Checking In

So it's been a really long time since I blogged. So I thought I better check in. Life is ok. If I haven't already said it, my husband moved back in in October, but I thought it might be very temporary. Recently, I've started to feel that it might be long term. I don't know if I'll ever believe that it's forever, but it does feel like his moving out isn't imminent. He seems to be happier and lighter and friendlier and it's really nice. He's super busy trying to do 8 million projects at the same time and I just want to help him out to support him. This weekend he's doing a pig roast for the first time and right now we have 49 people signed up to come and not everyone has RSVP'd yet. He's so into this. He is making all the food and won't let anyone bring anything. He's got like... well, here's the menu:

MENU:

Snack Bar -

Popcorn, chips, pretzels and other salty snacks

Pre-Dinner Options (Noon to 4ish)

Hot Dogs to order

Sides:

Potato salad

Mac and cheese 

Macaroni salad

Cole slaw

Fruit salad 

Baked beans 

Corn bread 

White rice

Main Dish:

Roasted Pork 

BBQ sauce

How to eat it:

Southern style: pile of pork on top of a slice of white bread slathered with BBQ sauce and a side of beans & slaw

Hawaiian style:  2 scoops rice, 1 scoop macaroni salad, 1 pile pork

Picnic style: Anything you want, anyway you like it!

Dessert:

Bring your own dessert (or eat a second helping instead)

Drinks:

Sangria

Coors Light

Water

Soda

 

Again, he's doing it all. And not only is there the food. We poured two cement pillars in the backyard yesterday to hang lights across the yard. He built a new picnic table and we're still staining it. We have a second table started under construction in the garage right now that will have to be finished and stained. He built a fire-pit in the yard last weekend. Let's see, what else? OH, the morning of the pig roast is the annual garage sale so our garage is filled with things we're suppose to sell that day. Oh yeah, and we both work full time and he commutes 2 hours a day (round trip) to his job. Our kids are also on a swim team and have daily practice for 90 minutes (combined). I told him he has the project list of a retired person, not a person working full time. But, I'm just going along with it because he seems to be happy and the 4 of us are together and that's what I want.

Quotable

I want to be someone that other people quote. Right now I'm not even someone that other people "like". Seriously. What's a girl got to do to get someone on Facebook to "like" me? That's why facebook is bad. You hate it and it's annoying that people post their bowel movements and smoke breaks and what they're looking at out the window. But somehow, when those same people don't "like" anything you do, you get kind of hurt. How can I get mad at something that is so stupid? Maybe I just think it's stupid because it doesn't work for me the way it seems to work for everyone else. I really do have good thoughts that other people could use to get through their day. I just need a marketing expert.

When You Die A Little

Something happens when you die a little.

So it's been more than a year since my husband laid down on our pillows and said, "I'm having an affair." So I should be good. But you die a little. And maybe this is something I haven't talked about yet. He lays down. He says that. And that day, you mostly die. If you didn't have kids, you might die all the way. But you have kids. So you live.

There's a lot to say in between then and now (one year later). But the truth is... I live. Dying a little might be good for all of us. I think I am more alive now than I've ever been. I am alive. We live for the kids, because we have to. But what we find is that living for the kids is really about living for us. I'm alive. And it's not for them. It's for me. I have a lot left to tell. There's a story there. If you know me, you know there's a story. So when you die a little, you wake up the part of you that was sleeping. That part of me is awake now. Something happens when you die a little.

Back to Reality

It's so hard to come back from vacation. We just got back from a week in Mexico in a little village about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta called Rincon de Guayabitos. The water was warm, but not hot. The air was warm but not hot or humid. The sand was soft. The beer was cold. The limes were tangy. The tequilla was smooth. The music was festive and loud and happy. The food was flavorful and spicy. The market was colorful and bustling. Whales swam at the mouth of the bay while we stood on the beach and watched them slap their tails on the water and breach while hunting for fish (I think). And not once did I get homesick. In fact, my daughter cried on the plane home because she wanted to stay. When we got home, I'll admit that my own bed was more comfortable, but other than that, there was no great emotional connection. I realized that our house is just walls and things. In a sense, that's a good thing because now I know that no matter what life brings, I don't have to be in this house or this town. I can go where life takes us when it takes us there. I also now think our family has the taste for travel and I hope we keep it and travel as much of the world as often as we can afford while the 4 of us are still together as a family and our kids are young. Coming back to the real world is painful (especially when it's so unseasonably cold!), but I know now that we will have more stamps in our passports as soon as possible.

Decisions

What do you do when you don't know what to do? I mean, really don't know what to do. Someone told me that there are always 4 choices: Accept it, Leave it, Change it, Stay miserable. And I think that's absolutely true. But knowing which to do and how to do it is the hard part.

Fill Their Room

So we all get the invitations that we don't want. Not that we don't want them. Just that sometimes we don't feel like it. We don't feel like the shower, or awards night, or funeral, or wedding, or birthday party, or house warming or the Christmas party, or ... I know. It sounds insensitive. But how many times are you invited to something and then the night it rolls around, you just want to sit at home and do the laundry you haven't done in forever? Or sit and have a drink? Or sit and watch the game? Or sit? It happens to all of us. But what I try to tell myself in each of those circumstances is, "Fill their room".

It's not about you or me. It's about the person who sent the invitation. They want you there. Whatever it is is important to them. And nothing feels worse than an empty room. We've all imagined our funerals, or maybe we haven't. Maybe I'm just weird. But an empty room is not what any of us hope for, I think. Sometimes our role is no more than filling the space. Let the person you care about look out at their event and see their space filled with people that cared enough to show up. Even when you don't feel like it, fill their room.

Jerry Maguired

So, I just wrote my manifesto. You know, a philosophical statement like Jerry Maguire's. I've worked at the same site for 5 years after a total of 11 years in the business of education. I've tried to be patient and reflective and open to the ways that they do things at my school. But I'm frustrated. I've been frustrated. Things aren't working nearly as well as they could be and the administration refuses to look at it, accept it, allow staff to talk about it, be open to it, acknowledge it, etc. The solution for everything is "teach harder". It's never, "hey, maybe kids need a slower pace, maybe kids need more time to think, maybe kids need more time to get up and move", etc. I complain, I talk to coworkers... they all agree but no one says anything. I've been told to hold back and be careful and be more political. Why? I'm not running for office. I'm not concerned with winning the next election. Sadly, I'm not even concerned with losing my job. I'm a tenured teacher and that means no administrator will do the hard work of firing me unless it's really worth it. There's bad teachers all over the place, and unless they break laws, administrators don't want to go through the process of getting rid of them. Half the time, they move them out of teaching and into higher paying administration positions. So, what could happen? My boss already hates me. Everyone at our site agrees.

So, I did it. I came out of a staff meeting in which it took my boss 33 minutes to say 2 minutes (that's being generous) of new information to disseminate. I found out that I had 120 kids per day (mind you, that's with only 3 90-minute blocks per day, so I'm averaging 40 kids per class with no aides), while my coworker teaching the exact same subject has 99 kids per day. He also has the academically highest achieving kids while I have the lowest. And while there is nothing wrong with teaching lower kids than higher, anyone in teaching will acknowledge it takes far more time and effort and patience. So I did it. I sat down and wrote the two pages of frustrations and problems that I see and the ways that I know we can change to make our school better for kids. And I was holding back. It could have been 10 pages, or truly, 100. Everyone told me not to give it to the boss. But I didn't care. What's wrong with saying how you feel? I haven't refused any directives. I do my job every day, and to be honest, do it very well. I have glowing evaluations and only positive feedback from students and parents alike.

So I went to her. Her door was open and she has an "open door policy". She's said she "doesn't want yes men" and she wants "people who will speak directly an honestly" though all actions speak to the contrary. I sit down and tell her that I'm frustrated. I've been there 5 years and I know I've had adequate time to form a balanced opinion. I've also been at 3 previous sites in my earlier 6 years and they all had different schedules, so I've had a good comparison. I hand her my letter and basically tell her that I think we had a great opportunity to be responsive to the changing demographics of our student population and poll our highly skilled staff members to look at ways to change our programs to meet the needs of the new students walking through our doors every day. I told her that I was frustrated that I had 120 students daily, while an identical colleague had 99. She looked at me like I was from the moon. She refused to acknowledge that there was anything wrong with our school. When I said we were trying to do too many things which was keeping us from doing any of them well (teaming, looping, blocking, strats science, stranded math, etc.), she told me that these things were the "DNA of our schoo"l. She said these things were "cutting edge" in middle schools when she started the school (12 years ago). She suggested that I get a "change of perspective" and had I "considered teaching at the high school level".

So that's it. I've been Jerry Maguired. Now, luckily for me, it's public education. Absolutely nothing can happen to me. I can't be fired at will. She's got to deal with me for quite a while. I don't work on commission, though maybe teachers should, and she can't steal my customers. But at least I said what I feel. At least I can say I didn't just sit around and complain. I went to the powers that be. She can't say she didn't know people were unhappy. She can't say she thought everyone was on board. In the end, I know I was there for kids. She knows she was there for her herself. I also know I said what I meant and meant what I said, and from this point forward, there's no more holding back.