My name is not so-and-so's Mom

Nutshell

2007-02-26T04:04:34Z

1. Work is going okay. Lots of busywork, but I expected that. I now have a new appreciation for classroom teachers.

2. I will never get caught up on the housework. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

3. Meal planning has degenerated to stuff that is already made and can be warmed up in the microwave. I hate that, but at least 2 nights a week I have no hope of doing better especially because we have to eat at daddy-dude 's office. Thank heavens for Steamfresh.

4. A few people knew this already, but I will tell all. A year ago I got a call from the doctor's office telleing me that my pap test was abnormal and I had to have it done again in 6 months. For those who are clueless, that's the test for cervical cancer so I was obviously upset. According to the doctor, I didn't need to worry because abnormal does not mean precancerous. Well, the second test was the same, so they had to do a biopsy. I hate it that you men don't have to go through crap like this. Owww! That one was the same, but not any worse. So wait another 6 months, do another test. That was a month ago, and thankfully that test came back within the normal parameters. So I don't have to worry about it for another year. I bring this up only because of all the hoopla in the news about the vaccine to protect against the human papilloma virus. I didn't have it, so I fall into the less common group. But ask me sometime about my opinion on the controversy surrounding the vaccine.

That's it for now. Gonna go fall asleep watching MASH.

!!!!!!!!

2007-02-14T01:20:04Z

I hate snow! I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!!!!

And it's sleeting on top of it!

Thankfully, school is cancelled tomorrow, so I get more time to try to clear off the driveway.

But that also sucks because it will be impossible to get my 16 hours in this week.

I got my work cut out for me.

2007-02-13T16:42:38Z

Have been to work four days. Still doing lots of wading through things, coming up with questions, making list of said questions and things that need to be done. Have been asked to do a few things so far, but not much. Need to get some kind of schedule of what's coming up.

On Thursday there was supposed to be this Game Day set up by the gym teacher. Basically, half the school comes down to the gym for the morning session, is split into 24 teams of 5 kids each, and they go around the gym to different stations where they get 5 minutes at each to rack up as many points for their team as possible. Lather, rinse, repeat. Same thing with the other half of the school for the afternoon session. I helped last year in the afternoon with the standing long jump, where the kids got 1 point for trying, 2 points if they got over 3 feet, 3 points if they got over 5 feet, and 5 points if they got over 8 feet. We actually had afew who got some 5 pointers. Becky consistently got 2 points while some of her classmates only got 1. The kids just kept going around again and again and again and some teams racked up over 200 points just at my station. Any way, I know everybody had a blast last year. And there were lots of parents helping. Well, this year the notice was sent out a couple weeks ago asking for parents to help with it, and a grand total of 2 parents responded as of yesterday. So it has been cancelled. the kids don't know about it yet, but they are going to be really disappointed and probably mad at us. Well, if parents call and complain, I told the PTO president that I would be happy to talk to them about it, since interacting with the parents is part of my job. I wonder too if the gym teacher would be willing to reschedule if I could get enough parents to commit to coming in to help. Either way, it's gonna be interesting.

the wait is getting to me...

2007-02-07T01:17:02Z

Well, I was supposed to start my new job yesterday. But school was cancelled yesterday and today. *groan*

The kids are happy though.

I hate winter.

On a completely different topic, I will rant about about a letter to the editor in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette yesterday.

"The Feb 1 letter commenting on Pennsyvania's black homicide rate, "We Need a Comprehensive Plan to Reduce Violence," asks the entire taxpaying community to solve a problem that is totally the parents' responsibility.

Why do people think it's OK for the public to pay for their personal choices? When your child sells drugs and shoots at people, it's your fault as a parent. If you don't have the means to properly raise a child, then don't have one.

My Wife and I (both from the inner city) made some poor choices early in life and have been paying for them ever since. She went to school at night for eight years, and I went back to school after paying off debts acquired during my younger years.

We did this because we wanted to create the proper environment to have a child. We will try to teach our child that human life is to be cherished and that there are no shortcuts to gaining financial success. When we send our child out into the world and she lacks morals and a strong work ethic, we will be to blame."

Can you say "people in glass houses..."? Thought you could.

How about, "Don't judge me until you've been in my shoes"? Or, "It takes a village to raise a child"?

I don't care where he has lived or what he has done with his life, that doesn't make him an authority on parenting. And as for him being so sure of himself about what a great parent he is or will be, I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back to bite him in the ass some day. Even if he and his wife are the only ones to ever have any influence on his child (HIGHLY unlikely), that doesn't mean that she won't someday turn on them.

And what about personal responsibility? If we a a society are always laying the blame for a child's bad behavior solely at the feet of the parents, what is that teaching the child? And then what happens when the kid is an adult and out on their own and is taken to task for something they have done? "My parents didn't raise me right." Come on, that doesn't fly. And there are other people who influence kids, and sometimes it doesn't matter if a parent has done everything right to the best of their ability - that kid may still go off and do something wrong to impress someone else.

I could go on and on, but I have more important things to do. Like cuddle my girls.

Job

2007-01-31T03:29:45Z

I got the job!

Don't know when I'll start. Either next week or I can wait until I am approved by the school board, which could take a couple of weeks. I should get my other clearance back in the next few days, so I'm thinking that I will shoot for next week. I just hope I get rid of this cold before then. It's really annoying.

Hopefully to be employed soon...

2007-01-29T20:38:38Z

Job Interview at 9:15am tomorrow.

Hate job interviews. They scare me silly.

For those who don't know about it, it's a part time job at Becky's school, working with parents, teachers, and the occasional student on the Accelerated Reading Program. And maybe I'll get some clue as to what to do with the rest of my career.

Had some excitement over the criminal background check. Apparrently, I used the wrong form. But, I got the wrong form at both the State Police barracks and at the school district. And the information asked for is exactly the same on both forms, they're just laid out different. So I called the phone number on the form and flipped out on the lady who answered and she was trying to tell me that I couldn't have gotten that form from the state police barracks, that I had screwed up somehow, and after 10 minutes of arguing with her she makes an offhand remark that I could have done the check online and gotten it right back. Say What? I'd never heard of that before, and apparently no one I've talked to recently around here knew about it either. So, she promised to call the Butler barracks and tell them to get the right forms, and I thanked her. Went on line, got my clearance, less than 10 minutes.

Sheesh.

codes suck

2007-01-28T18:03:37Z

I habe my node.

erk

2007-01-24T04:15:07Z

Don't know why I even have this thing. Usually too busy for psychoward and if all goes well, I'm about to get busier.

Applied for job at Becky's school. I hate writing letters begging to be hired. Rates right up there with having to give a speech in high school.