Believe it or Not.....

I am still alive, my lack of blogging notwithstanding.I'm still teaching. I'm about 50 pounds lighter. I'm stressed out and sleep deprived. I just had a birthday. Oh, and I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this year as part of my grad course. This means I have even less time to blog than I did before. If you want to know how my teaching year is going so far, read my book when I'm finished. I'm basing it off my experiences at work. Truth is often stranger than fiction.

I just wanted to post to let you know I'm alive. And I love my blogging family. And I'm singing in church still.

Good night.

An Evening with (Jamie's) Strings

Not only have I been a bad blogger, leaving a morose snippet on my blog for way too long, I've been a bad mom, too, in that it took me nearly a week to upload and edit Jamie's strings concert from last week. Each spring, the school district hosts a district-wide "Evening with Strings" concert. The strings programs in the district are so plentiful they had to divide the event up into three different nights! The announcer said that Jamie's night, being the first night, was slightly smaller than the other two nights. At only 900 students that night, I can only imagine how many students played on each of the subsequent nights!

This year's theme was "A Little Rock n' Roll". Each school played an arrangement of a rock song. Jamie's school played "This Love" by Maroon 5. Now, I'm going to let my momma-pride kick in and say I think Jamie's school did the best. But, I will add that I heard several other parents from other schools who thought so, too. Good job, Krueger Orchestra!

There were 5th grade strings programs from 15 elementary schools, four middle school orchestras, and two high school orchestras represented. At the end of the night, they all joined together to play "We are the Champions" by Queen. It was, in a word, AWESOME!

Sorry it took me so long to get it up on here, and hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Here's photos of after the concert, also.

Jamie right after the concert. Looks like he's worn out, doesn't he? He confessed that during the high school orchestra's 15 minute montage of Beatles songs, he fell asleep!

Spencer, Mr. Prado, and Jamie right after the concert. I think they're all glad it's over with!

Sign of the Apocalypse.... and Other News

Start Looking for the Four Horsemen
A sure sign that the apocalypse is near - Martha Stewart POLE DANCING on her show! She apparently became so *inspired* by her guest, the founder of the S Factor (stripper factor) fitness craze touting the health benefits of pole dancing and stripping, that Martha decided a twirl around the pole would be "a good thing." The thought of her pole dancing gives me full-body heebie jeebies!

And Other News

• Jamie's report card comes in today, but I already know what's on it. I love technology! I especially love technology that shows me he got all A's and B's again this nine weeks. I also love that I can look and see he got a 90 on his science semester exam. Good job, Jamie!
• For the last several weeks, I've had three stray dogs at my house. Last night, after more than two weeks of looking for his owner, I gave the Chihuahua male stray to a lady up the street who loves Chihuahuas and has other Chihuahua dogs for him to play with. I was relieved to be down to only two strays. At 2:45 this morning, the dogs in my house went pouring out the doggie door, barking like mad. I went out to see what the fuss was, and found the male Chihuahua had not only come back, but that he had gotten into a fenced in and supposedly locked-up-tight yard.
• As a reward for the above-mentioned A's and B's, I'm taking Jamie to the symphony tomorrow night. They are playing a tribute to John Williams, including most of the Star Wars music, with some Indiana Jones, Harry Potter and other music thrown in for variety. I don't know, though, if their tribute can top the video tribute below (thank you, Everett, for showing me this at Christmas!)

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

Only since living in Texas have I gone out on New Year's Eve. This year marks the third year (though not in a row) that I have gone out somewhere to celebrate New Year's Eve. This is the first year that Jamie will be able to go with me.

I've talked before on here about our good friends Jon, Julie and Spencer. Jon plays electric bass in a country/western band - Clint Taft and the Buck Wild Band. Sometimes, Spencer plays fiddle on some of their songs - mainly when the band is playing at a family-friendly place. Tonight, they are playing a New Year's Eve bash at Lubianski's Dance Hall & Feed Store in St. Hedwig, Tx. (Yes, Becca, I did say dance hall AND feed store. I guess it's a feed store in the front and a dance hall in the back. I asked if it was kind of like a mullet - you know, business up front and the party in the back... Yeah, yeah, I know, lame joke. But I still liked it!) Lubianski's has been a St. Hedwig, family-owned, family-friendly tradition since 1949. Another plus, it's smoke-free and kids under 12 get in free.

So, Jamie and I are going to go root for Spencer, have some fun, and have a good time with friends tonight. Oh, and our friend Michal (who also happens to be my boss' daughter) will be going with us, too. She loves country music, and she's a sweetheart (whom Jamie absolutely adores!), so we should have lots of fun while we're there. I doubt we'll stay until the ball drops and the doors close, but we'll have fun, anyway. Happy New Year, everyone!

Better Days

I'm in a slightly better mood than I have been for the past couple of days. I'm still sad about the poor kitty, but realistically, being sad isn't really going to do anything about it. She's still dead, poor little thing. Reminds me of a story about Jamie. Shortly after Mom died, we went to church and out to lunch with Tooz, Ann, and David. Jamie was only about 2 or 3 at this time. We always went to The Plum Tree for oriental food (food to die for, it is so good!), and we always opened up our fortune cookies and read them aloud. Everyone opens up their fortune cookies and reads theirs, then Jamie "read" his aloud. He said his fortune was "Grandma is dead. She is still dead." And it was so sad, and so funny at the same time.

We overslept this morning, and missed Sunday School. I have a neighbor gentleman who is 92 years old, blind in one eye, and has osteoporosis so bad he can't stand up straight. Yesterday, he was out trying to weedeat his back yard because the grass was about 2 feet tall. I walked over with my weedeater to do it for him. He's a stubborn old cuss, and didn't want to let some "little chickie" do it for him. Eventually, I convinced him to let me "help" him do it, then got him to sit down on his back swing and rest while I "finished up" for him. I actually did the majority of it, but this way, it let him keep his pride. Of course, technically, I'm not supposed to be doing stuff like that because of how allergic I am to grass and my knees and back issues, but I couldn't in good conscience let that old man do such hard work. Anyway, this meant that last night I had to take some pretty strong painkillers and a strong antihistamine so I would be able to sleep. It's hard to sleep when your back is killing you and your head is so stuffed up from allergies that you can't breathe! So, these strong meds made me oversleep this morning.

But, we still managed to go for regular church service. When we got there, I saw one of the ladies I've become friendly with during Christmas Cantata rehearsals. We were talking and out of the blue she said, "You know, you really should come up into the choir loft and sing with us this morning." I was hesitant at first, but she explained that I could pick up the sheet music from the choir room before service, and it would be fine. So, I sang with the choir this morning, and have been told that I "better" be up there with them each Sunday. Knowing how much I love to sing, of course I didn't say no!

Jamie is feeling better and is up the street playing with his friend Remo. Remo goes to a different school than Jamie now, and both boys have so much going on that they only get to see each other about two Sunday afternoons a month. Here in a little while, Jamie's BB is picking him up so they can go grub around in the garden at Bill's house. Jamie treasures his time with Bill, and I treasure the peace and quiet! While they're gone, I'm going to be here at the house, doing homework and getting ready for Cantata rehearsal.

Last Night's Concert

Jamie's strings concert last night was great. Not only was his group performing, but ALL the strings students from 43 schools were performing! This consisted of about half of his school district. So imagine a gymnasium filled with more than 1,300 orchestra students, and that's what I heard last night. Performing were 5th grade string students from 20-some elementary schools, 12 middle school orchestras, and 5 high school orchestras. The high schoolers started us off with "The Star Spangled Banner." Then the 5th graders got to perform "Do Re Mi" from The Sound of Music and "All That Jazz" from Chicago. The evening's theme was "Broadway;" every school performed at least one song from a Broadway musical. In addition to the aforementioned musicals, we heard selections from The Music Man, Fiddler on the Roof, Grease, and Phantom of the Opera. Phantom was the finale performed together by all five high schools (one of which was the districts performing arts magnet school). It was a medley of the more popular songs. What was neat about it was that about halfway through, the middle school bands joined in on "Music of the Night," then the last 25 bars, the 5th graders joined in, as well. There's something pretty powerful about hearing 1,300+ musicians play together that'll give you goosebumps everytime.

Unfortunately, a transportation snafu meant that, at the last minute, I had to get Jamie from the house and go pick up another student and rush them over to the concert. I didn't have time to find my digital camera to record the concert. However, I was able to catch some of the 5th graders' performance on my cell phone camera. As luck would have it, I chose exactly the perfect spot to sit, as I was almost directly across the aisle from where Jamie wound up sitting, so at least you can see him. The bad thing, though, is that for some reason my camera recorded the video sideways and I can't figure out how to rotate it, the sound quality stinks and seems to be a bit faster than the video, and the memory ran out before I could get any of the rest of the concert. Naturally, after I got home from the concert I found the good camera right away (figures). I plan on recording Jamie playing solo sometime this weekend and posting it for you.

For now, here's the less-than-stellar video from last night.

Thank you

I just wanted to take this opportunity to say "thank you" to everyone who left words of encouragement or offered advice on my extremely depressing birthday post the other day. I've been increasingly down in the dumps as this year has progressed; the current economic situation has not helped one bit, let me tell you! I've been racking my brains, trying to figure out how to squeeze in another source of income into my already hectic schedule; so far, no luck. That is, unless I want to forgo sleep all together. If I don't sleep, I can squeeze a second job in there at night, but then I would be too exhausted for work or school.

I was talking to an acquaintance about the general economic outlook for the whole country and casually mentioned that it's hitting my family, as well. She looked at me and said, "Well, just cancel Jamie's violin lessons. That'll save you some money. It's not like he needs music for anything." WHAT?!?!!???! Please tell me I misheard her! How can anyone say no one needs music?!?! I wanted to grab the nearest textbook and whack her upside the head with it. For my high school portfolio, I wrote a paper on how music and math are linked, and how study of music helps in one's verbal development, reading skills, and math skills. Oh, how I wish I had had a copy of that paper to stuff in that poor, misguided woman's mouth until she choked on it! Doesn't need music, my a$$!

My roommate also suggested that I take Jamie's violin lessons away because that would save me $30 a month in instrument rental fees. Again, NO! First of all, Jamie loves to play his violin. He's no virtuoso, my ears can attest to that! But - he is a lot better than I expected someone to be after only four lessons (they meet for an hour once a week after school). I can tell what he's playing about 3/4 of the time, and there is a very definite rhythm when he's playing. His whole face lights up when he plays, and it's beautiful to see. No matter how the bills get, I'm not taking away the violin, nor will I take away soccer. These are the two extracurricular activities he loves the most, so I'm not taking them away from him. Also, not only does he love them, but according to his psychologist, they are good therapy for his ADHD. They help him learn that paying attention is important, that if he doesn't do what he's supposed to do, he isn't just letting himself down, but he's letting down the whole team/ensemble. They also help him to learn how to work with people, instead of always trying to get his own way. And again, there is the benefit that music brings to the rest of your life (the aforementioned reading, math and verbal benefits, etc.)

Speaking of reading, I may have discovered part of Jamie's school problem, and why he speaks like an adult but reads like a first-grader with no comprehension skills whatsoever. Yesterday, I took a vacation day so I could take a computer equivalency exam and then take Jamie to the opthalmologist. He had failed his eye exam at the pediatrician's, so the doctor wanted Jamie's eyes checked. Because Jamie has migraines so often, and his other concentration problems, Dr. Jardan wanted Jamie seen by an opthalmologist instead of an optometrist. So, at his appointment yesterday, Dr. Zwaan said Jamie has something called "convergence insufficiency." Basically, this means he can't focus both eyes up close like one needs to do when reading and working on the computer, doing homework, etc. It takes so much effort for him to keep both eyes trained on the book/computer/paper, that he cannot comprehend and retain what he's reading. It also causes eye strain because he's seeing multiple images out of one eye due to the strain. Basically, both eyes are supposed to focus down into a "V" shape, with the smalled part of the "V" being trained on the paper/book/computer. Jamie's left eye wants to make more of a "U" and wander off to the left somewhere. This causes him to see multiple images of the object out of his left eye, and normal vision out of the right, which then confuses the hell out of his brain. So then, his brain is so busy trying to unscramble what he's reading, and focusing so hard on trying to make that left eye take information that he can't really process what he's reading. This also leads to eye strain, which then triggers his horrendous migraines.

Great!, you say. You know what's wrong! Now how do you fix it? Jamie has to start what's called "vision therapy" to retrain his left eye. Only problem is, they only do it on Mondays, and they're closed during my normal lunch break. I'm going to try to take him on a later lunch hour than normal, and just hope that traffic isn't too bad on the way there and that they don't take forever to get him in to start the therapy. If it takes up too much time, I fear my boss will decide to go ahead and can me and not wait until January. Until then, keep your fingers crossed!