If there’s one thing Southern gals know how to do, it’s gab. Silly or serious, all it takes is a glass of iced tea and time. Pull up a chair, kick off your shoes, and make yourself comfy…get ready to dish!
Pumpkinheads
You can tell it’s fall (even though it’s 90 degrees here) because suddenly, everything in the world is pumpkin-flavored. Lattes. Bagels. Cream cheese. Cheesecakes. Beer. Pancakes. Coffee. Breakfast breads. You name it, it’s pumpkin.All I can say is “blech.”Not a fan of pumpkin. Never have been. Can’t understand why people get all fangirl-squee over the pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving when there’s a perfectly good pecan pie right next to it on the sideboard. Give me a sweet potato pie any day over...
read moreNo, No, NaNo
Alas, mimi has come to the devastating decision that she will not be participating in NaNoWriMo this year. This is where mimi’s latent OCD rears its ugly head because now her three-year streak has been broken. Plus, this year’s icon has fun colors instead of last year’s barf brown, alas.However, it’s still a barrel of fun, so if you’ve been pondering, hie on over to the WriMo website, sign in, and dive in. It’s fun, you get tons of writing done, and you get a cool web badge like this one to display when you...
read moreSlackerville
mimi has been a very naughty monkey about keeping up with her blog lately. At least twice a week, she has a brilliant idea for a blog topic, and then whammo! Craziness at home or school and it flies out the ol’ ear nary to return. Now that the pile of grading is no longer casting a shadow so long she believes she lives in permanent shade, mimi should be better about updates. But you know what they say about “should.”
read moreDivided by Five
Big doin’s today. Tonight at exactly 9:08 pm (CST), mimi hits the 4-5. I am officially in my mid-forties. Amazingly, it feels not unlike mid-thirties, except I spend a lot more time in the car driving Frick and Frack to music lessons and baseball and softball and what have you. I could stand to lose a few and have ridiculous snow on the roof for a Florida gal, but the wrinkles on my face are earned and basically tell the story of someone who smiles a lot. Not bad for this point, huh?
read moreCripes, Tallahassee!
Today was the first day I attempted to foist the new state-mandated testing on my students, and let me just say that there are military terms that aren’t for mixed company that perfectly capture the essence of today’s fun. Terms beginning with the word “cluster” or expressed with the acronym FUBAR.Needless to say, when the wizards in Tally tell the entire state to hold off on testing until later, then open the floodgates to a small window of completion, they’re asking for trouble. They’re asking for more...
read moreHugging a Porcupine
DH brought a book home from the library about being the parents of an adolescent the other day. It had a perfect title: How to Hug a Porcupine. And since, more often than not, I’m getting a faceful of quills when trying to deal with Frick these days, it’s proven to be sound advice, more often than not.I always thought I’d be a better parent of a teenager than a young child since I have so many years of experience with teenagers at school. I love younger kids, but some of their habits (especially the whining) drive. me. up....
read moreBringin’ the Heat
‘Scuse the baseball analogy, but I’m fixin’ to make it do double duty in a sec. Today was opening day of fall ball for both Frick and Frack, since Frack’s softball opener was rained out Thursday night. So it’s been a loooooooooooong day at the ballpark. BallparkS, that is. Up early to take Frack to her away game, then 1-1/2 hours in the growing heat. By 10:30 we’d already reached the high 80s. Thankfully, the girls won, 9-2, so those hours of sweating it out in her polyester triple-knit uniform–with...
read moreBand Geek WIN
Tonight was middle school band night at the high school where the denizens of Chez mimi are zoned to attend. Since I’m a proud graduate of that same school, I was especially interested in having young Frick, my aspiring tubist, attend. You see, he plays in a wonderful middle school band. The problem is, most of the kids at his middle school go to a nearly lily-white suburban marquee high school–let’s call it FooFoo High School, just for funzies–with a small slice going to Frick’s future alma mater, which has a...
read moreWhat Is It With These People??
I don’t know what they’re drinking in Tallahassee, but apparently now there’s yet ANOTHER test we have to administer our kids to find out what’s up with their godforsaken reading scores. This one’s computer-based, though, and will take up two day’s worth of class time that I now can’t spend instructing them. Yeah, that makes sense.You see, apparently the right TEST is going to be the key to unlock why teen readers don’t score well on standardized reading exams. Get the right test and the right...
read more10 Things You Think Are Cool
Facebook. Amazingly, it erases years and awkward social boundaries.iPhones. Totally want one, but will wait patiently for T-Mobile to get its act together.My kids. They are wonderfully talented and funny, and sometimes I wonder how it’s possible that I’m their mom.Convertibles. Once I owned my first (a 1991 Mercury Capri), I was hooked for life.British humor. The world is a better because of Monty Python, Blackadder, and Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.Jugglers. ‘Cause I can’t do it.The Big Bang Theory. The TV show, that is,...
read more
