In case the knitting didn't give it away

I am officially getting gray hair. Over the years, I've gotten a stray gray here or there but nothing recurring. A couple weeks ago, I saw a strand glinting in the bathroom light. Not sure if it was gray or just catching the light oddly, I plucked it. Then I found another just like it a few days later and plucked it too. Then I became suspicious that maybe it was the lighting--I mean, how likely was it that I was going to find two gray hairs in the same week?

So, the next day when I found yet another, I called for reinforcement. Rich saw it too and declared it gray, and, well, he would know :-)

I didn't pluck that one because I'm not terribly afraid of getting gray hair and because I'm so bad at plucking that I usually end up plucking out all the surrounding hairs only to leave the offending one still there. So, I'm done plucking.

Today I found a real doozy. It wasn't just gray for about an inch from the root; it was gray for a few inches down. For some reason, they're hiding on the side of my head, beneath the top layer of hair. I guess that's good, but I always figured they'd appear around my face first. I don't know why. In fact, until these last couple weeks, I had given surprisingly little thought as to how I would look with gray hair. That's probably why I'm just now noticing the ones I have--I never thought to look.

Thankful Thursday

Thankful? Today? Really?

I've been sick for almost 3 weeks now. First, it was just a cold. A very manageable, seasonal cold. Then it turned into a sinus infection and bronchitis for which I got some antibiotics. Then Monday this week, the flu hit me. I had chills and a nonstop runny nose for a couple days. With the exception of Monday night when I didn't sleep at all, I've been sleeping about 10 hours each night. At least I have some energy now, but I still feel a little like death warmed over. I haven't volunteered this week, I haven't worked out since Monday morning, and I skipped Spanish yesterday.

I'm having a hard time being thankful.

So, here's the best I can do. I'm finally getting around to reading Me Talk Pretty One Day. I think I received this as a Christmas gift when I was still living in Jacksonville. I'm a bad, bad reader. Anyway, since I wasn't leaving the house yesterday, I sat and read. I thought, Why can't I be one of those people who tears through a book in a day? Well, I made it about halfway. It was amusing throughout, but the one part that made me laugh out loud? The part about euthanizing his cat. Of all things. Oh, sure, it made me cry about a dog who wasn't loved as much as the dog his family had before, but this is what he said about his cat:

"A week after putting her to sleep, I received Neil's ashes in a forest green can. She'd never expressed any great interest in the outdoors, so I scattered her remains on the carpet and then vacuumed her back up."

So, for that laugh in an otherwise crappy week, I'm thankful.

Thankful Thursday

Today I'm thankful for my Neti pot, which has made this cold-turned-sinus-infection tolerable. I would've thought that the pot could have prevented the sinus infection, but maybe it made it less severe. Who knows? At any rate, it works better than any OTC decongestant I've tried, and I have the satisfaction of actually seeing my nose get cleared (I'll leave you with that image), so thanks, Neti.

In other news, I had some more trouble with my fantastic health insurance provider. This time, they assigned me to a doctor and gave me contact information that was inaccurate, and I wasted quite a bit of time trying to track him down. I had to call the insurance company and say, "I either need a new phone number or a new doctor." I got a new doctor. Whatever. My doctor seemed nice, and his office was very new-agey, so that was neat. And he gave me a prescription for antibiotics, so he did what I needed him to do. I can't ask for more than that.

Home is where the smart is?

Homeschooling v. public schooling. I won't need to make this decision anytime soon, but I like to imagine my future (like, incessantly), and I need to know what the gameplan is for my imaginary future children.

Here's the deal. A couple years ago, I started covering the topic of education in my composition classes. My students loved it because finally someone was talking about the one thing that they all care about. A couple of the essays in the text I used discussed homeschooling, and I have to tell you, it made me a believer. Candace, a mother of four, homeschools her kids, and she indirectly planted a seed for this idea before I read those essays. So, I was pretty convinced. My plan was the homeschool my imaginary future children through elementary school and then give them the choice of attending public school when they reached middle school/high school age.

Here's why:

1. I'm a teacher. Why have someone else do my job with my kids while I go out and do a very similar job with other people's kids? Considering the whole "simplify my life" mantra I'm trying to stick to, it seems overly complicated.

2. Public schools are fucked up. They are. I do not like the direction they've taken, and I don't want my kids to end up like ones I see.

3. Every homeschooled kid I've met is more well-behaved, more motivated, and sharper about the world than public-schooled kids. I haven't taken a large survey of homeschooled kids, but I met a few teaching in NY, and they all fit this description.

4. All those stereotypes about homeschooling are either false or easily avoided.

5. If we have kids soon, they will have to change schools every few years. I'd rather not put them and me through that.

Then a few weeks ago, Rich's friends came for a visit, and the wife of the couple is also a college professor and a product of public schools (we agreed, though, that we are exceptions to public education and not the rule). When I said that I no longer trust public education, she said something like, "But we have to support public schools so they can be better. We have to change them."

Maybe I'm just easily persuaded. I heard that and remembered that I do all kinds of things for the principle of them, even if they might not be the logical choice. I do believe that with parental involvement and a lot of fighting with school administrators, the education that kids receive in public schools can be all that it should be.

What it boils down to is: I believe in public education, but I also believe in homeschooling. As concepts, I believe they both have benefits or at least a lot of potential. So, which do I choose for my imaginary future family? I'm not asking anybody to weigh in on this, I just wanted to put it out there.

October pics

In no particular order (or photo quality):

I'm not sure I've ever posted a picture of Kira except for the ones I took when we first got her almost two years ago now. I think it's safe to say she's gotten comfortable.

This is the Navy Ball a few weeks ago. You know, Rich loves his iPhone, and I can't convince him that the pictures he takes on it don't come out very well. I do like that I look like I'm wearing a pillbox-hat of light. The other people here were the only ones we knew at the ball. We like them a lot, though, so it was all good.

Rich had a birthday. He's 32 now. It worked out well this year because--you see the woman in the picture who isn't me? She and Rich had a Dancing with the Stars bet (who would go home first--Chuck or Michael), and the loser had to make the winner a dessert of the winner's choice. It happened that Sarah lost the bet just before Rich's birthday, so she ended up making him a birthday cake. The guy in the photo? That's my friend Rick from the previous post. Now you know. And just ignore my pudgy belly there. Ugh.

You know, I wish my clothes would put themselves in the drawer like my cat does.

Come on, you know who the guy holding the taquitos is, don't you?

Rich and me as Rocky and Adrian on Halloween. As always, Rich didn't like my Halloween costume idea, but he reluctantly went along with it. Everyone at the party loved it. Natch. And go ahead and ignore the pudgy belly in this one too. What the hell? I'm not that pudgy, am I?

In this one, I got smart and covered up said pudgy belly! Besides, this shirt hides it anyway. This year, the jack-o-lantern was very last-minute. We picked out the pumpkin Saturday/Halloween morning, I carved it that afternoon, and quickly put it out before the kids came around. They have official trick-or-treating hours here, and they start early. Thankfully, this left us with enough time to go to the party at my friend Dwight Shrute's house (See above). This reminds me, Jack is still outside our house. It's probably time to bring him in, don't you think? I love how as they decompose they look like old men who've lost their teeth. Very frightening.

Thankful Thursday

Today I'm thankful to my friend Rick (not to be confused with my husband Rich--that's not awkward at all) for sharing his insanity with me. Excuse me, that's Insanity. Rick's wife bought him this program, and I was there when they were opening it. See, Rick is the in the reserves and his wife is going to school with Rich, so that means Rick has a lot of down time just like someone else you know.

I casually said, "Hey, if you need someone to work out with you, I'm free during the daytime." It turns out he did want someone to work out with him, so for the past two weeks we've been doing this craziness together. At the end of the first week, I was already starting to see a little more muscle tone, but now that I've been sick for the past week (no swine flu, just a cold), I think the progress has slowed down because of my eating habits. Still, it's good to have a fitness routine, and this one is right up my alley with no equipment required.

I'm also thankful to myself for deciding against pursuing the job at University of Phoenix. There's one less technological responsibility in my life. I wasn't hot on the idea of online teaching before I got into it, and the first two weeks of unpaid training didn't change my mind. I concluded that the next two weeks of unpaid training probably wouldn't either. I'm not against online education; it just wasn't the right environment for me.

The time has come

I need more real, physical, simple, old-fashioned stuff in my life. Since moving to Monterey, I've become gluttonous in this respect. Here's the rundown:

1. Got a new cell phone, which is no biggie because we need telephones, but I splurged on a fancy one with real internet/email/Facebook/GPS nonsense! I could go on and on about GPS by itself, but I admit it's been handy. I am one of those people who will get my phone out to check in on things when I'm waiting for a haircut. What happened to reading magazines or just watching the goings on around me?

2. Bought Rich an XBox for his birthday. We had arguments over this. He has a PS2 and an old Nintendo from 20 years ago, both of which he never plays because he's too busy. He kept thinking that the reason I didn't want him to get it was the "clutter." I just don't want yet another machine in my house! But it was his birthday, so the PS2 is in the storage closet and if he continues to not use it, then I'm giving it away.

3. In lieu of having cable, I've become a slave to the internet. To be exact, a Facebook slave. I tell myself that I don't need TV because TV is the opiate of the masses or some such thing, and I could be doing better things with my time, yadda yadda yadda, except that the only thing I do in place of watching TV is to play online. Yeah, that's much better.

4. Realized #3 and got cable TV. As I type this, the Direct TV man is outside installing the satellite. Okay, fine. But I swore I'd never have a DVR. Why? Do I like watching commercials? No, of course not. But in my whole adult life, I haven't really had many of my own shows, shows that I would make plans around so as not to miss. I watch TV to kill time and relax (not to watch quality programming because, let's face it, there isn't much of that on TV anyway), and if a decent show happens to be on when I'm free, then great. I never wanted to be so invested in a show that if I missed it, I'd feel the need to watch it at another time because I had recorded it. Besides, isn't that what Hulu and the TV stations' websites are for? I don't even have to pay for it then! The only benefit I can see then is to record a show, and watch it just slightly after it has begun, so I can fast-forward through the commercials but still basically watch it in real time.

Anyway, my husband who absolutely loathes commercials, wanted the DVR. We're getting a DVR. Of course, this means that I don't need to be such a slave to the internet because I can be a slave to the TV instead! The real advantage for me is that I can knit more because I like to knit while "watching" TV, and I can't knit while on Facebook.

5. Got a new laptop, but that was a 1 for 1 trade, so I'm back to where I started with that.

6. Started online training for the University of Phoenix job. I still don't officially have the job, and the training is really more of an extended interview. I'm not sure I should count this as more virtual-machinery-crap because I think my teaching philosophies are a little out of sync with theirs, so I'm not even all that confident I'm going to get the job, but still, I'm glued to my computer for a few hours each day for the chance at getting an online job.

7. Blogging about technology? How's that for being a slave to machines?

I'm just feeling all icky inside because I look around and see all these things that keep me distanced from the physical world. I see my outlets full of plugs, and it's just weird. I'm not one of those people who is resistant to technology (I love hot, running water and electricity after all), but I just don't like feeling so out of touch. Someone people think their technology brings them in touch with the world but it doesn't work that way for me. Something's gotta go.