Back to School

As you know, I have been unemployed since I was laid off in 2009 as part of the school district's "cutting the fat" plan. (I tried not to take the name of it too literally)

Since then, school budgets have not gotten any better, in fact they are looking at potentially laying off another 40 teachers this year. I have applied for positions, but have come to the conclusion that I am too expensive - they can hire 2+ first-year teachers for what I cost between experience and education.

SO...I'm going back to school!

I have been interested in Criminal Justice for years now and have even taken several classes toward an Associate's Degree in Criminal Justice. Initially I wanted to be a police officer, but becoming a Mom has changed that dream a bit for me. While working for several years in the county jail teaching, I got the chance to work with the Parole and Probation officers there and found that to be an interesting field, so have decided on a career change.

Technically I made this decision awhile ago and did a job shadow with a friend who currently works as a PO. She told me that with my degrees, I probably didn't need any schooling and had a great chance of getting hired. BUT, sadly, the budget crunches hit in those departments as well. SO, I have been patiently waiting for jobs to open up.

Now, I'm getting proactive. I'm still waiting for jobs to open up, but I'm going to start working on a Certificate of Corrections from our local community college. The Associates degree in Criminal Justice covers everything, not just P&P, and specializes a bit more in Law Enforcement. While interesting to me, that just didn't seem like the best plan of action at this time. I even looked into a Masters in Criminal Justice program at the school where I got my Masters in Education, but again, the coursework is more administrative in nature vs. practical. All things considered, I think the Certificate is my best first step. AND, if I get that and still haven't found a job, I will continue on to the Associates.

I think I have it worked out that I will have all my coursework done by next March, except the Cooperative Work Experience, which I can do at any time, but if I haven't yet, would begin next Spring and hopefully have it springboard me into a position.

SO - after Spring Break, I am going back to school! My plan is 2 classes Spring term, 1 classroom and 1 online. I think I can handle that and my Mommy duties and it should ease me back into the swing of school.

I'm so very excited at this new direction and can't wait to start school...again. I have often said that I'd be a professional student if I could - I love to learn new things, but in this case, I'm learning with a purpose, and luckily it's material I'd learn for fun anyway.

The Year in Summary

Holy Moley! I was just inspired to look at my blog as I was refreshing my memory in the happenings of a friend's life via her blog and realized that my last post was almost a year ago! WOW!

Well, in a nutshell, how can I sum up the past year...CRAZY!!!!!! Yup, that's about it!

(Since I'm still figuring out how to edit here and put pictures in, this will be out of order based on the pictures I've uploaded...but you get the point!)

First of all, we added to our family, temporarily, for the school year by hosting an exchange student from Sweden. Josefin arrived in September and has become a part of our family that we are all dreading saying goodbye to in June. She has taken on the role of big sister to Morganne very well (she likes that Morganne is smaller than her brother in Sweden, therefore she's better able to harass her). The girls bicker constantly, but it's a loving bickering and we just smile and let them work it out. We spent a great deal of the fall (before weather and swim meets started) visiting as much of Oregon as we could with Josefin. Here's Dave and the girls at the coast (Josefin's first Pacific Ocean experience)

Morganne has continued to swim for the local swim club, and her meets have taken us all over the state. She's getting better with each meet and is loving it, which is truly what's important. Last year she had events at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Eugene, Bend, Forest Grove, and here in McMinnville. I have joined the board of the swim club and have also become an official, so during meets rather than sitting in the stands, I'm on deck watching the swimmers for Stroke and Turn disqualifications. It's good for our club to have more officials to bring to meets, and it's good for me to be doing something besides sitting on my butt in the stands in between events, but it means that I'm not able to photograph (or hover) around Morganne when she's swimming. She doesn't seem to mind, and as her strokes have gotten better (and therefore the chance of her disqualifying minimized), I have actually started working it so I can be officiating her lanes during her events so I HAVE to be watching her :)

Here she is at Smith Rock State Park in Redmond, where we were for the favorite Bend Swim Meet in August.

Everyone loves the Bend meet because it's a big campout for all the families and fun is had by all. Plus - it's Bend! Who doesn't love Eastern Oregon? Luckily we have friends who have moved to the area and not only came to watch Morganne swim, but put us up at their house when, after a very busy summer of camping, our tent pole broke after our first night there.

Here she is doing her Breast Stroke in Eugene, I believe. This was her first competitive Breast Stroke (I think) and she did great!

The day after Josefin arrived, a neighbor found 4 kittens that had been dumped in her yard (or near it). By the time she wandered down the street to "show" the neighborhood kids what was in the box, there were only 3 left (the 4th one, we fear, met his demise on the busy road behind our cul de sac). Well, by the time I was brought into this discussion, it was 5:30pm on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend...all vets and shelters had (conveniently) closed until Tuesday at 5:00, so another neighbor and I decided to split the kittens for the weekend. She took 2 of them (as she has 2 children), and we kept the one. The deal we made the kids was that we would keep them until we could get them checked out on Tuesday and if they were healthy, we'd think about, possibly, maybe keeping them. Yeah, right! So we now have a kitten. Here's Morganne with Keke ("kee kee") the day she came to live with us.

As I said, Morganne and Josefin "fight" constantly...here they are showing their sisterly love while playing Wii

And like I also said, they love each other as well and will often cuddle on the couch together, or do cute things like this

Let's see, what did I miss? OH, I mentioned that the tent got quite a workout last summer - we spent a week traveling the entire Oregon Coast, visiting each of the 11 lighthouses that are along the coast, as well as several fun coastal attractions. Perhaps I can find some time to blog just about that trip as it was amazing (and of course, there are tons of pictures from it). We decided to save money (and up the fun) by camping our way down the coast, which was actually a lot of fun, although travel camping is truly best done with some sort of vehicle, not a tent that needs pitched every night at the new location.

AND, sadly, on January 5, we said goodbye to our beloved Siberian Husky, Pasha. She turned 13 in December and her body was just giving out on her. The decision had to be made, but we put it off until after the holidays. Perhaps a Pasha tribute blog in the future with pix of her...

Well, I think that's the high (and low) lights of the past year. AND, that's about all I have time for right now as my presence is needed in Morganne's classroom to stuff Wednesday folders, then I start my afternoon taxi duties (to/from school/pool).

I won't promise more timely blogging, but I will try and make some more time for it. I know the 2 of you that read this will appreciate that :)

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY...

Seems like we're always so very busy around here, and the past few months have been more of the same.

I am keeping very busy with my volunteering at M's school. At the beginning of March I was a chaperone for the 4th Grade "Pioneer Days" field trip. Of course, M couldn't possibly attend Pioneer Days without dressing accordingly, so I made her a pioneer dress, pinafore, and bonnet. Dave helped out by constructing her lunch box out of a metal coffee can (unfortunately "good" coffee doesn't come in a can, so we've been struggling through trying to not be wasteful in the coffee department, but I digress...)

My little pioneer:

That same week, I also went on the 5th grade field trip to "JA Biz Town" in Portland. The 5th grade teachers were having a hard time securing parent volunteers, so they asked me, and of course I said yes! What a wonderful time that was! JA Biz Town is a model town in the Junior Achievement building and the kids get to run the town with (hopefully) minimal adult assistance. The kids had been going through the curriculum for a couple months prior to the trip which included checkbook keeping, job applications, interviews, etc. Each student was assigned a job and on the day of they got to do their job.

I was the parent volunteer for "AllState Insurance" and had 3 employees - a CEO, CFO, and Insurance Agent. My job was to say "what does your handbook say" when asked a question. Well, easier said than done...my agent could barely read and worked slower than molasses in January! I ended up holding his hand most of the day and either doing some of his work for him or farming it out to my CEO who was very efficient and ended up with some spare time. All in all, though, it was a great experience and I can't wait for M to get to attend next school year as a 5th grader - and of course, I'll be a parent volunteer again!

More recently we have been working on M's science fair project...This is her first EVER Science Fair project and let me tell you, it has been an experience for all of us! It is way easier said than done to let her do it all by herself. I'm really trying to let her make mistakes and not say, "NO, you have to do it this way" and D has been awesome staying out of the way while we've been working on it. Her experiment? She wanted to see how food coloring would react in a variety of liquids. When she was deciding this was her topic, we used water, tea, milk, vodka, wine, and juice to see if it would work. For the actual experiment, she used several types of milk (skim, 1%, 2%, whole, half and half, heavy whipping cream and soy) as well as juices (apple, orange and white grape), soda (7up) and water as the control (OK, so maybe I helped her determine what a control was...I'm not perfect at staying out of it!).

The table during experiment day:

I will have to post the final product when it's done...

The extra fun part of this is that M doesn't have a ton of word processor experience, so it's as if we're doing Science Fair Project 101 AND Microsoft Word 101 at the same time. She's had some freak out moments when her font/size/word art changed (or disappeared all together), but is discovering the "do over" arrow, as well as getting acquainted with the proofreading function. We still have some typing to do, but I'm confident we will get it all done with time to spare for the Monday deadline :)

On top of my Mommy duties, I have begun to tutor a former student of mine whose parents pulled out of his charter school. That keeps me busy, along with the occasional sub day. Heck, I even worked on my birthday! Probably should have said no to that one - no excuses on that since I knew the kids and what I was getting into...oh well! 2 referrals isn't a bad day...and next time I'm there, the kids will know I mean business!

I think that's about all I'll bore you with for right now. I can't believe it's already April - soon I'll be posting summer fun stories...not soon enough, though!

"Insane" Mom of the Year...

As you know, I have been unemployed this school year. I have worked here and there as a sub, but for the most part I have just been unemployed.

With Mo transferring to the local public school, I have managed to fill my days with many volunteer opportunities. AND, I love every minute of it! I wish that we could pay bills with volunteer hours because I would have no trouble whatsoever having this be my full-time job.

Last week was absolutely crazy...Monday was normal - no real places to go or things to do, which was nice as there were many things to come.

Tuesday I was a parent volunteer at JA BizTown (JA - Junior Achievement) up in Portland. Our 5th graders have been taking part in a consumer economics type curriculum and the culminating event was this field trip. Now, you may be saying, "but I thought Mo was a 4th grader?" You are right - she is a 4th grader, but they were low on 5th grade parent volunteers and since I know the teachers from the Native American Art Literacy project, they asked me. SO, off I went on Tuesday, bright and early, so that I could be there and ready to go when the kids arrived at their schedule 9am (actual arrival was more like 9:30).

BizTown is a room that has been set up to re-create a city, complete with City Hall, stores, utilities, newspaper, TV station, cafe, etc. I was in charge of the Allstate Insurance office. As a parent volunteer, my main job was to oversee my workers who were supposed to be doing the job all by themselves. Essentially my job was to make sure no one died and to refer them back to their manuals everytime they had a question. Easy enough, right? YEAH, RIGHT! I had 3 workers at Allstate - the CFO, CEO, and an Agent. The kids had applied for the jobs and the teachers had chosen them for jobs that best suited their personality and abilities. Well, my CFO needed a little guidance in the beginning, but then took off and did an awesome job. My CEO was the same. My Agent, not so much. He's a student who struggles a bit in school to begin with, so referring him to "read your manual" was not an option. I ended up doing about half the work for him, and doling out tasks to the CEO to also help cover (the CFO kept busy paying bills and doing payroll and such). All in all it was a great day and the kids seemed to learn a lot and have a lot of fun doing their jobs. When I saw the girls (CFO and CEO) the next day, they said that they'd slept VERY WELL after that experience, as did I! (The Agent was absent the following day, so I can assume he was also exhausted)

Wednesday I was back at the school to do the Native American Art Literacy unit with the 3 classes I'd just spent all day Tuesday with at BizTown. We were working on soap carvings to emulate the ivory carvings done by the Arctic and SubArctic bands (they weren't tribes) of Native Americans. I had 3 classes total at 9:30, 12:30, and 1:30.

That evening we had Mom's Group (for which I'm the contact person/coordinator) at church, which is always a nice time to sit and chat about stuff with other Mom's. No matter how much I want to not go each time (b/c I'm tired and just want to put on PJs and curl up, not b/c I don't like it), I always feel so much better once I'm there.

OH - did I mention that in between all this craziness I was also making a Pioneer dress, pinafore (apron), and bonnet for Mo? Well, she had a Pioneer Days fieldtrip on Thursday, what else would I be doing? :)

THURSDAY - 4th Grade Pioneer Days fieldtrip. I was a chaperone (of course) and rode up on the bus to Champoeg State Park. It was an awesome day - the kids went through a series of educational stations - one talking about culture and such, one about games kids played and daily life, and one about the farming process. Mo got to be the volunteer to carry the water using a yoke - so cute! After the educational stuff, we headed over for our picnic lunch then let the kids run amok. AND, run amok they did! There were trails that we hiked on, fields that we ran in, and other exploring that was done. Again, a very long and tiring day for all...I nearly fell asleep on the bus on the way back, but thought that may be bad form for the chaperone to snooze on the bus. Got back to the school in time for Mo to go to 4H and me to grab a short nap (about 20 minutes) before picking her up for sewing.

Later that evening was Dave's birthday dinner/celebration at Mom's house - yummy spaghetti, good friends, and lots of fun.

FRIDAY - it seemed like a good idea at the time to schedule a neighborhood coffee at my house, so I was up and doing last minute cleaning and prepping for visitors. Had a great coffee visit with the neighbors, then cleaned up and headed off for a lunch date with another friend who I don't get to see very often. Done with that in time to pick up Mo and the neighbor boy from school and head off to swim practice, where I did find myself falling asleep in the bleachers. Good thing I wasn't on deck - OR in the pool! Turns out Mo needed new goggles, so a shopping trip was in order after practice so she was prepared for the swim meet the next morning.

Friday at about 8:45 I had to head back to the pool to set up for the swim meet. I soooo wanted to not go, but I said I would, so off I went.

SATURDAY - swim meet! Warm-ups at 8am, so Mo and I were off to the pool at 7:30. The meet started at 9:30 and I was due on deck for my job as "head timer" (I hold 2 stopwatches and start them with the "gun", which is actually a buzzer - then if one of the lane timers forgot to start their watch, or something malfunctioned, I run over and trade them for one of mine). I worked as "head timer" until about 11:30 when I was relieved by another parent and headed into the stands to watch Mo's events (she didn't swim till almost noon on Saturday). BUT - the best laid plans and all...they started calling for relief timers nearly as soon as I got settled in in the stands. SO - off I went back down where I ended up doing some lane timing for the remainder of the meet.

SUNDAY - swim meet (again)! 8am warmups, to pool at 7:30, on deck to head time at 9:30, but instead of being relieved at 11:30, I was there until the end of the meet. I took 2 potty breaks (when I found reliable kids to take over for me while I ran to go) and got no food breaks at all. THEN, after the meet...it was clean up time, which (of course) I signed up to do as well.

AND - in between all of this, I was asked to possibly sit on the swim board AND to be trained to be an official for future meets - both of which I said yes to (of course!).

I've been told I'm an excellent Mom - personally I think I'm just an insane Mom...

Our new addition (to be)...

A couple weeks ago we got an email from one of Mo's swim coaches that was looking to place an exchange student from Germany who would be coming to America for 6 months starting in the fall. For whatever reason, I decided I wanted her to come here. Not sure what possessed me at that time, but it seemed like a great experience. When I talked to Murilo (Mo's coach - he's from Brazil), he asked how we'd feel if she decided to stay longer. Of course I said that we'd be OK with that as well.

WELL, the German girl was tentatively placed with another family who only wanted a 6 month placement (and since then was denied admission at our high school, so isn't coming at all). We were given a choice between an 18 year old girl from Sweden, or a 15 year old boy from Denmark. Not wanting to change the male-female ratio in the house too much, we opted for the Swedish girl. We were approved and just began contact with her this weekend.

This is going to be a transition for us, obviously. Not only are we kind of set up as a one-child family, we have never parented a teenager. BUT - I think it's going to be a great experience for all of us. Mo is so very excited to have a big sister, even if only for a school year.

Now that it's a done deal, we can start on the physical transitions needed to make this work. Currently we have Mo's room, our room, and a sewing room. We have no guest bedroom - when guests come, we either give them our room or send them to Mom's house across the street to stay. SO - we're going to be changing the sewing room to a bedroom for her. I have been spending my recent sewing time downstairs instead to get used to the idea of not having a room dedicated to sewing, and it's actually not too bad to be able to sew and be a part of the family as well. We lose the dining room table during these project times, but that's no biggie...everyone loves TV tray nights, and there's always Mom's house right across the street if we really want a table dinner.

We will need to get bedroom furniture in there - a bed and dresser at least. We're thinking that we'll keep the desk that I use as a sewing table in there for her, but move the rest of the furniture (my work table, shelving, and Mo's sewing desk) out. It's not that big of a room, so we have to try to not crowd it too much.

The hardest part is going to be relocating all the sewing stuff - I have a closet full of fabric, as well as many other arts and crafts supplies in there. I'm thinking my "work" cabinet in the garage may be the new location for these things, especially since I no longer need as many supplies as much of the curriculum is online now (and I'm unemployed, but that's another story all together). One option is to donate all the fabric I have (or most of it) and work on a project by project basis. BUT - I hesitate to do that as fabric is expensive and I have several hundreds of dollars worth of it. I'm thinking of a cataloging plan where I can see what I have and access it without pulling out the whole box to search through.

A funny side-product of this was the little "joke" I played on some of my FaceBook friends last week. When we got the word that she was definately coming, I posted that I was "happy to announce that there will be a new addition to the Larmouth household in the fall". WELL - I had no idea the response that was received...I wanted to mess with a few folks, but everyone got in on it and it spread through our small(ish) town. I thought that I had nipped it in the bud, but last night at Dad's group one guy came up and shook Dave's hand congratulating him on the baby. :) The frustrating thing is that the folks I wanted to mess with didn't even reply at all. OH WELL!

So - about Josefin (pronounced "Yo-sa-feen") - she'll be 18 tomorrow and is from Linkoping Sweden, which is one of the larger cities there. In Sweden they only have to go to school through age 16, so she's in a college prep type program studying physics and math and chem and other such things. She's a swimmer, which is how we ended up with her - Murilo has a deal with the exchange company that he gets dibs on any swimmers that come in. It makes perfect sense since we're at the pool all the time already - and she'll have daily contact (or near daily contact) with Murilo as well. Because of our involvement with the swim club, we already have a built in network of teenage friends from families we know and trust, which will be a huge help - I'm not sure how this would work if we didn't have that support system in place. She just became our Facebook friend, so we have spent much of the morning looking at her Facebook page (which is in Swedish) and copying/pasting text into a translator. She seems like a very well behaved girl, smart and dedicated to her studies, but still knows how to have fun with her friends. Without having met her in person, I'm not sure we could have picked a better "big sister" for Morganne. We'll see how it goes, but I KNOW it will be great!

Public School Update

Just realized that I haven't posted anything since M's first day at public school. Definately time for an update!

Public school has seriously been the best decision we have made recently! M is excelling there and enjoying school so very much. She has received awards in classes for good listening and quietest student (I asked if maybe there was a mistake given what I know about my kiddo! BUT - no mistake!) We are meeting with her teacher on Friday for an unofficial conference to check-in on progress and see how she feels she is fitting in academically, but from a social standpoint, she is happy as a clam. AND, I do get to see her teacher frequently since I'm a parent volunteer (of course I am!) and in the school several times a week. In fact, I'm headed to M's classroom in about an hour to teach a lesson of Native American Art Literacy.

I should say here that another parent (our doctor's wife, actually) did all the research and prep work for this school-wide, 4 month long unit and us parent volunteers are just delivering it to the classes. I was going to be an assistant presenter in M's class, but the presenter had something come up, so I've been promoted. I also present to the self-contained Special Ed class, as well as the 5th grade classes (one of which being a 4/5 blend). It has been so awesome to get to come into the classroom and work with the kids on these lessons, and I can tell that M is enjoying me being in the building regularly.

SO - all things considered, we're having a great time at public school and are very pleased with our decision!

Murphy's Law says that as soon as we stopped waiting for a call from the Japanese Charter School that it would come in, and sure enough on January 4th, the first day of her 2nd week at Newby, we got the call that a spot was opening up and it was M's if she wanted it. We graciously declined :)

And now, off to get ready to teach M's class how to finger weave a bookmark like the SE Native American tribes...

New School

This morning we dropped M off for her first day at a new school. I know, it's December, not the usual time to start a new school but it was time....

She started at our local Montessori School when she was 4 years old and has been there ever since. It goes from age 3 - 6th grade, although most kids leave after 5th grade to make the logical transition to middle school. Well, slowly but surely all of her friends have moved on. This past summer 2 more left and "went public", which I'm pretty sure was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Last spring I was asked to put her on the list at a local charter school and had I done so at that time, she would have gotten in with no problems. BUT, at that time, we were pretty sure we wanted to do 1 more year of Montessori. WELL, the night before the first day of school this year she tells me that she doesn't fit in at school, has no friends there anymore, etc. We chalked it up to drama, but went ahead and put her on the list at the charter school, just in case something came up. (I would say 50% of the students from Montessori go to this school next). When the 5th grader left to go there, she moved up to next on the list. All we needed was 1 more kid to leave in the 4th/5th grade classroom and we were IN! BUT, nothing happened. No one left. AND, she slowly got more and more unhappy at school. Getting her up in the morning became a battle and she even started in with some psycho-somatic complaints to try and get out of going to school. We just kept telling her "soon...there'll be a spot for you soon", but began discussing our other options.

Isn't it crazy that our decision for mid-4th grade ended up including a discussion of college? Well, one of the things we did was look at her future and decided that even if she went to the charter school, we would probably transfer her to our local high school when the time came. The charter school goes through high school, but gets smaller and smaller as the kids get older. Last year they graduated ONE student. We just couldn't see that she would benefit in the long run from such a small environment. We also looked at the programs offerred at our local high school and, barring a catastrophe, it is actually a great school with many programs available, including 2 new "small schools" - an engineering academy, and a media arts and communications academy. She would have access to music and drama and art classes, which she wouldn't have at the charter school. SO - with that in mind, we had to figure out when the best time was for her to transition to a slightly larger environment.

I made some calls to principals and we visited her "home school" (the public school she would go to if we didn't have her in private school). The class sizes are fairly large (30 in each 4th grade and 29 in the 4/5 blend), BUT, surprisingly when we walked through, they weren't crazy! The kids were all working and quiet despite the large numbers. The school itself has a library that is as large as her current school building (HUGE for my little book worm!), a tech lab, music room, gym, etc. Many more bells and whistles than at Montessori. Complicating matters a bit was the fact that the boundary for elementary schools goes right down the middle of our street, so we had another choice we could make. I have worked with the principal at the other school and her 4th grade numbers are a little lower (classes of 25-26) and she said she would gladly take M if we wanted to do an in-district transfer. BUT, we decided to stick with the other school anyway. She already has a BFF there who left Montessori between 1st and 2nd grade, and she could theoretically walk to school, whereas the other school wouldn't have walking be an option.

SO - this morning, at the suggestion of her new principal, she began at her new school. One week of school then Winter Break. This should give her some good social opportunities as well as time to find the bathroom, learn the rules, etc. I mean, let's face it, not a lot of learning happens the week before break :) I took her in on Thursday after school to meet her new teacher and take a tour of the school. She managed to get placed in her BFF's class, and is even sitting right next to her (we'll see how long that lasts!). AND, it turns out there's at least one other kiddo in her class that used to go to Montessori with her.

I know she's going to do great, but what a change for all of us! Homework hasn't been a real part of our Montessori career, but will be now. Hot lunch? Never an option before unless you brought it and heated it yourself (although she has been advised to stay away from hot lunches by her BFF). Even the little things like having to pack her a drink in her lunch now b/c at Montessori they always provided the drinks for them. She has a backpack and binder now - never had those before. A desk! And can wear characters to school (just in time for her to have outgrown a lot of character stuff, but that's OK!).

A big difference for me will be being able to be a class mom. At Montessori they did not allow parent helpers IN the classroom, which was OK, but I always felt like I was missing out when I'd hear my friends talk about their class Mom duties. Now I get to be a class Mom! AND, thanks to my current work situation, I have the time to do that. See, all things happen for a reason! Maybe this is why my position was cut last year - so I could be here to help M transition to public school...

That said, she didn't seem to need much transition time this morning when we dropped her off - after embarrassing her by taking a picture of her outside the school (we have one from each first day), she ran off with a friend from swim team and that was the last we saw of her.

Am I worried? Of course I am! In a larger environment there's so many more unknowns. She's been so sheltered at Montessori. Tuition has a way of "chosing" the student base. Public school takes all. BUT, we live in a diverse world and she is going to need to start breaking out of her bubble soon enough. We have talked to her about making good choices and about dealing with bullies and such, now we just take a leap of faith and hope for the best.