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This picture was taken after Greg forgave Wiley for eating one of his hiking boots. They weren’t on speaking terms for an entire day. So this is lovey-dovey make-up stuff.

Sage has a homeschooling blog. I’m teaching him to edit photos and using the blog as an opportunity to practice authentic writing. HERE IT IS. He’s really enjoying working on it, and has comments to reply to! Do feel free to leave your own–he gets really excited when he sees new comments…:-D

I’m scared, but am working on interpreting this feeling as a normal scared feeling instead of a full-on freakout scared feeling. It has to do with my thoughts about quitting my job. When I’m not scared, I’m thinking, “I’m free, I’m free!” and totally enjoying all of the possibilities and the time I get to spend with Sage, outside, exercising, etc. When I’m scared, I’m thinking crap like, “I can’t earn enough money,” and related stuff.

Fact is, I’ve been wanting to homeschool Sage for a while–it was a goal two years ago, and I’m darn lucky that I finally realized that I have to live life consciously and not on some sort of perceived safety autopilot sort of thing or my REAL goals will never be met. So I have to keep on reminding myself of this fact in order to avoid being terrified by the whole thing.

I’m reading a book right now called John the Baptizer, which is just an astounding story of John the Baptist. The guy who wrote it did an amazing amount of research, and so reading it is like diving into this life of Jewish mysticism and learning about the different groups (Essenes, Zealots, etc.) and this really extraordinary man. Strangely, the descriptions of John remind me of Sky. I can totally see Sky living in the wilderness on locusts and honey, wearing a loincloth, having wild hair and intense eyes and decrying a materialist, blind society. Perhaps that is one reason I’m enjoying this book so much.

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Sage and I are really digging the whole homeschooling thing. Sage has his own blog, which I set up as a place for him to write stories and basically do whatever creative thing–it is called Sage’s Homeschooling Blog. That may change. His brother added to the story Sage has been writing. That made Sage ecstatic. It’s good to feel that connection from Portland.

We’ve been working on multiplication–doing different things to get the “hard ones” into memory.

We’ve also been going on long “field trips” which turn into two hour long walks in the beautiful weather we’ve been having here. It’s done wonders for my mental health. Today we went to an art gallery. This week, Sage mastered long division. It’s been a good, good week.

Wiley had a moment of passive resistance. He saw Greg and Sage leaving to go somewhere in the car, and jumped out of the window to join them. When Greg told him to go in the house, he ran into the park, where he sat down and refused to move. As you can see, Greg had to carry him all the way from the park to the house. It was ridiculous.

It feels good to be living more mindfully, and not rushing around all the time. I’ve realized that I’d rather learn to cook rice and beans 20 different ways than have my kid in the public schools.

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I’ve been having vivid dreams lately. Early this morning, I met a man who had been working for himself since 1981. If I believed in “guides,” I’d have to say he was one. He asked me, “Why do you want to work for yourself?”

I started singing. “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more…” He looked at me, and I answered again in a different way. “I don’t want to work on the plantation.”

We walked downstairs to a small bar, and sat down to have a drink. On the jukebox, Bob Dylan’s song, Maggie’s Farm, began playing. It was beautiful serendipity, only in my dream of course.

They say that Dylan wrote that song because he felt his creativity was being stifled working for too many people (fans). I suppose it meant he was going to write songs more from his heart than for a crowd.

The dream coincides very well with reality right now. Reality is a long story, and it ends with me being on leave from my job and most likely resigning in a week or two.

Reality is this.

Last Monday, Sage walked over to my classroom after school and told me that a girl in his class had called him Stupid, Geek, Dork, and Retarded while kicking him repeatedly. He showed me the marks on his legs. He said, “Mom, our school has a policy of no physical contact.”

I marched right over to the elementary school and spoke with the teacher, who had been out of the room at the time. The teacher asked my son, “What did you do to offend her?” She then proceeded to tell me about problems Sage had been having in class paying attention. When I told her that I was there to discuss the incident of Sage having been kicked she rolled her eyes at me. At that point, I told her she’d better get someone to mediate our meeting.

The principal came in and made nice noises about fixing the situation, meeting with Sage and the girl the next day, being safe, blah blah, and contacting me in a couple of days.

The next day was the class field trip. The girl went along on the trip with everyone else. There was never any meeting, or any consequences that I could see.

I’m pretty sure that if my son repeatedly kicked someone else while name-calling, he’d be wearing the gray uniform at my discipline program. Here’s the thing. There are a lot of children in our school district who are apparently raised by wolves. (I know. That’s an insult to wolves.) At any rate, many teachers and administrators make excuses for it because otherwise, they’d be expelling these kids left and right. And TEA and other government agencies are very concerned about the number of minority kids expelled, so race comes into it, and basically, rules are not implemented in a fair and impartial manner.

If I kicked my kid and called him names and someone found out, he would probably be removed from my home.

I’m not sending my kid back into an environment which, through inaction, tacitly supports this abuse.

I was about to take leave anyway, because I’m in a lot of pain and having to leave work frequently due to panic attacks. This was pretty much the icing on the cake. There’s a reason for everything, and I feel as though a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders, because I’ve been worried about Sage and school for a long time. Experience has pretty much given me the ability to see into the future as far as kids with special needs and high school are concerned. It’s not good.

I’m very excited about homeschooling Sage. He has been asking me to anyway. He is tired of the bullying, and not understanding the teacher because she is talking too fast and classmates are causing background noise.

As for money, I’ll continue to do the freelance writing. It’ll be the meat and potatoes, rather than the gravy, but that’s okay, because I have other things in the works as well.

No more plantation. No more sending kids home from school because the pockets on their jeans aren’t right (yes, true, daily). The kids and I both know what stupid rules are. How long can you work in a sick system before you become sick yourself?

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We picked up the new camera today. Sage was more than happy to pose for the first photo.

The I decided to head outside and test out the zoom. People shouldn’t smoke, because it’s disgusting.

I took a picture of Greg’s shoe. I’m happy with the detail.

Sorry, no pics of bees on flowers or anything like that. If I was a professional photographer, I’d be taking photos of things like peeling graffiti, rusted cars and colorful assortments of garbage.

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This morning, Greg and I were talking about how he is planning to formally adopt Sage. I recommended a good lawyer, and then I said, “But I think things would go a lot better if we were married. But I don’t imagine you want to marry me again.”

Greg said, “You really suck at this, you know?”

True, that.

At any rate, we are getting married again, and then will pursue the adoption. There won’t be any big deal or anything, we’re just doing paperwork. The same thing goes for the adoption. I think Greg is wonderful for being a real Dad to another person’s biological child, but we won’t make a big deal out of it, because Sage already sees Greg as being his dad, and it seems like making a big deal out of an adoption would take away from that somehow.

As far as getting married again, well, we’re pretty much common-law at this point anyway. I realized when Greg and I were separated that I could never be with anyone else, which pretty much leaves me in the position of working out problems when they arise, rather than running from them. I really do love the man. He’s one of a kind in so many ways, most of them good.

Edited to add…jeez, am I really coming off as being this pragmatic?? I’m excited about cementing our family together!

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It used to be that whenever I bought something electronic, I had to beat the salesperson and their extended warranty off with a stick. These days, I actually ASK for the extended warranty. I ordered this Nikon from our local Staples (12 mp with 7x optical zoom!), and got the two year extended warranty. The reason I did that was because the last camera bit the dust after only eight months. The guy at the store said the whirring, lens jammed thing was so common with digital cameras that most manufacturers won’t cover it themselves. So I basically paid an extra fifty dollars so it would last two years instead taking the chance I’d only have it for a few months.

So I’m excited that I’ll be back to taking pictures again. I’m not sure why, since I spent hours today on my Flickr account downloading photos to have made into a photo book on Snapfish. There are 1500 family photos on there, and it is really overwhelming. The idea of actually editing the photos and then arranging them in a digital book with cute quotes and stories gives me a headache. It’s my duty though. It’s either that, or opt for the easy print order through Flickr and then just throw them in a book from Wal-mart. It seems like that would be a shame, given that the other option is readily available. Sometimes I think we have too many options…

The drug situation remains in limbo. I started Zoloft, and had a few wonderful days of churning out hundreds of dollars worth of articles. I quit again because I got so hyper that midday, I would literally almost collapse and had to leave work twice. Now I don’t feel like writing that crap, and GET why people take Ritalin to study boring subjects. I’ve taken a break from trying to quit Ativan, I’m just trying to maintain the amount I’ve gotten down to, which only seems to be possible with exercise. I lost my groove for a while after I got a cold, and it felt like I was going to come out of my skin. And it’s been months now!!! Jeez this stuff is addictive.

I’m reading a delightful book called Trainwreck: My Life As an Idoit, and it is a hilarious first person account of growing up with learning disabilities and a drug problem. I see many of my students in this story. I also see a bit of myself. The guy describes doing an insane amount of Ecstasy and then basically having a dopamine deficiency the rest of his life. I have to wonder if prescribed antidepressants have the same effect in the long run, seriously. Sometimes it feels like it.

At any rate, I think anyone who works with people with learning disabilities should read this book. Besides the pure entertainment value, it really does give you a peek into how people with reading difficulties and ADHD may perceive things, and perhaps provides a dose of empathy at the same time. All that is below the surface, though. The main thing is that the book is just freakin’ hilarious.

And because I worry about stuff like this, yes, I misspelled idiot on purpose.

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I just finished reading Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood, which was apocalyptic and predictably chilling. But that’s only because she’s so good. I only hope that she’s not as good as Orwell in her predictions. I now want to go back and reread Oryx and Crake because that book was delightful in an absolutely undelightful way.

I’ve been reading up on the neurotransmitters. One thing I’ve learned is that I definitely have too much norepinephrine activated in my system at any given time. I’m learning some ways to control this, all of which involve some version of chilling out, whether it’s yoga, meditation, listening to the Drone Zone on SomaFM, or something else equally boring calming.

It seems that if I’m ever going to get a grip on the anxiety, I’m going to have to change my personality. Like a adrenaline addict, I amp myself up all the time, and have a good time doing it. I love feeling excited. Of course, I don’t like it when it all overflows and I go over the edge. So to not have that happen, I’d either have to have my brain chemistry changed, or deliberately become one of those calm, contemplative people…which goes entirely against my hyper, neurotic nature.

Sage and I did yoga today. Amazingly, it actually did make me feel calmer. It also managed to make muscles in my back that I had been previously unaware of hurt, a lot. Sage is better at it than me, and made sure that I noticed.

Anyway, how do I put a lid on “excited”? I just love that emotion so much! What’s your favorite emotion? And does bombing the moon bother anyone else?

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I am catastrophizing again. I’ve promised my therapist that I will make a note of these thinking errors.

The thing I am currently being confronted with is Sage not doing well in school. I think that his teachers don’t like him. I may be right. For the past two years, none of his teachers have said anything remotely positive. At the same time, he is a kind, respectful child who tries hard. I don’t know that his teachers see all of this.

When an adult talks to him, he may look away, or say “I know” (a reflex caused by being worried about being thought stupid) or simply stare blankly because he doesn’t get what they are saying, and doesn’t want to ask for clarification because of the “stupid” thing.

I really want to homeschool Sage. I am so worried about negative peer relationships (he’s been invited to one birthday party the entire four years we’ve lived here) and him not understanding academic material because of memory issues and auditory comprehension difficulties.

He is one of five in his class who doesn’t get to watch the reward movie on Friday because he got one too many numbers this six weeks. Numbers are for things like forgetting one’s agenda, talking in line and the like. His class has some holy terrors in it. I can’t believe that my child is one of five. I would think it would be the entire class, more or less, who is not getting to watch the movie. I spoke with his teacher, and she is entirely unsympathetic. I try to advocate for Sage, and the school ignores me. I’m going to have to go all BITCH on them and I’m afraid it won’t work anyway.

I am afraid that the teachers are not treating my child fairly. I know from working at my own school that some teachers really don’t like “Aspy” kids.

I am afraid to quit my job and homeschool. I’m afraid that I’ll go nuts in the house. I’m afraid of not having insurance, and of my writing job going kaput, as they often do. I’m afraid I’m not doing the right thing.

I love Sage so darn much. It hurts SOOO bad to see him try so hard, try to put a good face on things and then be so disappointed with the C’s from failed reading comprehension tests that he can’t study for at home and so on.

He hates school.

I am so worried. No surprise I am having problems with anxiety right now…there’s just too much fear.

I wish this was a little thing that I could minimize. I don’t think it is, though.

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I got inspired yesterday by a post I read about heroes and English class. It made me think about how an alternative program such as the one I teach in would benefit greatly from an English class that focuses on heroes. So I’m ordering Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces and we’ll see where it goes from there. I also ordered another book, The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies because it looks like really interesting reading. Right now, I do see those consequences…I suppose my hope is that there will be some proposed solutions. And for fun, The Year of the Flood: A Novel by Margaret Atwood. I feel really decadent ordering that one, because I never spend money on “recreational” books.

I’m really thrilled that our district will be using the FastForWord product, as I had literally just called the company about using it at home for Sage. The price is several hundred dollars a month, but I was ready to pay it. Then my principal asked me to be the campus coach for our new reading program which is…you guessed it…FastForWord! So now I get to be trained on it and my kiddo will get to use it. Yea!

One thing I’m not thrilled about is that the kid who hit me in the neck a year ago last May is back at my school. He is not in my exact program…yet, but his behavior has been horrible, and he is working his way there. NO WAY will he be in my classroom. Frankly, I can’t stand it that he’s on the same campus. This is a kid who ripped the phone out of the wall when my old principal tried to use it, threw it across the room, attacked three staff members and generally tore up the office. A recent article about a teacher being killed by an emotionally disturbed student in a neighboring town has everyone a bit on edge when dealing with these particular students.

I’m afraid to write too much about this…but, someone at the local university hinted that they’d like to “steal” me for an position there. If that happened, I could get my doctorate for free (I think)… I’m trying not to think too much about it, because I don’t want to be disappointed if that position is not created. Anyway.

Bad news on the homefront. Greg’s kitty, Gordon, has about ten percent of her kidney function. We have no idea how long she’ll live, although she seems to be doing much better now. This makes me sad, since she’s no longer the feral little beast she was when he got her…now she’s my little “Gordita.” When Greg took her to the vet, he told them that he had changed her name to “Wood Stove” since her treatment had eaten up our original savings for that item. They didn’t get the joke and literally changed the name in their computer, which was a real hoot. The whole thing that is going on isn’t a hoot at all, but it is what it is.

I’ll be doing the freelance thing again all weekend. We’re only two hundred dollars away from getting a wood burning fireplace insert. Warmth will be good this winter.

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I got a lot done today, and the day is not over yet! I’ve done the grocery shopping, all of the laundry, cleaned the kitchen and made a hundred bucks writing articles. Hopefully that money will go towards something we need and not vet bills this time. We also went for a little walk on the trail with the dogs, which was fun. Today it was in the eighties and sunny…nice!

I usually don’t go on the trail because I feel trapped (you can’t get off of it whenever you want, you have to just keep walking!) but I decided that it was too nice of a day to go to the gym instead of being outside. Thankfully, I managed to have fun and not feel the usual trapped crazy feeling. I think it might be because I decided that I can’t just give into those irrational feelings, at least not today! That, and it’s simply easier to walk longer distances since I’ve been going to the gym and have lost some weight. Anyway, it was sooo beautiful.

I begged off a last minute birthday party for Sage’s cousin. My sister-in-law is a piece of work. Words are useless here. Suffice it to say that she gossips viciously about everybody, and when I saw her at the community pool this summer, she pretended like she didn’t even see me, even though our kids were playing together. She has taught her daughter some atrocious things. I was appalled when that formerly sweet middle school student told me that she believed she was better than the girls who DIDN’T have a collection of Coach and Kate Spade purses. Whatever! I called her out on it, even though we were at a family dinner. I didn’t say a tenth of what I wanted to, though! Anyway, I guess I did have some words about my sister-in-law. The evil one, that is. The new one is a real sweetie-pie.

I can’t believe I’m still writing at this point. I’m surprised my fingers aren’t nubs!

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