Thursday, March 31, 2011

The Entrance to the 78th Level of Dante's Inferno

As I endure the morning announcements at the decibel level of a vaccum cleaner, please permit me to display today's special photo. If you have read my last entry, you will know exactly what this is. Please don't ask what the little rubber mat is for, I'm still trying to figure that out. Good day and let us hope it's a dryer one.


...and there are some who think facilities don't need improvement... Tell that to the Moms who are doing the laundry...

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The 78th Level of Dante's Inferno

Okay, naturally, I picked a number at random since I'm not sure how many levels Hell REALLY has. But I'm sure that on some days, I'm in one of them. Today's weather in the Instuctional-Pod-Compound (otherwise known as the trailer park at my school) is rain, rain, and more rain. Which wouldn't be so bad if there were awnings and an adequate sidewalk, but I have neither at my disposal. It's so laughable, it's humorous and ridiculous. I expect that anyday now, I'll have pneumonia as I must trudge out in the weather every 30 minutes to change groups. I hate it for my students too as their mothers didn't really expect them to have to go outside on this cold, rainy day. The single line of stepping stones leading to the trailer's front door is surrounded by a small pond and mostly immersed in mud. Before I leave the main building with each group of children, I must preface the trip with the following advice: "Please walk carefully on the stepping stones in front of my door, dear children. The mud puddle-boobie-trap is set and if you walk too fast or too heavy on the stones, mud will fly up to drench and permenantly stain your clothes." For 3, 4 and 5 year olds, this concept is difficult to grasp. All they want to do is run as fast as possible to stay out of the rain, hence all the muddy little pantlegs around the school. You always know a Special Ed. kid by the mud on his pants around here. It's heartbreaking really. Then, once the children have doffed their drenched little jackets and gotten settled, we begin what is loosely called 'therapy.' I say loosely because typically therapy requires a non-distracting environment, which this particular environment is not. It's hard to avoid distraction when there is merely a 3/4 partition between the 'therapy' room and a very active special education classroom. It can be difficult and trying to compete with a boistrous teacher and his band of brooding students. I would like to obtain a sound-level-meter to check decibel levels on some days. And let us not forget, the ongoing announcements throughout the day over the loudspeaker. It is a dizzying, never-ending parade of interruption. It's no wonder many of my students just aren't making all that much progress. Is it not criminal? Children with special needs deserve so much more. Not exactly how I pictured my career when I walked across the stage at Appalachian State University to receive my Master's Degree.
I have also given up on the futile attempts to park anywhere near my instructional-pod. The parking area (again, I use that term loosely as well) is merely a mudbog that hasn't seen gravel since I was a child here at this school. Although I do drive a LandRover, I would prefer to keep my vehicle as clean as possible until such time for rooting by choice occurs (this isn't it). At 3:45, you should see all the tire spinning and flying mud which occurs around these parts. I regret, today, that I don't have my smartphone to take a photo of the walkway to my instructional-pod, which is more like World 6 of Super Mario Brothers on days like this. Rain, rain and more rain.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Hope Springs Eternal and so on and so on


My mom recently gave up her large flower garden, as she just isn't able to keep it lovely any longer. Before the bulldozer came through, she asked me to come in and transplant whatever I wanted to my own yard. It was a beautiful day and mom, recovering from a recent surgery, sat outside to supervise the digging up of irises, daylillies, azaleas, candytuft, daffodils, and variagated liriope. It was a nice way to spend part of the afternoon together, she and I. The digging was easy since it was all mulch. Then I got all these plants home with the daunting task of digging holes in my hard as a rock, mostly clay yard.
This took several afternoons after work and part of the next saturday. Of course, I'm well pleased with myself. But the best part is the discovery of the little sprout you see in the photo there. Since the Dude and I said our I Do's, that's eleven years past, I have wanted peonies to grow in my yard. We've lived in five different houses, at which almost every one of them I've attempted to plant peonies, and FINALLY my wish has been granted! Last year, I purchased yet another peony bulb from a local lady, thinking, one more fruitless attempt. And yet, there it is, actually beginning to grow. BIG SMILES This makes me pretty happy as my grandmother's nickname for me as a child was Peony and she always grew them so easily. Well Grandma, I hope you can see this one when it blooms. This baby is just for you!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Waxing Poetic

Lunch Break inspiration! This morning I opened an email from a company tauting a game called Sentence Samurai, in which you cut out all these little words and your student gets points for making longer and longer sentences with the words. The email included a free sample which I promptly printed out and took to the middle school to try out on one of my syntax-challenged students. I liked it, although she didn't seem too impressed. Enter Max Instructional Scaffolding. Oh well. Anyway, the concept was somehow familiar; it reminded me of something... oh what could it be? Driving over to the High School, listening to Dublin's finest on Sirius 18 (quick, do a little jig), it hit me- Magnetic Poetry! Come now, if you didn't own one, you know one of your college pals did and you became an instant poetic genius in its presence, no? So today, on my lunch break, I just found the website, thinking, "This is perfect for therapy" and of course there's an opportunity to play on-line! I'm so excited about it, I'm including the link below so you too can go be an on-line poetic master! You guessed it, I'm going to order a set of the original Magnetic Poetry for use in therapy because that's a whole lot easier than cutting out all those little words and it comes in the cute little box. And who doesn't love a cute little box?
Enjoy!
http://play.magpogames.com/

Saturday, March 12, 2011

My, but what indicative eyes you have!

I admit, I had been looking forward to my appointment with the herbalist for the latter half of the week. Maybe it's the novelty of trying a new thing, maybe it's sheer desperation, maybe it's the possibility of being let in on some secret and elusive thing (sort of like having God appear to you in a dream and keeping him to yourself). I couldn't wait to see what photos of each iris might reveal. And so, this is how our visit began. Each eyeball was photographed and inspected in GIANT. My eyes look a little weird all blown up like that, and apparently quite telling. This is called an iridology health analysis.
First on the list of ills- digestion! Apparently what the medical world might call IBS stems from esophageal and colonic inflammation due to my lack of digestion of proteins. Bring on the food enzymes to aid that, reduce my meat a bit and cut out sodas. (Thankfully I get to keep my coffee, tea and beer- yay!) To help clean out that ol' colon I'll be taking shots of Whole Leaf Aloe Vera. Okay, that stuff tastes pretty nasty, let me tell you. Later on we'll be looking at probiotics. Next ailment for attention- sinus inflammation! Apparently the Zyrtec I take every night is a futile attempt at guarding against allergies. Here we call on an Echinacea/Goldenseal combination, in mass quantities at first, in order to clean out my head. This ought to make the Dude very happy since he's been complaining about my coughing since day one. Because my lymph nodes have been the dumping ground for all the toxins from sinus infections and infections in my colon, they need to be cleansed as well. Enter special exercises, lots of water and if I choose, massage therapy. In the near future we'll be looking at the thyroid also since Voodoo Guy says he suspects it's low, this can be confirmed with a simple temperature test which I'll be doing at home. More on that in a future post. Perhaps you are curious as to why I bother typing all this in here. It's for me to remember as well as for others who may have similar issues. I don't mind being a reference point if needed. The last issue is the weaning off of the dopamax. Because of the nature of the drug, Voodoo Guy feels I would be better served easing myself off with support from an herb called Lobelia (which would be the spirit world's version of an anti-convulsant I suppose). He's glad I'm no longer on birth-control pills and feels that past long term use has probably done some damage over the years. Several issues were mentioned today, from my migraines to fatigue to the fibrocystic changes in my breast tissue. Wouldn't it be quite amazing if after several months of working with the herbalist, that I begin to feel as though these things weren't really issues any longer? What if the panacea of well-being really exists within that Voodoo Guy's scope of practice? Several people I know swear by his recommendations. I'm an excellent test-case since I generally feel pretty crappy (albeit crappy with a pretty decent attitude). All this took over an hour of consultation today, on a saturday. I didn't have to miss work and I didn't have to sit in a germ-filled waiting room and read tacky magazines or watch Geraldo. He asked questions, he welcomed my questions, he listened, he hugged (we're in the spirit world, they can't see us). It's a totally different experience, that's for darn sure. I'll be updating progress, of course, as a matter of science and health. As always, I appreciate my readers. And I really appreciate my friend C.S. who basically helped convince me to go to the Voodoo Guy. Apparently she's my sponsor and I hope she gets some kind of lovely discount because of it. If anyone else reading this, has similar experiences which may be helpful, I would appreciate a comment below. The majority of people out there may not take any of this seriously, but for me, this is worth a shot... of Aloe Vera drink.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

...and now for something completely different?

It's no secret that I've pretty much given up on the dopamax as the answer to my problem. I simply couldn't hack the side effects and I figured out that the reactions to continued migraines while on dopamax is really really ugly. I wake up feeling like I have the flu, I am more nauseated than I've ever been and totally non-functional. During prior migraines, I could at least typically, pull myself together, get the kids ready for school and suffer through the day with the blinding pain. But this can't happen with blinding pain PLUS nausea PLUS shakes (flu-like symptoms). So my low dose of dopamax is not only not helping, but making it worse. Okay, time for a new game plan. Saturday, for let's say giggles, I'm going to see the local voodoo guy, our highly acclaimed herbalist and iridologist. As I have said before, he has a cult following, many a folk doth swear by him. So, we shall see. Stay tuned for a full report. If walking in the spirit world doesn't work, I guess the next stop will be a full-fledged neurologist... The Almighty forbid I actually get an MRI... I hear the knocking now... "Hey Dawg, did you see the size of that chicken?"