Stream of Conciousness

Ok, tonight I'm driving down the road to pick up my mail and "The wind beneath my wings" comes on the radio. Totally cheesy, right? But the words are completely my mom. She has always put everyone else before herself. When we were reading Megan's post about Mom, Emma was reading over my shoulder and said "yep, Nana B. is the nicest person I know." Now she's trying to pinch me for typing about her. So, anyway, I'm driving down Camelback rd. with tears pouring down my face thinking about what I can do as a tribute for my mom who gives her whole soul to everyone around her. At least I have always known that when it comes to my mom, my dad knows he is the luckiest man in the world. Now more than ever. Well, I'm thinking about how Mom really internalizes all of our decisions and that what she would like the most is for me to do the best that I can with my life. I have a slight (wince) tendency to be lazy and I certainly did not get that from her. I am working on my motivation to do the most with my life that I can and to ignore that natural fear of failure that is inside me.

Okay, now Emma gives me a cheesy grin and says, "just post that and let's snuggle" Seeing as how I'm talking about mother/daughter relationships, I think I will pause and return to this later.

Merilee's 2 minute poetry contest

Autumn

Leaves turn from green to gold
Sweaters keep away the cold.

At football games, we scream and shout
and Hokey Pokey, that's what it's all about.

Holidays are lots of fun
and always keep us on the run

Autumn really hits the spot
Except in Arizona, where it's still HOT!

ps. I hated this.

It kinda seemed like the thing to do to put this picture up with my other sisters. I know I haven't posted in a while but my computer has been acting up and I just really haven't felt like it. The cord to connect my laptop has to be bent at a specific angle in order to keep my computer charged and if it comes unconnected, the battery dies in about 1/2 an hour, plus it's really slow. I've been trying to spend time with Mom and Dad at the hospital. Mom can rarely leave because Dad gets so nervous. Now I have a cold.

I still have adorable children and a sweet husband, they're just not getting much airtime right now.

I do have to tell one quick story though.
On Tuesday, I think, I went down to the hospital and they were about to give Dad a transfusion. They asked us to go wait out in the lobby while they set it up. I had just gotten there and so I took all of my stuff with. Mom, Emma and I played a fun little game while we waited and then they came and got us. I grabbed all my stuff off the counter, but my purse was on the floor and I left it there. An hour later, when I realized, I ran out to the waiting room. My purse was there but my wallet was gone. I got to spend the evening canceling cards and checks. Wednesday morning David had to be to work at 6. He got up extra early and went and filled my car with gas and got me some cash before he left for work. It was so sweet! What a great husband!

Another husband, of chimpanzees

Ok, lately for some reason, David has taken to singing the BNL song Another Postcard. It talks about all of the chimpanzee postcards that someone is sending. I think that it would be hilarious to start anonymously sending them to him, but I can't seem to find any. Why is it that you can never find a good chimpanzee postcard when you need one? If any one sees any would you please let me know. I have been on the lookout, but not one! Suddenly, while looking for this picture, I had an epiphany. I could possibly print and make the postcards.

Then after this marvelous thought, I realized I may never search the web for chimpanzees again. This was after the picture scrolled across my screen of someone performing a Lewinsky with no warning whatsoever and the caption did not have anything to do with chimps or the actual picture. I'm still grimacing.

Bedroom

I am surprised at how much I love my bedroom. I was going to go over the color with a glaze and wipe it off to antique it a little, but I love the color so much I can't. When I'm in my room with the fan on low, it is so incredibly relaxing. I can hardly bring myself to leave it in the morning. That may have multiple reasons behind it of course. It feels like I'm living in a cloud. I had so much to write about when I was thinking about this this morning. I do adore my bedroom, but after 12 hours of school today, I can't seem to remember why?

Housepainting

I love this picture of Zoba!
Ty's shirt compliments the blue of Emma's room perfectly. This is the color blue I talked her down to. You should have seen what she originally wanted. It may not be Shanda's first choice for eye shadow, though.
We'll see if you still as pleased when you're a teenager.

Lauren - happiest when she's in the thick of things, tapes the windows in the what, 20 foot ceiling living room. So easy to paint (grimace) Thanks to all who were willing to climb the ladder, Ty, Toad, Rueben. Thanks also to all who have helped us paint and move. We couldn't have done it without you!

Ahh, Sunday Morning

I know, this blog is getting lame without any new pics, soon. Tom, I have that same paranoid "sleep through my alarm" paranoia. So far this school year, every day my last hour of sleep is pretty much a waste. Which is why this Sunday Morning has been so lovely. I woke up at quarter to seven anyway, but then Sonny and I hung out while I paid bills online. Not the most spiritual Sunday activity, but it didn't get done yesterday (after my 5 hour drive to Breck's birthday party) so today it was. An hour later, Lauren finally got up. I'm sure Emma will be down soon. Sonny seems to be adjusting pretty well. He does crave attention though. He is perfectly happy to lay around all day, as long as one of us is beside him. After our early morning rain storm yesterday, Lauren went out and ran with him around the cult-i-sac (as Emma says) while Emma rode her bike. Later they walked him a little further. He loves to play fetch with Emma in the backyard. She says, "He plays fetch, I play chase" (trying to get whatever she threw back from him.) I'm gonna go read blogs now and maybe I'll have more to say later.

Completely Unfair!

Yesterday I stayed at work and wrote in my blog and was late leaving work (5pm) And then it didn't even post. It went to some weird screen and told me that I had to download stuff. LAME
Then I went to run errands and Uncle Ross called and said they wanted to bring Todd over to see the house before he left town again. So my errands didn't get done either. But I did have wings for dinner. Yum!

Ok, ok, I'm moving here folks!

All right, I know that I have been away for a while, but it takes some time to get stuff from one house to the other, including internet service. David finally got the computer moved over to the house, then got it set up, then found out the internet doesn't work upstairs. He moved the comp downstairs only to find when the internet was connected, the cable wouldn't work. Anyway, I was really too tired to even think about posting. I leave the house at 7am and usually leave school between 4:30 and 5:00, getting us home between 5 and 5:30. Yesterday, I just dropped off the kids and went to target and fry's, got gas, and got home about 8. I was exhausted and wanted to do nothing, but instead raked a little bit of rocks to make room for grass for Sunny, did a load of laundry, unloaded and loaded the dishwasher (actually still fun) and finally crashed in front of a show debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories. I'm only sort of having a pity party here. It really did start out as an explanation. It's kinda funny because I'm typing this as my students write apology letters to teachers for their behavior in the hallway after school yesterday. One of the other teachers was late for duty and asked me to walk her kids out. The 2 classes together went a little crazy. I love school!

School, aargghh!

These are the pics I was supposed to include last week. Sorry, I've been negligent. I just get used to being a bum, uh, I mean mom and have to go back to this blasted job.

Aahhh, I'm back at work. I have one more day to get my classroom ready and only need another week. House closing is the day after tomorrow and HOPEFULLY painting party is at my house on Saturday. They tell us that we have to have laser timing to get our keys on Friday, otherwise, it's Monday. Nooooooooooo, so far our timing has not been the greatest. (Read, house closing the first week of school) We are working on making sure that all of the paperwork gets to the title company on time so that it can all get to the recorder's office in time to get finished on friday. Otherwise, we have to wait until the recorder opens again on Mon.

I am too stressed to write about the district ridiculousness, but maybe later.

Meg, congrats on the passing grade in the most insane class ever and graduating college for real!

Crazy idiot trucker

Oh My Gosh! Some crazy idiot trucker ran me off the road today. Nobody is hurt and my car is not damaged, but that was pure luck. I was driving down the 17 west-bound where it joins back up with the 10 by the airport. I was in the far left lane and all of the sudden this semi starts moving over into my lane. I was not behind him, I was right beside him. I even think I could see him in his mirror. When he was about a foot over in my lane, I honked. No response. I honked again as he got further into my lane. I had to swerve over into the inside shoulder. On my third honk, as I'm driving on the shoulder, the jerk has the nerve to honk back at me. Did he think I was just in a hurry, trying to pass him? Did I mention that this was rush hour and traffic was insane. I passed him and got back into an actual lane and shook my fist at him. He honked at me again. I was furious. If there hadn't been a shoulder there we would have been smashed between the truck and the wall. Lauren would have been crushed. I was so angry. I called the cops and gave them his liscence plate number. The freeway, again, was packed and I never got to see the company he was with or I would have called them to complain too. He was behind me until I lost sight of him. I think he was avoiding me for some reason. It was terrible.

Btw, Emma took my camera out of my purse in the car, and so again, I am not posting the pictures of my house yet.

Countdown

I am going to post pictures of my house here, but I'm too lazy tonight. It seems that getting ready for our house and getting the kids ready for school is my life right now. We are 9 days and counting from our close. Friday, August 10th is our close date, as well as the open house at Sunset school. Who ever heard of having a school open house at 8:00 in the morning? Our appliances were delivered today. I feel so spoiled; side by side fridge with filtered water and ice in the door, flat top stove with additional warming burner (my gas stove would just get hot enough to pretend the back middle section was a warming burner), microwave that I don't even understand yet, because it has 2 metal racks in it (I thought that microwaves couldn't have metal), front loading washer and dryer. 9 days to heaven! of course then we got the doctor's bill, $15,000 and all they wanted to do was dip us in plaster. Everything is done except the little touch ups. And the one huge touch up, I think I already mentioned that the landscapers planted my trees smack in the middle of the yard. This is a huge yard and a ridiculous way to plant the trees. I wanted to cry, but I just sent them a little note to let them know that was not what we asked for. Hopefully they will fix it. I am so excited!

confusing

I'm working on trying to adjust my layout. I found a site that looks like it should help, but I'm not sure if it wors with this site. I really want to change this and make it cute, but now I am tired and going to bed.

Under construction

I've been looking around at other blogs and I've been inspired by what I've seen. I've just followed links of people that I'm connected to and saw such fun things on some Lambson and Ray blogs. So, I'm experimenting with my blog to try and figure out how to frou-frou mine up. If any of you experts out there have any suggestions for me I am so open.

Also, I've kind of had this mental block that I need to have about a hundred pictures on my camera before I load them onto my computer. Merilee inspired me with her "new pop" pictures that I could just photograph what I've been up to this summer and post it. So, here goes...

Ok, so the pictures went in on top. Whatever. This is part of my summer scrapbook, which is literally, a scrap book. I got an old book and tore out pages, glued pages together, and covered them with whatever I wanted to. Way cheaper than buying an album and funner too.

Lauren and Emma both had fun with their cousins in Utah. Lauren is being goofy with Grayson and Emma and Riley hung out all the time. This is them at the cafe where they have good ice and vanilla to put in my diet coke, oh yeah, and food too.

Yeah, I'm still working on how to change the heading of my blog. I experimented with the front of this scrapbook, but that's not exactly what I meant to do. I'll have to change it later, though because we're off to see what's new at the house.

ooh, she got me

1. 4 jobs I've had

token girl at Radio Shack
non-drinking bartender
counting cars on a street corner
cookie factory worker (it was total I Love Lucy, with my best friend Mary. We moved cookies from the conveyor belt into the packages-hilarious)

2. 4 movies I can watch any time

Pride & Prejudice(6 hour)-ditto Merilee
Spiderman
Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Babe( Christmas means Carnage!!!!) Who could not love that?

3. 4 places I have lived

Chandler, AZ
Provo, UT
Phoenix, AZ - 40th St.
Phoenix, AZ - 16th St (about to move to 23rd Lane)

4. 4 TV shows I love

Lost
Law & Order
anything on HGTV
I still miss "Ed" possibly my favorite show ever

5. 4 foods I love

crap in a bag, I mean Crab in a bag
homegrown tomatoes - I'm stealing another one from Merilee. I at three from Mom's garden for lunch one day
Elmer's tostadas, burritos, tacos, enchiladas, tamales
Dinner at my mom's chicken noodles, beef stroganoff, curried meatballs, this list could go on and on

6. 4 websites I visit daily

myyahoo.com
family blogs
'k not daily, but often, msn games - bejewelled
I'm just not that consistent - it depends, probably my bank next most often.

7. 4 places I'd rather be

visiting Washington D.C. with my kids
anywhere cool (although it's been a pretty good monsoon)
Koosharem, UT
Chandler, AZ - I know I can go anytime, but I'd rather live there

8. 4 people to tag

Elise
Meg
Darilyn
Emma - we'll see?

I'm back

Ok, I actually finished Harry on Sunday, but I have been crazy this week. I'm not sure if I was so busy, or I just couldn't get my computer away from Lauren. She is watching The Prince of Tennis on youtube, another lame anime cartoon. At least this one inspires her to want to do something active - tennis.

Just a little Harry talk, I enjoyed the ending. I'm not saying much, but I guess I'm assuming if you were really into not knowing what happens at the end, you would have read the book by now. I thought that the book was full of surprises and that J.K. Rowling did a pretty good job keeping up with the hype. I actually didn't really like the afterward, but she had to let the public know what happened with everyone. Does Harry really just fade into oblivion? No ministry post or Hogwarts headmaster? David took a little foray into Harry on wikipedia and WOW! some people are really dedicated. It was interesting to see the family trees and realize how closely some of the families are related, but I could never spend the time researching a fictional family the way those posters did.

Alright, since Harry, I've been trying to make sure my kids are registered for school, avoiding setting up my classroom (school starts in 18 days), and trying to finalize the info for my mortgage and house closing. How Scary! They want to see the money in my account for my down payment "plus reserves". I'm like "reserves, what reserves? They have to wait until I get paid again." Megan says to tell them not to worry about it. I'm sure they'll be ok with that.

I went out to the house yesterday. The carpet was in, the electricity, air conditioning, and water was on, and the shutters were installed. It was so exciting. It is hard to imagine how something can be so exciting and so incredibly scary at the same time. Oh, kind of like starting a family. When I look around, there is some touch up painting outside (the railing) and the kitchen appliances need to be installed and that is pretty much it. We're almost done! What a mess of emotions. It's a good thing that I went to Costco and got the GIANT bottle of Tums, because talk about heartburn!

Now, I get to go read other people's blogs. See ya.

hiatus

I think that I am taking a few days to read Harry Potter. Merilee, how do you post links to, say, yours and Boston's blogs?

Evie and the Apple

Photo by Elise Hird

Evie and the Apple Tree
By Monique Fullmer
Inspired by Grandma Jack


A long time ago, like about ninety years, in a far away place called Oklahoma, there lived a little girl named Evie. Evie lived in an unusual place called a farm, where plants grew and the stores and restaurants of the town were very far away.

On this particular day, Evie’s mother needed to go to the store. Before she left, Evie’s mother called her over to give her some instructions. You see, Evie’s mother knew that her daughter loved apples, any kind of apples; sweet or sour, red or green, juicy or dry, with sugar or salt. Evie loved apples. Evie’s mother also knew that the green apples on the tree outside of the kitchen were not ripe and they would give Evie a giant tummy-ache. And, she knew that Evie would eat them anyway.

So, the first thing on the list of Evie’s instructions (because, of course there was a list of chores to do on the farm) was
DO NOT PICK ANY APPLES!
After that, there were things like sweep the floor, milk the cow, bake a peach pie, don’t forget to feed your little brother, hoe some weeds, and feed the chickens. After all, this was a farm, a very long time ago in Oklahoma.

Well, Evie’s mother left for her long trip to the store and Evie decided that she better do the things her mother told her to do. She swept the floor and milked the cow without ever once thinking about that old apple tree outside the kitchen window.

But when Evie started to slice the peaches to bake the peach pie for dinner, (Evie’s Daddy loved pie) she couldn’t help but look out that window at the big, old apple tree loaded with apples. True, the apples weren’t ripe yet, but as peach juice dribbled down her fingers, she could almost taste the tart-sweet, sour juice of a crisp-green apple on the back of her tongue. Evie did love apples. Of course, she remembered her mother’s instructions before she left for the store,
DO NOT PICK ANY APPLES!
So Evie went on with her chores.

As Evie fed her little brother lunch, she imagined munching on a sour apple with salt. As she chopped down weeds in the cornfield, she tasted the cool trickle of sticky apple juice and oh, how she wanted an apple! By the time Evie fed the chickens, she was nearly desperate for one of those green apples hanging from the tree. Suddenly, it struck her. Mother had said,
“DO NOT PICK ANY APPLES!”
She would not disobey her mother, but she simply had to have an apple.

Evie slowly meandered over to the apple tree. She didn’t want to attract attention. At the base of the tree, she looked around to make sure no one was watching. Evie quickly climbed up into the tree. She already knew the perfect fork in the branch where she could sit. She looked around and spotted a plump, shiny, green apple and very carefully, so as not to pluck the apple from its stem, she began to sink her teeth into its firm green flesh. Oh, it was wonderful! It was sour and sweet and puckered her mouth and tasted like crunchy heaven. Evie continued to gnaw away at the apple until only a skinny, scrawny core hung from the limb above her head.

The apple tasted better than any she could ever remember. However, now that it was gone, Evie began to realize that even though she had followed her mother’s instructions, she might still be in trouble. She worried about what her mother would say when she got home. As Evie worried, she felt a little knot in her stomach start to grow.

The longer Evie waited, the more her tummy started to hurt. Soon, the pain in her stomach forced her to go to bed. It was there her mother found her when she got home from the store. Mother realized almost immediately what had happened. She started to tell Evie how disappointed she was that she had disobeyed. Evie quickly pointed out that she had not actually disobeyed her mother. She had not picked any apples. Mother looked out the window at the big apple tree. She saw the skinny, scrawny core still hanging, firmly attached to the tree. A slight smile stole across Mother’s face as she stifled a laugh deep inside.

Evie learned a lesson about life that day. She learned that her mother would often tell her things that didn’t seem to make sense. Yet, if she listened to her mother, she would save herself from tummy aches or headaches or even heartaches. Evie’s mother learned that her daughter was very intelligent and she needed to be careful and very specific when she gave her instructions.

When Evie grew up and had her own little girl, she told her this story. That little girl grew up and told her little girls and now I’m telling it to you. Pass it on.

AIMS

Ok, this is a letter I wrote Tom Horne our state superintendent of public schools at the beginning of June. He has never written me back. So, now I am posting it here in, what is it? the blogosphere. This problem really ticks me off.

Dear Tom Horne,

I am writing to express my concern to you about the timing of AIMS DPA testing. I am a parent of elementary age children as well as an elementary school teacher.
My concern is that the timing of AIMS DPA is causing difficulty for students and educators. As a result of early April testing dates, the entire set of standards for each grade must be taught by the end of March. As I work on my curriculum map, I feel strongly that it is a misuse of time to rush through challenging lessons with my students, not allowing them the necessary time to develop their understanding of standards and concepts. However, in order to teach all standards before AIMS, that is exactly what I must do.
Additionally, attempting to teach all standards before AIMS leaves the rest of the school year, the duration of April and May, to “fill in” rather than teach. Depending on the school that I have been at, I have been instructed to either begin teaching the next year’s curriculum, or go back and cover the “less important” standards that I had to bypass in order to ensure students achieved understanding of certain “power” standards that are covered more strenuously on AIMS. In each case, the students (I teach 6th grade.) seemed to believe that schoolwork was no longer important, because they had already completed their testing for the year.
Finally, I understand that it is important to have timely results of assessment. However, at this time, test results become available in June. While I’m sure that there is much going on that I am not aware of, it seems that the middle of summer is an odd time for test results. I have spent some amount of time researching on the Department of Education website to try to discover the relevance of the test schedule. I have been unsuccessful. It seems to me that if AIMS were completed either at the end of April or beginning of May, more time would be available to teach the standards, less of the school year would be wasted on teaching what will be re-taught the next year, or should have been taught earlier in the year, and students would not experience the level of “check-out” that they seem to at this time.
I greatly appreciate you taking your valuable time to read my concerns. I have spoken with many, many educators who feel similarly about this situation. I have yet to hear a convincing argument that negates my concerns. I would appreciate your input on this matter that deeply distresses me.

Sincerely,

Monique Fullmer
Jausten70@yahoo.com

Next project

Ok, I think I'm going to do a Mom thing for my next scrapbook project. I just came up with this, so we'll see how it goes. Anyway, I'll randomly brainstorm it here.

Things I got from my mom

The best potato salad ever
Chicken noodles
knowing how to cook without "having" to use campbell's cream of whatever soup
knowing that sometimes it's ok to use campbell's or top ramen or whatever
splotchy legs
lack of chin
sadly, not her body shape
a love of music
a love of family
some patience, but not to the same level
a soft heart - I've seen the woman give a dollar to a homeless man when I knew full well that was the only one she had, and not really sure when she would have more.
a tendency to clutter
if only I had her energy for cleaning
the knack of buying, writing, addressing, stamping, and never mailing thankyou notes
the inability to turn down a plea for help - oh wait- I may have gotten over that one - sort of.
a keen sense of the spirit - I should point out here that she is 25 years ahead of me in everything. Sometimes they seem like light years.
I can drive with my knee- she's better at the turns.
a love of asparagus, but not brussell sprouts, sorry mom
AWESOME GRANDPARENTS! I miss them so much.
a great working knowledge of how to give my kids a guilt trip when they need it
I can't believe I got this far down the list without getting to lemons and salt yet, mmmm
the smell of dirt and rain
a great childhood
I know how to sew
I love to read
I will forget whatever I read by the next day
walking barefoot through cool grass
cracked, gnarly heels
freckles
I know how to bake bread
I've seen her grind wheat
I know that I should be kind
A love for my Heavenly Father and Jesus (these are not in order of importance, obviously)
I did not get her love of gardening, but I do appreciate the fruits of her labors and will keep trying.
I fall asleep on the couch watching t.v.
I don't want to go to sleep, because I might miss some good conversation.
Solitaire
maybe someday I'll be able to forgive like her
we could talk and laugh and shop all day
we love color (yes, mom. Brown is a color.)
Candy
a little touch of 19th century
appreciation for quality
strong fingernails
a true sense of self
She always told me to finish college. It took 17 years, but I did.
speaking of, smarts
an awesome grandma for my kids
a puppy
the ability to look on the bright side
and stay calm
an understanding of others
manners (please and thankyou are the magic words)
lyrics stuck in my head - "I'm did, I'm didn't. I did obey. I didn't. I'm happy, hap, hap happy all the while. Not me"

Well, this list could continue, I'm sure. I hope that it is taken how it is meant, with all the love in my heart for the best mom possible.