Forgot to mention

I am now fully and officially standardized and certified! I have a certificate that cost about $5500 to prove it, too.

After a couple of months of me waiting impatiently and begging the powers-that-be, my Standard Teacher's Certificate was posted online this week. This meant I could pay another $75 and get my specialty areas added to the cert (and that I could wait another few weeks to see the revised, final copy).

All of this was made even more exciting by the fact that the state waited to post my real certificate until my one year cert had been expired for about a week.

In the end, the final copy was posted in about 2 days. Before I even had a chance to call and hassle the state education office!

Sick days

I haven't taken two sick days in a row in more than 10 years I bet. That streak ends this week. I guess it would be the time I got my gall bladder taken out and I wasn't even 30 years old then.

I went to the doctor today and got a shot to help with my cedar allergies. Cedar trees are everywhere in Austin. So this time of year everybody within 50 miles is sniffling and snorting and rubbing eyes. January is always a great time to people watch around here.

Anyways, I always end up with a sinus infection on The Talker's birthday, which rolls around on Friday. This year I was a little ahead of schedule.

My old doc no longer takes our insurance. I have known this for more than a year but today was the first time I NEEDED to go to see a doctor. Of course I haven't done the leg work to find a new doc so I ended up at a walk-in clinic.

If it were not for the higher co-pay, I would just go here until the next insurance change. Online check-in, and new patient paperwork rules!

The insurance had changed our 'scrip coverage too. Thanks to The Boss Lady for calling around the HR office to get the info I needed. There are some great perks to having the wife work at the same place!

I feel better but these medicines always keep me awake for about 24 hours so hopefully I'll pretend like I am David Melin and I'll snooze the day away while the kids are at school tomorrow.

See this guy?

He survived his first year of teaching public middle school.

But evidently the Winter Break has not been long enough to get him back to the blog.

We will shoot for Spring Break I guess.

Christmas Break

The Fall semester ended last week. It has taken me 5 days to decompress. Now to enjoy the rest of our break time (except for the time I will surely spend at work, of course).

Spent yesterday catching up on the to-do list. New baseboards are in the hall an coming to the rest of the house soon. (I mean SOON on a historical, glacial scale, not SOON as in "soon".

The kids are ready for Christmas. The Princess already has her new American Girl doll an The Talker has a new basketball goal These gifts came from my parents but were impossible to keep as a surprise.

And as far as surprises go, I revisited a moment of SAHD-ness recently when I had to get cash from The Boss Lady for her gift. I cracked under the interrogation and the surprise is blown. too.

Spoken like a REAL teacher

5 days until Winter Break.

That is all

It was a good nine days off

I had to go searching for my briefcase this morning. Evidently I didn't do too much WORK during the Thanksgiving Break.

Thanksgiving update

Stopping by to give a quick update on Thanksgiving morning. 


Life is messy and chaotic, just like every other day around here.  The Boss has already been cooking for two days and we are not even eating a big meal here.  Last month we replaced our oven and now I am realizing that was money well-spent.  

 My extended family gathers here in Austin for a Thanksgiving luncheon/Family reunion every year.  This is a big deal, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and all of the rest for several generations.  In 41 years, I have attended for all but one year that I remember.  The one year we skipped, The Boss Lady and I got stuck driving to Dallas in a snowstorm and spun out our car on the Interstate. After that, I never wanted to tempt fate again, so we stay in town each year to go to the reunion and then host the after-party for my parents, siblings and all the usual suspects.

If I never post again on this blog, you will know that we lost out on our second gamble of this life-time.  That is right!  We are skipping out on the family feed.  SOME people (Bro's family MIGHT fit this category...  Cough.  Cough.) go to extreme measures to miss a trip to this yearly event - Caribbean cruises being one example...  But we are not even leaving town.  We are just heading across town to hang out with some friends. 


If you had ever eaten anything prepared by this friend, you might sell your firstborn for a second invitation to the dinner table.  In the end I bet this dinner will be worth thumbing my nose at the ghosts of family, past and present.  And a shout out to the Queen Mother, I bet I get a dinner roll that isn't char-broiled...

Prophetic words

A couple of years back, when I was trying to decide if I really wanted to pursue the teaching gig, I was talking to one of my neighborhood buds, Law Talking Guy.  He is a lawyer, so I tend to tune out about 50% of what he says.  But one of his insights has certainly come true.

I don't remember if it was during the Spring or Fall, but I remember that he and I were hanging out in the backyard and I was telling him about my plans to expand the garden.  More space, more veggies, more self-sufficiency...  I bet I listed off all of those great reasons.

Law Talking Guy cautioned me not to make the garden too big.  "Once you take a new job, you won't have time to deal with any of your hobbies".  Boy, was he ever right!  My garden never did get any bigger and that is good.  Because since starting the teaching job (and suffering through the worst drought of my lifetime), the plot has received about 2 afternoons of attention.  I planted one Sunday last Spring.  I pulled out the failed, dry plants a few weeks ago.  And that was about the extent of my garden time this year.

Geocaching on weekends?  Yeah, I haven't even had a minute to maintain my own 'caches that are hidden only a few thousand feet from my couch.  One of them has needed a new log since July (maybe longer...)  I haven't even peeked at the main website in two or three months.  Heck, for all I know someone may have hidden a geocache in my classroom.

The Chickens?  Yeah, they are paying the price, too.  Still have them and they are doing OK, but there is never any time to sit and enjoy them.  I throw out feed in the morning and lock up the coop at night.  Actually, that is not always true, either.  Last week I forgot to close up the coop one night.  We now have one less bird thanks to a neighborhood raccoon/cat/Chupacabra. 


One of the neighbor dudes has bought a 1980's Toyota Land Cruiser.  It is a cool rig.  And watching him work on it every night is kicking me in the gut.  Marge, my 1968 Chevy truck hasn't seen the outside of our garage since Halloween night of last year and she hasn't been on the street since July of 2010.

Heck, this blog seems to get a little attention about once a month now.  And sitting on the couch and typing is something that I OUGHT to be able to handle in the evenings.  An example, I just realized that there was still a link to my old Geocaching blog on the sidebar.  I deleted that blog at least six months ago - maybe even a year ago.  Just got around to removing the dead link today.

There is a lot to like about the new teaching job.  And I am down to my FINAL requirement to complete my certifications.  I have one last state exam to pass and then I'll have my full teaching certificate.  For now I teach on a provisional/emergency certification.  Still, I find it ironic that for the first time in more than a decade, I have a little bit of $ to throw at some hobbies and I have absolutely not a single minute to spare for any of them.

The final Texas Two Step

As of about 16 minutes ago,  I am down to the last two requirements before I finish my full teaching certificate.  I had a stack  of electronic documents I have been needing to submit  since last  spring.  Today I sat down and finally finished all of them.  All that is left is a test review course and one, last state exam.  Hopefully I can knock out the review this week and get  scheduled for the exam by the end  of the month. 

I have  until the end of the semester and normally I WOULD wait  until  the bitter end.  But The Boss Lady wants to go on vacation in November.  And I assume  that  she   would like me to have a paying job  next January, too.  So I guess I better hit the review  books soon.

When I started  this teaching adventure the list of To-do’s did not look too bad.  After the lay off  last Spring, my motivation disappeared and I was not sure how hard I wanted to work on the whole thing.  When I re-hired I was committed to finishing my certification up but the start of this  school year has blown by a LOT quicker than I ever imagined  it might (as evidenced  by my abandoning this blog).  Last week I  had my intern supervisor sign off  that  I would indeed make a decent teacher and that I should receive my certificate. 

So all that is left  is the review and the test.  Bring ‘em on!

Football Season. Let's bounce!

Watching a high school football game with The Talker can tire a dad out.  I should start referring to him as The Bouncer.

No wonder my parent's called me Tigger when I was his age.   All of this came after he was the first Raider Rouser to cross the 50 yard line before kickoff.

It is all adding up to a busy year.

The new school year is off to a bang! I haven't felt this busy (or productive) in a long time. Hopefully the productive part will continue for a while.

I am teaching math to students in three different grades this year. But the reality of a Special Education teacher is that I have students who are able to perform simple 2 digit addition and then I have students who are almost ready for the challenges of a general education classroom with their grade-level peers. So I am actually prepping 5 or 6 different activities and lessons to teach concepts in various levels of detail to all my students.

I spend a pretty good chunk of time each day on paperwork. Like all good public employees, I generate a lot of paper every day. Then we have the usual planning meetings and departmental get-togethers a couple of times a week. Always productive times, especially the Wednesday morning 7:30 am meetings... Yeah, right!

If that wasn't enough, I also go into several grade-level math classes to support other students who may struggle with the math content, but do not need the close structure of a smaller Resource math class.

All of this from a guy who has really never loved math. Or even liked it, really.

My newest role? I will soon be in charge of D-Hall, after school detention. I ill be the teacher who sits in the back of the room who tells the regular scofflaws to "find something to keep yourself busy, or I WILL find something to keep you busy."

Now this is a class that I feel at home with. This feels like a throwback to many, many of my high school after school hours spent in the cafeteria trying to look busy so Mrs. Baumgardener would just leave me alone so serve out my sentence in solitude. With the other few dozen regulars in the room.

Even though it is going to be a busy school year, I am already settling into my new roles. More than anything, I am sure that all of this work is certainly worthwhile, just like the kids.



On the home front, The Princess has a "boy" teacher for her second grade class this year. She has already gotten used to the idea and she is back in the school groove. The Talker has always loved school. His teacher is a science specialist, so he is super-excited to learn everything about science this year.

The Boss Lady is working hard, as always, to keep high school kids IN school. Her team was decimated by budget cuts, but the few that remain have picked up the leftover parts and are getting back into the business of helping students graduate.

Around here we know a new school year is here when everybody is in bed and sacked out before 9:45pm. It is now 10:25 and this is the latest I have been awake in two weeks.

See? I managed to get through all of that and NOT complain about the 112 degree temperatures this week. But I do know that 112 degrees minus 9 degrees equals still-too-dang-hot-out-there!