pamelamama's Xanga

today

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:53:16 GMT

Our friends the Morrises took us out on their boat today. Here's Sam driving the boat:

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 20:16:28 GMT

I don't feel like writing the entry where I explain how busy I've been and what's been going on. I'll do that another time. Right now I want to say I am alive, and I'll be getting back to blogging this summer. School is out for the kids, and I'm done teaching for the school year, though I do have a week of professional development coming up this next week.

Can I say, I'm completely exhausted and addicted to the game scramble on facebook. It's great for zoning out. Zoning out for long periods of time is not really in my best interest, but I think I've earned a little bit of it.

Come friend me on facebook! Because I want everyone else to suffer the way I am suffering.

More soon on:
very successful year of teaching
kids great year in school
new role for me on the school board
sam's upcoming visit to the neurolearning team
my long illness which is hopefully, finally, over
nice visit from my parents coinciding with my receiving nice teacher award

etc, etc.

I do belive there are a few new photos on my flickr site.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Wed, 21 May 2008 18:01:24 GMT

Listen to this high school student recite this poem, "Fredrick Douglass". She won a national contest with this recitation. It is awe-inspiring.

Shawntay Henry's winning recitation

kindergarten step up day

Tue, 20 May 2008 23:56:37 GMT

So, tomorrow is "Kindergarten Step-Up Day". Next year's K students get to spend the morning with us in Kindergarten, get a feel for the room and the teachers. We get to give them one last looking-over before we place them in groups for the fall. The parents get to go to an orientation, etc. But...

ELI is in my class next year!! Tomorrow I'm going to get my first taste of what it is like to be mama and teacher simultaneously, while also being teacher to another twenty some-odd kids.

Wish me luck!

Monday, May 12, 2008

Mon, 12 May 2008 23:41:40 GMT

For a photo update on Sam and Eli, check my flickr account and these two albums of a friend.

Album 1
Album 2

These pictures are from our annual family camp. You can see Eli having to pee while co-starring in the magic show, and you can see Sam on the lake boating with the love of his life. You can spot me a couple times looking weird and puffy, coming down with as yet undiagnosed bronchitis. Also, there are lots of pictures of Scott fishing and boating with the kids.

Now, to bed as promised.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Mon, 12 May 2008 23:27:48 GMT

Last week I stayed home Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and went back to work Thursday and Friday. I was beat. This weekend I was exhausted, and today I went to work again, and we had a farm field trip. Afterward, I napped on the couch in the staff room. I am so tired and exhausted. The medication is making a terrible taste in my mouth, and I have reflux and upset stomach. The antibiotics have, as expected, thrown off the balance of my gut. So, I am feeling generally lousy.

At the staff meeting after school today, they announced I am receiving the Maria Erlitz Award for Professional Excellence, awarded by my head of school. They pick a teacher every year, and it's a cash award toward professional development. It's a very nice honor, but I feel a bit awkward that I have been at the school only two years and I'm getting a big honor when others have been there many years and have not received it. I feel sorta like the teacher's pet or something?

I already slept from 5:30 to 7:30 after arriving home, then I ate a little bit of leftovers, and now I'm going back to bed. Hopefully I will feel well enough to be a reasonable teacher for the rest of the week. It's the home stretch now, and I'm not feeling like a championship-quality teacher about now. Maybe I should take another day home. Bleh.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Tue, 06 May 2008 21:07:51 GMT

Plumber came.

Keys not found. Mystery unsolved.

Staying home one more day to recuperate and hopefully back to work on Thursday.

I took my meds on an empty stomach and thought I was going to puke. Lucky for me Sarah came over with my favorite turkey sandwich and my favorite cookie and a decadent fair trade chocolate bar plus the new Charlaine Harris book we have been waiting to read. Ahhh.

Tomorrow I will try to get as much rest as possible and hopefully won't feel like a limp warshrag. That's a funny word, isn't it?

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:37:44 GMT

Below is some interesting information about the Jewish National Fund, an organization that raises funds to plant trees in Israel. I have recently learned about some controversy with the JNF's work. This group, Save the Negev (http://savethenegev.org) is working to hold the JNF accountable to the mission of their Israeli counterpart, encouraging them to act in keeping with Jewish ethics and with respect for ecological and humanitarian values. Here's a letter from their founder.

*The Giving Tree: A Way to Honor Our Vision for Israel*

In this season, when Jewish tradition teaches us to bless the fruit trees, when in North America and in Israel the trees are in full flower, so many of us are inspired to plant trees. As we come upon Israel's 60th anniversary, planting a Jewish National Fund tree for the future sounds like second nature, a wise investment for both Israel and the planet.

I'm writing to ask you to do something a little different, something that will do much more for Israel: wait to send money to JNF. Wait until you can make sure your money will do more, more for the land, more for the people, and more for the planet. Instead of giving money now, make a pledge in honor of Israel's 60th, and with it send a message of sustainability and hope.

Savethenegev.org, along with other Jewish and Israeli environmental organizations, is helping the JNF look at ways to devote more "tree" money to sustainable forests and to good renewable energy. Right now if you give $18 for a tree, eight of those dollars go toward getting your paper certificate. The alternative is to give JNF $10 for a tree through the "Go Neutral" campaign and forgo the paper. The problem is this: "Go Neutral" isn't neutral: many of the forests that Keren Kayemet LeYisrael (KKL-JNF in Israel) has planted are unsustainable single-species plantations, providing little habitat for native plants or animals, and no meaningful offset for your carbon footprint. And there's no way to make sure your money goes to the best forests for the earth.

The great news is that JNF in the US is open to re-creating its "Go Neutral" campaign. I hope we can soon share news with you about how to give a tree through JNF-US and make sure that gift goes toward two excellent purposes: 1) creating a real forest habitat, one that can sustain native and diverse species for generations, and 2) financing good clean energy that actually removes carbon from the waste stream. Instead of giving $10 for a less-than-full JNF experience, you'll be able to give $18 -- $10 for a new tree, and $8 for new energy, such as replacing diesel generators with solar power in Bedouin villages living off the grid.

We are also working with JNF-US to focus a bigger slice of money being sent to the Negev on sustainable, equitable projects that will help all the Bedouin, along with all the Jews, living in the Negev. That means you will soon be able to give not only to the best forests, but also to the best projects to help the poorest in Israel, Jewish and Bedouin -- both the Bedouin in the government-planned townships, and the Bedouin in traditional villages.

Let's be aware that no matter when you give, the money JNF sends to KKL this year won't be used to plant trees until next year, after the Sabbatical year ends. So making a pledge to JNF, and letting them know why you're waiting to pay it, will have no negative impact on the growth of Israel's forests. But you will help strengthen JNF's confidence to make this new initiative a bigger part of their plan.

You will also help deliver a bigger message to Israel's government and to KKL, not just to JNF. Right now Israel's Goldberg Commission is deciding whether to continue the failed government policy to force the Bedouin off the land and out of their traditional way of life, and to "suburbanize" the desert for Jewish Israelis, or to go in a new direction which renews the covenant Israel made with the Bedouin and with all non-Jewish citizens when it was founded, a covenant which the Bedouin embraced as soldiers and officers in the IDF, a covenant which is essential to Israel's democracy.

American Jews, and Jews around the world, want to support an Israel that lives up to its best promises and highest ideals, to treat the land as holy and to treat all citizens as belonging. Please join us in making this dream the reality. To learn more and do more, go to savethenegev.org.

Choni, one of the great sages and miracle workers in the Talmud, wondered at an old man who planted a carob tree that would not bear fruit for seventy years. That man taught Honi a true lesson: we plant for the generations that follow us.

Let us, then, restore the ancient forests, even though it takes lifetimes, even if you wait a little longer to make it last lifetimes. Make a pledge to give a tree that will give for generations, that will seed its own descendants, shelter animals, and nurture people. Tell JNF you want more: more green for Israel and more life for all of Israel's inhabitants, both for human beings, and for all the other species that make the holy land what it should be. That's one good way we can celebrate such a big milestone in the history of the Jewish people.

Let our planting, and our Israel, be one which survives generations. Let us plant not just for 60 years but for the next seventy, for a hundred and twenty, and more.

Sincerely,

Rabbi David Seidenberg

on behalf of Save the Negev, http://www.savethenegev.org

oopsie

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:06:58 GMT

So I got home from my Dr's appointment with my pile of meds, decided I needed to organize them. I ran to the computer and started to print out a calendar to keep notes about what I had taken, etc. I realized I couldn't wait any longer to go to the bathroom. I ran to the bathroom, pished, and then stood up to wash my hands. I flushed and at some point my belt buckle made a clanking sound against something. And I noticed that my keys were no longer in my pocket. Had they been in my pocket? They were not on the floor. They were not in any of the usual places. I thought, Nah, no way my keys fell out of my pocket and went down into the toilet.

I can't find my keys anyplace and the toilet overflowed when Sam flushed it.

Hm.

Plumber's coming tomorrow.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Mon, 05 May 2008 17:28:43 GMT

I have bronchitis, apparently. I will be taking ten days of antibiotic and prednisone (eek) along with my usual doses of advair, nasonex and of course acidopholis to balance it out. Think that's all. Also, emergency inhaler as needed. Wish me luck. Going to get a short nap and then go pick up the kids from school.