it’s getting cold out.
and cabin fever is setting in.
this is evidenced by the fact that
i just said,” h., please don’t throw the orange around the bedroom.”

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these kids love to dance and sing. crack me up. since all i do is grade papers, maybe i could try to get a few of these up for your entertainment…………

so my mom comes over tuesday to watch the childrens and KICKS MY ASS (bum foot and all) for not mentioning beth as a loyal reader.
kicks it.
like up and down and all around.
like, “i’ll give you something to cry about.”

you all know beth, right?
she’s like martha stewart meets macgyver.
(“i want to make some curtains, but all i have is a clothespin and a bar of soap”…………voila! curtains!)
anyway, i just thought it was funny………really just to me………..b/c jm and i haven’t talked in 20 years and now he responds to the blogs and the facebook posts (and i to his) like it’s just regular. i guess it has something to do with mr gysel………

anyway, if i hurt your feeling macgyver stewart, i sorry.
you are the best.
you and your gnomes (“i have some cotton and a clothespin”)
and your george bailey.

i have absolutely been neglecting my loyal readers. (gloria, john mcdonald) and i apologize. all i do is grade papers. it’s fun. i’m loving my college kids, but really they’re not different than the middle schoolers who will always have a place in my heart. some real bright…….some not so much……..some polite and hard working…….some too worried about being cool to give it their all………some full of excuses……..some never miss a date to hand something in or a class for that matter.
i think what i like best is something that a wise person said to me once. her name is marilyn. i worked with her for many years at 27, and she was one of those teachers who worked for MANY years (why put a number on it?) and was still giving it 110 percent. she still gave all her preps to the kids and cared about them and the school. she still dressed professionally and was always looking for new and intersting ways to teach french.
anyway, she put it like this:
“if you have all week to do the laundry, it never gets done.”
and it’s true. if there’s no rush to do things, they just get pushed back. now that i have more going on (teaching tues and fri, basketball and soccer games tues and sunday) there is more structure to the week.
evenings are mostly spent grading papers, b ut i don’t mind that either. it HAS to get done, so other things that i may have put off during the day must get done.
it’s a whole circle.
so thanx marilyn. i have been thinking of you lately!

in halloween news, h and j were beauty and the beast. it was a chewbacca costume, but he was the beast to h;s belle. we had a fun day yesterday.

i really love halloween. fall too. you KNOW you’re getting old when you TRULY appreciate the foliage. i used to mock my parents when they drove me to siena and would comment on the foliage. whatever man. LOVE IT!
i dont’ know hwy i love halloween. my birthday is near it.
you would think i would hate it because of that. i had a truly awful experience in the seventh grade. it was over a halloween party. basically, it was a john hughes movie. i invited the “cool” and the “uncool” people to the party. uncool in the eyes of the Queen Bee anyway. to make matters worse, the COOLEST boy, again, in the Queen bee’s eyes, did not come to said party. found out later he was not ALLOWED to go to boy /girl parties. parents were super strict.
anyway, pain and heartache ensued. my cool friends not only disowned me but mean girls’d me for the next few months. chanting hateful things in the locker room, sending pizzas to my house, threatening to beat me up.
i think it all made me who i was as life continued.
never wanting to join a clique fully–
afraid to alienate someone maybe but in the meantime,

always being on the outskirts of them all.

deep thoughts for a sunday nite……………

i’ll try to be better……….and certainly work on a wish list for those of you who have been asking………

been crazy busy but wanted to put up some photos. been sick for about two weeks. we’ve all had it, but not H. i think i am finally getting over it. combine that with the fact that at explains where i’ve been for a month.
i love it btw.
work. it’s just enough to get me out of the house a bit and to have to use my brain and grade at night…..speaking of which, i have to get back to that……..but lemme put up some photos and hopefully find some time tomorrow to put up a proper post!

btw, the beautiful purples worn in this last photo were MADE by grandma. pretty amazing, huh??