Living with Mother (ALZ)

Okay,I decided this morning that I would try blogging to give me an outlet for dealing with issues that arise because my mom (who lives with my husband and I) has Alzheimer's Disease. No better way than to just start with this morning. Like most of things life throws at you, all you can do is one day at a time.

Crazy morning. Mom gets up and I am bound and determined to avoid the morning fussing she usually wakes up with. Most mornings she barely gets her bedroom door opened and she is wanting to know if they are ever going to serve breakfast in this place. I hear her door and I immediately get up and pour her a cup of coffee and put it on her tray that sits in front of her place she likes on the couch.

She has an old coffee cup on her tray that she hasn’t put in the sink. I tell her that is an old cup she left on her tray from yesterday and didn’t put it in the sink and not to drink that.

I turn away to fix her some breakfast (she loves pancake on a stick…. mostly because of the syrup she eats it with but it does get protein in her so I always have them on hand.) I hear her pouring coffee on her tray. She is pouring the new cup into the old cold cup because… she is trying to warm it up a little. She doesn’t want cold coffee. I go through the story once again about that cup is yesterday’s cup and not to drink out of that. (I know! At that time, I should have just gone and picked the old one up and thrown it away. I didn’t.)

I’m busy making sure she has enough syrup for her breakfast so we can avoid the morning fussing. (Remember that?) So I sit the breakfast on her tray (feeling pretty proud of myself that I didn’t get to hear that you have to wait forever (sometimes 5 minutes) to get breakfast at this place. Those men (not real ones, just those men who live in her head) are always complaining about the injustices they have to endure at this place.

I sit down at the computer to reward myself with a game of solitaire. Then I hear her in the kitchen. I ask her, “What are you doing Mom? Do you need something? She says, “I’m just trying to warm this coffee, it is cold.”

In my head, I am screaming. I take a deep breath so I won’t be screaming out loud. I try once again to explain that it was yesterday’s coffee. I tell her not to drink it. Then she is furious. “This is not yesterday’s. It was just poured earlier this morning.” (Keep in mind she hasn’t been up for than about five or six minutes.) 

I get up (perhaps a little more abruptly than I should) and I take the old coffee off of her tray and throw it away and I say, “Yes, this was yesterday’s. Is the other too hot? Do you want me to put a little cool water in it?” She says she does so I add a little cool water to it.

By this time, I actually want some breakfast. (Possibly stress eating) I go to put my breakfast sandwich in the microwave and she is looking at me with puppy dog eyes. “What’s wrong mama?” She says… (wait for it!.....) “Are they ever going to serve breakfast in this place? I heard some men saying they would like some food.”

I tell her that she just had a pancake on a stick. I ask her if she would like another one. She says yes…all the while busy using the old stick and her fingers to mop up all the syrup and licking it off of both the stick and her fingers. At this point, I am just praying she washed her hands sometime this morning…which I highly doubt.

After her second pancake on a stick, she has finally gone to a peaceful quiet. (If you can call, searching her pockets every 45 seconds peaceful. {She is looking for her cigarettes})

I try not to give her a cigarette until she asks for one because I keep hoping with everything else she has forgotten that someday she will forgets she smokes.

New School Year

Well, another new school year and as usual there are many changes. Same principal... That's good. It sure makes things tough when you get a new principal and we have had lots of them. We added PreK to our campus and 5th Grade. So now we have PK - 5. Other changes include dealing with departmental classes in 5th grade and Team Teaching classes in 3rd and 4th. It seems each grade level has their own idea how to fit my library into their system. Fifth grade students come every other Thursday and they take up my whole day. Fourth grade decided to bring their classes with the teacher who is teaching reading. They come every week, one week for check out and one week for Library lessons. Third grade is team teaching too but each teacher brings her own homeroom class.

Another change that made me a little sad is that the fire department decided I had too many stuffed animals in the library and I had to remove some. I've always gotten compliments about how wonderful my library was and how child-friendly it was. It was a little tough removing things that had made so many love my library but, you have to do what you have to do. It still has lots of stuffed animals...just not as many as before. I'm sort of an over the top type person so maybe it still looks okay. I'll post pictures later.

At school we have teams. I am teamed with the ESL teacher, the dyslexia teacher, and the Math/Science specialist. We are called the Intervention Team. I have sort of shortened it to the I-Team. It is much easier to type every time you need to identify the team. Last year we were a team of five, this year, we are a team of four due to all the government cutbacks. Those changes were really tough because we lost people that were awesome teachers. Then because of the changes throughout the district, two of our team members are new. I like the new team members a lot but I do still miss the ones who left.

Adding new grade levels means adding new books to target those new audiences. They gave us some new money to buy books for 5th grade but not PreK. We also closed down two intermediate campuses and split up those books between all the elementary campuses and the Junior High. They didn't give us new bookcases to put them in so I had to find them throughout the building. They don't match exactly but they don't look too bad. I did some heavy weeding.

Sadler Christmas

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

One month anniversary of last post

Wow! I can hardly believe it has been a month since I last posted. School has been awesome. I have two volunteers who have come in now twice to help me shelve books. We lost our RIF funding because they changed the qualifications and we didn't qualify and that was really really sad.  My principal and I our going to try and hit a warehouse sale and see if we can do one book give-away with the children. We found the cutest shirt Peter Pan/Tinkerbell/Captain Hook theme that says "Hooked on Reading" Our theme for our year is about our treasures and not letting the pirates steal them, so I can hardly wait until we get our new shirts. Our PTA is going to do a book exchange during one of their programs so students can bring a gently used book and exchange it for someone else's gently used books.   What can I say? We are a resourceful group and if we lose one way to get books in our children's hands then we will work to find another. Spilt milk tears are not allowed.

We lost a few classes to another elementary school this year so I was able to work out my schedule to have one afternoon free. Now a smart librarian would have taken that time to clean up that mess they call my office... but no.... I kept thinking about how the preschool children in our district didn't have a librarian at our school so I volunteered to go and read with them once a week.  Last week was my first week and it was really fun. I made one mistake... I took my puppet which is almost as big as some of them are and it frightened a few of them.  Now I can't decide if I should continue to take her to help desensitize them and get them used to her or if I should leave her at my school.... There are arguments for both sides and I'll guess I'll let my brain play them all out and decide. As I was leaving, another teacher wanted to know if I was going to read to her class???? Hmmm... I had sent the principal a note and she set it all up so I don't know how to fix that but I am guessing I will just let her know and see what she says.

On a personal level several teachers (including myself) have started the Medifast program. Today was my first day. Good so far.... I hope I can stick with it. None of those other ladies need to lose as much as I do so I'm hoping I can continue on even when the others have lost all theirs. Me... I'll probably still be on it next year at this time... Who knows?

Oh, I almost forgot, EXCITEMENT!!!!, I can actually access my blogspot from school!!!! YEAH, I am not longer filtered out!Well Signing off for now.  Hopefully it won't be a month before I post again.

Back to School

Well, I've finished the 23 things and I did a week with Capturing Kid's Hearts and my mom stayed with me for a month. Can you say, "Glad to be back at school!"? Summer always comes and goes so fast and I'm always sure I'm going to get a million things done... and I probably do... just not the million things I wanted to get done. Such is life. Since graduating, I have ventured forth to create my own version of wordles in Word using Word Art. It's been fun. I just finished the Social Contract for our Intervention Team at School. (Social Contracts are part of Capturing Kid's Hearts in case you haven't been there.) Loved that program as well. If you get asked if you would like some Flippen training. Say YES! Not only do I think it will be great with the students, but the relationships we built with the teachers that were from our district was awesome. We came to know each other much better and in building that relationship, we created a much greater bond. Of course, that's what it is all about so... Guess it worked! I start seeing students on Monday. Took awhile to get them all placed into the right class on the check out system and to get them all made library cards... but they have them now and we are ready to start.



I am planning on doing a short lesson with the 3rd & 4th grade and going ahead to let them check out. K-2 however will have to get the longer version of library procedures and how to treat books. Also I plan to do a general social contract with all the classes to see if I can find one we will all sign. I don't have room to set up a social contract with each of the classes individually so I'm hoping I can get them all to buy in this way. I think it will work. I just discovered VoiceThread and I think I have another new love. I'll have to play with it a little more but this may be a perfect way to get my students to help the library advertise all its great treasures.



Well, my husband is building me a huge closet and he needs my help on the ceiling so I'll sign off for now and let you know later how things are going in the library.

Thing 23: Summarize Your Thoughts about this Program

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I had so many favorites, it is hard to pick. I’m very excited about the Nings. I loved finding groups of people who do what I do and being able to share ideas, bounce them off others. I like finding people who are excited about what they do. I also loved all the photo & word toys: Flickr Toys, Image Generators, Wordle, Glogster, Dumpr… I know there are more… I had a blast playing with those and I know children will too. My granddaughter was here when I was exploring Dumpr and she’s still sending me things she is making. Rollyo is awesome. Delicious is destined to be my new best friend. Honestly, there is so much I really liked, I can’t pick a favorite. I loved how you can subscribe to blogs and then you don’t have to visit their site to see if something is new. They just send it to you if they have something new. That was cool.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
This program has literally changed my life. There is so many ways I can introduce students to Web 2.0 that I feel sure I can find something to please them all. I know I won’t be able to teach it all immediately but I plan to start with several things and get them started. Wikis seem easy to use and they are a great way to get students working in groups and brainstorming. What I want to do is take all that I have learned and pass this new love I have on to my teachers so that they too will get the bug so we can work together to teach the children.

Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I would say a lot surprised me because I just didn’t realize how much was out there. I mean like Delicious. Folders were one way to organize favorites but you know they never work because many sites cover a wide variety of subjects and this way, I can tag one site with everything I would want to and be able to find it.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
Hmmm…Actually I have loved it all. Improvements? Wiki section maybe. It seemed that all of the examples were older and no longer being used. It made it feel like they didn’t work. I do see that Wikis are often used for a project and then closed out but going to older wikis and then seeing others use different things for their projects now, made them look less useful. Some of the links didn’t work. It would be helpful if they were checked a little more often to see if something had been moved or was no longer there. I know my blog had someone who was checking it to see what I was doing. It would have been helpful to have had a little more feedback…. Personally a little, “You’re on the right track” or “You’ve got it” would have made me feel a little more comfortable. Even a few admonitions if I got on the wrong track would have been okay. I did go and give feedback to others and I received a few from some other bloggers but as a program, I wanted a moderator to touch base a little more often. Maybe with so many it would have been an impossible task but it would have been helpful.

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate? Most definitely, I have loved all the things I have been introduced to and I would love to see more or more in-depth. I have other librarians in my district doing the North Texas 23 things and I can’t wait to sit and compare. I’ve already introduced one to Rollyo because it wasn’t part of theirs and she loved it.

How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities? One Word – AWESOME. One sentence – This could change your library forever.

I have loved this opportunity to be a part of this program. I am greatly in your debt for opening it up outside your district and allowing me to be a part of it. I have learned so much and I just hope I can eventually incorporate all of it into our school to give our students the absolute best chance of being a success in this technological world they were born in. Thank you and God bless you.

Thing #22: Nings

Okay, I really liked the Teacher Librarian Ning and tried to sign up for their group and I joined the Texas School Librarian Ning. I liked that there were places discussing the things I want to discuss and brains I can pick for ideas. Texas School Librarian Ning… was typically Texas. They immediately put me on their list and and their arms around me. Apparently it takes the Teacher Librarian Ning a little longer to decide if they like you but hopefully they will. It was awesome seeing some of the topics and I jumped right in to read their ideas. I have to go to Arkansas tomorrow to check on my mom again… so I mostly lurked around and got their goodies but I promise to be more active when I get back. This is a great way to brainstorm and get ideas for library programs, find out the latest ideas and suggestions for running your library. It’s an opportunity to become a part of something that I think will be much bigger than the sum of its parts if everyone stays active. I hope I can.

Well, I have one more Thing to do and I really wanted to finish but if I’m to leave early in the morn, I better finish packing and get to bed. I guess I’ll finish when I get back.