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Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Call Me Crazy


While talking with one of my favorite friends, the subject of UFO's came up. Do I believe? I was a little hesitant at first and wondered if it was a trick question. I decided I'd put myself out there and answer truthfully.

That is something that for as long as I can remember I have wondered about. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people that go overboard and think I may have been abducted, but I did have a crush on Fox Mulder for years. While he isn't classically handsome, something sexy there. Must have been his obsession with UFO's.

Anyway, as a young girl camping with my family I would watch the sky at night. I still do that now. I waffle back and forth, do I want to see something "out there" or would it scare the shit out of me. I've decided since I'm a chicken, I'd be scared.

Some people may think I'm a nut for thinking that there is life outside of our planet and you have the right to your opinion. As for me, I look at it like this; the universe is gigantic. Does anyone really know how big it is, does it go on forever? In our galaxy, the Milky Way, there are approximatly 100 billion stars. Stars that we can't even see let alone ever travel to. Our sun is a star and who's to say that any one of those other stars out there don't have a solar system orbiting around it. If you have a sun that happens to have planets along with optimal conditions such as temperature, chemisty, water and some sort of organic substance for food, well then maybe there is life. If our planet can support life why is it such a hard jump to think that others might also.

Thanks to the theories of Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei and others, we now accept that not just the Earth orbits around the sun but the other planets do as well. (Sorry Pluto to hear the news that you've been kicked out of the solar system.) So maybe other theories can be proven one day.

To think that we are the only life in the entire universe is somewhat closeminded. Whether that life is more advanced than us or primitive organisms we may never know. Or maybe we will...

How lucky are we to live in a galaxy named after a candy bar! lol

Thanks D.R.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Monday, September 18, 2006


Fall or Autumn. Whatever you call it I'm not fond of it. While I like the changing of the seasons, fall is my least favorite. When the days are crisp, cool and sunny with a beautiful blue sky, I love it...

....But when it is damp, gloomy and chilly I hate it. I find it depressing. I just want to lay on the couch under a blanket with a good book.

I know that soon the leaves will be off the trees and I will have to look at naked branches 6 months. The flowers are dieing off in my garden, spiders are prolific and I never know what to wear to work.

I don't want to give up my sandals and bare legs for shoes, stockings and tights. Maybe I need to move to a warmer climate.




There are some things that I enjoy about fall. School starts and I meet a new group of students.

It gets dark early in the evening and I can get into my jammies without feeling bad that the sun is still shining.

The new TV season starts. If you've never watched "Boston Legal" the writing is great. Try it. I also enjoy Nanny 911. Never on their worst day were my children ever as bad as the ones on that show.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Happy Birthday Baby



Twenty years ago today I became a mother for the first time. Yes, September 15, 1986 3:59 AM my number one baby was born. 8 lbs. 6 oz. One week late. Three and a half hours of pushing. And worth every agonizing second. He arrived screaming and kicking, not too happy to be in the outside world. The nurses told me that he managed to get all the babies in the nursery crying along with him. For 6 months before he was born and several years after we called him Mr. Peanut or just "P" because on the ultrasound film he looked like the character Mr. Peanut. Without the hat and monacle. Here he is just 4 minutes old, his feet are still blue. Sorry about the blood but childbirth is a messy business.




Here he is 4 months later. A happy, healthy baby. He slept through the night at 3 weeks old, hardly cried, a good eater , who could ask for more? He didn't give us any trouble until he was 3 1/2 years old. Hhhhhmmmm, that was how old he was when Number 2 baby came along. I never thought that I could love someone as much as I loved him. I would die for him. Of course I still would.














These are our two boys today. This was over the summer. On the left is Number 2 baby, the hairball. He has beautiful curls that I love. (windblown in this pic) Number 1 baby is on the right. The one with no hair. He started loosing his hair at age 17. He was devistated but is okay with it now. He shaves his head. I tell him ladies love bald men, very sexy. He has done well in his short 20 years. Took honors and AP courses in high school, is an Eagle Scout and now a junior in college, studying to be nurse practitioner which will take 6 years of school. I can't tell you how proud I am of him. Tonight he is away at school but Sean and I celebrated one of the happiest days of our lives without him. Thechocolate birthday cake was delicious. Happy Birthday Kevin!!!!!! We hit the jackpot 20 years ago. LOVE YOU! XOXO

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

A Lost Art

I was talking with a friend yesterday and the subject of letter writing came up. In this electronic age letter writing has become a lost art. Not many people write letters anymore and if they do, odds are they're typed rather than hand written. Think back to when you were younger and how exciting it was to get an envelope in the mail with your name on it. You could tell from the hand writing who it was from. You coudn't wait to read what they had to say and most of all you knew they liked you because they took the time to write in the first place.

My friend and I agreed that a letter is special. You can read the letter when ever you want, you can carry it around with you, somehow having a handwritten letter makes you feel closer to the sender. It's much more personal. Of course you can telephone someone and voice your thoughts but somehow seeing the words in writing means even more to me. Women especially enjoy receiving love letters. How romantic to wake up to a letter left by your pillow from your sweetheart. I am happy with a good morning e-mail though.

I am a letter writer, well I used to be one. As a child I was in Bluebirds and Campfire Girls (sort of like Brownies and Girl Scouts) and our leader somehow got the addresses of servicemen stationed in Vietnam. We became their pen pals and called them our big brothers. I can't tell you how exciting it was to get those letters from the soldiers. To see that red and blue bordered air mail envelope was wonderful. For many years I saved those letters but somehow over the last 35 years I've missplaced them. I wish I knew what I did with them. I wrote to my grandmother and cousin that lived out of state. I had a pen pal named Claire who lived in Jamaica that I exchanged letters with for years. Another friend I only saw 2 weeks a year when our families vacationed at the same place but we wrote to each other all the time. I used to write to my parents while they're wintering in Florida but now I just call. So yes, I once was a letter writer. A good one too. I miss writing them.

So drop someone a letter sometime. They will be pleasantly surprised. I think I will write my niece, 10 and nephew, 8 each a letter even though they live about 20 minutes away. Maybe I'll even stick in 5 bucks. At their age, that's still a decent amount of money. :)

Monday, September 11, 2006

September 11, 2001 - 2006

Friday, September 08, 2006

A Sad Anniversary

Monday will be a sad day for America. Five years later it is still raw for many. I don't think there is one person that has not been affected by 9/11. It was a scary time. For me seeing jet fighters fly over my city was surreal. I live 30 miles from a nuclear power plant. Even today when I see or hear a low plane coming in for a landing I think of that day.

I have watched a few TV shows recently about 9/11 and am still horrified by it. When I see the infamous footage of that plane I forget to breathe and tears flow. I have decided that is a good thing. It lets me know I'm still alive. CBS plans on airing the documentary that was filmed by French filmmakers that were following a day in the life of a probee fire fighter when they fell into history. I will watch, I feel an obligation. I feel I owe it to those people. That's just me.

What is angering me now is that The American Family Association based in Tupelo, Mississippi which touts themselves as promoting the biblical ethic of decency, has vowed to bombard the FCC with complaints if the network shows this film complete with profanity. I'm guessing they don't want to hear the word fuck. I, myself am not a user of naughty words in my average life. I very rarely heard my parents swear while growing up and working with kids I have to keep the language clean. Don't get me wrong, I do swear once in a while and when I'm really pissed off the big one flies out of my mouth. But never in a public place. I hate to hear people using the word fuck as an adjective. If their aim is to shock people or draw attention to themselves they found a way to do it. It doesn't do much for their character.

Sorry, got off topic. Back to The American Family Association. I agree with them that on network TV we don't need to hear the words that we do now such as bitch and bastard. Kids don't need to see that it's okay to use those words regularly. But... I think they're going way too far on the issue of profanity in this particular film. How morally commendable to know that these people have never spoken like that in the heat of anger, stress or fear. The men and women were there in the thick of it when hell broke loose. They were witnessing human beings raining from the sky, people choosing to take their own life to escape what was inside those buildings. They were realizing that many people were doomed in those buildings. Realizing that they were helpless to help those people. People that were mothers, fathers, children, spouses, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends that belonged to someone. Those memories will never fade. Does The American Family Association expect them to think before they speak, "uh, oh dear, I better not say fuck, it's not Christian. This might be on tv some day and I don't want to send the wrong message or offend anyone's sensibilities". Of course not. What they were showing was raw emotion, horrifing disbelief. What those first responders and eventually the world viewed on that beautiful September morning was unthinkable. The language that The American Family Association wants so desperatly removed from this film is part of the story. I think it should be portrayed accurately, not sanitized for a righteous group of people. If you don't want to hear that, don't watch the show. The small children that you are afraid will be damaged by hearing the strong language shouldn't be watching anyway. The sights they will see are far worse than what they will hear. FYI, my children were in 5th and 10th grade at that time and I let them watch it, it was history in their lifetime. September 11th is something that will never be swept under the rug. It will rear it's ugly head to remind us over and over again of the innocence of a nation lost.

I still find it hard to believe that a group of religious (extreamists) people can justify killing innocent people for their cause. (Sort of like the groups that blow up and kill people at abortion clinics in the name of pro-life but that's another blog entry) They must be brainwashed somehow to accept this as the thing to do. They must have a tortured soul. I hope some day when they meet their maker they are told, "you got my message all wrong asshole, you weren't supposed to kill in my honor, you weren't supposed to be inhuman, cause untold suffering to others and for this you will be punished." What that punishment can be I don't know, I can't think of one that fits the crime.

I just hope that CBS doesn't cave into pressure. Show some balls and televise it the way it happened.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006



Two days down, 183 to go! I'm not actually counting the days until the end of the year but I do know that in 22 days we have Columbus Day off. The first day went well. We have a nice class of 20 students (low for a change) but the boy/girl ratio is off, 13 Boys and 7 girls. That's okay by me. Having 2 boys of my own I'm used to dealing with them and even though I'm a female, girls sometimes are a mystery to me. I don't remember being like that although I must have been. Girls seem to be meaner, they can socially isolate others and can be louder than boys.

My special ed students seem nice but as it often goes, the regular ed students can be more of a handfull. I know at least 2 that will push my buttons. It's harder for me to deal with that because the others have reasons as to why they do what they do or why they learn differently. I can accept that. Some kids are just, to put it bluntly; annoying. I'm not a proponate of home schooling. In my opinion every child I have met that has been home schooled is socially inept. When it's just the child and parent (or whom ever teaches you) the child has no interaction with other children. They don't seem to learn any social skills like how to be a friend to others, when not to blurt out, they think the classroom revolves around them and seem to be less mature than their peers. I will just try to give him some extra attention and help him to grow emotionally and socially. We'll see...

Monday, September 04, 2006

It's Monday




A sad day today waking up to the news of Steve Irwin's death. While his sometimes over the top exhuberance got to me once in a while, I did enjoy him. He was a passionate man, a man whose love of life and love of animals shined through. He was also a champion for the environment and animals speaking out against seal hunting and whaling. The world will miss this dedicated man. We can take solace in the fact that he died doing something he loved.

Meanwhile it's the first day of school tomorrow and I'm looking forward to meeting all of the new students. I already know we have a few "interesting" students. The teacher I work with wonders why we always get them. (She really does know why) When the regular ed teacher hears that I will be in their classroom they know there's some doozies coming their way. That's the nature of special education. Don't get me wrong, I love my job working with these students! All students whether they're regular or special education have their quirks. I work in an inclusion class of regular ed students and students that are mainstreamed into a regular class. They can be austistic, learning disabled, have ADD or ADHD or emotional issues. There is never a dull moment. This year we have a student that has had to be restrained in the past. The powers that be were thrilled that I am restraint trained (I took a 16 hour class on it) but there is no way I can restrain anyone with my knee the way it is. I hope there will be no melt downs this year. Hey a girl can dream.