cytoplasm

So get this. You know those little chocolate covered cherries? Not the ones with the white filling, but the clear, juicy filling? Total cell model. Well, at the little kid level. The chocolate is like the cell membrane. The cherry is of course the nucleus, and the juicy stuff is the cytoplasm. And, even though I've been stapling these little yummies to my tush for at least a couple of decades, I never gave thought to their name: Cellas. Cell, people! Coincidence? You may not care, but I think it's fabulous.

I think my kids really enjoyed this day. And holy, crap, I enjoyed teaching about cells, tissues, organs, systems. The jello you see is a cell model too, with a grape for the nucleus and a baggie that is the cell membrane. We used floam as a model for how cells stick together to create tissue...the tissue creates organs, so the kids shaped the floam into the important organs that we studied in their stations. It was a whole mess of fun.

Now, we are doing weather and the water cycle. I'm enjoying it, but a little intimidated to be writing the lesson plans because I'm the least experienced 2nd grade teacher on my team by about a hundred years. I'm the one who hearts the sciences and has a secret dream of being a zoo education curator one day. Something about loving it so much almost makes it harder, because I just want it to be great. And so I look and look and look and search and...the end result is that I've put TONS of effort in, but have only produced a very normal amount. I feel like I should add an addendum to my plans: "This may seem like a normal amount of work, but I have actually put 470 hours of research into this, and hopefully that will show next year." You know, some of that's my ego. Not until reading A New Earth (by Eckhart Tolle) did I realize how much of my being is focused on my need to have a career viewed as important, to be important, to be a helper, one who sacrifices for others. I'm not saying I have a disorder or am even unusual; I think this is very common and most of us have identities that we are very attached to, and it feels liberating to become more aware of it.

Part of my perfectionism is just loving it, though, and knowing how much fun my kids will have. But these days, life balance is pretty important to me, so I have to be able to produce in a smaller amount of time. I don't want to burn out, and most teachers burn out in less than five years. Yup. True fact. So, (my goal is) I put my heart and soul into it and work through my little personal quirks and egoic worries, but I put a time limit on it. Then, I go on to focus on the rest of life...NOT constantly thinking about work. I love my work and want to be in the moment when I'm there with these kids. I still can't believe I spend all day with them, and that is such a gift. But when I'm somewhere else, I need to really BE there.

what do me and paris hilton have in common?

Criminal records? Rich fathers? Racy home-made videos posted online?

No, no, no. According to People magazine (or something), it's cupcakes. According to my sources, she only eats celery and Bacardi, no cupcakes. But, hey.

Sprinkles cupcakes are made with special vanilla from Madagascar, and they also use a whole mess of sustainable crap in their business practices. There's one in Beverly Hills, one somewhere in Arizona, and you guessed it: one in Dallas. Of course. If there is anywhere that isn't Beverly Hills but would like people to think it is, that's Dallas. Fine by me, though. People smell like Chanel, and I really like that since I can't afford my own. And the cupcakes are good.

Although red velvet is undoubtedly the best because of it's simple indescribable mmmmness, I like to branch out. Yesterday, I had the strawberry, and so did B. When we opened the box, we had to ask ourselves if we wondered into the wrong place. You know, er, a place of the novelty sort.
Stop thinking that.

my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard

Saw a caterpillar at my friend, Liz's, school. She teaches 2nd, too. But bilingual, fancy.
Sam, being himself. This is when we first got him, and he had to wear a sweater bc parvo made him skinny and cold.
We get to make fires now!

during the time that i lost my camera cord....

Did the whole Halloween-thing. Took Preston to a community pumpkin festival.


Made wassail. Loved Christmas. Man, I love Christmas. B and I don't buy eachother presents for holidays, usually, but we celebrate things, and it is always special. I love the way we do that.


Found this dog at work. Ignored his greasy, yet cute self. Dog jumps all over my students, who are standing by the fence at recess. Of course, they LOVE this. If you ever had to stand by the fence at recess, first of all, shame shame shame. Second, you know that it is not supposed to be fun.

A few days later, dog, still hanging out at my work, gets VERY sick. B and I take him home to get better, but first we take him to the vet so that we know he won't get our other animals sick. The idea is to pay to get him better and fixed, give him a bath and adopt him out, which should be easy because people like little dogs. At the vet, they tell us that he actually has parvo (which is apparently VERY bad), and we have two choices: put him to sleep, or pay somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars to keep him on iv's for several days, the only chance of him fighting it. What did we do? Well, first there was some drama. But, here is who later become known as Sam on an i.v. at the vet. He would not even lift his head.


Now, Sam is fast like this. All the time. A collective OMG from me, B, our other dog and especially our cat. And we got attached, really attached. This meant we had to move from our beloved apartment building with the much-loved courtyard that we went to almost every day (2 pet max). It turned out for the best, bc our new place is bigger, way cheaper, and the same same neighborhood that we really like. We are much closer to the katy trail now, and literally across the street from a beautiful community park that you can lay and read in and let your dog off the leash...Preston that is. We've explained that being the oldest comes with more privileges, but also more responsibilities. Now we have a little balcony, which I love and from where the cat stalks birds he could never get. A galley kitchen, which I'm getting used to. My favorite thing is all of the wild life that hides away, right in the city (well, not the city, city...I like to see sky scrapers, not be in them): birds, squirrels, and in the early, dark morning, a raccoon! He was on the roof, right across the way from our balcony, giving our cat the evil eye. It was intense, very sharks and jets.


And here is some of that celebrating I talked about. Mmmm. Cheese.

sam i am

So how fun is this? I, shockingly, have not found my camera cord. Well that isn't the fun part, but if you see it let me know. I've wanted to upload pictures of new family member Sam, but all of the cute/uglyness is stuck on my camera. Then today we all walked just forever because it was absolutely beautiful out. We ended up at a Starbucks to relax, and this woman fell in love with Sam, took a picture and then actually emailed it to me like six hours later! How fun.

So, here you have him: Sam I Am. So named due to his incessant ways.

It was such a great day. Walked forever and ever on the Katy trail. Then, went to visit my brother and took him on a walk. Made a new tentative baby-making plan. Did I mention we decided we want to make babies? I know. Me! It is this whole big living life to the fullest story. Not that I think you have to make babies to live life to the fullest; no, I'm all about not following conventions just for the sake of them (or NOT following just for the sake of NOT following, for that matter). I think B and I have just grown and realized that our not wanting kids had something to do with not taking those kinds of risks, etc.

So, since you asked: Tentative plan is to wait until B starts first year of residency...So, that means conceiving not this August and not the next, but the next. We set up a plan so that I won't have to work, in case the primal urge NOT to drop my baby off overtakes me and I demand that we live off of government cheese so that we can financially survive. I don't know if you've heard, but the annual salary for a medical student is zero dollars, and residents really don't make much more than that.

Instead of registering, we're just asking for velvet paintings, home-made ashtrays and nascar memorabilia.

too scattered for paragraphs

-Had a solo lunch at Taco Diner today. Read my book, ate fish tacos. Enjoyed the solitude.
-Finished Jennifer Weiner's 'Good in Bed.' Now, I'm onto 'Little Earthquakes.'
-Watched birds on my bird feeder, like the nerdy-a** nerd that I am. I have a bird book now from Half Price Books, and I highlighted and tabbed the birds I've seen. On a realistic note, what a loser am I? On a more serious note, it reminds me of watching birds with my grandma when I was a little girl. Chickadee. Bobwhite. The elusive hummingbird or blue bird. It's kind of special. Love those memories.
-It was BEAUTIFUL here today! Just beautiful. Took a looong walk with B and the dogs along the walking trail near our house.
-Talked about how great it will be when they finish lighting the trail, especially with the hot Texas summers. It will be nice to take long walks after dark.
-Walked to a frozen custard place.
-Preston got loved on by some kids. He likes that.
-Trash Can Sam didn't, so much. Poor dirty-looking little fraggle.
-Ate dinner in Deep Ellum, the only place where there is no wait on weekend nights. You pay for it in the parking, though. Had wheat beer. Tasted like summer.
-Finally realized who the bartender reminds me and my husband of: the bartender from the Shining. It was one of those, "OHHH," moments. And kind of creepy another time, another place-ish. You know.
-Going to Sprinkles tomorrow. You don't know love until you've had those cupcakes. so. good. No, so good!

and when i see you, i really see you upside down

Lyrics from Dath Cab for Cutie's "A Lack of Color." It's what I'm currently listening to. Take that, Xanga.

You know, in yoga, they say we hold emotions in our hips. I have also read that tight hip muscles are the main underlying issue leading to knee pain. Now, isn't that interesting? As I have whined on here for, years actually, I have chondromalacia (fancy pants talk for arthritis before you are 30) in my knees. This keeps me from my old hobby of running, my lame excuse for getting fatter, yada, yada, whine, whine. Well, it was a hobby to me.

Interesting flakey fact number one is that I have a history of being totally unaware of negative feelings, and I've started wondering, "where did they goall those years?" Were they in my hips? (Yeah, I know it's weird.)

I was the "it's no big deal" girl, and I didn't even know it. I just thought I was accepting and forgiving. You know, I have this very spiritual, interesting friend who is an Episcopalian priest; one day he gave me a Buddhist book on anger, and I was totally surprised bc I never ever acted angry. Ever. I was a little offended; yet, when I read the book, it became clear to me that I was angry about a whole mess of crap. I just didn't really know it.

For me, I think it was a form of rugged individualism...you know, that I would not be invested deeply enough that anyone or anything could actually have an effect on me. And I'm not going to get all weepy here, but I'm talking about some super serious stuff that I never knew even bothered me.

I think that book helped me accept the duality of feelings: You can forgive someone, but still have the pain and even some anger, bc that part is outside of our scope of control. And if you turn your head to those emotions, they don't go away, they just change in form. Since I've been more awake to this, I'm continually surprised at what feelings feel like! Case in point, I have a friendship that sort of fell apart almost a year ago. No, I'm not in middle school; turns out, this happens with grownups, too. My point: I am actually shocked that sometimes I still feel sad/hurt. Okay, so on occassion, this initially comes out as Mean Girls-esque judgement; I'm straight up human. But still, I'm shocked by the lingering nature of the whole thing, and I don't think it had a lot to do with the details of the relationship. Rather, that is what it's actually like to be invested in another human and to then get hurt. A few years ago, I would have reacted with full indifference.

My point here is, look at me growing! I am so less repressed than I once was.

Excuse my stream of consciousnes, by the way. Day in the life of a random processor. Barbecue.