Van Morrison: "Brown Eyed Girl"

I love this song...maybe cuz I have Brown Eyes?

So, today I opened up my e-mail and found an invitation from the kids' cyber school to join a Virtual Bowling League! At first I just stared at it while my brain tried to wrap itself around what it was saying. Virtual Bowling. Hmmmm....WHAT? Then I started laughing outloud. They are kidding right? Is that like virtual swim team?

Then I opened the flyer and looked at it. It is their way of trying to get the kids and their parents out of the house and make them do something. You have to take your kids bowling twice a week and then send their scores into a certain person that is head of all the bowling leagues. Your student is assigned to a team. These teams are comprised of virtual school students all across the country. They SAY it is a way for your student to get to know other kids. Only if they get to exchange e-mails &/or IMs.

You know, it is a great concept, BUT...if they are making even MORE virtual friends to e-mail and IM with, then when do they EVER get out of the house to interact with other kids.

Although the parents of the students in this school try really hard to set up what they call "Meet and Greets"---activities for the kids to attend together...life is busy and the kids have lots of hours of work to complete...and the high school part is really difficult. The only way I can see cyber school being really good for high school is IF they can have more online classes...you know, the ones with the cameras, the online blackboard, the microphones, teacher. They have those classes once a week for each subject. I really think it should be more often for some subjects...considering half the 10th grade is failing chemistry! I am not much help with it. I have tried. My goal for my son for this school year is NOT to be the high scorer for his virtual bowling league but to get him passed through chemistry so he doesn't lose his credit.

It is good to have goals. Or so ppl tell me.

There was this kid, Joseph. He was in the third grade class I was teaching. He was a late in life, wonderful miracle surprise for his parents. He was the most amazing kid. Always cheerful and happy and trusting. You could tell his parents had just showered him with love and treasured his existence.

He was quite intelligent. And looked like a little teddy bear (not furry, tho). He had little round cheeks and thot jello jigglers were the most awesome things! At lunch time his mom would be one of the mothers that took turns coming to sit with the kids and watch them during recess (small sucky private school). She always brought treats for the kids but Joseph loved the jello jigglers the best. She made them in lots of shapes.

When the kids had been especially good, or sometimes just cuz I wanted to, on a day when a mom couldn't make it, I would pull out this really large blanket I kept in a cupboard, spread it on the floor, hand out 'fancy' napkins and cupcakes, sometimes sunglasses...and we would put on some music and have our own class picnic party. They would giggle, nibble, dance...and sometimes sing! They cracked me up!

Joseph had a little 'problem' when school started. As I once said, I never checked folders ahead of time to see what other teachers' opinions were about the students...I didn't want any preconceived notions. Joseph had a slight OCD disorder. He was scared to death of making mistakes. He COULD NOT handle missing ANYTHING on a paper! He could not handle failure. He would start to shake and cry and just about look like he was going to explode!

He was constantly at my elbow asking me if he was doing his work correctly. For several days I would make him go back to his seat, after assuring him once already that he was doing it correctly, and made him finish the whole page before I would look at it. I would allow him to fix anything wrong. Then I started telling him IF he had anything wrong, but I wouldn't tell him which ones. After doing that to him a few times he settled down and accepted it. THEN, I would just take his paper and tell him I would check it and grade it! He just about had a heart attack! I wasn't going to let him have it back and fix any mistakes FIRST!!!

It was then that I pointed out to him that the other kids did that on a daily basis...finish the paper and hand it in...and even though they missed some here and there...they were still walking and breathing. He still wasn't too happy. So, I took him aside and told him...he was intelligent but it really is okay to make some mistakes here and there BECAUSE when he made a mistake, he learned a little more from it. He would be all that much smarter and eventually he wouldn't be so afraid all the time. I could see he wasn't too convinced, yet, but he slowly, over time, relaxed. He found out that even when he did make mistakes, they weren't life threatening. And that he could still fix things so that there wouldn't be mistakes later.

His mother had expressed concern to me about the ice skating lessons the kids would be taking. She said that the year before it was roller skating and that Joseph had been terrified all year. She and her husband had spent the whole summer with him at the roller rink but NOW there would be ice skating instead.

But when we got to the ice skating rink, Joseph put on those skates and went out onto the ice with the instructor with the other kids...and when he fell...he laughed! He got right back up and tried again...time and time again. Still laughing.

His mother wanted to know what I did becuz Joseph didn't fall apart about things like he used to and didnt' seem to mind trying new things so much. I told her that sometimes it takes some one who is NOT the mom and just the right timing in his maturity. It was just Joseph's time. She hugged me (yikes) but I knew where the credit really should have gone...to Joseph. He had the courage to trust me and try something new. He opened up...and once he did...he was on his way...just like sliding across the ice.

Some ppl collect things. My husband is one. He collects Budweiser Steins, Cleveland Browns 'things', zippo lighters. Some of it is on display, some of it is in boxes...never to be touched.

I tried collecting various things over the years then gave up. Too many moves...and then, there is 'the gene'. The Non-collecting gene. Comes from my mom's side of the family. They are cleaners...minimalists. Although, it never seemed to take hold with Aunt Joyce. The more money Uncle Jake made, the more 'stuff' she 'collected'. She filled 3 houses full of 'stuff'. When they sold the business, they started selling houses, she had to pack it all and decide how she was going to fit it all into just one house.

My Aunt Doris was the best at being a minimalist. Once she and Uncle Harold 'retired' and moved to South Carolina...she got this new hobby. Buy a house, rip it apart, fix it up just the way you want it...then sell it and buy another and start all over. Every 2 years (that must be where I get that moving thing from!). They moved into Florida where my aunt decided she needed more to do so she got a job working in a state office of some sort. Uncle Harold would work himself to death trying to get the soil fertilized just right, and just as he started to get a really good garden going...she'd sell the freakin house and they would move again. From one coast to the other and back again. She didn't have one knick knack. No pictures on the walls. Bear minimum. She said she didn't want anything getting in her way...she wanted the house to be clean and she didn't want to take a long time doing it.

My mother made the mistake one day of buying herself a Hummel. She said she had always liked them and she just bought one. Then others started to buy her Hummels. Well, after getting a few of those she told everyone to quit. She said that she had to move all of them and clean them off all the time and it was too time consuming...no more knick knacks. My youngest sister bought her carnival glass accessories/knick knacks cuz Mom said she liked it. My mother sat it in various places in the house and admired it all for a while...then gave it back to my sister and told her that she would inherit it one day anyway...she might as well have it now.

I collected wild ducks at one time. Mallards, Wood Ducks, etc...The problems was, word got around that I collected 'ducks'. So I was inundated with barnyard ducks...you know...the white ones. White ducks. While they are cute, they are not what I wanted. Somehow it got translated into the idea that I was collecting barnyard animals. Next thing you know I'm getting bisque pigs and chickens and cows... . I finally got rid of it all (I secretly kept the mallards) and told everyone thanks but I was done.

Then there was the Nutcrackers. I like the traditional wooden soldier nutcrackers. simple enough, right? wrong. I got nutcrackers of all sorts of weird shapes. I eventually got rid of all of those.

Snowglobes. Those were okay, but with so many moves, they eventually all started to leak...and well...they're all gone as well.

The one thing I STILL collect...Snow Buddies.









Again...simple enuff? Well, my mother-in-law always manages to find something 'close'...I call them the fake SnowBuddy collection.

I can even accept that...but...the ones that just buy me a snowman...any old snowman.

I don't do knick knacks much...or collecting things that never see the light of day. Knick knacks have to be moved for dusting..and cleaned off themselves. Too much time consumed there. Plus, there is always the packing and moving thing. And I never have understood why anyone would collect something that will always be packed in a box.

The snow quit last night before I went for sleep...or was that really early this morning?

Whichever...I didn't pay much attention to the 'damage'. I heard some of the fellers revving up their snowblowers before night fall. I looked out there this morning and my driveway is gone...and there is the matter of keeping the sidewalk clear.

Some guy pounded on my door wanting to know if I want my snow shoveled. I told him no thanks, I like it where it is. He didn't really look like he was all about snow shoveling...there he stood in his black leather jacket (unzipped) with his bling hangin' round his neck...black leather driving gloves...yeah...I don't think so. Maybe he looked in his pocket and didn't find his 'smoke' money, saw a driveway conspicuously covered in snow while everyone else's seemed cleared...and took a chance. Who knows!

The thing that gets me is this...just as it is with everything else...I am nice to my neighbors. I give them baked goods, always smile and wave and talk to them (or listen nicely) when they have things they want to converse about...then, they get out in the winter with their snowblowers and do their driveways. They are nosey enuff to know that 'daddy' isn't around here much and 90% of the time it is me that mows the lawn or shovels the snow. Don't you think, they would be nice enuff to take an extra 5 minutes of their time, a few extra steps and clear the sidewalk that runs in front of my house? I'm not asking them/wanting them to clear my driveway. (!) I'm physically able and willing to do that. I like the fresh (?) air and exercise. There is Woody next door now (that really is his name...I'm not being silly) with his snowblower going....again. Yet, he is NOT using it anywhere he really doesn't feel he NEEDS to. (and I'd really rather not 'touch' on that subject!)

And right there I could SO segue into some beotchy commentary on men and their wants and needs...but...no...I won't. cuz I woke up feeling actually quite good this morning. I have had two nights of almost totally uninterrupted 7 straight hours of sleep...and it makes all the difference in the world! I am feeling domesticated and ambitious. That translates into...lysol, buckets of water, vacuum cleaner noise, tossing of unnecessary stuff, oven cleaner...a general all over no-holds-barred cleaning. The kids better stay out of my way or they might end up squeaking!

And I have to interrupt it all to go out and do some shoveling. Just when you get the momentum going....but, that's okay. I've already gone around the house gathering up a bag full of unnecessary stuff, so I can take that out to the garbage can, grab the shovel and just keep going. Who needs a snowblower? I guess I know who won't be getting pies or cookies or veggie plants from ME this year. And you KNOW what they can do with those snow blowers.