School has started again. It really is not that bad, but I am or rather was not ready. Still not there yet. We even started working with the kids and I have fairly good kids.
What makes me not ready yet is the house situation! Well, people came and looked at it. I knew from the beginning that they loved the house itself. We even made them quite aware of the things that needed to be fixed. It is a good house. We would be staying here, if we did not have mom’s house to move into-….rent free. With my future income being so little, I knew that I would have to be out from under a house payment.
Another snag in the situation is Steve quit smoking. Ask my kids-….his failure to smoke is like a person withdrawing from hard drugs. What makes him worse, is that he will not seek any type of medical assistance. So we have to deal with his temperament-…He is completely unaware of his change in personality.
I have a month probably to pack and move out of my home. Of course, I will pack. The only good thing is that I did get rid of quite a lot of things this summer. But I know when I actually start packing. There will be numerous more bags to throw.
Another problem-….We are planning to move to the chateaux. That means work to fix it up and money to spend. Well, we still have money, but not a tremendous amount. We could move into an apartment, but that would tie us up for several months. My problem is not that there are problems, but that the solutions are difficult to do. But truthfully, we are in better shape than we were during the last move. Just too old to put up with the headaches. (especially when one of us acts as if he has PMS!!!)
But I have to say I am thankful-…two great kids. I also am going to be able to go to New York in November with or without the BIG grouch.
😀

Do what you really want to and not work!!! Strangest thing happened. I received two phone calls wishing me happy birthday and three birthday cards 😀 -…none of which was my immediate family 🙁 . I also received some flowers from my housekeeper and a balloon. It was quite and interesting day.

I spent most of the day on the computer- searching and playing. While searching a cousin, I decided to search my name. I thought let’s see how many Claudia Bennett’s are on the web. Boy, were there a lot. 342 sites were found with the name Claudia Bennett on them. I was listed five times: four for school and one for arglor’s web site. Some were genealogical sites, so I did not count them. But I found 20 live ones not counting me. It was an interesting range of women. One woman was living in Ashland, Massachusetts. She had the most hits and was very prominent in the city. She not only worked with in the schools, but was on the “Ashland Board of Selectmen”. Therefore, she was written up for not only working with the school system, her views in committee meetings, but also political views. There were three teachers besides the previous woman. Three women worked in government jobs in different parts of the United States.
The others worked for a newspaper, art director, business, technology specialist in university, web sites selling things, West Point (not in the teaching area), and medical field. There were three young girls at various ages. But the funniest of all-…. 😯 Was the one on a porn site. She must be good, because I had “safe search” on. It was a very interesting experiment. Anyone reading this should look for the last one.
The only thing that came up when I searched Claudia Ramke was my listing on my high school web page. Dramke pulled up quite a bit, but it was mostly from happypoet and german sites. I did find a Ramke in Germany and her email. I think I will write her just in case she might be related.
The rest of the night will be spent reading. I have picked some of my favorite author’s books to reread. Funny how you don’t remember them when it has been such a long time since you read them the first time. Good reason for not throwing those types of books away and for collecting them. I had a good day despite the fact that I am getting older. Oilmud tried to get me to go out tonight for supper, but I needed this restful day after working so hard cleaning this house for three days. Still not through :'(

I have a vehicle! One that can take me places whenever I wish. Ha! Well, it can leave the surrounding areas without me worrying about breaking down. (I hope) Since it is a used vehicle, it is still a small worry. I had a wonderful trip to Texas to visit family and friends. I spent the night with my high school friend and enjoyed visiting with her.
I visited my aunt and found her in very good shape mentally. She has trouble with walking around because of osteoporosis. That just slows her down a great deal, but she is very mentally alert for her age. It was wonderful talking to her.
I was lucky to see her son that I had spent a great deal of time with during my childhood. He was not aware how important he was to my childhood. If it wasn’t for him, I would not have been able to attend my senior dance.
Did I say my childhood was sheltered”’ Well, let’s put it this way–a lot of women in the Victorian age were not as sheltered as I was. Thank heavens, my genes came from women who had an adventurous streak for their day, or I would have been scared of my shadow. My mother’s stepmother was a great influence on me. She made me know that no matter what happened that I could take care of myself. My mother through her assistance was able to give me the education to allow me to do what I wish.
But I digress. Bin was there in my youth and could aggravate at times, but he was my favorite cousin. I use to get angry with him, because everyone would say look how well Lloyd’s children behave. The truth of it– I knew he was not an angel. Oh, he did not misbehave in front of adults, but he was like my brother at being able to get me to do things that would get me in trouble. Of course, “Naive” was my middle name.
I was able to see another special cousin, Ken. He was Bin’s older sibling. He and I did not play much together, but he probably looked upon me as that little child. (Like my siblings did.) He, too, held a special place in my childhood. I was able to get to be with him some in my later life. It seems that cancer has entered my sphere again, through him. He is dying from lung cancer. It is has spread too far for him to have treatment.
He and his wife are very close and have come to grip with the situation. Even though the outlook is grave, they are coping well with it.
I debate whether I should attend his funeral or not. I feel that I would be more of a burden than a blessing for the family. I simply detest funerals. Mother’s Celebration of Life was so much better.
I began to start thinking the last few months and realized that in the last 14 years, I have lost 9 people that were very close to me.

Boy did I enjoy June. It was fun and relaxing. I started off the month on a rush. Getting ready for our trip. Then we left. But the week after we came back, I decided that I would relax. I did. Slept late, watched tv–because there was no computer at that time. Did various lazy things.
Mary came on the 26th and we had a very nice visit. It was really fun to talk to her alone. I realized then that we had never had the chance before.
The bad things that happened this month was bad news about my closest teacher friend and a cousin. She informed me after I got back to LA. that she had a lump. We then went through the wait to find out if it was malignant, then the worry about taking it out. The results were positive and she did have to have the lump removed. She did not have to have a mastectomy. She will have to undergo radiation and chemo because of her age. My cousin who is only a few years older than me is dying of cancer. This has brought all the emotions back that I was not able to release when A. died. When I visited C. we had a good cry. It was wonderful to be able to talk, cry and not have to worry about being strong. She did not think I was silly either. In fact, I realize she is my only family link with whom I can be a silly woman.
Today I will be visiting S. and hoping that she is really doing as well as she says. During the month of July, I will be visiting my cousin also. I hope he is still well enough for visitors. My relaxing is drawing to an end.

I am settling into the house again. Spent two days recouperating from the drive. It was quite an experience. Enjoyed my vacation very much. The only thing I miss though is Claudine ( and Ed ) right there to talk to.
My house was very nice and clean when I arrived. Took one day of a certain person being here to mess it up big time and that wasn’t me.
The trip was quite an experience. Maybe not as exciting as stryxdomina’s but pretty exciting for two old people. No one over the age of 50 should ever venture into Austin. It should be only for the young. That way they can practice racing down the highway and avoiding the other cars. Excellent practice for the indy 500 or any other such races. But for the older generation, they need to be rich enough to have a chauffeur or at least living with their children.
The traffic was even more than normal, because of the convention for the Gay Pride of Texas and The Motorcyles of the State to convene at the same time. I am afraid I was expecting big commotions, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that they did not have any conflicts. The worse thing that we know of happening was that Steve was awaken at 12:00 and 2:00 in the morning, by the groups of Motorcyclists arriving back at the hotel. Maybe that was payback for his foolishness as a motocycle nut when he was young.
We did find out though that our fears of Vernon driving in this traffic was unfounded. He never leaves his safe habitat of Lakeway to visit the big city without a driver or at least not until after a late hour. Steve vowed he would never return, then after cooling down a bit..decided that he would only return if we got a room on the west side of Austin and drive back to see his brother. Sounded good to me. We could find an easy way to bypass both Austin and San Antonio. We could travel through San Marcos.
Steve really enjoyed his vacation. He got to do what he wanted every day. He played golf every day and even met some golfers from the area of Odessa. Surprisingly he was able to play in the heat and not get heat stroke. I think is has to do with the strong Westerly wind. Claudine told me it would blow every day and she was not wrong.
Our trip home was interesting. We traveled across Texas avoiding the big towns. Even stopped off in Mr. Bush’s area..not really on purpose. Thank heavens he was not at home, or we would have trouble there also. We then went through the Big Thicket…following my memories of childhood. I was able to do something I always wanted to do as a child. I visited the Alabama/Coushatta tribe in Texas. It was not at a special event time, but it was beautiful country. Would love to visit their pow wows. Enjoyed the ride back through time, except you forget about the lack of bathrooms when you travel the small country roads. Oh well, for sentimentality sake you must suffer.

Well, June is here and I am trying my best to recouperate from the trauma of May. Steve and I left for Texas on Sat. the fourth. It was quite a trip. We had truck trouble when we hit Houston. I do believe there is a hex on Steve and Houston. We did survive and actually made it through Houston. We arrived of course, in Austin during rush hour.
Our hotel was north, so getting this was going to be an experience. (As I look back over our stay there. Saturday was the best day we traveled.) I will tell you now. Houston is a piece of cake traffic wise. I will never complain about traveling through it again. The entire time we stayed in Austin we were faced with trying to find the easiest way to get around. The best solution was traveling at 6:00am in the morning. The rest of the time was HORRIBLE. We, of course, as you can tell..survived. But we will never stay in Austin again. We have decided that we will stay in a town past Austin and I will travel a long way around Austin to visit my friends.
Our visit with family and friends was wonderful. Right now, we are in Odessa. We have decided that we will not be traveling home through Austin. In fact, we may avoid the entire Interstate system if we can.

Can’t say that May was a fun month. In fact, it was the most emotional month I have had in quite a while. I spent most of the month on a fast moving roller coaster. It started out fine– pretty even and normal. But things became rough as the days passed on. Up to Mother’s Day things were fine. Had a wonderful time with the guys. We had bar-b-q and great food. 🙂 We spent the second week testing our kids–This was the “biggie” to see if we achieved our goal. It was much better than other testing periods, because we took more time to do it so that we were not rushed. We also spent quite a bit of time checking over our work to make sure we did not make any mistakes. We need to have all tests in shape for next year, because we will be monitored by the federal government. This ought to be real fun. We then spent several days checking to see which of our children benchmarked (just another way of saying passed the test.) Then we made our groups for next year.
Then on Thursday of the week Ms. Moss called a big meeting. We were informed that she would not be with us next year. She said it with great difficulty. Her emotions were very low and we listened in stunned silence and tears running down our faces. She had been informed on Monday that they were moving her to a different school and she had no say so. She protested vehemently and was told she could move or quit. She was also informed not to tell her teachers. It was to be kept quiet. Thursday was the day that they were to have a school board meeting to vote on the personnel change. She told us that they would be moving the high school principal to our school against her will. As usual, the school board was doing what it wanted and only for their personal benefit. She told us that she had broke the confidence, because someone was spreading the news all over Erath. After being stunned, we left in shock and begin to digest the news. I knew that I could not sit back and not say anything. But i was afraid that i could not speak without crying. I got with some and asked who could speak. We got a group together to go. We did appear at the school board meeting and lodged our complaints. David even came and assisted us. It turned out to be a travesty. No concern was shown toward our questions, they avoided to comment clearly, they were rude and truly did not want to acknowledge our concerns. Even the superintendent did not want to discuss it. It was quite obvious that we would not only receive no adequate response, but that they would proceed as if nothing was even said. I was able to express myself without crying, because they made me so angry.
So our end of the year was faced with depression on top of the usual problems.
We did find out that our fourth graders did very well on the LEAP test and that we are showing growth with our program. It is a shame that the core of our program will not be here to watch as the program progresses. Hopefully, the new principal will not cause too many problems that will interfere with the success that we have achieved. Hopefully, the school board will not throw new roadblocks in our way. That is a lot of hopefully’s, but we have a lot of concerns to face in the following year.
We did have a meeting at the end of the year to celebrate our successes in our program. But then as usual, a wrench is thrown in the machinery. We will be having a new prek. Who decides this. Of course, the powers that be. Therefore, we will have to give up one of our rooms and move the two interventionist into another room. The new principal thinks that my room is so nice and roomy that two of us can work in there. So I will be sharing my room next year.
This year has made me wish that I was walking out the door and never coming back. Somehow I need to find something positive to hang on to when the new year starts, or i may be looking for a new job.

Despite the problems, I have enjoyed this year. I am hoping that next year will not be as stressful, because I know what is expected of me and I have a lot of things made that will make it easier. 🙂 Then I have the summer to get things organized, so that I can find everything.
How have we done’ According to the figures, we had 18% growth by the children intervened. We are required to have 15 % growth. I feel this program is really working well. I can not wait to see how the Kindergarten children do next year. They are so well prepared. Even the slow ones have grown a lot. Sad to say Mr. GW, 😡 there will always be a child left behind. Why you ask”’ Because the special ed department has too many restrictions put on the children yet at the same time shoves them into the regular classroom when they should be in a self contained one. Yes, this does not apply to all special ed. This applies to those whom have serious learning difficulties that we can not meet in the regular classroom. If they were in a well run special ed self contained room, they would learn skills that they could at least suceed in the world. Instead, they are forced to be work on the level of others that causes them to feel extreme frustration. We have a specific child at our school. He is a precious child right now, but he is unable to go past a certain level. This increased frustration will cause the child to become a problem as he grows older. It depresses :'( all of us who would love to find the solution. Self-contained is not allowed because of reasons we are not aware, but there are specific federal guidelines. I did have another child that I worked with and was able to work at his specific level. He, of course, could not work at grade level, but he was feeling success. The parent moved to another location and all we have heard is that he is in trouble all the time. At our school, we knew them and loved them. They might not have gotten it at home, but we tried very hard with them. We knew what they were living with.
The only reason we have been able to do “no child left behind”, is that our principal sat down and wrote a grant. We qualified and have been working very hard to keep it going. We, of course, are not guaranteed anything, because federal money has a way of disappearing. The other schools in our parish that did not apply for the grant are having to do a lot of the things we are doing with NO MONEY.
Reading is still the same thing as the program I received college credit for year before last. The only difference is that we are intervening and meeting specific needs. So if we do not have any more politicians come in and decide this should be changed, I do think things will progress. We do know that we have got to give the children what they are missing at home. Hopefully, it will not mean taking the children in from the cradle and raising them completely. We are beginning to feel that now.
My attitude is rapidly growing more stronger as the time goes by. I always knew that the older you get the less patience you have and the stronger your opinions become. Well, I am beginning to wish that I could become more involved with things that may help instead of standing on the sidelines and fussing. Somewhere somehow I will become more involved with something that I can be proud of and accomplish including my working with children. I hope there is a rise of more dynamic women that want to change things. We need some more “suffraggettes” to be born or older women to think like them. Where are the women who feel strong about changing things’ Why are we still so quiet’ Are we still puppets of our spouses’ It is embarrassing to see the things women did in my grandmothers day to achieve what we have today, and still women (young and old) stand back and let someone else speak for them….All I can do is continue searching!

Well, I am feeling old. My son is now 30 and I got sick. They are not related, but they both happened at the same time. I finally went to find out why I was having headaches all the time. It seems that my blood pressure was very high. The doctor was surprised. So they did blood work on me and I am to return on the first. My blood work showed I have high triglycerides (whatever), it means I am getting old! It
also means that I must start eating well all the time. That’s really a bummer. I have always ate what I wanted all my life. I ate well, only when I wanted to.

Yesterday, we had a meeting of all the interventionists in the parish. Ms. Hardy, our supervisor, told us that we had scored very well. When she averaged the schools, we had had over 18% growth. We had to have 15%. The level that pulled us down was 3rd grade. That seems to be the norm. They did not start at the beginning like the Kindergarten and they had more growth to show. It is impossible to make them grow three years in one, but they even had a nice growth from the beginning.
Kindergarten was the highest growth. They are reading at a high level. It truly makes us feel good. Ms. Hardy says that she is not worried about the state any more, because they ask her what they need to tell others. We don’t want to get a swell head, but we are very proud. We should do even better next year, because all of us will be more familiar with what we are supposed to do. Henry was higher in the kindergarten group and second grade. The interventionist then toured our rooms. They were very jealous of the areas we had. BUT they, too, had the opportunity to
work here. Most people turn us down, because they think we have such a bad group. Well, it seems that our group is not as bad as they think. I do not feel sorry for them at all.

Well, that ought to shock my kids. But that was the way it felt. Our last visitor for the month of January came in and put every classroom teacher in shock. I was never so happier than when I realized “I am not a classroom teacher”!!!!!! He is the famous author who wrote our reading series. According to him he has been everywhere (including the middle east) with this series and he has many more places to go.
First thing, he came in and told them their rooms were not correct. They must rearrange them in the format set up in the book. He also told them they needed to move anything they did in math to the background and not let it overshadow their teaching of reading. And on and on…The interventionists listened in on every meeting. He repeated the same thing for each. The only group he was happy with was the second grade. The funniest thing was he said, ” my 25 years of reading research….” But when he repeated it with the next group he said, “my 30 years of reading research….” The other young interventionist caught this comment and was telling me that later and we both began laughing. The man actually aged while we had sat there. AMAZING. What really amazes me, is that he is much younger than I, but that means he could almost be my age. Needless to say, I was not impressed. Especially, when I heard that he repeated the same things to the other schools. It was as if he had come prepared to state these things and all that note taking was for show. He also never made a positive statement to any except the second grade teachers. I really wonder what our supervisor thought of the visit, because she sat through all of them at all the schools. She probably caught a lot of mistakes by the last visit. The teachers are already stressed, but to add this to them was not wise! As if you could actually “not leave a child behind”. So goes the ways in public school education. It changes yet stays the same.