Midlife Natalie

Blogging.  That’s a source of ambivalence around my house.  I love it.  I read blogs by so many talented writers, and I want to write, too.  I sneak peaks at the dashboard of my blog and spend a few moments thinking about writing fabulous blog posts.  Then I close my computer and resume my normally hectic life.  I dream about vacations and summers and free time.  Time that can be spent writing.

Unfortunately there are lots of things that need catching up on during my free time.  I spend the first bit of any free time sleeping.  I can’t help it.  I open my computer, and I close my eyes.  During this Christmas break I needed to sleep, clean, plan for school stuff, and start and finish my Christmas shopping.  I figured I would write when that was all done.  Today is Christmas Day, and I am not quite finished shopping.  Considering my family celebration isn’t happening until New Year’s Day I still have time.  I think I’m caught up on sleep, cleaning is over-rated, and the school stuff is done.  I’ve been saying I would sit down and write a post all week.  I just never did.  For some reason I have been lazy.  I want to write, but I also want to lie around.  I want to put words here, but there are CSI episodes to catch up on, and gingerbread cookies to eat.

Enter Fleur de lis.  Today she felt the urge to express herself.  She asked if she could write a guest post on my blog.  Um…yes!  Of course.  But not because I’m lazy and in the middle of an E True Hollywood Marathon on the DVR, but because I’m a giver.  My blog and I…we are here for you!

Oh and um…honey…before you sit down can you get me a Diet Coke?  I don’t want to miss this part!  This Queen Latifah bio is fascinating!

And here is what my Fleur de lis has to say…

The Aubergine Pot

In recent decades, Christmas had become just another vacation day away from work.  It really is a children’s celebration, as far as I am concerned.

Nat and I made an agreement that we would not exchange gifts this Christmas.  We would focus on family, in particular the kids.  Good. Done.

This morning as we awoke to a very chilly morning, I scampered to the thermostat to summon some warmth and then to plug in the tree lights.  That’s when I saw it.

Missy had bargained with Papa Noel on the sly and he’d left me a gift beneath the tree. What a cheater.

But not wanting to hurt her feelings, I quickly scooped up (more like “lugged” as the package weighed a ton!) the prize and ran to the bedroom to reveal it in front of the Giver and to get my cold tootsies back under the covers.

Now, don’t get your hopes up that I’m going to relate how my Love gave me a new Piaget or a David Yurman.  It wasn’t any of my favorite colognes nor a renewal to my Car and Driver subscription.  It wasn’t tickets to Paris or even a gift card to McDonald’s.

Nope.  This was one that I absolutely could not guess.  But, I must tell you, Miss Nat did good.

I ripped until the gift was revealed. It was an iron enamel-clad dutch oven. I’ve always wanted one of those but I am too cheap to purchase such for myself. Needless to say, I was quite pleasantly surprised.  But the best part of all is that this magnificent culinary vessel was the perfect color, too. Purple!

I thanked my Girl and immediately tried to decide what the inaugural dish would be. It didn’t take long to come to.

For those of you who followed my blog,  you will already know about my lifelong friend, Jeanie.  We are from New Orleans and she still lives in that beautiful City.  Well, Jeanie’s mom was a character that I will always love and remember.  Her name was Colletta and she was a marvelous cook and singer.  Years ago, I had asked Colletta for a contribution to my keepsake recipes.  I had a collection of standards and specialties from people I knew and loved. I had each write their recipe in their own hand to make the memory even more special.  Colletta gave me her best and you can still find it in my box under “Colletta’s File Gumbo!”

Colletta passed away less than two years ago. It seems only fitting that my first dish in my new (Mardi Gras) aubergine pot will be Colletta’s gumbo.

I shared this decision with Natalie and we agreed that from here on we shall call this gift the Aubergine Gumbo Pot.

Hey, it works for me.

I suspect that we will have an additional course at our future Christmas dinners as well as a reminder of family no longer with us.  Yeah, that pot is gonna have some stories to tell someday.

Uh, Honey, let me know if you’re “not” giving me anything for my birthday next month. 😉

Yesterday I bought a bunch of Coke, Dr. Pepper, Diet Coke, and Sprite.  I bought big bags of chips, containers of dip, and packages of cookies.  I got paper plates, napkins, cups, plasticware, and ice.  I ordered 5 large pizzas.  And there was cake and ice cream.  Yes, my son had a birthday party.  He elected to just have a bunch of guys over at the house to hang out.  They played tag in the dark, football in the dark, and video games in the dark.  I think there were only 7 of them, but add my 4 and kids were everywhere.  And it was loud.  And stinky.  I lit vanilla candles, and cinnamon candles, and apple cider candles.  There was a bottle of Stetson cologne on the kitchen counter that may or may not have been sprayed on one or two random kids as they happened by.  And at midnight I took the 3 of mine who weren’t involved in the party and came back to my apartment.  The air was fresh and quiet.  We took deep cleansing breaths as we tiptoed around and got ready for bed.  We whispered our goodnights and fell asleep.  Ahhh…

I added WordPress to my phone. Maybe I’ll attempt to blog more. I don’t know though. This is taking longer than writing on my computer. I have barely been home this past week so there wasn’t any time to actually sit down at my computer. This might be a decent option for weeks like that. I am not sure what all the functions on my phone do though. Maybe this is the time and place to try them out. Like this one…will it be in bold type when it posts on the blog? And now italics? Maybe I’m just typing.

Underlined?

Overlined?

And this??? I think I have a lot to learn.

Edited:  And now I’m home and can see that there was no underlining or overlining.  The part that I thought would be bold wasn’t, but I think I know why.  But by golly I nailed that italics part!  And the end…well I don’t even remember what was happening at the end.  All I know is that it was 9pm on a Friday night and I was falling asleep.  Lame-o-la.

Wait!  Everyone stop!  Do not proceed forward with your day.  If we all protest the hands of time maybe, just maybe, tomorrow won’t come.  I don’t want tomorrow to come yet.  Tomorrow means the start of another school week.  I’m not ready to go back to school yet.  And seriously…where did the last week go?  I know much of it was spent stuffing my face and pretending not to notice my expanding waistline.  Yay for stretchy pants!

I had a great vacation.  I spent several days at my parent’s lakehouse with my family.  It was my first official holiday without my Wasband, and while I had fun I did wish he could be there.  It seemed wrong that he wasn’t out by the firepit with the other guys.  I felt his absence when football was on TV and board games were played.  I know those things will take some getting used to, but it made me sad for him.  I was sad that he was missing it.

And yes, I was with my family minus my sister.  She and her husband went on an overseas trip.  She took her oldest kids with her and left the youngest in the care of my parents.  The youngest doesn’t really know me.  She’s 3 and since my sister and I don’t really have much of a relationship I’m never around her.  Over the holiday I got to spend some time with her.  Granted there were lots of cousins around to distract her, and I certainly didn’t want to do anything to upset my sister, but I did enjoy watching her with the others.  At one point my boys were horsing around in the living room.  She came in to see what was on TV.  I watched her survey the room and decide to sit as far away from their commotion as possible.  That seat was in my lap.  My dad walked through the room on his way outside a few minutes later .  He saw her in my lap and smiled.  I knew what he would do.  He got his camera and took our picture.  I guess he thought it might be a good idea to capture the moment.  I’m sure it won’t happen often.

I’ve been thinking about Christmas this year.  Last year it stressed me out.  I wasn’t sure where or what or who to be.  I deferred to others when it came to celebrating.  I wasn’t invited to the regular Christmas Eve celebration at my parents’ because of protests by my sister.  The kids went with their dad to spend time with my family.  I was thankful they didn’t miss out because of me.  They were a tad upset that I wasn’t invited to the traditional meal and gift opening time.  It made no sense to them.  They didn’t know why their dad and I were divorcing, but it didn’t matter.  It was Christmas, and I was part of the family.  According to them if my sister didn’t want to spend time with me she is the one who shouldn’t go.  I tried to explain that she was upset, but not mad.  That seeing me there would make her sad.  That I was ok.  That I would see them when they got home later that evening.  They went feeling a little unsure but came home happy.  They also brought me presents.  My sister’s family didn’t get me a gift, but my brothers’ families did.  I was surprised.  My parents did a special Christmas Day dinner and invited everyone back including me.  My sister’s family didn’t come, but both of my brothers brought their families back to celebrate with me.  It was a little strained because it was the first chance I’d had to spend time with them, but I was so thankful they were willing to try.  Over the last year I’ve seen them quite a bit and things are mostly normal.  I know they wonder what’s going on, but we don’t talk about it.  I don’t avoid the topic; it just isn’t mentioned.  Honestly, I’m glad.  I don’t want it to be about that.  I am their sister and part of the family.  My kids are there and we eat and laugh and play like normal.  Like normal minus my sister.

Which brings me back to this Christmas.  Our family does the every other year thing.  This is the Christmas where everyone goes to the in-laws to celebrate.  My parents usually go to an uncle’s house for the holidays since their kids are all out of town.  After Christmas and before New Years everyone comes home and gets together for our celebration.  I have no idea what that will look like this year.  I don’t know if I will be included since my sister will be there.  I can’t imagine my parents doing 2 celebrations this year since the celebrating won’t be taking place on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  I just don’t know.  I will be deferring to other’s wishes again this year.

What I do know is that the kids will go with their dad to his parent’s for Christmas.  They’ll only stay a few days.  I’m sure they will freak out a bit that I won’t be there, but I think the promise of a celebration when they get back will be enough to make it ok.  I know that I will be spending Christmas Eve and Day with Fleur de lis.  It will be quiet and cozy.  Sounds good to me.

It’s here.  The day and time I’ve been waiting for.  Thanksgiving Break.  It was much needed.  My school kids are mostly good.  Mostly.  I do have days when the kids are crazy, and I am crazy.  I like to blame the weather, the fact that they ate Halloween candy for breakfast and dinner, the extra visitors in our classroom, and the last minute schedule interruption for those crazy days, but the truth is some of the time it’s my fault.  I know my lesson, but I haven’t pulled all the materials until right when I need them.  Those minutes of unpreparedness bite me in the butt every time.   I should know better.  I do know better, but I don’t always do better.  My kids can’t handle downtime minutes.  There must not be any lag time between tasks or things can get pretty chaotic.

Two weeks ago I had one of those weeks.  I did my lesson plans, but despite my good efforts the kids were crazy.  I can’t say best efforts, because it was just an all around hard week and I gave up trying to do my best by Wednesday.  By Friday I was in survival mode.  I arrived at school hoping a few kids were absent just so there would be fewer to corral.  I opened up my email and noticed that my principal had emailed the evaluation schedule.  My window to be evaluated started that day.  She sent the email out the evening before.  I figured she wanted to start evals on Monday since she had quite a few teachers to evaluate.  This would give everyone the weekend to make sure they were prepared.  Exactly 45 minutes after reading the email she walked in to do my evaluation.  I was quite shocked.  I had a student observer from a local college in my room which always excites the kids.  They wouldn’t sit still, talked while they were supposed to be listening, talked while they were supposed to be working, and bothered anyone in their general vicinity.  The lesson I had planned was a good one, and I had already taken out all my materials, but the kids were hyped up big time.  When all was said and done she decided not to use that as my evaluation due to extreme craziness in my room.  I felt terrible about it, but she seemed understanding.  Mostly.  She blamed much of the crazy week on the Halloween festivities the weekend before.  I appreciated that.  She said when she came back the next week she expected things to be different.    She showed up on Monday morning at the same time.  The lesson wasn’t as good just because it was an opening lesson.  The material was completely new to the kids so they weren’t yet excited about it.  The behavior factor was much better though.  I haven’t gotten the results yet and don’t expect a spectacular review, but thankfully my principal is good.  She is so supportive and knows the type of kids we have at the school.  She has dealt with many of them in her office over various things.

Speaking of the kids at my school…

The majority of the kids come from very low socioeconomic backgrounds and many of them have absentee parents.  The school where I teach is fabulous at making sure to meet the needs of all the kids, but I can’t say the same thing about the parents.  Many are in jail, on drugs, or quite neglectful.  It is the school’s responsibility to make sure these kids are getting what they need.  We take that very seriously. Unfortunately behavior issues are a work in progress.  If the parents were involved in the process it would be so much easier. I do what I can in my classroom, but I never feel like it’s enough.  I am so thankful to be working with the staff there.  I honestly don’t think I could have better coworkers.

I started this on Friday night.  Because it was the first day of the break.  It’s been 2 days.  I’ve mostly slept.  I decided that if I didn’t hurry up and publish this the break would be over, and I had planned to write a couple other blog posts over this break.  Hmmmm…

I am a lover of words.  I love the allure of writing down my thoughts, and putting them out there for the world to see.  Lately my thoughts have been tired.  Tired, old, worn out and weary thoughts.  Nothing worth writing about so I haven’t been.  An occasional burst of energy causes me to put fingers to keyboard, but most everything that trickles out is blah.

I remember when I posted daily.  Sometimes I posted twice a day.  2006 was the beginning of my blogging career.  2007 was a good blog year.  2008 phenomenal.  2009 started the downward spiral, and here we are in 2010 and this is only my 80th blog post for the year.

I can look back at the months of posts over the past 5 years and remember events that were blog worthy or soul piercing.  I see how the words flowed…sometimes 40 posts in a month.  I needed to write.  Some of it was just fluff.  Just filler.  But much of it was meaningful to me.  Even the silly taste tests were events.

Of course there was time to blog.  Time is essential to a writer.  Even one whose sole work is a personal blog.  Time is what I don’t seem to have much of.  And when I do have time…I am tired.

But I want to write.  I need to.  And so here I sit.  Eyes drooping.  The weight of my little world on my shoulders.  Staring at white spaces and willing my fingers to fill them.

So I failed at NaBloPoMo. I am being evaluated next week in school so any blog writing free time was spent obessing/worrying/planning for next week. And as I mentioned in my last post I spend the majority of my day disciplining kids so I feel like I’m not teaching enough. And it stresses me out. I’ve heard of all kinds of discipline techniques but the reality is that I’m not consistent enough. I want it to be ok for a kid to get out of his chair to trade pencils if his is broken. If someone needs a tissue or an eraser or has a legitimate question I don’t mind if they get up and take care of things. I don’t want every kid to then get out of his/her chair just for the hell of it which is what they do. I can’t give an inch or they take a mile. I like a relaxed atmosphere which is next to impossible in kindergarten in my school. The other teachers are rigid but good teachers. I don’t like being that way. My way isn’t working well.

More later on something other than school.

Some thoughts…

I didn’t get into teaching so I could discipline other people’s children ALL FREAKING DAY!  Sometimes I actually want to teach.

Using self-rising flour and a tin can as a rolling pin when making dumplings will result in what can best be described as subway tiles floating in the broth/gravy.  I don’t recommend it.

While I realize school taxes aren’t ever enough to pay for all that our kids need I am tired of fundraisers for EVERY FREAKING ORGANIZATION/CLUB at the school.  I don’t need half the junk I buy, and if I did I would buy it so much cheaper at Walmart.

A size 8 foot will never fit into a size 6 shoe.  Portia DeRossi

NaBloPoMo is frustrating!

I’m so glad tomorrow is Friday.  I can’t wait for the weekend.

Does NaBloPoMo count if you don’t actually sign up for it or if you don’t actually write a post, but instead use pictures as filler?

The sunset over Lake Limestone as seen a month ago.  It was beautiful.

What I saw before the sunset.  It was beautiful.

Does this count as a post?