The Idea

Geez Louise, Today the compound was getting me super down.  But then tonight I had a brilliant idea about a compound conundrum.  Now I'm waiting for my bosslady to email me back because I want

her to think my brilliant idea is super brilliant.  I'll keep you posted!

The Future

Never go backward.  Always be movin,' movin' forward.

This is a quote from Some Sing Some Cry.  I read a review of this book this very morning in the NYT.
After a restful weekend I am ready to be movin' forward.  And I won't be going backward.  No way will I be going backward to the loopies yelling in my face and the widespread panic about teendaughter being so far away during a medical crisis.  After a weekend of rest, hours of watching HOARDERS, a nice dinner out and an entertaining movie, I'm ready to blog and then slog.  #1 Son is here reading my draft.  He believes a good ending would be, "F*** Yeah, World."

I'm going with it.

The Lotus

Crooked Still.  Chicha Libre.  Bernard Woma.  Nation Beat.  Red Baraat.  Genticorum.  Khaira Arby.
Night one of Lotus was a great success.  In an hour I'm going to slog a 5k.  Haven't done this in about ten years.

The Titanic

Read about The Titanic with some 2nders yesterday.  We were doing a lesson on "asking important questions."  It was hard to get the kiddos to focus their questions on the text because they were fairly absorbed in the loss of life involved. We got comments like Are the dead bodies still in the boat?  Did the souls escape and are the souls traveling around in the sea? Are the people sad that they died on the boat? Do the people who died wish they hadn't gone on The Titanic?  Stuff like that.  All valid, and probably even important, but not tightly connected to the text about the 3 scientists who descended 2.5 miles to the boat in a nifty little submarine.  That's okay. It was fun at the end because we did a quick write, answering one of our questions.  Then we all sat in a circle.  Teachers have microphones this year, so I passed around the mike to the readers.  The 2nders were thrilled to be using the mike and that was fun to see.

The Busy-ness

This job keeps me hopping.  It's actually pretty insane how many things there are to do and to keep track of.  Lately I've been doing more than my share of complaining about this.  After I complain, I always feel overwhelming guilt.  After the guilt floods through me, I usually move into pensive reflection, and I spend a few moments contemplating whether or not I'm happy with my job.  I usually conclude that I AM happy with my job. Overall. In order to walk the happiness walk, I have decided to really work on minimizing my complaining.  There's no reason why I can't do this.  I've done many difficult things in my day. (Case in point: Couch to 5k program I finished this summer).
Granted, this particular change is going to require a complete personality shift, but I might be confident about pulling it off.  Please try to send me encouraging thoughts.  Whenever you think of it.

The Pontoon

Had a super day on the pontoon today with a group of great pals.  You really can't beat the 3 day weekend.  There were many work related items I should have done this weekend.  I did a few things, but not nearly what should have been done.  That's just the way it's going to have to be.  I am going to read my book tonight in keeping with my new vow to watch less telly.  The only problem is this:  Hoarders is on tonight.  I'm going to have some decision making to do.  Possibly some rationalizing as well.

The Band

The first grade teachers were so nice today.  They gave me an IU silly band.  (Go IU!  Fight fight fight!) I was absolutely thrilled and I THANKED them profusely.  (I'm bringing back the thank you).   But here's the thing.  I walked down the hallway happily checking out my new silly band and not 10 seconds after I got the cool IU silly band as a special gift from our first grade teachers, one of our administrators told me gleefully that a note was going home, this very day, banning silly bandz!  I held up my arm to show her my new silly band and she just shook her head.  I didn't sense any compassion at all really. Geezlouise.  Sillybandz are awesome.  And everyone should have as many silly bandz as possible.

The Writing

We wrote about friends today in 2nd grade.  Then we made paper dolls of our friends.  In 3rd grade we wrote "ODES to our PENCILS."  We worked pretty hard, but I usually leave the compound in a better mood when I hang out with the peeps.
Right now I'm watching Project Runway.  I think Tim Gunn was a little mean with one of the designers. Be nice, Tim.  Everyone should be more pleasant.  I'm going to work on this myself.