Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. Did you know there is a National Day of pretty much everything in the universe? February 23 happens to be National Inconvenience Yourself Day…when was the last time you were inconvenienced?

I guess I am lucky or maybe I just go with the flow, so I don’t consider myself inconvenienced often. In fact, I have to think back to last summer when I took Anneliese to Germany. I was in New York and I had to get from LaGuadia Airport to JFK and I was in a Taxi driven by a man who for religious reasons hated dogs. He made sure that I was inconvenienced and uncomfortable the entire trip. I don’t often get angry about things, but this just ticked me off!

2. When a room in your house needs painting who does the job?

Me. I am the painter. In fact, this summer, my plan is to repaint our bath, our bedroom, our family room and kitchen. We also need to paint the trim on the house, and I bet I will get stuck doing that. This will be the summer of shorts tank tops and paint stains.

3. Are you friends with your cousins?

We are a very small family and I only have a few cousins, so I try to remain close to them all. One of my cousins, Janet is one of my best and closest friends. She is a year older than me, and we were raised closely. In many ways I feel like she is a sister to me. I know, no matter what, Janet will always be there for me.

4. Do you use an alarm clock? If yes-is it an actual alarm, music, or something else?

If I have to go somewhere then yes, I do use an alarm clock, but….I always wake up before the alarm clock. In fact if I have to go somewhere I usually can’t sleep well the night before, for fear that the alarm will not wake me and I will be late. I have a terrible phobia about being late.

5. What do you put ketchup on?

Scrambled eggs, french fries, hamburgers, and meatloaf.

6. What smells make you nostalgic?

The smell of baking bread or snickerdoodle cookies makes me think of times spent with my children. I love the scent of wood fires burning in the hearth. That just makes me feel nostalgic, and the scent of the ocean makes me think of home, as I was raised on Cape Cod.

7. Have you heard about the high school English teacher recently suspended as a result of some things she wrote in her personal blog? You can read the story here but in a nutshell she vented a lot of frustration onto her blog. She didn’t mention individual students by name but she did make some harsh comments about kids in general and their parents.

What are your thoughts-If you’re a parent is your child’s teacher online and are you ‘friend’ or ‘follower’ there? If you’re a teacher are you on facebook and do you accept or friend students on fb? How about their parents? If you’re a student are you friends with your current or former teachers online? Do any of them have blogs you read? If you’re a teacher or a parent do you ever use your blog as a place to vent your frustrations with our educational system? So much to discuss…

I understand that teachers have personal lives, and that’s what they should be…personal. I do not think it is acceptable for a teacher to speak about her students or her job on Facebook. In fact I would advise her or him not to friend any parent or student. No student should be friended until they are out of the school system (read that: graduated). My Dad was a teacher and he did not speak about individual students (or parents) to us. I would have been disappointed in him, if he had. When he passed away we heard from so many former students, whom he had helped. Perhaps the Facebook Teacher should find a different profession.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

You all know I have been praying and following the recovery of my blog friend, Joanne.

She is making great strides at the rehab facility. Each and every day I check her blog to learn more about her condition. The most wonderful part of her recovery is that they have found that Joanne is there. She is full of good humor. Not that she is thrilled to be in the condition that she is, but bless her, she is fighting back and with the love and prayers and help of her family and friends, I hope her outcome will be a good one.

Her family is so supportive. If you go HERE you can see a post written by Joanne’s sister, Kristen. Take a moment as you can not only see Joanne’s beautiful handwriting, but there is a story there about Joanne’s niece, Ava. It is beautifully written.

Her husband wrote that if just one person can find God because of what Joanne and her family have been though, then it will all have been worth it. You see, Joanne’s condition was so severe, no one really knew if she would live. Then the question, would she come out of the coma? If she did, would she be the Joanne that they all loved and knew?

Prayer, prayer, prayer!

I believe in the power of prayer, and watching Joanne’s progress has truly deepened my faith in God!