Look what I found!

I was taking something out to the garbage and found that my cymbidium had bloomed. It's a magnificent thing, really much more lemony yellow than it appears here. Certainly good for a kick in the spirits. I decided to take a little walk around to see what else was up in the garden. LOTS of weeds so am hoping to do some hoeing today. The Queen Anne's Tears (a billbergia) has also bracht-ed out (as Calvin says, "I love to verb words!") and both hardenbergia's are covered with purple flowers. DS2 had cut the one outside the family room window to the ground in his fantastic yard clean-up last year and I was afraid it was gone. It was good to see it looking so happy.

Nothing like LOTS of rain to perk everything up. Even the violets are popping up again, and I saw a butterfly go past the window (couldn't catch what kind, though.) It's about time for the spring Monarchs to emerge. They get to the chrysalis stage, then just hang around all winter and emerge about this time of year, head out looking for food and come back in August to lay eggs. Since DS2 had pulled out most of the milkweed in his enthusiastic cleaning while we were gone last summer I was afraid we would lose the Monarchs, but I seem to have a few plants left for them here and there so will keep my fingers crossed.

Speaking of raising spirits, I must share this picture (and yes, I told DH I was going to do this). DH went off to the grocery store yesterday and had been home for a while when he came into my office and said something about reporting me to the Wive's Association or something for "letting" him go to the store "this way."

He said he had been rummaging around in his jeans drawer to find something to wear so he could launder his usual pair of jeans in preparation for his trip next week. He said he was so excited to find an old pair that he just pulled them on and headed for the store. He's still trying to convince himself that the jacket he was wearing (really just a long-sleeved microfiber shirt) covered this.

It didn't.

I did manage to get the Christmas tree down and - mostly - packed away. Today I'm hoping to get the rest of the decorations down and packed, too. It's going a little slower than most years because I'm trying to get rid of some stuff. Well, not exactly get rid of it yet - I'm sorting the stuff I don't want into a separate box so the boys can go through it and see if there's anything they want, then I'll get rid of what's left.

Finally, I did some stitching as we watched the returns from the primaries come in and

TAA-DAA!

I finished the sampler in the center of my "What Color is Spring?" quilt. Now I can start on the sashing, which is what I REALLY have been looking forward to. I was thinking that I would do one color at a time. No, that's not right. The patchwork part of the quilt is in color-coordinated rows: a pink row, orange row, yellow row, green row and so on. The embroidery design on the sashing between the rows also is themed on a color. The sashing after the pink row, for example, has pink hollyhocks, hearts and butterflies. The sashing after the yellow row has a big sun at the top, bees, sunflowers and fuzzy little chickies. The sashing after the blue has bluebirds. The sashing after the green is my favorite with grass full of green bugs. Like I was trying to say, I was thinking of doing all the pink sashing, then all the orange, then all the yellow. But my mom suggesting working out in one direction from the center so I don't get bored doing all one color at a time. Got me to thinking that for stability of the quilt it might be better to jump around while I work on this. We'll see.

That's More Like It

There's nothing like Disney therapy to get my serotonin levels up! I had planned a trip two weeks ago when I scheduled my first consultation with the cardiologist. We have so few good subs for middle school that I always take a full day off when I need time for an appointment (they don't tend to take the half-day jobs) and was glad to hear the doctor only saw new patients as his first appointment of the day. I wanted to go to get a Disneyland fix right after that appointment, but I was so sick with The Crap that I went home and slept the rest of the day instead. So, on Wednesday after the last of my tests, I hit the freeway and was in the park by 1:00.

It was pretty off-season so I went over to the new Finding Nemo Sub ride. The only other time I'd been on it I had waited an hour and forty-five minutes; this time I only waited 25 minutes. I also went to the Tiki Room and to see Billy Hill and the Hillbillies. Stopped by the Candy Palace to get some fudge for DH, then found a great bench to watch the Parade of Dreams. I waited for the parade for a couple of hours but that was OK 'cause I love people watching. I've been trying for two years to get a decent picture of one of my favorite characters - Jiminy Cricket - and finally got one!

The finale float in this parade is a ballroom scene (with Snow White, Aurora and Cinderella dancing and waving) in the front and Sleeping Beauty's Castle with Mickey and Minnie in the tower at the back. Chip and Dale and Donald Duck "cavort" between the side and back balconies. About six feet behind this last float are two pages carrying the stay-behind-us rope to end the parade. USUALLY, thousands of people follow the parade to the front of the park, but on Wednesday there were only a half dozen people at the rope when it got to me (and I was sitting more than halfway through the parade). Since I was planning to leave right after the parade anyway, I decided to follow it to the front of the park.

What a hoot! It was really fun to feel like part of the parade, to sing along with music.

By the way, the Disney site is running a sweepstakes, giving away Disneyland vacations that include a night IN THE PARK. Apparently someone found drawings of an apartment that Walt Disney had built and planned to decorate for friends and family to stay in the park when they came to visit. (It's over the Pirate ride in New Orleans Square). The apartment had never been done, but the drawings still existed. They just finished the apartment and are giving away nights as part of their "Year of a Million Dreams" give-away. You can enter every day. Now, I don't expect to win a vacation, but each time you enter you get a digital prize for your desktop. Yesterday's was a Ratatouille clock (which I didn't save so I lost it) and today's is a Winnie the Pooh bobble head. Disney fans should head on over .

When I got back to school after two days out I found that the kids hadn't quite finished the work I had left for them, so Thursday was a low-key day as they finished up what I'd left. Then yesterday was the day to wrap it all up. Everything they'd been doing was about American diplomacy in the New Republic leading up to the Monroe Doctrine, and yesterday we were to get into the document itself. Over the years I've found it is sometimes a positive for the kids when I admit that even I don't like everything I teach. Yesterday I introduced the lesson by explaining that I really love history, and that some of what I teach I get really excited about. I held up the Monroe Doctrine text and said, "This ain't one of them." The kids thought that was really funny. I explained that it was one of our standards, though, so we had to do it. I talked them through the text, had them write a few things down and left them with some questions to answer. To close the lesson, I said, "And after all of this, you can summarize the message of the Monroe Doctrine in two words. Can anyone give me two works to sum this up?" Hot Damn! I have a kid in my first period class who has done NOTHING all year. He has not turned in a single assignment and has failed every test. Now, I will NOT think up things to praise a child about. Kids today get too much of this false praise, to the point that they don't think they have to do anything in order to be considered competent in school. But if they will just give me something to praise, I'll make a big deal out of it, and with a kid like this boy, it often is what will lure them into history. I've had kids over the years who sat and did nothing for half a year - like this boy - only to get into the class at the end of the year and come back years later to tell me they are in college studying history because they enjoyed it so much in my class. Because of that, I never give up hope! So here's this kid yesterday. Usually I have to keep my eye on him because he will try to pull his hood up over his head and listen through his ipod earbuds instead of listening to me talk. But yesterday, when I asked for two words to sum up the Monroe Doctrine his contribution was "Back off!" That was fun! I could give him genuine praise 'cause he was right on, he threw his fists into the air in the now classic "I did it!" action and at the end of class brought his agenda to me for signing, a big, hopeful step for him!

Now I have a whole two days with nowhere to go and no commitments so am trying to sort out my thoughts and decide what to do first. Fold and put away what laundry I didn't use out of the basket last week, start this week's wash. I think I want to concentrate on taking down the Christmas tree first. DH leaves on his Utah trip on Thursday, and I plan to bring my sewing machine into the family room while he's gone. My hope is to finish a quilt I'm working on for a friend and at least one of the blocks for the Butterfly Garden quilt so that I can do the handwork on it. If I have any energy left (and the residual of The Crap is that I tire very easily. Thanks for the warning, Kathryn!) I would like to make headway in the attic clean-out. I need to finish sorting and re-packing and labeling all that I brought down before Christmas. Then, all the furniture in two rooms has to be brought from the walls so that an electrician can come in and repair/replace all the outlets.

So, I guess I'd better get to it!

One last whine...

for now.

Woke up at 5:00 AM so depressed that I couldn't get back to sleep. As always, visiting blogs cheered me up some. I promise to come back after work (TGIF) with an attempt at an attitude adjustment. I'm so tired of feeling so hopeless.

DH is getting ready to leave next week for two weeks at the Utah condo - in the (sniff) snow. In the five years I've been paying for that thing I've only been there in the snow once. I was SO looking forward to going for spring break (early this year) because there should still be LOTS of snow to enjoy, but it's already been reserved for the week. Even if we could afford to lose the rental days (which we can't, since we've lost a whole season because of the flood), I'm not sure I should spend the $$$ to make the trip up. So I told DH I might not bump the renters and instead would not take the ASL class he wanted me to take this summer and would go spend a few weeks late June/early July.

Speaking of the flood, it's been eight weeks and the repairs are still not finished (even though on the rental calendar the management company has repairs completed on the 11th.) The manager said they MIGHT be able to comp DH another condo, to which he snapped off an email remind this guy that he has people flying in for the week. What, is he supposed to have them standing around in sub-freezing weather for a MAYBE condo? Someone got back to him right away to let him know they would have a place for him in one of the owner's condos (the owner is an old friend.)

My union action meeting went well but, of course, it means a ton of new work for me implementing the plan they devised. On top of which, we had decided not to go to board meetings for a few months, so I committed to giving a talk about the Supreme Court to the local Democratic Club. NOW we find out that on that very night is the meeting where our school board is going to be discussing mid-year cuts so THAT is the meeting I'm expected to pull together a big demonstration. Same thing happened last year and I ended up having to dash out of the Dems meeting after my speech (last year's topic was Signing Statements, which was very scary to learn about) and to the school board meeting.

I have to go get ready for work but wanted to write that my heart testing went fine. Won't know the cardiologist's take on everything for another month but as far as I could tell from watching the monitor during the echocardiogram everything seemed to be pumping right along. I was able to see one artery that seems to have a little plaque in one area but it didn't seem occluded. Have a funny story to tell about the treadmill test but will save it for tonight's post, which is going to be more upbeat. Since this is my whine post I will complain about being jerked around by this office. I had to take two days off work for this. Their instruction was to not eat for four hours before the treadmill test. My first appointment was for one o'clock on Tuesday. At 11:00 they called to say they were running behind, would I mind coming in at 2:00? No problem (I've got enough fat stores, I'm not going to starve). I was supposed to get an IV "installed', do the treadmill, then eat my fatty meal (which absorbs the tracer they inject partway through the treadmill), then do the echo, then go have a myocardial perfusion scan. As I'm standing on the treadmill ready for The Ordeal (part of the funny story for tonight), the office manager comes in wanting me to come in on FRIDAY (another day off work) for the echo because they are still running behind. I told her I was not taking another day off, that I was coming back the next day for the second part of the MPS and if she wanted to move the echo to Wednesday while I was here for Part Deux of the MPS that was fine, but that I had plans for the afternoon and would not hang around all day for it. No problem, she assured me, and I would be out by 9:30 AM. I had one of the first appointments on Wednesday (8:15). They didn't come get me until 8:30 (I was there early) and I wasn't out of there until nearly 11:00.

Yes, I know in a cardiologist's office they are very likely to have emergencies and I was not an emergency, but emergency did not seem to be the problem Wednesday, just people coming in late and being inflexible (although they certainly expected the patients to be flexible).

Let's see, I'm getting all my whining out. DH paid for $350 worth of repairs to DS2's car. DS2 has finally realized that he is not going to be "discovered" as a drummer (especially when he's not playing anywhere) so went to apply at what USED to be a huge employer in our area. Sadly, their business in in the dumps, as are all businesses around here as more and more greedy corporations move their work to other countries, so I fear he will be stuck working for the post office and delivering pizza at night (and still not making it). He will move back home in May (I hope) which should take some of the pressure off him.

And now I must leave for work, always a depressing thought. They just released the list of eighth graders who may not graduate in June, most of whom are in my classes. Only one of them - a boy whose mother died at the beginning of the year - has ever turned in an assignment. All the others don't believe this education has anything to do with them. So, how did we raise a generation with so many children (and, frankly, their parents) who don't think the students have a role to play in their own learning?

I guess I'm just supposed to cram it in their ears.

for Debbi at dubiquilts

I'll warn you right now, this is going to be one of my stream-of-consciousness rambles so bail now if you want. I just want Debbi to know that she really helped me with something.

I was raised by midwesterners who lived through the Depression. This means, I've been told (and have lived the evidence), that medical care is for emergencies only. I remember going to the doctor when I was 8 to get a boil lanced, 14 for a German measles shot (and if they hadn't been taking my little sister for her kindergarten physical, I'm not sure that would have happened) and not again until I took myself in at 20 to the gynecologist for a check-up and contraception before my wedding. I married a hypochondriac. Every little ache or twinge is cause for panic. I remember one year his heart skipped a beat. He worried and worried and - sure enough - it did it again. Off he went to a cardiologist and eventually had cardiac catheterization (angiogram), in which he learned that he has NO plaque anywhere. Diagnosis - stress. One missed beat and he worried himself into an invasive, potentially dangerous procedure. At his ten-year check the cardiologist told him to expect to live to at LEAST ninety.

Because of my upbringing and - frankly - disdain for DH's overreactions, I tend to want to blow off medical things. I did go on blood pressure medication several years ago, but my doctor moved out of the area and I let my prescription run out and didn't do anything for my health for about five years. Finally, about two years ago, I heard a little voice say to me, "You know, you're just committing slow suicide neglecting yourself this way." And it is true. One of the things I wrestle with all the time is the feeling that I've done what I was sent here to do. I won't take time here to dissect all the reflection I've done over this, but will just say that two years ago I again went on the hunt for a physician I could bond with. It took a while until I found just the right woman. She advises and I choose.

I've done a lot of things (by my standards) for myself in the last two years. Saw a dermatologist to have a couple of pre-cancerous growths taken off my face. Had every filling in my mouth replaced and a resorbing tooth extracted (and have kept up my cleanings.) I'm up-to-date on mammograms. My blood work comes back every year in the normal range - no diabetes and my cholesterol ratios are good. The biggest challenge so far has been getting my blood pressure down where she wants it and we've been trying different combos of stuff to get it down.

Because I had tolerated enalapril in the past, we started with 5 mg. My bp came down, but not far enough, so we increased it to 10 mg. I had an appointment in August 2007 and while my BP was down more, it still wasn't down enough. And my internist was not pleased at that visit that my heartrate was up. She first asked if I was feeling any tightness in the chest or shortness of breath. "Yeah," I said, "but it's kind of a 'bad air day" feeling, like from time to time I need a big sigh." (Note: this was during the big Ojai wildfires and the air was full of smoke for days and days.) Off the doctor went to get a device to put on my finger to measure my O2 levels - 96%. Finally she said, "You just look too comfortable," and added, "Stress can cause these symptoms. Are you under any stress?" At which point I burst out crying. She passed the tissues and said, "Guess so."

"Well," she mused, "I just think you're way too comfortable to be really concerned. If I were really concerned, I would send you off to the emergency room right now, but instead I'm just going to suggest that we call a cardiologist and get you in next week to make sure everything is OK."

No way. I was leaving the next day on my long-awaited vacation. In Utah. Two weeks in the Rockies. At 5200 feet. When she learned where I would be, she ordered an EKG. "If there's something wrong with your heart," she warned, "you will REALLY feel it up there." The EKG was fine. She gave me a copy of the read-out, a copy of my last bloodwork and orders to hightail it to the hospital at the first twinge of chest pain. She also suggested adding a different medication to the regime to bring my BP down some more. I explained that I was a little nervous about trying something new while 800 miles from home, so we opted to increase the enalapril to 15 mg for the two weeks I would be gone and see what happened. The next day Dh and I were in the car and headed up the 15.

I had no problems in Utah. In fact, by the end of the two weeks I could haul my fat butt up and down the stairs without getting winded. I even ended up walking uphill at 12,000 feet when we had to park in the overflow area to see some friends finish the Xterra triathlon at Snowbasin. I was panting a little, but recovered in about a minute. And, while resting for two weeks it finally dawned on me! When I had been on enalapril before, we had to reduce the dosage because it made my heart race! I was pretty sure that was the problem.

I saw the internist again when I returned. I shared with her what I had remembered about enalapril, and we immediately reduced the dosage and added one called diltiazem. She was changing practices at the end of that week - after a vacation - and could not tell me where she would be. It took me almost three months to find her again. At that visit we were thrilled that my BP was down to 114/74 and my pulse down to 64. As we rebuilt my file, she asked, "Are there any loose ends we need to tie up?" I was SORELY tempted to just drop the cardiologist thing. After all, she had SAID that if there was anything wrong with my heart, I would feel it in the high altitudes but I didn't. And once the air cleared after the fire I had no tightness or shortness of breath. And my pulse was down to 64! Seems to me our previous concerns were all for naught, right?

But then I thought, "After all of this work to build a trusting rapport with this doctor, shouldn't I honor our relationship by at least being honest? So I reminded her about her advice to see a cardiologist. DAMN, she wanted me to follow through with that. "If it's nothing, you haven't lost any more than a few hours. But if there is a problem, isn't it better to learn it now while it's less serious?" Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, just after the MLK weekend I had a consultation (and took an immediate dislike to this guy). I explained what had happened (the short version, believe it or not) to get me to his office. I also said "morbidly obese 56-year-olds drop dead every day. The only way I'm going to lose weight is to build an exercise program, and this visit is also to find a safe way to do that." First thing he said was that my pulse (about 100 in his office) wasn't THAT high and my BP was under control. ("Great," I thought to myself, "I might get off easy.") No such luck. He didn't like my cholesterol numbers. "It's not really that high, and your ratio is good, but cholesterol and high blood pressure work synergistically to increase your risk of heart disease." Swell. So, now I'm on lipitor. And a baby aspirin "for circulation."

And I have an appointment tomorrow for an echocardiogram and myocardial perfusion scan. Which brings me to my message for Debbi.

I SO DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS tomorrow. I've been trying and trying to find a way to talk myself out of it. Oh, I know I'll do it. But it was really bugging me to be in such conflict over it, to be so resentful of having to take the time off (seems like a waste of TWO sick days to me, 'cause I have to go back the second day for some part of the procedure.)

And then I visited Debbi's blog, dubiquilts. dubiquilts was one of the first blog links to go into my sidebar, mostly because my cousin's little girl used to call me "dubi." I always enjoyed reading Debbi's posts, although she's into some things (like fabric postcards) that don't really interest me that much. Consequently, hers is one of the blogs I don't read every day. In fact, due in part to switching to my new computer, I hadn't checked Debbi's blog in about three weeks.

I was absolutely shocked to read that Debbi had nearly died in the time that I'd been away. FIVE heart attacks, angioplasty and TWO stents later she seems to be on the mend, thank goodness. I hope any of my friends still reading this will go check out Debbi's story. We all need to take the lesson that she offers.

And Debbi, if you came over, I want to THANK YOU for taking the time to share your story. I'm still not looking forward to tomorrow's adventure, but thanks to you I AM looking forward to whatever I will learn. If it's good news, great - I'll get started on a walking program (but it may take me a while to build up to the 1.5+ miles you are doing.) And if I need to do some repair, so be it. I have your example to inspire me.

I have a rather strange spiritual belief system. It's personal and I feel no compulsion to explain it to anyone. All I'll say is that, after weeks of not checking in on dubiquilts, to pop in today and learn what I did, the day before I go for heart testing procedures, it just too weird to ignore. I have to believe that I was sent to you, Debbi, and I again say, "Thank you," for the help!

Butterfly Garden

Nancy, I ordered my Butterfly Garden patterns from Treasured Threads (see link in sidebar). They are getting more and more AU patterns all the time.

This just in...

My brother just emailed. My parents are snowed in. They left Wednesday to spent a few days in their trailer at Bass Lake in the Sierras near Yosemite. Dad was supposed to spend yesterday at jazz festivals in the Fresno area, then they were to return home today.

Oops. DB says it will be at least a couple more days before they can get out. I'm sure they're thrilled!

Super Bore Sunday

At the risk of being called un-American, I will admit here that I despise football. My bigotry began in high school. I performed in what was then called an "attached unit" with the HS marching band. Every other Saturday each fall, we competed in a "band review" which meant spending the entire day getting ready to travel to another SoCA town, marching up to five miles, then waiting around until late evening for awards, arriving back at the high school around midnight to unload the buses and equipment vans. We practiced for these events in last period band supplemented by an hour after school every day.

In addition to this commitment, during the football season we were expected to support our school by performing a new, 12-minute halftime show every other Friday. The band was expected to play during the entire game (but not so loud as to make it impossible for the team to hear the signals) and we "attached unit" performers were expected to be the cheering section. In order to prepare for these halftime shows, we practiced our street routines for band class and the hour after school then, as soon as the football team left the field (to shower and go home), we could take the field to practice our show. On the night of the show we would leave the stands in time to be lined up off the field as the timer went off at the end of the first half. We would immediately take the field for our 12-minute show so that we would be off the field when the team returned for their two-minute warm-up before the second half.

Game after game, though, the team came out at 11.5 minutes, not twelve, and these drooling idiots thought it incredibly funny to run through our finale. Our director finally threatened to just not show up (something the coaches begged him not to do because, frankly, without the band section there, our school's crappy team would have been left with only their parents to cheer.) But, the coaches were bigger jerks than their players and there was really never any change.

DH (who played football through high school and at UCLA for a while in the late 1950s) agreed with me that our sons would not be allowed to play football. Period. (DH calls the game "painball" because of the aches he still suffers due to those hits in the 50s). They played baseball and basketball, and DS2 lettered in varsity volleyball in high school. Both boys say to this day, though, that they never understood what true teamwork was until they got into music. Sports tended, for them, to be the constant exercise of who will star this game, while in music a piece is only at its best when EVERY player is doing their best.

Still, DH enjoys watching football on television and we've spent many a lovely weekend tucked into our respective recliners, he napping through some football game, me with the latest stitchery project in hand. I was actually looking forward to doing the same this weekend, especially since I'm still dealing with the tail end of symptoms of The Crap of 2008. Instead, I'm hiding in my office. DH is a great guy, and this year's projects have been learning American Sign Language and working for emancipated foster youth in our community. Right now, my family room is filled with his "gatherlings," young people from either his ASL class or foster youth with whom he works in the community, to watch the Super Bowl.

I'm sorry to be so shallow, but all week long I have to make nice with kids, especially kids with problems. I'm just not up to hangin' with them on my day off.

So, here I am. I should be writing sub plans (have to be out Tuesday and Wednesday for some medical tests) or folding laundry. Or getting ready for a union action meeting on Thursday. I did do some work on a speech I said I would give next month about the Supreme Court (yawn). But I really don't feel up to any of that.

I'm watching 50 first Dates. And eating Dove's chocolate hearts. And cleaning off my bed. I've been sleeping in my recliner for the time of The Crap (everything drains better so I don't cough so much) and the bed got buried under craft supplies. I've got it just about cleared off so I can sleep there tonight. While digging through the stuff I found this stitchery piece. I really like it but can't decide what to do with it. It's supposed to be the medallion in a wall hanging, but the pattern is pretty simplistic. I might like to do something a little more complex around the edges than just two pieces of sashing (as was shown in the model.)

I've just about finished the center sampler for the "What Color is Spring?" quilt. I hope to have a picture to post soon.

Everyone have a good week!

P.S. Missy - If you haven't seen it yet, check out "Yes We Can." Get your tissue, first.

Wish I was There...

This picture was taken yesterday in the main intersection in the little Utah mountain town of Huntsville. The weathercam is mounted on the roof of Valley Elementary School, where all the kids K-6 attend school from the Ogden Valley. This is where we go in July to see the 4th of July parade, then where we go to see local fine arts in August when the valley hosts a hot air balloon festival. There are two major ski resorts in this valley, the biggest being Snowbasin, the Sun Valley resort that hosted the downhill events for the 2002 winter Olympics. The locals prefer Powder Mountain because, well, I guess the name says it all. It started snowing right around Thanksgiving and, near as we can tell from checking in on Weatherbug several times a day, it has snowed just about every day since then.

And this is the same intersection today. They are under a heavy snow alert. No kidding! Check out the depth of the snow around the stop sign!


Our condo is about five minutes further into the valley (in the even smaller town of Eden, Utah) and up Powder Mountain from here, so we assume the snow is about the same. Our building lot is very close to the condo, and we are very much looking forward to retiring there and enjoying this winter wonderland.

We just want to be retired first, 'cause this SoCA girl can't imagine having to anything more than tuck myself in to stitch, sew or write in this stuff.

Mending

Well, this is the only stitchery related accomplishment of the last two weeks. It's the first mini-block from Leanne's Butterfly Garden and I put it together last weekend when I spent the night with my mom. SIL came over for her first hand-applique lesson. The previous day I had taken Mom to a couple of shops in a vain attempt to find some little buttons to include with Chiloe's snow gardener chart (sorry, no luck) and to fill out some of the fabrics for this quilt. I'm thrilled that I will be able to use up a lot of stash on this, but some of the pieces (like the little check above) are from charm packs and just aren't going to stretch too far. I needed a handful of yard pieces to tie the quilt together. I have a huge piece (10 yards of 52" wide) of Robyn Pandolph's "Captured in Time" that I had bought to make a garden trellis quilt for my upstairs guest room in the new house.



I had also bought several yards of her "Cinnamon Girl" rose bud (on the bottom of the mini-block) for the same quilt. Now there will be no upstairs guest room (maybe no new house) so I'm going to use all that for this quilt. It's perfect!

I'm finally starting to feel almost human again but am doing a lot of self-talk to not try to do too much this weekend. I would really love to get the Christmas tree down and do some cleaning but I'm just edgy enough with this thing to feel like if I do that, I'll be back down for next week. I have some medical tests scheduled for Tuesday that I do not want to have to reschedule because I overdid this weekend so LET LAZINESS REIGN!

The worst part of this virus was the depression. Last Monday I spent my entire work period crying in my classroom, then could barely contain myself for the rest of the day. By the time I got home I was a blubbering mess. DH felt awful (he's such a guy, wanting to "fix" everything.) I did my best to explain that life ain't been so great lately for us, but that I'm usually able to keep things in perspective and move forward through the trials. This virus just sapped out all my reserves and I had nothing left to battle the blues. Fortunately, that part seems to be passing, although I am still crabby and short-tempered at work.

On Thursday, one of our school coaches hosted a field hockey demonstration for the field hockey team (who were all going to be out of school all day Friday for a field trip to the local community college for a field hockey tournament.) At the beginning of my fifth period class a very sweet girl (and good student) came bee-bopping up up and asked, politely as you please, "Are we doing anything important in class today?" "Why no, dear, I never plan anything important for history." Still glowing, she says, "Well, our field hockey coach says that if we're not missing anything important in our fifth period class we can come to the demonstration." At which point I had to tell her that I was giving a lecture that would not be repeated nor could I give her anything to make up for it. Good girl that she is, she stayed in history and I got to watch her pout for 45 minutes.

Why was this my burden? The coach was already pulling the whole team out of their classes for an entire day Friday. Why even mention this second demonstration Thursday? And why put it on the regular ed teachers to be the bad guys? Do they think we're in the habit of planning meaningless activities that can be blown off whenever some coach wants to pull a kid? I ended my day writing a school-wide diatribe email. I tried to make the point that I really DO support enrichment activities and really DO support kids missing class to go do these things. But part of life is understanding that you can't do it all and it's nobody else's responsibility to see that you can. If you are going to miss one thing in order to do something else, that's your choice. It's nobody else's responsibility to make it OK for you.

My boys missed a lot of classes because of their "enrichment" activities. When my oldest was a senior, his honors English teacher called the house to tell me that even though my son was a "wonderful writer," he would never get higher than a "C" in HER class because he was gone all the time on "those music things." "Those music things" were competitions. I told this teacher, "Music is air to my son; there's no way I'm going to make him stop going to 'those music things.' You, of course, should give him whatever grade you feel he's earned in your class." I then told him that she had called and what she said, and assured him he had our support whatever he decided. He continued to go to "those music things," then went on to get his BFA in music (a process that including performing in big bands that competed in -and sometimes won- international jazz festivals like Reno, Montreaux and North Sea. Oh yeah, and I don't know what his final grade was in honors English, but the teacher referred him for a special seminar with Jack Grapes, so she must not have thought he was too shabby.

See, my fuse is still really short. I had a professor tell me this once and I try to remember it. She was talking about students, of course, but I think it applies to everyone. She said, "It's like we're born with a ziploc bag. Every time someone does something positive for us - praises us for something, gives us a hug, supports us when we're down - we add poker chips to our ziploc bag. Every time something negative happens, we lose some chips. When we're faced with a challenge, we have to decide how many chips to risk; the challenge might not go well and we'll lose the chips we risk, but if it does go well, we get even more chips in return. Kids have those little ziploc bags, too, and kids whose bags are filled with chips are the ones who will risk them in classroom situations (or life situations, I would say); the kids who are low are chips are not going to risk the few they have.

This damn virus sucked up my chips. It's going to take me a while to collect some back up again.

By the way, my younger son has put together a youtube album of his drum-related stuff (he's a gifted percussionist; his older brother plays piano and is a gifted bass player. The term "gifted" is one I've overheard professionals say about them so I don't feel TOO much like the biased mommy here.) Anyway, DS2 posted the audio of one of his older brother's big band arrangements of "The Streets of Laredo" played by the Lane 29 Orchestra. When the boys were little, their dad would sing them to sleep with old cowboy songs, and DS1 did this arrangement as a tribute to his dad (which is why it starts out and ends like a lullabye). Anyway, if you would like to go hear it , here's the link. DS1 composed/arranged it and plays piano in this recording; DS2 is playing drums. Streets of Laredo

Chiloe

Your present is on the way! I hope your kids enjoy stamps. The postal worker cooperated with putting lots of pretty US stamps on the package for you!