Kinda Like a Hippie

Myocardial Infarction

Hi! I've been meaning to write. Hell, I've been meaning to do a lot of things. I may have mentioned before that I have a few things to do during my working hours.Lately I have not been doing as well at getting it all done. So some of it I have just not been doing! I'll have to play catch up and I'll have to live with the guilt that the kids don't get their comfy chair coupons. I hate that.

Today I stayed until about 5:30 taking the refresher course I have to take online so that I can do more of the paperwork assigned to me. I was so excited upon completing that that we left right after, which still got us home in daylight (Thank you Daylight Savings Time!). Hippiekid stayed outside to play and I went inside to phone the boyfriend and tell him how much fun I had reading the prenup agreement the attorney sent ( Thank you Mr. Romance) and to start "cooking" supper (Thank you Chicken Voila).

After the allotted "simmer covered for 7-9 minutes" I went out to call Hippiekid in to eat.

"Hi Mom, I'm over here"

Where? (Can you find the kid in this picture?)

UP HERE!

Can you see him now? (You can click on the pic to enlarge)

Oh, there he is.

Isn't he just PRECIOUS? (Thank you for fresh Texas air with plenty of oxygen!)

And the dog is very patient too.

I'll be okay. After all I lived through this in 2006.

Good thing I implemented the "No jumping off anything taller than yourself rule" back in 2004.

I'm Pretty Much Locked in Now I guess (or Whose Decision Is This Anyway?)

Right now, as I type this, with a Nascar race on the big screen TV in the background and the sound of the dog barking coming through the open window, The Boyfriend and The Hippiekid are sitting on the floor near me playing a game of chess. HK has been trying to learn by playing against his computer. I am so thankful that I don't have to be the one to try to remember how to play. The Boyfriend is not a game player (of any kind, thank heavens), but he is cheerfully playing chess with a 10 year old.

I'm adding this to the list. And I just heard him say, "Sure we can play one more". This could go on awhile. Oh wait, hahaha, now they are talking about going to the movies. Did I mention TB was smart too?

Last week HK came home with a graded paper that made me realize The Boyfriend and I answer to someone with more power than ourselves. I have reproduced the paper here with all the original spelling and punctuation (except I did change the boyfriend's real name to his blog initials of TB). Hard to believe this kid makes straight A's in spelling, and everything else. It looks very short typed out, but in his own handwriting it was about a page and a quarter. The prompt was "Write a composition about the best day you ever had."

One nice, hot sunny afternoon in the town of Uvalde where my mom’s boyfriend lives, while I was down the road at my friend’s house, my mom and TB were working in the garden.
TB has a sprinkeler system through out the yard; there are little nosels… they kind of look like the thangs that come out of the gum-ball machiens; the round clear plastic balls with a lid on top. TB obviously knew that too, because he got that plastic thang and put a ring in it. I guess he secretly put the plastic thang outside.
TB was about to wead-eat, wich ment my mom had to pick up rocks so they would not come back and hit TB. She was by a nosel and TB asked, “What’s that?” My mom said “Looks like a nosel.” “No”, said TB, “Well get it out of the way.” “OK” She picked it up, she looked at it and said, “It’s a ring.” “Wait a minute!, It’s a ring!” It is a ring with a diamond on top. Wich ment one thang, they were going to get maread, and TB would be my dad!
When they came down to get me I saw the ring. I realized what had happened and a smile came across my face. I knew TB was going to be my dad.
That day when TB asked my mom to marry him was my best day ever.

And the winner is....

Here it is folks, right on schedule, if the schedule is one followed by Braniff airlines, which only has meaning to people at least my age who might actually remember poor defunct, now dead Braniff airlines; and does this count as talking disparagingly about the dead, if the dead is a business? After that sentence (we use the term loosely) doesn't it make you afraid to know that I teach the nation's youth? Don't worry, it isn't really the nation, it's just Texas and most of them will never leave here. It's way too far to drive. And besides most Texans see no reason to leave Texas.

So, as usual, I am a day late (and way more than a dollar short). I did the drawing part on Valentine's day. I just couldn't get to the posting part. I mean, I do have to keep The Boyfriend happy you know. He just loves driving over to my town and taking me out to eat afer working hard all day. I wouldn't want to deny him these pleasures.

I know, I know, get on with the giving away part.

Here are all the little strips of paper that are the 103 comments printed and cut apart. Please notice the holiday appropriate red hat.

And this is me tossing them into the hat. I know, could my veins get any bulgier? Nurses love me.

I stirred them up well. Don't worry, I put that one that fell out back in.

This is the first name out of the hat, which means first choice of the shirts. I made nice little signs so you would know what I was doing. I was taking the picture myself and it's a little blurry.

Here are the three winners.

I will of course be contacting them by e-mail or blog and hopefully mailing out shirts very soon after all the choices are decided.

I loved this giveaway contest. It was tons of fun looking at and entering on the other blogs. I found several I will be reading from now on. I hope some of you will stop back by occasionally. Since I had so much fun with my first give away I think I may have to eventually do some more- after I decide what to give away. Blogland is a cool place.

Feral imagination

Last Saturday The Hippiekid participated in a music contest of sorts. His piano teacher calls it a festival- um,not the kind we usually go to. It's a competition, I guess. They only play for a judge and are ranked. Not sure where it goes from there. Maybe the teacher gets points for all her students. Maybe if you are really good you advance to something else. Okay, it's obvious I am new to this and haven't quite figured it out. I have no musical ability, but I love to listen to it, and I value it greatly. That is why when HK showed the tiniest bit of interest and inclination I decided he will be taking piano lessons until he moves out of the house. He likes it and he does well. And the competition thingy? He got a Superior ranking on his pieces. That's the highest. I looked at the scale on the bottom of the page.

After he played we went out to eat with The Boyfriend's mother, since she lives in the same town, and we were all dressed up. Hereafter we will refer to her as Oma, as that is what all the grandkids call her.

Here is part of our meal conversation.

Oma: Oh my, what happened to your chin?

HK: I shot myself in the face.

Oma: What?

HK: With a gun.

Oma: Oh, haha, what really happened?

HK: A Bazooka

So I diverted the conversation to the delicious green beans. HK sat there eating away, looking so perfect and polite. It's amazing what some pin-striped pants, a white shirt and a tie can do.

A few minutes later we get this.

HK: Look Oma, I'm turning into an alien.

Oma: Ooh, how did your fingers get all green.

HK: I don't know,I just went to bed and woke up like this. I think I've been abducted.

But he cleans up well.

How to make Valentine's Day more fun... at least for yourself.

Enter to win groovy cool prizes (yes, I really do talk that way and it doesn't even seem all that weird coming from me). I am a new participant in the One World - One Heart Event.  Lisa Oceandreamer from Heart of the Nest and Imagination Cafe is the host. I copied this from the event information post:

It is a blog-wide giveaway event. The original idea behind this was to bring bloggers together from around the world who may never ordinarily meet. It closes the gap of the blog community and enables us to interact, discover new and wonderful people, and in the process possibly win a prize or many prizes along the way. Last years event had nearly 100 participants and many connections were made because of it......friendships that are still going strong.

So if you click that image (oops, I can't seem to make that work), or go to http://oneworldevent.blogspot.com/ you will find a long list of participants giving away all kinds of goodies. All you have to do to enter is visit the blogs and leave a comment. And my blog is included. Just leave a comment on this post by February 14th. I will print the names and draw a winner at some point on that day. And guess what? So will all the other participants. Enter on as many blogs as you want and you have more chances to win. Some bloggers have slightly different rules for commenting so be sure to read the post.

I am giving away this tie dyed t-shirt. I just made it last night. It has already been washed and dried and is ready to go. These are great dyes and will look good for a long time. (Update: I have finished some more shirts and will let the winner choose which one they want.)

When you leave your comment please be sure that it links to your blog, or if you don't have a blog, that you leave your e-mail address.

Another update: Due to the enormous response and the matching amount of fun I am having with this I have decided to give all 3 shirts away (actually, I decided that as soon as I made them). The first name drawn will be the super lucky winner. That person will get to have first pick, and on to 2nd and 3rd. The shirts are 3 different sizes so that may have some bearing.

We haz a ded cat.

We iz vera sad.

It's been a rough week here at the hippie house. Our auxilliary cat (as opposed to our other cat known as the real pet), the one who just decided to move in after scoping out the place, came to a sad end on Thursday. When we drove up Thursday afternoon we were met with Mr. Fluffers lying dead in the road. I freaked (understatement allowed so as not to appear too bizarre). Hippiekid took it much better than I did. Damn, I loved that cat. After much crying and pacing and frantic behavior on my part it was decided that we would drive the fluffy yellow body of one of the coolest cats in the world the 70 miles to be buried at The Boyfriend's house. Ain't no way nobody's diggin no hole on this rocky fossil mound we live on anyway...even assuming I had the emotional fortitude. This whole death and grief thing really kicks my butt (especially when it is sudden, I did better when The Boyfriend's dad died since he had been sick a while). I think my body goes into some sort of memory mode and just starts reacting to grief like it did when Will died.

The Boyfriend, being the good man he is, already had the hole dug when we arrived. Mr. Fluffer had a burial by headlights. However, the hole there was too shallow for my liking even though it had been dug with much effort through about an inch of topsoil and lots of rocks. I sobbed and cursed the rocky soil some more. It went something like this, "I just, baaaahhahahahasnifffhooohooo, want to be able to, wahhhhhhuhhuhhuh, bury my damn cat. Why can't I just have, ooohhooooohooooo, somewhere where I can dig a damn hole? Bwaaah, sniffcoughsnort, huhuhuhuhu at least in Oklahoma, sobsniff,  you can bury your pets! Ohohohsobsobsobsnifflesnortcry."

I hope you are in a happy place Fluffer. We miss you here.

 

 

If this post made you sad, I'm sorry. In honor of Fluffer, try this link to cheer yourself up http://icanhascheezburger.com .

Since my immune system has left the country...

I'll point out how lucky you are that you can neither see nor hear me. Because really there is only so much coughing you can listen to before sympathy exits and annoyance sets in. And the slimey, slippery oozing of body fluids that causes me to have to stuff a tissue in whichever nostril is on the downhill slope while sleeping is not all that fun to hear about either.

This is the 3rd time this school year that I have contracted some cold or flu virus that loves me more than anyone else and refuses to part from my cells, sweat and snot ridden though they are. I worked only 2 of the 5 days this week. Oh, yeah, I am way past the allotted number of sick days and well into the "days we deduct from your check at your daily rate of pay, which is somehow so much more than what you actually make in a day, but trust us it all works out over the course of your contract", so every day I miss makes me just a little more stressed out.

As I lie in bed thinking deep thoughts (and coughing up chunks of lung) all sorts of ideas for meaningful posts go through my head. Unfortunately none of them stick around long enough to become any sort of coherent essay.

So, you get this.

1. A plea to please give me some great defining edict from one of the candidates that will make me feel like lining up behind someone and staying there. Oh how I long for a candidate that I could support unfailingly and unflinchingly. Because right now I am flinching a lot.I keep thinking of things I want to write in a post, but when I start thinking about it all too much the flinching and twitching makes it hard to type. 

2. An anecdote from the Hippiekid: "Polar bears lost their tails in battle. They used to have one, but then it got chopped off in a battle and now it is a tradition for polar bears to only have a little stub there." He actually told me that a couple of months ago, but I just found where I wrote it down. I have no idea where it came from. At the time we were sitting on the sofa and not talking about polar bears. Sometimes the factoids just appear out of the blue.

3.A note about our pottery... apparently it was just too smokin' awesome! We were there on a Saturday and the next Tuesday part of Artisan's Alley burned. We were a little concerned that our creations had been "fired" prematurely, but the pottery shop was not affected. Hopefully we will get in next week and paint.

4. A picture of a boy and his dog. Taken today during one of the brief times I was up walking around.

  They are moving an old burn barrel into "the hideout" that Hippiekid has created among the cedar and oak trees on the back part of our property. (No he won't be burning anything. He has other plans for it, along with the two old toasters and other bits of metal and wood. I think they're decorative.)  I am standing just inside and you can see the back of the "No Tresspassing" sign he will rewire between the trees when he leaves for the day. It's good to be 10.

Well, that was fun.

Last Saturday Hippiekid and I finished up our Christmas gift giving.

There's a back story. While out lost in the city one day (back during the piano search) we came across a place called Artisan's Alley. I had been there years before. We stopped to shop and have lunch. In the center of a bunch of shops is a cool little pottery shop. They give lessons to walk ins. We didn't do it that day, but we decided that would be our gift to his BFF and BFF's mom, who is also my friend.

The lesson was an hour and a half and we all made 6 or 7 pieces. Now we wait for them to dry and be fired then we go back and paint them. After they are fired again we will get to bring them home. So, more fun to come. I also want to go back to take the sculpture class.

My only complaint is that the water we had to keep sticking our hands in was very cold!

Over-indulgence?

Yes, as evidenced by the last post, my 10 year old son did get a laptop computer for Christmas. Doesn't seem a very hippiemom kind of gift does it? Seems he should be opening yards of hemp cord and wooden beads along with a macrame instruction book, or at least some recycled tie dyed bed sheets. You know, I've never been very good at fitting into any one box. (I have found this generally confuses and often irritates people who don't know me well. My friends seems to accept it.)  I'm not really sure if I am raising a super consumer future yuppie type or Mr. Greenearth. I just know that despite my moral sensibilities and best intentions I can't seem to stop the flow of stuff the kid accumulates (oh okay, it goes for me too).

So Hippiekid got a laptop. In my defense (or actually, The Boyfriend's defense, since he is the one that bought it) it is a refurbished one that was on special, was a really good buy and not as expensive as you might think. Plus we really are getting tired of sharing our computers with him! Now if that was his only gift it would still be a nice Christmas. Of course it was not his only gift! Sillies! He also got a digital camera, a webkinz, books, a couple of toys, a new computer game, a stocking full of stuff, several gift cards from relatives, and a piano from his grandmother (among a few other things). The next week on our out of state visit he received new dirt bike boots, pants and gloves, some new clothes and  a few more toys.

I tell myself, and I told him, that this was an exceptional year. There will usually not be this many big ticket items. Although, in the past, he has received a computer for his room and a dirt bike (different years). I start out with good intentions, but then things just get out of hand. I seriously need to do my Christmas shopping the week before Christmas, because the longer I have the more I buy. Sometimes you just get such good buys! Thank you, Maggie, for your post, so I don't feel alone.

I swear when I was pregnant with Will I said to myself that I was not going to buy a lot of stuff. That he didn't need all that much. Of course Will's dad and I had a lot less expendable cash than I have now in my life with The Boyfriend (staying in the same job for the last 14 years rather than constantly moving around helps too). But, really I believed that, or at least I think I did at the time. I bought used clothes and toys. I tried to use moderation in everything. Then Will died and Hippiekid entered the picture and it was a whole new world. I just couldn't stop myself or anyone around us from over indulging him. I suppose there is a part of me that thinks, "Well, there really should be two of them, I'd be spending at least this much anyway, and having to find room for the trappings of two boys." Justification, it's a wonderful thing.

The best part of the whole thing though, is that he is always happy and appreciative. He has never once asked for any of the big ticket items he has received. The dirt bike year all he wanted was a red guitar. The year he got a PSP he asked for some specific Hot Wheel cars. This year his only request was a batting helmet for baseball season. Oh yeah, he got that too!

Maybe he will be better at keeping the consumerism at bay with his own kids.

Luckily, grandmas don't have to worry about shaping lives with their gift giving habits!

It's alive!

Wow, it's really been a month since I posted last? And, oops, I left that silly, sickly post up all that time. I wasn't that ill. Okay, I was pretty sick and I missed 5 days of work- I can't remember ever missing five days of work for one illness before. I got the flu really badly a few years ago, but luckily it encompassed a weekend. I got really lucky one year and got sick over Christmas break!

So, I recovered. It put me really behind at work at a horribly busy time of the year. Now, here we are, a month later, I have lived through Christmas, a ski trip and the journey to my mother's house (which is lacking internet access-- which is only one of the things that contributes to my insanity when I am there). I have to start back to work bright and early tomorrow morning. I am ready neither mentally nor in the area of teacher preparedness. I can wing it. It's my library visit day tomorrow. I got lucky.

I'll be back soon with new drivel for the new year.

Here's a picture of Hippiekid and The Boyfriend on Christmas morning, opening the Hippiekid's last present- a laptop computer.

Here is the Hippiekid surrounded by presents and the accompanying discards. God, I love being his mom.