Warning, This Post is Kind of Whiny

Still can't post pictures to Blogger. Is it just me? I guess I need to try from home. Maybe my luck with posting pictures from work has run out, even though I tried it from two different types of computers (network and non-network).

A jumbly, emotional weekend, both good and bad. M. had to work late Friday night and didn't get home until 10pm and had to go back for a full day's work on Saturday, too. When he finally got home Friday night, he told me work had just let him know he had to go to Virginia starting Sunday until Thursday. This is the first time he's had to go out of town for work since H. was born.

So on Saturday, I was scrambling to at least get the laundry started before H. and I left for the mini-Etown reunion in West Chester. The phone rang just before 9am and it was my friend W's mom, who (a) never calls me and (b) probably would never call that early if she was calling me. Ws father-in-law had a sudden heart attack on Friday and passed away. Very terrible, sad news indeed. I volunteered to let N. and my parents know as well.

H. and I were late leaving, the weather was unbelievably crappy (buckets and buckets of rain) and we got lost when we were about 5 minutes from my friend D's house, so we ended up being about a half hour late. But the get-together was wonderful. D. had done quite a bit of remodeling on her house since the last time we were there, we had a great lunch and got to see her business, too, which is just a few minutes down the road. And H. and her daughter got to play together for awhile, which they hadn't done since they were both very little. The monsoon-like rains continued for the drive home, too.

Sunday was a blur of laundry, shopping and spending time with M. before he left. As of right now, H. seems to be handling his absence fairly well, although she was a little clingy when I dropped her off this morning. Tomorrow, I have my follow-up urologist's appointment, then H. is going to stay with my mom while N. and I go to the viewing for W's FIL. My third funeral in four weeks. I hope this is it for awhile - I don't think I can handle another one. We're driving back and forth to Ocean City all in the same day, so it's going to be a long day.

What About Brian?

I watched “What About Brian” last night, since it took Grey’s Anatomy’s time slot (I guess they’re saving all of the new episodes for sweeps in May, since it looks like next week’s episode is a recap ep and not really new). I haven’t decided if I like it or not yet. Maybe I’ll watch tonight’s episode, if I can stay awake, before deciding. It had a very “Singles” feel to it, which I liked, but it was also very “L.A.,” which was somewhat of a turnoff. The whole story line about the couple with kids who never has sex – that’s such a cliché (although they did have three (!) kids who all seemed to be pretty little). And then the suggestion that they each sleep with other people to spice up their own love life – that was the part that seemed very “L.A./they only do that in California” type of thing. The guy from Legally Blonde wasn’t a very likable character so far (yeah right, a young Harrison Ford) and Rosanna Arquette just seems way too old for the role she’s playing (she’ll be 47 later this year in “real life”). I’ll give the show one more chance tonight before I decide whether or not to add it to the TV rotation.

Holiday Weekend

Even with the day off on Friday, it was a jam-packed holiday weekend. I cleaned for most of the morning on Friday, and then H. and I went to the grocery store, ate lunch and dyed Easter eggs. She was really good at it this year; a little rough with some of the eggs, but only one broke. She could really balance the egg on the dipper and get it in and out of the cup. Friday night, H. went to her friend J’s for a couple of hours so M. and I could go the viewing and funeral for my sister’s father-in-law. Back to the same funeral parlor we were at two weeks ago!

Saturday was another day of cooking, laundry and playing outside, since it was so beautiful, except for a very short shower in the early afternoon. J. came over to our house to play for a little while in the evening and the two of them were all over the place – four-wheeler, bicycles, swing set, tag and hide-and-seek. On Saturday night, we had Domino’s pizza for dinner. It was so delicious! And worth driving 15 minutes to pick it up. We were gluttonously bad when we had dessert before dinner, stopping for ice cream first, since H. had been asking for some since Thursday, and then eating our pizza.

I cooked a little more Saturday night after H. went to bed and then had to play Easter bunny. H’s basket was light on candy and heavy on little gifts this year. Of course, the Easter bunny made a basket for M. and me, too.

H. slept until seven Easter morning, which was great. She came into our room and said, “I think the Easter Bunny came last night.” She was very patient while I got the camera and video camera ready. Here she is waiting for me to give the all-clear signal. She enjoyed two Peeps at 7am, her first of many on Sunday, and then searched for the twenty Easter eggs I had hidden in the living room.

My sister J. and T. came early to help hide more eggs out in the backyard for a big Easter egg hunt for nieces K&K and H. H. helped Aunt J. put the prizes in the eggs. Everyone arrived on time at 2pm, except for my one aunt, who didn’t show up until 2:30, and the kids were dying of anticipation to look for the eggs. We were so lucky with the weather this year, finally.

I was exhausted by the time everyone left around 6pm. H. passed out on the couch shortly thereafter. I let her sleep while I cleaned up, and then woke her up to get ready for bed. Since she went to sleep early, I saw most of The West Wing, but taped it, too, so I can watch the whole thing without interruption.

Note: Once again, Blogger sucks. It won't upload my photos because the server is clogged. Hopefully, I can add the photos to this entry shortly.

Killing Time Before My Day Off Tomorrow

I think this sounds likes a cool idea. I’m sure it will take off now that it’s been profiled in the NY Times.

I hope this doesn’t ruin NASCAR the way corporate excess has ruined some of the experience at Camden Yards (and other ballparks, too, I’m sure).

Good for them! And Mark Tooley – what a tool.

"Politically Uncorrect." Try "Grammatically Incorrect." If it’s meant to be ironic, it’s not. It’s just annoying and I can’t even listen to it.

We recently had the Hallmark Channel added to our cable system. They might as well call it the sappy Western channel because every time I turn it on, they’re either running episodes of Little House on the Prairie or one of those movies with Izzy from Grey’s Anatomy, Love’s Enduring Promise Comes Softly or something like that (which are directed by Michael Landon, Jr., so you see the connection).

Easter Egg Hunt

My work had its annual children's Easter Egg Hunt on Sunday. It was originally scheduled for Saturday, but it poured down (some much needed) rain all day here, so it was rescheduled for Sunday. K&K were supposed to go with us, but they couldn't make it on Sunday.

H. looked so cute in the outfit I dressed her in for the occasion that I had to take her picture before she got all dirty. Here she is hamming it up for Easter (ha, ha).





The weather was a little bit chilly and breezy, but sunny. And the ground wasn't muddy at all, considering how much rain we had the day before. The two and three year-olds had their eggs on the mulch at the playground.







After H's age group was finished, she played on the jungle gym for a little while and climbed this very high and very steep ladder.





By Easter, she should be an expert on finding Easter eggs. She's having an Easter egg hunt at pre-school on Thursday and then we'll have a big hunt in the backyard for all of the kids on Sunday (if the weather cooperates).

edited: I have been trying to post this entry for two days. The first time, I had it all ready to go on Wednesday morning, when the Blogger connect died. When I finally reconnected, the pictures wouldn't load, so I just saved it as a draft. I got the pictures to load on Thursday, but then Blogger was down ALL DAY, from before lunch until 5pm.

Loose Ends

I've heard back from two of my three references so far and they both promised to complete the recommendation form this week. My NDM interview is scheduled for the afternoon of Monday, May 8th, which seems really far away, but I'm already thinking of some portfolio-type materials I can pull together for the interview, such as my sample lesson plan from the American Lit class I took last spring and some items I used for Junior Achievement.

Lucky Me

Luckily, this is not the surgery I had for my kidney stone. But lucky me, I'm in the 5% of the female population under the age of 70 that has had a kidney stone.

One More Step Forward

Yesterday in the mail, I received a letter from NDM with the next steps for completing my application package. I need to submit three letters of recommendation and also schedule an admissions interview.

Coming up with three recommendations is hard because I can't ask anyone I currently work with, since they don't know I'm working toward changing careers. So I just sent out three e-mails - one to a former co-worker from my previous job (who also happens to be entering the teaching profession herself), one to an English professor I had at UMUC last Spring, and one to the teacher whose class I taught Junior Achievement to in 2002 and 2003. Hopefully, all of them will be willing to complete the form and that will be my three.

This afternooon, I'll call to schedule the interview.

Defeated Again

Well, I managed to stay healthy for what, two and half weeks? I now have a killer cold. I was trying to fight it off all week with Zicam, but it caught up with me last night. I felt achy and stuffy last night and then I woke up at 4:30am with an unbelievable headache. I blame it on two things. One, a girl at work who came in last Wednesday with the flu - not just a cold, the fullblown flu- and probably contaminated all of us. And two, the priest at the funeral on Wednesday who was blowing and wiping his nose through the whole service. I knew I shouldn't have taken communion from him! I wouldn't be surprised if everyone who was at the funeral and took communion gets sick. And we all shook hands with him afterwards, too!

Now I'm just as guilty as the girl from work because I'm in the office today. I would have stayed home, but my boss is in today and he's been out of the office since last Thursday and he's out again next Monday through Wednesday. Plus, I have a newspaper deadline I need to meet today, so I really needed to be here. I need to go to the pharmacy at lunch today for more Zicam and special cold medicine for people with high blood pressure.

GO TERPS!!!

What an awesome game last night! Way better than the last three games in the men's tournament. Take that, Peter King (see item 10a).

Weekend

This past weekend turned out to be a pretty busy one. Friday after work, H. and I were visiting our neighbors who have a little girl the same age, J. When it was time to go home for dinner, they didn't want to be separated, so they suggested H. spend the night, if we thought she would stay. H. was all for it! So we went home to eat dinner and packed an overnight bag and went back. H. stayed the whole night and didn't even wake up during the night (although she was up at her usual early time Saturday morning). J's mom said they were up kind of late, giggling like teenagers. It took them awhile to settle down and get over the novelty of the situation before they finally fell asleep.

M. and I had the whole evening to ourselves and most of Saturday morning, too. By the time I went to pick H. up, I had three loads of laundry done, had made all of the beds, swept the kitchen floor and cleaned the inside of the van. H. and J. still didn't want to be separated, so the four of us all went to the dollar store for Easter dinner paper products, among other things, and lunch at Chick-fil-A. With a promise that they could play together after they both took a nap, we finally tore them apart (you wouldn't think that they see each other every day at pre-school). The sleepover must have worn H. out because she took an almost four-hour nap, waking up just in time for dinner. Then J. came over to our house for a little while to give her mom a bit of a break for the day. We'll have to try having J. spend the night at our house one weekend.

I watched The Wedding Date while M. watched drag racing Saturday night and it was quite awful. I thought it would be a good chick flick to watch by myself, but I'm not even sure why I finished watching it (because I paid to rent it, I felt like I had to watch the whole thing). It was like large chunks of the movie were missing. I couldn't follow how they made the connection from one scene to the next. And it was short - barely an hour and a half, so there was definitely time for more character development or involvement. Not recommended at all. Serendipity, which I watched earlier on TNT while H. was napping and had never seen before, was much better.

On Sunday, H. and I went to my parents' house and spent most of the day shopping - Target for Easter candy, Kohl's for Easter decorations and a new pair of tennis shoes (or sneakers, as they say here in PA) for me (I bought a pair of Skechers - I feel so cool!) and the jewelry to store to get my engagement and weddings rings repaired (which I should have back by this weekend - I feel naked without them). We didn't get home until almost 8pm and I had to rush to set the VCR for The West Wing, which I'll have to watch later this week, but I don't know when.

Today, it's off to the library after work and pre-school, and then the next few days will be a little hectic. My mom's uncle died on Saturday, so the viewing will be Tuesday night down in Baltimore, then I'll probably go back for the funeral during the day on Wednesday.

Where Things Stand Now

So here's where I am on the road to my new adventure. Because my bachelor's degree is in Communications, I needed 9 additional credits to meet the Maryland state requirements for teaching English (luckily, I had taken a lot of English classes as electives in college). So in the Spring and Fall of 2005, I took four online classes with UMUC, which I loved, to bring myself up to code, so to speak. I even voluntarily took a math class in case I decide to teach in PA some day. (Maryland only requires 3 credits of undergraduate math to teach at the intermediate level; PA requires 6.)

After completing these classes, my original plan was to enroll in UMUC's Resident Teacher Certification program this Spring. Two other requirements for this program were to take and pass both the PRAXIS I and PRAXIS II exams. I took both last year and passed (I was sweating bullets on the math section of the PRAXIS I), even earning a certification of excellence from ETS for my score on the PRAXIS II in the English content area (props to me!). I sent in my application for the RTC program, but much to my disappointment, this year they changed how the program was organized and there was no way I could work it into my schedule. Previously, you enrolled in online certification classes for the Spring, culminating in two weeks of student teaching. You could then begin teaching in the fall as a fully paid teacher, but the teaching experience was a mentored, supervised experience. And this experience could take place in one of several counties in MD or in Baltimore City. After the year-long teaching assignment, you would be certified, However, the new program eliminated the two weeks of student teaching and now the supervised year of teaching only takes place in Prince George's County. Living in southern PA, I just couldn't commit to driving to PG County every day for a year.

So this Spring semester was a lost semester. I applied to the teacher certification program at Loyola College and was recently accepted. I have also sent in an application to the College of Notre Dame's Accelerated Certification for Teaching (ACT) program and I'm waiting to hear about my acceptance there before I make my decision where to enroll. With both programs, I can start taking classes this summer. I think I will be able to complete the Notre Dame program more quickly. ND offers two summer sessions instead of one, so I could complete six credits out of 21 before the fall semester starts. Also, ND only requires one semester of student teaching. Loyola's program is more credits and requires one semester of observations one day a week and then a whole semeseter of student teaching (I need to keep working my regular job for as long as possible before I make the transition to teaching - and a lower salary). Believe me, I created a whole chart comparing the two programs! And both programs offer the opportunity to put the certification credits toward a master's degree, which is another long-term goal.

So between now and May, I'm just in a holding pattern, waiting to hear from Notre Dame before registering for classes in one of the two programs. But I'm very anxious to begin!

Thoughts on a Friday Afternoon

• I can upload photos to my blog from work now. I didn’t used to be able to do that because of our firewall. I’ve probably been able to do it since Blogger reconfigured how you upload photos, but I never bothered trying until I had that photo of H. to post. A new way to procrastinate!
• Do you think it’s strange that there are three different commercials airing right now using three different songs by the Go-Go’s ("Vacation" for Priceline, "Head Over Heels" for Pantene and "We've Got the Beat" for Papa John's pizza)? And just for the record, changing the lyrics to “We’ve got the meat” for Papa John’s is totally disgusting.
• I’m very excited about the release of the new Dixie Chicks CD on 5/23.
• As of this moment in time, I am completely caught up on scrapbooking – from H’s birth to the present. Let me enjoy it while I can; it won’t last long. (Not to mention all of the photo projects from the past that I have in mind.)
• Spring happened yesterday. It wasn’t just the nice weather (finally!), but trees that weren’t blooming yesterday morning were starting to bloom and color by the time I drove home in the evening. Although we also desperately need some rain around these parts. That would really make things start to green up.
• I’m hosting Easter this year and I think I’ll have to get the Peeps paper plates and napkins that I saw at Walmart the other day. Apparently, there are quite a few Peeps novelty items on the shelves this Easter. I’ll have to check out Target, too, this weekend.
• To add to the Chick-fil-A, Starbucks and Home Depot that recently opened here in small-town America, we now have a Rita's, which opened last week, and a Domino's, opening this weekend. It will be interesting to see how the Domino's fairs. All of the pizza places around here are local places, with the exception of Pizza Hut, and don't deliver, I guess because the houses are too spread out to make it economical (and it would be a stretch to do it in 30 minutes or less). With all the new buildings and housing developments, it should work in the area around Domino's now.

A New Adventure

I've decided to to chronicle the newest phase in my life here (instead of in an originally planned separate blog) - my mid-life crisis. Actually, I'm contemplating a career change, one that has a huge online journal presence, and I wanted to join in. Last year, I began working toward becoming certified to teach high school English. I'm doing this for both selfish (holidays and summer vacation) and unselfish (a naive ambition to make the world a better place) reasons, but the more I think about and the closer I move toward the end goal, the more I know this is what I really want to do, even though a lot of people think I'm crazy.

I'm still in the very beginning stages of the process and it's slow going at times, but things should pick up speed this summer and I want to be able to document all of it. So come along for the adventure!

Celebrity Look-Alike?

My sisters and my mom keep telling me they think H. looks like the young actress, Sofia Vassilieva, who plays Eloise in the TV movies. (Now older, this is the same girl who plays the daughter Ariel on Medium.) I just don't see it - Sofia has brown eyes and H. has blue, and H's lips definitely aren't that full (although she does have full lips, and I don't know where she got those from!). What do you think?

H.













Sofia, aka Eloise



And no, I did not stage this photo. When I saw that picture of Sofia on imdb.com, it made me immediately think of a very similar picture that I took of H. at the end of last summer. It's just a coincidence that they're both wearing orange, posed under a tree with purple flowers.

NO MORE KAY SCARPETTA NOVELS

The above headline is a note to myself, a reminder not to give in to any more books in the Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell. I swore up and down the last time, after Blow Fly, that I wouldn't read them anymore, but on my last visit to the library, the latest in the series, Predator, was on the New Books shelf, so I checked it out along with Trace, the prior book in the series and one I had avoided reading. Well, I should have left both of them there. It's really sad how far downhill this series has gone. All of the main characters are completely unbearable, especially Pete Marino. Back when I used to read the new ones as soon as they came out, there was usually atleast a year lull in between books. Reading these two back to back was worse. In Trace, Lucy's company The Last Precinct is still up and running and her right-hand man, Rudy, is a main character and the only person Lucy trusts. In Predator, there's no mention of The Last Precinct or Rudy; instead, Lucy and Kay are running a National Forensics Laboratory that the local police in Florida are just all too happy to have butt in and do all of their crime scene work. Completely unbelievable and inconsistent!

The dialogue in both books is stilted and repetitive. Lucy, Pete and Kay live in a cocoon where everyone around them is evil and against them and out to get them. The way they treat other characters in the book, even the good guys (see Pete and Reba's relationship in Predator), is pretentious and induced eye-rolling from me on several occasions. And I can do without all of the descriptive text about how many expensive cars, motorcycles and other "toys" they all own. Again, pretentious.

So let's move on to some much better books I've read since then. Starting From Square Two is the second novel from Caren Lissner, author of Carrie Pilby, which I read back in 2004. I don't know why it took me so long to read this one, I guess because I needed to request it as an ILL from the library, but I finally did and breezed through it on Tuesday and Wednesday (it was the book I took with me to the hospital). If you're not reading Caren's blog, Addled Writer, you should be.

I also discovered a new author this week, thanks to a comment in an online chat Jennifer Weiner posted. Sarah Dessen is a YA author based in North Carolina and I just finished Keeping the Moon, which I read in about two hours yesterday. She also has an online journal and website, so check her out. I like her, even if she is a Tarheel fan. As part of my renewed interest in the YA genre, I plan to spend the next few weeks devouring her other five books (my library branch has all of them but one, which I'll have to get through ILL), maybe even before her new one comes out some time in April.

Also, right before I lost myself in the insane world of Dr. Scarpetta and friends, I read Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. If Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird is one of your favorite characters in literature (as she is for me), then go read this book. You'll love Swede as much as you love Scout.

That brings me up to 17 books read so far in 2006.

Back to Normal

Almost. I'm officially stone-free. I had my surgery yesterday and it went very well. They put me to sleep around 10am, I was awake by 11am and home by 1pm. They showed me the stone and I'm really glad I didn't have to pass it. It was larger than they thought it was. And FYI, kidney stones don't look like small, little round pebbles or stones. They look more like rock candy, sharp edges and all! Once I was home, I ate some lunch, took a two-hour nap and then pretty much felt as good as new. I didn't even stay home from work today. So hopefully we can get back to business as usual around here instead of this turning into a sick journal!

Update

Back to the doctor yesterday for another x-ray and consultation. The stone is still there and has moved some, but still has to move some more to get into my bladder. Since I'm young and healthy, the doctor would prefer that I pass the stone, but since he could sense my high level of frustration, I'm now on the surgery schedule for Tuesday, March 21, which seems really far away, but atleast there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

And This Too Shall Pass

No news to report. Still trying to flush out the plumbing. I saw the urologist at 11:30am on Friday (actually, that was my appointment, time, but I didn't see the doctor until almost 12:30pm) and he wanted me to try and pass the stone over the weekend. I didn't. (It was a long weekend.) Now I'm waiting for his office to call me back to see what the next step is.

I lost my patience with this whole thing in the middle of watching Grey's Anatomy last night (that's what I get for watching a medical show in my condition). It may be similar to labor, but I was only in labor for six hours, not a week plus!

Also, for the record, if you picture Ben Stiller in about 20 years with a head full of gray/white hair, that was my urologist, both in looks and personality. Seriously.

I'm Very Thankful That I Have Health Insurance

I realize there are people out there with a lot more serious health problems than me, but I would really like to make it through a whole month feeling healthy. Is that too much to ask? As I write this, I am in the process of passing, or not passing as the case may be, a very large kidney stone. I'm waiting for a phone call from my doctor about an appointment to see a urologist some time today. All week, I thought I was fighting off a urinary tract infection, but when I didn't feel any better by yesterday, I called the doctor back and she saw me in the afternoon, then immediately sent me to the hospital for a CT scan. I had to wait for the results and the doctor's exact words were, "You do have a kidney stone, a very large one, probably too large to pass." My options were to check myself into the ER or wait until today to see the urologist. I wasn't in excrutiating pain, so I opted to wait for the appointment today instead of spending god knows how many hours waiting in the ER last night. So I'm at work, not feeling that bad, just waiting for the phone to ring. I don't have any meetings today except for one at 1:30 that I'm supposed to chair. I can pretty much guarantee that my appointment will be at 1:00 or 1:30. But I've already made back-up plans if I need to leave.

I think I get to blame genetics, atleast partially, for this one, too. My younger sister Vanessa has had kidney stones since we were in high school and she gets about one a year. My older sister Jenn had one several years ago, but that was her one and only so far. I'm hoping my experience is more like Jenn's. And I'm trying to look on the positive side - I went through natural childbirth, surely I can handle this, right? Logically speaking, it's the same concept of a big thing being pushed through a much smaller hole. I'll just keep telling myself that, especially since Vanessa told me that passing a kidney stone can be worse than childbirth.