What my reader might envy about my life is the time that I have to do things at home. Like most humans, I squander my resources. I am sorry to say, that here I am at home, while the kids are at school and sometimes I really waste that time.

Sometimes, I use it industriously to do egregious tasks.

Sometimes, I squander it in personally enjoyable activities, such as reading or napping.

Sometimes, I decide I should memorize speeches from Hamlet. That’s one thing I did today.  I am trying to commit to memory the speech in which Hamlet describes his depression, how he really knows that the world, the air, mankind, etc., are amazing and all that, but his attitude sucks and he is Not Pleased.

To test my learning of it so far, I am going to try to write it out now.

I have of late, wherefore I know not , lost all my mirth.  … What a piece of work is  a man, how noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form and moving how admirable, in action.  How like an angel, in apprehension… How like a God!

It’s close, but not quite right. If you are a Shakespearean scholar, you’ll notice my funny punctuation.  A quick trip to Wikipedia and you may talk like a scholar, too, for there it explains how in different places where this brilliant speech is committed to paper, there are different punctuation marks. I don’t recall which is what, and why, but I did decide to memorize and say this speech to myself as it most made sense. So, I am saying that in apprehension, man is like an angel, rather than in action.  Daring, I know. That’s me.

I am writing on a derelict com’uter that has a broken letter p.  I can ty’e a p when I try really hard, and ‘ress down on it intentionally. But most of the time, I will be too lazy to accom’lish that.  Sorry in advance. The a’ostro’hes will go as well. Oo’sy.

Well if that didn’t scare away the reader, then maybe the rest of this entry will be just for you, that one special person for whom a hard press of the letter will be made.

Today Pann is thinking about the nature of the egregious task.  What on earth is that, you may ask? An egregious task, in this household, really, is any kind of task that simly must be done, and no matter how much whining one does, it all comes to the simle fact that it has to be done, so it is.  Usually involves something unleasant or stinky.  When you have two kids, three cats, and two guinea pigs, there’s a lot of unpleasant stuff to manage.

POOP.  Not to mention, there is plumbing to be managed. It is annoying how often the larger mammals around here clog up the toilets.

Funny, though you may at this oint be thinking that I am complaining, I actually feel pretty good and I don’t meant to complain at all.  I did several egregious tasks today and I don’t mind much.

The one I really didn’t like was plunging the toilet.  Because, YUCKY POOP! Stinks, you know.

I also scooped the cat boxes. But that was stinky but not as bad as plunging. I also cleaned up my younger daughter’s room, which was messy but not poopy or stinky.  That wasn’t bad, but it is an act of fierce futility.  I looked and even entered my older daughter’s room, but the level of chaos there defeated me anyway.  I don’t know how she feels about it, but oh my. Egregious state of affairs indeed, and not even poopy.

The letter p key seems to be sticking less. That is good.  What is the point of this particular little missive? The moral of the story is, if you have the time, go ahead and do the yucky stuff that has to be done. You’ll be glad you did.

And maybe just maybe you’ll be lucky to have your letter p get unstuck in the process.

Perhaps.

The cynical part of me really despises this holiday. I look at all the build-up and see yet another religious holiday that is dressed up for the commercial benefit of our economy, of our sales and purchases and how they can be pumped up a bit more.

But there’s a part me that just loves this day, too. I work with kids. So I receive lovely little notes, with hearts, and sometimes candy, and I can enjoy that a great deal. There is sincerity, amid the chaos of the world, and it often comes from small people.

You know, I really can be distracted rather easily sometimes. I know I opened up this website so I could write about something that was in my mind. Then I saw the TITLE area and lost my train of thought. I started to write: Beautiful Summer, and Life in the Slow Lane, and Birthday Blues, and… well then I thought all of those were fairly nice titles but have nothing to do with what I wanted to write about.

Which was?

Yeah, I’m easily distracted. This is something of a running joke in our household. Which one of us has the ADD, again? The one thing I keep coming back to which makes me deny having ADD (or ADHD, if you prefer) is that I made it all the way through college and grad school without any medication or treatment for ADD. That was six long years of being educated— lots of papers all handed in on time, lots of exams prepared for and taken, no incompletes, no withdrawing from classes… So, that makes me think there’s no way I could really have this disorder and still get by. And with a 4.0 GPA in grad school– and a 3.7 GPA in college.

Or maybe I just do well at school stuff. Is the single-minded structure of go-to-class, do-your-homework enough structure to make me succeed? I don’t know, really, but I am proud that I was so good at school.

My attitude fluctuates greatly. My default setting is “I can do anything I set my mind to.” Of course, I know that’s not exactly true. There are some things I probably cannot accomplish, but that would probably also be the fact that I don’t WANT to put my mind to them.

Today I want to put my mind to putting down some adhesive tiles in my children’s bathroom. I’m going to cover over the old tiles that are there, because they are cracked and incomplete, with sections of the floor that is just kinda grungy cement. I would take a before and after picture, but yesterday Carla and I managed to break my digital camera. Maybe I can borrow a camera from someone else, though.

I asked Drob if he was okay with me putting down these adhesive tiles over the floor in there, because they aren’t exactly high quality. They are pretty, though. I figure it’ll make an improvement, maybe last a couple of years. Maybe by then, we’ll have enough money to really fix up the bathroom for real.

He said, “Hmm… you might find it difficult.”

“Meh!” was my response. Difficult? Pshaw. I don’t think so!

What’s difficult is getting organized, getting a shower, finding all the things I need to do it, cleaning the floor before applying the tiles, finding a good cutting tool to trim them to the right size. Once I do all that, I’m gold. It’s gonna be a cinch.

Carla is turning nine on Saturday. We’re going to have one of my favorite kinds of birthday parties: Low key, low tech, getting down with nature at a park with a creek nearby. We’ll wade in the creek, eat watermelon and cake, hang out and chat, maybe do a pinyata. And that’s all. Easy.

I like easy stuff.

Easy stuff? Okay, now I know what to title this entry, incoherent though it may have been.

Last week’s camp theme was essentially Science & Art and the huge fun messes you can make in both. I had 14 kids in the group, ages 5 to 8. We explored flubber (a gooey mixture of Borax and Elmer’s Glue), baking soda and vinegar explosions, splatter painting, diet soda + mentos candy explosions, and more. It was fun. We also spent a good amount of time playing with the hose in the school yard. Reports back from parents indicated that the kids had a blast.

I was thinking about this whole experience, the intensity of it, the corresponding emotions that go with it. Last year was my first time ever doing a job of this level of intensity and responsibility with kids. Wait, no, that’s not true. I used to work in a daycare center where I was the Lead Teacher. I did that for about 10 months during graduate school. But the fact is, those were essentially BABIES, I mean, large toddlers are still babies really. My classroom back then was filled with little children, all between 18 months and two years old. The needs for activities for essentially pre-verbal children are quite different from working with a largely literate group of school aged children.

I put a tremendous amount of research and effort into last year’s camp. I was insanely anxious– filled with worry that kids wouldn’t like the camp, that I’d lose my patience, that there would be insanity and chaos, and that kids would be unhappy, bored, whiny, and above all complain to their parents and other teachers about my obvious lack of competence. And, in addition, my anxiety said in a whispered frantic tone to my pounding heart, more than likely I’d be fired when the kids under my care ended up being rushed to the ER due to my frank incompetence at even keeping them safe, let alone happy.

Wow. I think I suffered a similar bout of anxiety prior to this year’s camp, although I’d like to think that it was somewhat less intense. It’s important to note that last year’s camp was quite successful. None of the bad things I worried about actually happened. Kids came back to school in the fall and actually told me that the two weeks they spent with me were the best day camp weeks of their entire summer. Sure, they loved the swimming and field trips, and special programming featured at other camps, but it was the FUN and the comfort and the sheer joyfulness of camp with me that came back to them when they thought about what was good about camp.

So you’d think that I have nothing to worry about. Why so much anxiety? I don’t know, to be perfectly honest. I am now halfway through my camp experience for the year. The first week went very well. I love the group of kids I have– and I have a homogenous age group unlike last year’s wide age range. It is nice to be able to talk to them about what we’re going to do, they listen well (mostly!) and they seem to be cooperative (mostly!).

Next week our theme will be world travel. I haven’t picked all our activities yet, so this weekend I have to do a little shopping, and some planning. I love the idea of doing multicultural crafts, cooking, and activities. I got the idea to have each child make a passport for themselves, and then we’ll stamp them each time we “visit” another country.

I think it’s going to be a good week, fun and exhausting in many ways. Then… onto the summer. Hoorah!

Apparently they like petunia blossoms, as well as little baby sunflower plants. The “sonic spike” which buzzes every 30 seconds apparently has no effect on bunnies. Well, it was worth a try. I think I might have to go with a hot pepper spray on the ornamentals to deter bunnies. I’ve also started to add a layer of chicken wire around the fence, in hopes of closing up the holes a bit more, making it more challenging for the little critters to enter the garden.

I’d LOVE to be able to just go and do more garden work, but the club where my community garden is located is not yet open full time. It is only open on the weekends until June 22, or thereabouts. So far, I’ve put in 3 varieties of tomatoes (Early Girl, Roma, Yellow Pear), four varieties of basil, three peppers, cucumbers (seeds just sprouted!), sunflowers, petunias, marigolds, cauliflower, watermelon (seeds), green beans, yellow wax beans, and swiss chard (seeds). I’ve filled about two thirds of the space!

I also have eggplant and okra which I’d like to grow, as well as cantaloupe. I also want to add nasturtiums, but don’t have any plants or seeds as of yet. I read that nasturtiums are good for protecting / helping melons. I would really, really, really like to see my melons succeed this year – both cantaloupes and watermelon. As I recall, the bunnies are pretty fond of watermelon vines as well as the tender petunia flowers that they gobbled up so far.

My mind could get full just on garden thoughts alone.

Yet there’s so much more going on in my brain right now. There’s tax issues to be resolved with the city (again?!?). There’s summer camp, which I’m running for two weeks, (one week from now, yikes!). There’s shopping to be done for Carla’s horseback riding camp (she needs some low boots.) There’s the never ending housework — and the house currently is a real wreck. UGH!

There’s so much, I’m overwhelmed. I do wish it was just time to think about the garden and nothing else. There’s also the yard and the hedges, and the gardens at home which need attention. I’d happily give it to them, too, but for the other house work which needs doing.

I also have to get a large amount of book-keeping, billing, and bill paying done for the small biz that I am putatively running. You can’t pay bills if you don’t send out the billing, and you can’t send out the billing if you don’t enter the book-keeping information. And you can’t keep track of bills if you don’t enter the expenses into the computer! ARGH!

Nasturtiums. I need nasturtiums.

I am glad to be back into some form of structure. Right now I’m sitting at home alone (just me and the cats and the guinea pigs, that is) and I’m listening to music on Pandora.com. If you don’t know Pandora, and you like listening to music, then you should really check it out. It’s free to listen to music, you don’t download anything, and they have just about everything. .

I feel really good. I am delighted that the holidays are “done” and I feel really satisfied. I do wish D (my husband) were able to get a break like I had. Having two full weeks to reset my brain, focus on home, etc., was really nice. Yes, he was off for some of the time, too. But he seems really stressed out and not at all re-charged. This makes me sad.

I have no New Years Resolutions at this point. I mean, I could think of some things that I could just, well, ignore. I don’t know about lofty goals. I do wish I’d get the hang of being prompt to school and work Every Day. This kind of drudgery isn’t my thing, unfortunately. But I think if I make up new ways to think of it, new rewards, new systems, say every month or so… that might help.

I wish more people visited / read / commented here at This Examined Life. I could make it a goal to publicize my blog more in the new year. It is so lonely writing and not knowing if someone (besides D) is reading it. I wish I knew what creative and fun ways that other people tackle the everyday challenges of work and parenthood — well that is actually one of the reasons I enjoy reading other people’s blogs!

The next time I do a conceptual overhaul on my home/work routines, I’ll try to blog about it and share here what works, what doesn’t.

Happy New Year, Internet Buddies Far and Near!!!

Oh, and, here’s a picture from Christmas morn. Note the presents stacked all around the … guinea pig cage?!? We had the world’s smallest Christmas tree, a live baby tree in a pot, but up on a pedestal and it’s not in the picture!

Handmade Holiday Gifts:

- Home-made Biscotti — I made chocolate almond with orange zest biscotti, and drizzled them with chocolate. Then I put together little plates of these cookies and gave a plate to my mom, one to my in-laws, and one to my grandmother in law.

- Pictures in frames / books — Not exactly homemade, but personal at least. I gave some photos of the kiddos to all of the above.

- Pumpkin Butter – I gave a jar of my homemade pumpkin butter to my mother in law.

- A handmade knit hat – It wasn’t knit by me, but it was really nice. Gave to my mom.

Re-gifted… I gave a crystal water pitcher to my mom. I think it will go better in her china cabinet than mine.

I did not write my children’s book to give to my kids (should really get around to that. Maybe for next year?!)

I did not sew anything this year. (Too bad, I love sewing!)

I did make a really nice big dinner on Christmas — that was fun and tasty too.

It was a good year for handmade stuff, in general. I will try to do more throughout the year, in hopes that next year I can do Handmade Holidays again.

Baby steps, right?

When are we going outside? they want to know. Soon, Later, I don’t know — these are all unacceptable answers. I usually glance at the clock and state definitively 2:30! or, sometimes, I answer “Right after snack.”

Can I take of my shoes? There’s got to be a rule.

Consequences of breaking rules, have to be consistent, reasonable and fair.

I know all of this. But recently I had a thoroughly frustrating day, because I kept on second-guessing my answers. Was I capable of resolving disputes properly? Which technique should I use? Did I give adequate transition time? Was I making my expectations clear? Should I allow Rita to cut up a pipe cleaner? Can Jenna have another cookie? Everything seems to be so significant. I wasn’t confident in my own judgement.

This was the result of having two separate meetings with parents in which I felt criticized. The most recent meeting was on Monday. I felt like instead of having the parents be an ally to helping their children’s behavior in school, it was as if the parents thought any issues their kid had were entirely related to negligence or poor judgment on my part. Then after getting that awful meeting over with, I had to step back into the classroom and provide a structured, balanced, comfortable day for a group of kids. It’s hard to do that with roiling emotions!

Much of this internal dialogue is nonsense, of course. I DO have good judgment. My program IS good, and most kids do great with me. I was meeting with these two families because their children’s behaviors were outliers. In other words, their behaviors had fallen outside of what I expected from them. Parents don’t like to hear that, and so they were defensive and hurtful toward me.

I know this, and I know I need a “thicker skin” as one peer recently pointed out to me. My own feelings should NOT make me have a bad day. The good thing is though, I don’t think the kids knew I was having a bad day. My discomfort was real, but it was internal.

So another day ahead me, and I am trying to feel confident again. I am learning so much, every day, from the classroom environment. Getting kids to behave is a tricky business. I firmly believe that if you provide an environment that meets children’s needs (emotional / artistic / social / physical, etc.) then you will see the behavior that you want. Bad behavior is generally the product of an environment that is missing the mark for that particular child.

We all know that some children have different needs, needs that fall outside of our initial expectations. And parents often REALLY don’t want to hear from me that their child is someone who has “special needs” because of the negative associations with that term.

I do try to be sensitive to that. After all, my own daughter (Carla) is a kid whose behavior at times has been outside of what was expected of her. Specifically, she has a lot of trouble focusing. As her parents, we are working with our pediatrician to find out what we can do to help her. Being defensive about it would be unhelpful.

With this dual perspective of mine (as Teacher, as Parent), I would have thought I could be sensitive to how parents feel about having their child’s needs (be they “special” or “different” or “typical”) pointed out. Yet I feel bad, because in the meetings I had with parents, I am not sure if I managed to communicate what I wanted to say. I tripped over things, misspoke, put things in a way that angered the parents, and triggered their defensiveness. I am disappointed in myself, and frustrated as well. I feel like I blew an opportunity to bring in these parents to a sense of “let’s work together”.

Sorry to be so vague. I am having trouble getting my thoughts organized today, and don’t just want to recount the whole details. Not a great blog entry. Sigh.

It has been slow around here, with the blog, hasn’t it? I hope I haven’t lost too many readers. (Not likely, since I think I’ve got few enough to start with anyway!) I am going to try to blog more frequently, and with brief posts that capture some of what I am going through.

In the spirit of JUST WRITE SOMETHING, I am also planning to participate in NANOWRIMO. Know what that is? It’s the National Novel Writing Month, which is November. I will attempt to write a novel of 50,000 words or more in November. Yeah, that’s a lot of words.

I also want to try to go to the pool twice a week, and swim for 45 minutes.

Which one of these goals is more likely to be acheived, I wonder? Perhaps both??

What is bringing about these ambitions? I don’t honestly know, but I think they are partially attributable to my desire to NOT have this be another autumn in which I get depressed. I also am motivated by my recent weight gains to DO SOMETHING.

I happen to be of the opinion that blogging about weight loss is very, very boring. I could lose 45 pounds, but I still would think that the most interesting parts of what my life is about are entirely unrelated. How I look in a tight fitting dress is really irrelevant. I like being funny, thinking up creative projects, having fun with kids, and eating yummy foods. So who the heck cares what I weigh, and if I lose any weight or gain a few pounds?

Folks, the truth is that it comes down to my health. I am looking around on my family tree and I wince at what I see. My dad, along with his three sisters, are all diabetic, and overweight. They may all have heart problems, too, and at least one of them has had cancer. I am the youngest of the group of first cousins to which I belong. Many, many of them are very overweight. So when I noticed my belly kind of sticking out above my jeans, I was kind of alarmed.

Hello belly? Where’d you come from? Genetically speaking, I don’t have too much of a chance of avoiding getting fat. But I don’t have to take that lying down. I will take that doing laps in the pool instead.

I bought myself a bracelet today, a cute little beaded thing on elastic, which I could have easily made myself. It wasn’t expensive. But I bought it because I decided that wearing something on my wrist would be my visual reminder not to gorge myself on things that will add to The Belly. It will remind me to schedule pool visits into my weeks. It will remind me, in November, to write, write, write.

Meanwhile I’ve been utterly obsessed with the election. If you just asked yourself “What election?” then I would like to know what rock you are living under. Those who’ve been reading this blog for much time at all will know I’m a Swing State Liberal Voter. I keep checking the polls and seeing blue. I am happy about this.

Today I even listened to some conservative talk radio. I was DELIGHTED by what I heard. They were attacking Barack for association with Ayers, a so-called terrorist. Hah! The McCain campaign has NOTHING to stand on, and all they can come up with is lies and distortion. I love that. Then this silly conservative talk show put on some mock campaign commercials in which they hightlighted the issue that Obama is pro-choice. Yup, he sure is. And so is the majority of the citizens of this country, who believe in a woman’s right to access to reproductive healthcare of all kinds. Obama WISELY leaves the decision about when a human life begins to the realm of religious leaders.

Finally, this financial crisis is pretty scary. I hate to admit it, but I don’t really get it. I mean, what I get is that greedy investors overdid it, and made some stupid moves, and now we’ve got an economy that’s really zarked. That much I’ve absorbed. I’ve listened to NPR. I’ve listened to This American Life, and Marketplace. And smart people who get this stuff have talked to me about it. Why doesn’t it stick in my head? I know enough to be scared. My mind keeps coming back to the idea that the day could come when I need to grab my family and head off to live in the country, growing my own food and clobbering Bambi in order to survive. Could I do that? I honestly do not know.

So that’s where I am this lovely October day. With some dirt under my nails from having put some Shooting Stars bulbs in the ground, a plan to write a novel in 30 days, and the hope that I can get my body back under my control, I am smiling at the on-coming season and hoping it treats me well. I think it will, if I will treat myself well. And if the world’s economy utterly fails after Nov. 4, at least I’ll have a novel-in-progress to distract me.