Ay Caramba!

I don't know if they put something in the water today or if the kids were just extra wound-up from Thanksgiving Break but wow. Yikes.
Here's the break-down of today's behavior:
1st period- 5 out of 6 students were tardy
2nd period- caught 3 girls using their notebooks as Olympic-style score cards, rating the boys in class.
3rd period- one student told another kid to 'go "F" [his] mom'.
4th period- I don't even have a class, but I had to spend my lunch break doing hall duty upstairs because the kids kept going rogue and sneaking up from the lunch room and then "doorbell-ditching" classes that were in session.
5th period- broke up a fight
6th period- actually behaved, which is odd because they are usually my most out-of-control group. The eerie sense of calm was both comforting and unnerving, but was a welcome break because they were immediately followed by:
7th period- had 2 kids that together totaled about 5 minutes on-task and in their assigned seat- the rest of the time was spent wandering around, crawling on the floor like military men, hiding under desks, loudly arguing, or running "Chinese Fire-Drills."

And just to clarify- my kids are all usually pretty well-behaved except 6th period (and the 2 Fire Marshals in 7th- those boys need some sort of medical intervention, I think, because they are just not quite right).

Like I said. Wow.

Huzzah! We're going to Disney Land!

*** WARNING*** This is a very long post in which I brag about my kid. Proceed with caution!

Last year Andrei started 1st grade. It was a difficult transition for him. He had been attending a private Pre-K/Kindergarten Montessori school for about 3 years. They focused their curriculum on character development, life skills, and music. Their literacy program was based on phonics. Andrei learned how to fold laundry, cook, sweep up, wash dishes, and is a MDT superstar. He did not learn how to read.

When Andrei started 1st grade it was a serious shock. He went from being the physically and personality-wise largest kid in a small school of about 35 students where the student/teacher ratio was around 10:1 to a large public school of about 250 students where the student/teacher ratio was around 30:1, and in which he was virtually invisible. He also had to deal with the fact that American Public schools expect you to start 1st grade knowing how to read, and all he had was a rudimentary understanding (at best) of phonics. He had learned exactly 0 sight words in Kindergarten and couldn't even spell his name correctly, let alone read.

It was brutal. If you're wondering exactly how nasty, please refer to all of my posts about him from last fall.

To sum up, after we had met three or four times with his teacher, the principal, the school psychologist, and the teachers aids, we decided we needed to do something pretty drastic to help him figure out how to read and how to stay out of fights at school (which he was getting in because he just could NOT keep up with his class). His school counselor was pretty convinced he is ADHD or "behaviorally disturbed", and I got chewed out for my opinions on his behavior (that it was learned responses combined with abandonment issues and social anxiety, and that he actually needed counseling, peer support groups, and/or cognitive behavioral therapy).

Long story short, we agreed to try him on ritalin (which I am SO happy to say he is no longer on!!!) if they agreed to support us in some behavioral modification training. All parties grudginly agreed.

Thus, the star chart was born. This may be the most epic idea I've ever come up with.
It was a tough sell at first, since his self-esteem was virtually in the toilet after his umpteenth visit to the principal's office. In order to keep things moving we gave him prizes on all of the 5's (junk food, which is otherwise a rarity around here) and 10's (sleep-overs with a friend), with the grand prize of 100 stars being a trip to Disney Land. He gets stars for "right choices," including behavior, chores, and reading/writing activities. He really latched on to the idea somewhere in the 30's and has been zipping along ever since.* His behavior problems in class pretty much cleared up up about a month later.

Well, today he finally finished it with a 50-ish word composition about "family," a masterful treatise analyzing the role of the toaster waffles we had for breakfast and the importance of sharing. Here's an excerpt: "I love my family. They are nice to help me learn how to read and share. We eat good food. Today we ate waffles..." Steven Hawking eat your heart out!

It's been a long year- a growing year full of surprises, setbacks, and giant strides forward. Here are some photos of the momentous occasion (we also had a "graduation ceremony" complete with a vocal rendition of "Pomp and Circumstance")

This is my little man with the final star (the glittery thing on his finger). Please note the look of immense satisfaction on his face. My, oh my. What a handsome boy he is.

Here is the chart itself with the final sticker, highlighting my mad coloring skills.
This was taken directly after the last sticker was placed, during the closing song. :)

Anyway, it's been a great experience for us. Once he caught on to the idea that we were going to be consistent with both punishments and rewards, he really took off and ran with it.

I can honestly say that in the past year, Andrei has gone from being a deeply troubled "problem child" to being a well-functioning, fairly average 7 year-old. I think the star chart really played a big role in the process. Plus, Andrei loved it. So much so that about a minute after putting the last star on he asked me "Can we do it again?!"

We've decided next year's grand prize will be a Wii.

*If you want to know more about the star chart, rules, guidelines, or educational theory upon which it is based, please let me know and I'd be happy to go over the nitty gritty with you in person.

Autumn Gardening

It's been a few months since I've had any gardening news to blog about. None of my autumn veggies really took hold this year. The eggplant were a royal failure, as were the peppers and the greens. I sadly threw in the towel after my summer veggies were harvested and have been waiting until I can harvest the beets.
When growing beets I ignore all the usual rules. I plant them in the poorest soil that I have, I don't water them regularly, I let my tomatoes over grow and cover them all in shade during the summer. I wait until they are very big to pick them. Because of this, I end up with large, lumpy beets that are about the size of grapefruit. They are delicious! I admit that these babies won't work for salads, etc., but our favorite way to eat beets is boiled and mashed like potatoes or pickled- both of which are easier to do if you have big, giant, slightly dried out beets. Last year I really enjoyed finding new ways to cook and eat them, and it looks like this year won't disappoint.
I love beets because they are so easy to grow. I pop the little seeds (which look really weird and cool) into a sunny, rocky part of my garden, water them regularly through June, thin them out a bit and voila'! They really are my lowest maintenence garden veggie. They really give me something to look forward to after my tomatoes die a terrible, frozen death.
Today was beet harvesting day. It was fun. We also winterized the back yard, which involved cutting back my irises, roses, lilies, and hosta. I can't wait until next year! It looks like most of the rose cuttings I got from my friend Sybil back in September took root, and it will be so much fun to watch them really get growing. The lilac appear to to all have survived the summer, and the one closest to the house even started putting out a few leaves. I really hope they come back in the spring. That would be so neat to have. Even our apple tree appears to have had a successful growing season. I'm hoping that we can get a few apples out of him next year. That would be exciting.
One of the most exciting things I discovered as I was thinning out leaves, weeds, and bulbs was a patch of horehound growing near one of the lilacs! At first I wasn't sure what it was, but after a little research I am 100% sure it's horehound! What a pleasant surprise. First the stinging nettle and now this. Horehound is a medicinal herb that's been used for thousands of years to treat bronchial ailments and sore throats... both of which I always contract during the winter. I did a little reading and came upon a recipe for horehound cough syrup and throat lozenges. I tried the latter, and they came out perfect- they taste exactly like that old fashioned horehound candy that you find around, and I am definitely glad that I'll have an alternative to menthol cough drops, which always make me sick to my stomach.
So here's to my last gardening of the season! Successful harvesting and foraging has put me in the mood for Thanksgiving. Bring on the homemade pumpkin pie!

Reason Number 13 Why My Job Rocks!

Today we went over midterm grades in my home room class. Out of 21 kids, only 5 were failing a class. Out of those, only 2 of them were failing more than 1. The other 3 are within 2% of passing the only class they are actually failing. The remaining 2 are within 10% for both of their classes. I know this doesn't sound that great, but please remember that my school has over 50% free and reduced price lunch and nearly 50% ESL/Immigrant population. These are students who don't own scissors, glue, tape, colored paper, markers, or calculators. Students who can't afford to buy them or who don't have parents at home in the evenings to give them a ride to the store. These are students who have parents who have dropped out of high school, live in mobile homes, have drug problems, are homeless, are refugees. These are students who will be the first people in their families to earn an actual high-school degree instead of a GED. They will be the first ones in their families to graduate from college. Because of that, I am immensely proud of them.

Good News

I have had a difficult time with life the past 6 months or so- ever since finding out that I was going to have to be the ESL Dept. Chair which is a job I NEVER EVER in a million years wanted to have. To top it off, I've been really struggling to lose the Clomid weight, which for some reason will not come off, and and I've been feeling unwell a lot- mostly headaches and chronic indigestion. Acupuncture really helped with most of that, except for the losing weight part- argh!!!!- but it was too expensive to justify doing. I've been totally stressed out, and on top of that, dealing with the world's biggest pile of crap divorce in my home. Even though hubby and I are doing as good as ever, having to live with my SIL + her toddler, and being constantly stuck in the middle of her divorce is really difficult. There are a lot of stupid creepy parallels between their divorce and my parents' divorce, so I kind of have to relive the worst time of my life every day. And she doesn't pay rent. And my dog needed butt surgery. Sigh.
About 2 weeks ago, I realized that it had been weeks since I had heard a single piece of good news in my personal life. There had been plenty of good things happening to those around me, but not much pleasant information in my life. Just complaints from parents and fellow teachers, problems with the rental property, complaints from Andrei's teacher, complaints from Andrei's mom, problems with my students and their families, drama with Ana's ex, yadda yadda yadda it may be the most selfish thing I've ever done, but I actually started praying to just get some good news. No specifics. Just something, anything good.
Well, I guess my selfishness worked. We finally started getting some good news. Luis got his bonus at work for the first time this year. The dog doesn't have cancer and the vet only charged us $135 for her entire treatment including medicine, office visits, and the surgery. The best news of all is that yesterday Luis got a call from IHC asking is if we would please sell our rental property to them. This is fantastic. I've wanted to get rid of that albatross for years now- in fact we moved out of there hoping for a quick sale with the idea of putting the profits into our current property and paying the mortgage down. Way, way down. It didn't pan out.
Three years ago group of about 30 property owners in our old neighborhood banned together and tried to send a message of solidarity to the hospital that we weren't going to be bullied into selling our neighborhood piecemeal to them- that we were going to hold out for something better than just the market residential value of our homes. The proximity to BYU and the quiet streets lined with ancient oaks seemed to be worth a little more than the going square footage rate. They offered, we counter offered, they offered again, we counter offered again. We had a 2 year contract signed with our realtor which expired this June. We are the last house on our block that is not owned by the hospital. 2 years ago, they offered us more than twice what we paid for the house.
I think if they agree to pay us 10% more than what they offered us last fall (our final asking price), we're going to take it. If we wait until eminent domain we might get more for the property, but that means finding an attorney and paying those fees, haggling in court, dealing with inspections, etc. and dragging this mania out for years to come. If not, we'll continue renting it out and sucking profit out of our renters one month at a time... so it's not like we're in dire need of selling the place anyway.
The reason why I really want to sell, however, is so that we can roll over our profits into our second property and I can go back to working part time (hopefully teaching), or we can take a home equity loan to pay for Luis's MBA program that he really wants to do, or I can get my M.Ed., or we can invest our profits into starting a family business (something Hector really wants to do and keeps pushing us to try). Any way you look at it, selling our house would be VERY good news.

International Traffic

At the bottom of my blog I have a tracker that shows me who is looking at my blog and where they come from. I've kept my blog open because I have a fantasy of one day coming up with a catchy theme and blogging professionally, although I don't know what I'd write about that would be so fascinating that thousands would want to start reading it.
Having an open blog has some interesting quirks, mainly that you can search for me on blogger or google and I'll pop up, sometimes under very interesting search categories. I think it must be my extreme hatred of doctors or the vast amount of blood that was taken from me last week that has triggered a drastic spike in the number of visitors to my blog from exotic locales via search engines. This is big change from the 6 regulars who normally read my blog (mostly high-school pals and family members).
Visitors have come from locations as diverse as Valencia, Spain; Tokyo, Japan; Jakarta, Indonesia (?); Managua, Nicaragua; Ontario, Canada; the Phillipines; Camaroon (which I think is in Africa?); and Aukland, New Zealand.
Awesome.

Family Photos- Fall 2009

Got the rest of the pictures from Alisha today. They are fabulous! Here's the link to the flickr album, and here are some of my favorites for your viewing pleasure.

Back on the Horse

Ok. So after my freak out last week I decided to suck it up and give it one more go. I am currently trying to work out an appointment with one of the many fertility clinics around here. I'm going to give this one more shot, but I swear on my own grave that if these guys brush me off or even so much as HINT that they think I am a hypochondriac I will never go to a doctor again...
In unrelated news I will be performing a solo at Young Women in Excellence this evening. I am really lucky that I get as many opportunities to sing as I do. I love it so. I am kind of the go-to gal for all Soprano solos, which is odd because I'm actually an Alto. I think that in some other life I would have pursued music as a career, but I never really felt like it was a choice for me. It's nice to have the chance to continue to develop my talents as an adult, however. Some day I would like to get serious about it and go out for the MoTab. I think it would be jolly good fun.
Anyway, I have possibly the worst migraine of my life right now. I've been having migraines on a nearly daily basis for the past 3 weeks with no apparent cause except stress. Blech. Oh well. Nothing 3 Excedrin Migraine's and 2 cans of coke can't fix. I'm going to take a nap right now and hopefully sleep this off.
Update: Yowza. That was a bad migraine. It took about 3 hours for me to sleep off the overwhelming pain, and afterward I was sick for the rest of the night- nausea, heartburn, vertigo, and a general sense of drug-induced sleepiness. I only did so-so on my musical number because I couldn't stand up without starting to see stars, which does not help with breath support or annunciation. I full on messed up 2-3 times, but what-ev. I did the best I could under the circumstances, and I think the message of the piece came through.
It is now 8:30 a.m. on Monday, and I'm still feeling a little woozy. Hope this wears off soon or it's going to be a long day.

The Reason Why I Hate Doctors

I have never seen a "specialist" for my health problems before. This is because I hate doctors and find them completely useless apart from perscribing antibiotics. Today I was reminded why.
Around 5 o'clock today I got a call from the endocrinologist (who by the way was VERY rude to me and as I mentioned before, basically brushed me off). She told me that my labs came back normal so the "good news" is that nothing is wrong with me! Hooray! And I guess that pesky diagnosis of PCOS was probably wrong, too, since my androgen levels are not elevated and within normal range. Isn't that great!?
I'm so glad I spent hundreds of dollars and took a day off work to drive to Salt Lake City (about 65 minutes from my house in traffic) so that I could have even MORE blood drawn so that they could test it and come to the conclusion that I'm a hypochondriac (which is what the doctor was insinuating at the time of my appointment). I'll keep that in mind when I'm puking my guts out from a migraine headache or when I get to cycle day 225 of my most recent menstrual cycle... you know, whichever comes first. BTW, both will probably occur within the next week.
Idiots.
By the way, I will not be seeking further treatment from this doctor (or any other doctor, for that matter) in the near future. Why should I? There's nothing wrong with me!!!!

Work and other stuff...

So the work presentation went okay. This year the school district is providing funding for everyone at my school to go through a certification program that will give them college credit and provide them with the first half of an ESL endorsement. It's pretty cool, except that for me it's totally repetetive. I mean, I am kind of the go-to gal for that sort of stuff these days (despite my best plans to remain totally inactive in the school). People actually know who I am and where my class is, now, which completely sucks. But it's all good.
Anyway, as part of the endorsement program everyone on the staff has to prepare a presentation on one of the chapters of the text book we are studying, and I was asked to head up one of those groups. We had to present on "Building Background" knowledge for ESL students. It went well. I talked for about 15 minutes on the importance of acknowledging students strengths and helping them build on their deficiencies. The the rest of my team presented different strategies to accomplish these goals. I think it was good enough that I didn't totally embarrass myself and boring enough that they won't feel inspired to ask me again for a while. Nice! Just where I wanted it.
Anyway, that is over and done with, which is a huge relief. I'm glad I was one of the first groups to present because the bar was pretty low so far.
At home things continue as usual. Last week Leyla had a terrible health situation. Her anal gland ruptured (gross!!!!) and we had to take her into the vet for emergency surgery. Her one week follow up as today and the doc says she's healing nicely. The good news is that originally he was worried that the rupture might have been pre-cancerous, but he says that after the surgery and the follow-up exam it looks like that's not the case.
As far as I go, I'm still waiting for the results from my lab work, but the more I look into Late Onset Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (LOCAH) the more it sounds like we might be on the right track. I've seriously questioned my PCOS diagnosis ever since Metformin proved to be completely useless in aleviating my symptoms. LOCAH mimics a lot of the same symptoms of PCOS, but there are a few noticeable differences. It also has a lot of early warning signs, which really fit my own personal health history. I'll be very interested to see if the blood tests back up this diagnosis. That would be VERY good news, beacuse LOCAH is not only treatable, it is a lot less dangerous long-term than PCOS and easier to manage. That would be really good news.
So that's that. I'll keep you updated as things emerge.

Blood Work

Today was an odd day. It started off with me waking up at 6 to get my classes ready for a sub. I hate having substitutes because it is more work to get ready for them and to clean up the messes they leave behind than it is to go through a day on the job. Today, though, I had a Dr. appointment in SLC, so I kind of had no choice.
After I got stuff ready for the sub, I went home for an hour or so, and then went to the Red Cross Blood Donation Center to donate blood. I've never done it before, since I was too young to do it in high school (you have to be 17 and I turned 17 after the last blood drive of my Senior Year), and it just never came up once I moved to Provo. Weird, huh? I hate Hate HATE needles, but I took it like a champ and now somebody has some life saving goodness coming their way. It was pretty cool to know that my blood could help save someone's life.
When that was over and done with I drove to SLC to see an endocrinologist, which was the biggest waste of time ever. All she really did was ask me a bunch of questions and then tell me a bunch of stuff I already knew, and ask to draw some more blood. Yipes. Now I have 2 bandages (one on either arm) and a stack of literature that has no meaning whatsoever to me because I already know everything about conventional fertility treatments. Oh well. Just another hoop to jump through, right? The good part is that she's agreed to reevaluate my PCOS diagnosis. When the diagnosed me a few years ago, it was mostly anectodal evidence and they really didn't run any of the tests they were supposed to. At least this chick is considering alternative diagnosis, which I guess is what I really wanted all along. And it confirms my suspicion that I have a pretty strong case for adrenal hyperplasia instead of PCOS.
Anyway, it's going to be a long night. Lots of grading to catch up on and a presentation to plan for tomorrow. Sick. I hate presenting to the faculty. I'll update you on the carnage tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Photo Shoot

Today my supremely talented friend Alisha took photos for us. Alisha is trying to expand her portfolio and graciously volunteered to shoot us for free. Hello! Can't beat that. I know she's going to try to dodge it, but I will, in fact, insist on making her something in return because she did an amazing job. Here's a sample. More to follow.

Pain in the Neck

Dear migraine headache,
I am so over you. We've been together for about 3 weeks now, and each day I spend with you I hate you more. At first I thought we could be together and somehow make it work, but I've come to realize that no matter how hard we both try, I'm not happy when I'm with you.
Please go away and never come back. If I ever see you again, I think I'll puke.
Sincerely,
The Owner of the Brain you are Currently Residing in.

Epic

I got this URL from my lil' sis Emily. It's a good thing, because I was having a totally crap day and after 5 minutes on www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com I totally forgot why I was upset. Happy browsing!

The Great Pumpkin

My blog friend Margot blogged about this earlier today, which is ironic because I've been meaning to post about my most recent mini-project... Pumpkins!

I've always hated throwing out perfectly good pumpkins after the Halloween Jack-O-Lantern madness. Pumpkins are such beautiful fruits, highly nutritious, and very versatile. They are also HUGE and very cheap this time of year. All things considered, I decided to cook my Jack-O-Lanterns this year. I saved carving my pumpkins until the last minute so maintain their freshness, and saved the seeds, which I roasted later on that night.

Pumpkin seeds are very easy to roast- you wash the seeds in a collander, removing as much of the pulp as possible. Don't kill yourself trying to remove all of the pulp- at some point you have to consider the law of diminishing returns. Add salt, pepper, and seasonings as desired. I added parsley, dill, and a little bit of garlic. Spread the seeds evenly out on a baking sheet and roast at 350 degrees until they start to turn toasty brown. Don't bother adding any oils because it will accelerate spoilage later on, and it doesn't increase the tenderness of the seeds or anything. They taste great all on their own.

If you want to soften up the hull I've heard it recommended that you soak the seeds in salt water for several hours prior to roasting. I've never tried this, but I suppose it could work.

Next, I chopped the pumpkin up into large pieces. I spread these out on a baking sheet and roasted them at 350 for about 40-45 minutes. Some recipes require to put the pumpkin in a water bath or boil the pieces. Pumpkin is naturally pretty dry (hence the excellent carve-ability of the fruit), so it makes sense to add water. I find that this saps it of some of its flavor, though, so I just roast mine until tender enough to cut easily with a fork or butter knife.

The next step is pretty important. Skinning the pumpkin slices can be a labor intensive task if you skip this. Once the pumpkin is cooked, I stick it into a large pot and cover it with foil. This traps the steam and helps sweat the skins of the pumpkins. After the pumpkin cools down, the skins usually peel right off, with little extra effort.

Once the skins have been removed, I slice the large hunks of pumpkin into smaller pieces and puree them in a blender with a little extra liquid. You want to do this in small batches so that you don't clog up your blender.

Once the puree is the texture that you want, you can bag it up and freeze it or refrigerate it. There are a million seasonal recipes out there that use pumpkin- breads, soups, caseroles, pies, cookies, etc. I got about 12-15 cups of puree from a single pumpkin, and several cups of cubed pumpkin (which I wanted to save for casseroles).

From an economic standpoint, it's a pretty smart move, too. A can of Libby's Pumpkin Puree costs about $1.50. It has about 2 cups of puree in it. I got the equivalent of 5 or 6 cans out of a single pumpkin. That's $7.50-$9.00 worth of pumpkin puree for the cost of a $4.50 pumpkin. Not too shabby, especially since my puree comes from locally grown pumpkins and contains no preservatives, additives, or colorings. Worth the effort, I say.