Year End Updates

    There was a box of stickers in the teacher's lunchroom at school. I found several I liked, but I didn't actually want to stickers, so I took photos and posted them on Facebook. This one is by far my favorite of the ones I grabbed. I even like the colors.

     Let's see, there have been a lot of things going on lately. I am on vacation from school, which means that I should have more time in the day. Doesn't it? It's not true though, I do not seem to have any extra time. In fact, I have gotten less work done since I have been off than when I am at school. There is definitely some truth to "busy people get things done". But I am also really tired. I am not dealing super well with my seasonal depression this week and have spent a lot of good quality time with my couch. But I have read an entire book (and it was not a picture book) and watched a variety of movies I have not seen before. I don't celebrate Christmas but I do actually like Christmas movies. So here is a list of the new ones I watched:

Carry-On, which is on Netflix and was called the new Die Hard by some reviewer.

That Christmas, also on Netflix. We watched it in school with the kids and I showed it to Travis and he liked it too. 

8 Bit Christmas, I can't remember where I watched that one.

Spirited. I also don't remember where that was, but if you like musicals, watch it. 

Red One, it's free on Prime and may be my new favorite Christmas movie! I really like the way the storyline tackled some of the trickier aspects of the Santa Claus legends (how DOES he get to every house in the world in one night???)

    Travis also met Santa and Mrs. Claus. These are a couple of my neighbors and they wanted to put together a park-wide party. We went just to say hello. Not a lot of people were there, but it was cool anyway. 

     I was hanging out with my dog friend the other day, while spending quality time with the couch, and he was being a cat. He likes to climb up on the back of the couch to hang out and sleep. Before he was "attacking me" like he is in this photo he was judging me. Maybe because I was not up on the back of the couch. 

    My replacement pink zebra arrived from Paint Pony Studio. I still wish I knew where USPS had throw the first one. It really is a mystery to me how packages just disappear. And the postal service really doesn't even care if you get your mail or not. 

    We had a board meeting tonight and one of the members brought these notebooks for everyone on the board. It was timely because I needed to make a bunch of notes of things I needed to send to one of the lawyers and I didn't want to put them in the minutes I was typing. Plus I like the message. I believe we can buy the park, so we will (and the other people that are fighting for this believe it too). I also believe I will go to Breyerfest again next year. 

     Since Breyer let the cat out of the bag I can finally talk about this. At the next Breyerfest I will be teaching a clinic all 3 days of Breyerfest. It's a performance judging clinic (someone else will have to teach a halter judging clinic) and I think it will be a lot of fun. Before I started judging I felt I would never be able to be a judge. Then I went to a judging clinic, "judged" and all of a sudden the idea of judging wasn't terrifying anymore. I am hoping this clinic will do the same for others. And it assures that I will be in Kentucky next July! And in the horse park.

     So those are my updates. And knowing how little time I seem to have for anything, even though I am not at school, I can say this will likely be the last post I do before the new year. Unless I get my act together and do a year end doll in review. I don't know if I can handle that though, so Happy New Year!

Tired

Photo by Gretchen Haskett

     The winter is upon us, even if it's not actually winter yet. I am exhausted and barely functioning a lot of the time. Things are hard. The other day is was cold, I think the high temp reached a whopping 31 degrees. Today it was almost 60. Friday is going to be 20 I think. I wonder why we are always sick or exhausted? I don't really, I know why. 

     I have been having an issue with a student that really has me stumped. I can't really go into details about it because of privacy laws but it was really messing with my brain. I know that undesirable behaviors have a root cause; all behaviors have a root cause. And sometimes getting rid of the undesirable behavior is as simple as replacing it with an appropriate behavior. And for anyone who is getting ready to get up in arms about me saying "undesirable behavior" I do not mean stimming. I don't care if people stim. EVERYONE stims at some point or another (ever tapped a pen? Jiggled your leg? Twirled your hair? That's stimming). By undesirable I mean a behavior that gets in the way of someone's learning (or existing in the world) or is overly disruptive to others. Anyway, there is a very undesirable behavior which has permeated the entire day of this student. It is not in any one particular classroom/location or at any particular time of day. It is all day, and everywhere. Which means it does not have a simple root cause. Which makes it harder to figure out. But I may have cracked it. Or at least a way to work on it. 

       I was randomly doom scrolling on Facebook and happened to watch a short video from a woman who said 3 year olds literally do not understand the words "no" or "not" when you use them in a sentence. And I was like, what? But she demonstrated. She showed her young child an apple and a lime and said which one is not an apple. And the child pointed to the apple. The child knows what both the items are, but she does not understand the concept of a negative sentence yet. Now I do not work with 3 year olds but, from experience, I know that many of the kids I work with do not understand a negative sentence. So this child may not understand what I mean when I say "We don't ____________" They may be only hearing the "we" and the end of the sentence. It was a lightbulb moment. I still have to try this out, but I think I may be able to curb the behaviors that are negatively impacting this student and their learning. It's going to really take some thinking about, but I think this might be the key. 

     In other news, I have been working on a batch of hunt seat dolls for a bit now. I started last week and we are now almost to Wednesday and I still have not started dressing a single doll. I do finally have so many pieces prepped and ready that I may be able to finish a doll in about an hour. Which would be nice. So I am working, even though it is a super struggle, and everything is slow. Because I am tired. 

      We have 3 more days until the holiday break and I am very excited. I am excited to not have to get up at 5:30. I am excited to maybe get to stay up a bit later. I am excited by how many dance events I plan to go to over vacation. All of that excitement is also tinged by exhaustion. I really am very tired these days. Basically all the time. I need to dance more. That is about the only time I'm not tired. But it's almost Friday, which is dance night and the first night of vacation! I can't wait!

     The lovely photo above was sent to me by Gretchen Haskett after my Black Friday sale. And I have been too lazy to share it until now. Enjoy!