Friday Fragments--A Short Overview of My Week

I'm really into the whole "Friday Fragments" thing ... what a great way to do a quick catch-up on the week :-)

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So I got my hair cut last night.

It was kind of interesting because I went through a long phase of really not caring what I look like.  However, the grays were starting to get to me, and I realized that I'm 34 years old and, realistically speaking, the days when I can look really good are limited.  Plus, I'm single and looking, right ;-)?

My hairdresser was great ... I explained that I've decided that I want to start looking good (like, wear my contacts every day instead of my glasses and so on), so I gave her complete artistic license with both the color and the cut.  I'm glad that she didn't go far from my natural hair color, though ...

I was also reminded while trying to take pictures of it so that my friends could all see it via Facebook and Twitter how truly atrocious I am at taking pics of myself.

To wit ...

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On Wednesday, my mother brought Addie and Belle up to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew at their cabin in Maine.  My aunt and her partner were also there along with a lot of other cool people.  I was sorry to miss out, but I had to work in the morning and then had a dentist appointment in the afternoon (my life is currently revolving around dentists between Belle, Addie, and me).

Anyway, a good time appeared to be had by all :-)

On the way home, though, there was a very bad accident on the highway.  My mom and the girls were stuck in traffic for almost three hours ... they were about five minutes from home, but because the accident was so bad there was nothing they could do but wait.

Addie was especially shaken up by this because she is petrified of car accidents, particularly those involving big trucks.  My hearts go out to the victims of this terrible accident, and my thanks go out to whatever higher power exists for keeping my family safe.

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I am loving the summer school gig, even though I grumble about it from time to time.

Last week was especially exciting because I came up with an amazing lesson (actually, I totally stole an amazing lesson that one of my former colleagues did, but of course I adapted it a bit).

We'd been working on sequencing, following directions, and precision of language.  I felt like things were going well until I asked my students to write directions for how to make a peanut butter sandwich and most of the responses were something like:
1.  Put peanut butter on the bread.
2.  Eat it.

So I figured I'd try to come up with a creative way to get the point across ... and thus the robot game was born.  Basically, I brought in a bag of props (ranging from straws to a flyswatter to chocolate syrup), and the kids worked in small groups to give me, "the robot", directions for what to do with the props.

They loved it ... and also learned the very things (directions, sequencing, and precision of language) I'd been trying to get across.  To a child, they were able to articulate what they could have done differently and why some of the directions didn't get the results they'd envisioned because they weren't specific enough.

Regardless, I ended up covered with chocolate syrup, animal cracker crumbs, applesauce, and sticky garbage bags that were intended to protect my clothes.

Here's what happened  ....

Also, I figured I'd let the kids eat the animal crackers that were left over, and one of them found this:

Sometimes you just don't know whether to laugh or cry ;-)
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I noticed that there is a lot of bad stuff going on in New Hampshire this summer when I was reading through some of my recent Zelda Lily pieces.  I'm giving links and short descriptions, and I hope you check them out. Zelda Lily is a very cool site :-) (and not just my stuff, either!).

+ A 34-year-old mother left two bags of doggie doo and a nasty note on the doorstep of a kid her daughter was having problems with.  That sends a great message to a thirteen-year-old, don't you think?  The idea that some parents want to be "friends" with their kids ... it just scares me badly.

+ A little boy was found dead and abandoned on the side of the road.  It took several days before he was identified as Camden Hughes of Texas ... and that evidence points to his mother as the one who killed him.

+ A man was found guilty of the rape of a fifteen-year-old girl in his church congregation ... fourteen years after the fact.  In spite of the guilty verdict, it does not exactly give rape victims a lot of encouragement in terms of coming forward.  The girl's treatment by her congregation was dreadful, and this only underscores the myriad of difficulties faced by rape victims that go beyond the act itself.

+ An Amber Alert was issued for a four-month-old baby in order to capture his father, who was wanted for a crime; there was no evidence that the baby was "missing", and it was in fact known that the baby's mother was also with him.  The idea of such an important tool as the Amber Alert being used in kind of an underhanded way bothered me quite a bit.

+ A young mother disappeared without a trace, her abandoned (and still running) car with her baby daughter in the backseat puzzling the heck out of police.  Turns out the woman was killed as the result of a drug deal gone bad, and she went from a media darling to a publicity pariah overnight.

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Finally, I got over my literary snobbery (again ;-)) and read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy (the other two books are Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) and Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3).  I highly recommend them and once again wonder why I am so reluctant at times to read books that "everyone" is reading; I almost always end up loving them!  So odd ...

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Hope everyone's had a great week :-)

It's Hard to Give a Compliment These Days ...

Yes, I said compliment. After all, it's easy as heck to give a complaint ;)

So I got my hair cut Friday night and, as usual, it looked damn good after the hairdresser had done all the blow-drying and straight-ironing I never have time to do. The next morning, not so much, but that night, I was pretty pumped about it.

Being as I am in many ways a true epitomization (is that even a word) of the day and age, my first thought was, "I have GOT to take a picture to put on Facebook." I took about thirty pictures before coming out with this:



My Facebook started popping like crazy, of course, my BlackBerry buzzing so hard that I got looks at the grocery store. And the gist of what my friends on Facebook had to say was, "Wow, that's beautiful! It doesn't even LOOK like you!" (and, directly behind that, "Damn, girl, you've lost a lot of weight!"

I am, of course, able to appreciate the intent of the comments rather than reading too much into them (Do I usually look so awful that a halfway decent picture doesn't even look like me? Am I so damn fat that one picture sets off an outcry about my weight loss?) ... but there are people that aren't.

How sad is it that we live in a world where you have to be as careful of compliments as you do anything else?

**And for those of you that have noticed my absence from the blogosphere, thanks for your concern :). There are so many things going on in my life right now that are tied far too closely to other people for me to blog about. It'll all come out sometime, I'm sure ;) : ) :(

Absent Adolescent Angst

Addie spent the afternoon shopping with my mother. She texted me when they'd been gone for a couple of hours to ask permission to get her hair cut. I texted back that it was fine, and then she walked in a little while later looking like this:



I pretty much burst into tears. She is just so beautiful and smart and kind and ... well, amazing in every way. It occurred to me that she will be getting ready for high school graduation (and college ...) in just two years, that this child I have loved and nurtured and laughed with and cried with is going to be on her own in just a few short years. She will always be my baby, of course, but she will be making her own decisions and dealing with their consequences for herself.

It always scares me to put this into writing (it's sort of like asking for trouble), but Addie is such a blessing, the great gift of my life. The kids I teach now are in her age bracket, and I thank my lucky stars for the absence of adolescent angst that Addie has always epitomized. I know you can never know your child 100% (or even 85%, and that's if you're really lucky), but I trust that Addie hasn't been to those wild parties I experienced when I was her age and that she has never touched alcohol or drugs (in large part because she's seen firsthand how addiction can ruin lives).

She is starting to really come into her own, though, and her beauty is only part of it. She is brilliant, a musical prodigy, and most importantly a kind and thoughtful young lady. She has brought me such joy, and it kind of bothers me that this hit me like a tons of bricks when she walked in with her new haircut and her eyebrows done, looking like a young lady instead of an awkward teenager.

There's a bittersweet element to parenting that is new to me (like, only a few hours old). Why is it that my heart is swelling with love for Addie and pride for who she has become even as it is simultaneously breaking a little bit at the realization that Addie is becoming more of her own person--more of an adult, though it pains me a bit to say that--and will be slowly but surely severing her ties to me with each bit of growing up that she does?

It's the most beautiful, terrible paradox I've ever seen ...

The Power of a New Haircut

If you look at my profile picture, you'll see that it's changed (and in case you missed that, look left). The one where I look sunburned and ticked at the world (also the one that my mother swore up and down was my sister Mary and not me ... sorry about that, Mary) is no more. I just got a haircut : )

I haven't given a rat's derriere about my appearance in years. I don't know if that's one of those things that disappears when you have children, a husband, and nobody to impress or if I'm just strange. Every once in awhile, I'll get a haircut or something, but I never stick with it.

I think I'm sticking with it this time. I feel pretty (cue "West Side Story", I know ... I'm so lame) for the first time in eons, or at least prettier.

Clearly a new haircut is not going to change one's life, but at the same time, I feel incredible right now. Just incredible. Maybe it's because I got my eyebrows done, too (the salon is so much better at doing eyebrows than I am :-)).

What are the small things that make you feel like a million bucks? Why is it that some things can make you feel so darn good? Do you like my haircut (sorry, I'm having a self-obsessed moment :-))?