A bit of a blow

At the end of August, we welcomed into our home an exchange student from Brazil.  She was having a hard time adjusting.  I realized this and did everything I could think of to help her along.  I thought things were going along pretty well.  After dropping her off at school on Monday, I was thinking of some of the things I could do with her this week, and I was determined to look up a Brazilian recipe and try to cook something that she would like.

Monday evening, we were expecting the local representative for the program to come to our house and give us some orientation.  Instead, she came to our home, told us that our student was unhappy and wanted to leave our home. 

CRASH!

What? One moment we were talking about school and soccer like normal and the next moment we are told that she doesn't want to stay with us any longer? (It's because we had rules about her curfew and she didn't like that.)

I was hurt.  I was personally attacked.  They phrased it to us like, "You guys have been great, but you are very different from what she is use to at home and she has requested to be moved to another family."  Let me tell you, I felt like someone had just slugged me in the stomach.

She left yesterday evening.  I spent yesterday (Tuesday) very hurt.  By evening, I was over the hurt and I was angry.  Today, has been better.  I've been able to think about things more clearly and realize that my hurt and anger were well founded.  What the local rep. and our student did to us was completely out of line.  My husband and I had no idea this was going to happen.  The rep should have worked with us.  She should have said, your student is having these issues, lets decided what we can do to help her.  Her job was to help us work through problems and instead, she created a lot more.

I could go on and on and if you really want to hear the entire story, just ask, but be prepared, it's a long, crazy story.

So, we are back to our regular family again.  The Hubby has already suggested that we consider getting another student.  I said NO THANK YOU!  I'm not doing that again.

OK, I've gotten this off my chest.  Thanks for letting me rant a bit.  You can go back to your lives citizens.

The insanity that is creative thinking

My mother is an amazing person. She taught me, while I was a young child, the insanity that is creative thinking. As a 10 year old, I participated in a school activity that involved 50 mouse traps. Now, imagine giving six kids ages 10-12, fifty mouse traps, several hot glue guns and a lot of green paint. That is just what my mom did. It was part of a creative thinking competition. We had to take those mouse traps and glue them down to a wooden board. Those mouse traps had to perform a chain reaction of events, like ring a bell. In a matter of weeks, I snapped my fingers, my toes, and my rear end more times than I can count. We burned our fingers on hot glue and learned real fast how not to use a hot glue gun. We didn’t do well in the competition, but I’ve never forgotten the tremendous amount of fun that insane little project was.


My mother was a school teacher. Teachers are very creative people. She was also a camp leader for several summers, a principal, a Cub Scout leader, Girl Scout leader, and so many other things. From her, I learned that to solve some problems in life, you must think creatively, and to think creatively, you sometimes have to be a little crazy.

Two weeks ago, after visiting the location for my theater, I realized that I would have no area for “off stage”. The auditorium wasn’t built for theater. What to do? I got creative. I bought some black sheets, got a lot of PVC pipe, and some scrap wood. I built a frame to hold the sheets that would create a curtain for us to hide behind when off stage. My first design didn’t work. I had to make the PVC poles shorter. As I was out in my backyard, struggling to get the pipe frame put together, I thought of my mother. I thought of how completely crazy I was trying to build a portable six foot tall frame to hold a sheet up. Several times the pipes slipped out of their joints, hitting me in the head or the knuckles. I would chuckle to myself about how much my mother would love this. I wished she had been there to help me fight those silly PVC pipes.

My mom and I came up with a great idea for a new TV show: Projects in your Pajamas! We’ve done so many home projects in our pajamas – house painting, replacing toilet seats, cutting drywall, and caulking bathtubs. It would be a great TV show – two crazy ladies in their pajamas, trying to do home improvement projects. You should have seen Mom and I five days after my youngest was born. We were both in our pajamas, standing on the kitchen counters painting the cupboards. “Insane,” you may say! Yes, we were.

I’ve worked my way through problems in life with the crazy art that is creative thinking. I think it could also be described as making-it-up in your way through life when you don’t know what else to do. Be flexible, think outside the box, laugh along the way and the most amazing things can happen.

The Garden

We have no yard. Apparently, in the neighborhood we live in, no one is allowed to have a front yard, just rocks. Then, because we live in a rented house, the owner decided it would be easier to have no back yard either, just rocks.

Last year I heard for the first time about square foot gardening. This idea intrigued me and I wanted to try it out this year since I have a serious lack of yard for a garden. We've modified things a bit from the "book" on square foot gardening for our circumstances. My dear hubby, received some free lumber, and with it, he built me 6 square foot crates. We are planting 2 cucumbers, two tomatoes, nine onions and 18 green beans.

In the tire, here in this picture, is several potato plants. I'm really hoping they grow. I want potatoes.

Here are several of the square foot planters:

In the white trash can is another potato plant. I heard you can grow them like this, so I'm giving it a whirl. Being new to this desert climate, I don't know if the black tires or the white trash can will be better. It can get so hot here in the summer, the white container might be better for the plants. It is an experiment and I'm very excited to see what the results will be in about 3 months.

This last picture is from Easter. It shows what leaving a hollow, chocolate bunny, in a car, parked in a desert climate for 24 hours will do. As you can see, it isn't pretty, but my son insisted that it was still tasty.

Silly the Clown

We are in homeschool week 5. We are still having fun, but the realization of doing this every day for the rest of the school year is really beginning to dawn on me. I started knowing that I would do it everyday, but today I was thinking how nice it would be to take a break and play or walk or do something else and knowing that all my wants would have to wait until school was done. It's OK, I'm still really enjoying it. (things would be easier if my two younger kids were a bit better)

So, today, I was following a neat set of lessons I found. It said, have the student make his own clown. Then describe the clown and make up a story about the clown. Encourage creativity. Alright! This is something I love to do. Well, Son built the clown. I asked him constructive questions about the clown.

Does your clown have a name? Silly.

OK, does Silly have a hat? No.

Does Silly have hands and feet? Yes.

Tell me something that Silly likes to do. Ummmm.... I don't know.

What makes Silly happy? Ummm...I don't know.

OK, (I start to panic a bit) how would Silly rake leaves? Ummm... with a metal thing on the

bottom and the wood poking up.

Yes, that is how you rake, but would Silly do it in a funny way or would he rake like Dad rakes? Yeah.

I go around in circles with various questions trying to get a creative or articulate answer out of him. Finally I say, Pretend you are Silly, now show me how you would rake the leaves. Son does a little dance. YES!

What are you doing? Raking leaves

Right, but how are you doing it? What makes the way you rake leaves different? I'm doing a dance.

YES! You are doing a dance. Now, tell me a story about Silly doing a dance when he rakes leaves. Ummmm.....

Inside I'm thinking ARGHHHH!

I wish my mom were here. She would know the way to get him to think and talk. I talked to hubby about this today. He told me to forget the clown and next time have him tell a story about his Guild Wars character (a computer game that Son loves to play). That makes sense. I'll try that next time.

Don't send in the clowns.