Archive March 5, 2014

No doctors appointments, no friend lunches, no errands, no nothing, I get to stay home a whole day! I can’t believe it!
Maybe with help I can get some things done.

Being a teacher is all about getting a million things done at one time or in one day all while dealing with a million things the students are doing. It is constant stimulation no matter what a teacher tries to accomplish. You are always “on” and teachers do not get much down time, not even when they eat lunch. I so miss that but I also know that I couldn’t do it anymore. It’s sad, I used to like the hustle and bustle and now I can’t function inside the hustle and bustle. So sad.

I have always loved new recipes and trying new dishes. When I was a teacher I could not cook very much. We were lucky for awhile to have take out. Today we are trying slow cooker chicken and dumplings made with refrigerator pillsbury biscuits.
Aren’t slow cookers wonderful. I used to use the electric skillet to cook with my students on Fridays. We even made cakes in that electric skillet. Actually there wasn’t much you couldn’t make. I guess it worked like a slow cooker on the right temperature. My mother, on the other hand, was a pressure cooker person. She would used the pressure cooker a lot to make dinners.

I can definitely say chicken and dumplings turned out very good.

I will put the link to the recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/slow-cooker-chicken-and-dumplings/

I added finely diced onion, celery and carrots to this recipe. I also cut the biscuits in small chunks instead of strips.

I may no longer believe in Cinderella but I do believe a new pair of shoes can change you life, or at least your day!

I do have to say David and I have been together 18.5 years and he’s stuck by me thru everything, and he’s been great (most of the time) laughing out loud

I bought this little insure book quite awhile ago, and easy read called “When God Winks” and I loved it. There are now several different versions on god winks and I gave my book to a good friend.
God winks are those coincidences in life that you can’t explain or when you go back to look at events in your life, they are little occupancies that guided you in one direction or another. I ignored a few. God winks and then I guess you could say god got tired of sending me little signs and booted me in the ass. 🙂 Sometimes you know it’s a god wink and sometimes you don’t know until it’s over or you have moved away and looked back in retrospect. But god winks are all around you.

I recently read a book and wrote about it leaning to mindfulness. Then I found an old article that talked about happiness and mindfullness. I have talked about both of them in this blog. I was at the acupuncturist Friday and there is a flyer for a class on mindfullness. So I am signing up for it. This is a god wink. I just don’t know where it leads yet. I will write and addendum to this when and if I find out.

I have a money tree. I have taught Hmong students for a long time. They loved the bamboo plant, it brings luck and they loved the the money tree. So I take good care of those two plants. I just read an article Good Housekeeping 2/14. How to live richer. By Rapoport

Open your palm, take $10, in $1 bills and give it away. One lady put her dollars in books at the library. I loved that, being a teacher you know. Great idea. Can you imagine being a kid and finding a $1 in a book…..so cool!

Pay it forward. Did you see that movie. I loved the concept hated the fact the kid died. Volunteer have some fun don’t worry about money. Generosity like money is a currency, David’s nephew is serving in Afghanistan and his young wife is missing him. I have lots of purses so I took my next purse fund ( which I save in a jar) and sent her a coach bag, it made her so happy. She was so happy her parents private messaged me to tell me thank you for making her so happy. I have never met her parents (actually I never met her either) but she was so happy. Actually Coach always gibes me thrill.

Invest in happiness. The author suggests on investing in others happiness, instead of yours. They suggested donar’s choose and picking a teacher and funding their project. I was a teacher and I got a project funded. I was so happy. It was a right spot in a ten weeks of darkness so dark I thought I’d never see the sun again and if I saw it I would never feel it. The donors choose cordless headphones were a bright spot. I could let the kids go anywhere and still hear the book on tape….no cords. In half a classroom, with 18 student in tight quarters…..no cords are a god wink.

My little pumpkin Coffee is doing well. She has a little tender tummy and she a little more tired then normal. I would love to take her on a walk but I think it’s too cold and they told me she is susceptible to more things on chemo, it knocks the immune system down. Other then sleeping more. She doesn’t seem sick. She is a genius you know. The puppy book said teach her how to critically think. I did. Now there is nothing she can’t open. Even a ziplock bag can be opened without teeth marks.
I have been buying her treat puzzles. They have flaps and drawers and twirls that she likes getting treats out of. Nothing she can’t solve in 10 minutes or less the first time. She loves her treat puzzles.

Thanks Michael J Fox, I found this on Facebook and it fits my life right now. Letting go, getting thru going on….surviving…

Four years ago today I was assaulted. It was a day that changed my life and a day that will always be with me. As a letting go moment this year I wrote a letter to my attacker. I may never be able to forgive her, but I can let it go. I can let it sail in the water out of sight and out of my life. I am choosing to do that today on this four year long long journey I have been on. You can’t let go of something until you are ready, until you have completed the journey in full, until you have road the waves and have come in to shore safely, and you have let the the waves go back to the ocean, and with pride know you’d didn’t die in the water, but completed the ride in one piece.

……TODAY I HAVE FINISHED MY JOURNEY AND I AM I CHOOSING TO LET IT GO.

2/26/2014
Dear Ms. Attacker,

I am writing this letter to you as part of my healing process. It has been four years today that you assaulted me both physically and professionally. It is something that drastically changed my life and my health and was an act that scared for the rest of my life. I have a permanently damaged hand, arm, shoulder from where you beat me with your fists on the afternoon of February 26. I also have post traumatic stress disorder from you accusing me of child abuse and Milwaukee Public Schools putting my through 19 months of hearings, school board meetings, testimony, and finally arbitration. I lost 10 weeks of work with out pay and it left me with no way to pay my bills or my mortgage. It was hell. Nothing but pure hell. Then during that process MPS froze everything about me, my pay, my rights, my life and forced me to work in a building with you for three years. I had to go to special counseling to learn how to face my attacker and if I wanted a job, I had to work in the same building as you….the person who so assaulted me so badly that my had is permanently damaged. This year I had surgery on my hand trying to alleviate the pain and get the feeling back in it but I am still very disabled with it. I had to live with you running after me calling my name like nothing happened and when you did that I would be covered in sweat and look like I just showered. I would drip with sweat fearing for my life. It was a long long three years. Surviving was more then I could stand …..I died a little each day. There was no way I could master the fright or flight response, I tried. I still go to therapy once a month to try and deal with being a victim.

I know you lost your temper and assumed something happened that did not happen, but you are a professional and you were my friend. You know that I would never injure or hurt a child…. ever. How could you accuse of that much less assault me so badly that I lost use of my dominant hand? I also can’t go in crowds or public places without being accompanied by someone. I can’t sleep at night without sleeping pills, I couldn’t eat and lost 50 pounds. My stomach, nerves and intestines will never be the same. I will never be the same. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, it’s not true. There is very little left of me.

I have lived with a lot of things and many deaths of family and friends, I always took that next step and went on but I can’t get past if there was a moment in time I regret, it was you assaulting me. Do you even understand that Durango was afraid of you and he wouldn’t let go of me? When you kept hitting me over and over I had a 120 pound weight on my arm and my arm was in full extension….and he wouldn’t let go. You picked him up, slung him over your hip with his arms outstretched to me yelling “save me teacher”. It damaged him and it damaged me. Neither of us will ever be the same. I will never know what you were thinking or what happened with you but you changed my life forever. Why would you even consider hitting me over and over? You know me, I would never hurt one of my kids. Why would you think you could just pound on me like that? I will never understand that, never in a million years…..and then expect me to talk to you like it was nothing. Do you understand what you did to me and how badly you injured me? my life? my career and my health? This is my healing letter. I hope after I tell you how badly you hurt me I can let this moment in time go and live with limitations it caused in my life.

victim

Note: it took 19 months of hearing, of listening to how terrible I was ( which was made up) and arbitration but I was found innocent of her charges. Nothing was ever done to the teacher that attacked me.