My Saturday

How I spent my Saturday:

6 am: Woke up, rolled over, went back to sleep.

7:30 am: Woken up by Austen shaking his collar and snorting like a pig.

7:31 am: Let Austen climb up into bed with me.

8:45 am: Finally woke up to Austen standing over me and staring.

9:00 am: Took Austen out to do his business.

9:30 am: Went grocery shopping.

10:45 am: Ate breakfast.

11:00 am-12:30 pm:Sat on the couch NOT cleaning my house.

12:30-12:35 pm: Had a staring contest with Austen.

12:45-2:30 pm: Took a nap.

2:30-3:30 pm: Avoided cleaning my house again.

3:30-3:35 pm: Had a staring contest with Austen

3:40-4:55 pm: Replaced the sheets on my bed and washed my old ones, cleaned my bathroom and organized my make-up. Took out the trash, folded laundry

4:55-500 pm: Another staring contest with Austen. In the middle, realized that I hadn't fed him breakfast.

5:01 pm: Fed Austen extra food. In bad dog mommy circles we call this a "guilt helping"

5:00-7:00 pm: Watched a couple of episodes of Toddlers in Tiaras. I know. It's horrible, but I can't help it. It's like a train wreck, and it has the added bonus of making me feel better about myself. Sure, I forget to feed my dog, but I don't put a wig and fluffy dress on him, slap fake teeth in his mouth and then make him parade around in front of a bunch of crazy pageant people, now do I?

7:15-7:30 pm: Wrote this post.


See why I haven't updated lately?

Aaaaand now for a little glimpse into my life...

Leave out the bit about public transport and add "the condo upstairs" and you have a frighteningly accurate view into my current living situation.




I'm not made for condo living.

This is what happens when you teach at a technology school...

Most days my students write for the first 5-7 minutes of class. Most of the time I give them a topic related to what we'll be reading/writing/discussing during the rest of class. A couple of times a month, though I give them a freewrite day when they can write anything they want. Most of them write about things that happened in their last class, or over the weekend, or use it as a forum to vent frustrations.

Most do that. Then I have my special ones that write the same word over and over again or try to slip in innapropriate commentary to see if I'm reading (I'm not, but my student aides are...)

But, this week, I found a gem of a freewrite left in my classroom. I'm going to try to upload a scan later, but here's the transcript(spelling and puncutation errors original):

"Freewrite!
Hey it's a freewrite. Random time. Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger MUSHROOM MUSHROOM Hey look guys its Jordan! Du na nan na nan na nana Da nan nan na nana na Squirrel Squad! The Tank. It's time to Du Du Du Du-Du-Du-Du-Duel! Pikachu! I choose You! Gonna rap! Sean Schmuckers a pretty good guy he kills enemys and isn't afraid of nobody. It's A-Me! Mario! Falconnnnnnnnnnnn PUNCH!"

It's a far cry from the crudely drawn body parts and embarrassingly explicit fare I used to pick up when I taught at a normal, non geeky high school. Thank goodness. I'll take gamer geek ramblings any day.

It has no name written on it, but I've narrowed down the author to either the tall, twitchy-eyed boy from my eighth period class who plays Pokemon at lunch and wears his hoodie like a cape; or the short, twitchy-eyed boy who I suspect has Asperger's syndrome, has one of those sad little sophomore boy mustaches and picks his nose voraciously during my class.

But I could be wrong.

A Post Only a Mother Could Love?

There's something you should know: as much as I love him, I have to admit that Austen's not a brainiac. He has mostly mastered sit, and he definitely knows his name, but other than that. . . notsomuch. I like to think that he's not unable to learn, just unwilling, but we are talking about a dog that attempted to poop while lifting his leg the other day.

It didn't work as well as he thought it would.

I've attempted to work with what he does naturally and try to attach a command to it. It's how I taught Scout to give me a high five and it was the most incredibly adorable thing ever (if I do say so myself). The problem is, when I attempt to give Austen any command he puts his ears back as if I'm screaming at him and climbs into my lap so that he can't do whatever it is I'm asking of him.

Every day when I come home from work Austen is so excited that he goes through an elaborate set of welcome home noises that range from "grumpy old man" to "purring kitten" with a little "Copper from the Fox and the Hound hound dog howl" thrown in for good measure. It is seriously so cute it makes me weak, but until today whenever I've turned on the camera he's put his ears back and crawled into my lap (maybe I should just call THAT his trick)

So, I've finally (kinda) succeeded in getting Austen to make some of his cute growly noises on camera. Sadly, in order to do so I've also recorded my impressions of his cute growly noises....which aren't so much cute as pathetic. So here you go:

ENJOY(or at least pretend like you did for that movie of your friend's one year old eating spaghetti)!

Tuesday Musings....

1. KSL.com classifieds have 94 listings for beanbag chairs for sale. There's an entire category in furniture for beanbags alone. I don't know how I feel about that.

2. I know it's bad for the envirnonment, but Diet Coke tastes soooooo much better from a styrofoam cup. Add in crunchy Sonic ice and it's seriously over the top.

3. Bob's peppermint candy canes are the best peppermints ever. Hands down.

4. Butternut squash is delicious.

5. Las Vegas after a good long rain storm is clean and bright. I didn't know that was possible.

6. I'm pretty stoic about the rumors swirling that Brangelina are breaking up.

7. I'm taking great delight in designing groupings of pictures/items to hang on my wall.

8. I'm going on an Alaskan cruise this summer with my sister and parents. Even though it's months away, I'm getting really excited about it.

9. The computers in my classroom are out to get me.

10. I really need to go to the dentist. But I keep putting it off.

11. I find Zachary Levi from Chuck absolutely endearing.

(Oh look! My musings go to eleven.)

A little help for my friend...

My wonderful friend Jillian over at Sunny Little Raincloud is attempting something truly wonderful. It would be awesome if you could head on over to her website and consider contributing to a truly wonderful cause.

Thanks

To add, or not to add, that is the question.

As my students take their semester 1 finals I check my email. Advertisement, advertisement, email from Mom, Facebook friend request.

From Him.

A boy I loved at 18.

A boy who hurt me.

A boy I'd washed my hands of, but here he is, begging me to add him as a friend.

"Let's catch up!" he says. Catch up on what? How I've managed to go on living without you telling me how to do every little thing? On the "good times"?

"Please, please, please add me!" he begs. Over 15 years have passed and yet, I still feel the tug to capitulate. I am such a pleaser, and he seems to remember that. How can it be that I still care what this person thinks of me? Never mind the fact that he was emotionally abusive; I feel the need to make him happy once again.

and the kicker:

"I finally found you!" Here's the master stroke. The winning line. He's been searching for me, you see. I have been on his mind. Suddenly I'm 18 again and here's this boy who NEEDS me.

What can it hurt? It doesn't mean anything. I mean, look at all of the other people I've added. I comfort myself that he's unhappy and looking for old friends, that I'm in a much better place than him.

I add him as a friend. My stomach roils.

I look at his profile. Married. Three kids.

It hurts just to see his face.

Why did I do this? Does it mean I'm weak that he can hurt me just by existing? Would it be a sign of weakness to remove him now that I've added him?

Suddenly, I'm back in Melissa's truck parked next to him at a red light pretending to laugh so that I don't cry.

What do I do if he sends me a message? What if he wants to apologize? What does he want from me?

I don't care if it means I'm weak. I remove him from my list of "friends". As meaningless as that word has become I can't have him there.

My stomach settles.

Back to the finals.