Bitter, Angy, And A-L-o-n-e

I have been thinking about this title and what it means to the grown older population. (as I will be on the down SLIDE to 40 this year) I was in bed when the thoughts began to flow Saturday. I didn't have to get up and was enjoying time semi-alone ( can anyone be totally alone with kids in the house while feeding a baby?)

I was grateful for the bad mom status I have b/c my kids were making themselves eggs in the micro and toast while watching TV. I was so glad they were leaving me alone to read in bed.



Then, I had another thougth. What will I be feeling in 20 years from now about beign alone? Will all my years as a mean mom catch up to me? Will I be like the dad in that "cats in the cradle" song who calls his son and the son is too busy?



I know someone like that. All her life she has been rasing her kids maybe the best way she knows how, but failing. She was the yelling, hair pulling, abusa mom.

Now, she's divorced, none of her grown kids come by and she is alone with her thougths and matches. I wonder what she is like, this neighbor of mine.

Never Yell "Fire" in a Movie House and other good advice

We have lived with a pyromaniac for 3 years now.

It all started one fateful evening in the grandparent Scarbrough's house with a bathroom trash, matches in reach and two little boys ages 2 and 3 respectfully.

With the bathroom door closed these two little boys gleefully smoked themselves out of the small room. AND into Grandpa's waiting hands. Who, I'm sure, giggled his famous Burt Reynolds giggle as he took them to their mothers.

Smoking trash can in hand and little boy shirts in the other, Grandpa deposited the little fire bugs into the incapable hands of their parents. Giggling at the thoughts that were dancing in his head like "Man, who put the matches there?"

We dutifully punished said offenders. One received the message, the other did not. Boy #2's love for all things fire has grown into a passion. I should know. Boy #2 is mine.

Boy #2 has started many fires since then. He gets caught only about twice a year. Once was when his older sister took a blurry pic on a cell phone of him crouched furtively over a box of matches near the fireplace. The other was Sunday.

I was asleep with the baby on the couch. I had told him in my drowsy voice he could NOT light the fire in the fireplace. Later my daughter came into the house screaming,

"Mom, Open your eyes!!" which I did so to behold a blazing perennial.

After choice swear words, buckets of water (because the hose would not reach) and a little boy hanging out his bedroom window supervising, ---All was over but the memory, and a smoking bush.

Valentines Day

We woke up early; Scott made breakfast. I am so glad that even when I start breakfast that he ends up finishing it. I know that it is his favorite meal and he cooks it like he wants. Yea for me (yea for him too). We did some chores randomly through out the day.



Along about 1, he says "Do you have a baby sitter" . I wasn't planning on it and was ok with the idea of going out, but was ok staying home,too.



I took that as a hint and started at the last minute getting one. It is so good to have a pool of girls that you see on a daily basis. You can get to know them in such a way that you know how they will be at your house. So if anyone needs reccomendatations just ask me!

Anyway, after searching, i got a girl who was not so comfortable with the baby. I didn't know that before, I should have asked. But it didn't matter anyway, The baby was being a pill and we took her with.

Nothing like Romance with attachments :)

Dinner at Grumy Jakes yummm, Grand Terino (wheww too much cussin'), babysitter home and bed.

Did I mention the phone calls from the movie about Wesie throwing up? 3times. Yea, the sitter earned her extra money that I paid when I got home. Come on, who wants to clean up someone else kid?

Happy Happy Birthday Scott-y dear

THe 11th was Scott's birthday and unlike last year.

( Dare I say it,

I forgot it most of the daylast time) I know b-ad huh.

I had a plan this year and set my alarm so that nothing at school would make me forget.

I was going to make him his fav dinner and plenty of it. Tacos in those pre-made taco shells melted in the broiler (you don't have to say it, they aren't real tacos I already know that too)

I was going to make him Texas sheet cake or apple pie... which ever I had the supplies and time for at the end of the day. And detail his truck. A chore he never gets to and in SJ can't just run donw to the local illiga-wash and get it done by hand.

I got him the presents from the kids. Let me tell you I LOVE it when my baby boy goes through the story and picks out his presents for dad. Here is the list:

• 1 tee-shirt with a deer on it



• 1 can of armor-all wipes for his car



• 1 pack of colored sharpies to take to work



• 1 page of valentines m&ms and



• the game manacla (SP???) Kennedy said that if he didn't like the game she would have it; it is her favorite game.

I was ready. I was waiting for the end of the day. I had a short schedule that I was going to leave at 3.

Someone called at 2 and asked if I could get hay... (are you kiddin' me, today?) By the time I was finished with that extra chore,I had lost an hour.

Bye-bye homemaked cake or pie. Hello Sara Lee. Grrhh.

Truck is still dirty....

Everyone was getting over the stomache flu and was feeling still unfit for tacos and pie.

All together an ok night, but not the best. Scott was a good sport about the presents and love the kids homemade signs. He promptely went into our room and hung them up on our wall with tape.

BTW, he is such a good dad. He made the kids feel soo soo good about their choices for his birthday.

Pearls from M'bird

When I first started teaching, I inherited a novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Before teaching, (BT) I had read it and loved it, I had even been very pleased when I received a copy of the book as a present. However, I related to the book on a surface level; as a Southerner, I could identify with what she was saying.

I never lived and breathed it. I never delved into the hidden meanings of the book and truly feasted up its words. Until I became a teacher and had to do so or go crazy from the repetition of the book, I didn't have to think that deeply about this or any book once I had graduated from college.

However, reading and re-reading passages 5-6 times a day for years on end, I discovered that this book has many layers like an onion. This book and its messages need to be taught- to be given as grains of sand to the little oysters to make pearls.

And so I began to research every facit of the book, the history, our culture, the author-anything that would heighten the learning experience of a budding mind. I've discoveredso many things to share, exciting tid bits of pearls.

Why can't others see it as I do? Why can' t others glean from it the pearls of wisdom and then try to make their lives better? Why do so many people think this book should be banned? I know the answer to part of that, but I don't to other questions.

I think I am ever learning and changing, but I don't think I will ever grow to see how this book and it marginal use of the n'word should over shadow its message of tolerance.

It does have a message,which I teach prolifically to my students every day of every hour that they can stand to listen about it. I find lessons and activities and bits of trivia to enlighten them on their journey to maturity.

I know they won't magically wake up at the end of htis book and be prejudice free. But as the book says, these are steps-baby steps, but still steps.

Wow no kidding a week. No I am not falling off from Blogging

I looked at my last post and thought "No way?! It has been that long?"

Where has the time gone? I have thoughts all day long about random things; they chase each other around in my mind vying for time and space. (ask Mr Scarbrough and he would say that is why I am crazy) Some times the only way to get them to leave me alone is to set them free- here. Then when I want to think about them again, I come here. It leaves my mind clear to think other thoughts.

And I have been thinking those thoughts, a lot. But if you asked me today what they were, I couldn't tell you most if any of them. They are gone; I am sad that I didn't record them. I can never think about them again.

One thought that has been plaguing me concerns the idea of prayer. I have been in a stupor of thought, almost.

After last week's lesson in church on prayer, I vowed to change, to be different, but change can be hard!It wasn't until I listened to John Patterson's talk this Sunday about the 6th step that I fully captured what I wanted when I vowed to change. I can't do him justice, but if any of you have a chance to talk to him or better yet, attend one of his classes, I suggest it. Maybe it won't jazz you up as it does me. But maybe, it will be a place for a new beginning.

Relearning how to pray

This weekend was uneventful in most of the daily activities. I found myself raking up my front yard from the winter's debris. It gave me both hope and discouragement to do this. Hope, that spring is coming and discouragement that there is so much to be done in my yard. I can't hardly see my way to plow through it all. Insurmountable task.

Sunday brought on another hint of spring and a good lesson on prayer in Relief Society. The teacher used two articles from the last two conference talks. One was "Pray Always" from Oct 08 and the other was " ". I was taught.

The ideas she said were not new; I heard them in a new way. Isn't that what all truth and knowledge is about? Learning in layers?


I have now a resolve to evaluate how I pray in the morning and the evening- looking for ways to improve. This past year I have resolved to add more gratitiude to my prayers. If I hate an ungrateful child, how much does it bother the Lord to have one too? However, this lesson will help me change how I pray.

The sister who was teaching the lesson mentioned a way to pray that makes the daily pray a two part activity: counceling with the Lord on his goals for you, your desires, and your weaknesses. Then in the evening reporting back to the Lord. I have heard this before, but it has never struck me as profoundly as it did yesterday.
As a lover of words, I am often struck by the usage of one word over another. Passages will often make me pause to think about why one word was used over another.

And so, I let the idea and meaning of the word report wash over the back of my mind while I listened to the message of the lesson.

Report-to tell how the activity went and what your interpretations on the level of success of the activity or mission.

I don't ever report. I ask, beg, pled, obey and now often thank, but rarely report. I don't know why I didn' t think to do this before.

As a child we had a rote prayer for the food and evening- pat memorized words and phrases that no prayer would be complete without. This pattern of praying has seved as a formula for 35 years. Albeit, I have added my own conversations with the Lord in the past few years. But, I wonder why I learned the pattern style prayer and then never taught to take it up a notch? As I ponered this doing dishes yesteday, I realized that I have done the same with my kids, too. We taught them how to pray as little ones, giggling and laughing over their choices of words and topics to pray for, but now that they are older, we have not revisted the topic, teaching them differently.

Where was I when that lesson was taught to pray a more mature prayer? Am I really that dense to not catch on until now? Was I not ready to learn this until now?

I like what I have learned and plan to impliment into my way of praying and to teach my kids how to do so too. Hopefully, they won't wonder why they have to relearn to pray in their 30's.