Back to School, Again

If I needed a reminder that school is back in session, I would just need to check the status of my Facebook teacher friends. All of them have spent hours this weekend writing lesson plans. Welcome to the beginning of a new school year.

My first day of school Friday went smoothly. First days usually do. It seems that after the long summer break of not grading papers and planning lessons I have loads of patience. The maintenance of this patience is always the troubling area.

Usually every year I set some kind of goal that I try to work toward for the school year. The last two years it has simply been to make it to the end of the school year with my sanity firmly in place. This year I’ve decided to try and maintain those levels of patience that I tend to have in great quantities the first week of school.

This means that when the kid that wasn’t paying attention to me asks a question, I’m going to smile and answer it. When the student who has asked me for a pencil ten days in a row asks again, I will hand one over. When my journalism student tells me that they don’t have their story on the day that the newspaper is due, I won’t…. Well, that may be pushing the reservoir of patience that I have. Basically, I’m going to try to curtail my natural sarcasm with deep breaths and patience.

I don't really have a plan yet. I figure I will survive by taking deep breaths and reminding myself that patience will not raise my tension levels to astronomical proportions.  I'm not sure how you practice having patience any other way but by giving it a try.

I believe it is possible though. I know it is possible. I will tell myself that until May and see how it works.

Experience #18 Painting and the Perfectionist



I’ll admit, my list of experiences was put on hold the last month as I attempted to buy a house and to be a good college student (now however, I’m only trying to survive and finish). Painting was on my original list of thirty-three, and a fellow teacher invited me to attend a party at Painting with a Twist. She even made mention of me adding it to my list because of course, no one has seen the completed list. Her invitation served as a reminder that I’m only half through my list, and the year will not wait for me to accomplish my list before it comes to that rapid finale.



Donna "Lucy" and I showing off our finished paintings
 at Painting with a twist.



So Wednesday afternoon I found myself having a painting lesson at Painting with a Twist. Teacher friend had chosen the St. Louis Cathedral with azaleas as her painting.

The display painting was a beautiful painting, but as I stared at it waiting for the class to begin, I thought there was no way that it was going to happen on my partially outlined, colorless canvas.

After thirty minutes of painting, listening to directions, and attempting to make my painting look like the display, I gave up on that lofty ideal and decided to make it look like it wasn’t painted by a kindergartener.

Best friend “Lucy” was no help on that level. She encouraged failure with the tip that I could tell everyone that I was attempting to make it look like my six-year old had painted it. Have to love her.

Somewhere in the middle of it, after I stopped listening to painting directions and began to consider the painting itself as an imperfect representation, painting actually became relaxing. I’m an admitted perfectionist, and I won’t usually try things like this because I know it won’t meet my perfect ideal. But somewhere around attempting to do two-toned azaleas and making a mess of the grass, I stopped caring that it wasn’t perfect.

All in all, I enjoyed painting. I have a feeling I will not want to see a paint brush for a very long time after I finish painting inside the house I mentioned earlier. But the experience was a much needed one at this moment in my life.

I planned to hang the painting in a deep, dark closet, but my daughter loves the painting and has asked to hang it in her new room. What can I say? She’s six and doesn’t understand yet that the lines are supposed to be straight. Of course, she also informed me that I should have taken her to the class because she is the one who wants to learn how to paint. I may be holding a paint brush sooner than I’d like. I believe I need to choose something abstract next time, without any lines that I’m expected to get straight.

My finished painting. If you don't look too closely,
 it will look decent.

The Dreaded Back to School Shopping

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a fan of shopping. I consider it to be a hobby of mine and often joke that I would like to be a professional shopper just so I could spend other people’s money. I never seem to grow tired of it. That’s until it comes to shopping for back to school. There’s something about it that puts a finality to summer that makes me grouchy.

Even with all of this dislike, my children are usually pretty easy to appease. Uniforms make shopping easy, even if they are boring and ugly as my daughter points out. Still, they are quite content with the standard uniforms and never really make specific requests. That is until this year.

Apparently, all of the nine year old boys that my son knows are wearing Reebok Zigs. Hmmm…. Is my nine year old growing up? I’ll leave that to contemplate later.

What was important was finding these shoes. He of course didn’t know the name of the shoes. I brought him to several shoe stores where he passed over every shoe looking for what he could only describe as being blue with a wavy bottom.

We ended up at the mall where we made our way through several more shoe stores with him taking all of five seconds to glance at the available shoes and tell me he didn’t like any of them.

I must say, to my own surprise, I hadn’t lost my patience at this point. I actually encouraged him to keep looking for the shoes he wanted.

We finally located the shoes in Foot Locker. They had the shoe, but not the color he wanted. So I finally got a look at the shoes we’d gone to five shoe stores looking for. All I will say is that I thought they were the ugliest shoes and gulp…. Seventy-five dollars.

Was I really going to pay that much for a shoe that he would outgrow in five months max?

I studied the shoe and then his face for a long time, asking him several times if this was the shoe he really wanted (adding that it was ugly and if I paid that much money for a shoe he’d have to wear it until it fell apart.)

He remained steadfast in his desire for the shoe.

His determination to have those shoes brought me back to the school shopping I’d done at that age. I’d wanted the expensive clothes that everyone else was wearing, but my mom had always said no. My mom still tells the story about a pair of Guess jeans I carried around the store, wanting desperately, but my mom had warned me that it would be the only jeans I’d get if she had to pay that much money for them. I’d ended up putting the jeans back on the rack, but it hadn’t stopped me from wanting them.

Sigh. Yes, you guessed it. I shelled out the eighty- five dollars after tax for the shoes. They should arrive any day, since they are so popular we actually had to order his size.

I know that this was only the beginning of his requests. (I’m mentally blocking out the knowledge that fashionista's dauther’s requests will come fast and hard.) I think I’m in trouble.

My Harry Potter Weekend

This weekend was what I’ll call my fix for my Harry Potter addiction. Considering that I trekked to Florida to the theme park, to New York to the Exhibit, and between my son and I, we own wands, broom, books, movies, candy, oh you get the picture. An addiction is the obvious conclusion.

Harry Potter gift bags.

First, Saturday was my son’s birthday party. He loves Harry Potter nearly as much as I do, so he chose to go with a Harry Potter theme. Normally this would mean that I go into full scale party planning, but this year his party was at Pinocchio’s Pizza Place. Unfortunately, the place only allows you to bring in a cake.

This presented a problem for my itching party planning skills (Not to mention that addiction to everything Harry Potter). I got creative anyway and made cute broomstick gift bags.

Yes, I encourage my son to follow my addiction, and he handed them to his friends, including the chocolate frog inside each bag. (This was technically against Pinocchio’s rules. But I figured I’d be bold, and no one would stop me.)

Sunday, he and I made it to the movie theater to watch the new film. The delay was due only to the required babysitter for my daughter. My son wanted to be camped out Thursday night at the theater with everyone else waiting impatiently. I was with him, but I did have to be the responsible mom as well as feed the Harry Potter addiction.

The movie did not disappoint. I have been a fan of the books since I picked up the first book thirteen years ago at a book fair. Seeing the culmination of all those years of books and movies on screen was quite emotional. (Yes, I cried, but I also laughed.) I’d waited for this movie to come out to end this epic saga since its release date was announced, but it was bittersweet for there would be no more waiting. I had felt the same way at the end of Book 7.

Watching this great story, listening to an audience who claps along with parts or sniffles through emotional scenes makes me want to create a story that I feel the same way as when I read or watch the stories of Harry Potter. I want to create something that brings me to tears and causes a few laughs as J.K. Rowling’s stories have always done for me.

This is what I’ve always wanted to do since I penned that first story in sixth grade that went on for over a hundred pages, and I was so proud of it when I finished. (Though I would never let anyone see it today.)

Though I sometimes lose sight of this dream in my day to day life, it’s stories like Harry Potter that remind me and inspire me to keep that dream working in my head. I think this above all is what draws me to the Harry Potter stories above all others.

I’m already planning to return to the theater to see it again. This time I’m looking for company that doesn’t ask me a million questions throughout like my son. I want to sit quiet and watch it unfold once again as it all comes to an end.

Who gets the Toaster?

It’s no secret that I’m divorced. I’ve joined the other half of the population that didn’t end up in marital bliss. As a perfectionist, this probably should bother me, but I actually found the whole process to be quite liberating.

As a planner, I pretty much planned every detail of the disentanglement, but life is not like that list I wrote down on paper and surprises did pop up along the way. I was talking to a friend who has recently decided to join my side of the population, and the conversation veered toward the effects of divorce on other areas besides living standard. What people don’t talk about is that along with the divorce settlement of who gets the toaster, the community property settlement involves the splitting of friendships.

In the divorce everything gets split in half, and it seems as though friends hurry to choose which side of the great divide they’d like to end up on. I’m not complaining about my settlement of the few friends who I managed to negotiate, but I do question how people who you called your friends for years choose to pick sides.

In elementary school there were these groups of girls that if you were lucky enough to be invited to be one of them, you’d have the whole group as your instant BFF’s. Of course, that only lasted until you did something that the group’s leader didn’t like and then you lost the entire group as your friends. This is how it feels as you walk away from your old life.

The problem I have with this whole system is that my definition of a friend does not include someone who stops being friends with me because I do something they don’t like. In elementary school, those girls weren’t really friends. I’m sure they were quite successful in whatever career they had chosen to train for so young.

Maybe I expect too much, but if I call you my friend, I expect a little more than being dropped because I’m no longer the “her” in the his and her. I’m not saying that it isn’t difficult balancing two people who’ve decided they no longer can stand to be in the same room with each other. But a friend should mean a little more than that toaster.

It’s actually been quite a liberating experience for me to lose all those people who at one time treated me like a friend. The people left around me, the ones who have been there every step of the way, are the people I can truly call friends. All those others who chose so easily to kick me out of the group were only acquaintances. The same acquaintances who now don’t even bother to tell me hello in Wal-Mart as if it is dangerous to talk to the enemy on the other side of the divide. I will have numerous acquaintances that come and go throughout my life, but it’s always nice knowing who your real friends are and who only pretended to be.

Agree or disagree with me? Voice your opinions under comments.

Experience #17 The Beach

My second vacation of the summer consisted of two things that I’ve never really been fond of: the beach and camping. Only one of these items made it onto my list for the year though, and that would be the beach (On a side note, going camping would only make the list of things I do under threat of bodily harm).

The beach is great in theory. The evoked imagery is one of relaxing. However, I don’t like sand. I do not have a developed appreciation for the grittiness between my toes. I don’t like having sand in every crevice of my body and be left wondering how in the world it managed to find its way there.

So why did I put it on my list then? The answer is provided by just recapping previous vacations where one of the main forms of entertainment was waiting in lines and being crowded with all the other crazy people who believe a vacation means fighting the crowds at whatever theme park we have landed ourselves in that summer. (In the last few years, we have been to Disney World three times, Universal Studios, SeaWorld, Six Flags, and a few water parks for good measure.) After two vacations last summer where we forgot our sanity at the entrance gate, I decided that my next vacation would involve sitting and doing absolutely nothing but relaxing. New York ended up coming next on the whole vacation train, but I was determined to gain an appreciation for a relaxing vacation one way or another. And of course, everyone says that a beach is a relaxing vacation.

I don’t know if I’m cut out for it though. In the whole building appreciation theme of this vacation, I walked out into the ocean, cringing when my feet would brush something in the sand below. I built a sand castle with my children and then walked back out into the ocean to rinse all the sand that managed to find its way into every crevice of my body. I will now have to vacuum every inch of my car to get all the sand out that the ocean water did not wash out of those same crevices. I could probably build my own beach with all the sand that found its way inside, but then I’d have to deal with all that sand again. Not an entertaining idea.

I’ve come to the conclusion that my definition of relaxing is probably as unique as I am. Unfortunately, I haven’t found what is relaxing for me yet.

As far as the camping experience, I’ll say that I have never been fond of it in my life. I blame my parents for dragging me through Mississippi campgrounds on my first ever camping experience. (In a Tent!) As a fifteen year old, the idea of public bath houses and sleeping outside in a tent with all nature has to offer is just a bit traumatic. (Did I mention we spent a week in a tent with it raining through the seams of that same tent?!)

My parents loved camping, and proceeded to buy a camper when we returned from that life affirming trip (That would be life-affirming for me. I affirmed that I did not like camping). The purchase of said camper meant I had to be dragged through more campgrounds, but this time in a camper. I will admit that my parents have upgraded their campers every few years, so that going camping with them now involves full size showers, washer and dryer, and flat screen TVs larger than the one I own in my apartment. Even still, I haven’t gone camping in eight years with them. I don’t know how I’ve managed to get away with that in my family, but I suppose I’m still that rebellious teenager who refused to go camping. My children however would have been the bodily harm factor if they had not been able to attend the annual fourth of July camping trip. Andrew had last gone days before his first birthday, and Cara had never been exposed. (I mean, I didn’t want to traumatize them. They of course were jumping up and down excited.)

This camping experience wasn’t a horrible one, but again, I realized that it isn’t my idea of relaxing either.

Everything in my life is at this in-a-hurry, high speed pace, and neither camping nor the beach is conducive to my pace. I suppose I haven’t learned to relax yet. I will have to keep trying to find that place or hobby that finally allows for relaxation.

Experience #16 The Circus

Awe. Wonder. Amazement. The circus has the ability to make even adults feel like children again. Barnum and Baily’s 200 Spectacular certainly delivered on their promise of a spectacular performance. The acrobatic feats were jaw dropping and the stunts bordered on insane. There were elephants, tigers, and clowns (oh, my.)

My favorite, and what has always been my favorite, is the tight rope walkers. When I was a child, I’d watch the circus on television and wish to be able to balance delicately above an audience and swing through the air to feel the sensation of flying. Flying has always appealed to me (of course, it doesn’t entirely go along with that phobia I have of falling from high places.)

After the walkers performed, my daughter turned to me and said she wanted to do that when she was older. I had to smile (though for a split second I worried about how many stitches she’d have if she attempted anything like that at home.) Hadn’t I been her age when I first wanted to soar through the air?

The two times I’d gone to a circus as a child, it had been to small ones nowhere near the grand scale performed in the arena. At both of those events, the air flyers had not been part of the act. When I saw the advertisement for the circus, I immediately thought back to watching the acrobatic flyers on television when I was a child. And though it had not been written on this year’s list, I immediately thought of it as an addition.

Of course, my son’s favorite act was the seven dirt bikes racing around inside a metal ball and not colliding. If he decides to attempt a stunt like that at any age, I will probably experience a heart attack (so not on my list of experiences.)

It was a fantastic experience. As I near the half way mark on my list of experiences, I realize that I want to continue doing this for a long time to come. I may be writing a new list every year.

Experience #15 Broadway and New York Continued

On the third night of our trip, we had tickets to watch Wicked at the Gershwin theatre on Broadway. Seeing a Broadway show was one of the original thirty-three items on my list (though someone told me it was cheating doing two items on my list together.) I hadn’t paid too much attention to the particulars of the musical; I had heard that it was supposed to be real good and that was enough for me. Katie played music from the musical during the afternoon and belted out the songs, warning us that she may continue her performance during the actual performance.

I glanced over at a her a few times to check if she was singing, but otherwise I was riveted by the actual performance, leaning forward in my seat for the entire show. I was sad to see it end. I had never watched a musical live and nothing can compare to seeing this show performed live. Though I’d wanted to read the novel before I saw the musical, time had run out before the start of the trip. However, I downloaded the novel while still in New York to read on the trip home.

As I’m nearly finished the novel now, it strikes me at how someone can read a novel and envision the story as something entirely different. Though the novel is excellent, I feel as though I’m reading a different story entirely about the same characters, as if two narrators witnessed the story and each has a completely different perspective to share with me. My favorite is definitely the musical (I will have to retract my statement about liking the books more than the movies in all cases, but then again, maybe I won’t count it since it is technically a musical.)

My trip did not end there. Sunday we walked and walked and walked. (I decided I needed to add incline walking to my exercise routine since my legs were so sore I walked like an old woman after sitting too long.) We had brunch at Sara Beth’s, shopping, dessert at Serendipity, more shopping, and more walking.

Monday began a two day bus tour on a quest to see the various places that compose New York City. Besides from Harlem, Brooklyn, China town, uptown, downtown, and everywhere in between, I also witnessed the New York City tour guide. Everyone really is in show business, including your local neighborhood tour guide. On our tour of Brooklyn, we were serenaded with show toons by our tour guide who readily admitted that he was auditioning for parts on Broadway and had once performed there as well. Another tour guide fired off joke after joke as he rehearsed for his standup comedy routine. The least likable of our guides lectured us on the reasons we should give good tips to our guides and our drivers. He went as far as to tell us that our change was only good at the airport.

On the last leg of our bus tour, Donna had a Lucy moment and could not cease laughing as a kind, older gentleman wrapped her up in a poncho. As strangers turned to stare at us and see what the uncontrollable laughter was about, I had a moment where I wished that I could disappear inside my own poncho. I could laugh though, knowing that one day I will use that moment in a story, and I will be perfectly capable of describing what it feels like for everyone on a bus to think you are with a crazy person.

Our last day of seeing the city, we journeyed to the Statue of Liberty. One really does expect it to be this looming fixture over the city. In fact, on the flight into the city, I’d searched below to find it. (At this time, Donna had not been enjoying her motion sickness and had looked as if I continued rambling on, she might just lose it. So I’d looked out the plane window instead, but not too close since she also had the window seat.)

There was an incident as we returned to the ferry from viewing the statue. After being made to abandon the dock where we’d lined up to board on our return journey, the Harbor Patrol searched the ferry with the dogs. Rumors abounded throughout the crowd as to what they searched for with no actual facts being divulged. (The incident did provide excellent story ideas though.)

The journey to the airport that returned us to Louisiana was far less eventful. Donna did not enjoy our high-speed, swerving cab ride to the airport. But all I could say was that I’ve ridden with people who have driven worse. I’m not sure that speaks highly of my judgment about who I get in a vehicle with.

It was a wonderful first visit to New York City. I took in many of the sights, including the Empire State building, the Statue of Liberty, and the stores. I already know what I want to do on my return to the city because you just can’t do it once.

Experience #14 New York City

For my entire life, my dream has been to live in New York City. At thirteen, I had it all planned out. I would live in this high rise apartment, work this fancy job that made me famous (what can I say, I was a teenager), and be single for the rest of my life ( I must have known something at thirteen that I forgot later on). With all my expert planning though, I’ve never made it to the city. So when I made my list of thirty three experiences, it took me all of two seconds to add it to my list.

The Adventure Begins

My long overdue trip to New York City began with an airplane ride. I have only flown once, and that occurred thirteen years ago. Riding in an airplane is like riding the Dumbo ride at Disney World. My insides twist and turn on the way up, but settle as soon as we are in the air. All the while I’m in the air though, I dread the decent of the landing. (I must add that Dumbo’s landing is much more graceful.)

On the way to New York at takeoff, my paranoia kicked in when a grinding of gears sounded loudly beneath the plane. I immediately blurted out, “What’s that?”

Donna laughed. “I don’t hear anything. You might hear something, but I don’t hear anything.”

Hmmm…. That sums up our differences. Denial vs. paranoia.

On the way home, I was randomly selected at security to go through special screening. The security guard swiped my hands with what looked like a moist band aide.

Curiosity won out after the initial fear of what kind of special screening I’d have to go through subsided. “What are you checking for?”

“Explosives.”

“Oh,” I said. My mind ran through all the things I’d touched that morning. It wasn’t like I’d touched explosives; I didn’t even like fireworks. But what if something I’d touched caused that test to be positive (Did I mention yet that I’m paranoid?)

“If you didn’t make a bomb this morning, then you don’t have to worry.” He said before nodding that I could go.

I laughed in relief and hauled out of the security section to make sure he didn’t come up with some other test to try.

Lost in New York City, otherwise known as the Harry Potter Exhibit

My first real day in New York City, Donna decided to go to school with her daughter who lives and teaches music at a school in the city. This meant that I was on my own for most of the day. I wasn’t going to waste a day in the city not seeing the sights just because I was alone and had never been in the city.

The two of us got off the subway and exited right on the street that I needed to go to my first sight, the Harry Potter exhibit. She instructed me to go right and that she had to go left. I was thirty minutes early and confident that I could make my way there. I even took a stroll through a three-story Toys-R-Us, feeling assured that I had time to spare and I would have no trouble getting there.

I headed off in search of the Harry Potter exhibit, walking down Forty-Fourth Street, thinking that New York wasn’t much different than New Orleans, just much larger. After the second block, I began to worry that I had passed it up or that I was on the wrong street. I checked the address again, and that’s when I realized that I had been sent in the wrong direction. Just to make sure, I walked to the end of the third block and confirmed that I was walking in the wrong direction. When I finally made it to the Harry Potter exhibit, I realized two things. One was that I only had to walk three hundred feet from the subway station to get to the exhibit, and two was that I needed to purchase a map.

The front of the Harry Potter Exhibit. We were not allowed to take
pictures inside. Otherwise, I would have had a difficult time
choosing a picture.

The exhibit was worth it though. The exhibit contained hundreds of movie props such as costumes, wands, beds from the dormitories, books, classroom items, etc. It was like walking onto the movie set, but it was all the movie sets combined. Most importantly though, the exhibit ended in a gift shop. It was in that gift shop that I had the realization that my son’s love of Harry Potter parephenilla may come because he knows I will never tell him no when Harry Potter is involved. I would have been in an enormous amount of trouble if he would have been there. As it were, I spent an exhoberent amount of money, and he was thrilled when I returned home with his two bags of Harry Potter items.

After I left the exhibit, I stopped in and bought me a map before heading down to Fifth Avenue where I spent the next several hours shopping. My first stop was H&M. I’d wanted to shop there since I first spotted the items in a fashion magazine. I’d gone online, and realized that they didn’t sell their items online nor had any stores in our great state of Louisiana. Of course, that just made me want to shop there even more and to notice how frequently they were mentioned in magazines. I spent at least an hour going through the three floors of the store. I tried on tons of clothes and left with a few new outfits to remember the experience with. I left reluctantly, knowing it would be a long time before I was able to shop there again, but then I proceeded to make up for it by going through all the other stores I recognized on the way. I was loaded down with shopping bags by the time I met back up with Donna and her daughter in Times Square. It was definitely a great first day in New York City.

The trip will continue….. Check back soon.

Experience #13 Relearning to Ride a Bike

When I was about fourteen, my sister and I received these brand-new, white and red ten speed bikes for doing well during the school year on our report cards. Riding bikes was a favorite past time, mostly because everyone on our street did it, but an added perk was we would ride to the front of the street to the snowball stand every day for a snowball. (I absolutely love strawberry shortcake snowballs. I would venture trying a new kind once a summer, but I would usually regret it, wishing I would have stuck to my favorite).

It was on one such trip on this new bike that my canvas shoe got stuck in the spokes of the front tire, and I was thrown head first over the handlebars, skidding to a stop using my wrists and the flesh of my legs. I was pulled from under the bike to assess my injuries, and nearly passed out as I took in my bleeding knees and sprained wrists (I literally almost passed out. Those who know me, know that I did this all the time, or so my mom says when she blames me for her gray hair).

I’m not going to say I never got on a bicycle after that, but it was damn close. I got a new bicycle after that one did not survive the incident, but it rusted in the shed.

Which of course meant that riding a bike had to go on my list because I had put everything else that I’d ever been afraid to try on the list. But I thought I’d wait a bit longer before trying it out. I actually put it down on my 2012 list. (Yes, there is a list for next year. I couldn’t fit it all into one year.) The opportunity to ride a bike arose though, and I went for it because my philosophy this year involves taking advantage of all the opportunities that come my way.

Contrary to that old saying about how it’s just like riding a bike, riding a bike is not so easy to those balance challenged. I thought my balance had improved; I mean I exercise on a BALANCE ball. I was wrong. I’m not sure how my daughter just hopped on her bike and figured out the balance thing on the first try. For six miles I gripped the handle bars, occasionally (Okay, so more than occasionally) veering off coarse as my balance wobbled.

How did I do it as a child? I would consider myself clumsy back then but not at this point in my life.

It is good exercise though, and by the end of it I didn’t look worse than my six-year-old learning to ride her bike. I didn’t wobble so much, and I could actually glance to the side without the bike veering suddenly off course.

I’m not saying I was ready to go again the next day. Bikes really need to work on having more comfortable seats for one’s butt, but I can no longer say I haven’t been on a bike in seventeen years. It is one more experience that I can mark off my list, as the list dwindles down.