It just boggles my mind

I cannot understand how some people can be so clueless, so selfish and self-absorbed. I think that if I ever had to call an ambulance for a stranger on the street I would probably climb into that ambulance and go with that stranger to the hospital just so they wouldn't feel as alone and scared. I can't even fathom someone sending their husband of 46 years, the man who worked 3 jobs, 18 hours a day to provide for said wife and family, who is now elderly and handicapped, off in an ambulance to sit alone in the ER for five hours before bothering to call any of the children. How could you let someone feel alone and scared like that when they are ill and in pain? I don't understand. My stomach is sick just thinking of it. And yet, according to my God and his Word, I am supposed to honor this person. Well I can't.

Almost There

5 and 1/2 more weeks of student teaching. Not that I'm counting or anything! I can't wait to get back to my regular school. It's so much more fun there. This school I'm at is so business-like. No one every laughs. The kids can't catch a break...literally...they have to work right through their snack break and just have a short recess and lunch. They have no social time at all. They're not even given any time to go to the bathroom, poor things. I feel so mean but I have to uphold the rules of the teacher I'm working under. She even made them do work during their Halloween party! They had to get a plate of food and go back to their desks and keep working. And for all of it, I don't think their test scores are any better than the scores at my regular school. All that said, I have learned a lot, especially about teaching reading & writing, but I'm ready for it to end.
I just got an order of Shimmer yarn from Knitpicks and am going to cast on today for a Clapotis shawl for a Christmas gift. I hope I can finish in time! It's supposed to be a very easy pattern and most people seem to complete it in a month, but when it comes to knitting I am not 'most people.' Why do I frustrate myself like this? Every year it seems I wait for the last minute and then decide to start some big project with a looming deadline. I drive myself crazy!
On the family front, ds seems to be doing great living out on his own. We used to see him a lot, but now we hardly ever do : (  I'm happy for him, but I miss him a lot. Looked at a college with dd this weekend. She liked it well enough but still mentions joining the service sometimes. I'm praying she'll change her mind herself so that dh & I don't have to lay down the law and tell her we're not signing permission for that. We have to get going on that college application soon so she can get a dorm. We took a bunch of pics the other day hoping to get a good one to use for her sr photo. Here are a couple of possibilities. They haven't been cropped yet, or photoshopped, so just a preview...

Busy busy!

I've spent all weekend doing a lot around the house. I primed and painted D's old room and we made it a den. Moved in the bookshelves, my computer desk, the recliner & a side table.

That left half the living room free, so we made that back into a dining room (like it used to be). It'll be nice to have more room when the kids come home for meals instead of being crowded in the kitchen. Of course, this made the kitchen empty so we moved the patio set inside, just until I decide what to do in there. It's t the far end of the kitchen, and we don't really need another table, so I'm considering getting a wicker loveseat, chair and coffee table and just having a little sitting area. It's a nice bright spot because there are two windows on both walls and it looks out into the woods. I also did some work in the garden to get it ready for winter. I'm bushed!

I also made some time for knitting. I'm currently working on a pair of fuzzy socks. I've actually been trying to make socks for about a year, but have ripped them out every time. Then I learned how to do 2 at a time on 2 circs, toe up. I'm almost to turning the heel, and so far so good! I finished my Shawl That Jazz several weeks ago but never got around to posting a pic.

September Goals Update

I think it's close enough to the end of the month so that I can update. Here are the goals I set for September:

SEPTEMBER GOALS:
1. exercise: 1 good 60 min. workout on weekends, 2-3 30 min. workouts during week
2. plan dinner and clothes the night before
3. get to bed by 10pm, 10:30 at the latest
4. pay bills weekly
5. write more often (here and in my journal)

Well, I've done pretty well on numbers 2,3 and 5; not so well on 1 and 4. Will continue to work on those.

We Must Always Remember

9/11. A day that has been burned in our hearts and minds forever. One of those few days that you immediately recall where you were when you heard the news. Some of the others include the space shuttle disaster in 1996 and the OK city bombing. And though I cried buckets of tears over all of them, it's the 9/11 tragedy that has affected me and my family the most. I still cannot think about it without crying. I'll never forget when I first heard the news. I was waiting at Walmart for an oil change to be done on my car. Two men started talking about it: "Have you heard? Airliners have crashed into the World Trade Center! They think it was terrorists!" I thought they were insane, or that it was some sort of bad joke. My car was ready shortly after, and while driving home I listened to the news reports. It was surreal. I couldn't believe it was happening until I got home and saw it on tv. Horrifying images. As I sat watching, the phone began to ring. You see, several of our family members work for the two airlines involved, USAir and United. A couple of them were in the air as it happened and a couple were on the ground working the ramp in Boston. It took several hours and many phone calls before we would find out if the pilots were on those planes. Thankfully they were not. They were, however, in the air and were forced to land at the closest airport to where they were flying above at the moment the skies were shutdown and they were stranded for several days. Not a big problem compared to what could have been,just stressful at the time.
After many days of watching the coverage on tv, gallons of tears later, hubby and I determined that our lives would never be the same and that we needed to take action. We had made our living via the airlines, built our family and our home on the income that was no longer there. I needed to return to the workforce, however my former jobplace was a hundred miles away. There was no one in my industry nearby. My children were young and I was adament that no one else would raise them. I couldn't be apart from them for 8 or 10 hours a day. I decided the only thing I could do was get a job at their school. That way I would have the same schedule as them, no babysitters or daycare would be needed. That decision turned out to be the biggest silver lining of the entire tragedy. I took the job thinking it was temporary, surely the airlines would recover and I could stay home again, if not, I would find something better. Much to my surprise, I loved it! It was the best, most fun job (if least paid) that I ever had! And now, eight years later, I'm finishing up my teaching degree so that I will one day have my own classroom. I guess I won't be staying home or finding something better anytime soon! As for hubby, life in the airline industry post-9/11 was extremely stressful. It took three years of searching, but he finally found a job close to home that is perfect for him, one that he enjoys, one that has benefited the entire family. There is always a silver lining--sometimes you just have to be patient for it.
My heart, my thoughts, and my prayers go out to the thousands of families who continue to be affected by this event, to those who have suffered tragic personal loss, horrible personal injury, as well as extremely difficult financial losses. Lives will never be the same. We must always remember.

September Goals

Summer's over--back to reality. Back to work and school. I've been so caught up in all that for a couple of weeks that everything else has taken a back seat. You should see what my house looks like! In trying to get re-organized and back into the swing, I'm going to take a suggestion from Elizabeth Bienas's blog http://randomsnapshots.typepad.com/random_snapshots/ and post monthly goals. I'll try to keep them realistic since it never seems to work out when I create goals like: lose 50 pounds next week, or; keep home spotless, or; do everything perfectly and on time.
With that in mind...
SEPTEMBER GOALS:
1. exercise: 1 good 60 min. workout on weekends, 2-3 30 min. workouts during week
2. plan dinner and clothes the night before
3. get to bed by 10pm, 10:30 at the latest
4. pay bills weekly
5. write more often (here and in my journal)

more than a month?!

I'm not doing very well here. Oh well. Despite it being summer, with no more classes and a reduced working schedule, it still feels busy! I did take some time of to be a slug--literally sitting around reading, knitting & watching tv. But then I got back to life--cleaning, working, etc. I've done a lot of gardening this summer. I attacked the perennials that have gotten out of control, dug them all up, split them and replanted all around the yard. I added some new stuff too, including two butterfly bushes. They smell fantastic and the butterflies and hummingbirds really love them!

Summer school ended yesterday and I start my student teaching assignment on 8/25. I'm very nervous about it! Next week I'll be going in to help set up the classroom. I can't believe it's already here!

One book I read recently has really provoked a lot of thought. It was "Skinny Bitch" by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. It's about going vegan for a number of reasons. The authors feel the humans just weren't created to eat meat and dairy, and I'm wondering if that's where some of my stomach issues stem from. Also, the book discusses the various (disgusting) practices in factory farming and meat & processing plants. I wondered how much they might have been exaggerating things, but the small amount of reading I've done on the net substantiate a lot of it. I'm waiting for a couple more books to arrive from Amazon on the subject, but I have already pretty much given up almost all meat and dairy and can already see/feel a difference physically and on the scale. The other part of the book is on going organic. They discuss all the chemicals, hormones, antibiotics that are put into everything these days and how it all affects our bodies. I seriously wonder if that's why we have such high numbers of things like cancer and autism. I had been trying to get back to more whole foods for a while now, but this has spurred me on even more. I have been trying to buy more organic foods, but it's so expensive! Anyhow, I'll just see where this brings me and go with the flow. If anyone has any ideas/advice on going vegan I'd be glad to hear it or even just your opinion on the matter.

And just to include some pics....here's one of my little hummer buddies--isn't he cute?? and one of my flutterbies on the flutterby bush.