State fair.

If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you'll be going, 'you know, we're alright. We are dang near royalty.'

~Jeff Foxworthy

I hate wind.

I left a committee meeting at the hill today and I literally couldn't catch my breath as I made my way from the building to the car! My car door, whipped open by the wind, hit me in the jaw.  I sat for a few minutes in the car, checking my phone before I took off, and I was certain the luggage rack had been ripped off the roof.

Is there anything we can do to prevent wind? If we send out an email forward to everyone in our address books and get everyone to stand on their porches and inhale simultaneously... okay, I'm grasping, but I HATE this stuff!

I am a genius.

I don't mind giving the girls an allowance. They are busy with school, there ARE, thankfully, child-labor laws, and they need spending money for the things they do with their friends. Kids don't need a lot of money, but having it naturally forces them to make decisions about spending it, and we all need practice doing that.

Each and every time.

I ran into Jessie and her mom at the grocery store today. I was glad to see other people were in an Easter pickle due to late shopping. They were out of fresh strawberries! Who runs out of strawberries? It was fun talking with Jessie. She is such a bright, shiny person. What a treasure we have in her - since she decided to stay in town after college - so many bright, young people leave.

Did you hear that "whizzing" sound?

...that was March screaming by in a blur. Unfortunately, I only posted sixteen times in March, so I pledge to be better in April! And now I'm blowing two posts in a day, but I just want to make a public statement that I WILL POST EVERY DAY IN APRIL! So now you've heard it...now hold me to it!

Negativity follow-up.

As I re-read the post about the Honor Roll Assembly, I thought about what Kelly says when someone is being unbearably negative: If you gave that guy a check for a thousand dollars, he'd bitch that he had to make a trip to the bank to cash it. Yep, I'm pretty sure that mother would complain all the way to the bank...

Bullies wanted.

I was bullied this week. I went to EMS to watch McKenna play volleyball, and I saw Harry (here’s a public Happy Birthday to Harry!) Harry razzed me about not writing in my blog recently! (Of all the nerve! Does he have any idea how hard it is to find something even mildly interesting or marginally relevant [bear with me, I'm being generous] every day?) He first harassed me via text that morning “I cant read your blog if you dont write anything” and then later in the day, he zinged me again – in person! It was a figurative noogie, nothing less!

Life is like basketball.

I've been consumed by basketball lately. While I love watching basketball (how could you NOT love this team?), the season goes on and on... with LOTS of games... Even with all of the games and all the time away from home, I would take in a hundred basketball games before ONE football game. I have to sit - make that STAND - through a LOT of football games too... I refer to each as "three hours of my life I can't get back."

Breakfast downer.

Is this like reading tea leaves? hmmm... I wonder how the rest of the day will go?

The mind does the seeing.

We often talk about listening versus hearing. You can talk all you want and I can look at you blankly and listen to your words, but I need to really concentrate to hear you, to understand how your words and your tone are sending me a message. Listening intently and really hearing someone is a precious gift, as Mel says.

Reflexive opposition.

I was at a meeting the other day when someone was explaining his ideas about a paradigm shift in secondary education. The idea would take the way we do business in a different direction, with the hope of infusing more relevance into instruction, thereby reducing the drop out rate. Watching the body language around the table was telling. It's interesting to me to see the reflexive opposition some people have to other people; opposing something based on its source rather than on its merit is assinine, but happens all the time. It's a very "pre-teen" behavior (adults are always wrong - right?), but it is exhibited by many, many adults - even those we give responsibility to rationally think through issues (just watch C-SPAN!)

Civility.

So many people are frustrated or disappointed with young people today because they dress in poor taste, use offensive language and talk in code, dance suggestively and listen to terrible music. Let's face it though; every generation criticizes the generations that come after. I can live with bad music, underwear showing, and embarrassing dancing. I can even live with coarse language - heck, anyone who knows me knows I'm no stranger to the F-bomb! (sorry, mom)

90-10.

It is a day like today that I am reminded that the law of 90-10 really does exist. Ninty percent of the people in the world are wonderful human beings. Ten percent are pukey. We need to focus on the 90.

The AA Orchestra Festival is here at CMR and students from GFHS and the Kalispell schools were in our cafeteria eating during their lunch break. They were there at a strange time, lingering after our students returned to class.

January whizzes by in a blur.

January is gone. January seemed to fly by in such a hurry, it's hard to believe half of the school year is over. I listened to an article on NPR about the reason time seems to fly by faster as you get older... fascinating stuff... It sure makes me want to go out and find new and novel things to do to put the skids on this perpetual state of fast-forward I feel like I'm in!

When I take a look at what I set out to do - to write in the blog every day, I can say I did okay! I think I see 31 posts in January, and while that is cheating a little (a couple of posts on a couple of days; no posts on a couple of others,) I'll take it.

Who is in charge of this mess?

So in the statistics section of today's paper, I read this:

Besides the second announcement being a little untraditional, the name of the first mother of the second announcement made my stomach sick. Take a look at the news article from a few months ago. Maybe she can take her new baby to her sentencing in a Snugli. Who is in charge of this mess?

Mind-numbing therapy.

I'm about to start my period. I'm sorry to say, a few kids got the wrath of me today. I hate it when, at the end of the day, I feel like I didn't serve them well. Even when I feel like shit, they deserve dignity and respect. Don't get me wrong, I didn't treat kids disrespectfully... but I certainly didn't have the compassion I aim to have most days...

Oddly enough, I enjoyed finishing a 42 page report for the state today. I "had" to close my door and be alone for about four hours this morning. Who would have thought a mind-numbing chore could be so therapeutic!

Does that make me an idiot?

I got an email from a woman at work - I had been cc:ed (although I couldn't tell that right away by looking at the message in my inbox). The subject line said "JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW." In my mind I was opening one of those mushy emails that has a nice statement about how much someone appreciates you...

The sender is the records clerk so this is a very busy time of year for her. It turns out it's something about how she had to change a grade for a student for one reason or another.

Does that make me an idiot? Perhaps.

As if she knew it were true...

What is it that people enjoy so much about gossip? I can almost understand teenagers gossiping... they are emotionally immature and are still trying to figure out their places in the world. They don't realize the consequences of what they are saying - how their words can leave lasting scars on the victims of their stories.

Address the gap.

So much of the time, we approach a problem by examining, studying, and dwelling on what isn't right -OR- by pacing around and wringing our hands about how we will never reach the desired goal. We are so good at admiring the problem (or fretting about the impossibility of the target,) but we fail even to take a peek at possible solutions. Instead of this method, we should spend time finding and then addressing the gap.

Blighter's Rock.

I wanted to write something about a place by the shore called Blighter's Rock. It's an imaginary place I go when I have all of my energy sucked out of me and yet I want to continue writing. I don't want to go there, but a gravitational force sucks me in that direction. When I have no energy, the "juices" I'd normally use to create - anything - are gone. It's those days that, as Mel described in her blog, "the cat rubs up against me, wanting something from me, and it sends me over the edge." It's THOSE days that I am pulled to Blighter's Rock, and there is no coming back!