There's too much going on; this whole post is tl;dr
My life. Ok, Will's not usually that bad unless it interferes with his exercise or a truly mandatory meeting, but as for the mom's schedule? Yeah, that's me.
Today I marched with the band, ran 3.5 miles with a dog-induced handicap, made caramel brownies for teachers and bread for myself, ran several errands, worked my shift at the public library for the first time in two weeks, helped both kids with homework and took Two to gender therapy (this is a 3-hour process: an hour's drive each way and the hour of therapy). Once again, I completely failed to do anything related to getting our house ready. Yesterday it was: school library, several errands, quickly walking the dogs, picking kids up separately because MiniPlu had an NJHS meeting after school, going straight to Two's gymnastics after picking up MiniPlu, making another stop on the way home, had 10 mins at home to throw together dinner and then I had to rush MiniPlu to church because she was altar serving for the Ascension vigil, then home for dinner and homework help while simultaneously making the Old Berlin Apple Cake MiniPlu was required to bake and present at tomorrow's French/Spanish/German food festival. My whole week has felt like that, plus there was the bonus of Two being home sick with a mild intestinal bug on Monday.
We still do not have permits for redoing our downstairs bathroom. We still need to paint three areas in the house PLUS parts of the exterior, fix the screen door, put trim around the exterior doors, repaint the kitchen cabinets, steam clean all the carpets and sort through all the clutter everywhere. I wonder if our house will ever EVER be ready, and I'm panicking over it all.
Tuesday morning, I substituted for our elementary computer teacher. It was a morning-only job (the teacher was at a training seminar of some sort). Normally, the specialists have two morning classes and four in the afternoon (used to be 3 and 3, but this year it was altered; they all hate it). However, one day each week they only have one class in the morning because we're short a 5th-grade class this year, and it so happened that Tues was the computer teacher's easy morning. Meanwhile, the gym teacher had planned to be out all week (Mon-Wed at this school) and had had the job posted for a couple of weeks, so this was a known thing. But nobody took his post. Rather than make it so NOBODY got gym this week, the principal shuffled things around last minute so I got two classes of gym prior to the lone computer class I was getting later in the morning. So, suddenly, I was poring over the gym teacher's sub plans, as well as the computer teacher's, getting the janitor to unlock the gym office and trying to find all the necessary equipment I'd need for those two classes. I was wearing a skirt, sweater and riding boots that day (raining, remember? :P) but although I wasn't required to do any of the activities, just direct them, I did do some of the calisthenics with the kids anyway. "If I can do pushups dressed like this, then there's NO reason why you can't do pushups." :P Thankfully, it all turned out ok, but I definitely had my morning turned on its head!
Amidst all this craziness, Scott and I have been trying to find time to get together, in person, and commiserate all our respective woes, for the past two weeks, to no avail.
I have fic snippets bouncing around in my head all the time, but nothing really cohesive, and no time or brain cells to write anything down. All I can do in the evening is read (book or fic) or zone out on the internet.
Nala has pooped in the house THREE TIMES today. Jade tried to eat it, twice. Yes, we are letting her out on a regular basis. She seems to be pooping in her sleep.
I took my phone case off on Tues afternoon to better clean my screen. Two asked to reassemble it, except he tried to put both shells on at the same time, rather than individually, causing the hard shell to break off at the corner. Sigh. Thankfully, I was able to re-order JUST the hard shell, didn't have to spend $$$ for an entire new case. Still. (Small blessing: due to Mother's Day promotion, I got free fast shipping.)
And meanwhile, Will discovered that the very expensive memory he'd bought for our server ended up being the wrong memory, but we've had it several months now and he can't send it back. The only thing to do is buy very expensive correct memory, to replace the eventually-incompatible one.
MiniPlu has had a helluva a week, academically. She has several teachers who, by her report, have essentially stopped teaching. Her math teacher gives out packets that are supposed to be "review" in preparation for the state-mandated algebra exam the kids have to take at the end of this month, but she doesn't actually REVIEW anything in class because that would be spoon-feeding or something. The science teacher mentally clocked out after getting married at Christmas. They get a handful of notes to copy down, without explanation, videos related to the subject but aren't on the test, info on scientists in the target sub-subject (ie biology, astronomy, etc) but also aren't on the test, and then they're given a test. Social studies is better, but there was a major test there, too, this week. The ELA teacher - a long-term sub, as their "proper" teacher went out on maternity leave just before Easter - is apparently completely useless, and also assigned them to create a comic about the end of Jekyll and Hyde (which they've been reading), and gave them a single day to do it. We made a dent in the math packet on Monday, but Tues was given to studying social studies. Wed MiniPlu barely had any time, what with the meeting and altar serving, and we devoted the entire evening to science, as that test was today. (She got an 85%, which she's upset about, although since the teacher wasn't really teaching much, it could have been worse.) Social studies is tomorrow; I studied some more for an hour today, then gave Two assistance with writing for an hour, and then we had to eat and leave for therapy. While I was gone, Will helped MiniPlu study a little more, and she finished her comic, but hadn't touched the math.
Sitting down after 9pm after she's been doing homework for hours, and now we're doing a subject she hates and doesn't grasp easily - not a good situation. She bit my head off for any little thing, and when I couldn't get her to understand that a very messy fraction just had to be multiplied by the denominator in order to cancel the fraction out (as part of an algebraic equation) she just couldn't grasp why you multiplied the WHOLE messy fraction [it was something like (155 - 44y)/14 ] and not just the numerator. And I just couldn't understand why SHE didn't understand, and there was absolutely no other way I could say "Because you're multiplying the entire thing" any differently. I finally gave up, told her to studying the remaining bit of social studies she hadn't yet gotten to, and walked away. Which of course only made her angrier that I gave up and walked out, but, seriously. JUST MULTIPLY THE WHOLE GODDAMN FRACTION. Yes, it looks messy. I'm sorry this problem is a huge, multi-step PITA. Your teacher is horrible. No, you are not a moron for needing help with it. But, for Pete's sake, just MULTIPLY THE WHOLE DAMN FRACTION. Of course, now she's saying she'll get a zero for not having finished it, not even for just having a wrong answer there, but honestly, kid - it's just not going to work at this hour, in your mental state, and I really cannot think of any other way to rephrase "you multiply the whole thing".
So, points to me for being Mom of the Year. :-P
Two has a different set of school frustrations. When MiniPlu was in 6th grade, her Lit/ELA teacher assigned them all a mom-centric writing assignment, which they then decorated and wrapped. The moms were invited to a nice tea; the kids dressed up, provided refreshment and small potted flowers for the moms, and read aloud their literary gifts. It was a lovely occasion.
I can only assume they're doing something similar this year (same teacher on Two's team, although not HIS Lit/ELA teacher because he's in the remedial program) because the team was soliciting suitable Mother's Day wrapping paper for the project, and I know writing was mentioned.
Does Two's class get to participate? Of course not! I mean, I get that writing is Two's weakest skill, and there's probably similar difficulties with the other kids in his class. But this is a big event, and a GIFT. Why the hell couldn't they just be assigned a shorter/simpler poem or story, so they and their families could be part of things? Just. Don't even get me started. I have been so angry over the things Two has been prevented from doing and learning and participating this year, and yes, he struggles with some things (tonight I was helping him re-write some passages from a test he had recently done "meh" on - we're talking maybe 2nd-grade level writing), but I still feel like these kids should have been given the opportunity to do something joyful, you know? Grump.
There are eleventy billion sub jobs available for tomorrow, including what looks like half of our middle school, but I can't do them because I'm going to see Captain America: Civil War at noon with my husband tomorrow. I feel bad for not helping, but only a little because I've been dying to see this movie. So nyah! Date afternoon!
(Geek note: I bought myself a Captain America tshirt a couple of weeks ago, with the shield emblem, to suit my recent Stucky mood. Will, who likes Cap just fine, is still more of an Iron Man guy in terms of his favorite movies, so I bought him an arc reactor shirt. We can go see Civil War dressed as ... civil war. *g*)
As for the rest of the weekend: Annual street-wide neighborhood yard sale is this Sat. We'll be in NJ. I lobbied for staying a little later, but Will says it's supposed to rain (AGAIN - today was the only day all week when it didn't rain, although it was still cloudy and chilly) so we might as well leave on Fri night. I know we're trying to get rid of stuff, not bring more stuff in, but this sale is SO MUCH FUN to browse, and ... it's the last one. And I'm tired of missing out on lasts. Color me disappointed.
And speaking of disappointed, then there's politics, aka "And then there was one." Oh, God, how on earth did we end up here, with The Donald as the lone GOP survivor? And I know not everyone is keen on Hilary, either. I think every man, woman and child in America should wear this shirt for the next six months. >_<
Finished reading Chalice by Robin McKinley and Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi.
I really liked Chalice. I loved the world building here, which took awhile to figure out but seemed neat - the multiple roles in the cabinet that are titled simply by the person's job: Chalice, Weatherauger, etc. I knew, of course, that Chalice and Master would end up together - ridiculously predictable - but I liked the Master, fire and all, so that didn't bother me, really. In general, it was a great story, with a lot of emphasis on letting the reader slowly piece together the initially-unspoken parts, as you go along. The only thing I didn't really like was the ending, which felt entirely too "hand-wave" rushed. That the bees killed Harald was perfectly understandable, but I don't understand at all how, by stinging the Master almost to death, it burned the fire out of him and made him entirely human again? Just ... what? And I would have liked to see more of this story, afterwards, maybe an epilogue.
Still, despite the unsatisfactory ending, this is probably my favorite McKinley book after The Outlaws of Sherwood.
Next, I read a book that came out of another library's discard pile: Crispin. For those of you who don't know, Avi is a fairly prolific children's chapter-book author. (Maybe he's written for adults, too? I don't know.) This particular book, set in 14th century England and following the story of a poor serf boy who is clearly much more than he seems, in terms of his importance, won the Newbury award for best children's literature.
It was, indeed, very good, and gave me a better taste of life back then. Like: I didn't realize that for the poor peasants, doors were a luxury. Doors. As in, keeping out the weather. Also, you get a sense of just how core religion was for them, in their daily lives. But it was that aspect that also made me feel that this book really shouldn't be read by anyone under high school age, unless they went to Catholic school or came from exceptionally religious (Catholic) households and had some grasp already of the role of religion. I felt like all the references to specific prayer times, and all the declarations of saints and swearing by the holy blood of Jesus and all - I think that would be very hard for the average 4-7th-grader to really process and understand the significance of. And it IS important, in terms of really being able to understand the characters.
Aside from that, I was a little surprised that Crispin turned down the opportunity to be a lord, but I was really pleased that what he really wanted was family - in this case, family of his choosing, rather than of origin. He and Bear were clearly well-suited, and I think Crispin wouldn't have known what to do with a lord's life anyway. So, that was a sweet surprise in the story. Overall, I liked this story, too.
Not sure yet what I'm next going to read from my to-read pile, in terms of my personal reading, but I did just start reading Rick Riordan's latest (about Apollo) aloud to Two yesterday. Looking forward to the rest. :) Although I have to mention: I briefly skimmed the handful of early reviews on Amazon before buying it, just to see if it had overall favorable comments. The few people who gave it poor ratings did so because ... apparently there's a gay character in this book, and they were disgusted that Riordan had "normalized" homosexuality. Argh!
And now it's midnight. Story of my life. Tomorrow I get to do it all again. Thank God for the prospect of a movie, even if it does mean losing several potentially productive hours.
Today I marched with the band, ran 3.5 miles with a dog-induced handicap, made caramel brownies for teachers and bread for myself, ran several errands, worked my shift at the public library for the first time in two weeks, helped both kids with homework and took Two to gender therapy (this is a 3-hour process: an hour's drive each way and the hour of therapy). Once again, I completely failed to do anything related to getting our house ready. Yesterday it was: school library, several errands, quickly walking the dogs, picking kids up separately because MiniPlu had an NJHS meeting after school, going straight to Two's gymnastics after picking up MiniPlu, making another stop on the way home, had 10 mins at home to throw together dinner and then I had to rush MiniPlu to church because she was altar serving for the Ascension vigil, then home for dinner and homework help while simultaneously making the Old Berlin Apple Cake MiniPlu was required to bake and present at tomorrow's French/Spanish/German food festival. My whole week has felt like that, plus there was the bonus of Two being home sick with a mild intestinal bug on Monday.
We still do not have permits for redoing our downstairs bathroom. We still need to paint three areas in the house PLUS parts of the exterior, fix the screen door, put trim around the exterior doors, repaint the kitchen cabinets, steam clean all the carpets and sort through all the clutter everywhere. I wonder if our house will ever EVER be ready, and I'm panicking over it all.
Tuesday morning, I substituted for our elementary computer teacher. It was a morning-only job (the teacher was at a training seminar of some sort). Normally, the specialists have two morning classes and four in the afternoon (used to be 3 and 3, but this year it was altered; they all hate it). However, one day each week they only have one class in the morning because we're short a 5th-grade class this year, and it so happened that Tues was the computer teacher's easy morning. Meanwhile, the gym teacher had planned to be out all week (Mon-Wed at this school) and had had the job posted for a couple of weeks, so this was a known thing. But nobody took his post. Rather than make it so NOBODY got gym this week, the principal shuffled things around last minute so I got two classes of gym prior to the lone computer class I was getting later in the morning. So, suddenly, I was poring over the gym teacher's sub plans, as well as the computer teacher's, getting the janitor to unlock the gym office and trying to find all the necessary equipment I'd need for those two classes. I was wearing a skirt, sweater and riding boots that day (raining, remember? :P) but although I wasn't required to do any of the activities, just direct them, I did do some of the calisthenics with the kids anyway. "If I can do pushups dressed like this, then there's NO reason why you can't do pushups." :P Thankfully, it all turned out ok, but I definitely had my morning turned on its head!
Amidst all this craziness, Scott and I have been trying to find time to get together, in person, and commiserate all our respective woes, for the past two weeks, to no avail.
I have fic snippets bouncing around in my head all the time, but nothing really cohesive, and no time or brain cells to write anything down. All I can do in the evening is read (book or fic) or zone out on the internet.
Nala has pooped in the house THREE TIMES today. Jade tried to eat it, twice. Yes, we are letting her out on a regular basis. She seems to be pooping in her sleep.
I took my phone case off on Tues afternoon to better clean my screen. Two asked to reassemble it, except he tried to put both shells on at the same time, rather than individually, causing the hard shell to break off at the corner. Sigh. Thankfully, I was able to re-order JUST the hard shell, didn't have to spend $$$ for an entire new case. Still. (Small blessing: due to Mother's Day promotion, I got free fast shipping.)
And meanwhile, Will discovered that the very expensive memory he'd bought for our server ended up being the wrong memory, but we've had it several months now and he can't send it back. The only thing to do is buy very expensive correct memory, to replace the eventually-incompatible one.
MiniPlu has had a helluva a week, academically. She has several teachers who, by her report, have essentially stopped teaching. Her math teacher gives out packets that are supposed to be "review" in preparation for the state-mandated algebra exam the kids have to take at the end of this month, but she doesn't actually REVIEW anything in class because that would be spoon-feeding or something. The science teacher mentally clocked out after getting married at Christmas. They get a handful of notes to copy down, without explanation, videos related to the subject but aren't on the test, info on scientists in the target sub-subject (ie biology, astronomy, etc) but also aren't on the test, and then they're given a test. Social studies is better, but there was a major test there, too, this week. The ELA teacher - a long-term sub, as their "proper" teacher went out on maternity leave just before Easter - is apparently completely useless, and also assigned them to create a comic about the end of Jekyll and Hyde (which they've been reading), and gave them a single day to do it. We made a dent in the math packet on Monday, but Tues was given to studying social studies. Wed MiniPlu barely had any time, what with the meeting and altar serving, and we devoted the entire evening to science, as that test was today. (She got an 85%, which she's upset about, although since the teacher wasn't really teaching much, it could have been worse.) Social studies is tomorrow; I studied some more for an hour today, then gave Two assistance with writing for an hour, and then we had to eat and leave for therapy. While I was gone, Will helped MiniPlu study a little more, and she finished her comic, but hadn't touched the math.
Sitting down after 9pm after she's been doing homework for hours, and now we're doing a subject she hates and doesn't grasp easily - not a good situation. She bit my head off for any little thing, and when I couldn't get her to understand that a very messy fraction just had to be multiplied by the denominator in order to cancel the fraction out (as part of an algebraic equation) she just couldn't grasp why you multiplied the WHOLE messy fraction [it was something like (155 - 44y)/14 ] and not just the numerator. And I just couldn't understand why SHE didn't understand, and there was absolutely no other way I could say "Because you're multiplying the entire thing" any differently. I finally gave up, told her to studying the remaining bit of social studies she hadn't yet gotten to, and walked away. Which of course only made her angrier that I gave up and walked out, but, seriously. JUST MULTIPLY THE WHOLE GODDAMN FRACTION. Yes, it looks messy. I'm sorry this problem is a huge, multi-step PITA. Your teacher is horrible. No, you are not a moron for needing help with it. But, for Pete's sake, just MULTIPLY THE WHOLE DAMN FRACTION. Of course, now she's saying she'll get a zero for not having finished it, not even for just having a wrong answer there, but honestly, kid - it's just not going to work at this hour, in your mental state, and I really cannot think of any other way to rephrase "you multiply the whole thing".
So, points to me for being Mom of the Year. :-P
Two has a different set of school frustrations. When MiniPlu was in 6th grade, her Lit/ELA teacher assigned them all a mom-centric writing assignment, which they then decorated and wrapped. The moms were invited to a nice tea; the kids dressed up, provided refreshment and small potted flowers for the moms, and read aloud their literary gifts. It was a lovely occasion.
I can only assume they're doing something similar this year (same teacher on Two's team, although not HIS Lit/ELA teacher because he's in the remedial program) because the team was soliciting suitable Mother's Day wrapping paper for the project, and I know writing was mentioned.
Does Two's class get to participate? Of course not! I mean, I get that writing is Two's weakest skill, and there's probably similar difficulties with the other kids in his class. But this is a big event, and a GIFT. Why the hell couldn't they just be assigned a shorter/simpler poem or story, so they and their families could be part of things? Just. Don't even get me started. I have been so angry over the things Two has been prevented from doing and learning and participating this year, and yes, he struggles with some things (tonight I was helping him re-write some passages from a test he had recently done "meh" on - we're talking maybe 2nd-grade level writing), but I still feel like these kids should have been given the opportunity to do something joyful, you know? Grump.
There are eleventy billion sub jobs available for tomorrow, including what looks like half of our middle school, but I can't do them because I'm going to see Captain America: Civil War at noon with my husband tomorrow. I feel bad for not helping, but only a little because I've been dying to see this movie. So nyah! Date afternoon!
(Geek note: I bought myself a Captain America tshirt a couple of weeks ago, with the shield emblem, to suit my recent Stucky mood. Will, who likes Cap just fine, is still more of an Iron Man guy in terms of his favorite movies, so I bought him an arc reactor shirt. We can go see Civil War dressed as ... civil war. *g*)
As for the rest of the weekend: Annual street-wide neighborhood yard sale is this Sat. We'll be in NJ. I lobbied for staying a little later, but Will says it's supposed to rain (AGAIN - today was the only day all week when it didn't rain, although it was still cloudy and chilly) so we might as well leave on Fri night. I know we're trying to get rid of stuff, not bring more stuff in, but this sale is SO MUCH FUN to browse, and ... it's the last one. And I'm tired of missing out on lasts. Color me disappointed.
And speaking of disappointed, then there's politics, aka "And then there was one." Oh, God, how on earth did we end up here, with The Donald as the lone GOP survivor? And I know not everyone is keen on Hilary, either. I think every man, woman and child in America should wear this shirt for the next six months. >_<
Finished reading Chalice by Robin McKinley and Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi.
I really liked Chalice. I loved the world building here, which took awhile to figure out but seemed neat - the multiple roles in the cabinet that are titled simply by the person's job: Chalice, Weatherauger, etc. I knew, of course, that Chalice and Master would end up together - ridiculously predictable - but I liked the Master, fire and all, so that didn't bother me, really. In general, it was a great story, with a lot of emphasis on letting the reader slowly piece together the initially-unspoken parts, as you go along. The only thing I didn't really like was the ending, which felt entirely too "hand-wave" rushed. That the bees killed Harald was perfectly understandable, but I don't understand at all how, by stinging the Master almost to death, it burned the fire out of him and made him entirely human again? Just ... what? And I would have liked to see more of this story, afterwards, maybe an epilogue.
Still, despite the unsatisfactory ending, this is probably my favorite McKinley book after The Outlaws of Sherwood.
Next, I read a book that came out of another library's discard pile: Crispin. For those of you who don't know, Avi is a fairly prolific children's chapter-book author. (Maybe he's written for adults, too? I don't know.) This particular book, set in 14th century England and following the story of a poor serf boy who is clearly much more than he seems, in terms of his importance, won the Newbury award for best children's literature.
It was, indeed, very good, and gave me a better taste of life back then. Like: I didn't realize that for the poor peasants, doors were a luxury. Doors. As in, keeping out the weather. Also, you get a sense of just how core religion was for them, in their daily lives. But it was that aspect that also made me feel that this book really shouldn't be read by anyone under high school age, unless they went to Catholic school or came from exceptionally religious (Catholic) households and had some grasp already of the role of religion. I felt like all the references to specific prayer times, and all the declarations of saints and swearing by the holy blood of Jesus and all - I think that would be very hard for the average 4-7th-grader to really process and understand the significance of. And it IS important, in terms of really being able to understand the characters.
Aside from that, I was a little surprised that Crispin turned down the opportunity to be a lord, but I was really pleased that what he really wanted was family - in this case, family of his choosing, rather than of origin. He and Bear were clearly well-suited, and I think Crispin wouldn't have known what to do with a lord's life anyway. So, that was a sweet surprise in the story. Overall, I liked this story, too.
Not sure yet what I'm next going to read from my to-read pile, in terms of my personal reading, but I did just start reading Rick Riordan's latest (about Apollo) aloud to Two yesterday. Looking forward to the rest. :) Although I have to mention: I briefly skimmed the handful of early reviews on Amazon before buying it, just to see if it had overall favorable comments. The few people who gave it poor ratings did so because ... apparently there's a gay character in this book, and they were disgusted that Riordan had "normalized" homosexuality. Argh!
And now it's midnight. Story of my life. Tomorrow I get to do it all again. Thank God for the prospect of a movie, even if it does mean losing several potentially productive hours.