The Strange Google Searches That Have Led People to My Blog

The internet has opened up endless opportunities for connections between things. Personally, I think this is a good thing. When you get right down to it, thinking and growing is all about making those connections, about realizing how everything you do kind of intersects with everything else into your own unique mosaic.

However, sometimes it's very entertaining. I've been playing around with some of the features on Blogger, and the highlight was unquestionably seeing the Google searches that have led people to my blog.

Evidently, my attempts at finding philosophy in everyday life, of sharing my journeys as a teacher and a writer, of delving deeper than I may have intended to into my personal life ... my blog of which I am very proud ... well, it evidently all boils down to this.

“people who complain about the weather”
Yeah, okay, I talk about complaining about the weather. I even complain about the weather. Evidently more than I knew ;) I certainly wouldn't have picked it as a driving force on this blog, but there you go.

“claudia kishi's mom”
This one comes up in response to a comment posted on a piece I wrote on a local book-banning controversy. Too funny!

“christa mcauliffe technology conference”
This is a big conference for teachers in New Hampshire, actually, and I had the great honor of attending it last year. I still think it's just bizarre how a Google search for this conference ends up at my blog. Wild!

“herb hantz”
This one is really far out. I wrote a post about teachers that make a difference, and there were a lot of comments that gave the name of an inspiring educator. Herb Hantz was one of those so honored in the comments section. Small world ...

“rettop yrrah”
I got the urge to reread the Harry Potter series one day, but I couldn't find the first couple of books to save my life. HP7 was taunting me from the bookshelf, though, so I ended up reading the books in reverse order ... very cool experience. I thought I'd be clever and original by writing "Harry Potter" backwards in the blog title ... hmm, not so much, I guess.

“’apples to apples game’ philosophical”
If you haven't ever played the game Apples to Apples, you really must. I don't know that I'd term it "philosophical", but it's tons of fun.

“dark heart care bears”
So I was watching one of the old Care Bears movies with Belle, and I suddenly realized all the religious references found in the film and felt compelled to write a post about it. Interestingly, these are the search words that most commonly get hits to my blog. It's just ... mind-boggling.

“do you think scarlett o hara is immature for marriage”
I love the character of Scarlett O'Hara in Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, so it's only natural that I explored her characterization on this blog. Whether or not she's too immature for marriage? Once again, I think Google might have misinterpreted a thing or two here, but it's all good.

I hope you got a laugh or two out of this ... some of the things that led people to this blog really cracked me up :-)

So 34 Is When the Middle-Aged Thing Kicks In ...

I realized today that I'm getting old.

I joke all the time about how old I'm getting, give my students a hard time about the strands of gray in my hair, and tease the rookie teachers about being babes in the woods. In general, though, I feel pretty much the same as I always did, so I'd written off 34 as just another number ... until it came crashing down on me that I'm not a kid anymore.

Okay, here's what happened.

I have a lead foot. I don't mean to speed, it's just not something I pay the best attention to. I have (knock on wood) never been in a real car accident ... I just like to drive fast. And, to be fair, I don't drive anywhere near as fast as I used to (racking up the speeding tickets will do that).

I live in New Hampshire. I've been driving in snow, often quite a lot of snow, since I was sixteen. Truth be told, I love to drive in snow. Well, I did.

Until I woke up this morning, and the roads were sheets of ice, and it took me almost two hours to get to work. It then snowed all day, and the drive home ... well, they say a picture's worth a thousand words (and no, I probably should not have been taking a picture of how bad the driving was while I was actually driving).



So what happened to turn me from a lover of snow-driving to a cautious Cathy?

It's weird, but the only thing I can think of is that a couple of my friends were in a pretty bad snow-related car accident recently. I've driven in snow since, but I haven't been enjoying it as much, and today I was honestly afraid.

I went to one of those friends, Donna, for advice on which route to take home today--the flatter, longer one or the shorter, ridiculously steeper one. She voted for short and steep, so I headed out as soon as possible.

And I don't think I hit 20 MPH for the duration of that long, long back mountain road. Donna was right behind me, which I thought she realized, but once I got onto a main road that was at least moderately maintained, I got a text.

DONNA: Stay off Mountain Road. Very slippery.
KATIE: Thank you, but I was the car in front of you driving like a grandma ;)
DONNA: Okay, I did not mind.
KATIE: : )

And it hit me like a ton of breaks how fragile life is, how truly dangerous driving in snow is, and how fortunate I am to have reached the age of 34 considering the parking lot doughnuts and the reckless, unnecessary trips and the lack of understanding I had of what a responsibility driving is.

This was driven home, by the way, when I got onto another semi-back road (I had to go pick Addie up ... I didn't let her drive herself to school today) and this guy started tailgating me. Like, I have All Wheel Drive and I was slipping and sliding a bit, and this guy was so close I could not see the front of his car.

Ten years ago--heck, one year ago, I would have started driving faster because obviously the pace I was setting wasn't good enough. Today, I pulled over to the side of the road and let the guy pass me.

Yup, middle age hits at 34, if I'm any indication ... unless that's just adulthood in general catching up to me at last ;)

Pet Peeve: Complaining (Hypocritically) About the Weather

Okay, so I hate summer. I really do. I hate being sweaty and uncomfortable all the time and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. You take a cold shower and you're sweaty and uncomfortable five minutes later. You swim in the ocean, and ten minutes later you're sweaty and uncomfortable again. It's just a no-win situation (unless you like being sweaty and uncomfortable, of course), and it makes me insufferably grouchy.

And I do complain about the weather. I spend much of June, all of July and August, and a sliver of September complaining about how hot and sweaty and miserable I am. However ... you will not find me bitching and moaning about the weather any other time of year. Three feet of snow and the snowblower's broken? Okay, guess I'll be shoveling. No prob. Another rainy April day? Walking in the rain is refreshing! There is only one time of year when I'm grousing about the weather.

What drives me absolutely crazy is people who complain all winter about being cold and saying things like, "I wish summer would get here already. I'm so sick of being cold" and then, once the horribly humid days of July arrive, start going on and on about how miserably uncomfortable they are.

This probably sounds stupid, but I feel like I've earned the right to mope and whine and complain when it's ninety degrees outside and the dewpoint's in the seventies. I own that bitching ... for all the bitching I don't do when it's snowing or cold or rainy or whatever. If you're going to complain about the heat in the summer and how you wish winter would get here ... then spend all winter going on and on about wishing summer would come already ...

There are surely more important things to get worked up about, but this is where I'm at right now ;-)

New Hampshire Beach on a Rainy February Day

I've been hearing about many cases of the February blahs. The beach always cheers me up when I'm down, puts my life into perspective and such, and I feel like I've been saying that to a lot of people lately. Andy called a little while ago and said he'd heard on the radio that the high tide was supposed to be pretty amazing because of the recent rain and all the meltoff, so I figured it was a karmic sign hearing about the beach when it's been on my mind so much the last couple of days.

Anyway, I started out at my family's beach house on Plaice Cove in Hampton. I figured out pretty quickly that it wasn't anywhere close to high tide (I've spent every summer of my life on that beach and know it like the back of my hand ... there were landmarks visible that just aren't when it's high tide), but it was still pretty wild. High tide is around five (I checked lol), so I'll probably go back then. Still, for a fairly low tide, this was pretty intense. Oh, and ignore my voice cracking ... it's still all messed up from the stupid flu.



Then I went to North Beach in North Hampton, which made me want to go surfing : )



I will never feel about anything else the way I feel abut the beach. It is just the most beautiful place I have ever seen. Do you have any place like that? Are you a beach person? What do you think of my (decidedly amateurish) beach videos?

Why do People Always Complain About the Weather ?

I have probably said this before, but it probably bears repeating. The weather is an ever-changing state, a difference in temperature and precipitation and cloud cover. As such, it seems to be a solid last-ditch conversation piece.

I'm good with that. I talk about the weather as much as anyone. One of the reasons I love living in New England, in fact, is that we have four definitive seasons. Weather conditions are always changing, never the same.

My favorite season is fall (or autumn, for the more literary among you). If you've never been to New Hampshire in the fall, I probably can't do it justice. It's long sleeve weather, but you're comfortable. Perfect for going on long walks. Leaves changing to different brilliant colors that Crayola could never reproduce. The scent of apples on the breeze. No humidity. Skies of a blue so deep it could make you cry.

I hate summer, though. Hate it. I hate being hot and sweaty and sticky and miserable. If you're cold in the winter (or even fall or spring), you can put on another sweater or add a blanket or whatever. In summer, even if you walk around naked, you're still going to be hot, sweaty, sticky, and miserable (well, this is true for me, anyway ... not that I walk around naked, but you know what I mean).

But I'm honest about my hatred of summer. The fact is, I'm more than likely going to be a bitch from late June through late August, and I spend extensive time bemoaning the weather and wishing for fall, winter, spring ... anything that isn't horrifically oppressive. I'm probably not a lot of fun to be around when the mercury goes above eighty. On those winter mornings that are below zero, though, while everyone else is complaining about how cold it is, I'm just grateful that it's not summer. Eternally grateful.

What bugs me, though, is the number of people who spend all winter complaining about being cold and wanting summer to come ... but then, when it's summer, they go on and on about how hot, sticky, and uncomfortable they are and how they can't wait for winter. I tend to be rather short-tempered with these people--after all, I feel like I've earned the right to bitch and moan about summer since I don't complain the other nine months of the year.

To be fair, New Hampshire's summer of 2009 has been exceptionally cool (and of course most people have done a lot of complaining about that, but I digress). The last few days have reached the eighties, though, with fairly high humidity. The sort of weather, in other words, that does not bring out the best in me.

Perhaps that's why I've got such a bee in my bonnet about this right now. It just got me thinking, though, about why it seems to be characteristic of human nature to complain all the time ... and then, when your complaints are reversed, complaining about that.

Kind of maddening, if you think about it ...

Let's Talk About the Weather ...

I hate summer. I just hate it. I know this is an unpopular opinion, that everyone in the world seems to be desperate for the heat to arrive, but I'm just holding onto the cool and comfortable while I still can.

I live in New Hampshire. One season of the year--fall--is a veritable paradise. The mornings and evenings are cool and crisp, there are not words to describe the joy of long walks through gorgeous autumn leaves, and it's just so picturesque and peaceful that I find myself smiling all the time. Spring is much the same (other than I know what's right around the corner, so ...). Winter in New Hampshire is an adventure--snowy, often icy, temperatures averaging in the thirties ... but I've lived here my whole life. I enjoy the winter, even driving in snow. Yes, I think it'd be fair to say that my home state comes through for me three quarters of the year.

Then there's summer.

My biggest issue with summer, I think, (besides the fact that I'm deathly afraid of thunderstorms and we sometimes have a lot of them in the summer) is that it's just impossible to be comfortable much of the time. No matter how cold it is in the winter, you can always put on another sweater or add another blanket and you'll end up warm at some point. Even if you walked around naked in the summer, you'd still be dripping with sweat much of the time ... and there's not much you can do about it.

Yes, we have air conditioning. I guess that goes without saying, or else I'd probably have been assassinated by now since I'm such a witch when I'm sweaty, sticky, and uncomfortable. It's just that I like to be outside, and sitting in an air-conditioned room is just not fun. Expect excessive blogging this summer : )

What bothers me the absolute most, though, is that so many people here in New Hampshire spend the entire winter complaining about being cold and miserable and wanting summer to come ... and then when the temperature starts to warm up, all they do is complain that it's too hot to get anything done. I just don't get it.

So what's the weather like where you live (you can be general)? Do you have four distinct seasons? Which is your favorite? Do you find that most people enjoy the climate where you live? Does it bother you when people complain about the weather ... after complaining about the weather?

"Springing" Backwards

Okay, am I the only person who feels completely discombobulated by the time change?

A week ago, I watched the sun rise in my rear view mirror on my way to work, and the darkness settled like a blanket as I likewise hunkered down for the night. As of Sunday, it's dark when I leave to go to work, and my inner clock is completely screwed up because it's still light outside when I go to put Belle to bed (something that she doesn't understand ... not a pretty scene).

I think this is really getting to me today, though, because this morning was sleeting and/or freezing rain (or both, I'm not always clear on the distinction) and the sun never came out all day. Instead, it was a foggy, gray mess. I was just blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah all day.

It's funny, when I told my students this, one very astute young lady opined that it was because it was so dark outside. As soon as she said that, I was like, "Eureka!" (except I didn't go running around naked yelling what translates roughly to, "I have found it!" like Archimedes).

What's the point of Daylight Savings? Can I start a petition or something?