Thankful I Didn't Die Trying To Eat A Candy Pumpkin and Other Thankfuls

It's Sunday scaries time, and that means it's also time to write my Ten Things of Thankful!

1. I was going through an old jewelry box of my mom's, a small one that held costume jewelry, mostly earrings and scarf pins, but when I pulled the last of the earrings from the little drawer, I found a bracelet I had never seen before:

It's gold plated with MMJ engraved on it

She had to have gotten it before she got married in 1956 because of the initials engraved on it. I'm so thankful I found it!

2. We had snappy cold weather this week, the kind you forget exist in when you're in the throws of summer and are sweating at 7:00 a.m. It was nice.

3. The trees are changing color, not as vividly as in years past, given they are so thirsty for rain, but when the late afternoon sun hits those trees and they look like they are on fire, that's fall. I love fall.

4. I'm thankful for kitty snuggles, especially after a weekend away from them (looking at you, Nora Pearl).

5. On Wednesday, I rescued a baby squirrel, and I'd be so pleased if you would read about it here so I don't have to tell the story again. I'm thankful, and I'm pretty sure he is, too.

6. I'm also thankful for squirrel updates from Sheryl (seriously, just read the post and catch up). He is THRIVING. She named him Barney; I call him Squirrely McSquirrel Squirrel. And yes, it's definitely a boy. People who know (i.e., Sheryl) can tell.

He's growing!!!

7. I'm continuing to rock the Walktober competition through my husband's employer. I already have 17 of 20 required "leaves" earned, and that means no more than three more days before I have earned enough leaves to get my $100 for the flex spending account! LITERALLY one step closer to those new glasses!

8. LOOK AT THESE AWESOME ACORNS I FOUND! I'm always looking for items (also knows as "loose parts") for play at preschool. Thanks to #7, above, my husband and I went for a walk and I discovered these beauties at the foot of the lake house driveway, between our house and the one next door. The tree is big and old, and for the life of me, I can't figure out how I never noticed these gigantic acorns before, but I'm so thankful I did! Not only are they enormous, they wear little hula skirts! The kids are going to have fun with them in the coming weeks!

9. I'm thankful for someone's rather poor art direction on the following sign:

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one is worth a thousand laughs. And I think I'll pass on that one way wagon ride.

10. I could have died Saturday. It was a close one. I was eating candy pumpkins on my way to Aldi (unfortunately, not the same bag of candy pumpkins I was thankful for last week; those are history and I bought another bag). I parked the car, grabbed one more candy pumpkin and a quarter for a grocery cart, and as I got out of the car, I popped what I thought was the candy pumpkin into my mouth but instead was the quarter. Fortunately, I have terrible aim and the quarter bounced off my lip, but what happened to the candy pumpkin? It wasn't in the car. It didn't fall down my shirt. Hmmm. I went into Aldi, got my groceries, and when I returned to the car, I saw a lonely, little, candy pumpkin languishing on the parking lot by my front tire. 

Had I not missed with the quarter, I may have needed that wagon ride after all!

The Ten Things of Thankful comes your way every weekend. Join us!

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Look For The Helpers

It was a beautiful afternoon on the playground, with a crispness to the air that we hadn't felt in six months. My pre-k kiddos were gleefully running, climbing, and pedaling in a dozen different directions, so it was apparent that something was up when a group of them congregated in a row along the chain-link fence at the back of the playground. 

One of the children broke off as I neared, running towards me and shouting, "There's a baby squirrel over there!" Behind our playground is a large grassy area with a small wooded patch beyond that, and we often saw Canada geese, groundhogs, squirrels, and even an occasional red fox, but they kept their distance from our little animals on the playground, and I assumed the children were just watching a squirrel scampering around. But when they continued to stand in a row along the fence, hopping up and down, curiosity got me and I joined them.

They weren't wrong.

A baby squirrel was in the grass about a yard from the fence. Its body was maybe 6 inches long, its tail a good 8 inches long and narrow, not the fluff you see on a full grown squirrel. It's eyes were big. It would try to pick up a blade of grass or a leaf and put it in its mouth, then drop it, as if it didn't know what to do with it. It didn't seem to be afraid of all the little faces looking at it, and it would look at them, then move a little closer. When it gave a little hop and was only a few inches from the fence, I shooed all the kids away. The last thing I needed was for one of them to reach through the fence and get bitten or scratched, and just as the children reluctantly backed away, the little squirrel hopped through the chain-link fence and then crawled onto my shoe, and holding its little front feet together, it gazed up at me with those sweet brown eyes. My heart melted.

It was all I could do to keep from reaching down and picking it up, but teeth and claws stopped me. I called to one of our college students (who work as teacher assistants) to bring me a bucket. She grabbed a small black bucket and handed it to me, and I held it next to my shoe and scooped the baby squirrel into it. With his long, skinny tail peeping over the top of the bucket, I took a large bowl from the mud kitchen and placed it over the top of the bucket, and the squirrel was now safe from being loved to death by the kids.

Our little friend gave tunneling out a valiant try

Now what?

"What" is that I carried the bucket with the bowl balanced on top VERY CAREFULLY into the building and straight to the office. I sat it on my friend Nikki's desk and said, "Who do we call to take a baby squirrel?!" and Nikki answered, "I know this! My mother in law's friend Sheryl!" Nikki tried to reach Sheryl and didn't immediately get an answer, so I called our local wildlife center to ask them, hoping they'd tell me to bring it to them. They did not, telling me to take it to the nearest tree and leave it there for its mom to find.

How to escape-proof a bucket of squirrel

Since we couldn't reach Sheryl, and with threats from our co-worker Ceason of what she was going to do to us if the squirrel got loose and began running through the school, we had no choice but to take the advice of the wildlife center and carry it outside and put it near a tree. Reluctantly, we trudged out across the grassy field. The nearest tree was maybe 20 yards away from the playground fence, but we were afraid our baby would just hop back to the playground, and we would be right back where we started from. We continued to the wooded area and spied a squirrel nest high up in a tree with an adult squirrel obligingly sunning itself on a nearby branch. And when I say "high up" I mean over a telephone pole high. Do we leave it there and hope the squirrel on the branch is curious enough to come down and get the baby? Temperatures were expected to be near freezing that night. Were we signing its death certificate by leaving it alone on the ground? GAHHHHH!!!

Lucky for us, Nikki's phone rang and it was Sheryl. She had retired from the squirrel-saving business, but for us, she would take the baby. Back to the center we went (still carrying the squirrel in the bucket with a bowl over it), and after trying out a series of Rubbermaid containers (through the assistance of our protesting on the outside but big ol' softy on the inside co-worker Ceason) we got the squirrel transferred from bucket to travel container and drove to Sheryl's home.

Didn't love the box but he tried to nurse
the blanket and it nearly broke my heart

When we arrived at Sheryl's, I knew our little squirrel baby was going to be in good hands. She was truly a squirrel lover! She opened the container, took one look at our baby and said it was so young it wasn't even weened yet. That poor, scared baby! She had a cage ready for it and deftly scooped it up with a cloth and cuddled it against her. She then placed it in the cage and onto a soft blanket, and it laid down on its side and began to calm.

Our squirrel's guardian angel

Cuddled up with a full tummy and a hot water bottle
after enjoying a bottle of formula

And then she said something I will never forget.

Sheryl said our baby squirrel worked its way to the playground because it needed help. It came through the fence and climbed onto my foot because it was looking for a helper, and it found me. I nearly cried, especially when I thought of how close we were to leaving that precious baby in the woods alone. 

Fred Rogers famously told children that in scary times to look for the helpers. In helpers, you will find safety. 

Be someone's helper whenever you can. Even if it's a squirrel baby.

I Get To Write Thankfuls

What, it's the last minute and I'm just now getting my Ten Things of Thankful written? No way!

1. There is a possibility we have finally seen the end of summer. We had temps in the 90s the last half of the week, and I am OVER it. Possibility of a freeze this week and normal temps mean we can finally pull out some fall clothes from storage!

2. I'm thankful for October skies. The sky is never bluer than it is in October in the Ozarks.

3. I enjoyed a visit from my ice cream date from last week. We have some pretty interesting conversations on the couch in our lobby at work, anything from what's new in kindergarten to things that are troubling him to absolute goofiness. I love being a safe place for him!

4. After nearly overdosing on candy corn the first week of October, I allowed myself to purchase my biggest October weakness - candy pumpkins. I am pleased to announce that I have yet to finish my first bag, purchased a week ago. In fairness, I stuck them in the console of my car and maybe forgot they were there, but even after I found them this weekend, I still have a quarter of the bag left!

5. My husband and I are participating in Walktober through his job. I am 2/3 of the way to my goal AND IT'S ONLY OCTOBER 13! I am ON IT. You get $100 in your flex spending account if you complete the challenge and mama needs new glasses!

6. My preschoolers all brought a bear to school on Thursday, and we went on a teddy bear picnic to celebrate "B" week. We took our bears on a long walk to look for food, then we found tables outside with a breakfast of biscuits and bananas for us and our bears! They were so delighted and surprised, and I'm thankful they are still young enough to believe that a picnic for them and their bears would just appear!

7. Friday, we took an even LONGER walk and went over hill, over dale to the performing arts center on our campus to see a production of "School House Rocks." They loved the singing and dancing and colorful set even if they didn't understand the content, they behaved like angels (mostly, anyway!), and handled the 20+ minute walk (and we HUSTLED) each way like champs. In fact, they enjoyed the walk so much, we are planning a return trip to the campus soon to watch construction on a new building.

8. After over two months of TOTAL FRUSTRATION with the new Smart Board in my classroom, and what seemed like the 100th time AT LEAST of it not responding to anything I was trying to get it to do, I turned to my class and said, "I'm going to push this and see what happens." "This" was what I thought was just a logo below the screen. Guess what? I pushed it AND IT TOOK ME TO A HOME SCREEN, where I could then navigate to other sites with ease. I'm not going to go into the fact that the IT department who installed it should have given me some guidance on the thing instead of just hanging it on my wall and plugging it in, but the two months of navigation aggravation are OVER. Yee haw!

9. My husband and I drove to Kansas City this weekend to cat sit our grandcat, Calvin, while our daughter spent the weekend at the Austin City Limits music festival. Does he really need to be babysat? Contrary to what my daughter thinks, no, he would be fine to spend a weekend by himself, especially given we left our three cats home alone to stay with him, but what a great excuse to spend a weekend in Kansas City! We hit our favorite thrift stores, scoring some great deals, including a recliner that is disguised as a gorgeous upholstered chair and a brand new J Jill dress for me for $11.00 that retailed for $108. We also tried out a bakery that had utterly amazing pastries. I also got to attend church in person, and we followed that up by going back to the bakery and eating more utterly amazing pastries. My cup is full, as is my belly!

See? Total score!

Pecan sticky bun, almond croissant,
chocolate mochi donut hole. Not
pictured is the garlic asiago cheese bagel.
And yes, the picture is sideways.

Pecan sticky bun, almond croissant,
cream cheese danish. Sigh.

He LOOKS innocent, but...

...this is what he did to his water fountain

10. Sometimes, I get caught up in the "I have to" and forget the "I get to". I get to go to work tomorrow and spend the week with 20 of the sweetest, smartest, preschoolers in the world. I get to hang out with my work family. I get to work with college students. I get to. Life is good.

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Sunday Night Scaries Anyone?

How, how, HOW can it be Sunday night already? It's Sunday Night Scaries time, my least favorite time of the week. Maybe my Ten Things of Thankful list will help distract me...?

My husband and I found out we are REALLY AND TRULY empty nesters. We got our taxes done (extension, not delinquent) and discovered we can no longer claim our daughter as a dependent. It would have been nice to have known that a year or so ago, so adjustments could have been made on our withholding, and it's too late to remedy it for our 2024 taxes, but by golly, we'll be ready for 2025!  On a side note, I would like to make a suggestion to the health insurance people and the IRS people that the kick 'em off the parents' payroll age SHOULD BE THE SAME FOR BOTH, because we can't be the only parents to have assumed that it was.

Our daughter will no longer be on our health insurance after this year, so a small off-set to the whole can't-claim-her-as-a-dependent-anymore fiasco.

Further to the empty nesters status, our son passed his Internal Medicine Boards and is now a Board-certified physician! He's bona fide!*

*if you don't get this reference, then you'd best head to your nearest streaming service and look for "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and watch it immediately

Summer came back this week, but it was bearable, because it was temporary. Besides, 90 degrees in October just isn't as hot as 90 degrees in August and I can't explain how but it is.

Former President Jimmy Carter turned 100 this week. I wish we could keep him another 100 years.

I was invited to a soccer game by one of my former preschoolers. Rex is a big kindergartener now, and I was honored that he wanted me to watch him play. I love him and his sweet family, and it was wonderful to catch up with them. I also received a beautiful piece of artwork by the artist/soccer player that I hung on the wall in my classroom.

When I pulled into my driveway after the soccer game, my headlights shone onto a very fat tree frog stuck to the side of our other car as it sat in the driveway. Tree frogs like to jump onto my legs and cling to me with those suction cup feet while I leap around and scream, so I'm thankful I saw this one before he had a chance to attach himself to me.

I had an ice cream date this week with another former preschooler and his mama. He, as well, is a big kindergartener. I got to hear about All Things Kindergarten, and it was pure delight.

It was homecoming at the university where I work, and our school had an entry in the homecoming parade on Saturday morning. I keep saying I'm not going to be in charge of the float this year, and every year, I'm in charge of the float again, but I tremendous amount of good help this time, and it turned out much better than I could have ever hoped for!

I've taken myself right up to bedtime, so good night to you, and good night to the Scaries!

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Comeback Kid, Take Two

So much for being the Comeback Kid. Last week, I forgot to write a TToT post, and this week, umm, same, BUT I HAVE AN EXCUSE and it's my first thankful:

I had Friday off and I also have Monday off, so nothing makes sense. It doesn't feel like Sunday, because I don't have the Sunday Scaries, and I therefore wasn't triggered to remember to write my list of Ten Things of Thankful. But two days off? Much needed and welcome!

Last week, my Conscious Discipline coach visited my classroom. Amy is a master instructor and makes me a better teacher. Not enough thankfuls in the world for that!

I ate one and a half bags of candy corn last week, but I think I have the candy corn-loading mostly out of my system now. 

It may not be FALL cool, but it was cool enough last week that I was able to wear long pants and not melt. 

I cleaned out my sewing/craft room. Correction: I STARTED cleaning out my sewing/craft room. It's been kind of messy for awhile.

I was putting fabric away and found a whole stack of masks that I made four years ago, and I am SO THANKFUL that they are residing in drawers and not in my purse, car, pocket, computer bag, etc. May it remain that way!

I drove up to Jefferson City Thursday night and met my daughter there for her final step in becoming an attorney: the swearing-in ceremony at the Missouri Supreme Court. My husband couldn't be there due to the hurricane (more on that further down), so I represented for both of us. She is officially Emma Kate Dillon, Esq.

On her way out of Kansas City and headed to Jeff City, in heavy traffic on I-70, my daughter was rear-ended while driving in the far left lane. She was talking to me at the time, so I heard a noise, then heard her say something not printable here, and she hung up (yes, she was hands-free the whole time she was talking to me). She and the other driver managed to exchange information and take a few pictures without being killed, and once we got a chance to look it over the next morning, we were both thankful to find no damage! A real miracle!

My son and daughter in law flew back from Washington, DC, for my son's best friend's wedding in Fayetteville, and my husband and I were able to drive down there Saturday morning and have breakfast with them. Looking forward to a future trip to visit them in DC.

After our breakfast, my husband had to do some work, so I dropped him off at a McDonalds (to use their wifi) and visited two of my favorite places in Fayetteville: Fayetteville's Funky Flea Market, where I picked up a few little Christmas gifts, and Rick's Bakery, where I bought (and then consumed) way too many cookies. Totally worth it, but between the cookies and the candy corn earlier in the week, I'm thinking I have used up my sugar quota for the rest of the year and possibly most of next year as well.

My heart goes out to the people affected by Hurricane Helene. The damage is beyond comprehension. Monetary donations are desperately needed to help with the immediate needs of sheltering and feeding the victims of the storm. If you feel led, I recommend donating to the American Red Cross. Visit redcross.org or call 1-800-RED CROSS (800-733-2767) to make a financial donation. People can also text the word HELENE to 90999 to make a donation. You might also consider donating blood through the American Red Cross as another way to help during this relief response.

The Comeback Kid

So it seems I took an unintentional sabbatical from blogging for the summer. I kept telling myself "I'll do it soon, I'll do it later, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it next weekend, I'll do it when I'm not so exhausted, I'll do it some day, just not now."

I AM exhausted. We drive to my dad's every weekend, two hours each way, to run errands, cook, clean, and keep him company. My school goes year round, so no summers off. And I have 20 VERY LIVELY four and five year olds every day and that requires lots of planning. And patience (testing it lately, I admit). It's a lot. I let the ball drop on blogging and especially on the Ten Things of Thankful and I feel as though I failed everyone involved with it.

Through much self-regulation, however, I am trying again to write. And thus begins my first TToT post in a coon's age:

1. I'm thankful for Clark for stepping up and offering to take over hosting the TToT when I just couldn't any longer. And additional thanks to Mimi, Kristi, and Lisa for being so kind about all of it.

2. Summer is pretty much over, and I'm okay with that. 

3. I got a special invitation from a special former (as in he graduated in May) preschooler to attend a community theater production that he was in along with several other members of his family. He totally stole the show, and I was honored to be invited to witness it! It also gave me the bug to audition, then I remembered Life and resigned myself to singing showtunes in the car instead.

4. The addition of a garage and workshop to the lake house has nearly come to fruition, and the best part of the whole thing is that the tiny screened porch has more than doubled in size and is a delightful place to relax. We still don't have real furniture for it, but the old plastic stuff is working just fine for now, and anyway, who cares when you can sit in it at night and work on a blog post while dock lights twinkle on the water and crickets and frogs sing in the background?

5. Football season has started again!

6. This is a big one: my daughter graduated from law school in May magna cum laude. She spent the next two months studying at least 10-12 hours a day, took the Bar exam in July and got the results this week...SHE PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS! My baby girl is an ATTORNEY!

7. Friday, lucky me had a colonoscopy. Super fun. 5 out of 5 stars. JK only the propofol gets 5 out of 5 stars. But it's over for another 10 years, so yay!

8. While summer hasn't completely left us (it's coming back later this week with temps in the 90s again - ugh), today, fall poked it's face through the door and gave us a delightful day of cooler temps and bright blue skies. My husband and I took advantage of this gift by going to Silver Dollar City and listening to some bluegrass. 

9. We've had a critter of some kind in our attic this spring and summer, and in spite of having repairs done on the wooden part of our house (it's a Tudor, so mostly stucco) and closing up holes, the little shit has found a way in again. My husband finally had enough and put a live trap in the attic on Wednesday afternoon. He checked it Thursday - nothing. Friday morning, as I was sleeping off my anesthesia, I woke up to him standing over me and saying there was something in the trap. How did he know, when he hadn't opened the hatch to see? I found out shortly, because it sounded like the varmint was doing barrel rolls with the cage across the attic floor. While my husband was retrieving his wildlife removal gear (oven mitts, a beach towel, bungees, and the ladder), the cats and I were following the progress of the cage as it seemed to rocket across the attic floor. It had to be a racoon or possum to make that kind of racket, but when my husband climbed up the ladder and moved the hatch aside, it was...a squirrel. A very athletic squirrel. He brought the cage down to the bedroom wrapped in the beach towel, then secured the towel with the bungees. We read that the squirrel needed to be relocated at least 2-4 miles away, but we did better than that - we took him on a 2 hour car ride to the lake house and released him (with much difficulty; it's a well-made cage) at the park down the street. He shot out of the cage and bounded off. Hopefully, he will text all his squirrel friends and family back in Joplin and warn them away from the house with the crazy man with the oven mitts or we can hope so, anyway.

10. And I did it! I got a post written. I can do hard things!

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Whoa!

It's been a month since I wrote a Ten Things of Thankful post?!

I've been thankful, really, I have been. But exhaustion, both physical and mental, won out. Here's to getting back on the ol' horse (hopefully not one headed to the glue factory).

I'm thankful we had a beautiful spring and hope to remember it when I am melting in these ridiculous temps.

My dad is busting out of rehab this week after needing four weeks of daily IV antibiotics for an infection in his hip. 

I'm thankful for Nikki, who has made sure I had time off to help my dad throughout this latest adventure.

I'm thankful for the many people who filled in for me at work when I have needed to be gone.

My husband gets the biggest thanks during this time, as he has spent as much, if not more, time helping with my dad than I have this past month #worksremotely

I was able to get away for Kansas City Pride festivities, working at the Community Christian Church booth one evening and enjoying the TWO HOUR parade. 

I got to visit with my dear friend Esther when I was in Kansas City. I feel a post about the two of us is in my future. Stay tuned.

We also ran down to Little Rock for two days to see our son and daughter in law before they move to Washington DC this week. They have completed their medical residencies, and now it's off to a new chapter!

I attended a week-long training on play-based learning, and I'm now in the process of converting my classroom to accommodate this. It's going to be a tremendous amount of work to get it going, but once I have an arsenal of lesson plans, it will get easier. And my kids helped me move shelves, toys, and rugs around the room and were very excited to be tasked with helping!

My husband had a tick on him last week. So far, he hasn't turned into a tick, nor has he shown any symptoms of some icky tick-borne disease.

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