all the little fire setters

i like my job. i mean i really realy do. the down side is the pittance i receive for what i do, and believe it or not i do a lot. my favorite part about my job is the FYRE program. that's Fire Youth Resource Exchange and i get to work with kids who engage in fire play. it's very interesting and i enjoy those kids a lot. tonight i had to go to a fire chief's meeting and speak to all the chiefs in chemung county (and one from tompkins). not surprisingly they were all men, all pretty big guys and most of them were older. i handed out my stats and my graphs that i worked so hard to put together and the brochures and the referral forms. i explained that while the numbers have gone down we need to have the fire departments on board with the program, to help connect us with the families who would benefit from the program. it seemed to me that there wasn't a lot of people in that room who thought the program doesn't do any good. and that's ok but i need them to buy in to the program if we're going to get them to make the referrals. but mike smith was really backing me and trying to get the word across that the program is making progress from where it was before i took it over and that was good. caroline wasn't even introduced, mike only intro'd me to the chiefs and caroline didn't even really utter a word, i mean she didn't really need to be there, but i think it was important to know that i didn't goof anything up or say something i shouldn't have. i tried hard not to offend anyone, but i think i pissed off WEFD a little bit...but they used to run the program and i think that makes them a little pissy about the program anyway. but i hope that some of the guys took something away from what i said. at least caroline said i did a good job presenting the information. that's gotta be a good thing right?

SO so so close to completely done.

well i just finished another course, child and adolescent psychology. pretty sure i'm getting an A, but i don't want to count my chickens just yet...i'm waiting for him to grade the paper i submitted on Sunday. i mean technically the class is still operating until tomorrow, but i just posted my last discussion and responded to another learner so I AM DONE!!! in january i start human sexuality. it was one of those courses i never took as an undergrad and figured i would just to have a well rounded education. and then the master's thesis. i'm pretty sure i am gonna write about juvenile firesetting because it's kind of what i know. i so can't wait to finish, to move away from elmira and to be making paychecks that aren't gone in 60 seconds. i mean i like my job, i used to love my job, but right now i just like it. the people are ok, gossip is insane there and i'm usually in the know. but i have had 3 supervisors and worked with 3 parent advocates it becomes a little annoying being the go to person when i get paid so little. or maybe that's just me. what evs. june of 2010 i will be done with my master's and i plan to take a little time off before i start on the Phd...that's right i will be Dr. Chichester some day.

insomnia

i can't sleep, usually by now i am dozing my way through randomly strange dreams. today i started christmas shopping and got dylan a few awesome things like vehicles for his action figures, a nintendo ds and two games (my sims agents and scooby doo)the 3rd installment of the diary of a wimpy kid books (mom got him the new one)and a random book about dangerous creatures. oh yeah and i totally picked up a kiss fleece throw blanket for myself, it was too awesome not to buy for a mere $10. to be honest, i'm not a real fan of the band's music, but i love their merchandising gimmicks, they put their painted faces on just about anything and make money. i also bought my mom her birthday gift (a nifty lil red cell phone...no more pay as you go crap) and since dyl had a good week we went to see where the wild things are. i loved this book as a kid, and pretty much set out to buy it when i found out i was pregars with dyl so i could read it to him (he's not much for reading, but he did like that book.) i saw a lot of parallels between max and dylan. dyl's about to turn 9, max is 9 in the film. max makes up stories, dyl makes up stories. max had a single mom who happened to get frustrated with him, i get frustrated with dyl a lot. it was a sweet story. the big difference between my dyl and max was that max just didn't know how to deal with his feelings, i think that's where the wild things really came from because carol was an angry wild thing and judith was a suspicious wild thing, alex felt like no one listened to him, douglas went along with everyone else to please them and kw was torn between her family and her "new friends". dylan loved it, but had some questions as to why this wild thing did certain things and why max did certain things and i answered those questions the best way i knew how. unfortunately he had to pee as the movie was drawing to an end, i made him wait (i know, mother of the year right?) until max was in his boat and left the island because i was pretty sure i knew what would happen when he sailed back across the sea. but i guess i'll have to wait for the dvd to find out exactly how it played out. it was a great book , and an amazing movie. i can't tell you how many people i work with had never read the book to their own kids (or grandkids for some) i loaned dylan's copy out to a couple of people. the movie was spectaular, i would see it again in a heartbeat.

i love my wii fit

so in a little less than 4 weeks i have dropped 6 pounds all because of my wii fit. i work out every day with it for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, i've unlocked all of the exercises and do the 10 minute boxing in expert mode and really break a sweat. i do the balance games when i'm not too tired and do most of the yoga poses (i skip the one legged ones cuz' i'm not strong enough to do them yet) and i do almost all of the strength exercises (except the planks...same reason i skip the one legged yoga poses). the point is that it is working. and yes my eating habits are changing, i'm trying to watch my portions and make sure i eat lots of veggies but if i want a little chocolate i go for it, if i feel like chips i have some and i allow myself 1 soda per day cuz i get a slight headache when i go without (it's a caffeine thing, but i hate coffee and i'm not a fan of tea so...)so anyway, these are little things that i am hoping will amount to a larger thing in the end and as long as i stay motivated i think i will do just fine.

bored

I'm bored with my life, i feel like everything has become monotonous. work seems like the same old thing every day. yeah each of the kids that pass before me have different combinations of problems, but they have started blending into each other. often times i sit at my desk doing absolutely nothing, but i mask it well and always give the appearance of being busy. some of the people at work are grating on my nerves, they're lovely people but if i have to hear one more time about how much they hate their jobs or complain about the fact that they can't wear shorts to work anymore i'm gonna go a little nuts. it just feels like the same thing every day i guess is what i'm saying. meanwhile, on the home front i am trying to turn to a healthier lifestyle, eating more fruit and veggies than any other food group and getting out and exercising more. i have been realy breaking a sweat with my wii fit this past week, i just need to make it last longer than a couple of weeks. i have been making dylan walk with me at eldridge, he grumbles all the way, but i make him do it anyway cuz we both need to get active. i'm starting to plan for the move next summer, but then everytime i have an idea it gets shot down by someone. right now i am really feeling the scranton area, marywood has a decent PhD program for developmental psych with courses offered in the evening and on weekends which would be awesome...if i could get a job in the area which i might be able to, you never know, but like i said someone wants to poke holes in all of my plans essentially forcing me to stay in this area (which i am determined not to do) but i look around at my stuff everyday and wonder what i should take and what i should donate not to mention what mom is intending to bring, cuz god help me i am not lugging all of her crap along with us to where ever we move to that lady has too much crap!! but i am hoping that a lot of her stuff will be left behind for bill to deal with. but i guess it is still far enough away that i don't have to worry about things too much

it's been a while

what can i say? i've been pretty busy doing stuff. trying to get an A in a class that's too easy is harder than it sounds. I get bored and don't wanna do the work and, well grades can slip. but i have been doing well, i know myself and my downfalls and have been worked against my nature to make sure i have a firm grasp on that A. after this class i only have 3 more left before i graduate. and move on to more southern places. people keep telling me how nice north carolina is, and i am thinking in that direction, but we'll see what happens. dylan is going to the orthodontist on monday to see what needs to be done for him to have beautiful teeth, even though it has been asked why i am taking him if we won't be here when he is old enough for braces. the work front has been ok, even though there are a lot of changes. once more i am supervisorless and the CIS coordinator is my go to. She's usually pretty busy, so i try to deal on my own and i think she appreciates that. but the parent advocate is leaving at the end of this month which to me means i will be doing double duties until they can fill that position too. no big, i mean i had to handle a time when i didn't have a supe before, and i had to handle a time when i didn't have the advocate to do her part...just not at the same time. this summer has been pretty swell over all. we've done a lot as a family, taken a lot of trips, gone to the drive in, i scrap book just about everything now. in all honesty i think i've kind of gone overboard with it, but it gives me a forum to do something with my photos and hell i would have them anyway. we're going to knoebels in about a week, and bill might actually go as well...he hasn't taken a trip with us since dylan was a toddler and we rented a place at the lake. that's about it for now, who knows when i'll have time to write again?

4th of july weekend

i had a pretty good weekend, three days off from work is usually good. dyl spent friday at mom's where he and bill apparently played video games for a good portion of the night. i stayed home, watched fanboys, made a strawberry rhubarb pie for the saturday meal and finished harry potter and the order of the phoenix. and the weather was nicer than i thought, though not extremely hot, and the pool temp was about 72, saturday and sunday were both nice days to go swimming and i of course got a little color...red to be exact since i don't tan well. and we finished the weekend by hitting the fireworks. last year we sat right next to eldridge lake, and i planned to do that again this year, only the parking was insane. so i ended up driving around and parking in the back parking lot of a buiolding across from king kone with about 50 other people. but in reality we had an amazing spot, the fire works were being shot off just over the railroad tracks from where we were and the view was spectacular. and we didn't even leave the car, they were right there. so overall it was a pretty good weekend.

most awesome fighting game ever

ok, mom rented a game for dylan to play at the house today on the xbox 360 and it was mortal kombat vs. dc superheroes. i was LOVIN it!! it was especially fun because i figured out how to do all the cool moves first and stomped all over both dylan and bill, as a good sport i explained how to do the moves to all, but poor dyl just couldn't compete against my awesomeness and kept saying i was cheating. anyway, flash is number 1, joker is my number 2 and my number 3 is scorpion. dyl favors the ladies of course, and bill was all over the big heavies like batman and superman. bill and i were tied, beating each other twice and dylan multiple times. now bill will be practicing all night so he can beat me tomorrow...oh well, at least i had tonight to be a champ. if i had crazy money i would buy an xbox just to play that game, sadly they don't make it for the wii or the ps2. it was a lot of fun!!

research research research

man, o man, i am just about finished with my research methods class. two more discussions and i'm done with it. i finished my final paper and just submitted it to safeassign which i am sure is one of those websites schools like to use to make sure we aren't plagiarizing other people's work. the paper was pretty easy actually, since i got 100 on my mrf assignment i basically just did an intro, copy and pasted alot of what i had in the mrf, making it a bit more cohesive that it was in the mrf form and wrote up a conclusion discussing where i thought the research could have been improved. and for once in my life i printed out my paper and edited it, checking for errors and making sure i had everything right. normally i just send the paper on its way when i'm done... i also wait until the last possible day to write it. but not this quarter, this quarter i finished everything ahead of schedule (except the mrf, because i thought i had more time than i reallt did and spent about 6 hours tied to my computer working on it while dyl played around.four more courses to go until graduation!!

oh canada

i went on vacation with the family (minus bill of course, he never goes any where with us). dylan had a great time and we all had a blast at marine land. the wax museum and ripley's believe or not were a lot of fun. we didn't end up on the maid of the mist, that line was way too long and i definitely didn't want to wait and wait and wait for it. instead we took in some sights, went to clifton hills and marine land. we went up to the revolving restaurant, but well...i promised never to speak of that again and won't relive it here. let's just say we got a free ride on what dylan was calling "the bus" to the top and we probably should have paid. meanwhile, the whales and dolphins, seals, sealion and walrus were awesome. I got a lot of great pics and will be scrapbooking soon (i have a paper due this week and need to get working on it tomorrow). the hotel was pretty nice, but i was a bit of a cheapskate and parked the car myself rather than use the valet, i'm sorry, but really i prefer to have my keys and know where the car is and all that. the car was a cute little nissan versa and i really liked driving it. except that i had the driving duties for the entire trip, and sometimes it is nice to just be the passenger. at the canadian border i had to explain that dylan didn't have a dad,i so hate that. if only those people knew how hard america made it to get a passport for a kid without both parents (except that dylan doesn't have a father listed on his birth cert. anyway) they would have just accepted the damn passports without asking him who lived in our house, and then mistaking him saying "my cat" for "my dad". but whatevs. the border patrol coming back to america was very friendly and nice even joking with us and telling dylan he had to take the funny hat dyl bought as a souvenit that was red and white and said canada on it cuz he was back in the US and needed to show his patriotism. it was cute. meanwhile everything was crazy expensive and we didn't do half the stuff we could have done. regardless it was a blast. when i got home i realized i had a text from kelly (and one from her husband) that she had her baby so i will miss her while she is on maternity leave. maybe i will go visit her and bring her some flowers or something. and now it is back to the routine. i dread going back to work, hope i didn't get a million voicemails and a ton of paperwork dumped into my mailbox. maybe i should run back to canada.

vampires are always fashionable

I was having a conversation the other day with someone who said "vampires are in fashion right now" and all i could think was, vampire stuff is always in. i remember when i was in jr. high reading the vampire diaries (which incidentally have made a comeback...i saw the display a while ago at borders). and ann rice's books, lestat was a bad ass vamp. before that there was dracula, who was depicted in tons of films and books. right now twilight is huge, and so is the sookie stackhouse franchise (i love both, but let's face it, sookie is better). There was blade, underworld, tons and tons of vampirey-creepiness. so when have vampires ever not been "in fashion"? i don't think that there is a time when people didn't enjoy vampires in some capacity.
That being said, i am working my way through buffy season 7 only to find out that ashanti had a cameo appearance, and the girl who played millie in freaks and geeks is a "potential". a potential what you may be asking yourself, in the buffy world a potential is someone who may be called as the next slayer when the present slayer dies. Something i have noticed is how different the realms of different vampire world creators can be. for example in buffy vampires are demons and their faces change to major ugly when they feed and have no souls. in sookie vampire blood is a crazy drug that makes most people trip out. and in twilight becoming a vampire allows people to realize other "gifts" which, frankly is kind of lame and was the basis for my dislike of the fourth book. that's the recent stuff i've been reading and watching. i know other things show even more differences. but the one constant is that vampires don't like werewolves...and that makes me laugh. cuz you would think that they would come together as two seperate groups who are outside the human population.
anyway, what this whole thing boils down to is: vampires are fashionable right now, but they're a classic that never goes out of style.

research methods

ok, so i am finally taking my last required class (it's all free electives until my master's course next spring) and it's research methods. I love research, i always have it's fun and interesting. but i thought doing this class online as a grad student would be lame. and while the class is a bit of a challenge (finding two articles every week, 1 quantitative and the other qualitative is quite a chore) i am totally digging it. yeah we don't get to actually do our own research, but it kind of works. and there is always that bone head who can't type to save his life and you have to figure out what they mean in their post, or the people who are still early into the grad experience and don't understand things, but this is the first class i've taken at capella where i felt really and truly interested in it and see a real exchange between thinking people. usually it's not quite so involved, but this class is different. i signed up for kind of a lame gimme class for next quarter, at least i am hoping it is a gimme class, 700 level, how to write for psychology kinda thing. i'm hoping for a nice break, but well...you just never know.

summer time

i am not really one for the sun, it burns, i get lobster red and then peel followed by fishbelly white again. but i love summer, food off the grill, swimming and hanging out in the pool and basically enjoying life. we just uncovered the pool and the water, while not exactly clear, is pretty close. can't see the bottom of the deep end yet, but you can tell there isn't any gunk on the bottom. so i can't wait for the hot weather and the crystal clear water, jumping into the deep end where the water is almost always freezing cold. I kind of wish I worked in the school district, it would be pretty decent, i mean summers off, holiday vacations. i am considering getting a teaching certificate once i am done with my masters because basically i don't know what exactly it is that i want to do with myself once i am done with school. who knows what the future will have in store for me?

worcester

well, i just finished my homework for this week while chillin in the hotel room in worcester ma. it's ok, nothing special. they gave us a hard time at check in, the workshop we attended was pretty good, it was kinda heavy on the therapy side, but pretty decent (even if the chairs were uncomfortable). we went to a restaurant across the street from the hotel and it was insanely expensive, the only thing i even wanted to touch was a herb encrusted steak, it was a lil heavy on the salt, but extremely tasty!! i didn't bring my camera, i won't have time to take pics. and i am realy really tired right now. but i got my work done, and i will be crashing pretty heavy tonight. this weekend i'm gonna go see i love you man at the heights, so that will be fun. can't wait to get back to helmira, i miss my dylbie.

x-men origins

went to the drive in last night with the dyl to see this flick and it was awesome. the explosions were amazing, you get to see why wolverine is the way he is, i loved the scene were they went up in the elevator together and they really showcased all the mutants' abilities. it was just a fun flick. dylan liked it alot too even though they didn't showcase any of the girl mutants until the end with emma frost and kayla. we both enjoyed ourselves, and who doesn't love to go to the drive in? this thusday i am going back to the drive in, sans dylan (yep all by myself) to see star trek. they are doing a special pre-show on thursday at 8:30 and i am all over it!! no midnight viewing, get to see it before alot of other people. yeah i might be tired on friday, but who cares? it'll be awesom!!! yay for the drive in

story by dyl

Wooden Claws
There were two children named Mya and Alex. They were brother and sister. They were always fighting. One time Alex said “Come on Mya, get in the box” and Mya said “No thank you.” But Alex pulled her in. They jumped down really far and they heard a creepy snarling noise. Mya gasped and said “What was that?” They ran away and then there was a little door that they opened. A monster named Clawee with big…huge claws was standing behind the door. They also found a vampire villiage. One vampire helped Mya and Alex get away from Clawee. Then Clawee found them hiding in the vampire village and he said in his gravelly voice “You rotten children, I’m going to kill you and suck your life out!” Clawee put his clawed hand on Mya’s chest and Alex pushed him away. The vampire that helped them before jumped on Clawee’s back, not knowing that Clawee’s claws were actually made out of wood. The vampire screamed out to Alex and Mya “Follow the arrows!!” Unfortunately, the vampire died, but it was enough of a distraction that Alex and Mya got away. Alex saw a red button that said ‘crush’ on it. Alex approached it, but Mya told him to leave it alone. Alex, always being headstrong, pushed the button anyway and heard a shrieking sound. When Alex turned around the walls had closed in and squished Clawee where he stood drinking the vampire’s blood. And then Clawee turned into bugs, he was made out of them, and he squirmed around while Alex and Mya stomped on the bugs.
Alex looked around him and saw a bright red arrow, it was made out of the vampire’s blood. Alex grabbed Mya by the arm and pointed to it. Alex began walking in the direction the arrow pointed. Mya followed, shivering with fear. The two followed the bright red arrows until they came to a big bottom of a box. They touched it and the box bottom began to spin very fast. Alex and Mya got dizzy and spilled out of the top of the box back in their playroom at home. Alex looked at the box and saw a bright red arrow on it.
The End

the day after

i just woke up the day after the big soft ball tournament and let me tell you that i am sore al over. i didn't even do that much being catcher and all, but my legs hurt from running (and maybe squatting, i squatted during the first game) my arm hurts from throwing the ball...a lot..back to the pitcher, i don't think anyone threw the ball more than me and the pitcher plus i played catch before every game for a while. i got a wicked sunburn that is making my skin feel like it's stretched too tight. moistuizers aren't helping that feeling to go away. i had a lot of fun, i would do it again in a heartbeat...only next time i will bring the sunscreen!! but i think i will stick to playing catcher...it's not a bad gig when you don't wanna run so much.

you can't spell fundraiser without FUN

today i played in a fundraiser softball tournament with a group of people that i work with. granted, most of the guys on the team were the husbands and fiances of my co-workers, and my lil bro came out and played too. it was a double elimination and we lost both of the games we played which sucks in a way. but it was fun, at least i had fun. i saw some of our weaknesses, i saw some of our strengths and in all honesty we could have changed some things, but it didn't really matter. it was a good time. i played catcher, got the first injury for our team by falling down when a ball was pitched to me and scraped my leg. no biggie. i was up to bat a total of 3 times in the 2 games we played and i hit the ball all three times which i am very proud of. the first game against dss was not a fair match at all, they skunked us 14-0 but i did hit the ball, the lousy 2nd baseman (or shortstop i dunno which) caught it. then in the second game i actually got on base, mainly because the first basemen missed the ball when they threw it to him. the second time he didn't miss it, but our player who was on third made it home so i helped to get us a point, which was nice. we lost the second game like 12-2 or something like that, but we did much better.
in the mean time i', a total rock lobster from sitting in the sun all day. my arms are R-E-D and so are my cheeks. i forgot to bring the sunblock, no biggie tho. maybe we should practice before playing next year, i'm just throwing it out there.

montessori

i had a meeting for dylan the other day at school. overall it went well, he's doing well in speech, he does great in the friendship group, his handwriting is better, his reading has improved...but he did horribly on his math test. we came up with ideas of how to help him in math and writing (just to keep him going with that) and determined that no, he doesn't have add or adhd and they believe (and i agree) that it is a motivational issue for dyl. as the meeting was ending his teacher stated that she thought he should be in the iep classroom for 3rd grade, which, the assistant principal informed me was a classroom made up of mostly kids with a learning disability. after i walked out i started thinking about what that would mean for dylan, and what consequences that might make for him. he might be in a room that moved at a slower pace, but he would be in a class that the other kids recognized as the class with the "stupid" kids, he might get made fun of. Then what if he isn't rising to as high a need as many of the other kids in the classroom and skates by without much support? well, i started thinking, and talking to some friends and the montessori school came up. i looked into it last year, but he made huge strides and decided he would be able to make in public school after all. right now i am not thinking that. so i called the school and set up an appointment so i could go and check it out and apply for him. i really really hope he gets accepted, i just worry about the financial piece and the vast difference in schools and how long it might take him to adjust and blah blah blah. i like beecher, i just don't know if it provides the best environment for dylan to learn in. we'll see what happens.

easy as riding a bike

at least that's what people say, only i am coming to find that riding a bike is not quite as easy as all that. i can ride a bike, i can't wait to ride the bike my sis gave me, it's sitting in the back room near the computer waiting to be ridden. i can't wait because i can't ride the bike until dylan can ride his bike by himself. i don't remember how i learned to ride a bike, but i know that somewhere along the way the training wheels on my E.T bike were taken off and i had to learn how to balance the bike on my own before moving on to what i call the orange beast (Huge banana seated thing with a sissy bar), eventually a neon green boys bmx bike, and eventually a hand-me-down 10 speed racing bike with the curved handlebars. Such is the history of my bike riding experience. but dylan had a little mongoose with training wheels when he was younger which he rarely got on because every time he did he would fall and start crying or flat out refuse to get on it when i wheeled it out. now he has a cool little bike given to him by his aunt and he has no idea how to balance on his own and i am having some trouble teaching him. yesterday and today we went out to the parking lot across the street and held him up while running alongside him. At first he was scared (shocker) but as we started moving faster he started to enjoy himself. my arms are killing me from holding him up and i got out of breath pretty quickly, which limits the amount of time he can spend out there. by the end of the third go today i seriously considered letting go to see how he would do, but decided not to because if he fell and got hurt he would never want to try again. i think it will take a few weeks of doing this to get him to a point where he will be comfortable with me letting go, i just don't want to screw things up by pushing too fast. i know he will get there if i can be patient. And once he can ride by himself, my bike will get to venture out too and we will ride together. haha, maybe we will start our own biker gang and make matching denim jackets with crazy patches and stuff. so in the mean time once you learn to ride a bike, it is always easy to ride a bike...but learning to ride a bike...not quite that easy.