One Resolution Destined to Fail: A Pledge to Blog Again

A Photo Review of 2009...

as I jumpstart my resolution to make time for blogging and exercise during the school year. How long this will last... one can never tell.

January 1, 2009 (says my camera date... it might be lying): Penny and Ross on our bed back at Elm Street, a year ago. Am I really the only one who thinks Penny is getting fat?

January 25, 2009: Grandpa's birthday! That was a good party. A bunch of Townsend's and some alcohol... that's always a good time. Gotta love these posed family pictures... right Jay?

March 14th, 2009: St. Patty's Day in Naperville, IL, a 2nd-year venture to Ben's roosting grounds. Roosting? I don't know. Anyway, this video says most of what I don't have to.

April 6, 2009: Spring Break... and The Week I fell in love with Colorado. All of you who miss us can blame Erick, pictured in plaid below- our Coloradoan Informant.

April 10, 2009: Me, about to eat Ben at MoJo's in downtown Grand Rapids.

May 10th, 2009: Jay's graduation!!! Love this.

May 31st, 2009: ERHS Graduation. I watched my some of my best ever students walk. I'll never forget English 12B at Eaton Rapids High- an unforgettable experience- they left a mark! Also the close of my first full year of utter insanity. *Cough* I mean teaching.

June 7th, 2009: Sabira's wedding. And yes, that's us, the only white faces among the over 1,000 that attended, in a family picture. That's what I love about our Indian friends! We're family when we're there. :)

July 25th, 2009: Hiked to 11,000 feet and took some of the best pictures I've ever taken.

August 21, 2009: New job. New partner, new classroom, new age group... I was ready. Well, I thought I was at least, it had been awhile since I had tackled teaching 7th graders... (while = a 1 year gap. How much one does forget!)

September ?, 2009: Ross is mid-academy. And mid-being searched. Apparently.

September 27th, 2009: Sheri & Gary visit their kids in Colorado!!!!

October 5, 2009: Boredom procures: a Naked Fruit Photo Op.

October 25th, 2009: Carved Pumpkins.

October 28th, 2009: Biggest October Blizzard in Colorado History.

October 29th, 2009: Gotta hit the hills on the snow day (Actually we got 3!). First time ever snowboarding... epic FAIL.

November 27, 2009: Best Thanksgiving Ever. Six of our very best friends in Colorado, hanging out on the mountains. Could not ask for more.

December*, 2009: Jeana didn't take a single photo in this month somehow. Or rather if she did, they're all on her camera which is somewhere between Michigan and Colorado, in the traditional "All the Shit You Forgot!!!" care-package. Thanks Mom!!! You're the best.

*Will be back to post December photos of Ross' graduation. But probably not Xmas because I really don't think I took any pictures for that.

I'm going to write very soon. So that you can see lots of fun stuff we've done lately. :D Stay tuned.

Ahhh... the weekend

Well, you should all know that Penny has seemed to make a full recovery. Now that's she's been home and on a chicken-and-rice diet only for two weeks, we are starting to wean her back over to normal dog food.

Of course, I came home from work today to find she had raided the garbage. I almost killed her. Not really, but really. I was so mad I did start talking to her though. And I think I said something like this: "REALLY?!?! We just spend almost $1000 and a week of constant worry on you, most likely due to a poor choice of eatery, and you go after the GARBAGE on your still tender digestive tract???? Do you LIKE being sick??? You must be retarded."

Then, I calmed down and remembered she's still a dog, who lately, seems to think she's being starved to death even though she's back to 4c of a food a day. Hm!

Other than that, just looking forward to doing some planning with my awesome partner this weekend... and a little nervous about going over to Rachael's house to watch the MSU-UofM game this weekend [at 10:00 tomorrow AM!!!]. C'mon MSU... you can do it!!! hopefully. Even if you can't I'll love you anyway.

PS Here's a fun fact: I'm holed up in the den right now on a Friday night because Ross' criminal background investigator is interviewing him at the kitchen table, and has been for over the last hour and a half. Hope that's going well!!! :)

Penny Update

So yeah, it's kinda been awhile!!! Almost a month! Bad blogger.

Penny Feeling Better

Well, I wanted to update folks on what we have been through with poor Penny in the last week. So, Monday morning we woke up to find that Penny had vomited in about 4 locations throughout our house. Yes... my favorite way to start out the week... Ross and I team-cleaning up dog vomit in a fruitless attempt to try to still leave on time for work.

I hoped/figured that would be a one-time deal- but it was not. Penny stopped eating and drinking, and was vomiting throughout the day for two full days. On the third morning, I headed to work- fortunately just a professional development day- and the whole way there felt that I was making a bad decision leaving Penny alone another day. It didn't take too much convincing on the part of two dog-loving co-workers that I should really go home and take Penny into the vet. I then called around and found that the two vet techs I talked with agreed: Penny should come in now.

I hurried home to find a very droopy and dejected Penny, and two more puddles of stomach fluid. I almost had to carry her up the basement stairs to get her to come up! At the vet I found out that Penny was devastatingly dehydrated; they gave her sub-cutaneous fluid injections and took X-rays to check for blockages in her intestines. Nothing was found- so she got a few injections to help with her symptoms, and I took her home with some very bland food, on the assumption that she had probably just eaten something in the yard that upset her.

Well, I wish that were the end of the story, but when I got Penny home from the vet, I put her right out in the yard. That's when I got my real heart attack: Penny went to go #2- you know what I mean- and nothing but blood came out. In tears, I called the vet back, and they said to bring her right back. They put her on IV fluids & antibiotics and kept her in doggy-ICU to monitor her, and Penny wound up being in the vet for three days and two nights. And of course, everyone at our new animal hospital fell in love with Penny :).

Side story: Here's what made my week in the middle of all of this stress. Wednesday I was pretty miserable, and had spent about half of the day in tears worrying over my puppy, on top of having to leave her at the vet overnight for the first time ever. That evening around 5, three of my amazing co-workers showed up at my doorstep with a case of one of my favorite beers. Two of them live over an hour from me, and had come the complete opposite direction after work just to come give me a pick-me-up :). They stayed and kept me company for over an hour while we shared a few cold ones. On top of that, I can't tell you how many people at work this week have checked in with me to see how my puppy is doing. Have I mentioned that I LOVE the people I work with???

So, back the storyline. On Friday, after Penny finally started to eat and drink again on her own again, they released her with a symptomatic diagnosis: Hemorrhagic Gastroenteritis. Basically an inflamed colon/digestive track combined with internal bleeding; cause unknown. We have some ideas about what she may have eaten to cause it- trash in the yard (unfortunately we get a lot blowing into our yard somehow), grill rocks, something out of the trash, maybe a beer bottle top... we'll probably never know!

Either way, Penny is now lying in a sunny patch on the floor about 4 ft from me, snoozing- this on top of the 14 hours that she didn't leave her bed last night- and has so far kept down the rice & peanut butter she had a few spoonfuls of this morning. She's got some recovery ahead of her still, but it's great to have her back!

One last cool thing

I wanted to show everyone the amazing moth that I found on the door handle of my school on Wednesday this past week. I almost had a heart attack because I didn't notice it until I had my key in the lock. It shouldn't have been THAT well camouflaged on a door- but somehow it still seemed to blend in. It's one of the biggest I've ever seen!

Welcome to Room 104!

Welcom to my room- come in!

Or, view the picasa album here, if you prefer.

So, here are some of the highly sought-after pictures of my new classroom! I really like my new room, especially now that I feel like it's really "mine." Soon I'll have some more realistic pictures to post... that is, some photos with real live seventh graders in them :D.

The First Week

So, I just finished my first week of teaching (hence the large gap in my posting history)... and I love it here! I love my cohorts, I really like the administration, and of course... I'm already really enjoying the students here. Naturally, I was being tested a bit this week... apparently, students in this district have a reputation for running all over 1st-year teachers. I think they're already learning that's not really going to fly with me :P. But, I've also made a decision to start out very "strict," and go from there, because it's almost impossible to go the reverse direction of that and reel them in.

I've been trying all weekend before I posted to think of an anecdote I could tell you to in some way capture the spirit of this school, and I finally just thought of one. This past Thursday night was Back-to-School night, and so from 6-7:30 we did a meet & greet with parents, etc. Before it started, my principal called a meeting at 5:00 for a "celebration." She had called the staff together to celebrate the fact that we are experiencing phenomenal growth in terms of academic achievement and our test scores, and so she poured a glass of sparkling cider for every staff member and opened up the floor for a toast. She gave the first toast, and literally, had me and about half the staff in tears with the amount of passion and excitement she poured over the staff with her words. Following her, another 10 or 12 people toasted the commitment and pride of both the staff and community surrounding this district. The emotion there was truly authentic; there was hardly a dry eye in the room after it was done. The people at this school truly love being a part of it, and love making it an awesome place for our kidd0s. Note: I write kiddos because about half of the staff affectionately refers to our students as "our kiddos" on a regular basis. :D

I will say my favorite teaching moment came this week when my students did their first Read-Around. On the first day of school, they wrote "Where I'm From" poems about exactly that... where they are from. Then on the second day, students read their poems to the class and received some positive feedback on their poems from their classmates. It was very eye opening because many of my students were very open and honest about their poverty-stricken and in some cases even gang-activity filled backgrounds. It was a neat way to start out our year :).

Melchi's + 1 Shaffer Visit Denver, Attend Rockies Game

So the other excitement of the week was the fact that I got to hang out with family!!! It was so awesome to see Michigan faces in Colorado. The Melchi gang- Jenny, Mark, Jacob & Nick- plus my Aunt Pam- all came into town for a laid back week in CO.

One of my favorite moments of the week involved my watching 5-year old stud-muffin cousin, Nicholas, climb into the hotel hot tub with three 16-year olds in bikinis; and then proceed to carry on conversation as though he'd known them for years. This probably went on for at least a half hour. It provided great entertainment for the rest of us sitting nearby, eating dinner.

Later in the week, we all got tickets for the Rockies game of the weekend. So, I attended my second-ever professional baseball game, first ever in Colorado. Rockies vs. San Fransisco at Coors Field in downtown Denver... the Rockies slaughtered them. We got to watch them score 7 runs in a single inning and left after the 7th Inning. Apparently the Rockies are pretty good this year. As good as the Tigers, though??? I doubt it... ;)

I'm Finally Going To Post Something

<--- That's obviously not me. But it is somebody being arrested using Koga. I was hoping for a picture of someone in a twist lock, but this is the best I can do.

Well, this is my first post. I doubt it will be even remotely as good as Jeana's, but bear with me.

I have now officially completed two weeks of the police academy. For those of you who don't know the details, I am attending the Community College of Aurora Basic Law Enforcement Training Academy. I picked it because of the location and the fact that they were still accepting applications when I started looking. The icing on the cake came when I discovered that they are easily the best law enforcement academy in the state of Colorado (I guess that explains the $17,000 price tag). It is not a stress academy (boot camp style), but that is probably a good thing. We are already attending from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday thru Saturday, so I don't know where they would fit in all of the running, push-ups and yelling. The state body that governs police standards (POST) requires academies to provide 550 hours of instruction - this academy provides 797.

I have a test coming up on Tuesday covering the following areas: Liquor Code, Stress Management, Controlled Substances, Laws of Arrest/Search/Seizure, Law Enforcement Organizations, NCIC/CCIC (National/Colorado Criminal Information Center), Community Policing, Criminal Process, Problem Solving, Civil Disputes, and Rules of Evidence. We have also begun our First Responder training, training in the Colorado Revised Statutes, and Arrest Control.

Arrest Control is amazing. POST only requires 62 hours total training in Arrest Control. Our school provides 148 hours of training in Arrest Control, Grounds Tactics, Advanced Koga, Tazer, OC (pepper spray), and Baton. Where as most academies and police departments train in Pressure Point Control (PPCT) or Krav Maga, we train in an actual martial art known as Koga. It is a variation of Aikido created by a former LAPD officer in conjunction with the current head Aikido master Koichi Tohei. It rocks and it is amazing what you can do with it. Since it was developed specifically for law enforcement, it applies directly to the high risk nature of arrest. It is also the only arrest control technique that has never been successfully challenged in court. (I tried to imbed a YouTube video, but our instructors and Master Koga are very adamant about not putting videos on YouTube. They let us video tape the sessions, but we agree not to reproduce them or sell them, etc.)

I get to pick up a gun 2 weeks from yesterday, I'll let you all know how that goes! Driving doesn't start until October 10.

More to come!

Indulgence in multiple forms, & an Oops Story

E.g, I just ate a bowl of ice cream followed by four oreos. And I'm thinking about getting up to get another one. But I'm resisting. For now :). Yum for mid-menstrual sugar pile-ons.

My other indulgence of the week is pictured here -->,

the infamous "Chaco" [pictured is my exact pair, color and everything]. It has been said that no true Colorado resident lives without a pair of these. In fact, two different employees there commented that I was finally "converting" while I was there purchasing them. Well, after not much persuading from several sources about these amazing shoes I decided to try a pair out, knowing REI's generous return policy. Let's just say they won't be getting these back- they are wonderful! It's too early to tell but I've also been having some yucky issues with my left foot lately, and wearing these has seemed to help [possible tendinopathy? Not sure, my doctor referred me to a pediatrist just yesterday]. They are supportive and actually supposed to be great for hiking...!

Another "Oops" Story

One theme of my blog, so I've noticed, is that I've become pretty good at detailing some of my more ridiculous mishaps. I think my mishap of the week this week takes the cake, though.

S0: this past weekend, I knew I had been running pretty low on contact solution but I had yet to actually transfer that need to the grocery list, and so it kept getting neglected. I woke on Saturday morning and decided to go do some shopping, maybe some yard sale-ing, or whatever-- Ross was at academy, I was bored, and ready to get out of the house. I didn't feel like showering so I decided to just throw on a little makeup and some deodorant before I left. As usual, I reached for my contacts last in my routine, picked up the bottle of contact solution to rinse them off, and realized it was pretty much completely dead. I tried just putting them in without rinsing, but had to take them out again because it just wasn't happening.

Then I realized that Ross' contact solution was sitting on the shelf. I thought he had totally run out awhile ago, but when I picked up the bottle I realized there was definitely some liquid in it. I had never used his contact solution before, as he has some kind of "special" solution for his contact lens that he never seems to wear any more. Impatient to get out the door, I made a command decision to give his solution a try. I noticed as I took off the cap and began rinsing my lens with it, that the tip of the contact solution bottle was tipped with bright red. Odd, I thought, as I gave it a quick rinse and quickly popped the contact into my eye.

HELLFIRE does not even begin to describe the sensation that immediately began burning through my eyeball. Feeling as though someone had just coated my eye with acid, I panicked, clawing with my left hand to get my eyelids to open so I could remove what now felt was a foreign, poisoned object from my eye. It took an exhausting amount of focus to fight through the pain, pry my eye open with one hand, and search for the contact in an eyeball that was now slippery from running like a faucet with tears. After four or five blind grabs into my own eyeball, searching for the relieving bend of plastic that would mean that the contact was parting from my cornea, I successfully pinched it and yanked it out. Screaming obscenities, I flung the contact into the trash and pitched the contact solution across the bathroom. Still in immense pain, I opened up the faucet, pried my eye open again, and bathed my open eye in cold running water for about the next 3 minutes. Afterward, eye still burning, I laid down in the fetal position on the carpet for another 10 minutes while I waited for the pain to subside. I had NEVER felt this kind of pain before.

So, this is how I found out that Ross' contact solution is actually a slightly diluted form of HYDROGEN PEROXIDE. Apparently, his contact has to soak in it for a minimum of 6-7 hours and all of the peroxide reacts out in this process. I had failed to read the red, bold, warning that said something to the effect of DO NOT RINSE LENS BEFORE USE, CONTAINS HYDROGEN PEROXIDE.

My eye was a BRIGHT shade of red for the next 48 hours, and I looked like I had been punched in the eye for the rest of the day. And, well, that's my "oops" story of the day.

My short term goal is to start reading labels more often.

On another note, I have a few more photos to collect, and then I'll be posting a bunch about my new school and cohorts. :) I'm so excited!!!