I do indeed hope to have a merry little Christmas.  As of last night (or actually a little after midnight this morning), I am officially finished with decorating and gift buying.  Or I like to tell myself that.  In actuality, I have to pick up a few stocking stuffers and buy a gift card for Adventure Guy on behalf of my mother.  But, the Christmas tree is purchased and decorated, and there are wrapped gifts underneath it.  I even took pity on Adventure Guy and wrapped the gifts that he still needs to ship to his father and grandmother. 

Friday brought the official start of winter holidays for the kids, making it even harder for me to get excited about my early wakeup call for work tomorrow.  Fortunately, I only have to get through two more days before I take some vacation time myself.  Our offices at All American Public Schools will be closed Friday and all of the following week, so I will have a lovely, long break in trade for only three days of vacation.  Such a deal!

I plan to use that time very wisely by making some Christmas treats, preparing for our traditional Christmas Eve fondue dinner, and hopefully spending quality time in front of the fireplace with a good book. Speaking of books, I just finished reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close after the previews for the upcoming movie intrigued me.  I think I’ll have to recommend it to my book club so that we can discuss it.  I found it an interesting read…not sure I could classify it as enjoyable, though.  I will definitely see the movie.

Add all that in with preparation for Christmas, and I’ve fielded more than my share of stress lately.  So much so that I think it’s finally caught up to me.  I spent last night feeling feverish and today woke up with a lovely cold.  I had to go in to the office to wrap one thing up around noon, but I slept as long as possible before then and headed right back home afterwards.  I am currently cuddled up with the miniature daschund and feeling thankful that I started a pot of Italian Minestrone Soup in the crockpot for dinner. 

My goal is to leave my bed as little as possible until tomorrow when my schedule says I have to be at work no matter what. I will not miss this semster when it ends on Friday.  Not one little bit.

This morning the first hints of fall wafted into Suburbia on a cool breeze that hasn’t shown it’s face around here for months.  And after several days of gray skies and intermittent showers, today brought an absolutely gorgeous bright blue sky complete with a few perfect, wispy white clouds.

In the usual morning hurry, I almost forgot that today was September 11th.  Those bright blue skies should have immediately reminded me.  It was a beautiful autumn day in New York on September 11, 2001, when the planes crashed into the World Trade Center.  Those horrific scenes are etched into my mind, all backed by bright, clear blue skies.

My friend over at The Testosterone Zone asked readers to respond to her post asking where we were on that day and how the events had affected our lives.  If anything, I believe that the events of 9/11 have made me more likely to appreciate the people in my life and to not focus as much on the little things that can make day to day life stressful.  And the reason for that impact actually began on September 10, 2001.

That’s the date that, early in the morning,  Adventure Guy boarded a plane in Boston and flew to San Francisco.  At the time he was working for a telecom company that had its headquarters outside of Boston and its research labs in the Oakland area.  He travelled most of the week and was in so many different places, I often didn’t know his exact location from day to day.  He was always available by cell phone, so the details didn’t seem so important. 

But one detail I will remain ever thankful for is the fact that late on the evening of September 10, Adventure Guy called to tell me that he had made it in safely to San Francisco.  Otherwise, I would have been absolutely panic-stricken when I realized what was happening the next morning, when the news came out that the terrorists were clearly targeting cross-country flights for the hijackings. 

That morning, I was in the office preparing to go to a local conference.  I stepped into the hall on my way out, and our custodian told me that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center.  I didn’t initially think of it as an attack, but rather thought it was an accident, perhaps a small plane that was offtrack in the New York airspace.  I went next door to the Guidance Office where there was a television and watched the developing events in horror.  We were watching as the second plane hit. 

I’ll admit that I was so glued to the television and so secure in the fact that Adventure Guy was already in California, that I didn’t think to call him.  His vivid memory of that day involves being extremely annoyed at his phone ringing at a little after 6:00 a.m. only to answer it and be told by a good friend, “Thank God you’re alive.” 

And every day since then, I’ve tried to remember just how easily our little family here in Suburbia could have lost him.  24 hours made all the difference for us.  And each time I read the tributes and the remembrances for those lost that day, I think of their wives and husbands, parents and children who weren’t so lucky.  And I am always thankful, truly thankful, not see Adventure Guy there among them.

I’d like to say all that time was well-spent.  As usual, though, a few books rose to the top while a few others sunk to the bottom (fortunately, not literally, considering much of this reading occurred poolside). 

Those that rose high:

No, I’m not schizophrenic.  I like to think of it as “eclectic.”  I will admit I tend to gravitate to mysteries/crime fiction when I’m seeking distraction and a bit of an escape via print.  The House at Seas End and The Hypnotist fall into that category nicely.  I found Elly Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series earlier this year, and read the first two books back to back before bemoaning the fact that I’d have to wait for the publication of the third installment.  These books remind me somewhat of Elizabeth George’s early work–back before I had to break up with her for killing off one of my favorite characters unnecessarily.  It’s probably the English setting and the relationship between the female protagonist and a male detective that leads to the comparisons.  In this case, Ruth Galloway is a forensic archaeologist rather than a police officer, but she still gets involved in lots of crime solving with a bit of romance thrown in for good measure.  The Hypnotist also can’t avoid comparison to other well-known books–in this case the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series.  Like those books, The Hypnotist comes to American audiences via translation from the original Swedish.  Those cold winters must lead to lots of opportunity for thinking up crime novel plots.  Dark, twisted, crime novel plots.  I did find this book disturbing in places, but I couldn’t put it down once I started.  Evidently, the authors (a husband/wife team writing under a pen name Lars Kepler) plan a series with their lead character, Detective Joona Linna.  I’ll be reading more.

I did attempt to branch out a bit in my selections, and the next two books on my recommendation list reflect that.  Kevin Roose’s The Unlikely Disciple fits in to another favorite genre of mine–the memoir.  In this case, Roose shares his experiences during the semester he transferred from Brown University to Liberty, the university founded in Lynchburg, Virginia, by Jerry Falwell.  Roose previously interned with one of my favorite writers, A. J. Jacobs, as Jacobs wrote The Year of Living Biblically.  The idea of getting to know young people of the religious right from the inside came to Roose after he visited Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church during his work with Jacobs.   I enjoyed the book both for the peek inside a very different kind of college experience and for Roose’s perspective as someone to whom the beliefs of this segment of our population were completely foreign.  Roose reports that before enrolling at Liberty, he didn’t know anyone who identified himself as a born-again Christian.  Having grown up in the middle of the Bible Belt, it’s hard for me to even imagine not being immersed in a fairly fundamentalist religious climate.  What’s impressive about Roose’s account is that he manages to take in his experiences and tell his story without sounding condescending or painting a one-dimensional picture of his fellow students.

The last book, Sisterhood Everlasting, likely got a four-star rating on its nostalgia factor alone.  I picked up Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants after my middle-school-aged daughter raved about it.  I wanted to find out what had her so intrigued at that juncture between childhood and the teen years.  The books captured so well all the angst that inevitably comes with growing up.  I loved them, and I loved talking to DD1 about them.  The most recent entry in the series comes after a hiatus and catches up with the four main characters as they struggle with life after college and dealing with adulthood.  It’s definitely worth the read if you’ve enjoyed the previous Sisterhood books.

Tune in later this week for the rest of the story…I’ll be reviewing the (not so) bad and the ugly entires on my summer reading list as well.

Years ago, my mother made an annual pilgrimage to Suburbia just to help me with the start-of-school chaos.  The day camp program my kids attended took off the week before school started to do the changeover between summer programs and before/after school programs.  Add in the need to complete the registration process and haul school supplies to classrooms across multiple campuses while towing three children along, and I wasn’t too proud to call in reinforcements.  My mom, a former elementary school teacher, thought catching a glimpse of her precious grandchildren’s classrooms provided plenty of incentive for braving the August heat each year. 

If I could tell 2003 LSM–the one standing in line sweating through a perfectly good outfit–that she’d eventually find herself nostalgic about these events, I’m pretty sure she’d laugh out loud, likely with at least a little tinge of hysteria.

Fortunately, All-American Public Schools spreads the registration/back-to-school events for middle school and high school across a number of days.  DD1 took herself and a pile of signed documents (along, unfortunately, with an equal number of signed checks for various and sundry purchases and fees) to pick up her SENIOR year schedule last Wednesday.  Adventure Guy took Soccer Boy to the middle school that afternoon, where they arranged for his first school ID and delivered his supplies to his locker.  I checked in for duty on Friday since DD2 appeared less than thrilled about my suggestion that she take care of her registration without me.

DD2 likes to remind me that 9th-grade counts as high school.  However, I spent last year in full denial of this detail, since freshmen in our district attend a separate “freshman academy.” This year, there’s no way around the fact that I have two children in high school.  Two in high school, and one in middle school.  Where did the time go?  I think I’d be willing to sweat through a few more Meet The Teacher Days if doing so meant slowing things down just a little. 

Every year as my siblings and I started school, my mother told us she didn’t plan to let us move on to the new grade.  I wonder if I can make that technique  work any better for me than it did for her?

As I type this from my porch, I feel like a refugee just returned home. I spent lots of enjoyable hours outside prior to the record-setting heatwave, reading or writing from the back porch, sitting by the pool. But instant sweat-inducing humidity coupled with pool temperatures reaching 95 degrees made the great outdoors pretty inhospitable for most of the summer.

But it’s not just the weather that made this summer one I likely won’t look back on too fondly. Professionally, the last year is one I hope to forget over the course of a long career. I can’t recall a more antagonistic climate for public education during my twenty years in the field. The combination of a takeover of our state legislature by the conservative faction, the loss of federal stimulus funding, and the reduced allocations for public schools from other sources meant not only struggling to reduce expenditures while maintaining educational standards but aiming to do so while under pressure to meet the unrealistic goals set by No Child Left Behind.

Unlike some in public education, I fully support the move toward making schools accountable for the learning of all students–even those who bring with them the challenges inherent in an impoverished upbringing. What I can never support is the labeling of schools as “failing” if students of poverty, students who have special needs, and students who are learning the English language do not meet the same standards as those without these challenges in exactly the same amount of time.

Some relevant examples from my recent experience analyzing my district’s test scores illustrate the point well. One of our elementary schools will join the dreaded “Needs Improvement List,” complete with the requirements to create a school-wide improvement plan and offer the opportunity for students to transfer to another site in order to escape this “failing” school. Why? Because this school is both large enough to have 30 students in the “subgroup” of English Language Learners, making it “reportable,” and it was unsuccessful in bringing these students up to grade-level in reading after between one and two years here in the United States. Just imagine moving to another country speaking little or none of the native language and taking a test a little over a year later–the same test that is given to students who have lived in your new country their entire lives. You fail? Well, your school must not be doing a good job. And, not only must you have the opportunity to go to a school that might do a better job, but all of the other students must be allowed to do so as well. This requirement exists even though the school has overall test scores that rank it in the top 10 percent in the state and the scores of the English Language Learners are actually higher than the state average as well.

We also have schools in jeopardy of joining the school described above if they do not make “Adequate Yearly Progress” this school year. Why? This time, it’s due to another “subgroup,” students with special needs. The twist here, however, isn’t quite the same. A complex flowchart allows IEP teams to determine whether a student should take the same state-mandated test as students not on an IEP or a “modified” version that better reflects modifications received during instruction. Schools and IEP teams receive instructions to use modified tests for all students who qualify using this process. This sounds good. Students are tested fairly and judged based on their individual needs. Schools receive feedback on how well their special education programs work. What could go wrong?

Bureaucracy, that’s what. To stave off schools over-qualifying students for modifications, only 2 percent of the student population may have their modified tests count “as is.” For the rest, any “satisfactory” scores above the 2 percent cap move back to “limited knowledge,” a nicer word for “failing.” The problem? Our district has approximately 16 percent of our students identified as having special needs. Many more than 2 percent of these students receive modified instruction or assessment. Why should the schools be penalized for allowing these students modifications? And, how do we explain to the public that our students passed their tests, but then they didn’t because of a loophole and some obscure method of calculating school performance.

Is it any wonder that the Secretary of Education gave up this week and declared he wouldn’t wait any longer for a Congressional fix to this mess? Is it any wonder I don’t hold out a huge amount of hope that what comes next will be better?

But wonder is exactly what I want. I want kids to wonder about how things work. I want kids to wonder what they might do if faced with the same situation as their favorite literary character. I want kids to wonder how it felt to live in a time when people crossed oceans and continents without benefit of airplanes, GPS, and instant Internet access.

It’s that kind of wonder that not only increases learning but creates the kind of people who lead lives future generations will wonder at. I’ve never known wondering which bubble to fill in to do the same.

I blame my iPad. Love it though I do, I don’t find it compatible with efficient blogging. Using the WordPress app for composing doesn’t allow me to post links or pictures with the ease of my laptop. I also vastly prefer using a keyboard for typing rather than a touchpad. Even though I can set up my wireless keyboard if an impromptu blogging inspiration hits me, I don’t typically go to that extent in the evening when I’m just running through my Google feed, checking Facebook, and playing a few rounds of Words With Friends. I know. I lead an exciting life.

But today’s daily post, idea inspired me. The topic? How to get more traffic to your blog. While I recommend reading the whole post, I’ll highlight a few points here that resonated for me.

1. Update your About Page. WordPress suggests keeping the About Me section of your blog up-to-date so that readers happening by have an ideas of what your space is all about. Hmm…my tag line says “Life in general encompasses three kids, one husband, three dogs, and a job in school administration.” That pretty much sums it up, but I realize this blog covers a range of topics. I don’t consider myself a mommy blogger, though I write about parenting and my kids. I don’t consider myself an education blogger, though I certainly discuss that topic as I navigate my way professionally during these trying financial and political times. I also throw in a few book reviews and recipes along the way, reflecting my interest in spending my free time reading and cooking. Did I mention I’m in grad school and about half-way through a doctoral program. Yeah, that keeps me busy too, though I don’t devote much blog time to it.
2. Take Requests. WordPress suggests asking readers what they want to read more about. So, what would you like to read more about? Are there some things about my scattered life that you like hearing about more than others? More recipes? More books? More specific posts about kids or work. Maybe even more talk about that elusive “balance” category?
3. Write Well. Yes, this one is a challenge. I know I’ve had posts that are more inspired than others. Here are a few I’m particularly pleased with from the past. I’ll let you find the less-than-stellar ones on your own!

Lately, besides my love of the iPad for reading but not writing, I think my lack of inspiration stems both from the oppressive heat that has wracked Suburbia this summer as well as a work and grad school schedules that made grabbing time off difficult. After all, I’ve spent most of my “leisure” time dragging a sprinkler or hose around the yard trying to make up for the lack of performance from our built-in system, which is failing to keep up with the toll this extreme heat is taking on our trees and bushes. Well, that or throwing blocks of ice into the pool in a futile attempt to drop the water temperature below 95 degrees.

Okay, okay. This is what my backyard looked like in February. (It makes me feel better, somehow, just looking at it now).

And, yes, I remember promising I wouldn’t complain once summer arrived, but back then it was hard to imagine over thirty days and counting of temperatures that top 100 degrees. I definitely didn’t count on witnessing my car thermometer reading 118 on multiple occasions. I must note I do not live in Arizona, and here in Suburbia, we have the benefit of humidity to go along with these record-setting readings.

Now that I’ve made plenty of excuses, and asked for a little assistance in getting back in the game, I really do plan to follow a last bit of helpful advice from WordPress: post regularly. Leave me a comment if you’ve actually hung in here with me. I’d love to hear the things you’d like to know more about!

Both of those things happened this morning. I slept in until after eight, the latest I’ve managed on this week of vacation that involved so much driving and making early college visit appointments. I also just dunked myself in the pool prior to sitting down on my porch to compose this post. The part I didn’t imagine last year? That swim came after I’d watered all my plants, sweated out weeding the grass from the rock border, and picked up the monumental collection of poop our dogs managed to generate in two days. There are multiple reasons I miss the kids when they are at camp. Somewhere in that ranking is the fact that I end up doing their chores while they are gone. I’m not going to comment on the actual order of those reasons at this particular point.

DD1 and I arrived home from the college visit trip on the evening of my wedding anniversary. Adventure Guy and I celebrated by taking DD1 with us to our favorite family Thai restaurant (you know you’re a regular when the hostess greets you by saying, “Mr. AG! It’s been so long! We haven’t seen you for nearly a week.”) Dinner gave DD1 an opportunity to fill Adventure Guy in on all the details of the trip and her thinking about the schools. The short version: Arkansas and Kansas are in, Missouri and Kansas State are out. DD1 actually enjoyed her Kansas State visit and the university, but for those of you who have never been to Manhattan, Kansas, let me just say it should be in the dictionary under “the middle of nowhere.” DD1 just couldn’t picture herself living there for four years.

The rest of the weekend’s events proved much more exciting for the rest of my family than for me. DD1 spent time with her boyfriend and then worked all day yesterday. Adventure Guy lived up to his name by running his first ultra marathon (that’s two marathons put together, yes 52.4 miles). He started running at midnight Saturday morning and finished at 3:00 p.m. Did I mention it was 106 degrees yesterday. He had hoped to finish the race by noon. I knew that was an optimistic goal, so I didn’t worry much until I hadn’t heard from him by two. He really concerned me when I got two calls, one to my cell and the next to the home phone, from his number with no one responding when I answered. Fortunately, he called back to say, “I can’t hear you, but if you can hear me, I’m finished and I’m heading home.” His iPhone got so overheated on the run it was malfunctioning. Needless to say, he didn’t do much the rest of the day but sleep and nurse the painful looking blisters and chaffing he acquired despite all his usual precautions against them.

When your husband thinks running over fifty miles is a fun and reasonable thing to do, its hard not to feel like a slug regarding one’s own weekend activities. I did feel fairly productive, however, since I managed to make it out to the farm store for the fresh corn that’s finally in season and then on to the grocery store and the artisan bread store in preparation for tonight’s planned dinner with Adventure Guy’s step-brother and his family. I even whipped up some of my favorite blackberry ice cream from The Pioneer Woman’s recipe and made a roasted vegetable dip to serve tonight from the plethora of zucchini and squash I still had on hand from my last co-op order. To top it off, and because I felt really sorry for Adventure Guy, I finally made him his favorite cake–angel food filled with chocolate pudding and iced with whipped cream–that I’d promised him since we skipped it on his birthday in May.

The good news is now that most of the shopping and cooking happened yesterday and the yard maintenance is done for today, I have nothing left to do until a little before the scheduled four o’clock arrival of our company. I think I’ll try to get back to a more ideal version of that picture I imagined last year, the one that involves my lying around at the pool reading.

So far, we’ve visited the University of Arkansas and the University of Missouri. I’m typing from our hotel room now, having sampled some excellent homemade ice cream at a local Lawrence, Kansas spot. Tomorrow, we learn more about the University of Kansas.

But we’ve already learned some valuable things on this trip. We travel well together, just the two of us. DD1 can handle herself in unexpected rush-hour traffic (note to self, it would have been better to time arriving in Kansas City some time other than 5:00 p.m.). Maids are not likely to turn in your expensive Chaco sandals that were left under the hotel room bed, even if you realize your mistake a few hours later and call the hotel prior to leaving town.

And most importantly, sometimes you just know if a school is a good fit or not. Sometime you just know, and even more importantly you should always listen to that little voice that leads you in the right direction. I’ll keep you posted as to what direction that voice takes DD1 next year.