Month: October 2011

It’s busy around here. Let’s face it, when is it NOT busy around here? Monday night we picked up our Japanese exchange student, Kodai. He is a nice 15 year old from Osaka, and we’ve got a whole week of stuff planned for while he’s here. But that meant that Monday we had a lot of cleaning to do to get our house guest ready. Ugh. Why are we all such slobs? Anyway…

Tuesday I spent a few quality hours canning applesauce with my mom and dad. They have the system down, and with three people it goes a lot faster. They are so awesome, they even let me take home most of the finished applesauce! So, now I have 20 quarts of yummy applesauce, 5 quarts of apple juice and some lovely apples. I know I could just buy applesauce at the store for not that much money, but have you eaten applesauce in a can from the store? My point exactly. And they have all these beautiful apples that are need to be used up, so it’s a good thing.

Last night we took Kodai and the kids to John’s first basketball game of the season. It just worked out that everyone was able to go, so it was a fun little event. But dang it if I can’t find John’s basketball shirt. I might have –gasp–thrown it away. If that’s the case, I’m in trouble. Afterward we went to one of our favorite places, the Orange Leaf, for frozen yogurt.

Today is Wednesday, and it’s wonderfully quiet here. I made breakfast and got everyone off to where they need to be, and now I have NOTHING planned. Seriously! No meetings, no sub jobs, no pressing activities that just HAVE to be done, it’s just me and the laundry! I’m so excited! I have been so busy with my PTA stuff and this “working” thing that it’s been a while since I’ve had a day to myself. Enjoy it, I will.

I have some organizing to do in my office and some bulbs to plant, some washing and folding, etc, and as soon as the kids come home, it will be go, go, go, again, but for a few minutes, I am going to enjoy the day. Alone!

As I was driving with my carpool peeps to bell choir rehearsal the other night, my friend Marie, said, “Paige, how do you keep so upbeat all the time?” I laughed and said, “I do a lot of yelling at home.” And then I laughed some more and tried to explain. The yelling is not HOW I stay upbeat. I was just trying to explain that I’m NOT upbeat all the time. Not by a long shot. It made her feel better to hear that I do my share of yelling.

And let me assure you, I’m far from upbeat right now.

Yesterday I subbed for a junior high German teacher. The German part was fun, but the subbing part was ok, but still exhausting. I wasn’t here when the kids came home from school, and that was a day when I really should have been home. As I drove up, I knew something was wrong. There were a lot of white feathers all over in the front yard, and even out into the street. Not a good sign. I pulled into the garage and was met by texts from Natalie on my phone as well as a couple of crying kids.

Something had attacked the chickens. Two were found dead close to their run, one was missing, and one had been found in a window well. Somehow all of them had gotten out of the pen and something had attacked them. But who would let them out? And who lets their dog run wild into other people’s yards and lets it attack innocent chickens? Had one of the kids left the door open in the morning? They assure me that they didn’t. Did some neighbor kid come over in the morning and open the door? Did some malicious person purposely let them out? They can’t open the door themselves. I had to deal with the sad and crying kids, and take care of the dead chickens. “Why did the dog attack OUR chickens?” John said, “Why don’t they attack those chickens that we saw on the side of the road?” It’s difficult to comfort a sad child who doesn’t understand why when you do not understand the why yourself. No time for my own sadness. We disposed of the bodies and went looking for the other chicken. We didn’t see brown feathers so we had hope that she had gotten away. Maybe she would come back when it got dark. Sadly, I soon found her body, too. In the neighbor’s yard. I hurried and cleaned that up before their kids came out and witnessed the carnage, as well.

As the older kids came home, they already had heard the news, thanks to the texting skills of their sister. Megan was extremely upset and crying, and I had to start a new round of comforting my children.

Was this chicken thing a mistake? Should we not have named them, treated them like loved pets? Should we not be so concerned with their comfort and just consider them ‘farm animals’ and not pets?

I had one chicken left. One sad and lonely chicken who had witnessed the attack of her friends, and she had barely managed to escape. And now she’s alone. I called my friend who I consider an expert on chickens, and asked if I could borrow one of her older chickens. She had recently told me that she needed to get new younger chickens because hers were getting older, not laying, and she was considering giving them to another neighbor. If she was going to get rid of them anyway, would she mind lending one to me so that my poor little Gabby wouldn’t have to be alone. She readily agreed. John and his friend, Tucker, picked a chicken out from their chickens, and brought it over.

What a friend to give up one of her chickens for me! I asked Tucker what the chicken’s name was, and he said she didn’t have a name. John named her Thunder. She looks pretty mangy right now. I guess she’s molting, but my friend assures me that this is one of her nicest chickens. So far the two chickens are NOT acting like friends, and I am still worried about both of them.

Soon it was dinner time and I had nothing made. Kids had to go to soccer and volleyball and I had to go to an orientation meeting about our upcoming Japanese student. Throw something in the oven and get going.

By the time I got home from the meeting, I was spent. It had been a very long day. A day of sadness, and I hadn’t yet had the chance to cry. Instead of crying, I decided I needed to laugh, so I pulled Ryan into the family room to eat a Magnum bar that I had in the freezer for a time such as this, and we watched Modern Family.

Yum. And the laugh was good, too.

Exhausted, I hauled myself up to bed, hoping I could get a good night’s sleep this time. I hadn’t slept well the night before. I was a little worried about waking up in time to get to the sub job, and I got home late from bell choir rehearsal. I slept for an hour or two, then woke up. Worry, anxious about the chickens, and sad. Not the restful night I had needed.

While I was a little relieved to see both chickens out there, it still made me sad to think about them. And I can’t stop thinking about their dead little chicken bodies and remembering scooping them up to dispose of them. But life must go on, and I had to get myself ready and the kids ready for the day. Kindergarten this time, and thankfully, only half day. I can do anything for half a day, right?

It still doesn’t make any sense.

One of my neighbors, a dog owner, said she saw the feathers when she walked by with her dog at about noon, and wondered if we had caught the culprit on our porch cam. She said she hopes it wasn’t her dog, and to please tell her if it was. Unfortunately, our porch cam doesn’t isn’t hooked up to record everything that happens when we aren’t there right now, and it’s only in the front of the house. There is no chicken cam, although maybe we need one. The only clue would be if her dog had a mouthful of feathers. And would I really want to know? If I knew who’s dog it was, would I say something to the owner? What can they do to make it right? Buy me new chickens? Maybe. Keep their dog in their own yard? Maybe. Maybe not. But would it cause bad feelings between me and my neighbors? I don’t want to hate all the neighborhood dogs. And I don’t want to hate my neighbors because they have dogs that they don’t keep contained in their own yards. But right now, to be honest, I kind of do.

I know they are just chickens. It’s not like a member of my family was injured or something. I’m trying to convince myself that I am overreacting and need to not let it make me so sad. I’m working on it. I am also wondering if I can handle being a chicken owner. This will probably happen again sometime. There will always be dogs. Sigh.

So to Henrietta, Pirate and Carmel, we will miss you. You were good little chickens. We loved you. The kids know that you are happy in chicken heaven.

I’ve been substituting for about a month now. I’ve worked something like 5 days and made about $250. Seriously. If you need money to escape somewhere tropical, this isn’t the job for you. I’m not sure if it’s even the job for me. But I’ve noticed a few things in my short working career.

-Sometimes when you are subbing at a new school you feel VERY alone. There I am, in my little classroom full of kids, with NO OTHER ADULTS AROUND. If they overtook me and tied me up with jump ropes and stoned me to death with picture books, they could probably get away with it because NO ONE would hear me screaming. Or if they did, they may not think much of it. Seriously. I check in at the office in the morning and then…there you go. The other teachers don’t say hi, at recess duty, none of the real teachers talked to me, and at lunch I just ate in the classroom because I didn’t want to wander the halls and look for the faculty room. If I needed help, I could dial the office, but good luck getting to the phone in time if those little monsters decided to attack.

–I need my own whistle.

–Junior high teachers get a prep period every other day. If you happen to be subbing on prep day, then you get a nice break, so make sure you bring a book, cause it’s awful boring sitting in someone else’s classroom with nothing to do. And on days like yesterday, when the air is still on and the heat is not, it’s VERY COLD.

–Bring a sweater (see above). It’s COLD in some schools. I feel sorry for those scrawny 13 year olds pulling their arms in to their t-shirts because they are so cold.

–At the Jr. High level, some schools give you a free school lunch when you sub. One school gave me a candy bar when I checked in. Small perks, yes, (especially considering they are paying me barely minimum wage to babysit their little monkeys) but still nice.

–Kids love a good brain teaser. Thankfully, there are a few nice ones in my substitute book that Kelly services gave me. How about this:

al me lm
em la ae

(3 square meals)

O or: be sick ed

(sick in bed)

r this one r/e/a/d/i/n/g

(reading between the lines)

If I write a couple of those on the board and have them there all class period, they wonder about it, and then we can discuss it and give the answers at the end of class. A few good jokes don’t hurt, either.

–While in some ways subbing is easier than being a regular teacher (you don’t have to deal with parents and you don’t have to make the lesson plans), being a sub for the day is EXHAUSTING! You don’t have the threat cred that the regular teacher has, and kids have that mentality that “it’s just a sub, so I can act up”. It takes a LOT of energy to stay on top of them, and I come home dragging. I couldn’t do this full time. I can barely do one or two days a week. Although maybe it gets easier. We’ll see.

–This week, as I was attending parent teacher conferences and helping at the book fair, I put a note in the teachers boxes telling them that I was available for subbing. Today I got a call. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

–I realize the difference between the honors classes and the regular classes. I’m going to MAKE my kids take honors classes from now on, even if they are not honors students and they don’t want to. There is just such a HUGE difference in the amount of teaching that can be done, and the caliber of kids. Wow.

–I subbed for my 7th grader’s math class, and she did NOT want me to acknowledge her. I wrote my name on the board, but none of them realized that I was the same Erickson as her. She doesn’t really know many people in that class. I did NOT say she was my daughter, but I did walk by and casually give her notes that said, “How’s your day going?” “Having fun?” and “Love you, Mom.” It was fun.

–Since I don’t have people calling to request me, I have to keep checking the Kelly website (since all subs go through Kelly now). If you see a job available, you have about 10 seconds to decide if you want to take that job, because if you don’t jump at it, someone else will. It’s a lot of pressure when you see a job appear. Do I want to work today? Can I be ready to work in 25 minutes? Do I want to go to that school? Do I want to do jr High? And then if you click accept, it’s kind of the same feeling as winning a contest. I got a JOB!!

This week we were brave and had family photos taken. Those of you with families know what a HUGE pain it is to have family pictures taken, especially for the mother, who has to find a photographer and set an appointment, decide on a color scheme and find clothes for everyone that sort of match, then worry about hair and faces and accessories. Honestly, I worry more about how I look than anyone else. I’m sure they will all look fine, but I spend a lot of time yesterday picking out clothes that didn’t make me feel or look extra fat, that I wouldn’t worry or feel self conscious in, and then did my hair extra cute and even wore eye shadow and jewelry. Sadly, I got myself all cute looking before I had to go and do my “work” at the school. I had planned on delivering large amounts of books to the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders (long story, I’ll share it with you soon). That meant hauling boxes of books from the storage room to each classroom, getting the boxes open, saying my little shpeal to each class and handing them out. I did four classes and was going to do the next when the teacher said it was a bad time. I realized I was getting sweaty (NO! Not SWEAT!) and decided it was a good time to stop this nonsense and come back again the next day and maybe get one of my PTA peeps to help me distribute these books so that it:

a)wouldn’t take all day
b)it wouldn’t matter so much if I got sweaty
c)it’s always more fun with a friend.

I walked out of the school and it was raining. Not pouring rain or anything, but a nice sprinkling to make sure that my hair went even flatter.

I went home and realized the chickens were hungry and would like to be let out of their pen. I took my Kindle outside to read, and not one minute after I let them out and sat down to read, it started to rain again. Ugh. Getting those chickens back in their pen is not always easy, so by the time they were in, the hair was super flat.
Sigh
I put my velcro rollers in again, but didn’t know if I had any hope of getting the hair back to the state it had been in the morning. I did some more fiddling with my hair until it looked pretty good. By then the kids were coming home, so I tried to get THEIR hair to look good.

Then there’s the clothing choices. I picked out everyone’s clothes or told them what they could wear. When we were all dressed, Ryan breezed in at the last second and I told him what shirt to put on.

The photo shoot itself was far less painful than getting ready. Our photographer was fun and relaxed, and got a variety of shots. Want a sneak peak?

Our photographer, Julie, put some up on her website today. We only met with her 3 days ago, so I think that is AMAZINGLY fast! I am so excited to have a good family picture of all of us!

This is one of my favorites.

Thanks, Julie!

After our photos, we went to dinner at Winger’s to celebrate the birthday of our 13 year old. A good time was had by all.