I Am A Cheerleader

. . . which is pretty funny because I never was an actual cheerleader. I tried out twice for the squad and never made it. The last time I tried out, I was the only one cut, and at the time, that hurt a lot, but now I can look back and laugh at my reject cheerleader status and be thankful that my life went in a different direction. I now know why I was cut---I have absolutely no coordination. None. I fall down stairs. I fall up stairs. I constantly trip over my students' feet. And unfortunately, our little Abby takes after me. So, so clumsy!

But I digress. This post isn't about my failed high school cheerleading aspirations or my inability to put one foot in front of the other. Instead, it's about my job. I love it. I really do. And this week has been a rewarding one for me. I help students get their GED. We do lots of learning in class. I make them write essays, read current events, debate issues in the news, learn how to multiply and divide fractions. I work them pretty hard. But today, I realized that my biggest job is to be their cheerleader.

Most of my students have either failed in the traditional educational system or been failed by it. They come into my class with little to no confidence in their abilities and the best thing I can do as their teacher is to give them the confidence to continue. Some just need to know that they have the skills to pass the test. Those are the easy ones. But some need the confidence to even keep coming to class. They need to know that I will help them and that I will not make them feel substandard, as many of them have felt in their years in school.

Over the past few days, I've had a line of students in and out of my classroom coming to tell me that they've passed their GED test. Many couldn't believe that they actually passed, and many are excited about what the future holds. I really love this job and am so thankful that I have been able to walk beside them and see their hard work pay off.

A Day at the Park

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

So this is a fun little blog activity that I stole from Laurie and MckMama. I'm sure I'll get better as I do more of these (and I'm not even sure if I'm doing this right), but it's fun to admit the parenting blunders I've made, laugh at them, and kiow that there's a whole blosphere out there doing the same thing! Enjoy!

1. I absolutely did not give my children, potting soil, water, buckets, and watering cans to play with outside on our newly cleaned back patio. I would never think of allowing them to get this dirty and make such a mess on the yard that my husband just cleaned up.


2. And I did not bust out laughing instead of reprimanding Abby when she let out a big fart at the dinner table. That is gross and I would never encourage her by laughing. Never.


3. I most certainly did not ignore the fact that neither of my children ate their dinner tonight, and I surely did not let them eat Goldfish in place of their dinner.


4. I did not lie to Abby and tell her that it's cool to fail at the ski jumping and become a snowball when playing Ski Jump on Wii Sports. Lie to children? Who would do such a thing?


5. And I absolutely did not give Abby and Jenna my old eyeliner and let them draw on their faces. Seriously . . . what good comes from that?

What To Do

Working in a public school district and being on the chopping block as funds are cut, I have found myself to know more about our state budget issues than I ever though I would. It's been a rollercoaster of awfulness for our school for a year. Almost all of our programs have been cut (thankfully, my GED program would be one of the last to go if it came down to that), countless teachers have been laid off, seen their hours cut, or lost benefits, and every day we learn that "it's only going to get worse."

It seems as if California is out of money and we have tens of billions of dollars to cut from the budget. The state gov't is banking on a set of propositions that will be voted on next week to increase revenue so that more cuts don't have to happen in schools. But it looks like these propositions are going to fail. And what it comes down to is that the people of California are not willing to pay more money to do the job that the legislaters failed to do.

And I don't know how to feel about this. And I am not sure how to vote.

If these propositions don't pass, we are looking at a 20% additional cut. That would be total of 40% cut. That's a lot. And people will lose their jobs and the quality of the education will suffer. There are crazy ideas going around here like cutting counselors and sports and even going to a four day school week! Whether those things would actually happen, I don't know . . . but the fact that it's even being talked about in the papers is cause for concern.

On the other hand, if they do pass, it's just feeding into the problem that is our California gov't. It's all politics here . . . .the unions have the Democrats in their back pocket and are opposed to any financial restraint while the Republicans have never seen a tax they liked. So instead of doing their job of figuring out how to be responsible with our money, the gov't is asking the taxpayers to make the decisions for them through these propositions. And people don't want to do that . . . and I am angry about it.

If I don't manage my finances appropriately, I fail. There are consequences. But when the state is irresponsible with money, the people whom they serve have to pick up the slack in many ways. I don't see how that's good for anyone.

California is a bigger machine than some small countries. We are in trouble, and that is scary. I don't know how I am going to vote on the propositions yet, but it doesn't look good.

A Quick Rundown

I really want to write a nice post about my awesome weekend in Illinois, because I really did have a great weekend. Taking the girls to Princeton, IL to see my 95 year old grandmother in a nursing home and visit with some other family members cost a lot of money, nearly drove me crazy, and required a great deal of schlepping of the redheads. But in the end, it was completely worth it. Every cent, every crazy, and every schlep.

I don't have much energy left to write about all the wonderful things, but here are some tidbits.

We started the trip in the airport with a bit of horror as Abby took one big, giant lick of the handrail as we were waiting to board our plane. I knew she was going to be a handful from that moment on . . . and she was.

Next, they asked me the famous question, "Are we there yet?" 20 minutes into a 4 hour plane ride.

I was the only adult who had to put on a bathing suit and swim with my kids. Jenna's swimming fear irrationally reared it ugly head again and she flipped out in the pool about swimming. But that wasn't the worst--I was swimming with Abby, and instead of standing on the edge of the pool to jump into my arms, she took off and decided to jump in the deep end before I could get there. I caught her, but not until she got a tiny bit scared . . . make that both of us.

And it really wouldn't be a vacation (or whatever you want to call it, because I consider Maui a vacation or Disneyland a vacation, but taking two kids to Illinois by myself is more of just a fulfilling visit with family), if one of my kid's didn't end up in the ER with an ear infection. Yep. Jenna. Double ear infection. Yuck.

A good trip, awesome to see my family, and hopefully, we didn't contract the Swine Flu from Abby's giant handrail lick:)

Checklist

Clean melted, purple crayon out of the dryer . . . check.



Retrieve rock from Abby's nose . . . check.



Get girls to work on Mother's Day gifts . . . check.



Retrieve cash and gift cards from Jenna's wallet. . . check.
We have our own little Swiper!



Spend way too much money to get refrigerator fixed because a small piece of streamer got caught in the fan an warped it . . . check.



Continue to be ticked because a small piece of purple streamer from Abby's birthday ended up costing us a lot of money . . . check.

Attach Barbie heads to Barbie bodies. Why do they do that? . . . check.



Pack and travel by myself to Illinois for my grandma's 95th birthday . . . almost!

The Big Red Barn

While in San Antonio, our friend, Chuck, had some restaurants all lined up for us and the first one was the Big Red Barn. All I knew was that it was big, red, and served lots of steaks. Little did I know that this restaurant is one of a definitely one of a kind:) It's a snapshot of life in Texas.

As we walked into the restaurant, I had to take a picture of this sticker on the back of someone's car. I was so surprised, because I have never seen this sticker before. Really, I never have. I went through an entire presidential election without seeing this one, and believe me, I pay attention to all things politics. It could have something to do with the fact that I live in California and anyone seen with this sticker on their car would surely have their tires slashed:)

This isn't the greatest picture, but we walked in and noticed that the entire menu was painted on the walls. Red walls to be exact. I was sure that we'd get menus after sitting down, but nope . . . we got this . . .

A beautiful red piece of wood with the menu so nicely displayed. I saw the host from the corner of my eye carrying this monstrosity, and then couldn't believe it when she set is down against the table next to us. I guess you can expect to have a big board leaning up against your table when you eat at the Big Red Barn. So funny!

Now it was time to order, and our waitress showed up. By this time, I am soaking all this up and loving it. Everything about this place is so funny to me, and then she shows up. We were all kind of in a joking, fun mood, but she was not. She did not appreciate our questions and apparent amazement with the Big Red Barn. We were totally outsiders. But we had to get a picture with our waitress--cowboy boots, fake leather, fringe, and tips stapled to her vest--and all!

If you know Nate, you know that he is a beer snob. He prefers a good Anchor Steam or Gorden Biersch over the Bud Light in a can. When he asked what was available, she said, "we only have can in a mug." A what? "Can in a mug." What's a can in a mug? Apparently, the Big Red Barn only serves Bud, Bud Light, Miller, or Miller light in a can--a can in a mug. See the above picture:)

If you are ever in San Antonio, please look up the Big Red Barn. It will be an experience you will never forget:)

A Mini Vacation

After PLI, we stayed in San Antonio to spend time with our good friends, the Lexows.