I feel I don't have much to blog about these days. I hate it when that comes around. I've been blogging long enough to know this is a phase. It doesn't always come at the same time of year for me but it does happen in phases where I don't have anything to say and my brain feels all dried up.
Right now I have a lot I could say but it's a litany of complaints.
There's also a bunch of stuff in my life that was up in the air and I hate writing cliff hanger posts when even I don't know the ending. I hate to "put it out there" and then not want to finish it up. Things with Princess and work have been hanging by a thread and I didn't know how it would go, but at least now I'm getting some answers. But it's been such an exhausting process I don't feel like I could write even a cohesive enough post to explain it all.
I feel like I could do post after post of random thoughts because I can't seem to eek out enough to make an entire post of anything.
I'm tired a lot lately and just feel disconnected with my world.
Sorry I'm such a lame blogger.
Maggie
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Lazy
I slept late. I still haven't showered. I'm drinking coffee and eating cinnamon rolls. I may take a nap.
The big plan for the day is to see Mac in his show and take Princess out for dinner.
I guess this is me- I'm the one in the middle:
The big plan for the day is to see Mac in his show and take Princess out for dinner.
I guess this is me- I'm the one in the middle:
Thursday, March 24, 2011
My "kids"
Mac:
He was great last night in his school play. He just blew me away. His drama club has accumulated enough money in the kitty and they bought some seriously extravagant sets. The costumes were awesome as was the make up. And the students did an amazing job. They were impressive. But I have to say this about Mac. He was the lead and in a four Act show, he had about 60% of all the lines. He had two terrifically long monologues. And he was just..... wow. He nailed that part. I've never seen anything like it. He has more acting talent in his little finger than I do my whole body. He was fabulous.
The second bit of good news is that he received an almost full ride scholarship to his first choice of schools. We owe around $3k out of a bill of $30k. They take payments. I am so proud of him and so relieved.
And he made the all A and B honor roll at the end of this quarter! Even with the high amount of senior-itis that's affecting (in infecting?) him he hasn't given up on academics.
He's also been attending 2 different church youth groups, all on his own. I don't make him go. I thought he was was going because of a girl but when he was no longer interested in that "skirt" he still kept going. He even goes to youth group when his friends bail. Furthermore, the youth minister is taking him to dinner tonight to get to know him and celebrate Mac's positive contributions to the youth ministry.
Finally, he's looking for a job- and not complaining- so it's great to see that responsible side.
Princess:
She's on the all A honor roll- not a single B+ but all As!!!!!
Because of her outstanding academic record she was presented a trophy at the academic awards ceremony today!
Princess has decided to run track! She's a distance runner and is in three different events. She's been diligent in attending practices and working hard. Today is the first meet!
I'm also impressed because she's given up drinking soda pop for Lent and she hasn't fallen off the wagon yet!!!!
The Alcatraz kids live in a world of points. They earn and lose points at school and in their campus homes. For the 7th week in a row, she's earned 150 points here in school, which is the max number of points students can earn in a week. So she's had perfect school behavior for seven weeks; she so rocks!
Aren't my "kids" awesome?!?
Maggie the Mom
He was great last night in his school play. He just blew me away. His drama club has accumulated enough money in the kitty and they bought some seriously extravagant sets. The costumes were awesome as was the make up. And the students did an amazing job. They were impressive. But I have to say this about Mac. He was the lead and in a four Act show, he had about 60% of all the lines. He had two terrifically long monologues. And he was just..... wow. He nailed that part. I've never seen anything like it. He has more acting talent in his little finger than I do my whole body. He was fabulous.
The second bit of good news is that he received an almost full ride scholarship to his first choice of schools. We owe around $3k out of a bill of $30k. They take payments. I am so proud of him and so relieved.
And he made the all A and B honor roll at the end of this quarter! Even with the high amount of senior-itis that's affecting (in infecting?) him he hasn't given up on academics.
He's also been attending 2 different church youth groups, all on his own. I don't make him go. I thought he was was going because of a girl but when he was no longer interested in that "skirt" he still kept going. He even goes to youth group when his friends bail. Furthermore, the youth minister is taking him to dinner tonight to get to know him and celebrate Mac's positive contributions to the youth ministry.
Finally, he's looking for a job- and not complaining- so it's great to see that responsible side.
Princess:
She's on the all A honor roll- not a single B+ but all As!!!!!
Because of her outstanding academic record she was presented a trophy at the academic awards ceremony today!
Princess has decided to run track! She's a distance runner and is in three different events. She's been diligent in attending practices and working hard. Today is the first meet!
I'm also impressed because she's given up drinking soda pop for Lent and she hasn't fallen off the wagon yet!!!!
The Alcatraz kids live in a world of points. They earn and lose points at school and in their campus homes. For the 7th week in a row, she's earned 150 points here in school, which is the max number of points students can earn in a week. So she's had perfect school behavior for seven weeks; she so rocks!
Aren't my "kids" awesome?!?
Maggie the Mom
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Random Hump Day Musings
In our community, we have a pizza place what has a Godfather theme to their business name. Godfather as in the mafia movie. What I hate is that the radio DJ who does the commercials does a TERRIBLE, and I mean TERRIBLE, impression of Brando as the Godfather. If I owned the place I would wall and just tell them "no" and to stop.
Tonight is opening night of Mac's school play! It's his first huge lead so I'm excited to see how well it goes for him. He's a bit of a diva about it all so I hope his performance lives up to his ego.
I'm adding a shelf here and there to the library bookcases. Well, let me rephrase that, I would LIKE to do that. I can find the extra shelves but the pins that actually hold the shelves are gone. Really. Who takes the pins? And I'll be honest here. We don't think it's the kids. Someone on the library committee who's been here since the invention of dirt said she wouldn't be surprised if a previous librarian- 2 or 3 ago- tossed them in the trash. Seriously?!?
Gasoline is so expensive right now that I put $30 in my tank this morning. I was so on Empty that the fuel light was on. And $30 filled it only half way. Prohibitive. It really irks me, and it's completely unnecessary.
My school didn't use all of their scheduled calendar snow days so I get this Friday off. Yup, no school at all. Just a day to hang out. Thank you to the day off gods! Did I mention Mac will be at school all that day? I'm going to sleep in and read and just be a bum.
I can't believe it could snow tomorrow. Not nice.
Princess did some work in her art class and it's been submitted to a local art school competition. I'll be visiting the gallery! She's one of the top contenders for ribbons in the categories she's entered in- I'll let you know what she wins!
Speaking of Princess and weather, she's running distance races in track and her meet is tomorrow. Of course, I'm going to watch and cheer her on but it's supposed to be a high of 31 degrees with possible snow. Today it's a high of 62 with a chance of rain. I'm so thrilled about standing outside in that weather tomorrow. Not.
One thing I miss from when I lived in Northern Civilization, Armpit, and even in the Wild West is that I always had a group of folks with whom I met for "Thirsty Thursday" festivities. I miss Thirsty Thursdays at the local watering hole. I don't even have a local watering hole.
Tonight is opening night of Mac's school play! It's his first huge lead so I'm excited to see how well it goes for him. He's a bit of a diva about it all so I hope his performance lives up to his ego.
I'm adding a shelf here and there to the library bookcases. Well, let me rephrase that, I would LIKE to do that. I can find the extra shelves but the pins that actually hold the shelves are gone. Really. Who takes the pins? And I'll be honest here. We don't think it's the kids. Someone on the library committee who's been here since the invention of dirt said she wouldn't be surprised if a previous librarian- 2 or 3 ago- tossed them in the trash. Seriously?!?
Gasoline is so expensive right now that I put $30 in my tank this morning. I was so on Empty that the fuel light was on. And $30 filled it only half way. Prohibitive. It really irks me, and it's completely unnecessary.
My school didn't use all of their scheduled calendar snow days so I get this Friday off. Yup, no school at all. Just a day to hang out. Thank you to the day off gods! Did I mention Mac will be at school all that day? I'm going to sleep in and read and just be a bum.
I can't believe it could snow tomorrow. Not nice.
Princess did some work in her art class and it's been submitted to a local art school competition. I'll be visiting the gallery! She's one of the top contenders for ribbons in the categories she's entered in- I'll let you know what she wins!
Speaking of Princess and weather, she's running distance races in track and her meet is tomorrow. Of course, I'm going to watch and cheer her on but it's supposed to be a high of 31 degrees with possible snow. Today it's a high of 62 with a chance of rain. I'm so thrilled about standing outside in that weather tomorrow. Not.
One thing I miss from when I lived in Northern Civilization, Armpit, and even in the Wild West is that I always had a group of folks with whom I met for "Thirsty Thursday" festivities. I miss Thirsty Thursdays at the local watering hole. I don't even have a local watering hole.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
The run around
This is stupid but it's driving me crazy.
We have a program, that we pay for, through Scholastic called Reading Counts (RC). The very basics are that Scholastic gives books a reading level and a point value. Kids take a 10 question multiple choice quiz on a computer over a book. If they pass, the get points. If they fail, they get nothing. Teachers can use this tool however they want. It's a K-12 program. There are some more ins and outs but this is the general gist.
Here at my school, our English teachers tell students they get extra credit for reading books and passing the quizzes. Our library does some incentives, too, which is awesome for the kids. (One milestone is 500 point- an off campus pizza party for the student, a staff member and a friend!)
To keep current on the quizzes, schools have two options: 1) subscribe to the Scholastic online service that automatically uploads the updates as available; or, 2) receive in a CD in the mail and manually load the quizzes into a school's local quiz bank.
Because of costs and our school's situation in our school system, we have the "CD in the mail" option. Since I started this job, we've not received any CD's.
I will say it was the middle of February before I figured this out. So I started making calls to some people here in our buildings to see if the CDs we delivered to somewhere else on campus; they would have the old librarian's name so I thought someone might have taken it upon themselves to deliver CD-ROMs to any of the IT departments. No. They also didn't go to our administrators nor were they sent back to the company- another thought I had since there was a name change in librarians.
I called Scholastic and left a voice mail with our rep. Four days later I've heard nothing so I try again. Still nothing that week.
I call Scholastic and get bounced to four different people before I get sent to Customer Service. The operator tells me we have the online service. I tell her we do not. She says it must be a mistake and says she'll send the discs out and I should receive them in 5-7 business days. Now, remember, I'm wanting the updates for January thru March.
On the 7th business day I get a message from a nameless rep at Scholastic that says we belong to the online service and to call their 800 number for help if I need it.
WE DO NOT BELONG TO THE ONLINE SERVICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I call and actually get MY school's rep on the phone. I explain to her. She says the computer says.... you guessed it, we belong to the online service. I tell her okay fine and ask her to walk me through it. We start the process and Lo and behold I can't get online to the information because I don't have an online account.
After many clicks and being put on hold at her end, she comes back and tells me to start doing title searches of new books that were added to the online quiz bank in the last 3 months. She gives me about 10 titles and I have access to none of those quizzes.
Her answer is that she needs to "further investigate" to see what's wrong. She's supposed to call me back tomorrow.
I don't think she needs to investigate. Someone just needs to mail me the damn discs. As I told her, I have 2 years worth of CDs in a box so I have no idea what the damn problem is now.
Impressed I am not,
Maggie
We have a program, that we pay for, through Scholastic called Reading Counts (RC). The very basics are that Scholastic gives books a reading level and a point value. Kids take a 10 question multiple choice quiz on a computer over a book. If they pass, the get points. If they fail, they get nothing. Teachers can use this tool however they want. It's a K-12 program. There are some more ins and outs but this is the general gist.
Here at my school, our English teachers tell students they get extra credit for reading books and passing the quizzes. Our library does some incentives, too, which is awesome for the kids. (One milestone is 500 point- an off campus pizza party for the student, a staff member and a friend!)
To keep current on the quizzes, schools have two options: 1) subscribe to the Scholastic online service that automatically uploads the updates as available; or, 2) receive in a CD in the mail and manually load the quizzes into a school's local quiz bank.
Because of costs and our school's situation in our school system, we have the "CD in the mail" option. Since I started this job, we've not received any CD's.
I will say it was the middle of February before I figured this out. So I started making calls to some people here in our buildings to see if the CDs we delivered to somewhere else on campus; they would have the old librarian's name so I thought someone might have taken it upon themselves to deliver CD-ROMs to any of the IT departments. No. They also didn't go to our administrators nor were they sent back to the company- another thought I had since there was a name change in librarians.
I called Scholastic and left a voice mail with our rep. Four days later I've heard nothing so I try again. Still nothing that week.
I call Scholastic and get bounced to four different people before I get sent to Customer Service. The operator tells me we have the online service. I tell her we do not. She says it must be a mistake and says she'll send the discs out and I should receive them in 5-7 business days. Now, remember, I'm wanting the updates for January thru March.
On the 7th business day I get a message from a nameless rep at Scholastic that says we belong to the online service and to call their 800 number for help if I need it.
WE DO NOT BELONG TO THE ONLINE SERVICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I call and actually get MY school's rep on the phone. I explain to her. She says the computer says.... you guessed it, we belong to the online service. I tell her okay fine and ask her to walk me through it. We start the process and Lo and behold I can't get online to the information because I don't have an online account.
After many clicks and being put on hold at her end, she comes back and tells me to start doing title searches of new books that were added to the online quiz bank in the last 3 months. She gives me about 10 titles and I have access to none of those quizzes.
Her answer is that she needs to "further investigate" to see what's wrong. She's supposed to call me back tomorrow.
I don't think she needs to investigate. Someone just needs to mail me the damn discs. As I told her, I have 2 years worth of CDs in a box so I have no idea what the damn problem is now.
Impressed I am not,
Maggie
Monday, March 21, 2011
Hold on loosely but don't let go Part 2
I'm irritated with ITSam lately. There are several reasons why. It's okay to love a person, probably marry a person and still be irritated with them, isn't it?
Smothered. That's the world I think of lately. I don't mind being with him and spending lots of time together but he's so close in proximity it's driving me crazy. He's always "touching" me. Hmmmm, that sounds a little X rated. What I mean is he likes to hold my hand, squeeze my shoulder, hug and kiss me, pat my hair and stuff like that. He even had to sit next to me on the couch all the time even when there's other furniture available. It's.... overwhelming most of the time. I think it's very nice that he likes to show affection but it's just too much to have it ALL THE TIME. I want to scream "back off" which will just upset him, and probably rightly so.
And it seems like lately we've spent an increased amount of time together. In all honesty and fairness, most of the time it doesn't bother me but lately it does. I just feel like there are some other things I want to be doing and can't because he's always there, hovering around.
In my head I think that if we're married and we have our own stuff all in the same place we'll be able to do our own thing. Right now I'm either at his apartment which is the king of all things bachelor pad, or he's with me at Daddy-O's house, or we're out in public. When I'm at home/ Daddy-O's I like to watch tv, but I also like to read blogs and surf the web. I like to read books. I like to work on mini projects. But when he's there I feel like I need to entertain him rather than leave him sit there on the sofa while I'm in another part of the house doing my thing. If we lived in the same house he would have his "do his own thing" stuff readily available, as would I.
I also feel like we are spending lots of time together. Again, most of the time I don't mind but just lately it's bugging the crap out of me. I actually made plans to do something with XRay Girl and he said I did it because I was mad at him. WTF?!? I realize he was just upset and we talked it out but... seriously?
He's a good guy and he's fun, nice, and all that stuff, and right now, he's always there. I need to re-adjust something but I'm just not sure what.
Or maybe I'm just having a fit of... relationship cold feet. Who knows?
Maggie
Smothered. That's the world I think of lately. I don't mind being with him and spending lots of time together but he's so close in proximity it's driving me crazy. He's always "touching" me. Hmmmm, that sounds a little X rated. What I mean is he likes to hold my hand, squeeze my shoulder, hug and kiss me, pat my hair and stuff like that. He even had to sit next to me on the couch all the time even when there's other furniture available. It's.... overwhelming most of the time. I think it's very nice that he likes to show affection but it's just too much to have it ALL THE TIME. I want to scream "back off" which will just upset him, and probably rightly so.
And it seems like lately we've spent an increased amount of time together. In all honesty and fairness, most of the time it doesn't bother me but lately it does. I just feel like there are some other things I want to be doing and can't because he's always there, hovering around.
In my head I think that if we're married and we have our own stuff all in the same place we'll be able to do our own thing. Right now I'm either at his apartment which is the king of all things bachelor pad, or he's with me at Daddy-O's house, or we're out in public. When I'm at home/ Daddy-O's I like to watch tv, but I also like to read blogs and surf the web. I like to read books. I like to work on mini projects. But when he's there I feel like I need to entertain him rather than leave him sit there on the sofa while I'm in another part of the house doing my thing. If we lived in the same house he would have his "do his own thing" stuff readily available, as would I.
I also feel like we are spending lots of time together. Again, most of the time I don't mind but just lately it's bugging the crap out of me. I actually made plans to do something with XRay Girl and he said I did it because I was mad at him. WTF?!? I realize he was just upset and we talked it out but... seriously?
He's a good guy and he's fun, nice, and all that stuff, and right now, he's always there. I need to re-adjust something but I'm just not sure what.
Or maybe I'm just having a fit of... relationship cold feet. Who knows?
Maggie
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Not a morning person today
I am not a morning person. Daddy-O could share horror stories about my teen years, getting ready for school in the morning. Hopefully he won't. As I've gotten older I've tried really hard to adjust to mornings. I'm certainly NOT a morning person but now I try to move about my early AM routine in silence and leave everyone else alone as much as possible. I give myself a mental pick me up on the way to work. I guzzle coffee. And just as an adult, I tend to be a bit more mature most mornings and realize "this is life. Deal with it. Get you ass moving, Mags." That being said...
Is the body programmed to know when it's a weekend?
Usually weekends I sleep as long as I can and then drink coffee while sitting on the couch in my jammies for a good 2 hours. I blog or surf the web, read emails. I might watch a movie or read, but on weekends I am slow and leisurely as I start my days.
Today was an exception to the weekend rule. I actually opened the front office today as part of my weekend receptionist job. I had to have the doors unlocked, and phones and lights on by 8am. I got here at 7:53am. This is about the same time I roll into work at the library every single day of the week. I even went to bed last night around the same time I do on a 'school night'.
What I want to know is why this morning feels so rough? It's the same time and same body. It's a job that's about equal in work load or requirements on my body. In all honesty, this is probably simpler than the library, overall.
But when my alarm went off this morning- even 15 minutes later than usual!- I about died. I couldn't believe it. I hit the snooze and I actually fell back asleep which is unheard of. When I tap snooze I usually use those 9 minutes to contemplate the world and my day and slowly move all my limbs around. But this morning I almost dismantled the clock and then promptly went back to sleep. When it went off the second time I think I left a cartoon like hole in the ceiling about my bed, I was so startled.
I'm sitting here barely able to have my eyes open. I'm sucking down my coffee but it's not doing it's job.
I swear my body knows it's a Sunday, a day of rest, a day to sleep in.
I think Sunday 8am feels like any other time at 5am.
And it's supposed to rain today.
Ugh....
Maggie
Is the body programmed to know when it's a weekend?
Usually weekends I sleep as long as I can and then drink coffee while sitting on the couch in my jammies for a good 2 hours. I blog or surf the web, read emails. I might watch a movie or read, but on weekends I am slow and leisurely as I start my days.
Today was an exception to the weekend rule. I actually opened the front office today as part of my weekend receptionist job. I had to have the doors unlocked, and phones and lights on by 8am. I got here at 7:53am. This is about the same time I roll into work at the library every single day of the week. I even went to bed last night around the same time I do on a 'school night'.
What I want to know is why this morning feels so rough? It's the same time and same body. It's a job that's about equal in work load or requirements on my body. In all honesty, this is probably simpler than the library, overall.
But when my alarm went off this morning- even 15 minutes later than usual!- I about died. I couldn't believe it. I hit the snooze and I actually fell back asleep which is unheard of. When I tap snooze I usually use those 9 minutes to contemplate the world and my day and slowly move all my limbs around. But this morning I almost dismantled the clock and then promptly went back to sleep. When it went off the second time I think I left a cartoon like hole in the ceiling about my bed, I was so startled.
I'm sitting here barely able to have my eyes open. I'm sucking down my coffee but it's not doing it's job.
I swear my body knows it's a Sunday, a day of rest, a day to sleep in.
I think Sunday 8am feels like any other time at 5am.
And it's supposed to rain today.
Ugh....
Maggie
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