Carpenter Cool Guy

I have a new closet. It was formerly the hall coat closet, but now it is a very useful pantry. Our house has many fine qualities. But storage space in the kitchen is not really one of them. The kitchen area is small and open to the dining room/family room area, and therefore entirely lacking one wall on which to put more cupboards. So we got the idea to transform the coat closet, just around the corner, into a pantry closet. It turned out great!

Cool Guy, as you know, is very clever with tools. He is a master mechanic, can fix computers, plumbing, electrical stuff, the pool equipment...lots of things. But I just didn't realize he was such a carpenter, too! I'd looked at different closet systems in home improvement stores and on-line, but I wasn't satisfied with any of them. Well, he got some heavy-duty plywood and his electronic leveler and his measuring tape and you can see the fabulous results! He put in deep shelves on the diagonal so that the narrow door didn't prevent him from using all the interior space. I still have room for my winter coats (which I use occasionally, but usually just for visiting up north) and the ironing board. But I have loads of room for food storage, all my big bottles of various liquids and spices, my vast cookie cutter selection, and waaaaay up high--out of reach--some ant spray. I'm just delighted. I told him that my carpenter Grandpa would be pleased as anyone at this delightful and professional transformation. Now he's inspired to start in the bedrooms! Neato! See the diagonal shelves? I will be able to get more storage items now that I have an adequate place. One cannot have too many cans of olives for the coming Apocalypse.

Remembering Mother Day

It will soon be three years since my mother died. She was anxious to leave, by the end. My dad had died 21 years before, and she never stopped missing him. I understand. She'd been doing okay, not great, but then she suddenly went into decline, and less than three months later was gone. We honored her well at her funeral, we all rejoiced that she was finally free from the decades of pain she'd hid so well from the world, and we know that she and our dad had a wonderful reunion.

But, it doesn't matter how old you are when you become an orphan, it still feels bad. I haven't erased her phone number from my cell phone. Her address is still in my contacts. Every year I make Mother's Day cards with my students in which we write a cinquain poem about their mother. I show them the sample card I made about my mom (it is about 8 years old) and they always ask if I'm going to mail it to her. They get very quiet when I tell them she isn't alive anymore, but then I say that she was really old, and she is in heaven with my dad, and it breaks the tension. I would love to mail her a card. I compulsively call my sisters in a rotation because I used to call my mom just to chat about the latest trivia concerning my children, and even after three years I still miss having her to tell it to.

I remember when her mother died. I was 19. Grandma had been extremely ill for a couple of years. She'd lived with my aunt and was bedridden, and mostly out of it for a year. She was quite old, too. So, I blithely came home from college for the funeral thinking it was routine. My aunts and mom were up half the night in the kitchen talking, laughing, crying. My grandpa looked lost. He sorted photos at the table. It dawned on me that more than just a little old sick lady had gone. She was the Mother. It was only four years after the tragic death of their youngest brother, an Air Force test pilot, so the sisters were still heart-bruised from that. So, even though their mother was relieved of her burdens, I now know how they felt. Mother is Mother. It's never a good time for her to go.

But, she left me a good legacy of working hard, being cheerful, being kind and generous, and of always keeping family ties strong and active. So, this Mother's Day I will think of her fondly and hope that some far off day* my own children will miss me as much as I miss her.

*(from my lips to God's ear..."far-off day")

Appreciation

It was Teacher Appreciation Week. I was appreciated in many, lovely ways. My personal cocinera (I hope that's how you spell "cook" in Spanish) brought lunch 3 times!! Our PTA gave each of us two movie tickets. Plus, many of my students came bearing gifts.

• brownies
• cookies
• notepads
• potted plant
• flower
• cards
• an adorable framed drawing

This year for the first time, we elected a student council from the 4th and 5th grades. It was partly done to capitalize on the election hyper-awareness in the fall, and partly because the counselor thought the students would benefit from the leadership experience. It has been very successful. There are a number of officers and they have executed their duties well. As an example, the environmental officer is in charge of emptying our recycling bins every Friday. He recruited a group of students who go to each classroom during their recess and get the bins and return them. It's marvelous, because the custodians don't do recycling. Formerly, each teacher had to get that bin emptied somehow.

Well, one of our council members lives next door to a fellow who owns a franchise of coffee/smoothie trucks. So on Friday morning we each received a coupon to go out to our parking lot for a free specialty coffee or fruit smoothie....umm...mango. Then, we returned to the teacher's lounge where our night custodian was cooking omlets made to order. His day job is breakfast chef at a large casino. Every year our administration hires him to serve us for Teacher Appreciation week. There were also outrageously delicious biscuits to accompany the omlets.

So, it was a very appreciation-filled week. I appreciate being a teacher. You get to see students grow and learn. It sounds like such a cliche, but it's true! When you see a child really internalize some difficult concept and then use it correctly in another area it is really exciting! We got our standardized test scores back last week--the BIG test, the one the district and the world judges us with--and our fourth graders did fantastically. There was huge growth and we were very excited for them.

It's nice to have a special week, and it's fun to get treats, but seriously, I appreciate my job everyday and I feel appreciated everyday, too, because children are pretty basic and they don't hold back. They don't fake it. So, I am aware daily, hourly, and sometimes minute-to-minute if I'm appreciated or not.

It's BACK!!

Swimming season, I mean. I sit here typing with water dripping down my back from the ponytail that just came out of the pool. Ahhhhh. Swimming is good. The water is 78 degrees because each day for almost a week the air temp has been creeping up and holding around 90 and (equally importantly) at night it has only dipped back down into the 60's. So...the masonry around the pool is absorbing heat and not releasing it back into the black void of space every night. That means...I can swim again! Yeah!! It's just the best thing ever to dive into the pool after a long day and float around a bit. Then, laps back and forth, the knees don't mind a bit and there's no sweating. I know I've extolled this form of activity every year (probably several times a year) but I can't praise it enough. I just love swimming.

The Birthday of Faye

I don't remember why I nicknamed my first daughter "Faye". I've tried and tried to remember how it came about, but I am unable to recall the origins of this. But it is a name I've called her for years and years. It'd be a good blog if I could remember how it came to be.

But, since I can't remember, I'll just tell some stories about her. Today she is 31. Wow, that's amazing since I'm just 39. (No, really, I feel that way in my head, but my knees...79) Anyway, she was an experiment. Not her conception--that was by design. But we realized about halfway into the pregnancy that we would not be going back to the Boot-Camp atmosphere of the Naval Hospital to deliver her. Cool Guy had read an article about homebirth, and the more I read about the options available, the more I wanted to exercise those options. (NO options were offered at the NRMC--unofficial motto: You Do As We Say, Lady). Today, of course, most of the reasons we opted for the living room over the delivery room are moot because labor and delivery in a hospital are much more pleasant.

So, she was born and we were started on an adventure with Will Power. First, I have to declare that this personality trait enabled her stick it out through three years of beginning swimming lessons so that she could learn, finally, how to swim. She is today a highly educated woman with no student loan debt because she worked diligently (using an above-average intellect) to be good at all her schoolwork from the first day of Kindergarten to the last day of her master's degree, and colleges reward that kind of single-minded devotion to a goal with lavish scholarships. We have many souvenirs of her illustrious education career, including piles of honor roll certificates, academic award plaques, and a very lovely plaster of Paris naked mole rat from a first grade diorama project on mammals.

She is an excellent pianist. I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out, however, the day she came to me explaining that she didn't want to take piano lessons anymore. I was stricken. She'd only been taking them for about two years, and she was pretty good. I, the mother, loved playing the piano. I wanted to pass on this opportunity for music appreciation to my offspring. Oh, keep listening Mom...she just wanted to quit lessons, not the piano--she didn't like having someone tell her what to do; she wanted to learn it on her own. If she got stuck, she could go back and ask the teacher or me. She really liked playing and wanted to get better--but on her own terms. And she did, and she taught herself through more advanced lesson books than I'd made it through. Good thing I didn't get all tyrannical on her, insisting on My Way or The Highway on piano lessons.

I'd already tried tyranny. It didn't work. It didn't work when she was TWO YEARS OLD. The only reason I won some of those wars was because I was bigger and could force her to go places, or whatever, through physical might. I did not EVER win the battle of minds. I did finally learn, however, to readjust my thinking. "Is this really that big of a deal?" "Is this necessary or just what I prefer?" "Who cares, really?" Such as, give away the clothing I couldn't bear to see walk out of the house where anyone else could see her wearing it. Cut her hair really short so it didn't matter if I wasn't being permitted to comb it and she wasn't capable of it yet. Little bitty things---no you don't have to go to sleep, but you do have to stay in bed quietly with a book. It took me a few years to learn that very few things needed me to be the ultimate boss, but they were important things, so I'd better save my cooperation capital for them.

As I said, will power is fabulous, finally. She started baking cookies in elementary school because "Sometimes I wanted cookies, but you didn't have time to bake them. I didn't want to always have to wait for you." She read cookbooks and followed directions and is now an accomplished cook. A self-directed child is a thing of beauty. Faye has always been very self-directed. I didn't always appreciate this, but ultimately it has worked out. Parenting is a school, some of us are slow learners.

Happy Birthday!! Feliz Cumpleanos!! Bake yourself a really awesome cake!!

National Poetry Month

Heh...it is the second to the last day of National Poetry Month and I really meant to post some poetry. But I've taken all my poetry books to school and I kept forgetting to bring them home.

Here's a poem:

Enter October

Wrapped in the feather boa of
The Season’s Premier Snowstorm,
October makes her entrance.
But, after the introduction,
She drops the frozen front and
Gleams gold so bright
That wild geese echo the musical applause
Long after the last curtain call
That cuts into November’s icy act.

by Judy Kay Welch
New Era, Oct 1974

Here's another poem:

On A Night of Snow

Cat, if you go outdoors, you must walk in the snow.
You will come back with little white shoes on your feet,
little white shoes of snow that have heels of sleet.
Stay by the fire, my Cat. Lie still, do not go.
See how the flames are leaping and hissing low,
I will bring you a saucer of milk like a marguerite,
so white and so smooth, so spherical and so sweet -
stay with me, Cat. Outdoors the wild winds blow.

Outdoors the wild winds blow, Mistress, and dark is the night,
strange voices cry in the trees, intoning strange lore,
and more than cats move, lit by our eyes green light,
on silent feet where the meadow grasses hang hoar -
Mistress, there are portents abroad of magic and might,
and things that are yet to be done. Open the door!

-- Elizabeth Coatsworth

So, now you must find a poem, or write a poem, to celebrate the waning days of April.

Down the Musical Memory Lane

Cool Guy and I were talking tonight about music and, of course I was saying things like, "You know that one song...those guys you saw every week in Overton Park in Memphis..." because my brain often doesn't work well with specifics like names these days. So I went to the internet because EVERYTHING is there. I don't need to have it on the tip of my tongue anymore since I can just google it all now. But...I digress. And I digressed for about an hour on youtube looking up songs I loved way back in the day. Here's one for instance:



I loved these guys--The Allman Brothers band. Don't you wish your hair was as pretty as Greg's? Don't you wish you could play the guitar like Dicky Betts and Duane Allman?

Here's another one that I can listen to nine gazillion times and never tire of it. Whenever I hear it I have to stop and listen to the whole thing and sing along (if I'm alone). It's just the best harmony ever.



Don't you want to hit play again? And again? Just one of those beautiful, awesome songs that I love to hear.

Also both of them remind me of a time of life when my knees didn't hurt and my hair was as pretty as Greg Allman's. It was a great time of life and I am always astonished that we are this many years removed from it. It is good to have music to be a vivid and instant time travel device.
P.S. The initial song I went looking for was "Heard It In a Love Song" by Marshall Tucker Band, a local group that played free in Overton Park in Memphis the summer of 1973 when Cool Guy was going to Navy A school. It was before the band had a huge hit. Then we got together in February 1974 and listened to them over and over on their new album.
P.P.S. Cool Guy pointed out to me that the second guitarist on the first clip is not Duane Allman. Duane was killed in a motorcycle accident early in their career. I don't know who the other player is, but here is Duane.

Car Lust

Cool Guy rents cars quite often because he travels for work. He's rented enough cars in the last few years that he is at the top of the Preferred Renters list, or whatever they call it, at the company he usually uses. So he never knows what will be awaiting him when he goes in to pick up a car. (And he's like the people on the commercials who just walk right into the garage and the car is waiting there in a space with his name posted over it...) Once he got a Mustang convertible. Once it was a Lincoln Continental. I was with him on that trip and we really felt like a couple of geezers in that land yacht. He always reserves the same model, an Impala, but they just give him what they've got at the time, if one of those isn't available. And they give him an upgrade if they don't have his first choice. So...

Last week he picked up the car to go on a trip and it was a Mercedes C-Class. He came by my school to say good bye. (I had just finished after-school tutoring.) I was dutifully impressed. It had a sunroof, nice leather seats. It was awesome. He laughing said it took him 10minutes to figure out how to turn on the radio. He said it drove like a dream---German engineering. So, off he went for a relatively short journey to a base in a neighboring state for some meetings.

He returned a couple of days later and walked in the door that evening. He strode into the living room and declared:
"I've never been upset with you for not winning the million dollars. But now I am. I want a Mercedes Benz!!" And then he laughed!! This from the person who always bought old used cars because he could rebuild the motors and we wouldn't have car payments. It enabled me to be a stay-home mom for eighteen years.

Really, it's okay about the money---but WOW---would he love one of those cars. So, if you ever get to upgrade to Mercedes...be careful. It'll ruin you.

That's More Like It

Do you know that on Tuesday night Las Vegas established a new record lowest high temperature for that date? It was very cold--cold enough for several new inches of snow to fall on the highest mountain here, the road over the west mountains to be closed due to snowfall, and even in the neighborhoods of the valley at the foot of those mountains to have snow. Bah. It is April, people.

Yes, yes---two feet of snow closed eastern Wyoming and Colorado. Northern Utah, including halfway down the state got lots of new snow...yeah, yeah. But I am living here in the desert and it is April and we are supposed to be having Spring with its lovely balmy days in the 70's. We will be having the 100's by the end of May and this is our reward time of year.

It has been a very cold winter. We have had incredible winds and very cold weather for almost the whole month of April. I'm ready for some nice weather. Wah.

So, finally today we have some. That's good. It's about time. That is all.

Teacher Perks?

A strange thing has been happening the last few weeks at school. A mom is bringing me lunch. This all got started because I drooled over the lunches she regularly brought to her son. She'd cook him these sensational looking soups and enchiladas and tacos and things. It would be freshly made, and she'd be waiting in the foyer as we walked the students up to the cafeteria at 12:10. She and her daughter, a toddler, would go in and give her son the Tupperware container that was full of the delicious looking homemade Mexican food. I'd walk past him to drop off my lunch ticket envelope and I couldn't help but notice the awesome looking lunches. So, I'd make a little joke about wanting her to be my mom, or wouldn't he please share...He'd laugh and she'd smile.

Well, about three weeks ago, I walked the students up the hall, and there is Mama and she walked up to me with the Tupperware bowl. I took it and turned to look for her son, but she gestured and said, with a strong accent, "No--you eat." Just then her boy came up and explained in English for his mother, "She brought it for you today!" OH MY GOODNESS. I was embarrassed. They were so happy to give it to me, so I thanked her and took it.

It was FABULOUSLY delicious. It was empanadas and spanish rice and some vegetables. It was so much that I sat down in the lounge and shared it with another 4th grade teacher (since we all share this student.) We sucked it down like THAT. YUM, YUM, YUM.

So I e-mailed my daughter and had her translate a thank you for me on the double to give to the boy with the plate that afternoon.

Next week, here's mom again with the covered plate! This time it was chiles rellenoes con pollo with spanish rice and some more empanadas. Cool Guy got some of the left-overs because we couldn't eat it all. He agrees: terrific, delicious. Again, yesterday! I get a lunch. I'm so embarrassed.

Today, after school, they stopped by where I do crossing guard duty and the boy asked me, for his mom who was driving, if I liked the lunch. I definitely did, and said that, really, she didn't have to do that, honest. But she smiled and he explained that she loved to do, no problem!

So I told my fellow crossing guard all about what was going on, and he just laughed and told me that with so few perks coming our way as teachers, I should just say Thank you very much, and gobble up the food and thank my lucky stars. So, I guess I will.

It's still embarrassing.

Easter Greetings

Easter is one of my favorite celebrations. Partly because it occurs in Spring, which means Winter is on the way out. As a child this was important because Winter was always so interminable. We often had snow on the ground for Easter...more than once a blizzard raged. But the later occurring Easters (like the year my younger brother was born) was sunny and warm and we'd raked all the old grass off the lawns.

Of course, we always got new dresses. Sometimes they were merely new to us, our sisters having worn them a few years before. But it still counted. I had a hat for several years in a row, too. And since we had so many chickens, we definitely dyed eggs. On Easter morning we got to hunt for these hidden eggs throughout the living room--never outside, because of the snow. And there was some candy, also.

But my favorite part of Easter, even when I was little, was church. It is all centered around the reality of the Resurrection. Christmas is sweet and sentimental. But there is an undercurrent of melancholy. The parents are far from home, they have inadequate accommodations, they have a little fear when the Wise Men and Herod enter into the narrative.

But Easter! It's all about triumph! It's all about Christ turning the horrible circumstance of His trial, His humiliation and His crucifixion upside down and being more powerful than all of it.

He is Risen! Imagine the exhilaration of Mary when she runs off to tell the apostles that what Jesus had been teaching them wasn't allegorical---He really did return to life!

I realize that I've lived my whole life with this as a fact, not just a belief. I've always known with surety that Christ is Lord and He lives and the Resurrection is certain. There are many things I wonder about, some doctrinal concepts I puzzle over. But the Living Christ isn't one of them. I am always grateful for this gift of knowing that life is eternal, and we're just in one phase of our existence here on earth. Hosanna and Hallelujah!

Grandma Land

This afternoon we just returned from visiting our two grandchildren who live in California, and later tonight our grandson will arrive for part of his spring break. He can only stay a couple of days, because he has a soccer game to play on Saturday, but two days will be great! We enjoy all the time we can get when it comes to being the grandparents.

In California we went for a walk, played in the sandbox, were served delicious sand icecream cones, read books, played Go Fish and made some Easter crafts together. Another day we toured the Jelly Belly Factory and went to a terrific planetarium where we saw a dinosaur movie and a movie called the "The Secret of the Cardboard Spaceship" in which we explored the universe in animation. We ate out and we visited the Oakland temple visitor's center, and just completely used up one day. We really had a great old time.

Tomorrow we plan to plant tomatoes, take the little gas-car out to the desert for some off-roading remote-control driving, and of course, swimming in the little pool (since the big pool is a little too chilly yet.) Then on Friday, it's Bunny Bread time! We'll probably go see a cool museum too.

Grandma-time is the best way to spend Spring Break--believe me!

Happy Birthday Joe

Actually, the main birthday celebrated in our family today is for the second brother. He was born 26 years ago and was a Kindergarten class project--sort of. I was pregnant with him during the year of our oldest child's first school experience, and I spent time there each week being the music lady with a friend of mine. As the year progressed, my belly grew bigger, and so the students were excited to have me come and visit at the end of April with the new baby brother. He was very popular and annointed the "cutest one!" He was then, and still today manages to be very, very cute. And very talented and very nice. And very intelligent and very creative.

Which brings us to Joe's birthday. Well, I don't really remember Joe's birthday. It could be today, but without today, April 2, we wouldn't have had Joe...so. Mr. Cool (as I will herein refer to the Birthday Boy) taught himself to read when he was just about four. One of his favorite things to read was the atlas, and any map, anywhere. We had a map of the United States on the wall in his room and it got thoroughly studied. One day, we were introduced to Joe.

Joe was from Shafter, Texas. His grandmother lived in Alpine, Texas. Joe liked the color green, and his mom had died, I think. There were some tragic undertones to Joe's life. But Joe lived with us for a year or more. When we had baths in the evening, I had to also help Joe out of the tub and dry him off. At night, Joe was tucked into bed, too. He had a place to join us on the couch for bedtime reading. He went to the store with us. One night at dinner, Mr. Cool was just fiddling with his soup and not really eating much. I pointed out that we had ice cream for dessert, but that the soup needed to be finished first. Oh, no problem, Joe was going to eat the soup. So, I replied, "Then I'll give Joe the ice cream." He shot right back angrily, "Joe HATES ice cream!"

We moved to another state during the year of Joe. A big moving van pulled up outside of our house, everything boxed up and stashed inside. Then the truck was weighed and we signed the bill. But when it arrived in Idaho after a few days on the road, the new weight was 300 pounds heavier than that which we loaded in California. Mysterious? We looked at one another and Cool Guy just shrugged, "Joe's stuff." Of course.

One day, we just didn't hear about Joe anymore. He was a good friend, and we all enjoyed him while he lived with us. I hope he's having a happy birthday, too. Mr. Cool--you, too!

Not Lost

I'm not lost or anything, but I've just spent most of my spare time in the last week working on a power-point synopsis of 5 research articles about teaching phonics. Eighty-eight slides. Yes, 88. I presented it on Monday, now I need to finish the revisions and e-mail it to my professor and then I'll be back blogging in my "spare" time. If I'm not dead.

Happy Feet

I went shopping on the weekend to Dillards because I'd read that they were going to have a shoe consultant in their stores. Well, I have terrible feet and I need some consultin'. I didn't find anyone at the location I went to, but I was waited on by a very persuasive salesman. He had me explain my needs--flat feet, sore knees, teacher, standing up all day....blah, blah. He commiserated and then walked me over to the wall and said, "These are what you need. You try these on, and you will be astonished. You'll never wear any other shoes in your life. Seriously."
Well, that seemed like an extravagant claim, but I put on the shoes.

Wow.

Right then, my feet felt FABULOUS. Really. He brought me three more pair in varying styles. Again, FABULOUS. I walked around the shoe area, out on the tiles of the main aisle, back and forth. Still--FABU----You get my drift.

So, I bought a pair. EEk, they were quite expensive. I wore them today to school--seven hours mostly on my feet. And guess how my feet feel tonight??? Yes guessed it:

Fabulous!!

Now, I'm not suggesting that you go right out and buy some Ecco shoes, but I'm going to buy another pair next payday in another style, and another pair the payday after that, and then again and again until I have all the shoes I tried on Saturday. Then, I'm just probably going to give away most of my other shoes. Yes, I'm a convert. No, actually, I'm a zealot. With comfortable feet, after I've worked all day, standing up on my cement floors with indoor/outdoor carpet without a pad.

Going for A Ride

I was driving home this morning (from the gym...the latest attempt at self-improvement) and a car drove by on the main road with a long-haired Chihuahua sticking his head and neck as far out the window as the person restraining him would allow. The wind was blowing his ears back and his mouth was open, tongue flapping in the breeze. Dogs in cars--the very picture of Nirvana. All of our dogs loved car rides. They would get in the car uninvited. The prospect of a) being with his people and b) being able to stick his head out of the window and sniff everything (!!!) wow... Wouldn't that be cool to be a dog and have joy be so simple?

Actually, riding a motorcycle is the human equivalent, I realized just as I wrote that. Thursday afternoon I came home from school in a state because of pending re-assignment rumors in my building, and Cool Guy had just returned from a little jaunt. He was getting in one last ride before flying back East for work, but the Harley has to stay here. So I asked him if he'd take me for a blast over the mountain into the desert--just a short one. Lake Mead Boulevard, near our house, is so named because if you follow it, eventually you'll end up at the lake. We frequently ride up a little circuit that goes around some of the little inlets and bays formed by the outer edges of the lake.

So, we took off. It's a perfect time of year here in the desert. Everything is in bloom, parts of the desert actually have grass growing over vast stretches. It smells fantastically and it stays light until 7:30. It won't get deathly hot for another month or so, so all the growing things are just flourishing because of the extensive rain (and snow) we had in the winter. It was a nice ride, just long enough to clear out my angst and come home relaxed and serene. I felt like this guy.

Are You As Smart As My Fourth Graders?

Actually, they may not be all that smart, either. But tonight watching Jeopardy! I did discover a category they might be able to pass. Any of my students, from all my classes in the last 14 years. I forget exactly the name of it, but it was something like, The Second Line...Each of the five items was about a famous piece of writing, but you had to identify it from a less well-known quote they gave from the body of the piece -- not the famous First Line.

The pieces were the Gettysburg Address, the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and the poem by Emma Lazarus that is written on the base of the Statue of Liberty.

I knew the question to each answer because each year I teach my students about these pieces of historical literature. I teach them a lot of other things, too. But I always work in these five. We learn about the six promises of the Preamble on Constitution Day. (Did you know there is a federally mandated day to teach it? Sept. 17th) We spend a week on Dr. King's life and words in January. I always have Abraham Lincoln week in February, as well as George Washington week. I think President's Day is too mushy, and it contributes to the confusion many students have that makes these two American leaders indistinguishable from one another. AAAGGHH! It is a pet-peeve of mine that people can't remember the basic facts about those two, so I belabor it with my classes every year. But...I use them to teach writing, history and math, because it doesn't really matter what the context for the learning is, as long as you are learning. I knock off the two birds that way: cultural literacy and my content standards.

Then, the next answer on Jeopardy! was about the Declaration of Independence. That just fits right in with George Washington week so nicely. It also was part of Maryland history when I lived there. The final Americana writing was the poem The New Colossus. There was a unit in my previous reading anthology about immigrants, including a magazine article about the Statue of Liberty. I have found a good substitute for those stories out here in Nevada and I still have the fact piece, so we read all about it, and read the poem and learn why it was important. And then, we write poetry ourselves as though we are Liberty Enlightening the World, looking down on the country, each telling what is going through their copper brain. They write really lovely poetry when they have something they know about as a topic.

So, I was very proud of myself tonight as I watched t.v. to realize that I've taught my students about these pieces of Americana consistently through the years. I'm a shameless propagandist as a teacher. I want my students to know about this really awesome nation and our historical icons and develop a love for it all. It's my little contribution to the future.

Hey, Hey Mama

We were listening to music tonight, actually, it was a DVD of a concert on Austin City Limits of Dwight Yoakam. His guest was Buck Owens, with the accordianist Flaco Jimenez. We love Flaco because about 20 years ago we went to the Ventura Theater to see The Texas Tornadoes. They were a bunch of geezers who'd mostly been in other bands when we were young, but were now collaborating in this group. They were awesome. It was an interesting concert. We were there to see Doug Sahm, and Augie Meyers and Freddie Fender. But who knew that Flaco had a whole following? Not me...But, as the group really got rocking, and Flaco had his solo, the stage was swarmed by a loyal group of abuelas (yes, seriously, one old lady hobbled up there with her cane, and hung on the edge of the stage with the others, shouting, "Flaco! Flaco!") So, something for everyone!

But the point of this post, really, is Dwight Yoakam. Cool Guy was working in the garage, possibly building bunk beds for the girls, maybe working on the motorcycle...and he came to the kitchen door to call me out to listen to a song that just came on the radio. It was in 1985 or 86 (can't remember) and the song was "Honky Tonk Man" by a new guy. You could hear the awe in the DJ's voice as the song ended, "That guy is going places!" he extolled. Well, yeah. Here is a video of Dwight that someone took at a bar of Dwight singing the song, before he'd recorded and released it as a single. The album "Guitars and Cadillacs" was a monster hit. We always felt like we'd known him before he was big, since we heard him on the radio that night. The album was issued in 1986 and it was huge. We've seen him in concert a couple of times and I'd go see him again.

I'm Too Stupid for My Clothes...

(The title is a take-off on that song about "I'm too sexy...") okay, lame. I know.

But, here's why I used it:

I was accepted into the graduate program for Curriculum & Instruction at UNLV and then a friend talked to me and explained several reasons why I really ought to switch over to the Educational Psychology department instead, and I agreed with her. So, I started the whole process of doing that, and suddenly discovered that the March 15th deadline was actually February 1st. OH MY!! So, I was scrambling around gathering up information and recommendations and applications. I even had to get a tetnus shot update. I've aged out of the requirement for the MMR shots. Cool. I think.

So, I got every piece of paper collected and I drove over to the college to turn it in because I didn't trust the mail to get it there before the deadline. The secretary went through my packet and checked off her list. (My giant, eight colleges-transcripts folder was being sent over from the other department.) But when she got to my GRE scores, she looked it over, and pronounced:

"This is pretty low. They don't usually accept anyone with this low of a score. Sure, the verbal is high, but the quantitative score (math) is really low. I don't think you'll make it." I felt great hearing her say this. (NOT) I wasn't really sure what she was expecting for me to do next. So, I just thanked her for looking to see that I'd turned in everything and left. Blah.

However, today, I received a letter telling me that they have recommended admitting me to their MS in Ed Psychology degree program. They will forward this recommendation to the grad college and I'll get a final letter from them telling me oui ou non.

S0, apparently, I wasn't too stupid. Even though the class I'm enrolled in (because I didn't withdraw my admittance to the other grad program yet) is kicking my butt. It turns out this class I'm taking is the first class of a PhD program. Title: Seminal Articles in Reading Research. And it is very hard--I'm to read about 25 articles about reading research from the last 50 years or so--these are the leading thinkers/scientist/educators in the field of reading--and then we analyze the research in class. Or we mostly listen to the professor tell us what is right and wrong with the various theories. I am, however, actually learning something. I was able to ask a few intelligent questions recently and come to some conclusions on my own. It's amazing. All the other people (all 6 of them-it's a seminar) are women who work in the district offices and have master's degrees already and work on teacher training for their careers. I feel like a Kindergarten kid in high school. But, as I said, I think I'm beginning to "get" some of it, finally.

If I succeed in passing this class, then the master's program ought to be do-able, no? I'll let you know in May.

[By the way, if you're thinking, "Didn't she already write about being accepted into graduate school before, several times?? Well...yes. I did get into San Jose State for an on-line degree two years ago, and then I discovered I wasn't technologically flexible enough to handle it. Then, I was accepted into the C & I program last spring and didn't enroll yet...so, at last, I'm in a class--I've started a degree, sort of, and I think this is the last time I'll switch programs. I think I've found something I'll be able to finish.]

The Mighty Change of Heart

I've always had the habit of taking out my scriptures during the Sacrament and reading something. It keeps me on topic, it keeps me from watching the deacons and getting distracted by goofy things they're doing or wearing. Now that I don't have anyone sitting with me who needs my assistance in being reverent, or at least quiet, I also have the leisure of reading a little during this time.

This week I randomly opened to Alma 5 and began to read Alma the Younger's sermon to the people about their need to experience the "mighty change of heart" experienced by his father in response to the preaching of Abinadi and also, of course, Alma the Younger's own stunning change of heart experience.

14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

Then, because it was Fast Sunday, a variety of people got up to speak. They all talked about big changes that were coming, or had come, in their lives. It was as though someone had orchestrated the topics. There was the first-time father talking about the impact of the little girl in his life. There was the father of a missionary, their first son, leaving for the MTC on Tuesday this week. There was the sister who'd been baptized three weeks ago and her interesting experience with the Spirit testifying of His presence at her baptism. (She is deaf, and had to remove her hearing aides for the immersion part, yet she "heard" the baptism prayer.) Then, a woman whose family had been sealed in the temple on Saturday spoke. After her, a brother thanked everyone for all their kindness toward his wife about the recent death of her father.

The change that Alma talks about refers to a spiritual transformation. I realize that all of the changes I've mentioned are actual, physical changes. But the people talking about them were all relating the spiritual changes that accompanied the physical ones. It was a powerful meeting. I was very moved to hear everyone tell of the effect their knowledge of God, the plan of salvation, and eternity has had in these times of big change for them and their families. It was the difference between happiness and joy.

In my life, it makes a huge difference to know that this time, mortal life, is just one piece of the whole thing. It allows me to be kinder, calmer, and to put my sorrows into God's hands. He always exchanges them for joy. That is what I recognize as the mighty change of heart for me.