Accountability

Our local high school is undergoing a series of staff cuts and changes as a result of a waning student population. Generally, the lowest man on the totem pole is the first to go, but some of the internal shifts of position are actually holding some teachers accountable for what they are teaching (or failing to teach).

In my almost eight years of teaching in a variety of schools, not once has someone actually verified that I could speak French. I have been evaluated a few times, but always with warning. Fortunately, I care about what I do and work hard to make sure my students are learning something, but that is certainly not the case with a lot of instructors. And when called on the carpet for not doing one's job (something that doesn't often happen), those teachers aren't too pleased.

Well, I heard on Monday that the Spanish teacher at our local high school was no longer going to be teaching Spanish, but is being moved to another position. It was well known when I was a student that her teaching style was one that focused on culture rather than language, and she was incredibly popular--far more than the French and Latin teachers--as her class was, well, easy. Her recent change in position was after this same woman had a conversation with one of her best Spanish 4 students who was placed into Spanish 1 once he got to college. Not a good recommendation for her teaching methods. How she couldn't take that information to heart baffles me. But it took a shift in the academic administration and someone who doesn't care what people think of him in order to make a change. Wouldn't it have been better to have someone talk to her 15 years ago to make her program more rigorous? This a woman who was the head of the language department a few years ago. What a shocker it must have been to be demoted so dramatically because no one has ever held her accountable for what she taught.

As a teacher, I definitely like the freedom to teach how and what I feel is the most appropriate, but that freedom is often abused. A lot of the regulations identifying someone as a 'highly qualified teacher' are not fixing the problem, either--it's too often the teacher who slacks off in the classroom who is willing to jump through all of the hoops to be considered qualified on paper. More personal involvement by the administration is key and being willing to give a negative evaluation is absolutely necessary. How else can we improve?

In other news, I made English muffins. Very easy and very yummy!

Amazing

Our friend Chris took a series of pictures of the lunar eclipse and made this collage. Pretty cool, I think.

It's amazing what you can do with photography. I don't think our camera has these kind of capabilities, but I don't either. I point the camera and click the button. No real sense of angle or what makes a good picture. The beauty of digital is that you can take lots and lots of shots and hope that one or two comes out, so every once in a while I'm lucky.

In other news, my brother and his family, my mother, and my cousin and his girlfriend were over this weekend. I don't know about anyone else, but I had a blast! It was so nice to see my cousin (it's been years) and my two nephews in particular. Axel was quite unhappy after being woken up from the car ride and didn't break out of his mood until fortune smiled on us and brought another coyote to bark in the yard. It was like a long lost friend! Axel thought it was pretty cool, too, and really opened up for the rest of the weekend.

Sunday, we spent some time outside after dinner and had a grand time with the sled Timmy got for Christmas. Axel and Oskar had a ride together and then Timmy had a go with it, Dave pushing the kids along. When Dave stopped, Timothy started moving his whole body, not wanting to stop. We went out again today and he was as comfortable as could be.

It has been nice--the last couple weekends we've done a Sunday dinner at our house. In some ways, it was a lot of work, but it feels so good to be with family. I love that tradition and hope to carry it on, even if not every Sunday.

Anyway, here's a picture from today's outing.

This time

First of all, the picture here is the night of the eclipse, just a couple hours earlier. The light shining on the icy snow was just beautiful.

In other news, I just used the last carrot we saved from our garden. And last week, the last jar of strawberry jam. The week before that, the last frozen beans. We still have some pickles, corn, blueberries and strawberries, but we're getting low. We're starting to receive seed catalogues in the mail, and I am already planning on what we're going to do differently for this summer's garden.

It should help that we won't have a newborn, I'll say that! But given everything, we were pretty successful at keeping the weeds down. This is what I know for this year, however:

-more raised beds
-enough corn for us AND the raccoons
-a separate garden for Shawn's many giant pumpkins
-starting tomatoes and peppers from seeds doesn't work--just skip that step and buy some plants
-more onions--we finished what we had before the summer was up
-plant the brussel sprouts earlier--the little balls were forming just as we got our first frost
-more winter squash and turnip--enough to make up for all the turnip I scorch because I forgot to watch the water level in the pan

I'm so excited for our garden. And for summer. And for warmth. So that we can ready ourselves for another winter, I guess.

We've had quite a year of snow. We're close to breaking total winter snowfall records and we haven't even hit March yet. It really is beautiful, I must admit, and the day of these pictures was one of those days that you are lucky to have even once a winter. It was absolutely gorgeous and not terribly cold the way blue sky days tend to be in the middle of winter.

With all of the snow and ice, we've had quite a few challenges with our driveway, often not making it up with our 2 wheel drive car, and almost always having guests end up park at the bottom and walk up a very steep, slippery driveway. Because of this constant stress, we've started to look at trading our Mazda in for a rebuilt small 4 wheel drive Subaru. I feel a little, while not bad, not good either, about the fact that we have chosen to live in a place that necessitates an all wheel drive vehicle. It is not as environmentally friendly as another car might be; if we lived in town, we could do much more without a vehicle at all.

But then I experience a day like this past Thursday. And yesterday. And, well, every day pretty much, and I am so happy with our choice. I know we need to make a concerted effort in other ways to live smartly and green, but I'm willing to deal with the driveway issues to live where we do.

This last picture is off our front porch from a couple days ago. There's actually even more now. I used to think it was cool when my brother and I could jump off our front porch because the snow piles weren't too far down... now we'd need to climb up!

Tastes

Yes, that is actually an onion. Go figure. My kid likes raw onion, but dinner time is a bit of a struggle right now. He is tired of super-smooth textures, but isn't altogether ready for a lot of what Shawn and I eat either. It's been interesting--we went through a lot of different options today, few of which were very successful.

And I don't buy what the books say--"Babies palates develop based on what you feed them." Well, this is probably true to a certain extent--Timmy is certainly going to eat whole-grain breads and plain yogurt and non-sugared cereals and hopefully he'll develop a taste for them. But, I think those foods that aren't good for us are extremely tempting for a reason--they can taste really good! I made croissants yesterday (they didn't last long enough for a picture... I'll make more!) and gave the little guy a flaky bit. He was in love with it and kept smacking his lips for more, straining his neck and reaching toward me and my still warm pain au chocolat.

So, onion and croissants. I wonder how many times he'll have to try green beans before he actually likes them.

Little Pele

Timothy has discovered mobility and he absolutely loves it. He reaches up one or two hands when he wants my help, but otherwise he is cruising from chair to ottoman to cabinet to chair again with a gleeful look on his face. Today, he was so excited to get to one of the chairs in the living room, he forgot to hold on and managed to walk four steps on his own!

One of his new favorite games is walking around, holding my hands, and kicking a ball in front of him. The dogs have a tennis ball they play with, and Timothy is pretty enthralled by it as well. He walks (pretty darn fast, I might add) toward the ball and as soon as reaches it, he kicks it! It is no fluke either, as we spend a good deal of time during the day chasing and kicking the ball. To be honest, his aim and ability to make contact with the ball is far better at 8 1/2 months than mine has ever been.

Yeah, we have a future star on our hands. I can just feel it!

Over the stream and through the field

Shawn's grandmother lives really close... just over the ridge from us, actually. It takes about the same amount of time to get Timothy secured into the car and then drive over as it does to walk. Well, close to it, anyway. As we headed over on Saturday, it made me so happy to be making the trek rather than hop in the car--I love that Timothy is able to walk to Nana's house and hope that he'll be able to for quite a while longer. The picture here is the snowshoe path we've made--it looks quite distinct in person, although the photo doesn't really show how cool it looks!

It's been a really snowy year this winter and I am thankful for our snowshoes. Timothy seems to enjoy our outings and hums along thoughout most of the walks. The dogs get rather frisky on the walks, and he has a blast watching them wrestle and chase each other. I have to say, however, that I am beginning to look forward to a little warmer weather, as the wind and cold turn that humming into squawking and screaming. It is only 1 degree and quite windy this morning, so I see us all forgoing our daily walk.

Timmy took his first step yesterday--pretty amazing. He takes one step and on the second, teeters forward into my arms, but he is making incredible progress. Again, this makes me so excited for the summer when we can run and play in the yard--it's going to be so much fun!

For now, though, I know we have a solid month of very solid winter, even though the sun is rising before 7:00 again! I need to keep enjoying it, but it's hard to not count down the days until it is a little less cold and a little less snowy and a little less dark.

Slowing down

Some days seem simply frenetic for me--I try to fit too much into a mere 24 hours at times. They're always things I want or need or should do. And I really enjoy it all, too (well, cleaning the bathrooms leave a little to be desired, but I love how they sparkle when clean). Other days are just right--well paced, perhaps.

Saturday, I tried to fit a lot into the morning. Our friends Chris and Wendy were coming up from New Hampshire, but since I hadn't gone out the day before because of crazy weather and freezing rain, I needed to run a bunch of errands before they arrived. I had gone four places before running into the Kingdom Sports store in St. Jay, hoping to find a particular birthday present for my brother-in-law. I was successful, but the internet was down at the store and the man working had to run my credit card through the old fashioned way. While I was waiting, another man working started talking and said how it was kind of nice in a way--it forced us to slow down a little and actually chat with each other. And we had a nice chat, too! He's right. We have designed our lives to avoid dealing with others in the pursuit of simplifying--ah, to fit more into our already hectic lives!

It reminds me of the Little Prince when someone tried to sell him a pill that would allow him to not spend time drinking water. Think of all the time you'd save, he said. The response of the little blond traveler was that he would take all those saved minutes and search for a well of water.

So, I took my time yesterday and made this loaf of bread. I think it was worth it.

Super Tuesday

I am really excited about the entire electoral process this year. Actually, it's the first time I have ever paid much attention to the primaries. I've listened to results but never felt entirely vested in the whole process, and pretty much felt like the worst candidate from each side would be the chosen one. Pretty depressing, but definitely true. A month ago, I was sure the same would be true. I could just picture having to choose between Hillary and Huckabee. But, each step of the way has been exciting this election year--who would have thought we'd be where we are right now? Each caucus and primary has captured my attention and I've sat rapt awaiting the results. And what's going to happen today? I can barely wait.

It's interesting that the case is so incredibly different with the students in my class. Last week, I asked how many were planning to vote this November and only about 20% raised their hands. I was disheartened to hear that they didn't think their vote really mattered nor did they care that much. One student (whom I was particularly surprised didn't plan on voting) said he heard that Mickey Mouse got more votes than some of the candidates on the ballot. It was hard to convince them otherwise, particularly when they don't plan on voting in local elections either where each vote counts a lot.

So, I wonder, is it this election that is getting me interested in the whole thing or am I just reaching an age where I care more? Sure, I've voted since I turned 18, but it really has been only recently that I've paid attention to the primaries or felt truly excited by the process. Will these young people begin to feel differently as they get older too?

I hope so. If only for them to feel compelled somehow by something outside their own protected box. Not to say that I step out of my own as often as I could, but it's easier to see in others, isn't it?

Anyway, I can't wait for the polls to close. I think I'll be missing my bedtime tonight.

Formation

Timothy loves to be in the kitchen with me. This is a good thing, because we spend a lot of time in there. He particularly likes the appliances that move and make noise. Actually, I say that, but he loves pots and pans, flour, whisks and spatulas, watching things cook on the stove, you name it. He really enjoys when we make bread as many of these elements come together. He pulls fistfuls of flour out of my bowl, attempts to pull himself up on the mixer, and helps me knead the dough as you can see from the above picture.

I know that I really have very little say about who Timothy turns out to be--what his personality is, what he likes to do--but I wonder how much our daily activities will impact him. I don't want to pressure Timmy to be anything beyond respectful and hard-working, but will he love to bake because we spend so much time together baking? I can't help but hope so. Don't we all want to see a piece of ourselves in our children? It'll be fun to see who our determined little boy turns into--we certainly catch glimpses of his developing personality. I think we are going to have our hands full, whatever he ends up liking!