1. My husband can't turn out a light or turn the TV off when he leaves a room. He leaves the house without saying goodbye. He answers his cell phone during supper. How hard can it be to exhibit basic decency toward your significant other?

2. There is a second-grade class at my school that has some of the worst-mannered children I have ever laid my eyeballs on. They came to the library today. Bleck.

3. My mother wanted me to come by her house yesterday after I got off work. She was not there when I arrived. She had taken her car to have non-emergency repairs done.

4. The workers at McDonald's don't have the words "Thank You" in their vocabulary.

5. People on the interstate in Jackson, Mississippi have no driving skills whatsoever. The ones in front of me drive too slow and the ones behind me are maniacs.


 

I work at the library at my school. Translation: I provide planning time for the teachers. Each teacher brings her class to the library for one hour. We have three classes each of Kindergarten through 5th grades and one Pre-K class. This equals 19 classes, so I spend 19 hours a week teaching instead of being a librarian.

I have very few problems with the children in the library, where most of the time the worst problem is talking. What goes on in the library stays in the library. I rarely ever send anybody to the office, which is across the hall. You would think this would be appreciated, wouldn't you?

Yesterday I had a little boy in First Grade to start being disruptive. He had to go. The rest of the children were sitting quietly waiting to be read to. He evidently had a problem before he came in the library because almost as soon as he came in he started. I have never had a problem with him before: I'm not sure what was going on yesterday. How it wound up was that when he got to the office he was yelling and fighting against me. The secretary told me she would take him and for me to go back to my class. He started fighting against her. I made a comment to the office manager that behavior like that in a first grader made me frustrated and tired, and perhaps I needed a new line of work. Somebody from downtown was within hearing range and told the principal what I said and I got in trouble.

No wonder teaching is such an unpopular profession.

 

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde

The reason I picked this quotes is because I had chocolate ice cream for breakfast. I kept hearing it calling me in the night, which I finally stopped when I got up by eating a bowlful.

Emily, my oldest, had to go somewhere with her school this morning. She's in the junior-high choir. This may sound silly, but I am so happy that they actually call it junior high - that's what I'm used to hearing, not middle school. Anyway, the choir went to some type of choral event this morning in the next town. They had to be at school at 7:00. We made it at 7:05. I think the choir director shows great judgement in these things. She tells everybody to be there at 7:00, then shoots for leaving by 7:15 or 7:30.

Emily just got a guinea pig. She has wanted one for years and years. My husband is the one who objected. He said that it would smell the house up. I can't smell that great - I'm not sure why, but my smeller never has worked that well. My grandmother couldn't taste that well, so maybe I picked it up from her. So I didn't really care about the smell, but I never wanted to spend the money on one. It happened that one of her friends at school had three guinea pigs and needed to get rid of one or two for some reason and was willing to give Emily the cage and everything for free. Therefore all she had to do was talk Daddy into it, since the money aspect was all I cared about. They went Thursday night and got it. It's name is Biscuit. And guess what? Daddy is the one who has fallen in love with this thing. He walks around holding it and hugging on it and talking to it. Ha! I am normally an animal-lover, but I am not that attracted to it. To me a guinea pig is nothing but a rodent. However, if Emily is happy, and unexpectedly Daddy too, who am I to complain, right?

Since I have iTunes on my computer, I am always leaving music on during the day while we are gone for our two doggies. Emily has a TV in her room and our cable network has about 50 music channels, so she leaves it on the classical music channel for Biscuit every day. I bet we have the only guinea pig in Mississippi who listens to classical music.
 

An unsophisticated forecaster uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than for illumination.
~Andrew Lang

I had forgotton how addicting looking at my Summary Stats can be! "Unknown" is what kills me. What do you mean, "unknown?" I want to know who is looking, dadgummit!

I go back to school and back to my little darlings tomorrow. That's the one advantage to Christmas: school is out! I have enjoyed being right at my house. Fortunately I wrote lesson plans for this week before I left for the holidays. I was trying to remember if I had done my copying or not. No clue. I'll figure it out when I get there tomorrow. I spent the day with my mother and grandmother. It was nice.


 

If I had my way, I'd do all my entertaining on the front steps.
Alan Ladd

It was hard finding a quote expressing my feelings about entertaining. Most of them were about how much the person loved entertaining and having people in. I value my privacy, probably too much. Once the people get here, I enjoy visiting with them. I'm just a weirdo about actually inviting people over in that I never do it. My husband invited his sister and her family over for their Christmas get-together. My house was already clean, so that wasn't the problem. The problem is that I have a bad attitude about having people over. And I have done an excellent job of not fussing about the fact that they are coming because I know that's just me being peculiar.

Okay, rant over! But now that I am through fussing, I'm going to go to bragging on myself. My sister-in-law is doing the gluten-free thing, so I actually went to the store and got a gluten-free cake mix. I had to sympathize with her in her effort because there was only one gluten-free cake mix out of the whole bunch and it was way more expensive. It's in the oven even as we speak. It actually smells pretty good. I bought a glaze to put on it. Hopefully that won't ruin the whole gluten-free idea.

A funny from yesterday: I went to the grocery store for my mother. I was going down the aisle, and coming the other way was the funniest thing. These two children were probably brother and sister. Their mother was about 15 steps ahead of them, trying to ignore them and concentrate on her shopping. I have been down that road, many times. Anyway, the girl was in the grocery cart (normally I would say grocery buggy, but the last time I did that, nobody knew what I meant), and the boy was pushing. She was saying "Slow down! Slow down! Stop!" So he did. I was impressed that he actually did what she asked. Then she said "Do it again!" That made my day. I laughed to myself the rest of the way through the store. Even though I was thinking that if that were my children, it would have been another story!


 

Fun is good.
Dr. Seuss

I was poking around my port, which I hadn't done in who knows when, and I found where I had entered my favorite website. I had to click on it to remember what it was.

http://perl.guru.org/lynn/apps/

Here's another one. My kids love this one. When this one come up, there won't be anything but a little square in the top left corner. Click on the little square.

http://www.thisissand.com/

Speaking of squares, I must be one. These are the only two fun websites I know of. Ah, well.
 

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.
Garrison Keillor

Christmas this year is over with, thank God. I went Friday and did every molecule of my Christmas shopping. There's somethng to be said for doing all your Christmas shopping in one day. Every time somebody would ask me if I had finished shopping yet, I would just say no. I would not verbally add that I hadn't even started yet. There is such a judgementalism about people who don't finish, or even start, their Christmas shopping early. However, that's what I do every year. I only buy for my kids anyway, and they just get clothes, which they usually need, and one present from Santa. Plus their stockings get filled. My mother and grandmother and I don't exchange presents and all hubby and I do is fill each other's stocking. I didn't participate in Secret Santa at work this year and I don't have any friends I exchange with. This keeps it simple, which suits me fine. So there.

I can't talk my husband into agreeing with his sister and her family not to exchange presents, but now that we are financially separate, it doesn't matter. He went the other night and got them bunch of stuff they don't need, but that's his little red wagon. He gets his brother-in-law a tool every year - has for years. However, I wll say that this guy is hard to buy for. We are supposed to gather with them some night this week

I am super happy that I can resume my (relatively) normal life. I have one more week of Christmas vacation off work. I don't plan on doing very much that I "have" to do - I am going to eke some enjoyment out of this week some kind of way. It's rainy today. Possibly me and my recliner will get to know each other better than ever - tra-la!

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them.
George Bernard Shaw

My kids and I usually go to my mother's house the day before Thanksgiving or the day before Christmas and help her cook. We mostly help make the dressing, since there are a lot of steps. We crumble the cornbread and chop the celery, and I am called upon to help remember how Bigmama, my great-grandmother, used to do this or that. We are somewhat funny about our dressing. At Thanksgiving, we just bought a turkey and some dressing from a caterer that my husband knows. The turkey was fine, but the dressing was not our dressing. Therefore, we are cooking for Christmas.

Usually I get my behind up and go on over there before Mama can do too much, because I don't want to listen to her moan and groan after standing at the stove too long. But I am tired this year. The tiredness of the whole year has fallen on me on this one day. I have been in the bed with Anna Claire, snuggling with our dogs. I will get ashes and switches and bowlegged britches in my stocking for not hurrying over to help my mother, but this year I do not care. Or at least, I'm pretending like I don't.

My sweet Anna Claire just toasted a bagel for me. I suppose I will eat it and head on out. Merry Christmas Eve, y'all.
 

We teach about how to drive in school, but not how to manage finances.
Andy Williams

We teach about how to drive in school, but not how to manage finances.
Andy Williams

You know, you just can't say everything on Facebook that you want to, especially when the people you might be referring to are on your friends list.

Years ago, when I worked at the juvie jail, I got my own bank account and left hubby to his own account. He talked me (read: manipulated me by making me feel guilty) into getting back into the same account with him. Now, everything that somebody has ever talked me into, from getting my hair cut to buying clothes, usually made me regret it. This was no different. I have been through the financial Sahara Desert. Therefore, the lapsed WdC membership. I could buy actual groceries with that money, plus I was having to cash my check because I have no idea where the money in that account goes. It is like a black hole for money. You can't pay WdC with cash.

Around the middle of October, I took the first step to freeing myself financially. I had a good excuse for this, which is why it was a good place to start. This is the fourth school year I have worked where I am, and never once have I been able to get a cell phone signal inside the building. I got a fine signal at the juvie jail, but I come to a regular elementary school and get no signal whatsoever. I didn't really care on way or the other: I don't talk on my phone that much. But I could use this as the excuse to change cell phone companies and get out of hubby's account. Every month his cell phone bill is enormous and I had to get away from it.

Then on November 1st, I went back to having my own checking account at a totally different bank. There was much eye-rolling and guilt-flinging when I told hubby of this. I had no "excuse" for this. But I lived through it! This was a big step for me. I did something I knew he wouldn't agree with and lived through the aftermath. I didn't argue one bit, I just sat there and listened to him. Ha! When he saw that he wasn't getting an argument from me, he had to stop. You can't argue with yourself.

So I have come back to WdC, now that my money is my own. I thought that my old blog would be long gone, but it was simply locked up.

I am going shopping for my kids today. I haven't bought a single gift. Not one. For one thing, I don't have any really good places in my house to hide them. Neither my husband or I have trunks on our cars.- we both have an SUV. Every year I wind up waiting until the last minute to shop. I usually don't get them much: mostly clothes and one fun thing. Emily was telling me last night about her friend, who happens to be an only child, who gets around 25 presents every year. Ha! Good for her. The question is, does she actually play with/wear/use all 25 presents through the year? Does she even remember what she got? Who knows. When Emily told her that she got around 3 presents for Christmas, she said that Emily is deprived. If that's deprived, I'll take it! I'm kind of a Scrooge about stuff like that.

I'm glad to be back on WdC, and mostly glad to have my blog back. Wahoo!