Your final notice

About a year ago, we paid off our car. Then the phone calls started.

"Your factory warranty may have expired, this is your final notice that you can still reactivate it."

After ignoring the calls for about 6 months, I finally hit 1 and asked to be taken off the list.

Then, the "second and final notice" calls started.

I ignored for a while and asked to be taken off the list.

Today, I get the "third and final notice" call. They promised that after this one my file would be closed.

I hit one and the friendly voice said "how are you doing today?"

I said "I'm getting very angry, I asked to be taken off this list and first and final, second and final, and now I get third and final. What do I have to do to get off this list."

In response I hear a click!

I wonder if I'll still be asking to stop the calls in 5 years?

Today I need to clean the house. On Sat we have kitties coming into the house and we need it to be clean so they can't get into too much trouble. We also have a someone coming over tonight. So, we (I mean *i*) need to get this mess cleaned up before he arrives. I'm going to spend 2 hours cleaning up then 2 hours doing work related tasks.

I'll update more later.

ETA accomplishments: So far, I have two bathrooms clean, the back hall (including sorting through hats/mittens/etc). I've also cleaned the front hall (including the closest). and vacuumed.

While cooking my lunch (tomatoes and shrimp sauteed in lemon and garlic and served over pasta), I cleaned some of the pots and pans in the kitchen.

I still have the living room, playroom, dining room, and kitchen to finish.

I think it's my birthday

Well, sort of I guess. I mean, it's the day I was born, but I don't really feel older.

As has happened for the past few years, we aren't actually celebrating my birthday for a few weeks. Tonight is mother/daughter book group. I thought about making cupcakes, but just couldn't get in the mood.

Tomorrow we have a soccer and an open house at the neighbor's house (it included a note to come hungry). DH is tied up next week, so he's not available to oversee the girls making me dinner. My present didn't come in the mail yet, so no reason to celebrate.

Sarah has a cold, is in a grumpy mood.

The subject of birthday's came up, and I mentioned it was mine while I was picking up kids. My friend Nichole (everyone needs a friend Nichole, she's just the best) said "why didn't we go out for tea, we went for Amanda's birthday, we went for my birthday, well you guys didn't know it when we planned it, we should have gone for tea.

I think we will once things settle down. But, this time of year is so insane that my birthday just feels like it's lost in the chaos.

I need to get Sarah something to eat before we leave so her blood sugar doesn't crash.

I'll update more later about the numerous things that have happened in the past week.

Waiting. . . or why I want to be a fly on the wall

At the girls school last year, they started handing out orange tickets to the kids. You were given a orange ticket when the staff or teachers catch a student doing something good, helpful, etc. These tickets are issued to the students (name written on the ticket), by a teacher (name), and signed by a parent so the parent knows what good they were doing.

These tickets are placed in a bin by grade and each week they draw one ticket per grade and the child gets a prize from the school store.

The other night at dinner, DH was speculating what would happen if the girls gave tickets to the teachers and staff. Sydney was on board immediately, Sarah took some warming to the idea. She is always concerned about breaking rules (real or perceived).

So, last night while I was teaching class, DH and the girls made purple tickets. After some discussion, it was decided the tickets would be issued to teachers (name written on ticket) and signed by the principal (after all, if the parents learn what good the students did, the principal should learn the good the teachers did). The teachers are to return the tickets to Sarah and Sydney and each week they will draw a ticket and award a pencil from our vast collection of pencils.

I want to be a fly on the wall, I can't wait to pick the girls from school and see what they did and what people thought.

Sarah was so excited she couldn't sleep! I hope the teachers had fun with my girls today.

I scream from the kitchen "Burn youself again?"

This is DHs first question.

I'm still not used to my new stove. I turned on the back burner instead of the front and started to melt the lid of my spice jar. I picked up the jar and managed to touch my finger to the melted lid.

I now am sporting black plastic and a huge blistery burn on my finger (I couldn't get the plastic off so the burn kept going).

The girls didn't help - the suggested I use my hotpads.

I really need to grade, but my whole body hurts from the pain.

I guess grading may not get done!

Misc

Class went well last night. The class really talked and had some good insights. Now, I'm not sure if they were talking because they wanted to, or if it was because I was rewarding them with a halloween pack of M&Ms for talking. LOL. I can't wait to see if we can continue this during the course of the semester.

I need to start cleaning the house.

So, I'll start with the living room, but first I'm going to spray the fabric for the dining room chairs with spot resistance spray.

Back later as I finish each room.

What feminism means to me.

After reading blogs, bulletin boards, etc, I developed this rant this morning. I got tired of reading "the feminists said this, why are they not supporting Palin, and how could they say that. etc." This was all in the vain of "How could the feminists not be supportive of one of their own." Once again it reminded me that feminism is still considered a negative thing.

So, I wrote this rant, and I thought I'd share it here.

To me, feminism means equal opportunity, it means equal pay for equal work, it means the right to decide to stay home with my kids or to work (or to have my DH be a SAHD instead). As a feminist, I don't believe that primary role of childcare needs to occur by me - I think my spouse can do the job. We get options and should not be beat up for exercising those options. As a feminist, I expect to be treated with respect for wanting my daughters lives to be better than mine, and those before me.

I am a feminist even if the word has been used as a way of describing the most extreme.

I am appalled that Sarah Palin's role as mother has become an issue for whether she is qualified to run this country (because I do believe that we need to vote for our VP with the knowledge that they can be the one to run this country. I don't think it's right that she is criticized for running for office with a special needs child. We don't know what plan her family has made for this child's care. She doesn't have to be primary caregiver - her spouse can be. I hate that her other child's pregnancy has become a criticism for her views on sex education. I'm not certain that I will have as much input in my 17 y.o.s actions, I don't think she is to blame for hers.

I hate that the way she looks or dresses is appropriate for our society to focus on. We don't comment about the fact that our other candidates are attractive, why should that be the focus for Palin?

But, I don't support her as a VP candidate because I don't believe in her politics. I don't agree with her views or what she would likely want to see legislated.

I wouldn't want to see anyone support her just because she is a woman, any more than I would want to see someone rejected as a candidate just because she is a woman.

But, I pride myself on being a feminist. I pride myself on wanted my daughters to be able to hold the job they want, get paid as much for that job as the male sitting next to them, to not have to fight for respect when they chose to work rather than stay home or defend the choice to stay home and not work.

Hell, I look forward to the day I can see the sororities be given the same prize amount for a stupid snow statue competition on our university campus. But DH and I are still working on that battle.

And I look forward to the day I can say I'm a feminist without feeling like it's a bad thing.

Back to your regularly scheduled program.

Daily Show

When I came home from class, I was telling DH about all our talk of Sarah Palin and how she is treated by the press. He told me about the daily show clip he saw that talked about the change in what various people have said. It was pretty funny and sadly true.

Then I found it online.



It is sadly true.

I'm a geek, and now they know it.

In class tonight, we were talking about race, sex, and politics. In the course of the conversation, I mentioned that one Saturday, someone posted a comment on a bulletin board I read. My first though was "that didn't sound right."

So, I looked up the race and sex makeup of the house of representatives, the senate, and the sitting governors. Then I compared it to the race and sex makeup of the population of the United States.

My students just looked at me, and one was even shaking his head at me. Yep, I'm a geek, and now they know it.

The bonus was I gave them some insight about what I'm looking for in their paper assignments, and that if I can do this type of analysis on a Saturday because of an offhand comment, they can do it for a grade.

Being female sucks

Yesterday, I found myself snapping at the girls at the drop of a hat and realized my backache wasn't going away. Oh wait, I guess this is a super duper bad PMS day. Now, I've had a hysterectomy, so my cycle is invisible to me - I kind of have to guess about why I feel off.

So, I grabbed three advil and told DH I was going to bed. After 20 min the darn backache still existed so I grabbed a hot pack. Better but not great. I eventually fell asleep for a while and woke up in a better mood.

So, last night I made a yummy upside down plum tart from my cooking light cookbook. Oh man is it yummy.

This weekend I also made pesto with some of the two pounds of basil the veggie guy brought. I still have more to make, and then I need to freeze it.

Today I'm going to see if I can manage to get some stuff done around the house, and finish my prep for class tomorrow night. Oh, and tomorrow night Sarah needs snack for soccer. Suggestions for favorite treats would be appreciated.