Halloween Cat Costumes By Birk: Happy Halloween?

Ever wonder what your cat can morph into for Halloween? Birk can help you. Perhaps, give these a try:

Ghost Kitty

Cool Cat

Pioneer Kitty

Yay! It's Monday! Marvelous Monday!

I've written many posts about depressing Monday mornings. However, today, I'm quite glad it's Monday. I have the house to myself (along with a construction crew pouring cement and using some kind of saw) and there is a strange peace in knowing what I'll be doing for the rest of the day.

On the weekends, there is no real schedule. It shifts and changes all of the time. I plan nothing, because if I plan something, it doesn't happen anyway. We go with the flow, which might sound both difficult and nice, but this also means that we get nothing accomplished.

Yes, I have hopes and dreams on the weekend. Maybe we'll visit that museum exhibit that I want to see--and do it as a family and impart fabulous culture and knowledge upon our children. Maybe we will sort the last lot of boxes, take the donations to Good Will, or actually cook a nice Sunday dinner?

Those are my dreams, but none of those dreams ever really come true. I am a little water plant in a quick moving stream. If the wind blows in one direction, my fronds go that way. I have no power against the tide.

However, on Monday, I am once again mistress of my own destiny--to a certain point. I am in charge of myself. I can only blame me if nothing gets ticked off my list and I get ticked off. Marvelous Monday. What do you think of that? Is a certain place freezing over?

Thinking about Halloween: Life, Death and the First Day of 3rd Grade

It was the first day of school for Birk today. We were making eggs over easy on the stove together, cooking and chatting.

BIRK: Mom, when you're reincarnated, what would you like to come back as?

MOM: Reincarnated?

BIRK: You know, after you die, you come back as something else. I'd like to be a bunny or a Pegasus.

MOM: The thing is...

BIRK: Do you get to come back to the same family? Can I be in this family when I'm reincarnated?

You have to wonder where these ideas come from. I know we've discussed Heaven, so this reincarnation thing side swiped me.

Over coffee with my friend, she said her son created his own idea of Heaven after his grandmother passed away. In his idea of 6-year-old Heaven, people lay on their backs in the grass and stare up at clouds. He was also insistent that his cremated grandmother have a "stone" somewhere with her name.

It must be like being a little explorer in this vast world. Ideas and images fly around and you have to grasp and grapple. His mother wondered where he got the idea of a tombstone.

I guess we drive by cemeteries in the car and we put all kinds of freakish decorations out for Halloween. TV and movies probably add to the it and there is a bevy of information about religions and beliefs that is discussed at school.

I'm quietly thinking about a conversation that I can have with Birk later. We live in a world where ideas are colors blending on the palette. Time to paint a masterpiece.

Computerless, Artless, and Landlineless

Dear Friends,

It's been about 3 months since I've had a steady functioning computer of my own. I'm developing a permanent squint from gazing at the small, rectangular screen of my iphone. I pretty much can do anything with my phone now. It's not a skill I want to really keep honing, though.

I'm also, once again, living among the boxes. I'm tired of boxes. I'm tired of packing. I'm tired of unpacking. I'm tired of lugging. We've decided that we are not hanging any art until all of the boxes are sorted and put away. It's very weird to be living with bare walls. We have a lot of art and a lot of it created was by our kids. It feels dull and lifeless and very boxed in.

We also have no landline telephone. This is really no biggie. However, have you ever had to make every dentist, doctor and school visit appointment while squinting at your smart phone screen calendar and yelling into the speaker phone? It does not make one feel very together and organized, I can tell ya that.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that we have no tv. I probably miss this the least. It would be nice to see the fall line up, though. We did find the stereo, though.

I've gone both back and forward in time these last few months. I'm ready for good old down time.

Sign Me,
Don't Box Me In Again Until I Get My Sleeping Vacation

Greetings from Banff

Dear Friends,

Here we are in Banff. George is at a conference, and I'm the tagalong. This is good considering our house is a wreck and my computer is broken...again!

Yes, the computer. I guess it's time to visit the Apple Genius people again. Oh, it must be nice to have a job where you are called a genius. Everyone looks up to you and wants and needs your attention. Nice. My job usually doesn't go in that direction, considering that I have two teenagers. (btw RIP Steve Jobs).

Banff is a beautiful place. Have to complain a little about the beautiful Banff Springs Hotel. For the second year in a row we ended up in the parking lot view room. We made such a scene last time, we figured that this could not happen again. AND...this was after George called 3 times to make sure that we were not in a parking lot view room. Not even if we were really looking at cars, we are looking at concrete walls. What is the point when you are in beautiful wilderness???

Now, we have been upgraded in room and price to the "best view in the house." It is truly spectacular. It is also because we have been in the "best view in the house" before that we whine so much about the parking lot view. My goodness!

House. Disaster. The renovation looks great. All of our crap? Looks bad. Need I go further? I think not.

We are celebrating 18 years of marriage. Still no one I'd rather spend my time with even after all of this time. He wants me to give up my land ownership and become a full time water girl. Love will always make you a fool. That is all I can say.

I'm going to run and watch The Help. Hope you are having a good week.

TTFN,
Deb

"Falling" In

Usually, by the second week of September, things are adjusting to their own kind of normal. The routine gets rolling, all of the bills are paid and the necessary forms are turned in.

This year, the new normal is all chaos all of the time.

I'm on round two of a broken computer. I just fixed that thing and pumped money into it to do so. Now it is lifeless and needs some kind of repeat divine intervention from the geniuses at Apple.

I'm still living in my one bedroom, one tent abode with one husband, three kids and a big, hairy black dog. I now know why dressers and closets were invented. Everyone needs a sock and underwear drawer, if nothing else, unless you're a dog.

I hope to be back on track soon, if it's not overgrown and unrecognizable.

Mommy Angst: Cut-Throat Competition for Private School Acceptance

Our kids go to the cutest, private school. O-k, I've said it and you, reader, are either cringing that I used the word "private" or you have private school in your background.

My kids did not end up at an "elitist" institution out of breeding. My husband and I went to public schools and I think we turned out pretty o-k. We kind of ended up at private school by accident. How does one make a ca trillion dollar mistake such as this? Read on...

Our first born, John, is an early September birthday boy. If you are a parent of a September boy, you know there is always one question before they enter kindergarten, "Do you send them early, or do you hold them back?"

If you are new to this debate, at the heart of it, a lot of people believe that you should give a child the "gift of time." This especially holds true for boys. I'm a Montessori preschool teacher, and when it came time for our son's third year of preschool, it was considered his "kindergarten year."

My husband and I, just figured that John would enter the public school kindergarten class with his "gift of time." He would be 6, and that would be around the age of most of the boys in his class. We went to tour the public school kindergarten and uh oh.

The tour guide said that they like the kindergartners to enter school being able to write their name and that most kids are reading by the time they enter 1st grade. John was over at Montessori school probably reading chapter books as we took our tour. This wasn't going to work out so well.

We toured 1st grade. The class sizes were small, but there were 600 kids on recess that border a public park. All we could picture was our little baby in that big class. He was quiet and shy and sweet and he was going to get lost!

Meanwhile, our Montessori teacher called us in for a conference. She told us if John entered kindergarten, it was going to be a disaster. Basically, we were told there was no way John could do kindergarten again.

She recommended that we tour a number of small private schools. We started touring, and the rest is history. We chose the sweetest school that was a cross between Montessori and traditional school. It actually was nick named the "Hippie School" a long time ago.

This was not a fancy school with a parking lot full of fancy cars. Being in Northern California, it had an eensy weensy celebrity attendance, but for the most part, you wouldn't know it was a private school, until you got the bill.

There is one class for each grade. Each class has a team of teachers, usually one male and one female. Every teacher at the school knows you and knows your kid. There is music and art and a wonderful projects lab where the kids use saws, hammers and drills. It has been a lovely place for our now 8th grader to grow and learn.

However, this school ends at 8th grade. Now, we are being catapulted out of our comfort zone and into the land of high school. Public school is large and excellent and facing big budget cuts. Private school is uber competitive and exceedingly expensive and excellent--it faces no budget crisis as the prices just keep going up.

Now we are on that age old question again, what do we do? Do we sell the farm, and maybe a couple of siblings to afford an excellent secondary education? The competition is so fierce for so few spots, you can't go anywhere around 8th grade parents from our school and not have the "High School Conversation."

Where did you apply? Do you think you'll get in? How many recommendations? Test scores? How many times did you child take the SSAT? Did you take the SSAT courses? How was the interview? What did your child write their essay about? Grades?

Calgon! Take me away! We will get letters from the schools about acceptances March 18th. Until then, oh boy. There is tension among the best of friends. There is parental angst over who will get the coveted one or two spots at the top schools.

Then the rumors fly right alongside the circus. If you give more money, you have a better chance. If you have this zip code, you have a better chance. If you play such and such sport you have a better chance. If you have siblings you have a better chance. If you're famous, if you're friends with so and so, if, if, if...

If this is high school, we are going to need Valium to get through the college application process.