Happy Birthday 2010!

To resolve or not to resolve, that is the question.

I've been pondering this question for weeks. I've had long lists of ideas for resolutions for the new year. Unfortunately, I can't remember most of them now. The two that are still floating around in my head are:
1. Write letters to friends/sisters at least one Sunday a month . . . more often after I finish student teaching. This was a dear tradition I started early in the almost past decade. I loved spending Sunday mornings drinking coffee, eating pastries, listening to soothing music, writing letters, and chatting with the other regulars. Cafe La France is something else now, but as far as I know, Bristol, Rhode Island is still the most patriotic city in the U.S.

2. Eat LOCAL foods. Not too much. Mostly plants. I've been inspired by Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Pollan this year. I stumbled upon Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this summer at an awesome new book store in Portage, Books 'n Beans, and life hasn't been the same since. Then, while Christmas shopping, I saw a copy of Michael Pollan's book that stirred up quite a bit of controversy on the UW-Madison campus this fall - In Defense of Food - and couldn't resist supporting my local book store. I would love to start the new decade with a new outlook on food. Part of this resolution definitely involves joining a CSA, which Michael and I have already agreed to do. It might also have to involve gardening, which is less exciting, because I don't really think I have an aptitude for caring for plants, but teaching seems like a good match for gardening, except for the fact that my first harvest will (hopefully) fall during my first semester of teaching in my very own classroom. But both the gardening and the teaching will only get easier, and it might be nice to have an outlet during the early part of the school year. Particularly if that outlet can help to feed us all winter!

I'm really not sure what the rest of my resolutions were going to be. Probably something about being less stressed and more relaxed, getting more exercise, keeping my house cleaner, and being more productive in general, being more positive, networking in the teaching field, etc.

I may make a resolution to read at least a page or two of a book for FUN every night before going to bed. That would be a good stress reliever for the last three weeks of student teaching, and Michael and I still have a gift card to spend at Barnes and Noble, and I've promised myself a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma. (I'd get it at Books 'n Beans, but she mostly stocks only newly released books or used books, and I did not see it on the used book shelf when I was in there last week.)

But the question remains when I start getting into long lists of resolutions . . . should I make a bunch of them, and fail to keep them all, or should I just make one, and really concentrate on it? I don't think I have to worry about the local food resolution, because I'm excited enough about it to keep it up without actually having to make a resolution to do it . . .

Well, I have 52 minutes left to ponder . . .

In the meantime, I'm still working on a best of/worst of list for the 2000s . . . stay tuned.

Getting Ready . . .

These pictures are old but I wanted to put them on my blog, and amazingly, never got around to it before the wedding . . . I can't imagine why.


Making place cards for dinner:



Gift bags for our guests:



Folding programs for the ceremony:
Thanks Mom, Carol, and Tracy for all of your help!

December

December by George Winston is one of my favorite albums to listen to at this time of year. It's been playing on repeat on my computer most of the day today.

Last year Michael and I watched the river slowly freeze. I think I tried to write poetry about it for the poetry class I was taking. I don't recall that any of those poems worked out very well, but so it goes. This year, I was looking forward to watching the river freeze. I remember lines of poetry that never materialized, about the river looking like ice soup - chunks of murky black slush slipping rapidly through the barely-liquid heart of the river, pulled along by the deadly current. (I'm not making up the deadly part. According to our next door neighbors, several people have drowned in the river close to our home over the years.)

Anyway, during the little free time I had last year I liked to stare out at the river and lose myself in contemplation. Then one day it was completely frozen and we started to see animal and then people tracks in the snow that built up on top of the water. This year, I have even less free time, so it is probably a good thing that our side of the river (there is a gigantic sand bar in the river behind our house) froze instantly overnight during our big snow storm last Tuesday. When we woke up to a snow day on Wednesday morning the river was gone. Our back yard had expanded by hundreds of yards overnight. The far side of the river, across the sand bar, was still chugging along, but I noticed yesterday that it, too, has frozen completely. I wonder if it will stay that way until the thaw party in March. Time will tell.

This weekend I made Christmas "cookies" - or, rather, truffles. I had the idea, I found a recipe online, and within a week I was in full truffle-making mode. Pretty exciting. They're actually really easy to make.









In addition to making truffles, I've just started reading a really fun book for a book club I joined that will have its first meeting at a little independent book store in Portage, Books 'n Beans, in January. The book is Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves words, language, and conundrums.

Michael and I are slowly working our way through wedding thank-yous (that's actually what I'm supposed to be doing right now . . . ) and I'm still getting the hang of student teaching, although last week even my unruly seniors finally started to respect me as the authority in the classroom. Part of that is because I've learned how to relate to some of the most obnoxious . . . er . . . challenging students. Part of it is also that I've finally felt comfortable enough to teach lessons my own way instead of trying to teach the way my cooperating teacher teaches. I designed an "epic" writing assignment for one class, and just on Friday decided to rearrange the schedule my cooperating teacher had chosen for his sophomore class - I take over tomorrow and I thought it would be better to have the sophomores write a descriptive paper of a concrete experience and THEN write a paper defining an abstract concept, rather than defining the abstract concept first . . . it makes sense to me but we'll see how it goes.

Also, Michael took Oliver to be groomed on Tuesday. Oliver needed the grooming badly. He looked like a fluffy mop - his fur hadn't been trimmed in 6 months, except some little spot jobs I had tried to do on his feet and tail. It was honestly taking me an hour and a half to groom him, and I only had time to do a good brush-through once a week, so he was getting messy and matted. And he couldn't see so he kept running into things! (Like all of the wedding presents stacked in our living room.) Dale, his groomer, did a fantastic job, especially in light of the oncoming blizzard. I think he gave Oliver a kind of Poodle cut. (When I took Oliver in back in June for his first grooming as a member of the Buechner-David family I had no idea how he should be trimmed - having never taken a dog to the groomers before - but I knew that I didn't want him to have a Westie cut, since he's not a Westie. ((Petsmart gave him a Westie cut before we adopted him. It was confusing.)) Dale talked through the cuts he thought he'd make with me, categorizing Oliver as a "Poodle Mix" and I let him work. Mainly, I was interested in getting the fur out of his eyes, but I wanted his fur to stay long because I wanted to see what it would look like when it grew out all the way.) By now, I am completely satisfied that I know everything I need to know about Oliver's fur when it grows out. My instructions for Michael to pass along to Dale were, "remind him that the vet thinks it is best to trim the hair in his ears, rather than plucking it." Dale did what he wanted with Oliver, which I think is a modified Poodle cut, and he looks like an adorable little fluff again. But now he's an adorable fluff who can see! (As far as I know, Oliver has not run into anything since he got his hair cut.)

We discovered on Wednesday morning that Oliver loves to play in the snow! I will have to get some pictures of our snow-dog (who is afraid to walk on grass.) What a change from one dog to the next. Frodo loved to run in the grass, sit on the grass, walk in the grass, sunbathe in the grass, etc., but hated to have snow touch any part of his paws. We'd go for walks and he'd hobble along on three legs, not because he was injured but because he wanted to save one paw from the misery of snow. Oliver, on the other hand, really hates putting his paws in grass, but now that the snow is here he bounds through it, romping through our yard. I feel a little bit badly that we had all of his long fur cut off right before the first big snow storm - that would have been extra insulation for him when he goes outside!

For now, here are some before and after pictures of Oliver. And then I'm off to thaw out soup for dinner and finish my school work and to write some more thank-yous . . .

BEFORE . . . Look, ma, no eyes!








AFTER - I can actually, factually see! Isn't it grand?

Winter

A quick count on my own fingers and toes, my dog's toes, and Michael's left hand leads me to believe that I have been in school for 22 years of my life. (Okay, I didn't need Oliver to help with that, but still . . .) This is the first time I have experienced winter as a(n almost) teacher. I learned something about teachers today. Or maybe I just learned something about myself.

Teachers like snow days almost as much as, if not more than, the students.

I am the type of person who believes that life can be jinxed. When deciding what to be called at my second student teaching placement, I thought very seriously about what students should call me. For three weeks, I would technically be Miss Buechner, and then for the other six weeks of the placement I would become Mrs. David. But why on earth would I want to put those poor high school students through pronouncing Buechner for three weeks, only to turn around and present them with an utterly pronounceable, memorable name like David? (My seventh and eight graders at my first placement knew and called me by my maiden name because I actually wrote "Beak ner" board when introducing myself. If they had received a letter from Miss Buechner they would have been dumbfounded.)

Well, for one reason, I was terrified to go by "Ms. David" before actually getting married because I did not want to jinx the wedding. Apparently my cooperating teacher believes in the power of the jinx too (or he's just like that) because he asked me, "are you sure he's not going to leave you at the altar?" when I decided to be Ms. David.

(In a sidenote of this sidenote, I think it is hilarious that my cooperating teacher really emphasizes the "Mrs." part of my name now.)

So anyway, today my students kept talking about how we would not have school on Wednesday, and how great their day off was going to be. I tried to shush them, but they would not listen to me. I tried to counterbalance their tempting of fate by loudly proclaiming (well, not that loudly, but I am the teacher . . .) that there is no guarantee that school will be canceled tomorrow. (As I write this, school is still on, and I'll plan to be there with bells on, as long as I can physically make it to Ripon.) I mostly just wanted them to shut up and let the powers that be make that call, without any interference from students who have no apparent concern for jinxing a good thing!

In an effort to prepare for the . . . um . . . worst, I reserved that media center computer lab on Friday, just in case we're not able to use the media center computers tomorrow. While I was in the media center, the new head librarian (who likes me because it is easy for her to remember my name is Katie David since her name is Kathy Davis) confided that she could really use a little bit of extra time at home tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm going to stop thinking about whether or not I have school tomorrow, and go eat a Pastie (good for a cold night) and watch a movie with my husband (who introduced me to Pasties) :)