My First Week Back In Jr. High....Not Something I Ever Wanted To Re-live

I have been trying to think about what to post. And then it came to me....

My first week back in Jr. High.

I wonder if the kids were such little jerks when I was in Jr. High some 20+ years ago as they are today. Now granted, they are better than the horrible 6th graders from last year, but then again it is a much bigger school and you change classes every 40 or so minutes.

So the school is a much older school, like there is no A/C old. And of course we had to start back to school during the hottest, and I do mean the hottest week of summer. We hit triple digits for the first time all summer.

Now you know it is hot, when as soon as you walk through the doors a wave of hot air hits you and it is cooler outside than in.

Or when somebody just arrives and says "I am sweating already."

Or the conversations around the school with the faculty some what go like this...

1st: So how is it going?
2nd: it's hot
1st: I know, do you like it here?
2nd: is it always this hot?
1st: usually. How are you doing?
2nd: I'm hot.

And these are daily conversations. I try to think back to when I was in school, how the heck did we survive the heat? Oh wait, we didn't start school until after labor day!! And if it did get too hot or too cold for that matter, school was canceled!

Anyway, I work in a class that has 2 completely deaf kids and 5 deaf kids who can hear.

I work with one of the kids who is completely deaf.

One teeny tiny problem...

I only know enough sign to say go to the bathroom and to wash the table off.

Now how does that work you say...

I bought a sign language book and I am reading every page starting in the A's. Right now I am in the E's. I am slowly picking up the signs and the teacher I work with will show me signs if I ask.

So the first week,aside from being HOT, is over...only 176 days left.

Anyway this is what my day usually consists of

7:15-7:20 get to school, put my crap away and then talk with the classroom teacher.

7:35-7:40ish get kids off the bus and head to first hour, usually chasing my kid in the electric wheel chair around in circles, trying to get her to go to her class.

7:50-8:30 1st hour Health....we all remember what health class was...Sex Ed. Yes sex education with 8th graders...what a fun time.

8:35-9:10 2nd hour Home Ec, but now they call it something else like domestic goddess science or some garbage like that. I call it foods class, even though it's not all cooking.

9:15-10 3rd hour either it's science or English, I don't know which, but we are back in my classroom and I can sit and study my sign language book.

10ish to sometime 4th hour it's either English or science, I still don't know which and at this point it feels as if the day will never end and I am going to die in my corner, behind my desk, over my sign language book. And I take my break in a really hot room they have give to USDB to use.

5th hour is 7th and 8th grade math then lunch, which is so much fun since I have to sit in the lunch room with 50 million Tweens and teens. Oh did I mention,that it is also hot in there? Well it is.

6th hour is History. Now it wouldn't be too bad in here, except then teacher closes the door!!! There are no windows, it's another cave classroom. I sweat more in this class than I do ALL DAY combined.

7th hour is fun finish homework, get my kid to cooperate study hall.

Then it is out to the bus, making sure she doesn't mow down any of the clueless in a world of their own students and she doesn't get flatten as a pancake my a big diesel f350 or a bus.

Once that has been completed, I drag myself up 30 steps to my hot hot hot car, praying the fan is still working and go home, listening to Sugarland Incredible Machine along way, racing towards my nice not just cool, but cold dark house and a shower, just to get ready and do it all over again tomorrow.

Why?

I just want to scream!  I want to scream that it isn't fair!  I want to scream, why???  Why did a 15 year old boy have to die?  I know our Father in Heaven has plans for us, and I know that our choices always have a consequence. But I just want to know why he had to be the one.

My long time friends lost their oldest son yesterday.  He made a choice.  The details are still a little sketchy and are from a family member, who unfortunately doesn't live close.  She is just passing on what she has been told.

I find my thoughts going back to the news and it makes me cry, my heart hurt and realize how fragile life is.

I know there is a reason things happen. But I still have to ask why.

I can't imagine what his mother and father are going through.  I NEVER want to know what they are going through.

Getting a phone call that your child is gone. Not believing what you are hearing. You can't stand, you sink to the floor screaming. Its not supposed to happen this way.  You shouldn't have to think about making the final arrangements for your child.

I pray for my friends, I pray for the three younger brothers, that they can make it through this time of sorrow.  I pray that they remember they have a Heavenly Father to turn to for comfort. I pray they find peace and the pain eases. I pray that they remember the good times.

I pray.

Rest in Peace Hayden Almer  March 3, 1996 to August 18,2011

What Are You Going To Do?

Do you ever wonder what kind of affect or even effect you have on some body else's life? We all touch other people's lives in ways we will never know. Sometimes you don't even know the person.

In the book, The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom, Eddie's first meeting in Heaven takes him back to the days of his youth, playing at Ruby Pier as a young boy. Running to retrieve a ball thrown into the street one day, he stepped in front of a car, causing the driver to swerve and crash. In Heaven, it is revealed that the driver was “The Blue Man,” or Joseph Corvelzchik. As a young man, embarrassed by incontinence, Joseph had resorted to a primitive medicinal measure — drinking silver nitrate. This caused his skin to turn blue and lost him his job. Eventually he found employment at Ruby Pier, where he was considered as the best freak in the entire show. The Blue Man explains that when Eddie retrieved his ball from the street, the sudden stop had given him a heart attack. While he harbors no ill will toward Eddie for this, they are connected to each other in Heaven because Eddie affected his life from that point on.    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_People_You_Meet_in_Heaven)


Have you ever wondered, if you were to leave this earth, would you be remembered?

Would you be remembered for your charachter?  Your Kindness?  Your Honesty?

Or would people come to your funeral and remember you for the moment and after the last shovel of dirt was placed, forget all about you?

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

So many of us take for granted the life we have been given.  We don't so anything with it.

We think of the all the would ofs, could ofs and should ofs that we forget to live.

We don't dance to the music.  We let our sleeping giants sleep.

Too many times, we dimminish our own light as well as the light of others.

So I ask you today...
 

What are you going to do?  Wake your giant or let her sleep your life away? How will you be remembered?


I maybe here for a shortwhile, gone tomorrow into oblivion or until the days come to take me away. But, in whatever part I play, I will be remembered as part of a legacy...of sharing dreams and changing humanity for the better. It's that legacy that never dies

Rock Hounding

I looked in total amazement at the view from the top of a million or more year old volcanic rock.  Vast openness, to what used to be the ocean but now has turned in to desert. My aunt shows me a teeny tiny seashell she found, which proves the ocean theory. 

Utah is a great place for rock hounding. When it rains, it washes more stones to the surface.

We found topaz, sun stone, and obsidian.  I look at them and wonder how many millions of years old they are.

Its hot but a nice breeze.  We head over to Topaz mountain which is where I have been waiting to go.  I love topaz.  But first we stop at an abandoned mine in the side of the mountain. Its really neat and cool. We are walking along the tunnel and you can see sun light at the end. We look close at everything, trying to figure out what they were mining here.  Topaz.  There is vein of topaz right above our heads. I shine the light on it and it sparkles. We also found a funny purple kind of rock that is dense, not sure what it is but its pretty.

But we were not the only ones in the tunnel...

I Forgot...

I forgot what it takes to get enrolled in college again.  Tests, filling out papers, more tests, sending transcripts...and to top it off, if I want my transcript from my previous college, I have to pay them another 5 freaking dollars!!

I mean really, I already paid you $28,000...  Good grief!!

So we are down to the last six days of camp...

For the last day, I came up with an idea of having a mini carnival for the kids.  With prizes, candy snow cones, the works...

I was looking at Oriental Trading Company, and found really cool prizes and at a pretty reasonable price.  Only one problem though, $9.99 for shipping and it is estimated to be here the 22 of August.

One small problem, school starts August 22.

So now its back to the drawing board, to find cool things, all the while saving money.  Good Luck to me...

Happy Birthday Grammy!

Today would have been my Gram's 79th birthday.  She has been gone for over 8 years.  Its hard to believe.  It feels as if it were a life time ago.

I wasn't there when she died.  She was in North Dakota and I was in Utah.  It was March.  It was Thanksgiving when I last saw her, I was staying with her and my youngest brother while my parents were in Cancun.

As I said good-bye to her, before leaving for the airport, I knew it would be the last time I would ever see her.  It hurt my heart.  I had so many good memories, so many adventures with her. 

The night she died, I was laying in my bed, just starting to fall asleep, I hadn't even shut the light off yet.  I felt a cool breeze and smelled grapefruit.  I knew it it was my Gram.  It smelled like her body spray she always wore.  15 minutes later, I felt the breeze and smelled the body spray again.

You see, I was having a hard time because I didn't go home to see her, I knew that I was going to have to take time off for her funeral. 

I missed her so much.

My brother happened to get a pass come home, he was getting ready to deploy to Iraq for the first wave of Desert Shield.

The week we  had my Gram's funeral was crazy, Adam left for war, Sarah gave birth to my nephew Aiden on March 20th and then we had to drive back to Utah, but right before we left to drive back to Utah, I ended up in the hospital have heart palpitations.

I know my Gram wasn't always easy to live with, but she was good to me.

I miss her....

Happy Birthday Gram!

Maybe I Am Crazy....

I am sitting here finishing my last calendar for the summer.  What the...?  How is it that there is only 2 weeks left?  I just can't believe it.

It has really been an easy and fast summer.  I have decided that I am going to go back to school to get my bachelor's in Special Ed K-12.   What the....?  Am I really going to add to my $25,000 student loan?  Heck yes I am, but the cool thing is, I can have it done in less than 2 years. Its work at your own pace, all online, and only $2980 every term, which is a 6 month term.  Who would have thought!  Plus...if I finish a class before the 6 month term is over, then I can take more classes with out any additional charges.   Are you kidding me?  No I am not!

I have had several people tell me I should go back and get my teaching degree...  I have resisted...for a long time.  I was originally going to teach High School English and coach girls basketball.  Well now I can't wait to see what kind of opportunities this opens for me.

Who knows maybe I will still be able to coach...

Yeah... after I lose weight.... Not going to be running up and down the court otherwise....

So I am still waiting to see if I am going back to USDB or sticking with Rise....Its looking like USDB...   I don't want to go back...