Irritated

This will be a short one!  I'm irritated and when I get like this, nothing that I say can be any good!!  It's after 9pm on a Saturday night, my husband is on his way home from a day of skiing in Schweizer, my son went snowboarding with him, but is staying in Coeur d'Alene with a friend, and I'm waiting for a youtube video to load for my Professional Foundations in Education class.  Really?  9pm on a Saturday night and this is what I'm reduced to!!!  Here's the irritating thing:  on my way home from the gym this afternoon (my one and only outing for the day...my life really sucks right now!), I got behind a Chevy Impala.  It was a pretty nice car, but I think it got my attention because the driver was kind of swerving a bit, like he was trying to pick something up off of the floor, or dial a number or something.  The driver looked to be maybe a teenager or VERY early 20's, he had his hood up, of course, no big deal.  What got me was that the "Impala" on the trunk of the car had been given an extra "P" at the front making it look like "Pimpala"!!!!  Puke in my mouth!!  Seriously?  OMG that stuff seriously irritates me.  Like it's cool to have women that are paid for sex and then give you the money so that you can farm them back out again.  Wow, you're awesome.  Wish I was single so I could date you.  Well back to my homework!

Things I miss...

Since starting school this last fall,  I'm starting to figure out there were a lot of things in my life that I  took for granted.  For instance:
cleaning my house
watching American Idol (I'll get updates from Ashley)
evening jogs
talking to my husband
talking to my son
reading a book that I actually WANT to read
cooking dinner
going to Spokane
being in a good mood
not having a stupid cold
a small student loan payment
having sex with my husband
drinking wine and watching a movie (I still drink wine on the week-end...I just do homework instead of the movie:) )

Why am I doing this again?  Oh Yeah!  I'm going to make tons of money!!!  LOL :)  Have a great week-end everyone, I'll be blogging again tomorrow to make my 3!! 

Emotionally stressed leads to physically sick!!!

I can't freakin' believe it!!!  This is the 3rd time I've been sick this school year!!  In my normal life, I would get just a small inkling of a cold for a day or two, then it would be gone.  In my six years at work, I have called in sick 2 times.  Once was yesterday.  I went to work at 7:30 am and my Director sent me home at 7:35 ( I guess I didn't "call"in).  I laid down on the couch before 8 and slept until 4pm.  I got up 1 time to let the dog in..not to pee or get something to eat, just to let the dog in.  I have never in my life done that.  The only thing that has changed for me is the added stress of college.  It's not like I didn't know that stress could make you sick, it's just that I have never experienced it before.  I feel like I am always sick!!!  The thing that really pissed me off was that a friend went and bought some Peanut Butter Snickers for us to try, and I CAN"T TASTE IT!!!!  Now I'm going to have to buy a whole bag myself.  I probably should give something up to lighten my load, but I'm not willing to.  I guess I'll just be sick until I'm done with school and bitch about it as long as I can on this damn blog!

I love my job

Really, I love my job.  I am so thankful to have a job that I like to get up in the morning for.  I know that for most, my job would be a challenge to love, but for me it's easy.  I have had a BAD job (maybe another blog, if I'm brave enough), so it makes me appreciate what I have even more.  I work in an alternative school with grades 9-12+.  The students are awesome.  You know, I love learning, but having a strength in one specific thing (math, science, history) is not something that I am really familiar with.  I have always been a good reader and writer ( I do love to do both), but more of the social science stuff (psychology, sociology) is what I'm good in.  I started out as a Psych. major, then got pregnant and knew that at least 6 more years of school just was NOT going to happen, moved to Kinesiology and figured out that that was a dead-end (for me anyway), then took a 12 year break.  I started a job at the alternative school about 6 years ago, and here I am.  Funny the path life takes you on.  I kind of feel like I've gone full circle.  Since I was in 7th grade, I knew that I wanted to work with at-risk kids.  My husband even used to be one!!!  Now, that's exactly what I'm doing.  Not all of my students are at-risk, but most are.  I love them;  I think of them as "my kids".  I think that's why I love alt.ed.  My classes are small, the kids feel comfortable asking questions and they are very open.  Some of the stories I hear teachers telling of traditional classes and students, make me cringe.  I would not survive and it's no wonder these kids didn't either.  They come to us because they were not successful, for whatever reason.  Honestly, I think it's because the classes are too big and they aren't able to form a relationship with the teacher.  That's where I come in.  My specialty is not math, science, or history, it's forming relationships.  I get to do that every day and I love it.

Very Random Blog

     Crap.  I have not blogged since last week. My life, work, school load overwhelmed me last week.  I cried a little, too.  3 papers and a whole S*&%load of discussion posts pushed me to the edge.  Over the week-end, I left the house to run my dog, go to Wal-mart and Costco.  The rest of the time was spent on homework.  My son is home with a 101 fever, my husband is asking me "when we are going to clean the house", my dog is shedding and for some reason, my back is breaking out!  This really pisses me off because I wear tank tops to the gym every day.  Who wants to look at nasty zits?  I'm 36 years old!  Really???  WTF (Why The Face, in case you were wondering)!
     On another note, I made my own Seared Tuna for dinner last night and it turned out really good.  It's a pain in the butt to eat healthy when the rest of my family doesn't.  During Super Bowl, I made Paula Dean Mac and Cheese.  Sour cream, cheddar cheese soup, 5 cups of shredded cheese, butter, whole milk; there's not much better than that.  I had 4 bites of it (they were big bites).  Tonight, the weasels had pizza for dinner, I had a salad with chicken breast. Moving on....
     I was talking with one of my students today, he was telling me about taking 8-10 Unisom pills and driving around with one of his friends.  Can you even imagine?  I asked him "what makes you guys think to even do that stuff?  Do you think bout the fact that it's medicine and you can die from an overdose?"  "Nope".  He told me about the junior high schools (one is where my son goes) and the availability of whatever drug you want.  My son will be in 9th grade next year, this freaks me out.  He knows kids that he thinks smoke weed, but as of yet, no one has approached him.   Hopefully, we've done a good job of teaching him right from wrong.  My student also said "make sure you always know what your son is doing and you know who his friends are...and his friends parents".  It's what we do anyway, but it's nice to hear a teenager tell me that we're dong the right thing, especially when they are speaking from experience.
    

    

A shout out for the "only child"!

You always hear things about the "only child".  Spoiled rotten, can't share, selfish, inflexible, demanding, blah, blah, blah.  I am an only child and I am none of those things.  Well, maybe demanding sometimes but I prefer to call it being assertive.  My son is also an "only child" and he is wonderful.  I'm not saying that because he is my son, he truly is wonderful.  At 14 years old, he still gives me hugs and kisses in front of his friends.  He still thinks it's cool to ride around with me, too!  We do like to crank the tunes, although I can only take so much Tech Nine; there's maybe 2 of their songs don't offend me.  He still cuddles on the couch with me and I can still guilt him into going to Wal-mart with me when Shawn won't.  Every single year in grade school, he was invited to the "New Student Ice Cream Social" because he always befriended the new students and kept them as his friends (I do think there was a little ulterior motive....).  They always, in turn, invited him as their friend to the social.  Going to Parent-Teacher Conferences, the teachers always talk about Koby's willingness to help other kids (sometimes disrupting others) and his awareness of other people's feelings.  He is also funny as hell.  One of his friends wrecked on his bike, then just laid there.  Koby flew the bird right in front of his face and asked him how many fingers he could see!  How clever is that?  Hopefully I don't sound like one of those parents that puts a beer can in their baby's hand, snaps a picture, and thinks it's the funniest thing ever (yuck!!!), but really, that's pretty funny.  Even though he is my 14 year old "only child", he is one of the best people I know.

Wal-Mart

You know, I got to thinking, maybe we're all looking at this Wal-Mart thing the wrong way.  It's always so easy to talk about how much we dislike our weekly trips (yes, I have to go weekly), the people in their over-sized sweatshirts with Disney character pajama bottoms and slippers, taking up the whole isle so they can mill about for the best deal.  It's easy to complain about the screaming toddlers with the parents that let them stand up in the cart and the 9 year old's that are popping wheelies and clipping us in the heels as they ride our asses.  Oh, so easy to be disgusted with the lack of hand wipes that are supposed to be awaiting us at the entrance, but never are;  watching as a fellow human sneezes in his hands, then white-knuckles the cart handle as he has spent time searching for the very one that doesn't clunk-clunk-clunk as he pushes it.  Could we possibly look at Wal-Mart in any other way?  I say YES!  This giant mega store is a living, breathing, FaceBook!  Where else can you go and see people that you haven't seen in 10 years?  Who needs a class reunion?  Go to the superstore!  There's even a way to "block" those that you don't want to see...very, very quickly turn around and go back the other way.  This takes a bit of practice, you'll also have to be aware of which isle they're heading into next.  Wal-Mart is also the one common bond that we all share.  No matter what our socioeconomic status, ethnic background, sexual orientation or religion, we all shop at Wal-Mart.  It is a community "melting pot", a culture almost within itself.  Hooray for Wal-Mart and its inhabitants!

UGH!!!

I SO do not want to do any homework.  As a matter of fact, I really don't want to do anything but read an Elizabeth Lowell book and eat a cheesecake.  It is 7 P.M. on a Friday night.  I just read the most boring chapter ever in my Diversity Issues textbook and I have to try to post something interesting I found in the reading.  It's not that I don't think diversity is important, it's just that this particular chapter of reading was extremely uninteresting.  It's only chapter 2 and I'm afraid that the rest of the book is going to be the same.  My husband is sitting here watching pre-SuperBowl stuff  drinking a beer and my son left a little while earlier on his way to Coeur 'd Alene with a friend.  Their lives seem so much easier than mine. 

Go Steelers!!!!

     I guess I probably should put a plug in for my team...go Steelers!  My son's room is painted bright yellow with Steeler's team stuff all over the walls.  My husband, Shawn,  has been a fan since he was just out of diapers (slight exaggeration).  I never really started watching football until Koby started playing in the 3rd grade; after I learned a little bit about it, I started watching it on TV with them, too.  It has kind of become a family thing for us.  Whenever there is a game, we get our gear on and gather in the living room to watch.  I think this is what I love best about football.  I'm even finding that there is a bright side to Fox not signing with Direct TV (not a bright side, maybe, but a positive way to look at it).  My husband figured out that if we take Koby's TV and put it in our camp trailer, plug the trailer in for heat, stove, microwave, fridge, etc., we'll have a nice comfy place to watch the game.  Now all I have to do is get enough homework done so that I can enjoy it!  I know there's some Packers fans that are going to be reading this :) but, you know, I had to put my plug in!!!