He's healthy, chipper, and can figure stuff out like it's no one's business (this 13-month-old called three numbers from my contacts list on my cell phone tonight). But he's below the fifth percentile for head circumference and weight and at the twenty-fifth percentile for length.

I'm not sure whether I should be worried or not. His ped. said at the 12-month appointment that since he was at the 15-month developmental stage, that there was no reason to be worried.

But I am worried.

He eats like a horse. Will he grow already?

Watershed

It is a time of transition here at AAK.

The munchkin has begun to run-- walking is SO passe when you can walk and momentum is on your side.

March 17th is approaching, which puts an end to the Ze Frank year of internship. Thank goodness my League of Awesomeness sweatshirt arrived.

I'm adjusting to the state of chaos that is my life. I think that I'm somehow adjusting to this new state of juggling waaaay too much. At least when the human tornado is asleep, anyway.

The saddest transition is IntSpEd and Xian. Good friend gets a job on the League of Awesomeness level, gets engaged to a great girl (I've known that for years), and prepares to move to the West Coast. And the finality of it all doesn't hit me until I see them looking so permanent-couple-like as my kid is screaming from the Thai spice on his veggies and rice. (What can I say? I'm juggling, folks.)

I decided that I can't be sad about this. Yet. I'll be sad when they're both gone. Or when he's gone. Or when I have to go and hit up the Southwest website to see them.

I realize that transitions just are. Lives grow, develop, change. It's hard when you see a glimpse of the future in your friends' smiles and you wish you'd be able to more closely share that future with them.