Puppy Love

So, the kids and I talked about it and decided that getting another puppy right away was an ok idea. This morning, I found out that a friend was puppysitting for her Father who breeds JRT's and had three females to choose from. This was divine intervention. So, I picked up the kids from their dad's house and went to look at puppies. Well, if you've ever seen JRT puppies, you know that they're irresistible, and true to form, these three little ladies put on quite a show for us. In the end, we chose the one that was deemed 'the smartest' by my friend who was dog sitting. So, we brought home the newest member of our family. Yes, I realize she looks remarkably like Cricket. But, she is definitely her own personality and we love her for her exploratory tendencies and her sweet calm demeanor. We have named her Chloe.

Time to say goodbye..

As I mentioned, earlier this week my dog, Cricket, was hit by a car and died. She was the first dog I've ever had from puppyhood. I picked her out of a choice of several other littermates because she seemed the most intelligent and playful. She had a round black spot on the top of her head that we jokingly called her 'off' button, though it never worked. We had many nicknames for her, as her personality quirks dictated. Her backside looked like she'd sat in a puddle, and so, the nickname 'puddlebutt' was coined. She would tear around the yard with super speed kicking up grass and dirt in her wake, which earned her 'bullet head'. For some reason the sound "Wooooo" really got her excited, and so she was called "Crickety Woo".. and if you wanted her to come, you just yelled "Woooooos" and she would come running, ears flapping, tongue out, and jump up to greet you. She loved to play.
She did tricks, loved popcorn, would cuddle, loved to play 'keep away' with my other JRT, Mac. She would 'shake' and 'dance' and 'sit' and 'roll over' and 'wait'. She was a smart dog. She is greatly missed.

Overwhelmed

My brain is full. I have so much floating around in my head that I can't get it all sorted out right now, so I'm ready to go home. The buzzwords of the day: podcast, mobcast, twitter, web2.0, 21st Century Learner, Moodle, Wiki, Blog, Photostory, digital digital digital everything. Some days I feel like I'm doing a good job, I've got a handle on some of this, and then something comes along that I'm totally unfamiliar with, something I have no idea how to use or what to do with it, and it seems everyone else is already on the bandwagon. Other times I feel like I'm on the cutting edge and I've figured it out and I can help others. That's a great feeling. I guess I just need to learn to take the new stuff and figure it out and hope someone else needs the knowledge I already have. I'm still sorting through the bazillion or so new links I have and trying to figure out what I can use and what is fluff. It's only June and I'm already burned out. I'm not looking forward to this school year. I need an attitude adjustment I guess. I'm really disillusioned in general with public education. I'm tired of being paid crap for a job that requires so much extra time and energy. I'm tired of society in general looking on educators as second class citizens and as insignificant. How do we change that? Do I even have the energy to try.

On a more personal note, the custody hearing is in a week.
I'm also still reeling from the sudden death of my dog on Monday.
I'm ready to go home and hibernate for a while.

Technical

I'm in Copper Mountain, Colorado at the Technology In Education conference. I'll probably be in a more school/technical mindset the next few days, but, thankfully, I'll be connected to the internet the whole week. :) Aaaahh... y'gotta love technology.

New Look

This is a new chapter in my life, and so, the blog gets a face lift. I'm still working on the title bar, because I don't like it yet, but for now, it's something to look at.

Pit Stop

This is quite literally just a pit stop among the travels this summer. Time enough to wash clothes, re-pack, feed the lizard and drop off the dogs. The camping trip to our family cabins was fantastic. The kids caught a lot of fish, rode horses, played in the creek and got really dirty (isn't that what camping is about afterall?) I enjoyed the beautiful scenery, I even got along well with my mother. In general, it was a really great trip. The only problem is the 7+ hour drive to get there. I used to live 3 hours closer! Oh well, I guess you can't have everything.

Playing

I'm going to be doing a lot of travel for the next two weeks. Today I'm leaving for a camping trip (yes another one) with the kids to our family cabins. There we will fish and hike and play. Then I will come home, wash and re-pack and send the kids to Grandpa's house for a week of horseback riding, birdhouse building, and in general good old fashioned fun. I will be at a technology conference while they're playing with Grandpa. Then, it's back home to wash again, and we'll be home for a little while. So, if I don't post much, it's because I'm off playing. That is, afterall, what summer is for.

Trip Recap

People have been asking for a trip recap, so here it is:

Day 1: Left home and traveled across most of Wyoming. We spent the night in Evanston, Wyoming where the overnight low hit somewhere around 32 degrees. There was frost on our tent camper in the morning and it was really cold. We noticed that somewhere along the way we’d lost the license plates on the trailer, but we couldn’t do much about that, so we just continued on.

Day 2: Traveled from Evanston, WY to Winnemucca, NV. This wasn’t as far as we’d hoped to get that day because we lost some lug nuts along the way. The lug nut story is this: We were traveling along I-80 and just where I-84 takes off we started hearing this really strange sound coming from the trailer. So, we got out and looked and couldn’t see anything wrong, so we got back in the car and went a few more feet and still heard the noise. We got out and looked again (this happened a couple times) and finally my mom noticed that three lug-nuts were missing on one of the wheels on the trailer. So, we unhitched the trailer and she stayed with it while I went to the nearest town in the van with the kids and got some bolts (because they didn’t have lug-nuts) and came back, put them in, drove to Salt Lake City, got lug-nuts, put those in, and proceeded on our way. We then stopped and checked lug-nuts every few hundred miles (or more) to see if they’d come loose again (which they hadn’t) and after 5 days of that I finally said I wasn’t checking lug-nuts anymore.

Day 3: Drove from Winnemucca, NV to Coos Bay, Oregon. This was a LONG day. Amid the rolling hills and green pastures of southern Oregon, my youngest daughter looked out over the hills and said “look, an antelope”, we dutifully all looked.. and all we saw was sheep. We teased her mercilessly about not being able to tell the difference between a sheep and an antelope, and since she wants to become a veterinarian, this was quite humorous. So, for the rest of the trip, whenever we saw sheep, we’d say “hey look, antelope”.  Once in a while, we’d do it when there really WAS antelope, just to mix it up a bit. We saw Crater Lake this day. It was 33 degrees at the top of the mountain and Crater lake was crisp and beautiful. I started to realize this trip was going to just be dang cold. This was also our Outback Adventure day. After going to Crater Lake, we headed toward Roseburg, OR. We had planned on staying the night there, but couldn’t find a campground that we really wanted to pay that much for, so we decided to keep going to Coos Bay. We picked what looked like a direct route on the map, but ended up being twisty windy roads that actually turned into dirt roads for about 20 miles. We saw some beautiful rainforest type country though, and waterfalls and were really thrilled to get back to civilization and actually see streetlights and mailboxes again. We ended up spending the night in a Best Western hotel in Coos Bay and I was grateful for a real bed, hot breakfast and the kids enjoyed the swimming pool.

Day 4: The kids get to see the Oregon Coast for REAL. We drove to Shore Acres State Park which is a botanical garden. It was Beautiful!! Then the kids and I hiked down a path to Simpson Beach and saw Sea Lions and Seals. On the way, the trail led to a little cove where the kids all raced for the ocean for the first time. They each actually tasted it. We then headed up the coast a bit and stopped along the Oregon Sand Dunes where the kids got to actually get out and play in the surf and start their collections of seashells. I think I’m still finding sand in their clothes from that day. This was the closest to a ‘real beach’ that we got. We headed further up the coast and stopped along lighthouses and other scenic sites along the way. That night we stayed in a beautiful state park with beach access and the kids got to go explore and play some more.

Day 5: More lighthouses! Also the Hatfield Marine Science Center where the kids played with sea urchins, sea anemones, eels, skates and got to do a lot of hands on projects. We arrived in Wheeler, OR at our friend’s property overlooking Nahalem Bay. We were grateful for real beds and for a warm house and TV.

Day 6: We did laundry, because we needed it. We also bought salt-water Taffy, went to the Tillamook Cheese factory drove to Cape Meares and did some other ‘touristy’ stuff around the area.

Day 7: We had intended to leave this day for the rest of our trip to Yellowstone and then home, but looked at the forecast and decided that we didn’t want to camp in snow, since we’d just had our fair share of rain. So, we decided to stay at the coast for another day. We drove up into Astoria and across the huge bridge to Washington State and did a bunch of Lewis and Clark stuff. The kids are now ‘sergeants’ in the Junior Ranger Program for Lewis and Clark. I also got to see Cape Disappointment Lighthouse (which is aptly named after the 1.5 mile hike to get to it, although the view was gorgeous) Which brought my total number of lighthouses for the trip to seven. We spent one more night at our friends house and prepared to head back toward home the next day. We intended to just drive through Yellowstone, rather than staying, but this plan soon changed as well.

Day 8: Left our friends house about noon and headed toward Portland with the intent of staying near Lewiston, ID that night and making Bozeman, MT the next. When we got to Lewiston, ID we looked at weather forecasts again. It was raining hard in Lewiston and was miserable, so we got a hotel room and stayed dry. I checked the forecasts again, as well as got information that parts of Yellowstone were closed because of injuries that happened to a tourist and we all decided we were really ready to just get out of the cold weather and go home. I was also worried about my house because of the number of severe storms we’d had while I was gone, and wanted to make sure my house was ok, so I was anxious to get home.

Day 9: A really LONG day of driving. Idaho is really a beautiful place. It’s amazing how they farm across the rolling hills. It was green (from all the freaking rain!) and lush and beautiful. We arrived at Snowville UT (which doesn’t sound very warm, but it was better than we’d hoped and by this time, we’d learned to put ALL your coats and jackets on before going to bed to stay warm.) The RV place we stayed at was small, and smelly, but cheap and we knew we were almost home.

Day 10: Drove across the bottom of Wyoming again (all day) where it actually snowed on us. We didn’t actually thaw out until after we got across the Colorado border and close to Greeley, CO. Then we started feeling warm again and were glad to finally get home.

So, there you have it, the story of our trip. The kids had a lot of fun, I got to see a lot of lighthouses and the dogs survived staying in one crate together the whole time.

Moms

A mother is not a person to lean on but person to make leaning unnecessary. ~ Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Let's face it, we all have mothers. Some of them are fantastic and amazing women, some of them are aloof and distant, some smother you, some gently nudge you, some just ignore you. Obviously I've been thinking alot about motherhood in general lately. Partly from having just spent 9 days with my mom and children on the road. Partly because I'm working on some of my own personal issues with my mom, and partly because I'm hoping that my own role as a non-custodial-mom for the past 8 years, will soon come to an end and I will have joint physical custody of my children. I guess my view of motherhood has been developing and morphing for a while now. My children are getting older and don't 'need' me as much on a physical level (to do things for them, they are more than capable of bathing, feeding and dressing themselves). But, on an emotional level they need me now, and in a different way than before. They already know I love them deeply and unconditionally, now they need to know that I trust them to make choices and live with the consequences of those choices. I don't think I got that as a child to a certain extent. Mom always seemed to 'rescue' me. Heck, I think she's still trying to rescue me now.

I don't want to do that to my kids. I want them to grow up, move away, have lives of their own, so that when we visit, I can see and learn and explore something new with them and see what amazing contributions THEY have given the world. That is my challenge. I don't want to take credit for their growth, I don't want to be the catalyst for their achievements. I want them to want to do it themselves.

I think I have had a unique experience in motherhood in that I have had the 'empty nest' syndrome practice for 8 years. I hope no one ever has to experience watching your children ages 2, 4 and 5 drive away screaming and crying for you. I hope no one else ever has to pull their children out from hiding under their bed and have to hand them over to a person whom you don't trust with their care. I hope no one else ever has to experience asking permission to speak to their child or have a 'time limit' on when and how long they can talk. Of helping your children count down the days until they can see you again. I've expereinced all this and more, and honestly, I think I have a better idea of how to let go than most mothers. I've had a lot of practice trusting them to God. I hate the saying that God couldn't be everywhere so he made mothers. Mothers need to step out of the way, and let God be the role model for children, we are afterall, only human and dim reflections of God's loving and nurturing nature.

This past year, I've come to terms with the fact that my earthly father was not the kind of father I wanted or needed. Now, I think I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that my earthly mother wasn't so perfect either, and that truly, God is the ultimate parent. In Him, I am perfectly loved, perfectly respected, perfectly capable and perfectly whole. Apart from Him, I'm a royally screwed up mess.

Storms

I think I've mentioned that there was some severe weather in this neck of the woods while I was on vacation. What I came back to, while no where near what some people have suffered, was basically a yard full of downed branches and leaves (and a few dead birds). I raked them all into rows and am still awaiting my bagging crew (aka my children) to come help me bag it all up for the trash. I also need to get up on my roof and sweep off all the leaves and branches from up there. We'll probably do that today. I'm so grateful nothing was damaged and that my mom's vehicle was in my garage while we were gone (every vehicle that was outside sustained hail damage).

Yesterday in church, I heard an excellent sermon on storms. The storms of life. I've had a lot of storms in my life, and some of the questions that were asked really had me thinking. As I'm working on healing from the storms of the past, I need to take responsibility for my own choices in the actual creation of some of those storms. Some of those storms, I could see coming on the horizon, and I walked into them knowing full well it wasn't what God would have me do. The sad fact is, I'm human and sometimes I'm a little rebellious. Sometimes I'm a little faithless. Sometimes I'm a little careless. I'm working on listening more, being more intentional about my decisions and actions, and treading more carefully. I'm still healing, and I realize that. I probably will be for a while. But I know that God will bring me through it, and that I will be better able to help others go through their storms.

Sometimes He Calms the Storm - Scott Krippayne


All who sail the sea of faith
Find out before too long
How quickly blue skies can grow dark
And gentle winds grow strong
Suddenly fear is like white water
Pounding on the soul
Still we sail on knowing
That our Lord is in control

Sometimes He calms the storm
With a whispered peace be still
He can settle any sea
But it doesn't mean He will
Sometimes He holds us close
And lets the wind and waves go wild
Sometimes He calms the storm
And other times He calms His child

He has a reason for each trial
That we pass through in life
And though we're shaken
We cannot be pulled apart from Christ
No matter how the driving rain beats down
On those who hold to faith
A heart of trust will always
Be a quiet peaceful place

Home

AAAAh.. It's good to be home.
We got home a few days early, because we decided to forego Yellowstone National Park (gasp, astonishment, shock). I know, I know, I'm a bad mother, but.. considering the forecast called for snow, freezing temperatures, and we're sleeping in a tent trailer, I decided it was best not to risk it and try Yellowstone when it's warmer. Besides, I just had one kid get over strep, everyone was worn down and on each other's nerves and it was just time to be home.

The severe weather we had in this part of the country while I was gone downed quite a few leaves and some small branches, but otherwise, my house was unscathed. Thankfully, nothing received hail damage, nor were any windows broken by tree limbs or hail. So, other than some minor yard clean up, everything is good.

I may or may not post a trip recap when I'm feeling more verbal, but right now, my warm comfy bed is calling, and I'm more than willing to answer.

Yay for being home.

From the Road

Internet access is something I take for granted on a daily basis. Today, I had to drive 10 miles and ask directions twice to find a public library so I could check on yearbook pages that needed to be submitted. Granted, it gave me a good excuse to check my email, update my blog and in general feel connected with the world again, but for someone who is as addicted to the internet, digital communication (IM, text, etc) this trip has been aggrivating to me. I even brought the laptop with me and have found a few spots with free Wi-Fi, but not very many. I think it was all part of an evil scheme. :)


At any rate, despite lost license plates, lost lugnuts (more on that later I'm sure), lost sanity, and more than one conversation that ended with 'because I'm the mom and I said so'. In general, it's been a pretty good trip. We start leg #2 tomorrow and head back toward home. I'll hopefully be home on the evening of June 9th. I will have a full update posted within a few days of that I'm sure.

So, let me just say, support your local public library. You never know when some internet addict is going to need to get a quick fix. Seriously, it's worse than needing a Starbucks.