Read the ebook Any Given Mom, Any Given Day for just 0.99 (free for Kindle Select members)! In which eternal questions are answered, such as, what is a surefire cure for a baby who is constipated? Why does your husband think watching the "Kill Bill" marathon is a good bonding activity? Is it possible to drive well when dirty socks are whizzing past your head? Click to find out!!
Of all the stresses I anticipated relating to my son's 8th grade formal dance, I never imagined that our rooster would play a part. However, when you live on a farm, even a small one like ours, you never know when entropy will rear its head.
In the days leading up to the dance I ordered a corsage and convinced my son of its importance, while my husband took Alden shopping for his first real suit. Things were going smoothly.
The formal was on Saturday evening, but my husband had to work all day, so it fell to me to begin the dress preparations. Again, things appeared to be going smoothly. Joe got home just in time to help Alden with his tie and put on his new shoes.
They decided Alden needed to tighten his belt another notch, but then realized the belt was already on the last hole. The leather hole punch was needed, and quickly! Now, there is only one area of fashion in which a horsewoman can boast superiority over normal women, and that is in the area of adjusting leather goods. I rushed out to the barn to get the hole punch.
This set the stage for the trouble... me, rushing across the barnyard with the leather punch in my hand. I was only intent on getting back to the house and fixing the belt. I did not think about the fact that our rooster and his hens were running loose in the barnyard. Why would I?
In my mind, I was rushing back to the house to help my son prepare for a milestone event. In my rooster's mind, I was threatening his hens and then retreating (quickly) before his ferocious might. He zeroed in on my lower legs and feet, inadequately protected by the standard southern summer uniform of capri pants and sandals.
His first attack caught me off guard. I spun around and yelled at him, while he pranced and puffed up his neck feathers. I moved backwards as fast as possible while watching him. He moved in for another attack and I swung the leather punch, clocking him squarely on the head. This did nothing to deter him. In fact, he attacked again immediately. I swung my only weapon again, and then it happened... something, I couldn't tell whether it was beak or spur in the feathered fury, put a deep hole in the back of my right hand.
Fortunately by that point I was just a few steps from the back door of our house. I managed to get up the stairs and inside. Alden and Joe gave me a startled look as I shoved the hole punch at them and rushed to the kitchen for ice. Like a skilled acupuncturist the rooster had hit some kind of nerve center in my hand. The pain radiated out to my fingers and my grip was weak.
This is how I ended up going to Alden's formal: Nursing a wounded hand in the passenger seat while my exhausted husband drove. When we arrived I was just able to hand Alden the box with the corsage and take a picture of the smiling couple, who were blissfully unmindful of the strange sacrifice I had made for their evening. Such is country life and parenting!
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
According to Our Estimates, You're Screwed
Read the ebook Any Given Mom, Any Given Day for just 0.99 (free for Kindle Select members)! In which eternal questions are answered, such as, what is a surefire cure for a baby who is constipated? Why does your husband think watching the "Kill Bill" marathon is a good bonding activity? Is it possible to drive well when dirty socks are whizzing past your head? Click to find out!!
At one time I thought about having a third child, but had to drop the idea when my husband said we'd have to name it "OMG, Now I Have to Work Until I'm Dead." He had a point, especially since we both started on our careers a bit late. (Well, it's stretching things a bit to call my meandering path through the field of education a "career." It's more like a cautionary tale.)
Anyway, I see all these articles about inequality and the anxiety of the middle class. Now, too, all the presidential candidates are mouthing concern about us, this vanishing breed with the audacity to want an annual family vacation and a retirement account.
The vacation and the savings piece are linked by more than just money. They tie into another trend, which is our growing awareness that Americans spend considerably more time at work than Europeans, while still falling further behind economically. So time really is money, except only in the sense of taking time off. You'll pay for that. However, the 20-30 hours per week of overtime that you routinely give your corporate employer? There's no bonus for that, it's just running to stand still.
Don't even get me started about the time demands of teaching. I'm not talking about interaction with students, which I loved, and which is why I still volunteer at the school where I taught. I'm talking about the endless, often circular administrative tasks put on teachers. One small case in point: North Carolina, like many states, bought into Pearson PLC hook, line and sinker. Pearson provides the software to track student information, which in this age of 'data driven' education is supposed to link seamlessly with the testing software they also produce. The testing data, in turn, is supposed to interface with the teacher evaluation program with which one also develops multifaceted professional development plans (PDPs). Sounds good, doesn't it?
During the two years I used it the Pearson software it randomly deleted my PDP several times. And my students' test results? Well, as a special education teacher I had some students who took a modified end of grade (EOG) test. Many of them made significant progress, but their improvement was nowhere to be found, because the other software the state purchased to track and predict EOG scores didn't report on the modified test. It was as if my students' progress didn't exist.
After sitting through dozens of workshops and meetings in which the teachers were exhorted to use the Pearson software to "create 21st century learners," my colleagues and I set out. Let's just say, the implementation was not smooth. I saw seasoned data managers brought to tears as hours of work inputting schedules and student data mysteriously vanished, not just once, but time after time. We resorted to paper scheduling for the first several weeks of school.
Once the system was running, teachers began administering the "short cycle" and "benchmark" assessments that the district requires. These tests are supposed to track readiness for the EOG exams. Anyway, teachers quickly learned to make paper copies of the tests as back-ups, because the system would routinely freeze, lose student answers, or crash. Then, once the students had written their answers on the paper tests, the teachers would have to hand enter each student's answers whenever the system came back up. (Now that is ten hours of your life you'll never get back.)
In a just world, every teacher and school staff member who had to work through these fiascoes would be awarded some stock in Pearson as compensation for the company's growing pains. However, that is not how things go. How things go is that the plunder class complains about the under class, while seeming to make nice-nice to the middle class... but only around election time.
Modern "homesteading" starts to look more and more attractive. I've been thinking that I'd better learn to make my own soap. Before the goat chewed the mail I thought I saw stamped at the bottom of my last pension estimate (the pension plan that took a mandatory 6% of my extravagant teacher salary) this statement "According to our estimates, you're screwed."
At one time I thought about having a third child, but had to drop the idea when my husband said we'd have to name it "OMG, Now I Have to Work Until I'm Dead." He had a point, especially since we both started on our careers a bit late. (Well, it's stretching things a bit to call my meandering path through the field of education a "career." It's more like a cautionary tale.)
Anyway, I see all these articles about inequality and the anxiety of the middle class. Now, too, all the presidential candidates are mouthing concern about us, this vanishing breed with the audacity to want an annual family vacation and a retirement account.
The vacation and the savings piece are linked by more than just money. They tie into another trend, which is our growing awareness that Americans spend considerably more time at work than Europeans, while still falling further behind economically. So time really is money, except only in the sense of taking time off. You'll pay for that. However, the 20-30 hours per week of overtime that you routinely give your corporate employer? There's no bonus for that, it's just running to stand still.
Don't even get me started about the time demands of teaching. I'm not talking about interaction with students, which I loved, and which is why I still volunteer at the school where I taught. I'm talking about the endless, often circular administrative tasks put on teachers. One small case in point: North Carolina, like many states, bought into Pearson PLC hook, line and sinker. Pearson provides the software to track student information, which in this age of 'data driven' education is supposed to link seamlessly with the testing software they also produce. The testing data, in turn, is supposed to interface with the teacher evaluation program with which one also develops multifaceted professional development plans (PDPs). Sounds good, doesn't it?
During the two years I used it the Pearson software it randomly deleted my PDP several times. And my students' test results? Well, as a special education teacher I had some students who took a modified end of grade (EOG) test. Many of them made significant progress, but their improvement was nowhere to be found, because the other software the state purchased to track and predict EOG scores didn't report on the modified test. It was as if my students' progress didn't exist.
After sitting through dozens of workshops and meetings in which the teachers were exhorted to use the Pearson software to "create 21st century learners," my colleagues and I set out. Let's just say, the implementation was not smooth. I saw seasoned data managers brought to tears as hours of work inputting schedules and student data mysteriously vanished, not just once, but time after time. We resorted to paper scheduling for the first several weeks of school.
Once the system was running, teachers began administering the "short cycle" and "benchmark" assessments that the district requires. These tests are supposed to track readiness for the EOG exams. Anyway, teachers quickly learned to make paper copies of the tests as back-ups, because the system would routinely freeze, lose student answers, or crash. Then, once the students had written their answers on the paper tests, the teachers would have to hand enter each student's answers whenever the system came back up. (Now that is ten hours of your life you'll never get back.)
In a just world, every teacher and school staff member who had to work through these fiascoes would be awarded some stock in Pearson as compensation for the company's growing pains. However, that is not how things go. How things go is that the plunder class complains about the under class, while seeming to make nice-nice to the middle class... but only around election time.
Modern "homesteading" starts to look more and more attractive. I've been thinking that I'd better learn to make my own soap. Before the goat chewed the mail I thought I saw stamped at the bottom of my last pension estimate (the pension plan that took a mandatory 6% of my extravagant teacher salary) this statement "According to our estimates, you're screwed."
Friday, May 8, 2015
Goats Who Stare at People
There is something funny about the human-goat connection; they look at you with such soulful eyes. Or, as in the picture above, a young goat will shyly duck behind a branch or its mother, perhaps going by the maxim "if I can't see you, you can't see me!"
Recently we purchased three Boer goats, and it has been interesting. It is also humbling, because after 40 years in horses I know a lot about equines: How to handle, train, and feed them, and how to treat minor medical problems. In contrast, I realized I knew nothing about goats. I did not even know until recently that they are the "caprine" class of animals.
Just getting the goats from their stall to the outdoor pen so they could clear brush for us was a challenge, because our goats had never worn collars or learned to walk on a lead. They are learning now, although me 'leading' the two nannies often looks more like me water-skiing behind two goats ash they charge towards sweet feed.
At any rate, like with most things on the farm, there is more involved than one might think at first. We bought goats because we wanted hardy livestock, but after reading my goat book I was alerted to dozens of possible health problems. Don't leave them on spring pasture too long, they might get so full of gas it will compress their lungs and they'll die! They can hang a horn in almost any type of fencing! A nanny with poor teat shape may not deliver enough milk to her babies and they'll waste away!
Thankfully, none of these things has happened and our goats appear to be flourishing. The vet was just here to do spring shots for my horses, so (erring on the side of caution) I had her vaccinate and deworm the goats. This cuts into any potential profit margin, but it does buy a certain amount of peace of mind. When the goats stare at me I can stare back with a clear conscience because I don't have to wonder when they last had their shots. Now in the evenings you can find me unwinding by reading my goat book, learning as we stumble down the path of another farm adventure.
********If you like this blog read an excerpt of my book here "Horsewomen in Foal and Other Equestrian Adventures" -- this comes with my exclusive Laugh Until You Pee Guarantee (certain exclusions apply: guarantee only good for women who have had at least two children)
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
The Wounded Healer, or, Sick Mom as Nurse
Read the ebook Any Given Mom, Any Given Day for just 0.99 (free for Kindle Select members)! In which eternal questions are answered, such as, what is a surefire cure for a baby who is constipated? Why does your husband think watching the "Kill Bill" marathon is a good bonding activity? Is it possible to drive well when dirty socks are whizzing past your head? Click to find out!!
One of the joys of parenthood that I didn't anticipate before having children was just how often the kids would get sick, and just how many of those times I would be nursing them while struggling with the same vicious germs. I'm not sure whether this happens to all moms, but somewhere around 80% of the time that my kids get sick, I also catch the same bug. When they were younger it seemed like we could practically write off an exam room at the pediatrician's office as a second home. Now that they're older they don't get sick quite as often, but when they do it wallops the whole family. Case in point: Everyone in my home has the flu.
It all started innocently enough, with Jack running a fever on Friday evening. To be honest, the thought of flu never crossed my mind. After all, the boys had their flu shots this fall. By 3:30 am Monday morning I knew Jack was in trouble, he had a terrible asthma attack (his asthma never bothers him unless he has a cold/flu). I had to give him repeated doses of his medicine and throw him in the shower. The steam opened up his lungs a bit, and he was able to rest until 8 am, when I packed him off to his doctor. My older son, meanwhile, was moaning in bed. We gave him some medicine and my husband stayed home with him.
Jack's doctor decided to admit him to the hospital until his lung function was better, so of course I stayed with him the entire time. Which would have been fine, except that I was feeling like I'd been chewed up and spit out by the parenting mill. Monday night was SOOO long. I was resting on the standard hard-as-rock hospital foldout chair, waking every hour to a parade of nurses and respiratory technicians. I was grateful for the excellent care they gave Jack, of course, but I felt so terrible. At the same time, I was mindful of the impression I must be giving: Spaced-out mom slugging NyQuil at her son's bedside. Nice.
Now we're home again, so all I have to worry about is the 'roid rage: Yes, Jack on steroids (prescribed to bring down the inflammation in his lungs) is quite an experience. At least the yelling stretches his lungs. As for me, all I need a rest from my sick days!
One of the joys of parenthood that I didn't anticipate before having children was just how often the kids would get sick, and just how many of those times I would be nursing them while struggling with the same vicious germs. I'm not sure whether this happens to all moms, but somewhere around 80% of the time that my kids get sick, I also catch the same bug. When they were younger it seemed like we could practically write off an exam room at the pediatrician's office as a second home. Now that they're older they don't get sick quite as often, but when they do it wallops the whole family. Case in point: Everyone in my home has the flu.
It all started innocently enough, with Jack running a fever on Friday evening. To be honest, the thought of flu never crossed my mind. After all, the boys had their flu shots this fall. By 3:30 am Monday morning I knew Jack was in trouble, he had a terrible asthma attack (his asthma never bothers him unless he has a cold/flu). I had to give him repeated doses of his medicine and throw him in the shower. The steam opened up his lungs a bit, and he was able to rest until 8 am, when I packed him off to his doctor. My older son, meanwhile, was moaning in bed. We gave him some medicine and my husband stayed home with him.
Jack's doctor decided to admit him to the hospital until his lung function was better, so of course I stayed with him the entire time. Which would have been fine, except that I was feeling like I'd been chewed up and spit out by the parenting mill. Monday night was SOOO long. I was resting on the standard hard-as-rock hospital foldout chair, waking every hour to a parade of nurses and respiratory technicians. I was grateful for the excellent care they gave Jack, of course, but I felt so terrible. At the same time, I was mindful of the impression I must be giving: Spaced-out mom slugging NyQuil at her son's bedside. Nice.
Now we're home again, so all I have to worry about is the 'roid rage: Yes, Jack on steroids (prescribed to bring down the inflammation in his lungs) is quite an experience. At least the yelling stretches his lungs. As for me, all I need a rest from my sick days!
Friday, November 21, 2014
Being at Home for Real
Read the ebook Any Given Mom, Any Given Day for just 0.99 (free for Kindle Select members)! In which eternal questions are answered, such as, what is a surefire cure for a baby who is constipated? Why does your husband think watching the "Kill Bill" marathon is a good bonding activity? Is it possible to drive well when dirty socks are whizzing past your head? Click to find out!!
I've been at home a lot this week, thanks to a bout of pneumonia. (BTW, wow, pneumonia will stop you in your multitasking tracks.) Anyway, I've had the unusual experience of being at home during the day without kids squabbling or weekend laundry to do. Sometimes, I just sat in a comfortable chair in the living room. I wrote. I read. I watched a little television, which alternately depressed and fascinated me.
When I watch daytime television, I come to the uncomfortable realization that I am completely out of touch with American culture. "Real Housewives" drama exhausts me. But, if I change the channeI, I just wonder how the man with five wives (and an unknown number of children) afforded all those familes BEFORE they were TV stars--especially since he doesn't really seem to DO anything, except run from one wife to another looking sheepish. Then there are the talk shows, which always for some reason make me visualize a spike being driven into my brain. I can't think! Turn it off! I can feel it draining all the energy from my brain cells!
Right before I turned the TV off I saw a commercial that both intrigued and disturbed me. It was for camera that you set up in order to monitor you home remotely. Kind of like a nanny cam, only without the nanny. Which made me think: How sad. We're all out working so much just to afford our homes that we don't have time to BE home-- we just have to visit online.
Unless, of course, you decide to get pneumonia.
Saturday, November 8, 2014
The Pumpkin that Kept on Giving
It has been a crazy fall, what with all the regular demands of family, work, volunteer work, the weekly tension between housework and outdoor chores (based on the state of the house, it's easy to see which I prefer). Then, before I knew it, Halloween was here. My younger son had his heart set on making a "steampunk" pumpkin.
Now, I have never been a mom who is skilled at crafts, but I do pride myself on one ritual: I can carve a pumpkin. Finding the time is the difficult thing, especially since our family was hit with our first cold of year. We like to pass the germs around our family, then (seemingly) they mutate and come back around. At any rate, I felt AWFUL the Wednesday before Halloween, but I was still determined to help Jack make his dream pumpkin. Heck, I had already taken him shopping at the craft store, where he purchased several "steampunk" accessories (read: crap made in China that is designed to look old).
So that evening, after washing dishes and pushing the boys through homework and music practice, I cut the top off the pumpkin. Jack and I emptied it of slime, even though that part grosses him out. I cut round eyes into the pumpkin and handed it over to him. He pushed bits of chain and other accessories into his pumpkin and, voila! A work of art.
It was actually quite neat, so I kept it out for a whole week. What I didn't notice was that it was gradually sinking. For some reason it didn't grow the moldy fuzz inside that usually reminds me to throw it on the compost heap; no, instead this year it slowly sank. As it collapsed down, it released an impressive amount of sticky liquid. The liquid overflowed the plate and dripped down so slowly that I didn't notice it-- until I saw that our will forms were dripping wet and black mold was growing on them.
The wills are a personal albatross. We had wills written in 2007, and then the attorney who did them was disbarred for setting fire to his own office (long story). Then I discovered he had never filed our wills at the courthouse... so I thought it would be wise to start over. Which in theory should have been relatively simple, because now I have pre-paid legal service that includes wills. I called them, and they sent the forms. I completed mine and put it with my husband's blank one on a clipboard, and set the clipboard...beside the pumpkin on the counter.
So now the pumpkin is a memory, and we still don't have new wills. However, I have learned a valuable lesson: Steampunk is hazardous to my kids' future. Or maybe it's the cluttered counter. At any rate, we are not yet prepared to get off the hamster wheel of life.
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Real Mom Beauty Adventures
Read the ebook Any Given Mom, Any Given Day for just 0.99 (free for Kindle Select members)! In which eternal questions are answered, such as, what is a surefire cure for a baby who is constipated? Why does your husband think watching the "Kill Bill" marathon is a good bonding activity? Is it possible to drive well when dirty socks are whizzing past your head? Click to find out!!
Just as I have learned it is better to put the font size for this blog on the "larger" setting because it is easier on my eyes, I have made some adjustments for the fact that a bikini is no longer a good choice for me. In other words, I'm going down--we all are--however, I am determined not to go down without a fight. In fact, my favorite fantasy is the one in which I win the lottery and then split my time between my family, my historic school preservation projects, and working out. It's not that I don't like the way I look, I love and enjoy my body. It's just that, well, there's a little more of it than there used to be. And it seems to require so much more maintenance, what with little health challenges that come with middle age. For a busy mom/teacher/preservationist/hobby farmer this poses a dilemma...at the same time that my other priorities demand more time and money than ever, looking reasonably good also requires more effort.
Along the way, I made some observations, and I have some gentle suggestions for other 40-something moms.
Hair: Let's face it, almost no older women looks good with long hair and long, thick bangs. The wrinkles on your forehead make you look wise, for heaven's sake, don't try to cover them! For the bangs to look good you would either have to be seven years old, or a sexy 20-something punk rocker. In fact, I am an advocate for a new rating system for hair styles that falls under the truth-in-advertising concept. We desperately need this rating system to tell us just how good-looking you have to be in order to pull off certain hair styles. Moms! Snap out of it! Take the time to get a haircut, even if it's a $9.99 haircut, so you don't look trapped in time.
Skin: Now, I'm really going to date myself, but I remember the original Muppet show. One piece of beauty advice that stayed with me was when Miss Piggy said "Don't put on anything on your face that is from the hardware store." I don't get my facial care products at the hardware store, but I don't spend a lot, either-- think Dollar General. You can accomplish a lot for less than $10. Here is what to buy: For toner- Witch hazel ($1/bottle). For pore minimizing and breakout prevention- Stridex pads ($3/box, or $2.50 if you tear off the little coupon on the inside flap before you go to checkout line). For moisturizer- Generic aloe lotion ($2/bottle)- even my son says this lotion smells nice, and it works without clogging your pores.
The challenge for all of us is to dedicate some time every day to take care of our physical selves. Consistency goes further than expensive beauty products. When the first study came out linking poor dental health to heart disease, I thought it was a fluke. Now I realize that it's true: Taking the time to floss daily not only keeps teeth more attractive, it actually protects your health, because it keeps your mouth from harboring too much bacteria.
Stay tuned for Real Mom Beauty Adventures Part II, in which I have eyebrow hairs ripped out (aka "threaded") in the name of beauty by a nice but serious Chinese woman...
Along the way, I made some observations, and I have some gentle suggestions for other 40-something moms.
Hair: Let's face it, almost no older women looks good with long hair and long, thick bangs. The wrinkles on your forehead make you look wise, for heaven's sake, don't try to cover them! For the bangs to look good you would either have to be seven years old, or a sexy 20-something punk rocker. In fact, I am an advocate for a new rating system for hair styles that falls under the truth-in-advertising concept. We desperately need this rating system to tell us just how good-looking you have to be in order to pull off certain hair styles. Moms! Snap out of it! Take the time to get a haircut, even if it's a $9.99 haircut, so you don't look trapped in time.
Skin: Now, I'm really going to date myself, but I remember the original Muppet show. One piece of beauty advice that stayed with me was when Miss Piggy said "Don't put on anything on your face that is from the hardware store." I don't get my facial care products at the hardware store, but I don't spend a lot, either-- think Dollar General. You can accomplish a lot for less than $10. Here is what to buy: For toner- Witch hazel ($1/bottle). For pore minimizing and breakout prevention- Stridex pads ($3/box, or $2.50 if you tear off the little coupon on the inside flap before you go to checkout line). For moisturizer- Generic aloe lotion ($2/bottle)- even my son says this lotion smells nice, and it works without clogging your pores.
The challenge for all of us is to dedicate some time every day to take care of our physical selves. Consistency goes further than expensive beauty products. When the first study came out linking poor dental health to heart disease, I thought it was a fluke. Now I realize that it's true: Taking the time to floss daily not only keeps teeth more attractive, it actually protects your health, because it keeps your mouth from harboring too much bacteria.
Stay tuned for Real Mom Beauty Adventures Part II, in which I have eyebrow hairs ripped out (aka "threaded") in the name of beauty by a nice but serious Chinese woman...
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