Directionless

I usually sign up for my subbing positions on-line. They have a nice little page that shows all the jobs available, which schools, which subjects, which hours, which days and you just pick what you want. This usually works out very well, but every now and then a school will move you around to a different job. This usually (what's another word for usually?) is no big deal. Today, it was a big deal. They put me in special ed.

I don't take special ed jobs for a reason. They're really, really hard, and I don't mean work wise. They're hard emotionally. You spend time with some of the nicest, friendliest, funniest, and huggiest kids ever, but you know that this is it for them. Out of the 8 kids in the class, maybe 4 of them would ever be able to work ANY type of job, and this was the highest level of special ed. The other four, not a chance. One of the students, a girl with autism, broke my heart. They said she had been able speak, interact, read a little and now, nothing. She spent the day wandering in circles, grabbing things and putting them in her mouth. She had totally regressed. It was so sad, like she was looking for something, but she didn't know what, or how to communicate with even herself. The whole situation made me think of IQ.

IQ had the flu a couple weeks ago. I took her to the doctor and one of the things they told her was to not use Q-tips to clean out her ears. We all know that, we just all ignore it. I mean, it says not to clean you ears with them right on the box. Anyway, I told her that I used them anyways. Her reply: if the ob/gyn told me not to use them, then I won't use them because it must hurt the baby. How is this woman going to raise a baby? I finally realized today, for the first time, that I may, someday, have to call CPS on her. That would upset me so much, because of IQ's history (she grew up in foster care) but if she can't take care of the baby, what choice do I have? I guess right now the only thing I can do is hope and pray.

Back to reality

After the kidnapping, robbery, marriage, bombs, beatings, drug addiction and blackmailing of the last book I read, I decided I needed something more realistic. I read The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I missed out on reading Tolkien when I was a kid. I read the Chronicles of Narnia but that was the extent of my fantasy reading. My husband loves Tolkien, so I thought I'd give it a spin. Boy, did I miss out! I loved this book! While I felt like the book would be a great kid's book, I didn't feel like I was reading a kid's book. I would recommend this book to anyone.

The story itself is rather simple. A stay-at-home type of hobbit decides it's time for an adventure and joins thirteen dwarves in trying to reclaim their gold from a dragon. While the story is simple, the writing is amazing. Tolkien's writing is clear and simple itself, but it is also interesting. When a character mentions other stories or adventures, as a reader, I just went, yes, yes, tell me about that, I want to know! I could have read this story forever, instead, it was so well written, it took about three days. I now declare myself a Tolkien fan and will read the rest of his work. I also look forward to getting Wes's kids to read them and hopefully, someday, my own kids.

During the time when I couldn't hide in middle earth, Wes's dad was here all week and I worked quite a bit. There's nothing romantic about having a valentine's dinner with your father-in-law and your husband. Now, everyone is gone, the house is a mess, and I'm still working a lot. Again, it will be a miracle if a baby was conceived this month (ok, I mean in this house, not in the general public). If you think having your father-in-law at your valentine's dinner isn't romantic, think about having sex with him sleeping directly underneath your bedroom. Oh yeah, let the sexy times roll.

I forgot where I was

If you ever substitute for middle school, never, EVER, utter the words "oral activity."

Substitution, but not lacking

Yesterday I substituted for a high school Spanish teacher. One of the students was a very earnest, mature junior. She was half Russian, spoke fluent Russian and had taken 5 years of Spanish. Oh, to have had that type of advantage at her age. We talked, extensively about her career options, what she liked to do, what she didn't like, what colleges she might go to, what she might major in, what her parents wanted. She was so well spoken, so put together that I forgot she was a high school student. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking to her and at the end of class, thanked her for humoring me by talking to me. I was surprised when she thanked me, sincerely, for talking to her. That she felt better about her future and her options. And she hoped she would see me again. I really hope I do see her again.

This is the falling part of fall

I love work. I hate work. I love making money and feeling that I am contributing more than just my brains and beauty to my marriage (although, that it a considerable contribution). I love the fact that my husband finds my puny paycheck to be gigantic (thank you x for never, ever working). I love getting out of the house. I love, love, love the kids. I hate getting up at 5:30 in the morning because high school starts at 7:30am. I hate getting home tired and cranky. I hate getting home tired and cranky to a messy house, with no clean clothes and having to prepare dinner. I hate not having a set schedule. But I love having a flexible schedule and the ability to decide when I want to work. I took yesterday off.

I needed the sleep (I slept 10 hours, a hard 10 hours). I realized that substituting is probably not the healthiest job choice out there. This epiphany occurred as I examining my left tonsil, which is currently twice as big as the right one. I need to get a flu shot. When I finally woke up yesterday, I did my pilates (to help me fit back into my pants), cleaned the kitchen and living room, did laundry. Then I went shopping for pants that don't cut off my circulation when I sit down. I found two pair and a skirt. Now my comfortable wardrobe consists of a black pair of pants, a black skirt, a khaki pair of pants, a khaki skirt. Thankfully, I rarely substitute at the same school more than twice a week. I also finished my latest afghan. It is pretty. You will just have to take my word for it because I feel too lazy to get up and take a picture of it right now. Overall, yesterday was a good day. We didn't have very many trick-or-treaters, which means there's a ton of candy downstairs (I guess I should be doing pilates twice a day, or I may not fit into my new pants very long).

My loose leaf tea just arrived!!! I love loose leaf tea. It tastes better, it is waaaaaay cheaper and it's better for the environment. If it's any good, I'll put up the web page.

I realized yesterday I hadn't blogged about the fact that I haven't been on anti-depressants for about three week now. I didn't mention it because I don't feel any different. At all. I can't tell even the slightest difference. And that makes me very, very happy.

Blogging, pot-luck style

Per Beth's request, here are my beautiful boots with my gorgeous matching purse. I also have a shorter pair of red boots in the same color (but they're from pay less). While hunting in my closet, I realized I have 5 (FIVE) pair of knee-high boots, and about 8 pairs of shorter boots (maybe more). I love me some nice boots. Feel free to feel jealous!


Victor also received an afghan from my grandma. He finally got it on the 18th when we celebrated his 10th birthday (he still wears size 5 pants, although I noticed they were getting too short). Victor's favorite colors are red and blue, and he is in the cub scouts. He was very impressed with his afghan, especially the star, although he kept referring to it as his "afghanistan". When I would correct him, he would then pronounce it like my grandma does, afaghan. I guess it runs in the family.


My parents visited from the 18th to the 22nd. The kids stayed with us from the 16th to the 20th. We took the kids to the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News. If you have kids and are in the area, you must go. It is a wonderful museum. It has both indoor and outdoor components, with living animals in both places. These represent the animals that live in Virginia, explains about ecosystems and talks about environmentalism and why it's important. All on a kids' level while still being incredibly interesting for adults. The best part, the whole thing only took about 3 hours. Long enough to keep everyone entertained without getting cranky and tired. Here's just a few of the very cool things we saw.
I don't know that I had ever seen a beaver before. They are so much fun to watch.

When I was married to my first husband, we lived in a trailer. One day, the dryer hose popped off, and one of these (a baby) popped his head into our trailer. It was a little spooky (and my cat freaked out). I will never live in a trailer again.

There was a ton of hands-on stuff, including this giant tortoise shell. I wanted my mom to get in it, but she refused. Spoil-sport. Overall, we had a great time.

The visit from my parents was wonderful and I really enjoyed it. But we had had the kids the week before, and Wes's dad had been here and I had worked. When my parents left, I just wanted to sleep. I had a few jobs this week, two part-time, two full-day. Again, I loooooove Junior High. I am really surprised by this, but every time I substitute for them, I feel happy. Every time I substitute for high school, I go home feeling drained and slightly angry. I never would have known this though, if my advisor hadn't kicked me out of school.

We've been going over our finances again. When we married, my husband did not realize he had $70,000 worth of credit card and consolidation loan debt. He's in the navy and gone a lot and he just didn't know. More than half of that was debt from the ex-wife, the rest was his own stupidity. Well, we now have less than $30,000 in debt. We've been married for a little over a year and a half. He just got a raise and with me working (even if not a lot), we should have this paid off in another year and a half. At least I hope so. (I should add that he received a $23,000 bonus last year that went straight towards the debt. We will not be receiving another bonus for at least 2 years.)

That's about it here. I'm just cleaning and doing laundry and I trying to figure out what I'm going to cook for dinner. I hope everyone is doing well, and if you just need a pick-me-up, go look at my beautiful boots and purse!

I've got to get more jobs like this

Guess what I'm doing right now, as I'm typing this. Go on, guess. If you said I was getting paid for substituting while blogging from the comfort of my own home, you would be correct! Some teachers, usually the foreign language ones, teach at more than one school. The teacher I'm subbing for today does. There are 2 hours and 15 minutes in between when I left the first school and when I have to be at the second school. And I'm getting paid for all of them. So I came home, made lunch, made cookies, read e-mail, read blogs, called my mom and now I'm blogging. I definitely need more substituting jobs like this. Now, if you'll excuse me, there are peanut butter cookies downstairs called my name.

She went that way

I was going to update my blog tomorrow, along with pictures of the kids and purse with boots, but I just got another job. We've been spending ridiculous amounts of money (ok, not really, but we've had a lot of company which always means spending money, and it was Victor's birthday), so I really have to take any job that comes along. I will update on Sunday, as my husband will be working on that day. Meanwhile, I miss everyone and I will come back.

Don't shoot my mom!

I have been getting more and better sleep. But last night, last night was bad. My husband had duty, which means he didn't come home. I either sleep better than normal or not at all when he has duty. Last night was a not at all. And I woke up with a headache. And during the few precious moments I did sleep, I dreamt that my ex-husband shot my mom. It was disturbing.

I am slowly coming off my anti-depressants. I have been fine, but Saturday and Sunday, I freaked out. It was more money anxiety than depression. But I don't want to stay on the meds, so this week I called the school district and broadened the range of classes I am willing to substitute for. This will keep me busy, giving me less time to worry, and it will bring in more money. Thus, killing two birds with one stone. I already lined a job for all of next week.

My father in law and my step-children are arriving tonight for a week. Like I don't have enough to do. Wes was going to try to get time off, but with his new job, that's not going to happen. I hope Wes's dad was serious when he said he would watch the kids while I worked, because as I mentioned, I have a job every single day next week. Noooooooo, I didn't plan to be gone all the time when the house was chaotic. It just happened that way! The kids will be here a week, go home for the weekend, and then come back for a week (they're in year-round school). My parents will also be visiting the following week. October is going to be a busy month. That's ok though. I like busy.

I am crocheting an afghan for my grandma. I am very excited about this, but a little stressed out. She's been crocheting for 30 years. Hers will be the fourth afghan I crochet. I want it to be beautiful. Just like the 5 afghans we brought back with us and I shoved under the kids' bed, because we live in Virginia Beach and we already had at least 10 afghans. Maybe I should really crochet her 20 afghans!

In other disturbing news. Remember that other officer's wife, the one who is just a little bit slow (no, I am not being mean, she really does have a low IQ and she is aware of it). She is pregnant. And she is in shock that she is pregnant, even though she wasn't using birth control (I told you she was slow). She is freaking out. So we've been hanging out a lot (she doesn't have a driver's licence either). I'm a little jealous. I want to be pregnant but we have to wait to try because of the stupid navy. And then I'm afraid I won't get pregnant. I guess I should just quit worrying about it. There's not a whole lot I can do about it anyway.

We have new neighbors. They are nice. I like them a lot. I think we have new friends.

Have a great weekend. I'm going to go take a nap while I can.

I am a zombie

The trip to Minnesota was wonderful. They were in the midst of an Indian Summer, so some of the tress had begun to turn colors, but it was still warm. It was also extremely windy.
We hiked a couple of different days. We identified a bird we hadn't seen before. But even cooler, we watched a Red-tailed Hawk fly around with a snake in its talons. Minnesota is beautiful and if it weren't so cold in the winter, I would consider living there.

My grandma loved Wes. I didn't get to see as much of my family as I wanted (maybe next time Amynda!) but I did get to see my cousin, who had just had a baby.

Can you hear my biological clock over the internet? I really want one NOW, but my husband tells me there's a waiting period of 9 months. Since the lovely navy is taking him away from me again next spring, we're hoping to time things so he'll be home. I really hope it happens the way we want it to. Overall, the trip was great, even though we got stuck in Chicago for while. But when we got home, all hell broke loose.

My husband's new work schedule: 4 am to about 4 pm. I am so tired. Why? Because he wants me to go to bed with him at 8:00pm. Only I'm not tired. So I just lay there forever. And then when I do fall asleep, I wake up every hour because I'm afraid he won't wake up when his 3 alarms go off at minute and a half intervals, and then when they go off 5 to 9 minutes later, depending on the length of the snooze. It's only after he leaves for work, at 3:30am, that I'm able to fully fall asleep. That doesn't leave me a lot of actual sleep. But it gets worse, for Wes, not me.

The day after we got back, Wes's boss got fired. And Wes got his job (temporarily). In the military rank does not equal position. But today, Wes got promoted (see picture above). The promotion includes a pay raise (yay!), the new job doesn't (boo!). So now he has more work, crappy work hours and he's in graduate school. He's one tired puppy. Gotta love the navy.

Was ist das?

I love my German class. Not only have I learned more German in two weeks than I did in a year of taking classes (ok, that might be a slight exaggeration), but I love my kids. I only have 10 kids, but they are great. It makes me want my own class. But only one or two classes, not something full time (I'm lazy). And now I know I could teach middle school. Or at least 8th grade. The kids are so good and eager to learn and please the teacher. It's so nice to hear a student tell you they used your study trick and now they feel ready for the quiz. Or to hear the one very, very quiet girl speak up to tell you she studied for an hour. And it's the best feeling when they all ace their quizzes, AND tell you they're going to miss you next week. I'm going to miss them too.

But. . . I'm sick as a dog. My tonsils are so swollen I look like I have a double chin. My lymph nodes hurt so much I had to find a new position to sleep in. My throat feels like someone peeled all the skin off of it, rubbed it with sandpaper, and then set it on fire. Thankfully, I'm only teaching one class a day. I can make it through that. But by the end of class, I have no voice, I drag myself home and crawl back into bed. I have to get better soon. Mostly because it's been so long since I went birding that I've been dreaming about it for four nights straight. And the birds in my dreams are weird. I once dreamt of a robin that had nipples, like a cat. Anyway, I also have to get better soon because Wes and I are going to Minnesota next week. He's never met my Grandma, or any of my family that lives there. And my cousin just had a baby, so I can't wait to see her (and the baby). I'm excited about the trip, but I have got to shake this bug.

My peppers taste better than any pepper I've ever had. They are so sweet (the bell peppers, not the jalapenos). Really, really sweet. And red and green ones grow on the same plant, which makes me wonder why the grocery store charges $3.00 a pound more for red ones. Mine are only half the size of the grocery store ones, but they taste waaaaaay better. I love them.

Ok, gotta get some more hot tea.

Round and round

My sub job isn't as great as I would like. It's only two hours a day. But still, it's two hours a day and the nice office lady is trying to find me more work. And if I'm willing to work for only two hours a day, I'll get on her good side and then maybe she'll call me more often with more work. Yesterday I helped pass out school schedules (some poor child had the last name of Fagg), and then she let me leave. But I will start working again tomorrow. I will be teaching German, so it's appropriate that I'm not feeling well and have a bunch of stuff draining on the back of my throat. That stuff will make it much easier to pronounce German words easier!

Back to Tolstoy. I think Tolstoy was trying to come up with his meaning of life. As he got older, he split from the Russian Orthodox Church (the state sanctioned religion) in order to find a more personal religious experience. He wrote about this, although I haven't read any of his Christian writings. He was a complex man, one who wanted to treat his peasants right and use his fortune for good, but he was also a man, and fought to overcome his vices (most notably, those peasant girls). He had the time to realize there had to be more to life than just sustenance, and he was intelligent enough to think through the big questions. I think that's what War and Peace was all about. I guess it was his blog.

Wes's bachelor's degree is in computer technology/programming, or something like that. The navy will actually give Wes 2 years off from work to send him to school for his Master's degree. That one will be in computer engineering, but he won't start that for another year. Right now, he is using the GI bill to get a different Master's degree (like myself, Wes loves to learn for the sake of knowledge). He is interested in finance and stocks and bonds and all that other stuff. But, I don't think he knows quite enough for me to just hand over our (small) excess money and say, "go make us millions!" So he found a program that is Financial management and Information systems. The finance stuff will all be new for him (at a university level, he has actually read a TON of books about it) and my dad is a CFO, so he can always call my dad if he needs help. The information systems will be review. My husband spent this weekend writing his own excel program to chart our profits (with our non-existent money) and took apart the two computers he had previously built to fix them. My husband is very intelligent, and in these areas, he runs circles around me. Actually, I think he may be smarter than me, but I would never tell him that. But I am proud of him.

Well, I guess that's about it for now. I think I'm going to take a nap, and hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.

School starts tomorrow

As a substitute teacher, I really wasn't expecting to get any work the first couple of weeks of September. I wanted to work, but figured everything would be covered. Oh, how wrong I was. I just got a call for a two week job, teaching German at a middle school. Middle schools didn't offer foreign languages when I was that age. Anyway, I'm nervous because it's a middle school. I'm not that nervous about the German. I took German. I went to Germany. How bad could that be? But I am happy that I have a job. I love working.

Today, Wes and I just took it easy. He starts graduate school tomorrow and I'll be starting work. So we've spent the weekend organizing and stuff. Today we grilled hamburgers and I cut up a jalapeno from my garden and put it on the burger. It was spicy goodness! And I used one of the bell peppers from my garden in the pasta salad. I like having a garden! Now I'm just stressing out over what to wear tomorrow. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

more pics

This little guy is the reason we saw the deer in the last blog. He saw us and freaked out, pulling his head in and closing his little trap door. We all know how much I love the turtles, so even though I am not the most patient of people (major understatement), we stood perfectly still for more than 15 minutes waiting for him to come out to play. While standing perfectly still, the deer showed up. Once she realized we were watching her, she began watching us. But as long as we didn't get too close, she didn't care that we were there.

I have been working on a pretty regular basis. One of the high schools started requesting me every time they had a position available. I told the person in charge of the subs that I would love to work full time next year and loved their school. I think they like me because I'm willing to sub for any topic. But school ends next week. I hope they remember me next year.

Working girl

I worked on Thursday!!! It was less than 2 hours but it was work. It was wonderful. The kids loved me. Then, I got a call to work on Friday. All day. In the gifted class. So I worked all day yesterday. I only had two more kids all of yesterday than I did Thursday. The teacher didn't even leave me an attendance sheet. It was extremely casual. But I worked. And I will get a paycheck. It will be small, but at least it will cover my car's registration for the next two years.

The house is a mess. I was going to clean it yesterday but then I worked. Wes showed up last night at 11:00pm. He was supposed to get home this evening. I was going to clean today. And get groceries. He doesn't care that the house is a mess or that there is no food in the house. And since he has thrown a ton of stuff all over the place, maybe it's ok I didn't clean. It was so nice to see him. This morning when I woke up I just poked him to make sure he was real. He is. I get him for a whole week before he has to leave again. It will be a great week.