Christmas Day 2009

For much of this year, I dreaded Christmas. I just wanted to pretend that December 25th is the same as any other non-holiday day. That just can't always happen. The sound of Christmas music playing on the radio, holiday commercials advertising Christmas Cheer, and all other sounds that made me wonder if I could have such Cheer facing the first Christmas without my father alive. The Christmas when there should have been little puppies running around frolicly with Millie and Willy. These wishes are but only thoughtful dreams. However, even with a rough start to Christmas Day, it turned out pretty good considering the sad thoughts. Here's how Christmas Day began.....

Midnight arrives, the recent Harry Potter movie is being played on our TV. We wish each other pleasantries with "Merry Christmas" and sharing a Christmas kiss. Exhausted and worn out from the recent cold, Dereck helped move me from a slumber on the couch to our comfortable bed. A deep sleep arrives. 4AM: Whiny Willy whimpers to address his need to relief himself. In a daze, I walk downstairs to allow Willy outside. Then, I notice the sharp pain from my ear. This pain is all too familiar. An ear ache announcing there is an ear infection. "Great! Merry Christmas to myself with pain in my ear. What am I to do?" I think to myself. I trudge back to bed after Willy returns in hopes to return to sleep for now. The ache doesn't allow my body to relax into a sleep. Back downstairs I go to research on the Internet for an urgent care that's not only open at 4:30 in the morning but on Christmas Day too boot. I'm in luck. Found one only 15 minutes from the house. Double checked by calling the location to ensure they're open. By the time I returned back to the house around 5AM, I've received confirmation of an ear infection, a prescription for Antibiotics, and drove past 3 different pharmacies near my house only to find they're all closed. I wondered to myself, "How am I going to survive Christmas with the family over if I can't get my hands on medicine to help relief the pain?" I return home to research on the Internet. Thankfully, taking Ibuprofen took the edge of the ear ache. I cleaned the downstairs completely in preparation for guests. Eventually, I did get my prescription and survived the day on minimal sleep. I'm sure I developed an ear infection in my other ear during the early afternoon. "Oh what fun it is to..." be sick on Christmas Day.

All in all, we had a great afternoon with family members close by to celebrate the gift of giving. The big surprise: No one cried (Sorry Mom, I couldn't read your present quite yet, I wasn't ready to cry in front of Dereck's family and get them started. I wanted to wait till it was a more private setting). With the year drawing to an end, I reflect on how I've grown through this last year, what I want to improve on, and how life is always changing. I've learned, somewhat, how to adapt to what happens in life. No matter how hard it is to be happy, happiness brings joy to life. As long as I'm doing something that makes me happy, usually teaching or doing something fun with Dereck, I have joy in life. Just as the song says, "Joy to the World," the reason for living is through Christ our Savior. This reason keeps pushing me forward to a new moment, a new day, and a new year.

Spring Cleaning....make that summer projects and cleaning!

The joys of summer projects. The end result is nice meanwhile the transition to the end result is messy, sweaty work, and frustrating. Our most recent summer project has been moving all our classroom items upstairs into the guest room and the office. Then, we cleaned out the garage for the epoxy coating we painted on the garage floor. In order to do this, we had to bring everything that was in the garage inside to the kitchen, dining room, and living room. We sure had a lot of junk that was just sitting in our garage.

After the epoxy coating was dry enough to start moving items back into the garage, we've been sifting through the items to minimize what's going back into our garage. Next, we've pulled aside our junk that can be someone else's treasures and listed them on craigslist. The biggest project yet of sorting through our garage items is all the china Dereck received from his Grandmother when she passed away and the china I've received from my grandmother. Refering to Dereck's china alone, there's at least 32 sets of dinner plates, medium and small plates, bowls, tea cups, saucers, etc. Maybe this is enough for the Queen of England but we sure won't be having that big of a feast. I think 12 is more of a reasonable amount of sets to have. Anybody need china? We've got tons to spare and don't quite know what to do with it. Then there's the china I've received from my grandmother. We're lucky to find a place for a set of 6 china. I don't know what I'm going to do with the set from my grandma. If we put it back in the garage, it's just going to sit there. We don't have any place to show them off. Our house already has enough furniture. Any suggestions?

These pictures don't even show our house at the worst of organizing stage...at least all the school stuff and big garage items were moved out.

Well, Dereck and I, amongst the garage clean up, are getting ready for our road trip up to the Oregon coast for my family's reunion. Oh yeah, beach here I come. I don't care if the ocean is cold up there....it's the beach! A luxury when you live in Phoenix. I'm really excited about taking a road trip and winding up the coast enjoying the beauty. I'm thrilled about this adventure. We'll see what this adventure brings in the way of highlights and challenges, I'll be sure to blog about it.

Last Day Blues

It's hard to think that my first year of teaching is over with. Wow. I'm no longer a first year teacher. The students faces keep flashing in my memory. Great memories allow me to smile and be excited for their futures. I didn't realize I would have so many students clinging to me, crying, not wanting to go. Some of the other teachers even made fun of me crying. I couldn't help it. Once I saw my students crying, I bursted into tears. I guess I became attached to my students. Or maybe it's because I know about their homelifes and how it's unstable for some of them while school brought stability and structure to their lives every week. I know I'll see most of my students next year, thanks to the fact of Dereck teaching 4th grade at the school next door. It still is sad to realize the year has rolled to the last day.

Today, our school put on the first staff variety show. This is similar to a talent show only it's not all about talents. Our third grade team decided to be a "cheer squad." Needless to say, it gave our principal and staff the idea for us to open up next school year's assembly. I didn't realize our performance would be such a hit. Plus, I did a cartwheel on stage. You wouldn't believe (and me) how many students were fascinated with a teacher doing a cartwheel. My students even said that I proved I'm flexible (I'm really not but they think so) with the jumps and kicks we were doing.

I'm very proud of surviving the year and to still enjoy my job. I'm ready for another year with another group of students! Bring it on!

The dreaded heat has arrived....

Sweaty forehead, sweaty pits, frequent showers to smell and feel better, and outside temperatures peaking to the 100's have arrived. The other day, one of my students asked after making an observation when I raised my hands up, "Ms. Durocher, why do you have wet spots on your shirt?" A clever question....now where's the clever response? I have a hard time coming up with the quick humorous answers. Needless to say, there was a short Science discussion on sweating and its function. These kids are very blunt and that's not even the worst question I've been asked. A couple of times, I've been asked, "Where do babies come from?" Luckily even without preparing for a question like that, I had a quick reply, "That would be a good question for you to ask Mom and Dad."

It's fascinating and scary about the things these 3rd graders know. Almost 2 weeks ago we did a ladybug unit in writing and science. One day, we went out to our school's field and collected ladybugs for an afternoon observation. Brought them back to the classroom and I thought there wouldn't be any major problems. One slight factor. I told the groups they could get up to three ladybugs in their observation cup. What I should have told them was to get only 1 per cup. Well, it must have been mating season for the ladybugs because students were shouting out, "Ms. Durocher, our ladybugs are having sex!" The whole classroom heard it. I pushed through the gathering crowd of students and had to have a mini-discussion about not using that word. Frankly, I didn't knows what to say but a thought came to my mind. I told the other groups to return to their seats and I quietly shared with the group whose ladybugs were making quite the scene, how in nature this is called mating. I left it at that. Later on I reflected on my reactions and felt grateful for Heavenly Father giving me the thoughts to say and react how I did considering the tricky situation. Being a teacher is sometimes almost like parenting but possibly trickier as I have to careful put my thoughts into words in a way parents won't find it inappropriate. Whew! I sure was glad when the ladybugs were released. At the same time, my sudden nerves for the uncertainty of events became relaxed too.

A Trip to the Beach

Last weekend, Dereck and I had the wonderful chance to take a road trip to San Diego, California. It was a beautiful day at the beach. We drove in Friday night with Dereck's friend, Aaron and spent the night in Hotel Circle. The next day, we spent a gorgeous sunny day on the beach, board walk, and even went to the local park & swap. It was awesome to leave our worries and stresses of work back in Phoenix.

It was nice to be able to split the costs of gas with another person. The drive was even more entertaining with another person's humor besides Dereck's or my weird humor.

Although the trip wasn't very long, it was nice and relaxing. Dereck and I both felt rejuvenated after this trip.

Our date night with extras (aka students)

So it has been almost a month since my last post. Nothing majorly exciting happening in our lives. Of late, each Friday, Dereck and I have been trying to have a planned date nigh. A chance for us to get out of the house and purposely spending time together. If we didn't do this, our date would consist of watching a TV show together while I am grading paperwork or doing something work related.

Last Friday's date, let's just say it wasn't just us. We were both chaperons for a field trip. The 6-8th graders from Dereck's school got to attend the Rookie All Star basketball game. We both had a great time and even though we were chaperons, we still got to spend time together and have our groups sit near each other. It was a long night but we had a great time.

Dereck's Father

I forgot to mention, yesterday we got a call from Dereck's mom. They moved his dad out of the hospital and back into a care center. Things appear to be going well.

Rocky Road

What a rough and rocky day! After taking a long day at school with meetings, plus having a head cold, a nose that can't make up it's mind about whether to be runny or stuffed up, and then attempting a nap but being awoken up by two rowdy dogs, I was grumpy tonight. I mean, majorly grumpy with a psychotic emotional breakdown. Maybe I just needed a good cry. Let me tell you a few crazy things that happened today.

Today was our 100th day of school. It started on a pleasant road and I enjoyed working with my reading class and having a few fun 100th day of school activities. Only the students didn't think they were fun, except for maybe one of the activities. Then the whining began. Ugh! I can't stand whining! The last portion of the school day was turned into silence in the classroom as I didn't want to hear anymore whining. Then I get to our staff meeting. Normally, we're contracted to stay until 3:30 for Friday afternoon meetings. We were there until 4:30. Grumpiness began to settle in on me. What a delight.

In hopes of preventing my grumpiness to spread to Dereck, I moved to our bed for a nap. I knew I should have kept the doggies out of the room, especially after they spotted the cat. Too late. I put Willy and Millie outside the bedroom and shut the door. Whiny (Whine + "ee" sound) Willy wasn't happy about that because Whisper, the cat, was still in the room. I gave up on the nap idea.

With my stomach grumbling, I moved to the kitchen. Grabbing the makings for BBQ sandwiches using leftover pot roast presented a new problem. It appears the pot roast may have gone bad. Okay, well how about grilled cheese sandwiches? Then another problem presented itself. We're out of bread. Ugh! This was after I had started preheating the oven and had frozen french fries on the pan. By the time these ideas were tossed out as options, what was I to do about the fries? With a long day of many things going bad, I melt down. Stepping outside on the porch for some fresh air promptly changed Dereck's focus from his video games to "What's wrong with Shannon?" I still don't understand why such petty and stupid things made me freak out. Thankfully, with a wonderful husband trying to think of anything to cheer me up, he decided...we'll go out for a quick bite to eat. At this time, the defrosted fries laying on the counter were in my mind. What to do with them? Dereck jokingly said, "Give some of them to the dogs." With that he threw a few to them. I went from Psychotic Shannon to Extremely Freaky Shannon and realized how much fun it was to toss a small portion of the fries on the ground. Boy, it made me feel so good. I don't understand why but it cracked me up. Such a stupid little thing made my day. I think Dereck was happier than I was because he knew he wouldn't have to deal with the grumpy Shannon the rest of the night.

Update on Dereck's father

Okay, so more has happened this week with Dereck's father. He looked in bad shape and it appeared the doctors were just going to let him die. He has congestive heart failure. In English, his heart is failing. They ended up sending him into surgery on Thursday. I'm glad to say he made it out of surgery safely and now has a pacemaker. Things are looking good right now. We hope for the best.

As for the rest of our lives, school has been a struggle this week. I remember the days of my youth, I hated returning to school after a nice break. The same is for me as the teacher. It felt like pulling teeth to get some instruction done. By the end of the week, we all looked forward to the weekend.

Yesterday, was very interesting. With one student that feels it's okay to run away from the classroom without my knowledge. Then he somehow escaped the office to enjoy the benefits of recess. Thankfully, I have great administrators who understands the situation and are great supporters and assistants of my classroom authority. Needless to say, if you asked me yesterday if I wanted to have kids....I would out rightly say for sure "No!" Yet, today is a new day. Hallelujah! I'm sure Monday will be fine with this interesting student.

A Dawn of Good News

Dereck's dad moved out of ICU. Yeah some good news! He is still in the hospital though.

With this week, I'm trying to go to sleep at a decent hour but after many nights staying up late...it's not working too well. The dogs are even going to sleep before I do. That's sad.

I've found my new favorite store. Too bad the prices are still a little higher even on the clearance section. You probably would have never guessed. Mom's "favorite" store....has now become a fun place to shop. Bra shopping...well, I used to dread it but now there's a new joy. This is definitely unusual as I hate shopping for clothes.

Sad New

Dereck's father is back in the hospital. He was in the ER mid-December for a broken hip. After having partial hip replacement, he was placed in a care center. With physical therapy, he seemed to be making some progress. Unfortunately, he returned to the hospital and has now been moved to ICU due to his heart. We are praying and hoping for a safe recovery.

Break Away and Laugh

Okay, I did it. I made a blog. My sisters talked me into it and we'll see if I can make our lives sound more exciting than they really are at times.

The one biggest advantage to being a teacher are the wonder holiday breaks we have. With the winter break for two weeks, we are grateful for the chance to relax. Although it took us to my parents house for one full week, and nearly drove Dereck bonkers with boredome, it was still enjoyable. I appreciate the efforts made to make this happen. The best part was spending time with Christy and her family, Brice and his family, and especially with Mom, Dad, and Brice at the beach house.

Highlight of the visit was definitely what brought us all to laughter. A shopping trip with Mom to Victoria Secret. Well, let me just say, I was rather surprised to find out Mom was uncomfortable carrying a Victoria Secret bag around the mall. Needless to say, I ended up carrying her bag with mine since her's wouldn't fit in her purse. Sorry Mom, but I had to share this. It's a hoot for us and still has me chuckling at the memory.