full circle

I am waking up again. I can tell myself roughly when to wake up and most of the time I am pretty accurate. Actually, most of the time I am dead on, right to the minute. 6:00. That is my time. The kids don't wake till between 7 and 8. Jenny won't wake up till between 9 and 10. So this is my hour. I joined a site that is being hosted by the Western Mass Writing Project, something that a few of my fellow bloggers will most likely become familiar with this year. Its for teachers and its about their writing..... not their students. Its so nice to be treated as an individual with talent, not just a person with 100 or so teenagers hanging off of them like clothing.

I love it. I posted a journal entry and got real feedback. I actually had goosebumps reading all of the responses. Writer to writer. So nice.

Also, I just got done reading my little blog route and am so happy to see my first group of seniors become freshmen. It is special to me, because although for some reason, unlike me, most of them enjoyed high school, I found myself in college, and they are going there. Kat is going to be at Smith, and I went to Smith all the time and had lots of friends there. Phoebe is somewhat pessimistically going to UMASS. I feel like that is where I became me. I wonder if she is going to be able to sift through all of the stuff there and do the same. It is a special feeling for me and I think I am really going to be the only one that really understands what I am feeling. I am excited though.

My goals for this year are to be more in touch with myself as a writer, with my students along the way, and to be proactive in the "school"stuff that I have to do, you know, paper work and stuff as well as contacting parents. I am going to have a rule about being quiet in the beginning of class this year. I am a little scared that it will stifle some of the aspects of class that I enjoy, but sometimes the kids go too far and really waste some time in the beginning, and truth be told, I find it wicked annoying to try and calm down a bunch of talking kids. So, quiet until after the completion of the writing prompt, or, no writing prompt. That's the way it will go.

Henry becomes a student this year.

This is more frightening and exciting than you could ever imagine. He is being thrown into the centrifuge of semi-adult hood. I have seen so many kids blossom and be killed by this thing. I am scared to death for Henry and also so happy to see him take this big step. It is only kindergarten, and half day at that, but it is the step. I just hope he finds good friends.

very very early

Nora woke me at 4:00 this morning and I was unable to go back to sleep. I really tried too. My best trick for this is to imagine walking through the woods across the street from my parent's house. My father owns fifty acers of uninterupted woods, and I remember these woods in incredible detail, the smells, the transitions of trees, the slope and hills of the paths we created, everything. Generally, a mental walk through those woods is enough to capture my thoughts and lull me back to sleep. But not tonight. Tonight I thought of the premise of a short story that I am going to write. (its about a huge beech tree that was actually way up the hill behind my parents house. I am going to relocate it and make it a lot bigger). I even came up with a name for the story: A Convergence. So, instead of being lulled back to sleep, I am now up way too early and will write for the next couple of hours...... not a bad trade off actually.

rain and mornings

I got up early today. I sleep in increments. If I can get six hours sleep and then wake up, I feel great. Also, If I get eight hours sleep and then get up I feel a tiny bit better. Anything other than those two and I feel awful. Today was a six hour day and I got up nicely before anyone in my house. I did hear Nora kind of mumble something a bit ago. Jen worked last night and she isn't home yet. I don't know why she submits herself to working at night. I did it for two years while I was in college and it really messes with your head. Or at least it did with mine. I don't think she likes it either. She will be home in about half an hour.

Its raining outside right now. I love that. I don't have anything overly special planned for today. The plumber isnt coming so I don't have to be home for that. Jen is going to sleep till about noon when she comes home. I think I will take the kids somewhere this morning. It will have to be inside I guess. Even if the rain stops the grass will probably be to wet for them to roll around in. I have to buy some school clothes, pants really. Maybe I will go to the pseudomall with the kids and let them marvel at all of the stuff they can't have...(get used to it). Actually, they don't really care about that stuff they just like running around in the mall. I have great kids. No fits about things they can't have etc.

I bought plants for my classroom this year, so I guess I will be one of those type of teachers.

its hot in here....

I have two other hidden blogs. They're private. I have one that I have been writing in for two years, for Henry, and one that is a bit shorter for Nora. I plan on giving them to them when they are in their twenties. I write to them like I would write to someone my age. I love my kids. Henry is changing more everyday. He has a real noble spirit. He is so scared of everything though. Nora, is the opposite, so far, in both ways. She isn't afraid of anything at all. But man can she be sneaky and coniving. I keep hoping that it is only because she is in her two's. I really think it is. She isn't always that way. A lot of the time she is sweet and fun. But she really does have that dark side to her. I hope it doesn't show up again in her teens. We had fun today. I went swimming in one of our neighbors pools. It was a salt water pool... how cool is that!! No chlorine!.

It was nice and summery. We also have no real plans for tomorrow. I think I just want to stay home and get things done around the house. We did all sorts of things this summer... or at least more than we did last summer.

I love my kids. I love my family and I really look forward to the rest of my life with them.

Hmmm.. ok

I feel like blogging again. Apparently I have had a good enough break. Its the end of summer. A couple weeks, a normal man's vacation. Then I am back to work. I can't wait. I kinda wish it was now! I have some............ IDEAS. I have done so freaking much this summer, its crazy. All the while, I am maintaining my garden. Its this back-burner calm in my mind. I can go crazy painting the bathroom, freak out cleaning the cellar, try to understand how to frame in the tub upstairs, and all the while my tomatoes are slowly growing bigger and bigger, just a little day by day. They are beautiful, heirloom, brandywines. What a beautiful word, brandywine. I have never tasted one, but supposedly they are the holy grail of tomatoes. And, I have so many of them. I also have a whole row of cilantro. I never liked cilantro until I tasted and smelled fresh cilantro. I have fresh thyme, oregano and sage. I also have butternut squash, leeks, celery, two carrots :), English cucumbers, (the only fruit that I have harvested yet) and I think that's it. Oh, radishes... tons of radishes. Its was really nice to grow all of these. My back/neck almost ended my garden this year. Oh, btw, I had my neurologist appointment two days ago. I actually ruptured a disk in my neck... that means, some of the viscous fluid in my spine, shot out into the area outside of it and put tons of pressure on the surrounding nerves. No wonder I was in pain. Also, thank God I am out of it now.

I went to my yearly physical right after the neurologist. I have a female general practitioner. I chose that on purpose because guys are so sexist. So anyway, my ekg was slightly abnormal, which means my WPW is still kinda there. I freaked out a little but she said it was the same as last year. I don't know. it isn't bothering me anymore, and I just wish it were really gone. You would have to go way into the archives of this blog to find the entry in which I was pronounced cured. She also said that it may be just the way my heart looks, it may "be your heart David." I knew that was somewhat profound when she said it and I shrugged it off. If I live the rest of my life with a slightly different ekg than the rest of the world and it doesn't really affect me, so be it. I just have to get over this one bump, (being told its still there) and I will be fine.

I put our AC unit in our window yesterday. I have a love/hate relationship with that brownish box. I am happy that it makes the house somewhat cooler. But its loud and ugly and blocks sunlight from that window. I wanted to go the whole year without it. I couldn't. It was friggen hot out yesterday!! And it will be again today so they say. I washed the front of our house today. Its nice and clean! I have never washed a house before and I didn't even know I could. But, our house was looking kind of mangy, and I looked it up online, and it was possible. So, much better now, and it wasn't even that hard. Just a brush, water, dish soap, and a long handle, how hard could that be?

Shane Couming offered me flowers in my email this morning. I don't think anybody that reads this knows him, but that is very funny. Student last year, brilliant. His father rode his bike past our house and noticed that there weren't any flowers etc in the front of our house, he was clipping his and Shane offered me the clippings. All in all, that was pretty nice, minus the embarrassment of having a noticeably barren front-of-house. My yard is a wastebasket of second rate grass. I want to have a nice yard, I just have no money to make one. There are a lot of things like that about owning a house and having no money. Well, the plumber is coming all week to install both heating and ....um... plumbing I guess, in the upstairs so we are that much closer to have livable rooms up there.

Kind of a varied post....its been a while I guess.