one of these things

is not like the other.
one of these things just isn't the same. (insert singing muppets here)

you know when you have a little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other?
you are previewing the 2 flower girls in my brother's november wedding.
guess which one is mine?

oh wait? why isn't parker in the dress too....oh yeah that.
won't. even. let. me. get. it. near. her.
something about "i want my red raider dress and orange shoes" (those would be her crocs)

gentlemen, place your bets!
i hear vegas has some pretty good odds going.

this may be considered inside information, but here's a picture of her at one of the bridal showers....


i'm just saying.

a little perspective

maslow's hierarchy

this is one of the only things i remember from the 2 education courses i took at a&m. the theory basically states that we prioritize our lives based on what needs are being met and that those basice needs at the bottom of the pyramid need to be met before we can focus fully on the the ascending levels.
makes sense.
most of us can probably honestly say that the only place we "struggle" would be in the belonging, esteem and self-actulization levels. . . .that's where jesus comes in, but that's a whole other post for a whole other day.

this article was in the dallas morning news sunday, may 4.
African man's instincts led to death
on Dallas freeway

this man was the father of some students of mine. there is a picture of them in the paper, i wish it had been online. here are some cliff notes to the article that i would like to point out:

But a confluence of cultural misunderstandings, linguistic isolation and simple bad luck led to the death of a man whose widow and 10 children are now struggling to survive in a country that is both unfamiliar and, often, incomprehensible.

His wife, Signe Kallafo, still lives in the apartment with nine of the couple's 10 children. Beds and couches line the walls, there is no television, and a small coffee table and a fan serve as furniture.
The air conditioning and lights are kept off to conserve money. Only one picture adorns the walls – a photo of Mr. Bilay. Two crosses made of palm fronds are wedged in the frame.
"With my husband dead, there is no money. I am sick, and I have a 3-month-old daughter, so I cannot work," Ms. Kallafo, who speaks no English, said through a relative who acted as an interpreter.
"I don't know what to do. Everywhere, darkness is around us."
Two of the older children, who are in high school, work part time and are the family's sole wage earners.

"But obviously no orientation course could possibly prepare a family from rural Eritrea for a life in a big American city," he said.
To Mr. Bilay, a man who was virtually illiterate in his native language, Dallas was a bewildering place, family members said.
"He didn't know how to live in a city. At first he didn't know how to ride in a car," said Mr. Kallafo. "People at home ask me if they should come here. I tell them that America is a very hard country to live in."
"His only dream was to find a job," Mr. Kallafo said. "He wasn't happy because he didn't speak the language, but he was happy for his kids, that they would get an education.
"He said he hoped someday that his kids would grow up and they would have an education and get good jobs, and then he could rest."

Staff writer Holly Yan contributed to this story.

honestly, this story could have been written about any one of my students. i teach in a very unique area of dallas commonly referred to as "five points". this is a mostly unknown area of dallas, where over sixty thousand people are crammed into three and a half square miles. dwelling in apartment complexes, the majority of the population is hispanic, which together with international refuges makes the area 25% non-english speaking. In fact there are over twenty different languages spoken in this area.

in addition to all the issues stated above, you have your typical inner city woes: poverty, drugs, crime, prostituition. you can imagine the volatility of this area...

85-90% of my students struggle with the physiological and safety level of maslow's hierarchy.
they aren't concerned about the taks test.
they aren't concerned about college.
they are merely trying to survive.
this is why i love my job. if for only 45 minutes out of their day, they can put all that aside and enjoy being a kid.
they play.
they talk.
they forget.
my sphere of influence is tiny. i know that. and honestly, i don't know where most of these kids will end up. but as i get to know them, and as i listen, it really changes my perspective. they challenge me. they challenge my faith, they challenge my priorities, they challenge my views. . . . they don't know this, but they do.

HOW TO HELP
Anyone wishing to help the Musa Bilay family may send a check to the "Bilay Ebbit Family Fund" at Wells Fargo Bank, P.O. Box 3488, Portland, Ore. 97208-3488. Or call Mr. Bilay's cousin Stefano Dago at 763-443-3954.

if you haven't yet, go see this

the 2 willys

what did you think i was talking about?

okay, so we know who i prefer.....even if he is prettier than me, especially in that purple suit........

but, we thought we'd put it to the real test.......thing 1 and thing 2.

for our weekly movie night, we thought we'd do a comparative cinematic analysis....you know try to be educational?

okay, really we just wanted to watch the willy wonkas and see what the kids thought.

now, if you know me, you know i'm relatively conservative when it comes to what my kids watch, which is why this is the first time either one of them have seen either one of these movies.

although my boy asks for transformers, star wars-clone wars, and pirates of the caribbean, he's only getting noggin. no commercials and they are limited to things like olivia, backyardigans and little einsteins.

oh wait, we have started them on some scooby-doo and my new favorite, phineas and ferb. mainly because the music to both is super sweet!

i know, i know, call me a hypocrite. my tv is my lifeline. but enough about me.

night 1: johnny depp's willy (okay, now that is kinda funny)

while johnny depp is a little um, eclectic? the special effects are amazing!
the oompa loompa who is the same guy throughout the whole movie? crazy!

and how can you not like helena bonham carter?

and, charlie bucket has a dad. good call. a 2 parent household. you knew this wasn't a disney flick. sorry walt.

i also like that this version followed the book so much more closely.

except for maybe willy wonka's creepy dentist dad and child willy wonka's crazy head gear, this movie? sooooo not scary.

2 thumbs up.

the best part of this movie? you see augustus gloop, veruca salt, violet beauregard, and mike teevee walk out of the factory, a little worse for wear, but totally alive.

this is important.

night 2: gene wilder's willy (again, i made my self giggle)

the songs, especially the oompa loompa songs in this version cannot be beat!

okay, okay, so the special effects leave a little bit to be desired.....i mean it looks like it was put together in my gym. but c'mon folks it was 1971. we hadn't even gotten star wars yet.

of course, we all remember the LSD boat ride they take after augustus gloop falls into the chocolate river. again, great for children.

sadly, this did unnerve my babies, and while covering their eyes, i contemplated turning it off.
but no, i remembered, it gets better.

okay, so maybe i should have turned it off. parker still asks about "why that girl turned into a blueberry" and when charlie and granpa drink the fizzy soda? she began to cry and wanted to go to bed.

way to go mom of the year!

1 thumbs up, i middle finger up.

my boy? not phased. he loved them both, but actually like gene wilder better!

its just funny. i remember having a conversation with my friend michelle about how her daughter who was about 3 or 4 at the time and the things that scared her. things like little mermaid and some of the other princess movies. not having a girl at the time, i couldn't understand it. from the time he was 2, my boy has asked to watch the craziest of things, and on the off chance i gave in, no problems! now that i have a sensitive little girl, i can totally understand. of course, sadly for my boy this just makes me hold more stuff back.

you know those tv ratings? i usually add about 2 years to them, you know Y7 in my world becomes Y9. i may just add 2 more.

our troops

this article is from www.newtoncitizen.com
i am unfamiliar with the site as it was just sent to me today. so if its pretty radical, email aaron at whattheheckareyousendingusto@yahoo.com

i plan to peruse it more. who knows, you could see it in "good times".

4/19/2008 12:01:00 AM Email this article • Print this article
Darrell Huckaby -
Encounter with young family puts things in perspective
Darrell Huckaby
Columnist


**disclaimer**
before i post, let me begin by saying i had the entire article posted here, but then my better(?) half said it was too long and to just put the link, so i'm trusting you have read the article and gotten a little watery eyed too. . . .

now, in the words of dj lance, let's break this down.

of course, the first thing you may note is the wearing of a texas a&m hat and the greatness of that. while a very important detail, not the meat of this post.
it is more like the cheese. you know how a good burger is just that, a good burger, but with cheese, ala wingfield's, jg's, or chris madrid's, the cheese only adds-never subtracts!

okay, here's where the story really got to me. this guy is class of 2003....let's say he was on the traditional plan, not my plan, and actually graduated in 4 years. assuming he was in the corp, i'm sure he did.
point being he is 27~ maybe with 2 small children, a wife and 2 tours under his belt.

here's my bit. these are real people going overseas. someones' daddy. someone's mommy. someone's brother. etc. . . . whatever you may think of our president, whatever you may think of war or whatever you may think of our involvment "over there", please support the men and women who are over there. i mean personally support them. that support could mean literally sending necessities overseas. it could mean being a friend to a wife, husband, mother, father or child who has a loved one over there. you could simply say "thank you for what you do for our country" whenever you see someone in uniform. or you could just pray for them, for our leaders and for the leaders of other countries who make those decisions.

its very easy to distance ourselves from things that don't occur in our own sphere of influence. trust me, i am the queen of distancing. but, like mr. huckaby says,
" i don't know what kind of mood you are in today or what you have on your plate, but I know that each and every one of us can breathe free because there are about a million-and-a-half men and women in uniform scattered across our country and around the globe, making sure that we are as safe as we can be in a world gone crazy.

God bless them one and all."

the cult of personality

during one of my cheap therapy sessions. i mean grad school classes, we took the meyers-briggs. ever hear of it?
yeah, yeah, your typical personality test. like in seventeen, or vogue where in an effort to understand yourself and others, you answer all these questions to help you understand your:
a) contextual self
who you are in a given environment
b) developed self
your choices, free will and habitual contextual self become your developed self
and finally,
c) true self
your dna

so, we took this survey and my therapist, i mean professor, scored us and labeled us.
nothing like being labeled, discussing that label with a group of people and then finding out how people feel about that label. awesome!
so i am labeled as the most sociable of all personalities (duh). i base all decisions on how they will affect people (duh). i am a helper, a facilitator, and a apparently my main objective in life is to assure the happiness of others. (hmmm) most of this was not news to me. nor was the fact that i am very concrete and must have things planned out.....
which is where the story takes an ugly turn.
see, we have been in school for 3 weeks now and today was basically a "do-over" of the first day of school. we started the year out with a new principal and when the old one principal left, he took the master schedule with him, allegedly. so, the counselors and "scheduling experts" (hmmm, is that where the $64 million went?) have been working on said schedule for 3 weeks. this is exactly how i feel. and probably look too. yikes!


apparently the new atom smasheris a lot less complicated than making sure 7th graders get their required credits of gym, math, or lunch scheduled correctly.

the thing is i can respect a good cluster______. however when every friday you tell me that on monday the situation is resolved and come monday that situation is still not resolved and that happens not only once, not only twice, but three times....trust issues begin to surface. i'm only taking one class this semester, so not enough therapy to include multiple issues, you know?

so, in reference to aforementioned personality test that so obviously pointed out my concrete sequential-ness and need for order, i can't funtion! my home life has suffered. i cannot get a routine going at school, which means i cannot get a routine going at home. i can't eat. i can't sleep. i got sick! fall premieres are still a week away!
i know! right?
okay, things got ironed out today and the space time continuum should cease its unraveling.(insert huge sigh of relief here).
all that to say that regular blog posts?...should be coming back as order is being restored. besides, i think i was wearing dave out by talking to him instead of posting to both my readers.

faq's

okay, so maybe these aren't "frequently" asked of me, but they have been asked before, even by different people.
so, i thought i would answer them for the public:

1. ". . . . with the publicness of your marathon announcement...."

you see public, i have learned that i am a very proud person. i do not do failure well.
(note: i am working extremely hard at not passing that trait on to my children.)
so, it is easy for me to say i'm going to do something and then not follow through. you see, the easiest way to not fail. . . . is to not try.
i had attempted to train for marathons years before i ran my first, but never really talked about it, never really told anyone. i learned that the more people that know about my goal help to keep me accountable to said goal that i have set.
the more people that know, the more questions i get asked, and the more likely i am to follow through so that i'm not "that guy".

my brother and i virtual trained together. he ran in lubbock. i ran in dallas. we would check on each other and run together when we could. but it worked out great. when you are ready to begin any type of training, you must have accountabilty.whether its for a marathon, a 5k, or just to get off the couch, find a friend! find me! i'm always looking for a running or walking buddy.
or try one of these: run on, luke's locker, dallas running club

2. ". . . . .and training schedule. . . ."

actually, you can just google "marathon training" and you can come up with numerous plans. i really like hal higdon's site because he really breaks it down. there are so many levels of runners/walkers and it is important that you begin at the right pace. if you start out running too fast or too long, you'll quit so much quicker. i speak from experience.

3. "how do you know how far you are going each day?"

the greatness of map my run! you can use this for bike rides too. and they do fitness plans. . . .oh its so great!

4. "how do you know how fast to go?"

this ones easy. i may run alot, but i don't run fast. let me say that again. i don't run fast. my fastest time ever was the run through the vines 5k, 3.2 miles, in 24:12.
basically, i'm a 10 minute miler. which actually breaks down pretty nicely. i do 3 miles in 30 minutes. if it takes me longer than that, then i know i had a slow day. if i go less than 30 minutes. . . .wait that never happens.

5. "did you take a training class....or is this part of the inherent trainer/pe coach knowledge?"

ahh. the knowledge of all things health and fitness that seems to come so easy is not so much ingrained in this chubby little mexican gal, so much as acquired through the the genius, the greatness that is the health and kinesiology department of texas a&m university.
7 years well spent. don't you think?

and the award goes to......

okay, so these guys haven't shown up yet, but i am keeping my legs crossed and nixing the miniskirts just in case. i certainly wouldn't want to britney anyone.

but, i really have won an award! yay self-esteem!
it appears that i actually waste the time of more than just 2 people.

here's the skinny

Characteristics for the Smile Award:
1. Must display a cheerful attitude.
2. Must love one another.
3. Must make mistakes.
4. Must learn from others.
5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world.
6. Must love life.
7. Must love kids.

Rule of The Smile Award
1. The recipient must link back the the award’s creator
2. You must post these rules if you receive the award.
3. You must choose 5 people to receive the award after receiving it yourself.
4. You must fit the characteristics of the recipient of the award, as posted.
5. You must post the characteristics of a recipient.
6. You must create a post sharing your win with others.
7. You must thank your giver.

diana b. and your tub full of boys, and fun, and sweetness, and love and all things good... THANK YOU!!!

now for the fun part. i get to give this to 5 other folks.
there's lots of good blogs out there. in my world, we're bff's that i check up on everyday. of course, in their world, it's probably more like stalking.

now for the hard part. i get to give this to 5 other folks.
it's like my mom told me i can have a sleepover but can only invite 5 friends instead of everyone i know. oh the anguish.

sweet salvation

okay, salvation may be a strong word here, i mean there is only one way to salvation and that is of course through the grace of my very sweet savior jesus christ, but that's another post for another day.

have you seen these? i know, i know as always, i'm late to the party, these have been around for a while, but since i'm not into having someone hold me underwater while at the ocean, or the dead sea, shooting salt water up my nose just didn't sound like fun.

i have battled allergies all my life, took shots, took prescription meds, i have done it all! here's the fun part, when you're pregnant, most of that stuff you just don't want to mess with.

i know, things are safer now, yada, yada, yada. but its like with the whole "can you have a glass of wine" controversy.......regardless of what the facts say about moderation, i deal with enough, how do i say this delicately.......crack-babies, fetal alcohol babies, and babies of babies, that i do not want to take that chance. there are already so many factors OUT of my control that can do in-utero harm, that the factors i CAN control? oh i'm controlling!

so, i gave in to the neti pot, and despite almost drowning twice while standing at my bathroom sink, i have to say i am pleased. now i find out they have a whole line, like a "no back wash" design, a "kids mist"......you think my kids hated the booger patrol before, wait until i come at them with this.

so, neti pot, you get a thumbs up and my full endorsement.
the checks should be rolling in anytime.

You've got to be kidding

as many of you know, since college I have been teaching. I began my glorious career as a banner earning, district winning, middle school volleyball coach in a very wealthy suburb of Dallas. . .Desoto, Texas. from there I decided to retire from coaching and try my hand at elementary science in the great Dallas public school system.
hmmmmm, for those that were there during the transition year, there is a special spot in heaven for you. thanks!
since then, I have regained my sanity and have been able to regain my position as a kinesiologist pedagogue (that's french for pe teacher), still at the same school in Dallas. but, rather than seeing only about 100 6th graders, I now see all 600 students, from kindergarten to 6th grade.
as I began the school year in september, I looked forward to being back in my element, playing games, being loud, and best of all getting to wear shorts and sweatshirts and running shoes. that is until things got in to full swing. . . .in my 6 years of teaching, I have never had to take a sick day for being "sick". I can remember one day in high school when I had a really bad ear infection, but other than that, nothing.
this year alone (and by year I mean september until now) I have had ringworm, flu, sinus infection, and pinkeye! I guess since i've always been around big kids who don't want much from their teachers, especially not hugs, I was a low risk for communicable diseases. now that I have little kids all over me, i'm a walking billboard for the cdc.
what's my point? well, I could keep every child I encounter at arm's length and show no affection. I could continue hugging everything but the trees and risk taxing my immune system. I have chosen the hugs. see, I feel very blessed with the family and friends I grew up with. some of my kids, I don't know if they hugged at home or not. to think that I could be the only hug these kids get, well, let's just say pinkeye or not I would get very teary. so, I 'll risk getting all sorts of stuff, lice, unknown rashes, worms. . . bring 'em on. I hope you will too. just keep plenty of antibiotics on hand at all times.

my house is clean

it only took two days. its a process.
day one: pick up everything and put it in its proper place.
day two: clean! clean! clean!
(keep in mind everything is done at full speed, it has to be done before thing 1 and thing 2 come home and return it to its natural state.)

how clean?

hospital clean?
nope.

military clean?
nope.
grandma clean!

i am about to clome clean. . . . no pun intended.
in every effort to better the world we live in, our family does certain things.
we recycle

we use these:


but there is one area i will not cave. . . .i use chemicals to clean. my product of shoice?

there is a certain smell associated with clean, and fragrance free, dye free, earth friendly products just don't cut it. i can go natural, i can go earthy, but have you seen pictures from the earthiest time ever. . . .the 70's. . . . . . . .they just don't look clean to me.