Box of Chocolates

Oh sweet summertime, you are missed already.  One of my kids said that the school year is the beginning of a 180 day sentence.  Makes a mother with a teaching degree sad.  I love learning. I don't love the system of education and why I am not a classroom teacher anymore but I understand some of her complaints. I am the mother of a freshman in high school. At a brand new school. No one went to school there ever until a couple of weeks ago.  I told her the first couple weeks could be hard. The plus to being a freshman in a new school is that it is new to everyone. I knew that even though the building cost 75 million to build that things were not going to be ideal.  Boy was I right, I don't always like being right. Some things are a mess.  Some things are getting better each day.  There are things I can not understand and probably will never understand.  Even as a parent that has been a classroom teacher with two degrees in education I can't make sense of the things that h

I have been wide awake since before 2 AM. Wide eyed and well, not so bushy tailed. This is the second day in a row. Why?  No really, why? This is the second day in a row my brain refuses to turn off for longer than a few hours. It's like half my brain wants to party and the logical side knows this is not a good thing.    As a mom of three on the first day of a new school year I am sitting in the family room in the dark thinking of all the things I can't do right now. I am also lamenting summer. Today summer break officially ends. At least I am up in time to get the kids to school.   I am not excited for today. It has a few milestones that we can not put off. I will not drive to the elementary school for the first time in eight years. I will be dropping my youngest off at middle school and my oldest at the high school. Also the middle child decided to go back to school so I will not be homeschooling this year.   In a few hours my kids will wake up and start a new scho

I choose not to work. I do understand that people don't have a choice and have to work outside of the home for a pay check to buy food and shelter.  One parent in my house must work. I also feel some don't really have to work and choose to work for luxury items.  I have talked to people that say there is no way they could be a stay at home parent and choose to go to work. Why do we as parents belittle each other in our choices.  Recently on Facebook (some say a necessary evil, but I think it is just evil) A parent commented   "...for the parent that actually works".  Wow, only one word makes that sentence sting.  I try not to let these words on Facebook hurt me or give them a second thought but I am a wordy person and I think about words.  The sentence takes a different tone if it was written, "for the parent that works".  The word "actually" implies negative things to those that don't work. For the parent that works I understand that a 30

Grand Canyon 2015 I love to travel. Two summers ago we took a 4,000+ mile road trip west that was the hands down best trip I have ever taken with my kids. A million times better than our Disney trip. Did the van get to small some days? Yes. Would I do it again?  In a heartbeat. The summer before going out west we did a tour of Florida. We started in the Panhandle to Key Largo back up the east coast to Saint Augustine, with many stops in between.   At the time we went out west my kids were 9, 10 and 12. My kids two years later are still talking about our trip. It often comes up because of school. One day my son's class was learning about Mesa Verde and the teacher asked if anyone had ever been and my son was the only one to raise his hand.  This has come up a number of times in the past two years. My kids are the only one in class to raise their hands when asked about different locations in the USA. Recently my daughter has had to study the Little Rock Nine and we have b

Is this thing on?  I'm so glad no one read my last post.  I never want to be a mommy blogger but zero readers?  ZIP!  It is a little disheartening.   I got on this morning to tell a story but I am so discouraged.  Maybe I need to rethink this blogging thing.  I originally started this blog for my mom before Facebook was popular.  I wanted to share with her the happenings of the family because she moved away from her grandkids.  But hey, even my mom doesn't read my blog.   What is the point if no one reads it?  Signing off to reevaluate. 

The life as a wannabe writer. That was my newest idea for novel.  It is really just an autobiography of my attempts to write. I love trying to do NaNoWriMo and CampNaNo but it is not working out for me this April. My word count is low, really low. My word count is bad for many reasons but by trying to do the challenge I realize what I need to work on as a writer. I am too far behind on word count for any kind of novel to be written in 30 days. That is okay with me because I am writing a little and a little is more than not at all. I think just trying to do the challenge each time they open the virtual gates online it helps me learn where I am, and who I am as a writer. I will be the first to say I am a novice. To take on a challenge of 50,000 words is not an easy task for me. I am not sure why I set my goal 50,000 for April when you can choose your writing goal. I know I can write 50,000 words in a month because I have done it, once.   For me I have to accept my reality of what