That Was Awesome!

What a beautiful day yesterday was. After the snow fell, the sun came out for a while and the whole family went out to play. I keep hearing this song by U2 running through my head:
Beautiful Day The heart is a bloom, shoots up through stony ground
But there's no room, no space to rent in this town
You're out of luck and the reason that you had to care,
The traffic is stuck and you're not moving anywhere.
You thought you’d found a friend to take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand in return for grace
It's a beautiful day, the sky fallsAnd you feel like it's a beautiful day
It’s a beautiful dayDon’t let it get away
You’re on the road but you’ve got no destination
You’re in the mud, in the maze of her imagination
You love this town even if it doesn’t ring true
You’ve been all over and it’s been all over you
It's a beautiful dayDon’t let it get away
It's a beautiful dayDon’t let it get away
Touch me, take me to that other place
Teach me, I know I’m not a hopeless case
See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
See the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colours came out
It was a beautiful day
A beautiful day
Don’t let it get away
Touch me, take me to that other place
Reach me, I know Iím not a hopeless case
What you don’t have you don’t need it now
What you don’t know you can feel it somehow
What you don’t have you don’t need it now
You don’t need it now, you don’t need it nowBeautiful day

( courtesy of lyrics.com)

Thrill Seeker 

Signs of Spring

Yesterday I had the best day with my girls. It appears we are the only ones in the entire town that didn't go to Florida this year ( or Maui, or Hawaii, or Colorado, destinations of students I work with). The good side of this is that things are pretty quiet around here. LOL.....things are always quiet here......
So, our day started with a promised trip to the Disney Store, or The Mothership, as I like to call it. I owed my girls a treat. Miranda had a fabulous report card, and Anna had worked on her toileting hygiene (sp). We spent a good chunk of time there, and at Limited too, and lunched at Friendly's The mall was surprisingly quiet. I expected to find the rest of my town there. The first sign of Spring in the air were really cute hot pink toe thong sandels at Payless. And little beach bags, and flip flops. A girl could really get excited!
After we played with the new Disney toys for a while, my girls wanted to go out side and play. It was 3pm, but I noticed very warm out and still very light. Hmmmmm.......light out later in the day. Hurray! A Mary Tyler Moore jump in the air moment.
We hit the playground at Miranda's school like a pack of monkeys. From accross the empty field I saw it for the first time. A zip line. Miranda's new playground at school has a zip line. This was information I didn't possess. Before I could think, I hit the ground running. I figured I needed momentum to make the thing zip. Actually, it was lubed up a little too well. My feet left the ground and boy did I zip! Before I could abandon ship the thing came to an abrupt end at the end of the line and I was thrown off. Note to self, skip the running start next time. We played hard and before I noticed it must be after 4pm, but the sun was still pretty high and the air warm. Ava snoozed in the stroller and the girls kept on playing. The shadows in the sun on the playground reminded me that Spring was really around the corner. On the way home, the last beautiful reminder. Water rushing down the road in the ditch. Water rushing means water melting. What a joyous day. Now, if only my back didn't hurt so much from that zip line.

The More Things Change

One of my favorite novels of all time I read while I was in high school, A Seperate Peace, by John Knowles. From this work comes one of my favorite quotes of all time " The more things change, the more things stay the same." I remember in high school, my group of girlfriends and I used to ponder this. We were, how do I say this, a little dramatic and considered ourselves artsy. When some students were disecting fetal pigs ( ewwww...) WE were disecting song lyrics and poetry by Rimbaugh. We were very deep, according to ourselves.
I went with my family last night to dinner at the New Hartford Shopping Center and this quote came to mind to me. Here I am, now 34 years old and that old shopping center has changed so much. The anchor stores I used to know are long since faded away, but there, among new unfamiliar stores, were some of my favorite old haunts. Thankfully it was after hours and closed, but there I stopped dead in my tracks in front of Fannie Farmer. I can remember Christmas shopping long ago with my parents and stopping in to pick one perfect chocolate from behind the glass to enjoy as a treat. There was Karaz shoes, again probally a good thing it was closed, home of the big talking bird and really great shoes ( mental note, GREAT sandals in their front window. They look my size). There was Accents of Ireland, Herb Phillipsons, and even Tracy's Hallmark. I haven't been to that shopping center since about 10 years ago. I was glad that with all that has changed in my life, and in the world, that some things are exactly as I remembered. I am looking forward to Christmas shopping there this year with my girls, and stopping in to Fannie Farmer for a chocolate covered lemon cream. You can keep Godiva and Lindt, I perfer things Fannie's way.

Life in a Northern Town 

Embrace the Day!

What a beautiful day in central NY. It's actually been kind of gloomy with the warm temps and no snow. Call me crazy, but I like the snow. It snowed a little last night, beautiful, fluffy flakes. It was the kind of snow you looked up into and almost got dizzy. So today has dawned sunny, frosty, and bright.
Today brings a trip back to where we used to live to attend Mardi Gras at Miranda's old school. Just her and I will be making the drive, and I am looking forward to this. While I was on maternity leave, the baby and Anna and I spent a lot of time together. Miranda and I need a girls night out, just the two of us.
So embrace the day! Exercise, eat healthy, take care of yourself, and hold your loved ones close.

Two Cuties! Brian would kill me if he knew I posted his photo! :) Guess he should start reading my blog.......

Cheater Cheater

What a wierd word: cheat. Have you ever really looked at it? It's one of those words you look up after you write it to make sure you spelled it right. I have had a couple kids on my case load caught cheating. What a difficult situation to be in, for everyone involved. In my school, it gets you a meeting with the principal to decide basically what becomes of you. In college, it's more cut and dry, they kick you out. In high school, it's more of a discipline and retraction of the grade. You also lose face. I mean, after a teacher has caught a "good" student cheating, all trust and credibility is out the window. Were all those "good grades" real? Or were they the product of cheating?
One of the students we caught was using her folder and opening it when the teacher was not looking. She claimed she was stressed out to get good grades and had 5 20 week tests all in the same day (that part of it was kind of wrong on the teachers part.). However, all the kids were in the same boat. They were all under pressure and the honest, rock solid kids did not waiver.
I felt bad for her. The principal had to phone home, and that was the part that got her the most. She was so embarassed for her parents to be getting the information that she cheated on a 20 week test. Then there was in-school. Again, this is they type of student that has never broken a school rule and now she will have to face her friends and explain why she is going to ISS. Hopefully, she learned a valuable lesson.
We know cheating goes on in school. The ante has been upped now that the internet is so user friendly. You can down load almost any paper you need written both for a fee and for free. With the use of cell phones and texting, one student can text another on the contents of a test if they have the subject two periods in a row. It has gotten much easier to cheat. Couple that with the amount of Regents, mid terms, finals, state tests, etc....and the need to cheat has also gone up.
With all that in mind, when I look at my own girls, there is really only a couple of things in life I expect of them. I want them to be kind to people. I want them to give their personal best, and I want them to be honest at all costs. I would rather they bring home a B they worked for than an A they plagerized or cheated for. When it's report card time, and my little daughter is asking "I wonder how many A's I got this time." I stop her. I tell her before we open it that I am proud of how hard she has worked in second grade and that I know her grades will reflect her hard work. I also tell her I will be proud of whatever grades are in there because I know she put time and effort into her work. Bottom line, that is golden. May my girls never feel the pressure to cheat. May I never dole out the expectation that A's are everything. An honest hard working person, true to themselves is everything.