My Mother is Poem...

I miss my mother every day. After she passed I started a habit of listening to somewhat thought provoking/depressing music on my way to school each morning and crying. I've moved passed that for the most part. With last year being my first year of teaching and with me approaching life in a sort of survival/I refuse to lose who I am sort of way, without realizing it, I mentally reserved my mornings for grieving. ( I know it's probably a little bit strange that I'm talking/blogging about, but I actually think it's really healthy, and to be honest I NEED to talk about it.) Summer has given me a lot more time to think and to deal with my mother's passing. I will most likely never fully accept that she is gone, because to me she still feels too real. I am sure I will hold on to her memories with a sort of desperation, and I know that there will be times now, all the way to when I'm on my deathbed, where I will need to talk about her. Whether I'm talking about how much I miss her, or the days she spent in the hospital, or just sharing funny memories about her, talking about my mother will always be apart of who I am. My mother is stitched into the fabric of my life. She is woven into every memory I have from the time when I walked out of the middle of kindergarten and walked home just to see her, to my wedding day, to just today, when of my students saw her picture and said, "Your mom has curly hair, just like you,". My mother does not physically need to be here to be a gigantic part of my life.

These are just a few memories of my mother that I've thought about today.

*I remember making cookies once when I was still living at home. I was at that stage where I was mixing the sugar(white and brown), vanilla, and egg together, and I was just about to pour in the flour. Thinking I had already added the flour, my mother grabbed a spoon and took a huge bite. We laughed about that for quite some time.
*I remember going through a really rough time about five years ago, and my mother and I taking a break together St. Luke's. We sat in the hallway, facing the window and I cried. I remember telling her "This hurts like hell." The fact that I was going through a rough time isn't exactly memorable, but the way my mom sat beside me and rubbed my back is a memory I'll keep.

These aren't much, they're just a few that crossed my mind today, and I wanted to write them down.



************************************************************************************

The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes


My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts. ~Washington Irving

God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers. ~Jewish Proverb


My mother is a poem
I'll never be able to write,
though everything I write
is a poem to my mother.
~Sharon Doubiago

My First Recipe Post!

So far, I am keeping to all of my "New School Year" resolutions. Granted, school hasn't technically started and it's only been a few days. I have yet to try a new wine for the month (I still have time); however, I have tried a new recipe. I have absolutely no name for it. I've been calling it the Mexican casserole thingy. I pulled it off the internet and then added to it. Sadly, I'm not 100% sure where I pulled it from. I copy and pasted quite a few recipes last night and saved them to a document on my computer. Nonetheless, here is the recipe:

What You Will Need:

1 lb hamburger,
2 cups salsa,
1 can black beans (drained and rinsed),
1/4 cup Craft Zesty Italian dressing,
1 package of taco seasoning,
6 flour tortillas,
1 package of shredded cheese (2 cups),
1 can of corn,
tortilla chips (optional),
and a pinch of cayenne pepper to spice it up:)

Directions:
*Preheat the over to 400 degrees.
*Brown hamburger in skillet and drain.
*Mix in salsa, black beans, Zesty Italian Dressing, taco seasoning, corn, and cayenne pepper.
*Arrange three tortillas along the bottom and side of a 13 x 9 pan.
*Cover the tortillas with half of the meat mixture.
*Then cover the meat mixture with a cup of cheese and sour cream.
*Repeat Layers.

Bake 40 minutes and Viola!




The recipe suggests placing tin foil over the casserole. I forgot to do that, but it turned out perfectly! Ken and I also spread crushed tortilla chips over the top. It was delicious! I have a weakness for Mexican food and I've made similar casseroles before and this has been the best so far.

New School Year's Resolutions

I swear that at some point in time (and hopefully in the near future) I am going to update this with pictures from our trip to Nebraska and Colorado. I really would have done it by now, but for whatever reason the act of transferring our pictures off of our camera and on to the computer seems like an incredibly daunting task. My hope is that I will do it sometime this weekend.

Well, school is back in session, at least for me. I'm doing a jump start summer school program and I am on day two. So far it's going good. Pretty soon we will have sped through summer school and right into the regular school year and THAT is why I'm updating this. :) I know that you're supposed to make New Year's Resolutions, but I have decided to make new school year resolutions. Some of which have to do with school, while others don't. In a lot of ways starting off the school year feels more like a new year than January first. So here I go, my list of new school year resolutions, in no particular order.

1. This year I'm going to try my hardest to grade all papers during the week so that I'm not taking any grading home with me over the weekend. Nothing sucks more than having a huge stack of ungraded essays looming over you all weened. My plan is to break up my paper grading over a span of a few school days each time something is due.

2. I'd like to try one new recipe a month and possibly post them on here:)

3. In addition, I think I'm going to add that I'd like to try one new wine a month as well.

4. I am going to work out at least four days a week...maybe three days on the super busy weeks, such as parent teacher conferences. I have an eliptical machine in our rec room now and so I really have no excuse.

5. This year I am limiting my trips to Starbucks. From now on, only once a week!

6. I want to keep a record of the many funny middle school moments I come across, whether I post them on here or just write them down.

7. I want to keep a cleaner house. Sometimes I get so busy during the school week that when my day is done I crash, leaving my cleaning to the weekend. Thanks to a friend, I have come up with a schedule so that I'm just doing a little something every day, as opposed to hours worth on the weekend.


I think that's it for now. I swear I have more. In fact, when I started this I could have sworn that I did. This will do for now:)

My mother passed away a little over a year ago. The anniversary of her death was July 24th. I've put off updated this, because I feel like I should write something about her. Unfortunately I haven't had much luck. Most of what I write concerning my mother comes out very raw. I have written about her a little bit over this summer, as it was one of my goals, although in truth I haven't written nearly as much as I would have liked, and none of it came out like I expected it to. These are just a few excerpts. (Each paragraph was written separately.)

One of my goals for this summer was to take some time out to write about my mother. I’ve started to on many occasions, but each time it just gets too hard. I imagined that what I wrote would be monumental and beautiful, and maybe even a little bit poetic. I thought I could write something life changing, because my mother was life changing; but every attempt that I have made has fallen short of my epic expectations I miss my mom. I miss her every day…all the time. I have said many times how lucky I was to have her and to have had the relationship I did with her and to have spent the amount of time that I did with her. All of that is true. On the other hand, and I’m going to be honest, this just sucks. There is no pretty or poetic way to put it. I miss calling her and I miss her constantly calling me. I miss hugging her or hearing her laugh. I miss breakfasts at St. Luke’s. I want to go to a family gathering and have her there. I want to go out of town and have her worry about me. I want to go to Lowe’s with her. I want to play croquet in her yard on Mother’s day and make margaritas with her and Ken on Christmas Eve. It is amazing the amount of space one person can take up and colossal hole they can leave once they are gone. She was my center, and still is. Only now that center is located inside of me.

************************************************************************

A little over a year ago, I watched the Fourth of July fireworks from the top floor of the St. Luke’s hospital. Initially my mom was going to watch them with us. One of the CCU nurses during the daytime had given her the idea, but by the time they had transferred her to the Oncology floor and the night nurse took a look at all of her cords and excess baggage, my mom had changed her mind. She said she was tired, and she was, in more ways than one. But, in truth, I think she just didn’t want to upset her new nurse for the night. I watched the fireworks with my face pressed up against the side of the window, with Fenix’s head below mine and Brooke and Dennin’s head in the window next to us; the fireworks exploded, multi colored, one after the other, without a sound. That fourth of July night was much like my summer. Life kept going at full speed and full volume, yet I couldn’t hear a thing. My life was on pause. My life was contained in the walls of St. Luke’s hospital. I knew what floors had the good TV’s, which vending machines held which snacks. I knew what departments let you help yourself to the soda in the fridge. I spent hours watching HGTV on silent. I waited for doctors to come in. In many ways, I grew up. I became dependent and even attached to some of my mother’s nurses. Once my mother was transferred to the oncology ward I had even had my own bed. It sounds silly, but there are times when I miss that bed. I can still remember how cool the sheets felt and they way I had to pile two thick hospital blankets over the sheets every night just to keep warm. The fourth of July was my mother’s first day on the Oncology Ward, and her last day in CCU. I had to teach that morning, and because her health was doing better, I had slept at home that night. In the CCU the back wall to her room was a window, from top to bottom. She watched her last sunrise that day, and she cried. The nurse turned her bed around so that she could look straight out the window without getting up and then she stayed past her shift that morning to hold my mother’s hand.

************************************************************************


My mother and I exchanged a lot of words while she was in the hospital. I told her I loved her constantly. She told me she thought I’d be O.K. She said she thought Ken and I would be fine and how happy she was that she got to see us get married. She talked to me about how she used to “bump” into her mother after she had passed in the small bedroom of her house, where she kept her mother’s things and that she would “bump” into me in the spare bedroom of our house, because that’s where Ken and my children would sleep some day. I told her how full she had made my life, because there really is no other adequate word to describe the life my mother gave me. It was a life that was full. It was filled to the brim with love and support. Full of laughter and hugs. Full of Saturday mornings at the market and trips to Lowe’s and phone calls going both ways. It was full of movie nights. It was full of “I love you with all my heart”s. She told me how full I had made her life too. She said that I had given her things and allowed her to do things she otherwise wouldn’t have. I never asked my mother how she was feeling while in the hospital (other than physically). I never really asked her what she was thinking, because to be really honest, I was too afraid of the answer. That’s one of my regrets. I didn’t openly give her the venue to talk about her fears because I didn’t feel like I knew how to respond. I didn’t ask because I imagine that I knew how she was thinking and feeling, but was too afraid to hear it out loud. Some of the hardest moment in the hospital came at the end. The Monday evening before she passed the respiratory therapist came into give her nightly treatment. I already had my bed pulled out and I was curled up in it reading as my mom and the R.T. chatted. Out of nowhere, in the middle of my mom’s treatment, she removed her breathing mask, grabbed the R.T. hand (at this point, the R.T. had become like a friend) and said “I’m afraid I’m going to die tonight.” I couldn’t say anything other than I love you to her, because the truth was, at the point, she could have, and she would four days later. Nothing can prepare you for a moment like that. We are programmed to diffuse situations, to find the positive. We are programmed to say things like “It’s going to be O.K.” or “Don’t say that, you’re going to be fine.” Only my mother wasn’t going to be fine. My mother was going to die, and we were all expected, including her, to be prepared for that and accept it. It is the first time in my life where I have faced something I could not change. It’s the first time that I have had absolutely no control.

The Wooden Wedge

I'm posting this blog from our hotel in Loveland, Colorado. Here in a few minutes we're going to make our way up to Estes Park. When we get back to Idaho I'd like to blog about our trip, but for now I just wanted to record the conversation I had with my husband last night in our hotel. Well, it really wasn't much of a conversation, it was more just a comment he made that made me laugh and made me remember how much I love him and my mother and how grateful I am for the both of them.

As Ken was crawling into bed last night he turned to me and said, "You know what we should have brought for the hotel? The wooden wedge, in honor of Caren."

The wooden wedge is this wedge of wood my mother gave Ken and I before we left for our honeymoon to Las Vegas. She told us to wedge it into the door at night to keep people from breaking into our hotel room. She didn't think the hotel lock and deadbolt was enough:) We actually still have that wooden wedge somewhere. I love my mom. That story always makes me laugh. I also love my husband for remembering that and for being around to share those memories about my mom with me.

Summer

Summer has really flown by, and in a little over 3 weeks I'll be back in school. I am doing a jump start program at my school, which is basically a two week long summer school program; so my first day of school is actually August second, which is coming up really quickly! I have mixed emotions about this. A part of me is ready to go back already. I know, kind of sad, huh? I think it's because I have cut myself off of the "True Blood" series, and so I have found myself a little bit bored this last week:) Another part of me wishes I had a little bit more time for summer. I know that there are still some projects out there that I would like to finish before the school year gets into full swing. I did go out to my classroom yesterday and I must admit, I kind of missed it. I'm hoping I make the best of these next few weeks and that I take advantage of my time off.

Our summer has been low key and I thought that I'd use this post to share a little bit of the Dietz summer experiences.

This is what our summer has looked like:

I was verylucky this summer and my incredibly good friend Amanda came to visit me from Wisconsin. It was much needed. We really didn't take her to do anything too exciting, but I'm hoping that was O.K. I really enjoyed having her here and so far that has been the highlight of my summer. Sadly, I have no pictures of us from the trip (Well, I have a really bad, wind blown picture of us, and just a plain bad one Ken took, so I should rephrase: I have no shareable pictures of the two of us:). Here are the highlights of her trip:

*We partook in a lot of this----------->

paired with sometimes intelligent, sometimes not, conversation.

*We consumed A LOT of junk food, resulting in me gaining two pounds and having to eat incredibly healthy for the week following Amanda's departure.

*We attempted to exercise...


*We watched all but two episodes of the "True Blood" series while lounging on the pull out couch. Amanda introduced me to this series and I have become addicted to both the books and the HBO series. I will not let myself pay extra for HBO though and so I am just going to have to wait until season three is done playing out and available for purchase. It will be tough, but I can do it:) I would like to take this opportunity to say this series rocks! Thank you Amanda!


*We spent a night dancing the night away at Mugsy's. Amanda had some very creative moves:)

*We had a BBQ, where again, we ate incredibly unhealthy food and...

*We toured a few Vineyards in the area. Bitner's was beautiful! Although I think we ended up enjoying the wine the most at Indian Creek.

Those were the highlights from Amanda's trip. Again, it was so much fun to have her come to visit. Next time I am going to have to plan a trip out to Wisconsin to see her.

The weekend after Amanda left we celebrated both my nephew's thirteenth birthday and Fenix's 8th.






It's hard to believe that Dennin is officially a teenager. These years have flown by. I used to change that kids diaper! My friends and I used to bring him along with us when we hung out in high school. In fact, at one point, I think we tried putting him in a hand cart and carting him through the store like that. I literally used to hang out with him all the time. There were many nights when we stayed up late playing Mario Cart. I even took Dennin to my Senior Prom. I had, by far, the best date there:) Ah! It's just hard to believe how much time has passed and how quickly it's passed. Pretty soon he will be speeding through high school. Kind of scary...:)

As for Fenix, eight is a big year too! I think Ken and I realized just how big of a year it was just the other day when Fenix was getting ready for the day and he brushed his own hair! Normally he gets dressed and brushes his teeth and one of us does his hair, but this time he took the liberty to do it himself. He is definitely getting older. Fenix is such a good kid. We are so blessed with him. I really hope that when Ken and I have children that they turn out as wonderful as Fenix. Although I have a feeling that if we have a girl some day she will be a terror in the same way that I was:) Fenix is just so well adjusted and polite and grateful and sensitive and creative and intuitive and intelligent and...I'm being obnoxious and I'm going to stop. We really are lucky though. I am proud to be his step-mom and happy to play the role in his life that I do. This is the sixth birthday that I've celebrated with Fenix and I really can't imagine my life any other way.

O.K. Moving on... as for the rest of our summer, Fenix did both swimming lessons and soccer camp. We got him signed up for soccer in the fall and he's really excited! He gets to play on the same league as Brooke and so this fall should be really fun and filled with Saturday soccer games! We've spent a few days at the water park and a lot of days at Hastings, which is the book store near our house. I swear to you that Fenix may just read us out of house and home:) It could be worse though. In all reality I just need to pay off our insane library fine! Fenix has also started an obsession with "Club Penguin". Don't ask:)

In addition to all of that, we've spent a lot of time in our yard. I planted a new rose bush and laid down new mulch, etc in out rose garden...if you can really call it that. We set up some barrel planters in our backyard, with clematis and some annuals, and Ken built an arbor that I planted grapes around. Our hope is that by next year we'll have some grapes that we can hopefully use to make some wine with. We also had a patio cover built and we've really enjoyed having that.






All in all this summer has been good. Ken and Fenix's mother were able to reach an agreement on where Fenix will be attending school, which is awesome! That has also been a highlight as well as a stress to our summer. It's taken a lot of work and came at a price, but I think it will be well worth it in the end. We're happy Fenix will be in a district that he lives in and we're really excited that he will be attending Meridian Elementary and will be able to bus to our house every day. He seems to be pretty stoked about it too.

Our next adventure for the summer is our trip back to Ken's hometown. We leave in exactly a week to visit these folks in Nebraska...



...plus quite a few more as well as some in Colorado:) We're really excited to get there, but less than excited about the actual trip due to two factors. One being that it takes 14 and a half hours. The second factor is that we are bringing this...

She may not be wearing the costume for our trip, but I am sure she will be playing the part after 14 hours in a car:(

Well, that has been our summer thus far, in a very big nutshell:)

School's Out for Summer!

Ah! School is out! I am done with my first year of teaching and am no longer a rookie. This year flew by incredibly quickly. I am in awe at speed at which the months came and went. I have accumulated so much knowledge and so many memories in the past nine months. I am ready for summer. I have been feeling anxious the last few weeks. At the same time, I have been reluctant to hand this group of seventh grade students over. I was blessed with a wonderful group of students. I had my share of chatters and my advisory most definitely gave me some challenges, but all in all, I could not be more grateful for the students that I had this year and for what they taught me. I have said it many times before, but they were a lifeline in an otherwise very difficult year for me. They gave me a gift that they had no knowledge they were giving.

I think it's funny that in September I said I would post a picture of my "very first classroom" and here I am at the end of the year, and still haven't posted one. Maybe in a few days:) I thought I would use my blog as a way to post a few memories/excerpts from my first year of teaching, in part for you to enjoy, and for me to remember:)

*The very first day that I was there was a staff day and Paul (our Principal) had us play a game called "I've never..." All of our chairs were set in a circle. When it was your turn you had to stand up and say "I've never..." and then you had to finish the sentence with something you've never done. Everyone else was to remain in their seats, but if the speaker named something that the speaker had never done before but THEY had, then they had to get out of their seat and run to a new seat. Each time the removed a seat so that you lost a person each time. Anyway, I was one of two new teachers, and the staff at my school is very small and so I was feeling a little bit nervous about fitting in. The part of this game that I will always remember is when the counselor stood up and said, "I've never drank a beer in my life." Only two people stood up at that point and I remember thinking to myself, "What have I gotten myself into?"

*Reading over the shoulder of student as they were writing and coming across something that struck me as incredibly funny. I laughed so hard that I cried. Luckily this student had a good sense of humor and was able to laugh with me.

*Dress like your favorite teacher day when everyone who dressed like me was dressed in nearly all black.

*Melaney's inquisition of Jim when we went Portland:)

*I made the mistake once of telling one of my advisory students if he really had a problem with reading during advisory that he could take it up with the principal and then had him promptly storm out my room and to the principal's office. That will be the last time I use that threat. He most definitely called my bluff.

*One of my students telling Ken he looked like a rapper:) That just made me laugh.

*Scattergories.

*The day I drew a stick figure of myself on the board with curly hair (large curly hair) and one of my student asked me if my stick figure ever had a hard time playing hide and seek.

*The science fiction short story one of my students wrote that was titled "Mrs. Dietz is a Robot". In it I'm a robot who is trying to not expose my secret of being a robot to the Principal. I brought my students brownies every day and I had a Mrs. Dietz human suit that I changed into.

*Recently a student wrote a paper where he said that when I taught I made him feel like the smartest kid in the class. It completely warmed my heart.

*How excited my 7/8 period class got when they made our high school T.A. graduation cards and how heartfelt their messages were.

These are really just a few. There are so many more and I hope that I sit down and type up more when I have the time. This school year has been wonderful. I feel like I've found a school that's a good fit for me.





As far as summer goes, Amanda will be coming to visit in less than two weeks, which I am really excited about! Then, in July we will be driving to the Nebraska/Colorado area to see Ken's family.

Ha! If I were to grade this blog post using the six traits, I do not think I would score it will in organization. This was by far a very lame conclusion! :)