Archive May 21, 2014

Dean Winchester
Supernatural

“You never give up on family”

I guess everyone I know understands I am a 24 fan. I a, so glad it is back on television. I love it. I watched Kiefer in Touch but I can say it was still a lot running around finding answers but I missed the fun. Missed the gun in his hand. I am a person who has seen guns do a lot of damage to my inner city students lives but 24 is make believe and Jack Bauer is one of my favorite character…….actually Coffee was suppose to be Bauer – Gibbs , but she named herself Coffee.

I know as a Drug Free Schools Coordinator for 20 years that guns are bad but hey have a little fun once in awhile

This year I share a classroom with a nice teacher and we get along well. We met five minutes before the kids walked in the door, so we have sort of gotten to know each other “on the job”. The governor pulled a lot of funding last up year, the school’s had what is called a class size reduction program. One teacher to a fifteen to eighteen kids but since Milwaukee did not have enough classrooms for that program they doubled up and put two teachers in one class. So for the last six years I have had 15-18 kids and half a classroom. We put a wall down the middle of the room, but the school had no money for a wall, so I paid $600 and bought medal cabinets to make a wall. Then last year the school did not have enough kids so I had eighteen first graders in my own whole classroom, and this year it was suppose to be just me and thirty kids but at the very last minute they found extra money and put our ratio of 15 to 1 back. I did not take the cabinets home, I just pushed them against the wall…..teachers should not need to buy their own furniture! As my classroom was already set up, I decided to co teach. The thing is in the last two weeks I have been here setting up, I have had five teachers assigned to his room to co teach. I have cleaned out cabinets five times so they would have room and put the stuff back as soon as they went to another room……because in between I was told I’d have substitutes with me. Not portable either way I worked all summer getting really for 30 kids by myself again and even though I was sick all summer, I worked anyway.

I have been an inner city teacher for 26 years. 4 years before that as a substitute. Not easy but the kids always needed me and I worked close to home so I could drive home for lunch and take care of mom, dad, whoever needed taking care of and no one went to a nursing home. So I was lucky that way. I could set them up with supplies they needed, go to work. Eat a sandwich driving back and forth at lunch, set them up with supplies for the afternoon give them lunch let out the dog or dogs and then drive back to work. I could eat half a sandwich of the sandwich each way. all Then pack up everything I needed to do and come home, make them dinner, and sit on the floor wherever they were do all my teacher school work. When they went to bed I would clean the house or part of it and then start all over again the next day. It worked. I am grateful no one went to a nursing home.

Mom died in January 1995 and two days later my 18 year old dog Tinker died. I started seeing david in July of 1995. We had a lot in common as we were care takers of sick parents. Then my brother died in August 1995 and David’s dad died in November lastly my Grandpa Lankford died in January 1996, so I lost half of my family within year.

It was hard, so David and I bonded and we have been together since . We got engaged there for awhile but we never got married, still engaged though.

He helped me take care of my Dad I lost dad in March 2000 and we lost David’s mom in December of 2000.

So our common bond was care taking. When the cult Dad was involved with came in and robbed the house three days before he died, I did not feel safe here , as they took all the keys, papers, bank books, records, everything they could so David moved in to make me feel safe and he still lives here and we are still together. I have a duplex so my sister also lives in part of the duplex. The three of us take care of each other.

I love my safe place. When I was so sick three years ago, I needed a safe place. The safe place in my bedroom corner that is in my bedroom. It has my favorite sheets, on my bed in my pillows. I watch Roku and I stay there safe. I love it there. I really do. I control the television and the battery operated candles and I have my puppies sitting on my bed, and maybe a cat or two will come visit. I love it there. When the world was caving in, it was my only safe place.

Creamy’s safe place too, no more puppymill

We look we see we don’t process
We look we hear we don’t process
We look we feel we don’t process

How much of life will pass us by
And we won’t see the little things in the sky
The clouds the birds the and then we die

We don’t look at the flowers, the buds or the leaves
We miss the worms the butterflies and the webs the spiders weave
The dirt, the roots, the beautiful things we do not perceive

The sounds of the birds and squirrels as they chatter
The opossums and raccoons as they get fatter
The small little lives all around us that clatter

The warmth mom the sun of a spring day
The cool of the wind as it passes out way
The green grass under our feet in May

We look we see we don’t process
We look we hear we don’t process
We look we feel we don’t process

June’s garden

I went threw a long crisis, caused by my job. No job should be so important to you that you can’t walk away and let it go but I couldn’t. I was always a person who cared too much. So when I was so sick I. The middle of the 19 months of hell, and especially that first 8 weeks. When I was unjustly accused of something I did not do and then used as a scapegoat, David would say…” you aren’t dying, look around you, see the birds, the flowers, the beauty” I still take it for granted too much. I know that but I try to make a consensus effort to look at the buds, and the beauty around me. Today we saw a baby bunny. It was so cute. The bugs are one the pink lilac tree, the cherry tree is full of blossoms and the Japanese lilac is all leafed out. Don’t forget to look at the little things. I am trying…

A bunny flower arrangement by FTD

I don’t have a lot to say about Mom, she was my world. I loved her more than anything. I have been going to counseling a long time. My counselor said when she heard I grew up in a violent situation that as much as my Dad taught me to hate, that is how much my Mom taught me to love and even more. Because love won out. Thank you Mom

My mom and Debbie