Kinda Like a Hippie

Since my immune system has left the country...

I'll point out how lucky you are that you can neither see nor hear me. Because really there is only so much coughing you can listen to before sympathy exits and annoyance sets in. And the slimey, slippery oozing of body fluids that causes me to have to stuff a tissue in whichever nostril is on the downhill slope while sleeping is not all that fun to hear about either.

This is the 3rd time this school year that I have contracted some cold or flu virus that loves me more than anyone else and refuses to part from my cells, sweat and snot ridden though they are. I worked only 2 of the 5 days this week. Oh, yeah, I am way past the allotted number of sick days and well into the "days we deduct from your check at your daily rate of pay, which is somehow so much more than what you actually make in a day, but trust us it all works out over the course of your contract", so every day I miss makes me just a little more stressed out.

As I lie in bed thinking deep thoughts (and coughing up chunks of lung) all sorts of ideas for meaningful posts go through my head. Unfortunately none of them stick around long enough to become any sort of coherent essay.

So, you get this.

1. A plea to please give me some great defining edict from one of the candidates that will make me feel like lining up behind someone and staying there. Oh how I long for a candidate that I could support unfailingly and unflinchingly. Because right now I am flinching a lot.I keep thinking of things I want to write in a post, but when I start thinking about it all too much the flinching and twitching makes it hard to type. 

2. An anecdote from the Hippiekid: "Polar bears lost their tails in battle. They used to have one, but then it got chopped off in a battle and now it is a tradition for polar bears to only have a little stub there." He actually told me that a couple of months ago, but I just found where I wrote it down. I have no idea where it came from. At the time we were sitting on the sofa and not talking about polar bears. Sometimes the factoids just appear out of the blue.

3.A note about our pottery... apparently it was just too smokin' awesome! We were there on a Saturday and the next Tuesday part of Artisan's Alley burned. We were a little concerned that our creations had been "fired" prematurely, but the pottery shop was not affected. Hopefully we will get in next week and paint.

4. A picture of a boy and his dog. Taken today during one of the brief times I was up walking around.

  They are moving an old burn barrel into "the hideout" that Hippiekid has created among the cedar and oak trees on the back part of our property. (No he won't be burning anything. He has other plans for it, along with the two old toasters and other bits of metal and wood. I think they're decorative.)  I am standing just inside and you can see the back of the "No Tresspassing" sign he will rewire between the trees when he leaves for the day. It's good to be 10.

Well, that was fun.

Last Saturday Hippiekid and I finished up our Christmas gift giving.

There's a back story. While out lost in the city one day (back during the piano search) we came across a place called Artisan's Alley. I had been there years before. We stopped to shop and have lunch. In the center of a bunch of shops is a cool little pottery shop. They give lessons to walk ins. We didn't do it that day, but we decided that would be our gift to his BFF and BFF's mom, who is also my friend.

The lesson was an hour and a half and we all made 6 or 7 pieces. Now we wait for them to dry and be fired then we go back and paint them. After they are fired again we will get to bring them home. So, more fun to come. I also want to go back to take the sculpture class.

My only complaint is that the water we had to keep sticking our hands in was very cold!

Over-indulgence?

Yes, as evidenced by the last post, my 10 year old son did get a laptop computer for Christmas. Doesn't seem a very hippiemom kind of gift does it? Seems he should be opening yards of hemp cord and wooden beads along with a macrame instruction book, or at least some recycled tie dyed bed sheets. You know, I've never been very good at fitting into any one box. (I have found this generally confuses and often irritates people who don't know me well. My friends seems to accept it.)  I'm not really sure if I am raising a super consumer future yuppie type or Mr. Greenearth. I just know that despite my moral sensibilities and best intentions I can't seem to stop the flow of stuff the kid accumulates (oh okay, it goes for me too).

So Hippiekid got a laptop. In my defense (or actually, The Boyfriend's defense, since he is the one that bought it) it is a refurbished one that was on special, was a really good buy and not as expensive as you might think. Plus we really are getting tired of sharing our computers with him! Now if that was his only gift it would still be a nice Christmas. Of course it was not his only gift! Sillies! He also got a digital camera, a webkinz, books, a couple of toys, a new computer game, a stocking full of stuff, several gift cards from relatives, and a piano from his grandmother (among a few other things). The next week on our out of state visit he received new dirt bike boots, pants and gloves, some new clothes and  a few more toys.

I tell myself, and I told him, that this was an exceptional year. There will usually not be this many big ticket items. Although, in the past, he has received a computer for his room and a dirt bike (different years). I start out with good intentions, but then things just get out of hand. I seriously need to do my Christmas shopping the week before Christmas, because the longer I have the more I buy. Sometimes you just get such good buys! Thank you, Maggie, for your post, so I don't feel alone.

I swear when I was pregnant with Will I said to myself that I was not going to buy a lot of stuff. That he didn't need all that much. Of course Will's dad and I had a lot less expendable cash than I have now in my life with The Boyfriend (staying in the same job for the last 14 years rather than constantly moving around helps too). But, really I believed that, or at least I think I did at the time. I bought used clothes and toys. I tried to use moderation in everything. Then Will died and Hippiekid entered the picture and it was a whole new world. I just couldn't stop myself or anyone around us from over indulging him. I suppose there is a part of me that thinks, "Well, there really should be two of them, I'd be spending at least this much anyway, and having to find room for the trappings of two boys." Justification, it's a wonderful thing.

The best part of the whole thing though, is that he is always happy and appreciative. He has never once asked for any of the big ticket items he has received. The dirt bike year all he wanted was a red guitar. The year he got a PSP he asked for some specific Hot Wheel cars. This year his only request was a batting helmet for baseball season. Oh yeah, he got that too!

Maybe he will be better at keeping the consumerism at bay with his own kids.

Luckily, grandmas don't have to worry about shaping lives with their gift giving habits!

It's alive!

Wow, it's really been a month since I posted last? And, oops, I left that silly, sickly post up all that time. I wasn't that ill. Okay, I was pretty sick and I missed 5 days of work- I can't remember ever missing five days of work for one illness before. I got the flu really badly a few years ago, but luckily it encompassed a weekend. I got really lucky one year and got sick over Christmas break!

So, I recovered. It put me really behind at work at a horribly busy time of the year. Now, here we are, a month later, I have lived through Christmas, a ski trip and the journey to my mother's house (which is lacking internet access-- which is only one of the things that contributes to my insanity when I am there). I have to start back to work bright and early tomorrow morning. I am ready neither mentally nor in the area of teacher preparedness. I can wing it. It's my library visit day tomorrow. I got lucky.

I'll be back soon with new drivel for the new year.

Here's a picture of Hippiekid and The Boyfriend on Christmas morning, opening the Hippiekid's last present- a laptop computer.

Here is the Hippiekid surrounded by presents and the accompanying discards. God, I love being his mom.