i got a lot of things done this weekend, but was frustrated by my back, which is once again out. i overdid on saturday, hauling mulch, putting down mulch, weeding, laying down weed cover, planting the gardens. i also helped my neighbor ron rehang the ramp leading to the shed. i made 2 trips to home desperado for mulch and rebar. by saturday night, i was sore. i tried to get up off of the couch, and out it went. that meant that the rest of my weekend was shot in terms of doing the things i had planned, such as putting in another couple of above ground flower beds. the mulch, rebar and wood is waiting for me, but i won't be doing it for awhile. very frustrating. this is the time of year, because of the low heat and humidity, for me to do my heavy labor. now i am down and can't do it. it makes me very, very pissy...
i am thankful, however, for good neighbors. ron seems to own every boy power tool known to man and apparently is a small engine man, having had his own go cart business in mechanicsville until the flood from gaston wiped him out. he tuned up my push mower and then he took his high powered gas weed wacker and went to work on my banks on the dam as well at the jungle down between the big willow tree and the cattails. i had always wanted to do that, but lacked the equipment. we left the natural grasses and cattails, and now it has potential to be turned into the sort of pond side oasis i have envisioned. it still needs more bush hogging, as there are little tree stumps and they can't be easily pulled up or cut down. he lopped down major big stuff, but the ground really needs to be cleared. it is easier now to fish from the bank, and amy (my other next door neighbor) was excited about the clear down and is offering to help me trim the branches off of the willow and do stuff that will make it a place to hang out. i already have a picnic table and some chairs down there, along with the original blue deer and several other blue deer.
i think i am going to plant some of the hostas that i have there in the shade, and a couple of them are doris' hostas from her yard. pam has been propagating them in the greenhouse the last 2 summers. i think that would be a fitting permanent tribute to her. i also have some purple fountain grass and could transplant some of the zebra grass down there as well as ferns. there is a lot of potential!
good neighbors also extended to cooking out with bruce and amy on memorial day and going down the street to meg's house on saturday night. she managed to lure me out, and tony spence was there, and i hadn't seen him in many, many years. he was the person who first introduced me to meg and rob.
i also experimented on the smokey cooker with a pork shoulder that got converted to bbq, and ribs, which i am still working on. neither was a slam dunk, but no one was complaining. i also came up with a gemelli pasta recipe that involved velvetta, rotel tomatoes, and various spices. it was very good. i got the idea from taking pimento cheese with jalapenos and mixing it with macaroni. i just expanded on it. i like making up recipes and trying them out on people.
i am ready to rest for awhile, so i am looking towards school being over here in a couple of weeks. i am not looking forward to hot weather, though. i have created a bit of an oasis on my front porch with the swing, the plants, and the bamboo shade. if i bring the box fan out there, it could be habitable even in hot weather.
tonight i parted with a bit of family...the 1994 town and country van. i sold it for $800. i wasn't sure i needed to part with it, but i did as i don't need 3 cars. in some ways, i wish i had sold the acura instead, as now i really don't have anything to haul stuff around in. but with the prices of gas so high, and insurance to pay on both, it seems ridiculous to have it. sometimes you just have to let things go. i have enough friends with pickups that if i really have to haul something big, i guess i can borrow or beg...
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
a teaching moment...
anyone reading this blog might have gotten the impression that i am a little fried with teaching. my negativity has likely been pretty palatable. however, just like angel pennies, moments occur out of nowhere that make you reinvest in the concept that there is something good in the world. i had a moment of that last week.
i have assigned my advanced classes a project that i have done for years. it involves teaching a poem called "the permanent delegate" which is about the holocaust and a plea for people not to forget what happened. i put the class into 4 teams and they have to teach it, piece by piece, word by word. what i am looking for is thinking outside of the box and looking at each word, each image as something unique that could be interpreted in various ways.
since i started this project, i have written on a couple of copies of the poem all new interpretations that each group over the years has come up with. a few years ago i realized that they had covered the basic stuff, but that i wanted more from the students. so thus the BINGO was invented. basically, to even have a chance of the group getting an A on their part of the project they must make me write something new on the sheet. not an easy task, since i have heard most of it over the years.
not much was expected on my part. basically, these kids aren't doing much comprehension or analysis to the extent of previous years. i figured after last year when i had groups that got no bingos, that there wasn't any chance of that happening.
in my lowest skill wise class of advanced the miracle occurred.
first group: 7 bingos. i was quite shocked. they really worked hard and the neat thing was that the information spread to the other 2 classes. by the afternoon the b4 class had heard about b2's 7 bingos and wanted to beat them. they almost did. the bar got set BY THE STUDENTS and on we went.
when the 2nd group got up to do their section of the poem, i almost cried. they had gone to college level analysis. they had PowerPoint's, excepts from other writings, were analyzing the lines inside and out, from a jewish perspective, from a christian perspective, from a german historical perspective. they have not finished and already they have 10 bingos. i stopped writing down things and just listened, mesmerized, as they went on and on. the neat thing is that the kids NOT presenting were also participating. in the first group all but 2 kids in the class contributed to the class discussion and those new ideas didn't get counted as bingos because they didn't come from the presenters!
today my a4 class presented, and while it was good, it was a little boring in some ways. the kids in that class are not participating in the same way, which i sort of expected. and in a way, it is sort of sad because you know you can't keep up the momentum. however, you want to try!
this whole thing made me feel like they finally got it. i don't know what flipped the switch, but i think i am going to do this poetry unit in the fall instead of the spring next year. it seems to me that they were better able to analyze smaller things, like the poem, vs. the short stories and books we read. the big chunks they couldn't seem to consume. little pieces, yes.
i have assigned my advanced classes a project that i have done for years. it involves teaching a poem called "the permanent delegate" which is about the holocaust and a plea for people not to forget what happened. i put the class into 4 teams and they have to teach it, piece by piece, word by word. what i am looking for is thinking outside of the box and looking at each word, each image as something unique that could be interpreted in various ways.
since i started this project, i have written on a couple of copies of the poem all new interpretations that each group over the years has come up with. a few years ago i realized that they had covered the basic stuff, but that i wanted more from the students. so thus the BINGO was invented. basically, to even have a chance of the group getting an A on their part of the project they must make me write something new on the sheet. not an easy task, since i have heard most of it over the years.
not much was expected on my part. basically, these kids aren't doing much comprehension or analysis to the extent of previous years. i figured after last year when i had groups that got no bingos, that there wasn't any chance of that happening.
in my lowest skill wise class of advanced the miracle occurred.
first group: 7 bingos. i was quite shocked. they really worked hard and the neat thing was that the information spread to the other 2 classes. by the afternoon the b4 class had heard about b2's 7 bingos and wanted to beat them. they almost did. the bar got set BY THE STUDENTS and on we went.
when the 2nd group got up to do their section of the poem, i almost cried. they had gone to college level analysis. they had PowerPoint's, excepts from other writings, were analyzing the lines inside and out, from a jewish perspective, from a christian perspective, from a german historical perspective. they have not finished and already they have 10 bingos. i stopped writing down things and just listened, mesmerized, as they went on and on. the neat thing is that the kids NOT presenting were also participating. in the first group all but 2 kids in the class contributed to the class discussion and those new ideas didn't get counted as bingos because they didn't come from the presenters!
today my a4 class presented, and while it was good, it was a little boring in some ways. the kids in that class are not participating in the same way, which i sort of expected. and in a way, it is sort of sad because you know you can't keep up the momentum. however, you want to try!
this whole thing made me feel like they finally got it. i don't know what flipped the switch, but i think i am going to do this poetry unit in the fall instead of the spring next year. it seems to me that they were better able to analyze smaller things, like the poem, vs. the short stories and books we read. the big chunks they couldn't seem to consume. little pieces, yes.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
big graduation in a little town
my godson, carter (son of my best friend, pam) graduated from amelia academy this evening. there were 15 kids in his class, most of whom he had grown up with and gone to school with since kindergarten. the speaker was the former baseball coach and local pastor and also father of one of the boys graduating. the ceremony was held in the school gymnatorium with a lady playing "pomp and circumstance" on an old piano. there was cake and punch at the end of the graduation and people were sitting in folding chairs and on the gym bleachers. outside, next to the school, the kids were playing dixie league baseball.
a piece of americana. a little school in a county outside of a big city. many of the students graduating had parents who also had graduated from this school.
i have been in and out of amelia for over 30 years, as i met pam the first day of college and have continued to visit often over all of these years. i know a few backroads, the shortest routes, and have watched the first food lion come in and the first macdonalds, which apparently didn't make it, as i drove past it tonight and it was torn down! it is a little place where everyone waves at each other as you pass in the car and you actually know the people. there is a village square and the courthouse, various family run businesses, including holman motors, now being run by the son of the original owner. a place where things pass down from one family to the next and not a lot changes. oh, some things have. when i first began going up there, there were only a handful of restaurants and you had to do your grocery shopping in richmond. no fast food restaurants, one truck stop, and a chuck's dairy freeze for sweets. winterham's market is still there, as is busic's in town, but busics closes after lunch...
while i never thought i would say this, i think there is much to be said for living in a place where the traffic is low, people still farm, and nature is still not totally taken over by satellite dishes and stoplights...
a piece of americana. a little school in a county outside of a big city. many of the students graduating had parents who also had graduated from this school.
i have been in and out of amelia for over 30 years, as i met pam the first day of college and have continued to visit often over all of these years. i know a few backroads, the shortest routes, and have watched the first food lion come in and the first macdonalds, which apparently didn't make it, as i drove past it tonight and it was torn down! it is a little place where everyone waves at each other as you pass in the car and you actually know the people. there is a village square and the courthouse, various family run businesses, including holman motors, now being run by the son of the original owner. a place where things pass down from one family to the next and not a lot changes. oh, some things have. when i first began going up there, there were only a handful of restaurants and you had to do your grocery shopping in richmond. no fast food restaurants, one truck stop, and a chuck's dairy freeze for sweets. winterham's market is still there, as is busic's in town, but busics closes after lunch...
while i never thought i would say this, i think there is much to be said for living in a place where the traffic is low, people still farm, and nature is still not totally taken over by satellite dishes and stoplights...
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
austin makes lst team All-District
austin came back to the fold last night after an extended "visit" to his father's house(since last wednesday...we definitely needed a break from each other!) he was surprised to learn he had been voted to the lst team All-District as the best Designated Hitter. this was good, as his goal for the year had been to make lst team, but he thought it was lost because of the injury to his hip! he also made the all-district academic team as well. he also has a chance to be voted to the all regional team. his batting average for the season was somewhere between .600 and .700.
atlee is in the district playoffs starting tomorrow night. we will see what happens. they are playing the district regular season champs, hanover. however, jake mayers, the ace, is not pitching that game. if they win, i will have to miss the finals, believe it or not. carter, my godson, is graduating from amelia academy and is the salutatorian and giving a speech. however, you only graduate from high school once. baseball is forever! :)
atlee is in the district playoffs starting tomorrow night. we will see what happens. they are playing the district regular season champs, hanover. however, jake mayers, the ace, is not pitching that game. if they win, i will have to miss the finals, believe it or not. carter, my godson, is graduating from amelia academy and is the salutatorian and giving a speech. however, you only graduate from high school once. baseball is forever! :)
Sunday, May 18, 2008
manic production
it used to be that i could be a little manic at times, and i still am...in the head...but physically...kinda hard to do.
however, i have been productive this weekend, even though i feel like i have been beaten with a blunt instrument. being productive is important to me and makes me feel like i have a reason to suck air...so, just for me, some of my accomplishments for the weekend so far...
today...it is 10:15 as i write this, and already i have been up, been to the fas-mart and vacuumed out my car. then on to wal-mart, where i shopped for the week. home, unloaded groceries, tamped down the ground and placed the 4 paver stones under the smokey cooker. i chopped down the growing tree under the deck, cleaned out the smokey cooker and started the fire in there, put the dry rub on the brisket, and now i am blogging...things to do today: finish the laundry and fold it, week out the two vegetable beds and plant the tomatoes, cukes and squash that i got from pam's yesterday. need to read the paper and i want to scan some pictures as potential things to use in headers i might make.
yesterday: a bath (i don't get much time to do that), sprayed roundup around the yard (again), drilled holes in the ceramic pots and coffee cups that i wanted to put plants in; planted some flowers in the front bed; shipped the shoes back to zappos; went through amy's chili pepper stuff in her bins; read the paper; went up to pam's and planted plants in the pots i had drilled; got more plants; then pam and i went out in the kubota about a half mile or so to a field louis had plowed that was filled with rocks!
rock nirvana! heaven! for me, this is a sign of how bad my life must really be when the highlight of the day is finding a field full of rocks and then walking in the dirt in my birkies to get them and throw them in the back of the kubota! what a sight pam and i must have been to a god somewhere...trying not to hit bodie the dog with the kubota and sinking up to the rims almost from the weight of the rocks we collected. i transferred about half of them to the trunk of the car and later unloaded them when i got home. the other half we dumped in a pile by the greenhouse to get when i go back up there on thursday for carter's graduation. if i could, i would go and get more, as once louis seeds the field, we are done for rock collecting there. taylor's sister becky came up after we had dumped the rocks and said she had been on the farm clearing horse trails and had a lot of rocks out there i could get later if i wanted them. basically, even if you DON'T want them, you gather them. buying rocks is horrendously expensive, and i find all sorts of things to do with them. i hope to remortar and remodel the waterfall this summer, and i will use them for that.
i headed home looking like a low rider with all the weight in the car, and i was packed to the gills with tomato plants and other vegetable stuff, more than i can use. i stopped by mary beth and david's house on the way home and visited briefly with them. that was nice! their yard is wonderful to look at and MB and i chatted and got caught up on life. i like talking to MB about spiritual stuff and she made some suggestions of books to read and a lecture by a guy named pausch who gave his last college lecture (he has pancreatic cancer) and it is on youtube.
i came home, unloaded the rocks, and watched a bit of tv before playing some yellow car out on the computer and then crashing. i drank a lot of tea yesterday, and i stopped at wawa and got a cup of coffee and more diet green tea on the way home. i had the windows open in the car and was listening to the new AWAKE cd by josh groban and i was very content.
being content is what it is all about, and i like the fact that i have been so, despite being in a lot of pain. i often lose perspective about he pain thing, and over long periods of time it makes me more of a bitch and a lot more over reactionary. i am working to get back to the place where i can be productive, calm, and not depressed despite it. not easy work, but doable...
however, i have been productive this weekend, even though i feel like i have been beaten with a blunt instrument. being productive is important to me and makes me feel like i have a reason to suck air...so, just for me, some of my accomplishments for the weekend so far...
today...it is 10:15 as i write this, and already i have been up, been to the fas-mart and vacuumed out my car. then on to wal-mart, where i shopped for the week. home, unloaded groceries, tamped down the ground and placed the 4 paver stones under the smokey cooker. i chopped down the growing tree under the deck, cleaned out the smokey cooker and started the fire in there, put the dry rub on the brisket, and now i am blogging...things to do today: finish the laundry and fold it, week out the two vegetable beds and plant the tomatoes, cukes and squash that i got from pam's yesterday. need to read the paper and i want to scan some pictures as potential things to use in headers i might make.
yesterday: a bath (i don't get much time to do that), sprayed roundup around the yard (again), drilled holes in the ceramic pots and coffee cups that i wanted to put plants in; planted some flowers in the front bed; shipped the shoes back to zappos; went through amy's chili pepper stuff in her bins; read the paper; went up to pam's and planted plants in the pots i had drilled; got more plants; then pam and i went out in the kubota about a half mile or so to a field louis had plowed that was filled with rocks!
rock nirvana! heaven! for me, this is a sign of how bad my life must really be when the highlight of the day is finding a field full of rocks and then walking in the dirt in my birkies to get them and throw them in the back of the kubota! what a sight pam and i must have been to a god somewhere...trying not to hit bodie the dog with the kubota and sinking up to the rims almost from the weight of the rocks we collected. i transferred about half of them to the trunk of the car and later unloaded them when i got home. the other half we dumped in a pile by the greenhouse to get when i go back up there on thursday for carter's graduation. if i could, i would go and get more, as once louis seeds the field, we are done for rock collecting there. taylor's sister becky came up after we had dumped the rocks and said she had been on the farm clearing horse trails and had a lot of rocks out there i could get later if i wanted them. basically, even if you DON'T want them, you gather them. buying rocks is horrendously expensive, and i find all sorts of things to do with them. i hope to remortar and remodel the waterfall this summer, and i will use them for that.
i headed home looking like a low rider with all the weight in the car, and i was packed to the gills with tomato plants and other vegetable stuff, more than i can use. i stopped by mary beth and david's house on the way home and visited briefly with them. that was nice! their yard is wonderful to look at and MB and i chatted and got caught up on life. i like talking to MB about spiritual stuff and she made some suggestions of books to read and a lecture by a guy named pausch who gave his last college lecture (he has pancreatic cancer) and it is on youtube.
i came home, unloaded the rocks, and watched a bit of tv before playing some yellow car out on the computer and then crashing. i drank a lot of tea yesterday, and i stopped at wawa and got a cup of coffee and more diet green tea on the way home. i had the windows open in the car and was listening to the new AWAKE cd by josh groban and i was very content.
being content is what it is all about, and i like the fact that i have been so, despite being in a lot of pain. i often lose perspective about he pain thing, and over long periods of time it makes me more of a bitch and a lot more over reactionary. i am working to get back to the place where i can be productive, calm, and not depressed despite it. not easy work, but doable...
Saturday, May 17, 2008
frogs
i am sorry to report that one of my front waterfall frogs, probably the big guy, bud, has croaked...his last croak it appears. i had never seen bud, but found his body this afternoon lying in the rocks next to the water. he appeared to have been either squished or bitten...there was a small bit of gut action going on...
bud will be missed. i have been impressed by his tenor voice and his ability to predict the rain. his compadres, weise and er, are small frogs. weise lives under the shutter next to my front porch swing and has been seen once. he is amazingly small, as is er. er was up on the front porch last summer and i took pictures of him. i could not believe his minature size! er is always the last to chime in.
i couldn't just let bud rot in the sun, nor could i bring myself to bury a frog, no matter how soothing his voice has been. so i carried him over to the shade below one of my dogwood trees and threw him there, to become one with the mulch. i don't think the rabbits are much interested in eating him, although he was a rather long, slinky frog.
there are tadpoles in the pond, so he has certainly left behind a legacy...
a hole in the sand...
working through disappointment with people and hurt feelings has never been a strong point for me. however, i am finding as i get older (and more menopausal!) that i am becoming a lot more thin-skinned and less forgiving. well, i don't like that about myself, but it is what it is. i just have to work a little harder at being positive.
i don't have to change the world, but i do need to feel like i am making some sort of impression in the sand. that is just me. i know the wind will blow, and the impressions go away. but i still have to dig around and build something in it. maybe it is my students, maybe my son. it might be my gardens and flower beds or my jewelry or my sculptures and pottery. all of them are outlets, like this blog, a way to find something shining when it appears to be cloudy.
or i can just go and get the lexpro dosage updated...and that would solve the problem, wouldn't it? !
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