Friday, March 27, 2009

Hair

We have a hair problem at our house and it is mostly my fault. Okay, it is 99% my fault.
I have a lot of hair. And recently I have been very lazy about going to get it cut. For the past 18 months I've been lazy. The longer I went without taking care of it, the more damaged the ends got, the more I shed everywhere. It's in the dryer, the quilts, the carpet. It is driving me crazy, and it's my own hair. I can't imagine how obnoxious it is for my blond room mates to find long dark hair in their laundry. (That's what the lint trap doesn't get . . . sorry guys!)

I usually wear my hair up in a twist and a clip. It's fast and easy, and I can do it in under a minute. My hair has been too long to do that for about 5 months. I have had it in buns and braids. When it's down it just gets in the way. (And any guy who tells me how gorgeous long hair is, has never had to wash it getting all the shampoo out, dry it, and make it not look like the Duggar women did your hair. . . without spending hours in the bathroom.)

Today I had a Friday off work, and I thought, in celebration of not having skin cancer yet (by the way, I had two pre-cancerous moles which were burned off) I would go tame my mane.

So, when I went to the Paul Mitchell School down the street, and I said I wanted a change.

We cut 9 inches off my hair. That's a change.
And I can still put it in a ponytail and up in a clip.

The shock is starting to set in a little. But I have just realized there is a real plus to having short hair. I can procrastinate a haircut for 3 years now.

I will post new pictures when I get someone to take them.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Doctor's Appointment

I have two doctors' appointments this week. One is with my neurologist to check my medication levels and the settings on my VNS implant. (If you don't know what that is just follow the link). Anyway, as scary and weird as that sounds, I am so used to it, that it doesn't phase me anymore. It's my second appointment that's making me a little nervous.

While I have brown hair, I have the complexion of a red head, and I have the freckles to prove it. I also sunburn, all the time. I have had no less then 5 blistering sunburns. I'm not counting the ones where there were only one or two blisters. I also have a lot of moles. Recently, with the weather changing, some of my moles started cracking and bleeding. I dismissed it as dry skin. One of my fellow teachers saw my arm and immediately gave me the name of a doctor to go to. She said I should have them looked at. So now I'm nervous.

But isn't that a little weird? One doctor wants to find out if the 6 medications I take and the implant in my chest are still working to control my epilepsy and myasthenia gravis. (By the way, this requires not a few tests).

The other doctor is going to look at my skin. As far as I know, no tests this week.

I guess it's the fear of the unknown. Like Star Trek.

That's me. Captain Kirk.

With neurological problems and cancer causing moles.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Birthday Plans

Tomorrow (March 20th) is my birthday and I turn . . . would you believe 28?

Yes, it's been ten LONG years since high school . . . all of you snickering can be quiet right now.

Maybe I am closer to 29 then 28. One tries to lose track of these things.

Anyway, the fourth grade team at school had a party for me last Thursday, because we knew we would be too crazy to do anything this week. They bought me lunch at Einstein's and Reese's Eggs and diet Coke and tulips and a gift card to Barnes and Noble.

It is spooky how well they know me.

So I now have no plans for my birthday. Unless the kids come up with something. My kids are all excited and they keep saying "I'm getting you something but I'm not telling what it is. I want it to be a surprise." What it actually means is, they have not gotten me anything yet, and they won't remember until Friday morning when they ask their parents if they can get me a diet Coke.

But those are my plans. And it's my fault. Because I got busy, and the 20th sort of crept up on me. I mean, Last Friday, it was only the 13th! I was just getting over report cards and parent teacher conferences! How can it already be the 20th!

I am literally at a loss. I feel sort of obligated to mark it in some way, but I can't think of anything to do for my birthday to make it stand out. Remember when it was easy? Your mom would invite some friends over, and you would have a sleepover and watch movies and eat lots of cake and ice cream?
Now I'm lucky if I stay up to 10:00 so I can take my medication.
(Okay, so maybe I'm closer to 30 then I've let on.)

I was going to take the day off of work, but I had to take the 24th off for a doctor's appointment and with state tests around the corner (It is March 20th tomorrow for crying out loud!) I didn't feel comfortable leaving the kids with a substitute for two days.

I think I'll leave work early, go to a bookstore, get something new, and stay up late reading. That seems like a great party to me.

Except I'll probably fall asleep before the news is over, with my glasses on, like my Grandpa Baxter.

And then it would be like every other Friday night at my house.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The toilet plunger

We have a bathroom off our living room. It's one of those deals that just has a toilet and a sink so that guest can use it but they are not subjected to your mess. My downstairs roommates use it as their bathroom. (They have a shower downstairs, but no toilet. A man designed these places.)

My roommates are very, very, neat people. Thanks goodess. Because I need to be led in that direction. Sometimes pushed kicking and screaming. But I want to be there. I want my house to be tidy and comfortable. I want to be that neat and organized person. But I've ranted about this before.

The rest of the house looks lovely. Not like my room . . . either my bedroom, or my classroom.

Anyway, I came home and there was a toilet plunger outside the bathroom door, in the living room. My first thought was, "Oh dear, the bathroom flooded." And then I went about my day, not seeing anyone drowning or even home.

The plunger has been there all week.

I'm just noticing today, because as I've stated before, I am not the neatest person. It's a goal. We should all be trying to achieve something. This is my dream.

Back to the plunger.

What are my neat, neat, roommates thinking? That the plunger is too icky to go in the guest bathroom? Thus, the perfect place is in the living room? It is just so outside of what I have come to expect.

Maybe I'll shock them this weekend and clean my room.

And maybe unicorns and leprechauns will fly me away for a weekend at a spa.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Parent Teacher Conferences

I know I just posted yesterday, and, please, feel free to scroll down and read that too. Autumn says it makes me sound like a geek so you will probably laugh.

But I had to share my preparations for SEP conferences, as we call them now. I always knew them as Parent Teacher Conferences. For the life of me, I don't know what SEP stands for, but that's what we call them.

Anyway, I have three of these conferences every year. The last ones were right around Thanksgiving. Spring SEPs bring out more decorations and student projects then any other time. Probably because we know we are not going to have to do this again until August and we are decorating. Like it is a party or celebration. You'd think the teachers were a bunch of seniors waiting to graduate.

Also this year, we have had an art special, who we have seen two times a month. In the entire year she has completed 2 art projects. I get that she only sees them a couple times a month, but she's a specialist. If she's not, they really should take that our of her title. She should be able to do better than that, right?
So not only did I hang up the quilt projects we did in our class . . . which were AWESOME, but everyone had to hang up the art specialist's stuff. In our case, we did self portraits. I am posting pictures of both so you can compare.

I did quilt blocks out of construction paper with my class. They had to use real pioneer quilt patterns, to make four 9-patch blocks. It required a lot of fractions and pattern recognition. They also had to choose colors that would work well together. Here are the results. I think most of them turned out pretty great (there's always a couple who do their own thing, like make up a pattern, or forget how to use a glue stick and scissors, etc.):


And here are their self portraits. They aren't bad but it took them 5 months to finish, and some still didn't finish. But who knows, I am not an art specialist. Maybe these are really good, and I am not trained to see it (they look nothing like my kids).

Mine are better.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Commercials

I have become addicted to TV on DVD primarily for one reason . . . there are no commercials. I could really care less about the bonus features and such. There are no commercials. Honestly, that's why we buy them.

This all started about 4 or 5 years ago when I started watching reruns of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Don't laugh. I had a good reason. Among the first three episodes I ever saw was the season 2 cliffhanger. And it was on a Friday. So I had to wait all weekend to stew about everything. I happened to be in Media Play the following day (it was that long ago) and I saw season 3 on DVD so I bought it. Why wait?

Since then I have purchased the entire 7 seasons of Buffy, and all 5 seasons of Angel. then I branched out and started buying West Wing seasons, one at I time. I didn't want to look too shallow. I have all 8 now.

Now I own all the seasons for Alias, The Office, Smallville, and Lois and Clark. I have the first 3 seasons for a British show called MI5. I'm not sure if I want the others because they kill off everyone at the end of 3 . . . EVERYONE.

and I have watched everyone one of them multiple times. I can quote the Office and the West Wing, I can tell you who Rambaldi is, and which seasons of Smallville you can skip. The can draw family trees for Angel and Spike, and tell you how many times Buffy has saved the world from being sucked into some hell dimension.

But that just makes me look very very sad. And shallow.

So back to my point about commercials and how they can drive you to drink.

I watch regular T.V. on Thursdays to catch new episodes of Smallville and the Office.

Last night, I settled in to watch a rerun of Smallville that I had missed when I was using my opera tickets in January (see? Depth.) After 10 minutes I realized I had seen 3 minutes of the show and 7 minutes of commercials. I almost turned it off. The season will be out in September. I can catch the episode then. (And raise your hand if you hate Lana's new hair . . . Was she thinking this would be the new "Rachel Cut?")

But I decided to start keeping track in my mind of commercial time and show time. There were far more commercials. And Lana's hair is really annoying.

I can't help but wonder . . . is the economy getting to be so rough that the CW can't afford one hour of TV unless it 35 minutes of advertising?

I actually missed most of the show, because I was timing commercials, so if anyone knows what happened last night . . .