Old School Blogging

Mail4Rosy posted this before me. It's a post about stepping back in time.

Me when I was 3

1. How did your husband pop the big question?

We met in college. Travis followed me around like a puppy. I was still hung up on my past punk of a boyfriend. You know that phrase, "You don't know what you are missing until it is gone."? Well he left school at the end of our sophomore year. I was sad about that. I dated guys, but wasn't happy with them. Later I went to grad school. It was then I realized that I wanted to be with Travis. I told him how I felt.

He met me at the airport. I had a Cracker Jack Box with a fake plastic ring with a note attached that said, "Will you marry me?"

He got the ring, smiled, but didn't really say anything.

That same evening he proposed. He made a real ring for me. Of course I said, "Yes!'

2.What are the three most surprising things about married life?

a) Our religious differences. I won't get too much into this, but we do have different thoughts on religion. We both have good values, so that has bridged the gap.

b) We both expect one another to drop things that we are doing to get things done. That annoys both of us. Somehow we still both do it.

c) We both have taken on our own responsibilities. I make sure the laundry is done, do the dishes, shop for the clothes, go through the clothes each season, we both cook except he does more than I do because he gets home earlier, he mows the yard and fixes things when they need fixing. Right now he helps Mica with his homework before school because he leaves later than I do. I'm sure the homework thing with change next year when Isaak's in elementary school.

d) We happily have the same taste in decor, cars, the boy's clothes and even with food.

e) Travis is much more serious than I am. That balances us out. He's more silly now. I know when to not mess with him. He's a night person, I'm a morning person. I used to be the opposite, but having kids changed that. I get up with the kids on the weekends. 

Travis and I 11 years ago

3. How did you find out you were pregnant for the first time?

We were trying, my period was late, and my breasts were sore. Sorry if that's too much information. I took a test, and the line was so faint! I  didn't know if I was really pregnant, or not. Some part of me knew I was though.

Mica and I almost 8 years ago

4. How did you choose your baby's first name?

I heard the name Micah when I was in high school. My good friend had a cousin named that. Then we had a friend in college named Micah. I always liked names that are easy to say, but slightly different. Travis thought to spell it Mica because it's a shiny silicate mineral with a layered structure, found as minute scales in granite and other rocks, or as crystals. Travis loves rocks, arrowheads, so on and so forth. I didn't expect Travis to be as picky about the middle name as he was the first name. I love the boy's middle names as much as their first names.

5. Describe where you see yourself 10 years from now.

I hope working on artwork more. It's been hard because for the last 8 years we've had one not in school full time, Travis and I never have the same weekend, and maybe those sound like excuses, but in my mind they are valid. One can not do everything. Sometimes after 8-5, which ends up being 7-6 I'm beat.

6. Describe how you find bliss either with words or images. 

The quarkiness of my kids and how many people I'm around are so creative. Even the people in my family that do not consider themselves to be artists are creative. My sister Terra makes things all the time. My Mother-in-law makes jewelery out of rolled up paper, my Father-in-law builds stuff with wood, my Mom sewed doll clothes for us back in the day, my Dad and Travis are always making things. 

Box Seats they made themselves

Bow and Arrow. 

If you don't have a feather, color, cut and tape one, or two to your head, or just made one out of a hanger and Tinker Toys.

 Even their expressions can be silly!

 Muscles, or a backpack? Why not both?

Sing, Sing a Song Saturday

I started doing what I call Sing, Sing a Song Saturday.  I'm going to post one song on Saturdays that the boys or I like. 

The song may be part of a movie, a kid's video or just a song we like. I'll try and include why we like it and/or the history of the song/singer.

This week I'm covering someone I first heard two years ago. Maybe she's very well known by others. She has a lot of likes on her YouTube videos. It's Mindy Gledhill.

She's been featured on the blog NieNie Dialogues. In fact two of her daughter are in the video. Stephanie who writes for NieNie Dialogues was in a plane crash was lucky to survive. She had burns all over her body. I read her blog often. She actually shut off comments because people kept calling her names and saying horrible things. :(

Mindy Gledhill sang some songs with the band I covered last week.

Mindy Gledhill is an indie folk singer. She is also known for her guest vocal work for DJ Kaskade.

Listening to her music makes me think of my sisters.

Whole Wide World

Hourglass

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Bubbles and Sleep

Isaak loves our bubble mat. I get it out many once every three months. This is the only time I add bubbles to his bath.

A Bath He Had This Last Weekend

He gets all giddy like when it's bubble time. My kids have rarely went in stages of hating bath time. They even love water going over their heads.

Last night was a little different.

Isaak hasn't pulled a temper tantrum in a long time. He's been whiny, but hasn't had a full blown temper tantrum. Last night he did.

He wanted to go swimming at the Y. I told him, "Ok go get undressed and get your swimming suit on." Part of getting undressed is that he needs to put his underwear and socks in the hamper, put his jeans and shoes away. I always take care of his shirt. He wouldn't put things away. I warned him about how if he didn't take care of his things, we wouldn't go to the Y. He still wouldn't do it. I took away the Y. He cried, threw a craft popsicle stick at me, and screamed, "I want to go live with Grandma and Grandpa! I want to go to the Y. You are mean! I want to watch a movie." Then kept repeating this stuff like a broken record.

I started up a bath because he needed one. I was hoping it would divert his thinking. I didn't add the bubbles though. That's only for good, happy boys. Still he likes baths! NOPE! He kept right on screaming. Only this time he was saying, "The water is too cold!" It wasn't. I kept checking.

I brushed his teeth, which the water was too cold for that as well. Then I got his pjs on, put him to bed, said, "I love you.", and poof in 5 minutes it was quiet. He slept from 6:15 PM to 6:30 AM.

Sometimes bubbles are the best medicine. When bubbles are out of the question, sleep is the BEST medicine.

College Life

Somehow this week is going way easier than I thought. Our plates are full of things to do. Somehow it's getting done. Then little surprises pop in. Some shake things up, some don't.

Work has been drama city. I had one student drop out early this week. She had a lot going on in her personal life; some of which I knew about, some of which I don't. Here it is close to the end, and she just dropped out. Her mom and her were fighting in the classroom. It wasn't pretty. When the mom left, I hugged the student and said, "When or if you are ready to talk, we can talk." Later she came up and talked to me. I didn't side with her or the mom. I just said, "Listen sometimes moms and daughters need time-outs from one another. She might be mad for awhile. She has a right to be upset. Just like you are upset with yourself, she's having a hard time swallowing things. She'll forgive you. You will move on. Life gets in the way sometimes." She seemed to understand what I was saying. Then she thanked me.

The student that I thought/think he has Aspergers has been great this second part of the semester. He hasn't had any real emotional outbursts. I happened to snap at him this week though. He listens, but not to the things I want him to really take in. I kind of blame him for this. I only blame him because I know he doesn't read his handouts, or take notes. Inside I think he has problems. At the same time I know he needs to learn how to function outside of his first year of college. The teachers in 2nd year don't go over things as much as I do, they don't tolerate excuses what so ever, and school only gets harder with web, 3D animation and video thrown at them. When he walked up to me this week and had his document set up all wrong, I gave him a piece of my mind. I didn't yell at him, curse at him, I was just to the point about how I covered this twice and it's in their handout. I expressed how I expected more. Somehow in the depths of conversation another student slipped that this man boy is going to be a father. I wanted to say, "What? You are not ready for kids!", but I kept my mouth sealed. Sometimes with students it's like having kids of your own; you want to know everything, but you don't. For some odd reason we have a lot of pregnant folks in this school right now.

We have an older student in one of my classes. Most of the students come straight from high school. He's always been a little different. He's in his early 50s. He was going to drop out of school recently. Instead he decided to distance himself from his whole class by sitting somewhere entirely different. It has something to do with one girl in the class. The thing is, is I've been there all year; I've never seen her bother him at all. In fact she's very nice. Everyone is really quiet in that classroom. It's all very odd. As an outsider I see an odd obsession going on there.

Just when I thought things couldn't get more odd, things got better.

I had portfolio reviews a few weeks ago. Many didn't do as well as I would have liked. Their pieces weren't bad. It was just the layout of their images on the page, and the order of their images. I spent a day writing and writing changes. Then I copied them, so I'd have a record. The only real power I have over them is with a grade. I graded their portfolios. Their resumes were horrible. Someone is supposed to go over those before they get to me. I'm sure they did, but didn't make them change things. Programs were spelled wrong. I get it programs are spelled odd (Power Point PowerPoint, Quark X Press QuarkXPress and Indesign InDesign), but if I'm seeing these things, people that would hire them would see these things as well. They had 2 weeks to make them better. If they didn't do anything, then their grade dropped even more. If they fixed up things dramatically their grades got better. Guess what? They all fixed them! :)

I had a student create this on Facebook, and tagged me:

BTW I know it's not a policy at many school to friend your student on Facebook. I don't ask anyone to be friends. I only except if they ask me. It's a private, college school. I'm very careful about what I say on there. Really I only talk about my kids, or he news. Then I don't get into trouble. I don't hang out with them outside of school.

I know it's silly, but my student making this made my day. It made all the odd things go away. The girl that made it is a great student. Just like anything, there is way more good than bad with things. I have a lot of wonderful experiences in my job!

WW: The Dog Next Door {Linky}

Isaak loves the dog next door.

 

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Busy, Busy, Busy

Just a heads up, this week will be swamped. I'll try to blog some.

Just to give you an idea:

Monday

The Honda Pilot went in the shop for a recall. The emergency break has to be fixed. It was supposed to go in on Saturday, but they thought it would need a full day of service. Daddy called and got it in on Monday. We took it in, and they had no record of him calling it in. They made it sound like it was his fault. I for see a bad evaluation coming to them. Controversy in the making. I refuse to give a good evaluation to people that messed up; then want to blame us for the mess up. I wish a different Honda dealership was near us. We don't have time to run all over for this.

Daddy has to pick up some artwork at a gallery between 4:30 and 5. He may get me later than 5.

Swimming lessons are at 6:15 and 6:45.

We probably have to go pick up the Pilot after that.

Tuesday

Mica has a Music and Arts Festival at school. We missed the last event for his school the previous time because we went to the Lion King. We better go to this one. :)

Wednesday

Is Jujutsu. Mica was supposed to test for a new stripe on his belt two weeks ago. He hasn't been trying very hard, so Daddy said, "No." to that. Mica was mad. I feel like Daddy did the right thing. Mica has to learn to try. We kept reminding him that we are paying for him to go. We are not going to pay for him to test if he's not trying his hardest. He doesn't want to quit.

Isaak has a birthday party at BouceU. He'll love it.

Thursday

I'll be at work most of the evening because I have Portfolio Review Night. It's a night were many pros come in and students show them their portfolios.

Friday

Mica doesn't have school. Grandma and Grandpa will have an extra body.

Daddy has to work at the gallery where his artwork is at. I'll have the boys to myself.

Saturday

Mica has a birthday party to go to somewhere. I don't even remember where now.

How's your week looking? Are you busy to? This is usually a busy time for me because it's close to finals time. It's especially crazy because I have a student that is pregnant and needs her review sheet one week early and her exams one week early. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but it will get done.

Sing, Sing a Song Saturday

I started doing what I call Sing, Sing a Song Saturday.  I'm going to post one song on Saturdays that the boys or I like. 

The song may be part of a movie, a kid's video or just a song we like. I'll try and include why we like it and/or the history of the song/singer.

This week I'm covering someone I found by accident. A happy accident. I was covering newly designed things and in my Portfolio class and a designers site had a band on it as well.

I was showing a Scrabble Board Andrew designed. It is one of my favorite games; that I suck at. I think I like it because it's challenging. Not because I'm a good player.

Source

The band Andrew is in is called Parlor Hawk. Here he talks about his band:

Meet Andrew Dyer from Parlor Hawk on Vimeo.

Here is one of Parlor Hawk's videos called Every Bone:

This one is called, Saddest Song:

Where to find Pearl Hawk:

• Here's their website.
• Here's where you can go to help back their new album.
• Facebook
• Twitter
• iTunes

Bird

Mica created this awhile back. I don't have much to say about it except that I love it.

He Called the Police (Sort Of)

Two nights ago I was hanging Isaak's clothes in his closet. I noticed that his night stand had pencil drawn on it.

He's gotten in trouble with drawing on things before. We've cleaned up crayon and Sharpie on the floor. Thank goodness we don't have carpet! Then he's drawn on little spots; like on the walls with pencil.

I said, "What's this Isaak?" pointing at the scribbles of pencil on the night stand. He said all timid like, "I did that." Daddy chimed in and said, "What did you do?" Isaak pointed to his scribble markings.

Daddy said, "Isaak I've had enough of this. You keep doing this! I'm going to call the police."

Isaak started crying like his life was ending and said, "No police!"

Daddy fake called. Then he said, "They told me they are going to let it go this time. They want you to clean it up." Daddy handed Isaak an eraser. He proceeded to erase it off. Then he had Isaak show him any other spots around the house he drew on; to clean up.

Could you imagine if police officers wrote out tickets to kids for writing on the walls with pencils and crayons? Source

I know this is a common thing that some kids do. I still wonder why they do it? Mica didn't draw on anything that I remember, but he did go to preschool one day and just decided to cut a hole in his brand new shirt. We're talking a gigantic hole.

I could see if we didn't have creative outlets for our boys. The truth is, is we do. We have an easel, we have paper and coloring books. We also have different colors of Paly-doh Isaak can play with. Again we have wood floors, so Play-doh getting in the carpet isn't a concern. We've reminded Isaak that pencils, crayons and markers belong on paper I don't know how many times.

I don't know if fake calling the police was the best way to handle this situation. It sure did put the panic in Isaak though. Hopefully he won't do it again.

Daddy got the idea of calling the cops from Grandma Apel. He had a little lying problem when he was a kid. One day Daddy and Aunt Laura mostly Daddy decided it would be a great idea to call and check on Michael Jackson, who got burned in the Pepsi commercial. They did a lot of long distance calls that day to hospitals. When the phone bill came in they both wouldn't fess up. Grandma Apel got them in the car to take them to the police station to take a lie detector test. Daddy panicked and told the truth. I don't know what she would have done if they wouldn't of came forward.

Tragedy

I was checking out fun editorials to give my students for their last illustration assignment. I found a ton of stuff that happened this year that was outlandish, interesting, or fun. They are perfect for college student illustrations: A boy expelled from school for having a mohawk, a real petting zoo, we're talking lions, tigers and bears, a feather growing from a babies face and more. I have a total of 15 articles. I was trying to contain myself from laughing at some of the crazy editorials. In my search I came across the current news. The bombing of Boston. My oldest sister runs marathons, so immediately horrible pictures came to my mind.

I went home from work and Daddy asked why I looked like I just saw a ghost? I asked if he had seen the news? He hadn't, but heard something on the radio. At this point we didn't know how bad it was. I just knew 2 people were killed and 40 were injured.

We decided to go out to dinner at Sam and Louie's Pizza. The meat I had pulled for dinner was still frozen. In my wallet I had 2 free meal passes for the boys.

At the pizza place there were two TVs broadcasting the horror. Daddy looked at me, I looked at him, and then I asked the waitress if she would kindly switch the station.

She did, but she stood there for awhile trying to find something new to put on. I said, "Really you can put on anything. I just don't want my sons seeing the horrible tragedy." She said, "I understand. It's just that I have to have sports or news stations on. On both of those types of stations they are covering what happened." She finally found something. In the mean time, Mica had seen a bomb go off. He laughed thinking it was fake.

It's not like I strive to hide things from my children. It's just that when something is too much for even me to understand, I don't want my children watching it.

Daddy and I hadn't even had a chance to talk about what had happened yet.

With the Sandy Hook tragedy we decided to talk to Mica. We kept it brief, asked where they go in their school for danger drills and asked if he had questions. He didn't ask anything. Then we told him if he did have questions to ask us. We mentioned not to talk about it at school because not all of his friend's parents would choose to talk to their kids. We chose to never talk to Isaak.

Isaak has been freaked out about death, rightly so. I just don't want him terrified about the topic even more.

My thoughts go out to everyone personally effected by the bombing that happened in Boston. 

Do you, or did you talk to your children about tragedies?