Mother of the Brides

It started innocently enough.  Just a lady wanting to have a kid or two or six...  They were such beautiful girls, they would never grow up, I made them promise.  Liars!  We tried to hide them,  keep them ugly, turn them mean.  No luck, those boys were more vigilant than expected.  Of course it didn't help that my girls wanted to be found.  Kristine started the whole thing.  Karlee was waiting for a missionary, but he was never coming back, it was for two whole years, and the guy that was chasing Kristine around lived four hours away from her. 

"mom, I have some news, were love and want to get married." 

It hit me like a thunder bolt,  my kids were actually going to get married!

"We want to wait six months though, probably October"

October!,  Karlee's missionary was coming home in October, and they were still writing.  This could be bad.  Two wedding in six months,  they would never do that to me.  Would they? 

Yes they would.  Kristine had a beautiful wedding, great day, good party, frazzled mother.  Karlee showed up with her Alex, home

for less than a week,  in love and plotting. Needless to say,  I am in the throws of another wedding,  Just call me wedding planner extraordinaire.  I have another wedding in two weeks and I couldn't be happier.  I think I  may actually pull this off.  I have had more sewing, cross stitching, wedding cakes, mints, flowers, centerpieces, tulle, lights, table clothes, bridesmaids dresses, invitations, pictures, etc.  than I ever thought possible, but I wouldn't have it any other way.  My girls are happy, they found great guys are starting their own families.  I guess that is what the goal was all along.  I guess my husband and I were able to teach them to use their wings after all.  So bring it on Mindy,  I think we can handle anything, just give me six months O.K. 

Indoor Recess

I have spent the last two weeks subbing in elementary schools.  This is a little out of my element, I am usually at the Jr. high or high school.  Part of the reason I took the jobs at the elementary school was because it is was orchestra and fifth grade (not too bad, and I am smarter than a fifth grader, especially with the answer books) and my daughters class.  She is in third grade and her teacher had to leave town for medical treatment.  I can't even imagine what it is like for my third grader to have her mother as a a teacher for a week.  She was actually a pretty good sport about the whole thing, but did expect some perks.  She got bent out of shape if I didn't call on her first.  She got to come in and eat lunch with me every day.  She used this to her advantage too by going around the playground before lunch and inviting certain student to come eat with me as her exclusive friends.  On Thursday, I was a bit surprised when one after another, the whole class trooped into the classroom with their lunch trays and sat down. 
She had invited the whole dang class to come and eat with 'us'.  It was actually fun though, it gave me a chance to talk to them in a non authoritarian manner and see me as a bit more human.  Today, was interesting, because the weather was bad, and the sign was black.  Of course having had kids in this school for the last eighteen years straight, I knew what this meant.  Indoor recess.  I don't know what it is about those little fifteen minute breaks during the day, but when they are gone, they are truly missed.  An hour or so after the missed recess, I took the kids down to the library and dropped them off.  I hurled myself into the faculty room and shut the door and slammed my back against it,  "They are in the library!"  I said, more to myself than to the lucky, free faculty members lounging around the table.  They just smiled and nodded, they knew.  After lunch recess, when the kids were lining up to go get their food, my daughter came up to me and whispered, "do you want me to announce that they can all eat lunch in here?"  "NO!" I found myself saying a bit too loud.  "I think they need to go to a different room for a little while".   Subbing my daughters class was fine, even fun, but I miss the fifty minute class periods with two of them free.  Where the kids who drive you crazy are gone in less than an hour, and no one comes in to   eat lunch with you, and the indoor recess, is  the librarians problem.

I think global warming is saving my life

I was reading the Drudge report last night, and saw a report about Obama and Al Gore (what a name), collaborating to make sure that we don't parish from global warming. It sounds like we are in for a good scorching and then a drowning as the ice caps melt and cover us all with water. I read this article while tucked under my electric blanket, because it was flipping -21 degrees below zero outside and creeping in. As I finished the article and clicked back into the Drudge main page, I noticed that the next two articles were about record freezing temperatures in Colorado and also the northwest. Hmm... there seems to be a disconnect! What would these horrible cold temperatures be if we irresponsible, selfish, uncaring, fossil fuel burning, huge SUV driving people hadn't ruined our environment. WE WOULD BE FROZEN SOLID. Thank goodness for those methane belching cows. Thank goodness for large families, with large cars and large carbon foot prints. Without them, we would not have the two hour school delay like we did today because the busses he wouldn't start, we would have buss sickles, they would never start again. Do these politicians not realize that -21 below is cold, really cold. I don't get it, where is the warming they are barking about. It seems like a really hard sell to me, and to be quite frank with you, when it is double digits below outside with no end in sight, I don't care!

Starving teenage boys

This kid said the funniest thing today in one of the classes I was subbing . I was in a seventh grade science class, and the teacher was kind enough to just have us watch movies all day (this teacher is a family friend, so I get special treatment). The movie was on whiz kids who were at some national science fair thing. They took a few minutes during the film to give a little expose on some of the kids. One girl was trying to genetically alter food so that it would grow more efficiently and end world hunger. The kids in the class though this was ridiculous. I agreed with them, unaltered potatoes are the least of our worries. Another kid piped up and said "yea right, they aren't going to be able to end world hunger, I'm hungry right now". The conclusion we came to is... as long as there are teenage boys, there will never be an end to world hunger. Who says the raising a generation are idiots. NOT I.

Christmas season is well under way and we are preparing, as usual, for a riotous party. I have the eight foot inflatable yard art anchored outside the garage for all of my loving neighbors to appreciate. It even lights up at night and serves as a beacon for anyone who has lost their way. We are also very happy to have recently discovered that a local grocery store here in town is finally selling Apple Beer. So what is the big thing about Apple Beer you might ask, notice that it is capitalized. Well, Apple Beer is a Hokanson family thing. Like Pickled Beets and leaving the last piece to rot (you can cut the last piece in half and take that, but you can't take the last piece). It's like wrapping a blanket around yourself to watch television, even in the summer. It is a tradition, It's a compulsion, it's the Hokanson Family way. So here's to us, the few, the proud, the Hokansons. Raise a glass of Apple Beer, and toast the coming holidays, toast to the end of world hunger, well, maybe with all of the teenage boys our family has produced, that would counterproductive. Have a great one!

Things that go bump in the night

I had a terribly drowsy day yesterday. I spent a good chunk of my night wrapped like a pretzel in my eight year old daughters bed. She has legs as long and much bonier than mine, and a awefully lumpy mattress. It is almost too cruel to put a kid on, let alone an adult. I ended up there because she first came into in my bed and was digging her knees into my husbands back and he just couldn't handle it any more. Ironic, since it was his fault that she ended up there in the first place. My husband likes to read to her at night, a noble pursuit, you say, but he read to her from J.R.R Tolkiens 'The Hobbit', Last night. He read her the part about the terrible thunder storm and Bilbo and the dwarves take refuge in a cave and the goblins come upon them through a secret door and spirit them away into a horrible underground place or something like that. There was a thunder storm last night. This would have been poetic timing if it had not have scared the crackers out of her and sent her screaming, into my bed, with her knees in my husbands back. So much for reading to your kids.

Subbing today was particularly interesting. It is always new and challenging, but today, the teacher left me lesson plans which included teaching them how to tell if fractions are equivalent by using a number line. I think this is a ridiculous and convoluted way to teach anything, but plowed my way through it. I think she is going to have to re-teach it Monday, and give them a boost, if she really wants to instill it in their little minds as something they will remember in forty years and use on a daily basis. I can see them now taking an order at a restaurant or measuring a window or room for carpet, or possibly looking at some figures in their bio physics lab and whipping out a piece of paper and pencil and drawing little lines with arrows on both ends and little equally spaced dashes on them to determine weather 2/8ths and 1/4th are equivalent fractions or not. Brilliant I say. To top it off, I had a kid come up to me seventh period with a look of extreme stress on his face and told me that there was something horrible in the bathroom. "What are you talking about," I bark at him. "Um, somebody went number two in the number one thing in the bathroom". I just stared at him incredulously for a while and then smiled and said "thank you for telling me this", as the image of a clogged urinal ran through my mind. A few minutes later, another kid came up and asked to go the restroom, a common practice as a rule, with subs. I tell them it is because I scare the crap out of them. "Can I go to the restroom Mrs. Slaughter", I sigh and then the image of the urinal popped into my mind, "Sure", I tell him with a smile, go ahead.

awesome family and petrified wedding cake

My daughter Kristine got married last weekend. It was a beautiful wedding and we are very happy for her and her new husband Brian. I was so grateful for the wonderful family support I had. My sister Louisa was very instrumental in helping me get everything together and organized from the invitations to the decorations. Ronalee was a great support and excellent flower arranger. Cari my sister-in-law, really helped to put things together at the reception and Michie kept us all fed and organized. She and William even threw a Halloween party for the kids after it was all over. She and Pearl found dresses for my daughters. My brother Mike sent a couple of great slide shows and Jenny gave me the courage to make a wedding cake. John and Teri got up early and drove two hours before seven to make sure they were there. Mom and Dad were also awesome. My own kids were wonderful. I feel so blessed to have a family who were such a great support. Thank you all for everything, it was awesome. We had fun, which is a good thing, because it looks like we will be doing it again very soon. My daughter Karlees' boyfriend Alex is home from his mission to Germany and they are making plans to get married soon. We are excited for them. We almost made it home without mishap, only a $2300 dollar repair on the Tahoo, but luckily noone was hurt and the wedding cake only slid around a bit. It helped that it was made mostly rice crispies and petrified.

notes from a sub (substitute, not submarine)

      There are good and bad things about being a sub.  I like the schedule; anytime I want, and the accountability;  um, I'm sorry, I didn't know.  I like working with kids, and the ones I don't like working with are gone in fifty minutes and don't come back the next day.  I don't have to deal with parents.  I don't have to do lunch detention if I don't want to.  In fact if a kid comes in for lunch detention on my watch, I just tell him today is his lucky day and let him go.  Some days I actually know something about what they are learning that day, and can help without appearing moronic.  I like it when the kids think I am a genius because I am their sub one day in math, and the next in science.  I also show up once in a while in the library and know how to find any book. This works on the younger ones, Jr. high down.  With the older ones, the jig is up.  They know that you don't know much about trigonometry.  I like it when they see me other places and say hi.  I also don't like it that I can't go to walmart anymore without my make up on, or wearing painting clothes.  If I even try that, I run into one of the kids.     My kids don't like it, when they go off to school like any other unsuspecting child and run into their mom in the hall three hours later.  I don't like it when there is no seating chart, and I have to call roll with names like Ayshjya (Asia).  To make up for it, I write my name on the board and don't introduce myself so if they need me, they have to figure out how to pronounce my name without offending me.  My favorite thing to do, is to read their names that are written in large block letters down the spines of their binders or plastered all over their jerseys,  and then call on them by name when they raise their hands.  Or if they try to change seats, I can just ask 'David and Brandon' to please go back to their own desks.  When they ask me how I do it, I just smile and tell them (to coin a phrase from my brother John) I am freaking magic.