Month: September 2007

Today has not been a good day for focusing. About lunch time I looked around and realized that I have the pieces of 6-7 projects laying around because I got them out, started work, then wandered away, and never went back. I’ve got laundry on the bed partially folded. I’ve got two books that I started today. I’ve got pictures for The Terraport Wars laying out because I was going to scan them all. I’ve got a birthday cake baked, but not frosted. I’ve got a birthday party partially planned. I’ve got birthday presents partially wrapped. There is probably something else as well, but I won’t remember what it is until I trip over the pieces of it.

I’m pretty sure that this is just a reaction to the high-focused stress I was under Monday through Thursday. Unfortunately I’ve been in this same state for three Fridays in a row. I’m beginning to think that I just need to expect Friday to be an unproductive day and plan around that. We’ll see. For now I need to clean up a few of my messes, kick myself into gear, and make sure that Link has a happy family party this evening.

This was a long day. Many things happened that are deserving of their own entertaining/enlightening entries. I’m too tired to write them all tonight and since tomorrow and Saturday look just as full they may never get written at all. So here is the cliff’s notes version.

I got up late and scrambled to get the kids out the door.

The morning was spent scraping together a last few edits for the Schlock book. We should have a new version to look at tomorrow. Then there will probably be more edits. At least the “to edit” lists keep getting smaller and smaller. I also spent time doing accounting. I paid all the bills, looked at incoming bills, and counted how much money remained. The answer is “not very much.” We need to move back into full frugal mode until we have money from the book. We’ll evaluate again after that. At least I discovered that I had squirreled away several pairs of shoes for Link which are now the right size. This is a relief because he was down to one pair of barely-fitting shoes.

I then took Patches with me to the dollar store to buy prizes for Link’s party. This turned out to be a problem later when Gleek was devastated that I’d gone to the dollar store without her. We resolved the issue by having her come along with me when I went on a different errand and we stopped at the dollar store on the way home. She browsed everything cheerfully, then bought gum with her own money and we came home.

I got fingerprinted this afternoon. That particular errand took 2 hours out of my day. They have a very cool scanning device so that ink is no longer required for this process. Gleek watched fascinated and to be honest so did I. On the way home Gleek examined her fingers. Then we discussed finger prints and hand prints and the fact that police sometimes use finger prints to find bad guys. Then we discussed toe prints and hand creases and the blue veins that are under the skin. Then we talked about what it would be like if our veins weren’t bendable. Then the conversation morphed into an impromptu a cappella song about our bodies and how glad we are that we’re bendable and that people don’t steal our bones.

All day I’d been trying to settle myself into a frugal mindset, the one where I think twice before buying anything. One of the ways that this was expressed the first year after Howard quit Novell was by baking. I couldn’t afford to buy treats for the kids, so I made treats instead. Today I made cookies. I made a big batch and made each cookie smaller than I usually do. I had enough to let the kids eat some, have some for bedtime snack, pack some for lunches, and give some away. I also made dinner.

Then I simultaneously managed homework time and Kiki’s crisis over a friendship. I listened to Kiki, provided information that she may not have had before, made a few suggestions, and tried to help her not let her emotions spin out of control. Kiki was very mature about analyzing what was going on and trying to figure out how she wanted to proceed. I watched her struggle and could see the path I would choose out of the difficulty, but my choice would be made on the basis of years of experience with personal interactions. The path is clear to me because I’ve walked similar paths many times before. The path was not clear to Kiki. I knew the path she took would be a stronger, surer path if she blazed it for herself. If I let her find her own answers then she will learn things that will make the next situation easier for her to deal with. So I tried to put up signposts to give hints about what the road might be like down various paths, but I didn’t tell her which path to take. She picked a good path all on her own. I can see that it is a good path, but she can’t yet and so she’s still all in knots this evening.

Then there were cookies and Harry Potter read aloud.

Next will be bedtime.

This morning: We learned that our layout guy is ready to move on to other things and will not be able to do any further books for us once this project is done.

Around noon: We learned that a large chunk of money that we’ve been expecting for three months is never going to come.

Afternoon, 5 minutes before the start of den meeting: I learned that I am no longer allowed to bring Gleek and Patches with me to cub scouts because they run amok and are a liability issue.

Things come in threes.

I hope this means I can be done with bad news for awhile.

Last night I was so tense my shoulders wanted to crawl up behind my ears. (This phrase is totally stolen from my friend SomebodyStrange, but it is so accurately descriptive of my current state of being, that this is the second time I’ve used it in 24 hours.) I survived the meeting about my creative writing class without incident. Link liked his new art class. I navigated dinner and getting the kids into beds before departing for writers group. My drive coincided with a huge storm front so I drove for 20 minutes dodging blown debris, watching street lamps flicker out, and playing “where is my lane?” through driving rain while simultaenously trying to find the road I wanted to turn onto.

Writers group went well. I knew I was not in a good emotional place to process the commentary that was made, so I just made notes. I’ll look over the notes and assess the situation on a day when I won’t take every comment as evidence that I should just give up this whole writing thing. That emotional state has far more to do with my current level of stress than anything that was said. After the commenting period was over there was an enjoyable conversation in which I got to participate, but mostly I just basked as intelligent conversation bandied around me. I was able to just sit without once having to get up and fetch something for a small person.

I was well and truly tired by the time I got home. I crashed into bed like a wet spaghetti noodle. Then Patches woke me up 10 times during the course of the night. Then I got up and began the morning hustle. Then I checked my email and learned that our wonderful layout guy has decided that as soon as he’s done with this book, he is also done being a layout guy. The solution is that I have to learn InDesign so that I can do the layout for the next book. I hustled the kids off to school, and my internal spring went TWANG. Apparently you can only wind those things so tight before they break. Go figure.

Once Howard picked up all my pieces and put me back together, we focused very closely on the problems for today. I’ll deal with tomorrow’s problems tomorrow. Today doesn’t have any insurmountable problems in it. First on the agenda was food. Howard provided some. Second was sleep. I went back to bed.

I slept for 3 hours. I dreamed that I was part of a play. I had to be in costume and redo my hair for it, but I was also expected to learn dance steps. Only the rehearsal rooms kept moving around and I had piles of stuff on the stage that had to be moved and I had to get in line to get a badge because the play was today.

Yeah. Having to perform, while feeling ill-prepared and unready, with rapidly changing expectations for my performance. I wonder where that came from.

The many hats of Sandra Tayler

I am a wife. I am a mother. I am a writer. I am the chief financial officer for a business. I run inventory and shipping. I am a cook. I am a housekeeper. I am a tutor. I am a cub scout den leader. I am a teacher. I am a chauffeur. I am a counselor/therapist (primarily to my kids, but sometimes to others.) I am a gardener. I am an editor. I am a reader. I am a friend. I am a daughter. I am a sister.

I’m going to stop there because that list is already and insane number of things for one person to be.

Occasionally I get asked how I manage it all. I think they are hoping that there is some grand secret that if they can just grasp, life will get easier. I wish there were. Mostly I stay sane by switching hats a lot. Occasionally I wear several hats at once, but then I have to walk funny to make sure that they all stay balanced. The important hats get worn every day. I make sure I block out sections of time to just wear the mommy hat. I also block out sections for the wife hat and the business hat. As much as possible I try to wear just one hat and focus on it. But frequently this means I’m switching hats back and forth over a matter of seconds. When I’m on my A game, I get really good at that. Some hats sit on the shelf gathering dust. A glance at my yard will show that I have not been wearing the gardener hat much this year. I keep looking at it gathering dust, but not taking the time to put it on.

It really helps when I have Howard standing next to me helping me switch out hats. He came home early today for that exact purpose. This was good cause I’m only just barely keeping stress-panic at bay. The stupid thing is that most of the stress is merely because I’m so stressed. All the pieces fit. It will all work out. If I could just believe that rather than worrying over stuff, this week would be fine. I just need to handle the task that is in front of me and deal with the rest when I get there.

How do you walk a long road? One step at a time. How do you fill a hundred roles? One hat at a time.

Today:
Deliver birthday party invitations
write a page of text for the Schlock book
take Gleek to buy a brush for Kiki to replace the one that got broken yesterday (Gleek will use her own money)
Make a dinner

Tomorrow:
School for all four kids
Meeting at school about the Creative Writing class I’ll be teaching
EDIT: Scrambling with last minute stuff for the schlock book
first day of art lessons for Kiki and Link
Back to school night a the elementary school (Not going. I’ll catch up with the teachers next week.)
Writer’s group

Wednesday:
School for 3 kids
Get fingerprinted so I can teach the creative writing class Do this Thursday
Prep for editing party
run a cub scout den meeting
EDIT: Editing party was just moved to this night because the sooner we can get the book done, the better.

Thursday:
School for all four kids
EDIT: Get fingerprinted so I can teach the creative writing class
EDIT: Scrambling to get the edits put into the schlock book

Friday:
School for 3 kids
EDIT: Send the Schlock book off to the printer (hopefully)
Family party for Link’s birthday

Saturday:
Drive to Ogden to retrieve Link’s best friend (3 hours round trip)
Howard attends Dragon’s keep 20th anniversary
Run Mario Party birthday complete with giant game board and mini games
host a book editing event for the next Schlock book. this was moved to Wednesday night.
Either collapse in a heap or have a couple friends over to celebrate surviving the week. This might be a good time to haul out our “Give Me the Brain” card game because I’ll surely feel like a zombie before the week is out.

Only Tuesday and Saturday are insanely overbooked, The whole week is booked solid. I’m going to have to run in high gear this week to get it all done. Particularly because some of those days which seem empty will actually be full of getting ready for the overbooked days. Already filled them up.

I’ve got to figure out how to run a giant Mario Party game with 7 boys aged ten as the live game pieces. Usually I don’t do complex parties for kids. But it has been several years since Link has had a party at all and he has been positively glowing while planning this event.

And there will certainly be more Schlock book work to be done. There are always odds and ends to be taken care of.

Yesterday Kiki attended Anime Banzai with Howard. It is a kid friendly convention. Kiki found many things to delight her and many kindred spirits to talk to. At some point during the convention Kiki and Howard ran into a person who reads this blog. He asked her how she liked having her mom blog about her. Kiki’s response was “She does?” I’m surprised at this response because I’ve never attempted to keep my blogging habit a secret from the kids. In fact several times I’ve specifically asked Kiki’s permission before posting something of hers. I asked Kiki later about her answer and she said that while she knew I blogged, she’d never considered that other people might be reading it. I assured her that I’m careful about what I post. And I also told her how to look up my blog and read it whenever she wants. I also told her that if she ever wants something about her removed from my blog, she has only to let me know and I’ll pull it down. In another few years (like maybe when she’s 16) we’ll probably get her a livejournal account of her own and then she can comment and tell her side of these stories.

Then in church today we had a lesson on being careful how we speak to and of each other. There was also a section on being careful how we think and speak about ourselves. The major point of the lesson is that words have great power to heal and do damage. Sticking the words “just kidding” at the end of a sentence doesn’t unsay the criticisms that came before. Sentences that begin “I shouldn’t tell you this but” need to remain unspoken. We all have a responsibility to be as careful with our words as we are with our vehicles because accidents are common.

I think the need for caution is particularly important in my blogging because the words remain. My father taught me that lesson after he read one of my blog entries. He pointed out that the only entry I made about a particular event was me griping about inconveniences which made the creators of that event feel like the event had been a failure. The event was a wonderful one, but I hadn’t told those parts. If I left the entry to stand as it was, then that was all anyone would know. It would become history. I edited the entry to give a much more balanced report.

I love blogging. I love being able to share my thoughts and my life. I love having people respond. I particularly like the times when people say that my words have somehow helped them. I feel like this blog is a good thing, but the potential for damage is huge, and so I must be very careful. I must never say anything about anyone in writing that I would not say if they were standing in the room with me. Because these words stay here and that person may wander through later.

I have discovered the secret of the success of Harry Potter. It is fun to read aloud to children. This evening Link, Gleek, and Patches all sat spellbound as I read chapter one Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. When I tried to stop halfway through the chapter, they pleaded unanimously for me to continue. They were this spellbound even though they have already seen the movie. All the little details drew them right in and they laughed often. I am looking forward to them discovering all the delightful things which are in the books and not in the films.

It wasn’t just the kids who enjoyed it either. The words lend themselves well to expressive reading aloud. Yay for Harry Potter.

Someone asked me to tell the story of the time I was part of a classroom mutiny. I was a sophomore in college and at the time I was intending to train as a high school English teacher.

I was in a class where the point of the class was to make visits to schools. This required the class to be a solid four hour block of time five days per week. We only visited schools 6 times during the 6 week term. Most of the sections of this class let students out after a two hour lecture, but my professor was determined to fill every single hour. He did it with the most mundane stuff. It is ironic that my first “How to be a teacher” class is the only one where I’ve seen students successfully mutiny against a professor.

It started with an extremely poor decision on the professor’s part. He decided that there would be a grand total of 100 points possible for the entire term. This meant that any time he gave a 5 point quiz, we all argued vehemently about every single point. The professor was very frustrated by this behavior and kept saying “It’s just one point!” But 5 lost points meant no A, and a lost A could mean a lost scholarship, so we fought hard.

Then we spent hours and hours taking personality tests just to fill up the four hour block of time. One personality test can be interesting, but taking 8 different ones was a little excessive and none of us could see how it was training us to be teachers. To make matters worse, we began to lose respect for the man who was supposed to be teaching us how to be teachers.

The students began to band together. We all had to pass this class and the professor had become an obstacle. The level of frustration continued to rise as people lost points over personality tests or other inane things. Groups of students discussed walking out of the class after two hours, but the professor held our points hostage, so no one did. Instead we sat like uncooperative lumps in class and only did the work which had points attached. There were no class discussions because none of us would discuss.

In hindsight I feel sorry for this professor. Things had gone horribly wrong, he had no control over the class and he had to stand up in front of us for 4 hours to lecture to what must have felt like a brick wall. And yet he refused to back down, even though he was overheard complaining about what our class was doing to his blood pressure. He kept us there for the full four hours and would not expand the point range. My sympathy dries up when I think how he refused to negotiate at all.

The stand-off ended a week prior to the end of the term, when a group of students went to the Dean and complained. We don’t know what the Dean said, but the professor surrendered. He increased the number of points possible. He also stopped teaching us. Instead he brought in guest lecturers for the last week of classes. It was the best week we’d had. The lecturers were fascinating and I learned more about teaching and life than I’d learned all term. I didn’t mind staying for 4 hours to hear the guests. I still remember some of those lectures.

To my knowledge that professor never taught that class again. He may have taught other classes, but I never again put myself in one. In fact, I can’t even remember his name.