restlessness....

Preface:  So I was originally going to title this post "on turning 40...", but as I got to typing, the title just didn't seem to fit, so I changed it. 

It has been over a month since my 40th birthday.  Had a great party for it.  I was originally going to throw myself a party, but my good friend Deloris talked me into letting her take it over.  So it became a Deloris-Stephanie-Jay project.  Deloris being the controller of what is acceptable, because Steph, of course, wanted to get all crazy with it, and Jay wanted to hire a stripper!  Thankfully Deloris didn't allow any craziness or strippers!  Yeah Deloris!!  A great time was had by all, and that is what I wanted.

Getting older has never bothered me.  And I'm not one of those people whose age has mattered one bit to them.  I freely admit how old I am, and I really don't care what other people think.  I'm still that way. I'm happy to be 40.

However, I have found that middle age has got me restless.  I've noticed it for about a year now.  I'm not content with where I am anymore.  And possibly, not content with who I am anymore.  I've been feeling restless and unsettled, like i need to do something or go somewhere.  Not sure what to do about it.   I know I don't want to stay in Charlotte much longer, but not sure where we'd go.  I really want to go back to the mountains, but teaching jobs are hard to get there, and I don't "know someone" to get me in the door.  And I can't afford to move somewhere without a job ready, since Jay doesn't work.  Jay's all set to move, so its kind of me that is holding us back.  The only thing that is really keeping me here is my friends.  I've made some really good friends here.  And I can't take them with me if I move.  :-( 

So I have some serious thinking to do.  Because I'm also not sure about staying in teaching.  But what else do I do?  *sigh*

See?  Restlessness.

stop asking me to teach stuff...

So every now and then I get stopped by a 5th grade teacher asking me to make sure I teach [whatever the current topic is that they are studying], because they don't know what the hell the 4th grade teachers taught last year as their kids don't know shit. Okay, so I'm paraphrasing... or not. But anyway, today I was bombarded by three different 5th grade teachers (one of them doesn't even teach math) telling me to make sure 4th grade teaches fractions beyond what investigations does with it. I can only assume that everyone in 5th grade started teaching fractions this week. Usually I just laugh these things off, but this one was a bit frustrating:

1. I've taught 5th grade before. I think I know what they need to learn in 4th grade to become successful in 5th grade.

2. I didn't teach 4th grade last year, so I don't really want to hear about what 4th grade "team" didn't teach last year. I can tell from the un-opened manipulative kit that I inherited from one of the 4th grade teachers (who is no longer at our school), that it is questionable that ANY math got taught last year (at least in her classroom).

3. I'm just the "bridge" on my grade level. Trying to connect the ever-increasing chasm between the white folk and the black folk on my team. And no, its not a true racial divide, but from the outside it could be seen that way. The other two white women (besides me) are buddied up and "doing their own thing", while the three black women are working together on their own thing. ....okay, this could end up turning into a whole blog about my team, so I will end #3 right now. and just simply say, I can't be the bearer of every message that 5th grade has for the 4th grade teachers, because I don't know what a third of my team is even teaching!!

Breathe, Colleen....

Okay, I'm better. So while I'm glad that the 5th grade teachers are doing their job (and evidently the job of last year's 4th grade teachers), I really don't need to hear about it EVERY time the 5th graders don't know something they should have learned in prior years. Ooooh, which brings me to....

4. Just because a kid doesn't know something, it doesn't mean they weren't taught it. A lot can happen over the summer. And especially over a year, seeing as how we are getting ready to start OUR fraction unit soon. And I know, if almost all the kids aren't showing that they have a clue about equivalent fractions, then it PROBABLY means something was lacking in 4th.

But honestly, I don't want to hear about it today. I'm struggling to get caught back up. I'm about two weeks behind because of jay's surgery, the complications, and follow-up doctor's appointments (hmmm, guess I didn't blog about that one yet).  I'm still in the middle of place value, addition, and subtraction. So give me a break. Talk to the grade chair about these things. :)

crocheting...

My passion of late has been crocheting -- afghans, slippers, hats, baby booties, stuffed hearts, and so on. I love to crochet. Problem? It takes time to complete a project. Some projects are fast, like baby things tend to take about an hour to do -- hats, booties, bibs, etc. and lord knows I'm surrounded by pregnant women these days (which could be another post as I am NOT pregnant), so fast baby projects are good. But other projects take a long time. I've been working on an afghan for my brother. I've had to put it on hold as I need to order some more yarn.

Another problem with crocheting is that it limits being able to do other things. Can't crochet and be online at the same time. Can't crochet and read a book at the same time. Can't crochet and exercise (ugh!) at the same time (don't have a stationary bike). Can't crochet and bake at the same time. I've been able to sort of fix the reading and crocheting problem by listening to "books on tape" (guess they aren't called that anymore as they aren't on tape anymore), but haven't found a solution for the rest of it. So my crocheting is mostly limited to an hour or two before bed. I get myself all ready for bed, climb in with my supplies (yarn, hooks, pattern, mp3 player) and go to it for an hour or so. Now I have to find more recorded books. I've almost exhausted the supply of books on CD from the library (books by authors that I like, that this). These I rip to my computer and then load to my mp3 player (which I'm now on to my hubby's mp3 player, because something is now wrong with the connection to the computer from mine). I suppose I could venture into other authors.... or, heaven forbid, PAY for an audiobook. LOL

My husband has been trying to find a way to make money off of my crocheting. Which I suppose is entirely possible, but as I've pointed out to him several times, it takes TIME to make these things. One possibility has come available to me that I discovered through a friend (Hi Gypsi!) that buys things from this site -- www.etsy.com. Its an online "store" for handmade items. From what I've read so far, its 20 cents to post an item for 2 months and they collect a 3.5% fee on your asking price. I'm gonna have to think about this. It has potential.

on me being sick.... and who really needs a big toe anyway?

Man, I hate being sick. not that I know anyone who LIKES being sick, but really... I HATE being sick. especially when it involves not being able to breathe out of my nose. Evidently I was breathing out of my mouth right before I woke up (at 1:30 a.m.) because my throat was dry and kinda sore and there was drool all over my pillow, sheet, and side of my face. Yuck! And could I blow out any of the offending mucus/junk? No, of course not. But evidently chewing loosens it up, so I grab a small snack and some tea (ahhhh, gotta LOVE tea) from the kitchen and have since cleared the pipes (as far as they can be cleared with a sinus infection).

And to make matters worse... I was working in my sleep. dreamed I was teaching science to my class. For some reason we were having class in my parents' kitchen/living room, and we were observing wheat. Wheat? Really? And Mr. G walks in and gets ALL excited at what the kids are doing. meanwhile, I have discovered that I forgot to get a bag of wheat (like a bag of rice) from the science supply room. So Mr. G steps outside for a minute, and I dash downstairs to my parents' basement, which is the science supply room in my dream, and find that there aren't any bags of wheat. I come running back upstairs and look in mom's "wheat tupperware container" (only exists in my dream) only to find she is out as well. Mr. G comes back in at that point, and I jokingly say that I'd be in real trouble if this were an observation, explaining what the problem is, and he laughs and agrees with me and explains that he had to reorganize the science supply room and the wheat got buried under the rice. Meanwhile, my students are looking at grains of wheat, apparently in complete fascination. How weird.

And on to the toe... a much more serious topic. Well, the doc has decided that Jay's toe must go. In looking at the MRI from yesterday, he found that the bone between the two joints in his big toe is infected. This is so frustrating after we have spent the last two months fighting infection in the wound, conquering the infection in the wound, and then making sooooo much progress on healing the wound only to be told that infection settled in the bone and now the toe has to be amputated. *sigh* Very discouraging. I asked jay how he felt about it after he told me. He really didn't say anything. Guess it hasn't really sunk in yet. Although he did kind of get upset when I told deloris about it. And said that he didn't want everyone at school knowing about his toe. Well, that's gonna be a tough one as many people already know about the toe. And how am I going to ask off for the surgery next week without telling my boss about the toe and my team about the toe. Whatever. Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Deloris thinks he's embarrassed and probably a little guilty about the toe. She's probably right. Definitely the embarrassed part, because it is completely his fault that this has happened. I had REALLY, REALLY, REALLY hoped that this would not turn into this hard of lesson to learn, but it has. *sigh* I really hate this for him. It doesn't personally bother me that he's losing his toe, but I know how he is, and I hate this for him.

Maybe I should try going back to sleep now. 5:50a.m. is only a few hours away, and I've already had two nights of less-than-enough sleep.

On being married to a sick man....

I love my husband. I really do. I love him more than I ever thought it was possible to love another person. He is the best thing to ever happen to me. However, sometimes he is the most stressful thing to ever happen to me. And these times usually revolve around his health. He asked me once that if someone had sat me down before we got married and told me what all I would be going through with him medically, would I have still married him?

How does one answer that? Some days, I would say, "yes, of course." Other days, I would say, "I don't know." And still other days, I might actually say, "No. Its too much."

The thing about any of the situations I've been through with my husband's health problems is that (and this is true for anything in life) you don't know what you can truly handle until you live through it.

Five years ago this month (don't remember the exact date in January that it happened, although I suppose if I went back to one of my journals, I could find the exact date), I thought jay was going to die. And at one point, I thought he WAS dead -- when I found him laying on the floor in the kitchen, and I thought he wasn't breathing. Thank god he was breathing, but the couple of days that followed that.... I wasn't sure he was going to make it. and I wasn't sure if it wouldn't just be a kinder thing for god to go ahead and take him. But he came through, like he always does.

A few months after that, he had his kidney transplant, and we've (hopefully for a long while) said good-bye to the world of dialysis. but... and there's always a but, there's still the asthma. And the diabetes. And his feet. And his eye. It is a lot.

So lately, my focus has been to push "maintenance". I think the point has finally been driven home by the podiatrist. Although, we are still at a 50% chance of losing the toe. I would hate for him to learn this lesson at such a steep price, but sometimes that is the case in life lessons. He's doing better with his diabetes maintenance. The insulin pump has helped with that. If we can get better control there, then the kidney and his eye won't be as much of a future concern.

So on to the asthma. I suppose it would help tremendously if we would move away from Charlotte. This place is not a good place for asthmatics to live.  I even have sinus trouble here. But  move will have to wait until I can find a job somewhere else. Where? Who knows.

I've sort of deflated since starting this post. Got interrupted in the middle of it by dear hubby calling for me. Scaring the crap out of me by the way he called. Today has not been a good day health-wise for him, and that puts me on edge. So now I'm back after having a good cry with him and talking about how he needs to be more mindful of what he puts me through. That calling out to me like that, with that tone and inflection in the call, recalls the horror of finding him laid out on the kitchen floor five years ago.

Since I don't recall anymore where I was going with this post, I will just end as I began....

I love my husband, but it can be hard to live with him sometimes.

My Yearly Post??

So once again, I find myself back here at my blog after a year (more than a year this time) away. Maybe blogging isn't for me. However, I really don't believe that. I think my life has just shifted focus from what I used to do a lot of.... writing. I used to write a lot. So much so that I would go through several journals a year. Now I'm going through several years in a journal. This is a good and a bad thing. Good -- because it means I am busy and have people to talk to and things to do. Bad -- because I'm not writing, and I love to write. So maybe I need to adjust my life to fit in more writing time and less of something else. But what to cut? Will have to ponder this.

Blogging

Evidently I'm not cut out for blogging. Just checked and it's been about a year since my last entry. LOL I know the reason for it, and its the same reason I don't write in my journal as much anymore:
1. I have people to talk to... Jay, Deloris, Stephanie, etc.
2. I don't have time... teaching and the internet take up a lot of my time.