Well you know...

I have brain block right now. The blog started because I was going to write at least weekly sharing my thoughts and musings about life. Looks like there is nothing in there or here right now. Kind of experiencing a creative funk..

What’s happening? Nothing. School is over. My students left the last week of May (and I miss them); I had a super busy week because I planned a prom and worked a graduation. My school is huge so event numbers for the prom was about 1000 and graduation there is thousands in attendance (900 on the field). Once things simmered down I guess I missed the drama. Run at 100 mph for a few weeks and things seem dry cruising at 55 again.

Summer time, summer time.

Why do I detest summer?

1. No new programming. All my shows have ended for the season.
2. No basketball! Celtics did not make it to the finals and I hate the Lakers.
3. Baseball and reality tv – honestly
4. Too much time, but not enough – will have chunks of time open in my schedule but kids, work, and fake exercise obligations will fill that
5. Mo money, mo money, mo money! Got to love that lump sum teacher check. Do not love the extra expenses summer brings.

I will stop the list there for the moment. Sorry to rant, but I am trying to write my way out of a funk. My tweets should get interesting now since I will have time to muse. Deuces!

Sunday Musings

So it's Sunday and on Sundays the fam and I usually go to church. When I was a kid, we went regularly. When I became an adult with a family of my own going to church seemed like something I did not have to do until I got older. It was my husband who said we should start going, but I was resistant to just being in any old church. A friend from college stopped by to say hello, mentioned that she and her husband started a church. We went that Sunday in a room at the Holiday Inn in Brockton and we have been there every since. That was eight years ago.

Going to church is something to do, but having faith is what I do. People ask me how I do what I do all the time and I say that I don't know. I do know, my faith in the Lord and what He says about who I am and how I can live a peaceful life is what makes me able to do what I do. I guess I never say that because I don't think people will understand. That's a little silly when you think about it. Strength has to come from a source and I should never be afraid to name God as mine. I am thankful for all that I have and the things in my life that have yet to come to pass.

As far as your eyes can see...it's Amazing

Why blog about your weight? I just am wondering why would someone blog about the ups and downs of food. Food is nourishment and occasionally, something to enjoy. I am blogging about being in my thirties so I guess the question can be turned back in on me, but what I am doing makes sense. So let me tell you what’s been going on since I have not been keeping up with my blogging.

I just finished a class at Harvard. I thought it was going to be difficult and it was because I like school and I wanted to do well. I haven't received the grade back, but I am thinking I may be scoring in the B range. When you go back to school, by choice you really only want to see A’s - no B's. Who I am I kidding? I take on way too much. In order to earn an A I need to devote more time to studying much more than I do now. Of course, I will keep trying to manage my life and put the right things first.

Speaking of first - my first born is a knot head who is doing a mediocre job in school and getting pretty sassy at home. He has stopped calling me "mommy" and started calling me "mom". I wrote a little tweet about it last week. What's up with that? I am not ready to be "mom". “Mom” means that I may soon have to accept that he may have a girlfriend. “Mom” means that he is officially in puberty with hair growing under his armpits and all other nasty type man-like things. Yuck! “Mom” means, I can't even write it, we will have to revisit "the talk" and I have to accept changes I am not willing to accept. For pete sake, just last week, I think on a Monday, I was "mommy". Uggh! What's next?

So at work I am planning a prom for around 1,000 people. A wedding with 300 is a big wedding and I am in charge of a prom where we are going to cram over 950 teenagers into an event facility with free food, drink, sugary deserts, dark lighting and music. Hello? I am completely off my rocker. The students will love it and it will be the best thing ever, but 1000 people, really? I have been having little mini nightmares thinking about it and I have three weeks to go - I mean two weeks from tomorrow. But I do have a dress, I slimming black dress that hits just above the knees that focuses on my chickeny legs (my legs being the only thing that resembles a chicken) and not my “had my last kid four years ago” tummy.

I have been running or brisk jogging to be more honest. It's killing me. Well, it's not literally killing me, but I am feeling it. Like that freshman 15 and the baby 30 is taking its toll. Nevertheless, I'm going to stick in there - what with the road race I promised my brother I would do.

School is winding down so I should be able to write more regularly. Summer time, summer time!

Gotta get out of this place

When I was a kid, I had to get out at least once a day. I think my mom first pointed it out to me. We were still living on Adams Avenue in Barrington and I guess I was acting out of sorts. She said, "It's because you have not been out today."

The weird thing was that it had to be to a store or the library - some place with other people other than my family. Outdoors was not enough. If I do not go out, event today, I am super cagey and cranky.

I am so old I forget my little quirks. Early today I was not productive because I was bored, but it was because I had not been out yet - that was the problem. Now I am back in the house, listening to my IPOD to blur the noise from the children. I like it a little quiet so I can hear my thoughts. The stove is on, the TV is blaring and Marcel is growling apparently playing make-believe with Clayton. Now cue the incessant giggling that will drive a sane woman insane.

Just checking in before I completely lose my marbles, I am committed and all I will have to show for my semi-sane days is this blog. Remember to come visit me.

I had a bad dream.. a cupcake came to life - Clayton, 6

I have been working on high stake testing all this week and I have been out of my classroom for three days. Working near the front office of a school, you see different types of students filter through and hear a ton of stories. We have students getting into Harvard and Princeton at the same time we have kids in gangs. We students winning championship games, prizes in music and drama at the same time you have kids winning jail time for drag racing, theft, and other type activity. The students come with baggage – most if out of their control. I spend a lot of time in the classroom fighting legacy. As their teacher, I want the best for my students, but I feel like I am up against impossible odds.

My son is thirteen and I do not want to send him to the public school where I teach. What does that say about me as a professional if I send him to private school? What does that say about me as a mom if I send him to public school knowing the risks? I am terrified for Ava. The kids he hangs out with on the basketball court can be into anything off it. Avalon and I have to watch his back in the social world we witness and in the world he lives on the internet and through his cell phone.

Clayton woke me up around 4:30 am talking about a bad dream. Just know at dinner he told me he cannot go to bed because he does not want the bad dream about the cupcake that came to life to return. I laughed and told him to eat it. I would gladly trade adult worries for nightmares about walking cupcakes.

Thinking back a moment

We were walking into church on Sunday (March 23) and Marcel had something on his face so I licked my finger and started swiping at it, vigorously. Disgusting, I thought. I told him, “your face is messy.” I wondered who his mother was. How did Marcel walk out of the house in this condition? Then I had another thought: motherhood is messy. I continue to walk into the church and memories of diapers, dirty laundry, bubble baths, talcum powder and spit-up, the messiness of my life, threatened to overtake me. During those moments when I was out of bed at 2 in the morning sitting on the bathroom floor with a hysterical child did I think this was the joy of motherhood? Where are the crayola pictures on the fridge, breakfast in bed, pillow fights, family harmony – you know, what you see on TV? But TV is not real life, Nicole – didn’t my mom tell me that when I was a girl?

Motherhood is not all peaches and cream and sometimes I don’t like it very much. People don’t know how I do it and I don’t know how I do it. What I do know is that I continue trying to find ways to grow as a person. I accept (after a meltdown) that I am not a perfect mom, but I can learn to be a perfect mom of the kids I have been given. I am messy, that the funny thing talking about the messiness of motherhood. Women are messy and complicated and hope for order, but we don’t believe we deserve it sometimes.

Just because I'm losing, doesn't mean I'm lost...

I had a melt down yesterday. I spent half the night and part of the morning trying to figure out the source of my anxiety. I have a lot going on, but that is not different from any other day. I do not know how to ask for help - that’s a challenge. Plus, I like everything to be perfect. Then it hit me. Some time ago, when Avalon and Kincaid were younger I worked a low paying job that required long hours and lots of travel. I mean, I was not a lawyer or anything, just a recruiter; a recruiter that worked at a small-specialized diversity recruiting company. I thought I was hot stuff you know; I had an office and a ton of responsibility. With all that drama, I completely ignored my home life. I would leave at 7 am and not get home until 10 or later - particularly if an event was coming up.

Work drudged along while I forgot I even had a home life. What happened to the kids or my husband - nothing they did whatever. I don’t know because I never asked. What I do know is that once you make a commitment you cannot all of a sudden decide to ignore your obligations. Something about this week reminded me of that time - they subtle disapproving looks when I came home yet; the feeling that no one knows just how much I am under pressure on the job. Well, I have that same pressure right now - some of it real, much of it imagined. I have a huge project at work (unrelated to teaching and all about testing) but I don’t have to handle things the same way I did back then.

So what happened to the dream job. I left it and work for a dot com that gave me a lay off notice four months into the job. God has a funny way of slowing you down when you don’t have enough sense to do it yourself. …I’m listening.