Teacher's pet

A lot of people asked for more stories about my Mother in law. I have no problem sharing, I like to vent about her (and my poor husband loves it when someone else is on the receiving end of my venting) and I do think a lot of what she does tends to be pretty funny in hindsight.

However, I tend to vent and let it go. I can't really recall a lot of what she's done in the past (her most memorable moments are things I've already talked about - showing up late or super early repeatedly, being "sick" during important events...) I don't really see her too often, even though she lives 10-15 minutes away (she loves to give me a guilt about not seeing her, even though she's the one who doesn't answer or call me back when I call to make plans, cancels at the last minute, or doesn't call to make plans until the day before she wants to see us, and then is shocked when we didn't wait for her to call before we made other plans. She recently had to go to the hospital, and therefore canceled plans with us. The next time she saw us she told me to "pencil" her in to my "busy" schedule so that she could see us, when she's the one who canceled. Even though she for once had a valid reason to cancel, I still don't understand how I ended up getting blamed.) She also didn't see my son a lot when he was a newborn because she couldn't show up on time, and when my FIL had a whole day off, she decided she'd rather go shopping then to come see us, but didn't have a problem making me feel bad that she had "missed out on SO much!"

Anyway, my whole point is I don't have problems sharing my mother in law stories, but I don't really have a ton to tell right now. My funniest story is about the time we were all discussing how the old Sesame Streets had come out on DVD, but that they came with a parental warning. When my husband heard this, he was floored and asked "Why the hell would they put a parental warning on Sesame Street?!?" To which my MIL answered before I had a chance too: "Oh, I heard about that. It's because there's a black guy in it."

.....Yup. Then there was also the time she yelled at me for putting one of Cayden's toys on the Spanish setting, saying Cayden didn't need to learn Spanish, that it wouldn't help him out at all. She got really upset/flustered when my husband and busted out laughing, and didn't have much to say when we told her that you get higher paying jobs when you're bi-lingual, and most colleges actually required you to know two different languages.

She hasn't said too many more racist things anymore, since she yelled at me for calling my son a butthole and I told her I'd rather hear him drop the F bomb than say something racist.

Anyway, again, I luckily don't see her too often, but when I do, if she says anything ridiculous, I'll be sure to pass it on.


I was thinking last night about my school. Things weren't easy in my childhood, and I had my fair share of struggles. It's not something I would care to repeat. However, I did get lucky when it came to my school. Well. Sort of.

My town was tiny, my school even smaller. I knew everyone in the high school by name. This just meant the rumors got around, and quickly. We also had the reputation of being such a good school, that in order to keep up appearances, authority figures over looked certain things (a bad drug problem, which I think led to our nasty suicide rates.) In high school, there was a suicide every year, and that was just counting the ones that were successful, we never really knew how many attempts were made. After high school, I've known several other people to commit suicide. I really think it's part growing up in a town where you're a big fish in a little pond, and part drugs. I myself battled with depression, and ended up attempting suicide when I was 17.

The good thing about my school though, was I had many teachers who went above and beyond and really cared for me and the rest of their students. The one who stands out the most was my English teacher, Mr. Woodall.

I loved English (I'm not so great at the technical side, but a class where you're required to read and write? AWESOME.) But, after dealing with the WORST English teacher in the world for two years (he switched grades, so we had him twice. His name was Mr. Garrison, no joke, and he was a jerk, on top of being a bad teacher. And also very full of himself.)I ended up being switched to a "special" English class. I was really upset about this. I'm not afraid to say when I need extra help (I was placed in a special class for Math as well, which I desperately needed.) But, I really placed the blame on a crappy teacher. However, after being in this class for a few weeks, it was recognized by the whole staff that I didn't belong there, and I was able to switch to the regular English class. That's where I met Mr. Woodall.

Mr. Woodall was an AWESOME teacher. He came up with fun projects, told jokes, stayed after to help students. Even the mundane, boring, required tasks were fun. Every day when I walked in the class he would greet me with "You're the one, Lo. You're the one."

I didn't really understand what he met. I graduated 8th grade and moved on up into high school. I occasionally went back to visit, but life got busy, and visits were less frequent. Then Sophomore year rolled around. I was actually in English class when our teacher got pulled out into the hall. I knew it was bad news, and so I assumed it was another suicide. I started thinking about who I hadn't seen that morning. I was shocked when she came back an announced that it was, in fact, a teacher who had died.

Mr. Woodall had a heart condition due to untreated strep throat that he had when he was a child. We were told that his wife went in to wake him in the morning, and he never woke up. I always regretted not telling him how much he meant to me, and how he gave me back my love for reading and writing that Mr. Garrison stole from me. I know from my work in a non-profit that teaching kids? Not easy at all. And I had so much respect for him and the work that he did. It kills me that I never got to thank him.

I did, however, enter an essay about him in a Teacher of the Year contest, and ended up winning. Unfortunately, they moved Mr. Garrison up as Mr. Woodall's replacement, which is really horrible. I just wanted to take a moment and tell you about him, and to thank any teachers out there. Your students may not say so at the time, but you probably have touch their lives in a way.

What about you guys? Any special teachers? Are any of you teachers?

And real quick, I know there's been a few people talking about how 15 miles is coming back. I know some people have asked for blog recommendations, and I do recommend that one (http://fifteenmiles.blogspot.com/?zx=f50a463c55f74d5e) However, I have an opinion on everything, and I've stated my opinion on what went down on this blog a couple times before. In the comments, you have to take the good with the bad. I get really annoyed (to the point where I stopped reading one of the blogs I used to read) when author's open up comments, ask for peoples opinions, and get angry when people are honest.

I try to be real with what I do. I'll tell you up front, my writing is most likely going to be full of grammar errors, and that's probably not going to change. They'd be full of spelling errors too, if it weren't for spell check. I made up the posting schedule, and I'm trying my best to stick to it, but I don't have a problem changing it if it gets to be too much. You can say what you want, sometimes I'll have an explanation for why I do things the way I do, sometimes I'll take suggestions, sometimes I'll ignore anyone who's negative for no good reason. I think when you put yourself out there, you should expect that someone's not going to like you. You should expect that someone may be jealous and want to pick on you. You should expect that some people will critique you.

I do think the author handled it wrong. That's my opinion. But I also can admit that I never saw the emails that she got, and maybe some other things were going on that added to the stress of things. Someone mentioned they had mixed feelings about the whole deal, and I had to agree. I do kinda wish that she apologized, not to everyone, but to the people who DID support her. But, I also can't say I'm not going to read it anymore, the story is just THAT good, I know I'd be lying.

All in all, writing a blog I don't think is hard as some people make it out to be. I think a lot of the authors add stress to themselves. If you don't have time to post, then change your schedule. If someone says something nasty, ignore it! Who cares that someone doesn't like what you wrote, why does it matter? It's not like you know these people in real life, and obviously on a lot of these blogs the people who dislike things are in the minority.

Anyway, I know some people are going to be like "why are you talking trash about other blogs? Why does it even matter?" It's just that it's whatever wednesday, and being up this late, playing mafia wars on facebook, that's part of what I was thinking about. I know I can be a little judgmental of people, or at least it can come off that way. It's just that I have an opinion that I like to share, but on the flip side, I'm also willing to let people share and have their own opinions.

So what do you guys think? I know a lot of you read other blogs, what do you think about them? SHARE YOUR LINKS TOO! I'm in need of new blogs to read :-)