Archive for category The Personal

Date: February 17th, 2010
Cate: The Personal
6 msgs

Last Friday, we awoke to 3 to 4 inches of snow on the ground. I really don’t think I’ve ever seen Sage so happy, as he’s only seen snow one other time. He got a new bike the day before, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him as happy as that, either. He’s been pretty blissed out.

Wile E. was a blur, and not just in the picture.

wile-is-a-blur

Salsa was also having a bliss moment.

ah-pure-bliss

Sage build a snowman. Later on, the park across the street was full of kids and they build a fort and had a snowball fight.

sage-snowman

He was outside ALL day. Greg and I had fun, too.

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I read an awesome book entitled A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. It’s autobiographical, and is about how he and two other screenwriters write a screenplay of his life. He begins to look at his life as a story, and realizes that he’s not living a very good one. So the whole idea is to live a good story.

There was one thing in particular that was really striking. This guy was having problems with his teenage daughter–drugs, horrible boyfriend, typical stuff. Miller tries to give him advice. He starts talking about the “your life is a story” stuff. He doesn’t think he makes any sense. Later, he gets together with the guy again and asks him how his daughter is doing. It turns out that the guy decided that his family needed to live a different story. They start building an orphanage in Mexico. The daughter gets all into it, and dumps the boyfriend and drugs. He dad says, “No girl who plays the role of a hero dates a guy who uses her.”

This really hit me like a ton of bricks. What story was I living when Sky was being raised? It was a very disjointed one with a plot that essentially went nowhere. Of course, every kid would benefit by growing up in a good story. So I started to think about how I could make my life a better story now, for Sage and Greg. I know I’m headed in the right direction. I’ve quit a job that I don’t think was the best thing for me, and I’m homeschooling Sage and spending a lot of time with him. We go on little adventures.

I want to do more things that create a good story though. One of the quotes from the book that I really liked was, “…if we want a Roomba vacuum cleaner, we are living stupid stories.” So true, so true. Life is so much more than what brand of television you are going to buy next and how you are going to find the money to pay for it.

One of the things about my story is that no one in my story can be addicted to drugs. The day after I finished this book I started cutting down on the Ativan again. This time, my goal is to cut down on my dosage. I’m not going to worry about how long it takes me to quit. When I feel okay at a lower dosage, then I’ll go down a bit more. I’m not going to follow a timetable and fry my nervous system like I did before.

Of course, no one in my story is going to be agoraphobic. It is amazing how much walking and riding my bike have helped me with the agor. I used to be afraid to ride down a three mile dirt road outside of town. (I know, unbelievably irrational and nuts.) Not anymore. I realized that I can walk three miles with no problem. The distance doesn’t seem like a big deal at all. I also don’t find myself dreading trips, and I’m contemplating going camping with my guys. We just need to plan the trip.

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Today, I had lunch with a writer friend. We ate at a “ladies that lunch” kind of place because I had a gift certificate that my in-laws gave me. It was delicious, and of course the conversation was great. I don’t think writers are ever boring. ;-)

Sage is really rockin’ the Spanish. He made a 100 on his Rosetta Stone Lesson 4 exam. There is not a children’s version of Rosetta Stone. This is the same stuff the adults use. I’m really impressed. Immersion is important, so we are going to look for those opportunities. He has really pulled ahead in math.

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Oh yeah. A really strange thing has happened. Wile E. has turned into a GOOD dog. :-)

Date: July 14th, 2009
Cate: The Personal
5 msgs

Throwing Up Words Makes Me Feel Better

I am so embarrassed about all of the whining I have been doing lately. All I have to do, really, is look at the KIVA on my sidebar to gain a little perspective. Still, it helped to get everything off my chest. Almost immediately after writing that post, I cleaned the kitchen, did a week’s worth of laundry, went shopping, cooked dinner and wrote a whole bunch of articles. I became Miz Productivity. I still feel better today, so perhaps there’s something to be said about the healing power of writing.

There’s also something to be said about posts that crack you up. This guy absolutely has a way with words (he’s a writer, so of course he does) and he has the cutest cats. Check out this short post: Friends in High Places. It made me laugh when I REALLY needed a laugh. I found this blog when I was doing one of my fantasy “I’ll move back to Mexico someday” searches.

Date: July 6th, 2009
Cate: The Kids, The Personal
8 msgs

Funk

So Sage had the spider bite, but when we took him to the doctor for yet another “spider bite”, we discovered that he has MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant form of staph. I got pretty freaked out by how serious the formerly jovial doctor got when he saw the boils. Sage is now on a pretty harsh antibiotic and some anti-bacterial cream. Actually, ALL of us have to put the cream in our nose to “decolonize” ourselves.

I have been worried sick. We canceled our Fourth of July get together, which may not have been such a terrible thing, since the mixture of relatives that were coming was a bit dicey. I really hope the doctors know what they’re doing. Alarmingly, this is not uncommon. The pharmacist told me that she had seen eleven other patients with MRSA that day.

I’ve been all weepy and stuff, with stress and my screwy hormones. Greg told me that I was a good mommy because I take such good care of my boy and I just about lost it. I suppose I really needed to hear that. I beat myself up all of the time about not having a more stable life when Sky was growing up. I honest to goodness didn’t realize how damn important that is to a kid, believe it or not. I believed that if I didn’t make the mistakes that my parents made, then I must be doing things perfectly. Not. I shouldn’t be so hard on some of the parents of my students when I was such a jacked up parent myself.

And anyway, I continue to to pay for those bad choices. Sky doesn’t call me often, and leads a lifestyle that worries me. I feel literally tied up in knots worrying about him. Where he is, what he’s doing, if he’s okay. My knuckles have something that feels like arthritis. It seems like the worry made manifest. What better place than in the hands that cared for him and now feel absolutely helpless?

If something happened to him, probably no one would know how to get a hold of me, since he got rid of his cell phone. He’s 19 now. I didn’t talk to him on his birthday, because there is no way I can reach him. The parenting thing doesn’t diminish much after 18. It’s still all about wearing your heart outside of your body.

Yesterday, out of the blue, Sage asked me what a “PO” was. I told him that it was the post office, located next to Krogers. He said, “No, it was up near Grandma’s.”

I realized that he meant the probation officer. It’s been well over a year since that has come up. I explained. He was confused about why Sky had to go there. I said, “Do you want to know what he did?”

Sage looked at me very seriously, and shook his head. He has his brother on a pedestal, and he’s not about to take him down.

I had to try to get myself out of this funk. I went to a cool site, Kiva, and made a microloan to the woman in my new sidebar widget. I think microlending is awesome, since you can help people again and again with the money you put into it. I just love Kiva. My other favorite is Heifer International, which sounds like a Miss Universe for fat girls, but is another incredible charity.

Anyway, am going to put serious effort into continuing to shake this off. Going to get some good sleep, get up and go to the gym, and then do some craftsy stuff. It’s a plan.

7/06 Cheerful Update: Sky IMed me this morning!! He’s safe, and is currently in Dallas with some friends. He promised to give his friends my number, easing one of my worries. He should be here in the next couple of weeks. This just totally made my day!

Date: July 2nd, 2009
Cate: The Personal
3 msgs

Thoughts About Refrigerators

retro orange fridge

I have never been able to pronounce the word “refrigerator” in Spanish. Unfortunately, that’s not the only problem I have with refrigerators. I also have the problem of standing in front of them far too often. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Don’t you just love that orange fridge? I want it. It’s about $2300, which in my messed up little mind, somehow seems reasonable. It’s totally ME. Of course, the red one would match the kitchen appliances that I have been collecting for the past twenty years. Click on the photo and you can see it in all of its glorious colors.

Anyway. If I did buy a new fridge (which will probably happen in a year or two), I should probably buy the invisible model. At least if they’ve invented an invisible fridge by then. Because, you know, they really should. It would solve all sorts of problems, and the person who came up with the design would win some sort of award for solving much of the country’s obesity problem.

I’ve been thinking about self-control. Try as I might, unless I eat practically nothing but nasty meat (not real fond of meat…), I get the hungries. An almost no-carb diet is the only thing that gets rid of them, and I just don’t think I can maintain that for the rest of my life. So, since I can’t control hunger, I’m going to focus on what I can control.

I can control what goes in my mouth. I’ve switched to only eating healthy foods (again…) and of course this is a good example for Sage, although the low-cal stuff really doesn’t help Greg much. We are like Jack Sprat and his wife. Nuf said.

More importantly, I can have the discipline to get up off my butt and go to the gym, which I have been doing. It really feels awesome to know that I can control burning calories, even though sometimes I just can’t help having that midnight snack. Because I’m really hungry!

So I’m doing a couple of things right. I’ve lost four pounds so far, which is reasonable for two weeks. I’m trying to get into the “lifestyle” mindset as opposed to the “lose 30 pounds in 30 days” mindset. I figure at the very least, I’ll build endurance and be a heavy woman who can kick ass.

Sage walked three miles on an incline today with me. He goes with me whenever I go. It definitely counteracts some of those video games!

5 minutes later: Edited because I can’t spell the damn word, either!

Date: July 2nd, 2009
Cate: The Personal
2 msgs

Happy 19th Birthday, Sky!

sky

We miss you! Hope you’re having a great time!

Date: June 28th, 2009
Cate: The Personal
4 msgs

Heartless

Last night, a young man who had just graduated from our local college, who had overcome the odds growing up in one of the worst neighborhoods in Houston, was shot multiple times in an attempted robbery at one of our favorite restaurants. He died.

The one who did it? One of my former students from two years ago. This is a kid who got under my skin. There is usually about one a year that does. He would always disrupt my groups in a really infuriating, mean passive-aggressive way, and although quite intelligent, talked about how he would live off the system and never get any job doing anything legal, that is. He was quite adamant about that. He had a chance to go to college for free, and he turned it down flat.

So this kid is 20 now, and he is going up on capital murder. With this kid’s mindset, I’m sure he’ll find a way to blame what he did on someone else.

Now, I live in Texas. You know what we do to capital murderers here. This was my student. I should perhaps be sad for what will most likely happen to him. But I’m not. I hope they absolutely throw the book at him. I’m so angry at him, so sad for the many people in my community who are grieving for this other young man who was killed for the money in his pocket.

I feel pretty heartless too.

Date: May 28th, 2009
Cate: The Kids, The Personal, The Teaching
5 msgs

Emotional

I’ve almost cried once today. And I actually did cry before that. It’s been such a roller-coaster of a day.

The first thing that happened was that Sage was getting an award at school today (for music!) and I had to work. I did walk over to his school to drop off some goodies for the class, and when I saw the other parents filing into the auditorium, I just totally choked up, because I wanted to be there instead of at work.

One of our instructional aides saw the tears in my eyes when I got back and asked what was wrong. I told her and she got someone to cover my class. So I walked back over there and got to see my kiddo get his award!

I ended up telling my students about this experience–how very difficult it is to be both the parent you want to be and do the job you want to do. Some of my students take parenthood lightly, so I suppose I was hoping to convey how darn important it really is. Several of my students shared with me that they had never gotten an award. That made me so sad, because while watching the award ceremony, I noticed that the students who received the most awards were those who parents are pretty active in the school, so I know those students are very supported. My students should get awards for surviving hellish upbringings and neighborhoods without being incarcerated (at present, anyway).

Sage also got “commended” on our state standardized test in writing. Although I’m not a fan of standardized tests, this meant a lot to me, because after seven years, Sage just got out of the special education program for speech/language. When he was struggling, he never got awards or recognition, and it seemed that he was overlooked because of his disability. I used to feel so angry about that.

The guy came to fix our washing machine, which had a broken lid switch. Greg was at home, and called me this afternoon to let me know how much it cost. It was $130 for 15 minutes work and an eighteen dollar part. I told my students about this as well. They need to give this guy some competition so that prices will go down a bit! For a moment, I wondered why I didn’t go into appliance repair.

Here’s the reason, and the reason I almost started crying again. School’s about out, and I was telling my students how much I enjoyed this year, and had really been enjoying this class in particular. I said, “I really like yall”!

Well, this one student I have, who has been challenging to say the very least, not to mention rude, disruptive and a host of other bad behaviors, said, “I like you too Miss.”

And that meant the whole world to me.

Seeing that kiddo (and others) learn manners and exhibit a desire to learn over the past few months has been amazing. He hasn’t been the only one. One of my juniors told me that she had been paying close attention to my World Geography class all year, and that she had never learned so much in a class in her entire life. Kids gave me email addresses, phone numbers and promises to stay in touch.

Unlike working with washing machines, with kiddos it’s really hard to let go sometimes.

life-is-beautiful

Date: April 3rd, 2009
Cate: The Personal
2 msgs

Outside

We went for a quick walk this evening. Sage and Salsa raced, as usual. It was a tie.

Sage picked me a variety of wildflowers, giving me an impromptu bouquet.

Life is good.

Date: March 21st, 2009
Cate: The Personal
2 msgs

Cool Blue

We stopped at a hole in the wall catfish restaurant today, and lucked out because a bluegrass band was playing. I was singing along sorta under my breath, and the band ended up bringing me to everyone’s attention, saying that I was the “spitting image of Ricky Scagg’s wife”. I’m so glad they didn’t say I was the spittin’ image of Ricky Scaggs.

Anyway, an unexpected really fun time tonight! Here’s another video, this one of my twin, Sharon White-Scaggs. I really think the only resemblance is the dark eyebrows. Great song, this.

Date: February 8th, 2009
Cate: The Personal
13 msgs

Ouch.

This absolutely sucks. Yesterday, I “did something” to my back while I was cleaning and moving stuff around in the living room. I decided that it might freeze up if I quit moving around, and decided to “work out the stiffness and pain” by gritting my teeth and continuing to do what I had been doing.

Stupid stupid stupid.

I have now been flat on my back in bed since Friday. The pain upon standing up more than a minute or two is comparable to childbirth. I have cried twice, and I was a stoic during childbirth!

I’ve tried Advil, X-strength Tylenol, ice packs (help temporarily), Tiger Balm, massage and whining. I am still stuck here in bed. I’m bummed out because the pain was, if anything, worse this morning when I woke up and I had hoped it would be better.

I can’t even go to a doctor because I would be unable to get in the car and sit up without screaming. Seriously. Much less sit and wait at the doctor’s office. Maybe tomorrow I can get my mom to take me to a chiropractor while I lie down in the back seat.

Greg is at a loss.

Sage and Greg are both sick. Sage has had a fever for three days. I feel awful not being able to care for him as I should. Greg is doing all the work, and he is catching it too. Actually, so am I. Coughing hurts my back even worse.

This absolutely sucks.

I’m lying here catastrophizing, afraid that I am going to miss work (likely) and be like this for weeks.

Owwwww.