What a week/weekend

It has been crazy around our house. It has gone from moving - to not moving - back to moving to we do not know what we are doing. I feel like I should win the terrible mom award because I have been very frustrated with everything from work, home life, clutter, being fat, not knowing how to cook, school...........the list just goes on and on. I feel terrible because my kids have picked up the stress and frustration and they have been "acting out" which for some may not be acting out at all, but for my kids it is acting out. I have been taking all of this out on them and it just makes me want to cry. Right now there are in bed with Jeff as they were having a hard time settling down, I gave them some Benedryl and they are cuddled up with him. I have some amazing friends that have been reassuring me that I am not a terrible mom and that we all go threw moments like this. I hope tomorrow things are a lot better and that I am not as stressed out.

This week in school has be particularly tough for me. One assignment that we were asked to do is to write a letter to a chair member, principal, supervisor someone and ask them to consider allowing social media into the classroom/ work place. That was an eye opener for me. Some schools have a 100% ban on social media while others are have pilot programs going and other schools have something in between. I am still not sure how I feel about social media being in the classroom I completely agree that it does have its learning advantages, however, it only takes one student to get it banned for the entire school yet again. I am still on the fence. And as I hear that there has been a rise in cyber bullying, internet stockers, and the such it only makes me want to keep banned from the classroom and to lock my 2 toddlers up in the closet and never let them out. It is a scary world and in some aspects I feel that it is just one more avenue for them to become more exposed to a world that is a scary place.

Life is crazy, my girls are wonderful and I love to no end and I hope that they know that I love them and would do anything for them. I feel that sometimes I get caught up in the "ME ME ME ME its all about ME" that I forget that it is about them and that I need to be teaching them and helping them and not get so caught up in when is it bed time....I just want to go pee without the door rattling. I want to wake up when I want to get up and................My girls are my pride and joy and they make me laugh. Parenting is tough, but I am tougher and I just have to remember that I am only human too and that tomorrow is a new day. I love how they make me laugh and I love how gentle Jasmin is. After weekends like I just had I think 2 is a great number, but without fail as soon as I have that thought Jasmin or Payeton will come up to me and give a great big hug and tell me that they love me or they say something silly and make me laugh and then I get hit with the 2x4 and am told that I am not done yet.

Well it is off to bed for me my pillow is calling my name along with Hunger Games.......I gotta move kids into their bed.......poop.

Signing off for now -

Brendon

Lazy Lazy Week

So this week I decided I needed a little bit of a break and to pay attention to my ever growing pile of sewing projects, blankets, counted cross stitch, and my kids. I did not focus on school and I must admit it was really nice not being bogged down by a computer at night, but to cut fabric and watch movies with my awesome hubby. But that all came to an end I had things to get done for school I could no longer ignore it. It was a great little break though. During that break I realized one important thing. That I miss the good ol' days without computers and having to check your e-mail, farms, status updates, etc. I enjoyed the fact that after the kids went to bed we did what we wanted to do. Watch some tv, I read a great book, cut fabric and just hung out together it was awesome.

For school purposes I came to realize how wonderful the Internet is and how dramatically our lives have changed. I also learned we have become dependent on Internet and keeping up the latest news and what are friends are up to and what new websites there are that it is only taking us away from our families and being carefree. I realize how noisy our lives are, no I do not mean with kids running around, I mean with all we have to do. Computers have taken over our lives. I enjoy my computer, but think about it everything is computerized even our wash machines are now computers. It is insane.

With all the wonderful teaching tools available online it is hard to keep them all straight. Did I post on that site, did I remember to check this site for comments from the teacher, oh wait now let me go to that site and see what was posted under our group site, now that I am done doing that I need to go check this site again to see if my teacher responded to my question, now let me go back over here and see if Tommy added to this site so I can finish my part of the project. I feel like we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to remember all the sites, usernames, passwords just to learn about 1 topic. I think these sites are great, but totally overwhelming. I miss the days of when the syllabus was handed out and that is what we went by and we e-mailed or called our professors and groups to get questions answered. I miss those days

Well I am off to bed

Brendon Jones

Completing Projects

I finally finished Jasmin's big girl blanket that goes on her big girl bed that hopefully when I get home from work tonight I can set up and rearrange the girls bedroom! That should be fun. This past week my hubby and I have been trying to find a new place to live. Not an easy tasks for us. We think we have nailed down a couple of apartments that we will be able to afford.

This past week for class was a very thought provoking topic. Internet and Privacy. I was talking to my mom about Facebook and the Internet and she brought up a good point about posting one that we all know, but posting things on the Internet can never be deleted. She said it is like taking a big bag of feathers and opening it up on a windy day and letting the feathers blow away then running after them and try to pick them all up one at a time. You might get some you won't get most. That made me think......hmmmm good point mom! Chalk one up for wisdom. I love my mom. But the more I thought about this whole topic and employers firing, suspending, etc over Facebook comments and pictures I did some more looking and found several articles, not just about schools, but employers firing over Facebook I was shocked. Then this got me thinking about how many time do you hear of an off duty police officer pulled over and arrested for drunk driving or an airline pilot drinking off duty then called in to fly a plane to.....New York...the list goes on and one about what we do in our personal lives affects our employment and how we get punished for something that seems like no big deal in our "private" lives, but sometimes it does come back to bite us on the butt. With technology it is becoming harder and harder to separate personal lives from work lives.

It makes me think about my husband. He has a felony on his record and because of that he is having a very hard time trying to find a job to support our family, we are having an even harder time trying to find a place to live. This is over something he did in 2002 but in 2006 it caught up with him. No he was not running from the law. But it is amazing that what we do in our personal lives affects every aspect of our lives. So does this mean that we have to hold teachers, police officers, doctors, Lawyers, etc. To a standard that is unattainable. If they live the "perfect" life they are seen a stick in the mud or boring. But if they live a life they enjoy, drinking, wine tasting etc they seem to be categorized as a drunk, or someone that should be in the public eye. I am taking it a little out of context, but the point remains the same.

This past week definitely made me think about what I post on Facebook and who is allowed to see my posts. Over all it was a very thought provoking week in school! It was great!

Brendon Jones

What have I learned?

Oh My Gosh! This week has been a week from...............yeah you can fill in the blank. Trying to balance family life, school work, work, trying to find a place to live and in personal projects and stuff! It went from Monday to 4Th of July in about 20 minutes for me. However it was a fun week. We celebrated Jasmin's 3rd birthday and it was great we had so much fun.

I have been trying to catch up on school reading, trying to keep the house clean, and stay on top of everything. It is tough doing this all and doing this all with 2 toddlers running around the house. But school has been amazingly fun and hard. I have been learning a lot about how much I do not know about technology. I have learned how many great and wonderful technologies are available for learning and teaching. I never thought in a million years that I would 1) create a blog, but for school I did, 2) create a twitter account - which I still have yet to do and 3) that know how these things work will open up doors for employment. The one that I am still trying to figure out is the wiki thing. I have been reading about them and to my amazement they are useful, but I am still trying to figure out how they will work for me. They are used primarily as a teaching resource and even though I am working on my masters of education I do not really have a desire to become a teacher. The funny thing is that I have no idea what I really want to do when "I grow up". I just had a nagging feeling to get my masters. So here I am with my BA in health I have never taught a day in my life other than 6 and 7 year olds in church. I had fun teaching, but I am not sure it is a career that I want to have. The career that I want to have is a full time stay at home mom even if it is in a one room shanty.

So as I have been reading about wikis and what I know about twitter I have been racking my brain to think about how to incorporate them into my life and think like a teacher to use them for my mock class. I do not have an audience to test these things out on and I am not even sure I know what I am doing. However, I have learned at how much using a wiki can give a class a sense of ownership and they can actually apply themselves to what they are doing because they get to create a website of information that they have learned and researched and other people get to see it and not just a teacher! Wikis are still a little confusing to me, but I am sure that as I use them and start to create one than they will make more sense to me and I will see ways to incorporate them not into just classroom life, but into my personal life as well.

Signing off for now!!

Brendon Jones