A Huge, but hopefully Fun, undertaking!

So yes, the Wiley's are at it again! I think masochism is in our genes, or blood...well, at least I know it's in mine!

We have decided to organize, put together, decorate, chaperone, and supply the loudness for a Halloween High School dance.

Yes - that's right - this time with a bunch of teenagers! Forget the middle schoolers...we've moved to the next level! So we will be bringing our camera and I hope to get lots of photos of the night. It will be happening this Saturday, the day after Halloween. It is a required costume dance (including the chaperon's) and, of course, there will be incredibly loud music, and lots of dim or low lighting to set the mood right!

Everyone in the high school community seems to be very excited and happy that we are having this event. Plus, we invited the alum that would be in our 9th - 12th grades, if they dare! And, to make our school feel more open and welcome we extended and invitation to two other private schools that some of our alum are now attending, in hopes to have a larger social mix.

So, we have absolutely NO clue as to how many teenagers will show up - we could have only 20 or possibly 50 or more - but no matter what, it will be an adventure, and hopefully some worth talking about for weeks to come! (in a good way I hope)

Wish us luck. And if I find the energy I'll be posting again on Sunday - with some photos - and all the buzz of what it was truly like!

I don't even know who the "Wassup Guys" are..

But this is too funny!

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/104782/wassup_2008/

My 2 Cents

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Birthdays and curriculum trips

Today is Alex's 16th birthday! Happy Birthday Alex!

Who knows what exciting things we will do today - but all of it will be family involvement. Some gifts, some cake (or maybe pudding oh or an ice cream cake ), possibly going out to see a movie - or maybe renting a few good ones and staying home with the comfy fire, and, I think, going out to Bandido's for dinner (unless he'd rather us make homemade tortilla's?). We shall see. But he is going to wait until after his week long curriculum trip to have a party with his friends. Which, will be on Halloween night. I wonder if they've made a list of possible scary movies to rent after collecting some candy that night?? (I know I can give them a few good suggestions if they want!)

Before I go on with what the boys will be doing this coming week I realized that I did not touch on one interesting and great thing that both Alex and Jared have decided to take on at their school! They are training to become "Social Inclusion Helpers". So, from what I understand, they will be going down to the lower school play ground (I don't know how often), to be aware of and help work through, any bullying or teasing with the younger students. This training is a 3 year process and is something new. If you want to read more about it you can go to http://www.thechildtoday.com/SocialInclusion/ to learn more. Their first step is to start listening and noting how many put-downs they hear amongst themselves in the high school - so honing their listening skills. Overall I think this will not only look good on a college application, but will be an important skill for themselves out in the real world! I'll keep you posted on what exciting things they are doing.

Yesterday (Saturday) Alex was back at school from 8am until almost 12noon taking the PSATs. He says it was boring but he thinks he did okay. He made a great comment about how silly it was to put judgement on someone's memory retention as to how smart they are - but he was willing to play along. I have no idea when they find out their scores but I'm sure they'll be another post later on that. :)

So, even though it's Alex's birthday today and we'll be doing some stuff together both Alex and Jared have to completely pack up for the week long curriculum trips - which is the other thing I was going to write about this morning.

Jared's class will be traveling to a place called Sustenance Farm in Bear Creek, NC. The 9th grade trip is an agriculutural intensive for the 9th grade and students will engage in farm work and chores, gardening, and working in nature. This is the same location they take the 9th grade every year - so Alex's class went last year and they seemed to have a blast! (For those of you who I sent the youtube videos of them singing together - that was a piece of it!)

Alex's class will be traveling to the Paradise Campground in Danville, VA. The trip is craft intensive for the 10th grade and students will engage in hands-on experiences with fiber and craft.

So we will be child-free for 5 whole days. 'Nuff said!

Ramblings and musings...

Well, I think it's been a couple of weeks since my last post. I keep thinking that something exciting will happen worth writing about, and then, I realize that every day is exciting, as I'm alive and enjoying life. So even though much of this may seem mundane to some - it is my life and for those who are reading this (mostly family and a few good friends) - they'll appreciate getting any kind of an update. :)

So no snazzy pictures and no video's for this one.

I guess I could have taken photos of the house, in the midst of this weeks chaos of "bombing" or fogging, for our lovely flea infestation. But, for those who have had to experience that in their own life, I think that's really all that needs to be said....well...that and I'm STILL doing laundry (day 3 of laundry hell!). Hehehehehe

So this past week has been our first vacation week at our school - Emerson Waldorf School - where both of our boys are attending high school now and where both my husband, who is teaching 2nd grade this year, and myself (administrative specialist) are working full time.

This will be our 4th, and final, Waldorf school in our lives. Which gives many mixed feelings as I have been reflecting, a lot lately, on all of our experiences over the years. Amazingly, each school is different and unique, but at the same time has many similarities as well. What I think I love most about Waldorf is how the education lets children be children for as long as possible - to hang on to that innocence and joy - because the world can be so harsh and cynical when you become an adult. Having Waldorf education helps not only the parents, but even more so, the students remember to see the beauty and joy in life - which I think everyone needs, but doesn't always get.

Okay, so beyond my reflection on our choice of Waldorf over these past 12 years the other fiddly bits of life over the past couple of weeks....

Well, there was the phone problem we were having. For 5 whole days of our vacation, even though we were disparaging over the flea problem and getting through it, I was enjoying the peace and serenity of our phone not working! Mind you, with 54 parents in Shannon's class, the phone doesn't really ring that often, which is quite amazing - I think our teenage son's get more phone calls than their dad. HA! But, after emailing the phone company of our problem. Having them come out and say that the phone line coming into the house was fine - dial tone and all. We had a kind parent who used to work in the tel-com business come to check out our phone lines on Thursday (5 or was that really 6 days later) to have Shannon finally stumble across a HIDDEN 4th phone in Mary's room that was in a drawer and knocked off the handset. Oh the irony and funniness of it all! I would have been happy to continue paying the phone company $50 a month to keep the phone from ringing - but alas - Alex had gone through withdrawls and managed to call everyone he knew (both here in NC and back at Cape Cod) to get his fix between Thursday and today!

Let's see... Shannon still has grand plans to build a hot tub. Not sure where he is with that plan but I know all of us are all for it if he can figure it out!

I've decided to NOT have chickens as I've realized with our teenage sons quickly growing up and possibly, maybe, moving on some day, that beyond our wonderulf basset hound, Tobey, I don't really think I want to be responsible for any other pets (well, there are the 2 cats, which are technically Mary's but, well....) AND I had someone who HAS chickens say, "With chickens comes both the rats and the snakes." Mind you, I love snakes - they don't bother me at all - bring them on! But rats... shudder.. unless I choose to get one as a pet - the wild ones, well, forget that! They bring mites and grossness. Ugh! No thanks! Plus we have a few families in Shannon's class that have plenty of chickens and, at the moment, we are purchase a dozen eggs each week from one who has a real running farm - with happy, healthy, drug free, free-ranging, local chickens. What more can you ask for? $3.00 for a dozen per week for them to deal with feeding and housing AND rats and snakes. Yep! Worth every penny!!!!

Well, I guess that's it for now. I'm hoping to make this a better habit than it is now. I still have grand dreams of becoming a writer which means I need to continue writing ALL the time - 1,000,000 words before you become "good". And, I've realized, with most of my friends moving on and not responding much to emails, and my nanny passing away a couple of years ago, that I've stopped writing as much as I used to. I had the professional "Kelley letters" as some of my friends feared years and years ago (pre-children to be exact) and I should have continued - though not those types of letters. Ah well, I just need to sit here thinking that I'm writing to my nanny and just let it all pour out. Someone out there will enjoy it - I'm sure!

Good night to all and have a good week. Happy Columbus Day (can you believe that we STILL celebrate this day???)

Kelley

40

So turning forty is one of those moments in life where, I have learned from having a few very good women friends, you either happily look it in the eye and appreciate this new phase OR you fear it and feel it means it's all down hill from here.

If I had only had the experience from my mother and my sister then 40 meant it was all down hill from here. But luckily I have had a few great experiences with some very close friends that this age meant I was finally acknowledged in the world as wise and no longer being held to the ideals of the immature and sexist people in the world.

I think, now that I'm more than 3 months into my 40th year, that life is messy and wonderful. I am shocked daily at how many people come to me for advice on raising children. It humbles me, and also makes me proud, that our two incredible boys are a small reflection of the love that both Shannon and I give to them daily.

Prior to turning 40 I truly felt that I did not, could not, possibly know anything in life. And now I have realized how much I have grown as a human being - and how much farther I have to go before my time is up.

All of this said I have to say, my 40th birthday celebration was one of those moments in life where I questioned my sanity. My sister, the wise "older" sister assured me that our family get-together would be a blast and a great celebration of my moving into the 40 realm. And with that, the initiation was nothing short of transforming for me in many aspects.

We rented a beautiful cabin in the Appalachian mountains here in North Carolina and for 4 short days we were going to do some white water rafting, some walking around the mountains and maybe even some touristy/sight-seeing.

The cabin was absolutely gorgeous, as you can see here:



So the next part was the part that was eye opening, transforming, a reminder...whatever you would like to call it... the white water rafting!

Now, this is one of those moments where, after-the-fact you realize you should have put more time into researching - but it's your sister, right?! You are sure that she read all the details and knew what she was getting you into. Especially knowing that her "little" sister was fat and out of shape and knew how hard this could possibly be, right??

Well she gave me every opportunity to go and read it myself. But I did not! So shame on me.

We had all the grand plans of white water rafting, which would have been fun and cool. What we ended up doing was fun-yaking or duckying because the water level was too low from the drought we were having. So, what that meant was we had "blow up" kayaks that we went down a river on.

Now, normally that would be fun and cool but the part I missed was that this was an 11 mile trek! Yes, an 11 mile trek. That means an 8 hour day. Yes, 8 hours of paddling, keeping your legs, hands, arms and face exposed to the sun (I'm hoping that you are getting the picture here.)

So, my sons, who are healthy and in shape and my nephew who is also healthy and in shape... and, oh, let's not forget my sister who is healthy and in shape are all having a blast. My husband had a near death experience (for another time) and my brother in-law who is much healthier and in shape than me was almost as grumpy as me were all "suffering".

This suffering actually put me in a space, alone (thank goodness) on the calm river...with blisters, sunburn, dehydration, exhaustion, and charlie-horses in my calves, TEARS of "My god, please just shoot me and put me out my misery. Could someone please just come drive me home? Why can't I just stay the night right here, in this f-ing funyak (where there was NO FUN in it), etc."

Here is a photo of the start of the day....




Notice the happy smiles of Shannon and myself. Please don't let this fool you!


I have realized that I managed to not take any photos of my massive sunburn - which I think was the most painful part of this whole excursion. Everything else, the fatigue, the blisters, the frustration - well they have all passed now. Actually, they passed by the next day, except for the pain on my legs which kept reminding me of the stupidity (for 3 weeks).

I love my sister - more than I can ever impart. This was not her fault. I jokingly point my finger her way, but I know I am grown up to have taken responsibility to check it out. So please, sis, if you read this - know that I truly don't blame you as I know different!

The most amazing part was - when we were on the bus, heading back to their building where we started that morning - that I truly enjoyed the whole experience. How lucky am I that I had a day of beautiful weather, incredible family, and getting to a place where I knew that I had to finish, no matter how melancholic I got, and that I can always remember this experience as something fun, happy and exciting, though exhausting and painful, was mine, and mine alone!

Sisters - always and forever!















Family - always and forever!

Whether the Weather...

This one will be short but I wanted to post the 2 photos that I took from the "H" named hurricane that blew up the coast from Friday afternoon through Saturday morning. So, as you can see, our creek that runs under our driveway and through our front yard was over flowing over our driveway and into our front yard and back into the creek again. Thank goodness there is a slight hill that goes back down toward the creek.