Just Sayin'

No worries

When I feel stressed and worried I have to remind myself, "I am not the general manager of the universe." I am only responsible for me. And as for me, I just happy to keep breathing.

Zibbet

I closed my etsy shop. I had it open for a little less than a year but only sold three items. I admit that I haven't promoted it as much as I should. Most of my sales have been face-to-face or through the art gallery in Florida.

So, before I gave up on online sales, I'm trying Zibbet. I found out that I could list 25 items with zibbet with NO UP FRONT FEE. I love that.

So I've moved to a different address. You can find me at http://www.zibbet.com/beadqueen. Are you an artisan? Check out Zibbet. Tell 'em BeadQueen sent ya.

The summer of my content...

I'm trying to accomplish a literary reference to Shakespeare's "The winter of my discontent." This is the summer of my contentment. I haven't really done much of anything. I didn't take the pictures of my jewelry and put them on my etsy website. Why? It's too hot outside.

I've been staying up late and sleeping in until nine. Why? Because I can. Sometimes I don't even leave the house. Why? Because I don't have too. For the first time since I married and had children, I wasn't responsible and productive. I was unfocused and lazy, and it's been great.

The time is almost over. My baby comes back from college this week and the following week I go back to school so my summer's almost over. But what a summer it has been.

Why I'm Not Getting Anything Done This Summer

The reason that I'm not accomplishing anything this summer is FarmTown on Facebook. I'm a little bit addicted. I've been planting two crops a day in order to make coins to buy a house and pond.

Last night, I got the pond. Now I want a stone gate and a river.

It's better than real farming--no droughts, no hail storms, no fertilizer bills, no insect infestations.

In School Suspension

In School Suspension (ISS) is Christmas-come-early to beleagured teachers.  Students are assigned to ISS when they have been particularily naughty - like fights, death threats, porn etc.  Often, these same students are the ones that make a teacher's job, well, hell. 

This is the student that won't sit down, won't shut up, won't turn in any work, and probably won't go to the next grade without summer school.

Teachers get notification when students are assigned to ISS and teachers send seat work to be completed while the student serves his/her sentence in ISS.   These ISS notifications are often received with the same glee as a winning lottery ticket.   

Swine Flu Mania

Gotta Love Middle School

Photography

Photography. If one is going to have an online store, someone has to take pictures. Since I work alone that someone is me. I tried something different. I hauled everything outside on a sunny day. It's not really hard to find a sunny day in Texas. I think the pics came out better. I think I'll try closer to noon so the sun will be directly overhead next time.

Daylight Saving Time

Okay, whose crazy idea is this anyway? I know, I know. It is Congress's idea to save energy. I have to get up an hour earlier and go to school in the dark. Why? To save energy? I'm not feeling it. At least now most of the clocks in our house set themselves. My Palm Pilot turned itself on at 2am to let me know that it's springing forward! Yippee, didn't want to sleep through that one. No blinking clock on the VCR anymore. Actually no VCR anymore. Pretty soon their will be no DVD player either. All streaming video. Oops, I digressed. See, I need more sleep!

No Child Left Behind

As a former classroom teacher, I'm pretty offended that a politician would intimate that I might want to leave a child behind. I want every student to be successful. I want them to be able to read and write and respect the U.S. I want them to be employable with skills and work ethic that gains them a job they are proud of and satisfied with.

What happens then when the child doesn't see the need in moving ahead? For this child, school is just a place to go and hang out with friends. I've met a bunch of them in my 10 years in the school system. As a teacher, parent, and taxpayer, it makes me mad. This child is being handed a free and appropriate education and he refuses to receive it. In fact, he is preventing or hindering others from receiving their free education too because he is such a classroom distraction that the teacher has to spend an inordinate amount of time just keeping control of the classroom.

Published Comic

I was wasting time out the the world of the wide web and I happened across a comic strip generator.  

Special Education - Is the Cost Too Much?

I know that public schools are supposed to be providing a "free and appropriate" education for every child in the "least restrictive envirnoment."  At least that's what the law says.

I've got to believe that lawmakers would yell out "Whoa, Nellie" if they were to really get down in the trenches and see the consequences of the law.  Should education money be spent on changing diapers on 15 year olds and monitoring feeding tubes? I went in a special ed classroom the other day and there were two teachers and a paraeducator for one student - and he was on the floor taking a nap.

When anyone mentions the exorbitant cost of special ed the response is "Well, it's federally mandated."  Like the federal government is getting their money from some other source that our pockets.  That's our money, taxpayer money, just like state funding.

Special education parents and other stakeholders have powerful lobbys pushing for more and more special education requirements.  Who is out there lobbying for the regular ed kids?

Gotta love it...

Snapp-caps are the coolest.  I snap one on top of my Diet Coke (with lime) and I'm good to go.   My son says it looks like a binky or a sippy cup but I just ignore that.  Besides, I embrace the inner dork.

I think it's an everyday miracle. Drink doesn't go flat, doesn't spill when I knock it over, and I can always tell my can apart from the crowd.  

I bought mine at a street fair in Kingwood Texas but I'm sure there are other sources. 

Highly recommend it.  Maybe I could be their spokesmodel...Hmmm

Cursive Handwriting becoming Extinct?

When I was in elementary school in the mid 1960s, there were no computers, no calculators, and typewriters were only in the office. Teachers wrote on the blackboard with white chalk and they wrote in cursive. 

We were expected to be able to write and read cursive. Not only that, we were all expected to write exactly the same way.   We held our pencils exactly the same way, we formed the letters the same way, the letters were all uniform in size.

We had penmanship lessons.  First we traced the letters, then we created our own.  If ours didn't look exactly like the example, we did it again.   We got a grade for how well we were able to conform to the penmanship expectation.

When did all this stop?  Students hold pencils any way they want.  Letters are all different sizes and are formed any which way.  There is no uniform capitalization or spacing.  In short, its a mess.

 

An unintended result of never really learning how to write cursive is that students never really learn to read cursive.    Cursive is becoming extinct.  

I want Modifications too!

Students are entitled to the least restrictive environment. As a middle-school teacher, I think I’m entitled to the same. I want, for me, the least restrictive environment in my classroom. In order to achieve the least restrictive environment for students, the government mandates modifications to help that student achieve a maximum educational experience. Well, I want some modifications too.

1. Limited distracters—No student can have more than two modifications.

2. Extended time—The due date for all grades and paperwork can be extended up to two weeks.

3. Assignment books—Students and parents are responsible for assignment books. The teacher is not responsible to do a darn thing related to the student’s assignment books.

4. Required substitution—Before any parent can comment on anything that happens in any classroom, the parent is required to substitute teach in that classroom for a week.

5. Positive reinforcement—The teacher gets the choice of lots and lots of chocolate, lots and lots of liquor, or time out—you know, time alone to do what ever I darn well please.

6. Preferential seating— Who are we kidding here? Teachers don’t sit down. But we could restrict the type of students that are close to the teacher. For example, no tappers, hummers, snorters, or gas passers are allowed within 25 feet of the teacher.

7. Notetaking assistance—The teacher will not be required to take any notes or remember anything that is not provided to the teacher in writing.

8. Notifications—All parents of students in the teacher’s classroom will be required to attend a long, boring meeting where the teacher’s modifications are explained in excruciating detail to the parents. The parents will be required to make weekly reports as to whether they are complying with the modifications.

9. Limited distracters, redux—The teacher’s classes will be limited to students that actually capable of and are motivated to learn the subject matter. Students who are not motivated will be removed from the class. I don’t care where they are sent, just that they are gone.

10. Behavior modifications—In order to keep the top of the teacher’s head from blowing off, the students are required to modify their behavior.

a. The teacher is not required to say any instruction more than once.

b. The teacher will write the page number on the board and all students will refer to the board and not ask, “What page is it on?”

c. Students are prohibited from exclaiming, “There’s a test today?” when the class has been reviewing for the test for three days prior and the teacher has announced the test for nine consecutive days.

d. Students are prohibited from asking to go to the restroom when they know the teacher never let’s anyone go to the restroom.

Try a puzzle

Taking pics of jewelry is hard. It's time consuming. It's not fun. I like making the jewelry. But photographing it is the pits. See these pics? What you don't see is the about 100 other blurry, wasted shots. Thank goodness for digitial cameras!

Shopping...

I just got back from Wal-Mart.  ARGH! I went by myself with a list with 6 things on it.     

Then I headed to the garden section because I needed a rake.  Our rake was a victim of Hurricane Ike,  (Okay, I ran over it with the car but it was right after Ike.) The rakes are outside until all the Christmas stuff is cleared out.  So outside I go.  There are six types of rakes.  OMG.  Now I have to figure out what rake is best.  An old guy was standing there and he wanted to tell me all about rakes and why the $35 rake was what I needed.  I think he was insulted when I bought the $3.99 one.

Then I went all the way across the store to get the rest of the stuff - groceries.  Not hard stuff--milk, bread, ice cream, etc.  The staples of life.  There was a whole family standing in front of the 2% milk blocking all the doors.  Two of them were on the phone.  They couldn't decide what milk to buy.  GET OUT OF MY WAY!  How much decision making is there?  Buy the cheapest 2%--it's the one that says WIC approved.  Duh.

So I worked my way to ice cream.   I couldn't get into the ice cream aisle because this chick had it blocked.  She had a basket with a head of lettuce and 12 grain bread and she had two doors of the ice cream case open and she was memorizing the Blue Bell labels.  I cleared my throat and she didn't move.  I said "excuse me" and she still didn't move.  Then, as I decided to either ram her basket or turn around, she looked at me with an extremely snotty look and said, "Do you want by?"  I said, "Yes."  She rolled her eyes and sighed and moved her basket just enough for me to get by.

All of the checkout lanes had lines except the self-check.  So I went to self-check.  I forgot to bring in my green friendly bags so I had to use their bags.  The bags were stuck together so I had to wrestle with the bags. I rang one item up twice and had to wait for the clerk.  I almost got hit by a car playing arrhythmia causing rap music in the parking lot.  But now I'm home eating ice cream.  I'm pretty sure it was worth it.

 

Twitter

I now tweet on twitter. I am BeadQueen. I have 10 followers which is pretty cool.  I'm following etsy and other etsy sellers.  What I've learned is that I have a lot to learn. 

I need to work on photography, writing descriptions, and just about everything else.  I'm feeling a little overwhelmed and inadequate.  A few sales wouldn't hurt.