Delays, Delays

Got word yesterday that my car won't be ready until after the holiday. It seems I was pushed a little harder than I realized and the rear axle was bent. They tried to do an alignment and found that they would have to order another part. So, no car until next Thursday. Well, Merry Christmas to you all.

Been Busy

There are a few things I give thanks for every day - Mike, my kids, a warm (or cool) house, food and clothes, and my car. I love my car. It's supposed to look like this:

It gets good gas mileage. It's roomy inside, but not too big outside. It can hold a whole week's worth of groceries for a family of six adults. Mostly it get me to and from work in comfort and safety. Last Friday it did that job better than ever before. A big old Chevy truck running on retreads blew a tire on I-215 as it rounded the curve near Redwood Road. I was heading up the on ramp when the truck spun backwards down the dirt median that separated the main freeway from the ramp. The truck hit the driver side of my little car with its driver side rear bumper. (Ya gotta picture it...) I got pushed off to the side of the road as the truck tore a big chunk of my door off. My little car now looks like this:


Despite a few sore muscles the next day, no one was hurt. So I'm extremely thankful for a safe car, even though it has to be in the shop for a few days. What REALLY hurts is that they've got me driving a Chevy Malibu. That thing gets about 3 miles to the gallon. I'm very spoiled by 50 mpg. But the guy at the body shop promises me I'll have "Sapphire" back by Christmas.

Happy Tax Time

Gotta pay the taxes on 7073 house. I tried to do it online and got a stupid error message. I hate it when technology that is supposed to save you time just makes you crazy. Ah well. Happy property tax time to all of you with houses.

Being on the News

Mike, Anna, and I helped herd 75 fifth graders around Thanksgiving Point on Halloween. We used GPS units to find our way through their corn maze, went on a hay ride, played pioneer games, and ate outside before picking a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch and going home. But that was after the "best" part of the trip - at least if you're ten. Our bus caught on fire on the way there. Yup. Flames out the tail end of the bus. (Much worse than the photo makes them look.) We had to evacuate. The police and fire department came. We made the 6:00 news. No one got hurt. Thank goodness. And that's what made it especially great. We'll never top it next year!

Just Vote "NO"

This is an unpaid political announcement. There, you've been warned. Vouchers suck. Plain and simple, guys. If the proponents really wanted to do as they say and provide private education for poor families, they would do it in a different way. This is all about making the rich richer. Parents in schools like mine can't afford to send their children to a private school and most wouldn't know how to go about it even if they had the extra cash beyond what the vouchers fund. I don't want my tax dollars used to pay for that. And I've had a child in private school. I understand the sacrifices a parent has to make to send one there. I also understand that it is my responsibility as a member of society to provide for the education of all the citizens, not just for my own children. Sometimes that's not enjoyable, particularly when one sees people with eight or ten children, or children who constantly test the limits of the system, abusing the money spent in their behalf. But it is our civic responsibility to provide a "free, public education" and even when we have no children of our own, we must honor that responsibility. The price of ignorance is very high. Just vote NO on vouchers. They will not give parents more choice than they already have. They will likely raise your taxes and pay for schools you wouldn't want to see educate any child.

Whether you agree with me or not, please vote. Another civic responsibility...

Ridin' The Rails

Mike and I took a long weekend and rode the train to Denver. We had to get up at "0 dark 30" as Mike calls it. The train was scheduled to leave the station in Salt Lake at 4:45 am. Waaaaaay too early for me. I thought I would make it up by sleeping some of the time. But it was so beautiful I spent my time looking out the window in awe of the landscape. It helped that I had my camera along. I am my brother's sister in that respect. I love to take landscape photos. I'm not nearly as talented as Denny was, but I understand the draw. Some of them even came out pretty good.

The trip was glorious. Even with the dry summer the leaves were beautiful, the Colorado River was sufficiently wild, and our fellow passengers were interesting. We've been meaning to take this trip for several years now and the time never seemed right. Finally I decided I wasn't getting any younger and we'd better do it while we still could. We spent Saturday and most of Sunday in Denver. I hadn't really visited there before. We took the kids to the mint several years back, but didn't see any more of the city. And aunt Mary drove the family to Denver the year Denny was born. I was barely three. I do remember some of that trip. We went to a public garden (now an amusement park) where everyone else in our group commented on how lovely the flowers were. I couldn't see them because there were hedges around the beds about 2 feet high. Well, being three, I was about 2 feet high myself. We went to Santa Claus land and I watched my sister chase after the reindeer. We stayed in a little roadside motel where my sis and I walked into the wrong room. (Even then she wouldn't listen to me!) My favorite memory is of the little plastic chicken toy my aunt gave us. You pressed it down and it layed an egg! Cool.

I recommend train travel, even if you have to get up too gosh darned early. The pace is more relaxed, and you sure get better photos from the train windows than I ever got from a plane!

Our New School Mascot

We have a new program at the school this year. We are dividing our upper grade students by English language proficiency and doing 45 minutes of instruction each day dedicated to improving their language skills. I recognized the importance of that this morning while doing our postcard exchange activity. We were writing postcards to schools in all 50 states. Each student had a list of items they might want to include in their message. One child wrote that our state flower was the Seegoo lillie. That was bad enough. But my favorite was the child who informed their counterpart in Illinois that our school mascot was the "Lincoln leper."

Explains a lot, doesn't it?

School has started

Well, Tuesday was my first day back to class. My group is small still - only 19 students so far. But our school has a pattern of gaining several students in each grade the week after Labor day. So I'll have to wait and see. It could be a problem if we don't pick up a few more, because that is definitely too few kids for a fifth grade classroom in Utah. They could potentially move me to another grade or create a split. Well, no use worrying about something that hasn't happened yet.

This year I have four different languages - Tibetan, Spanish, English, and Somali. I have a student who was home schooled until this year, one that just started school of any sort last year, and one that has been seriously abused. One child should probably be in a self contained class for behavioral disorders. I've been told to document all difficult behavior so we can get some help. It's shaping up to be a challenging year.

Life in the fast lane!

Tag, I'm It

I was tagged by Aimee, and since she's my cousin, I'll give it a go. (Otherwise my aunt may get after me.)

4 jobs I've had
1. Registrar's office grub
2. Teacher
3. Preschool owner/operator (Ok, it was a little home preschool, but people did pay me.)
4. National Guard flutist

4 movies I could watch over and over
1. Singing in the Rain
2. Music Man
3. Young Frankenstein
4. Starwars (Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!)

4 places I've lived
1. Salt Lake City
2. Salt Lake City
3. Taylorsville
4. West Jordan (Do you sense a pattern here? Next entry WILL be somewhere outside of Utah.)

4 favorite TV/reality shows
1. Good Eats/Feasting on Asphalt
2. Mythbusters
3. Househunters
4. Reruns of old 50's-70's sitcoms

4 of my favorite places I've been
1. North Wales
2. Hawaii - any island but especially Kailua on Oahu
3. Delicate Arch
4. Coast of Oregon

4 favorite foods
1. chocolate chip cookie dough
2. asparagus (with or without hollandaise sauce)
3. tenderloin or ribeye steak, medium rare
4. original Kraft mac & cheese

4 websites I check daily
1. email
2. US bank (to see what my balance is, of course!)
3. Google
4. I will be checking my district webpage daily now. Pathetic, but true.

4 hobbies I enjoy
1. reading
2. writing
3. cooking - when I have time
4. Doing this stuff on the computer!

4 friends I tag.
1. Andrew
2. Welfycat
3. Lucas (Who needs a blog but doesn't have one)
4. Christine - since she still hasn't responded to Aimee's challenge

So tag, you guys, you're it.

Meeting Overload

I had my first teacher meeting on Wednesday. Four hours of information, that could have been boiled down to two pages of hand-outs and a 45 minute discussion. But, hey, at least the room was cool. In the next two weeks I'll spend probably 20 to 30 hours listening to someone else talk. (Hence, the poll at right - What do you hate about meetings?)

This year is different in that I will have 12 or so computers in my classroom - one for every 2 students. We're working on lesson plans that encourage cooperative learning and help students define their own learning needs. It sounds impressive in theory. In practice I'm not sure it will hold up to high stakes testing requirements. We'll see. I'm willing to try new things, I really am. But I've begun to believe that we are too quick to change from one program to the next in our search for ways to teach poor, language challenged students. The result is we expend vast amounts of energy, a considerable amount of money, and rarely give the programs a chance to prove their worth before abandoning them for the next new reform. It's generally not teachers who make these program decisions, either. It's people long out of the classroom who answer to legislators and the public. They feel they must do SOMETHING, so they dump what we're doing now for something else, hoping that it will magically solve all our problems in one school year or less.

Each summer I rejuvenate, rethink my role in the education of our children. And sometimes I feel like I must be getting too old for it all. I know too much. I've seen the ebb and flow of too many "promising, research based" programs that were never very promising, and never had full financial backing anyway. Ever in Utah do we commit to a program, then pull the financial plug on it, hoping individual schools or teachers will buy the necessary workbooks, CD's or other equipment from their already dismally small budgets. If I hadn't seen it all 31 times before I might be able to convince myself that this year with 12 computers it will be different. As it is, I will accept the help of those computers for the sake of my sweet 10-year-olds, and stuff my jaded personae in a desk drawer. It's the kids that make teaching fun and special and important, anyway. Cheers to all of you and welcome back to school!

P.S. If you want to read a clear, concise argument against vouchers, see the book on the right by Pedro Noguera, a past professor at Harvard, currently at New York University.

Being Mrs. Santa

On Tuesday I spent most of the day with my friend and work partner, Jo, and her three-year-old twins. These are the young ladies that Mike and I played Santa and Mrs. Santa for last Christmas. The girls are getting older now and aren't quite as stand-offish as they were last year. And Jo is thinking of taking them to work with her this year and enrolling them in Lincoln's preschool. So I got to thinking - how do we explain me to them? Jo wants Mike to continue to be their personal Santa, and Mike won't do that unless I continue to be Mrs. Santa. The girls will eventually figure out that I look an awful lot like that Mrs. Santa person who comes around once a year. It could be a deal breaker unless we come up with a likely story.

I got to thinking. This is the 21st century. Mrs. Santa could have a job outside the home. She could work somewhere during the day and go home to Santa each night. And what better job for her than being a teacher? So, if your kids should ask - Mrs. Santa does have a day job. She works as a teacher at Lincoln Elementary.

Creativity

I spent the better part of two days over at Marianne's house helping her create jewelry for a horse show sale. She's very talented. And scattered! It was exciting to see her play with color and shape as she designed stuff. But as time got shorter I was frustrated that we weren't actually finishing pieces. We finally got a few things made and she sent them off to the show. Now she is working on things to take down to Thanksgiving Point for a sale there. Here are a few of the things she had me helping with.

Not evey post comes with a photo

Here's a hard lesson for me - you can't get a photo of everything. Three days ago we visited the Oregon Zoo. I was blissfully taking photos of all the cute little critters when suddenly my camera asked me if I wanted to format my memory card. "No," I told the stupid camera. It was already formatted and had at least four dozen photos of animals on it. But the camera persisted and through a long series of events I found that my memory card had imploded. No cute animal pictures for my class, or for my blog. Dang. Then last night Mike and I went to hear Big Bad VooDoo Daddies at the Oregon Garden. On the tickets they had printed "No photography" but once we got in (a healthy hike through the garden and down a hill) they announced that while video wasn't allowed, photos were fine. So my camera is back in the car at least 300 miles away - ok, it felt like 300 miles when I though about going back to get it. So no photos of BBVD either. The upside is that the concert was lovely. If you have never heard BBVD here's a link to one song I particularly liked: http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/clipserve/B00009YRSB001008/0/105-8215561-2846850

The weather was perfect, cool but not cold, lovely white clouds floating overhead, a slight breeze. We sat on the lawn right in front where we could watch the musicians at work as we sipped wine and nibbled nachos. The fragrance of flowers from the garden was amazing. My only complaint was the volume level of the music. Is it just me or are all concerts lately just too loud? I'm going to put a poll on the right side of this blog to see what you all think about that. Anyway, the concert was great and if we lived here we would be members of the garden and subscribers to the music series. Just too much fun!

Another Quiz

$50 Welfybucks to the person who can tell me what these birds are. Mike and I were guessing ospreys. But I'm not sure now that I have a closer look. Hint: They are nesting just outside of Pendleton, Oregon.

Time for a Quiz!

Which of these kids is not like the others? (Sing along if you remember the words...)





The answer is: Sean. He's the only one we now must buy car insurance for. As of today our Geico bill is cut in half. WHOOO HOOOOO!

We took Lucas (some of you may still call him Adam) to the DMV where we turned over the title to the Camry. Anna received an older Toyota Corolla as a combined birthday/graduation gift from us earlier in the week. She was running herself ragged trying to get to three different jobs. She really needed a car.






And HERE it is!

MY FIRST BLOG!!!

Welcome to Welfyville, where everyone is pretty ... welfy.


I'll be posting photos and more about the Welfy clan. But right now, I have to go help Welfybomb pick out her very first car - a 1998 Toyota Corolla. It's lavender with a pretty tan interior. Photos later!

Meanwhile, a photo of the Welfys on their latest adventure to Philadelphia.