the un-blog

i'm so terrible about blogging as soon as school starts... i think it's because all other areas of my life come to a screeching halt! i abandon projects on the house, i neglect my yard, i don't clean, i don't cook anything creative, i don't go anywhere or do anything interesting, and i decrease my already minimal social activity. i thought maybe i would have to turn this into an un-blog, like instead of being a blog about home renovations, photography, cooking, and decorating i would have to start writing about my FAILURE to do these things. remember when i had the anti-decorating post showing off my piles of dirty dishes and unmade bed? well, i don't think i'm quite that desperate yet, but felt the need to post about something, ANYTHING, so...

i actually feel i've done pretty well so far this school year: i've had TONS of work, with my new position as the special ed department chair (in addition to the same job i already had as special ed teacher for students with emotional and behavioral disorders), but i've managed to keep quite a few other things on my social and personal agenda! here's what i've been up to:

*reading: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand; loving the stodgy old Major and his ever-changing perceptions of people he might have once viewed through prejudicial lenses.

*running: not really that much. want to do another race in the near future but having trouble figuring out how to fit running in with work during the week. best time for me to go would be right after i get home, before dinner, but it's been SO BLASTED HOT. and i'm so darn tired right after work that usually i just plop down on the couch and then there's NO chance! i've thought about starting a series of unglamorous facebook posts about running... you know how people will post their workouts, like "i ran 29 miles and felt great!" well, good for you! aren't you just awesome! i kiss the ground you walk on! so, i thought about posting things like, "i plodded for 5 miles and felt like dog poo!" or "i dragged myself along for 3 miles and my face exploded like a bubbling volcano of fire!" what do you guys think? i think they would be very popular posts. anyway, i created a training plan for myself on runnersworld.com and do plan to give it a good effort, but so far i'm logging most of my miles on the weekends and laying big old goose-eggs on the weekdays.

*sweating: the theme of school this year so far has been: let's-see-how-many-days-the-AC-can-break-down-before-the-students-start-to-riot-and-teachers-resort-to-violent-episodes. plus we had a power outage last friday in which we first evacuated to the football field and then were told to re-enter the building and try to conduct class with no power (no lights, no AC, no phones, no computers, no projectors, no intercoms, no security cameras, no metal detectors, no common sense... oh wait, that last one is purely editorial).

*socializing: i have managed to have enough energy this year to not entirely abandon my friends! i've had some quality time with co-workers, the Timmers, Laura and Tiff for brunch, Laura and Sporting KC for some excellent soccer:

and soon to come i will be enjoying some KSU football and US Women's National Team Soccer (again with Laura... i'm getting lots of good Laura-time!).

it's amazing how full my life is now that i'm not taking classes AND working! yay!

learning our history

if you want to know more about one of my favorite topics in U.S. history, or if you, like myself, enjoy being a lifelong learner, i just have to tell you to please, please, if you do nothing else this week, watch Oprah on wednesday, may 4. if you're not an Oprah-watcher, i apologize for being cliche, or pop-culture, or whatever, but on wednesday, she will be reuniting the Freedom Riders, civil rights activists that were the heart of the non-violence movements in the south in the 1960's. one of my favorite heroes in history, Congressman John Lewis, will be on the show to talk about that time in his life as he marched along MLK, Jr and many others. i hope that it will be a show that demonstrates hope, reconciliation, and redemption. i plan to watch it by myself and cry until i am satisfied that all the tears are out. then, i plan to show it to my students since we studied non-violence movements and John Lewis earlier this year. but, first i have to get the crying out of the way! please watch this very important show with me!

and, if you would enjoy fictional reading that shines a light on that same era in history, you should definitely read The Help by Kathryn Stockett, one of my favorite reads of 2010, if not ever!

when the dog bites...

it was a dog-biting kind of day yesterday at school. a beat down. so, i'm taking this moment to simply remember my favorite things in an attempt to drown out the angry mendy. atop the list of best things of late:

1. best cure for bad day of work: weekend

2. best book in a long, long while: The Help by Katheryn Stockett - one of the most important books i've read since I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings or Kaffir Boy and destined to land on my all-time favorites list. you should read it. today.

3. best food indulgence: homemade chicken pot pie with sweet potatoes, curry, and whatever other veggies i need to clear out of the fridge before they spoil...definitely a comfort food. mmmmm.

4. best way to get arrested: dressed as a bagel. true story: my activist sis recently got herself jailed for the day for participating in protests of Bloomberg's AIDS Awareness Bagel Breakfasts. the reason for protest: it's all a lot of pomp and circumstance. smoke and mirrors. bells and whistles. much ado about nothing. a lot of talk and no action. while breakfasting with important muckety-mucks, Bloomberg continues to raise the rent on properties where NYC's housing works (my sister's employer) tries to provide housing to low-income AIDS patients and cut funding to programs that benefit AIDS patients. so, they protested the ill-spent time and money for bagel breakfasts dressed as bagels. well done, sis.

5. best lighting to hide the extra holiday squidge around one's middle (resulting from "best" #3 chicken pot pie): my vintage globe purchase from etsy. as you can see, it is still quite dark even with this delightful little orb all aglow, thus it is this season's best tummy-trimmer. they say black is slimming...darkness is more slimming!

don't worry, friends, i'm not actually that worried about holiday squidge, i just wanted to use the nonsense-word squidge! and now i've said it 3 times!

6. best way to drown out the noise of an angry mendy (or best thing since Boys II Men, take your pick): The Sing Off (see previous 2 posts) or blasting Christmas music (did Boys II Men ever do a Christmas album??? if so, that would be the ultimate best way to drown out noisy angry mendy! kirk has informed me that yes, not only does Boys II Men indeed have a Christmas album, but we also own it. how this escaped my notice, i cannot say. short term memory perhaps?).

7. best way to cope with clutter and cleverly disguise dust bunnies without actually cleaning: Christmas decorations!

(please do not think to mock our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree...it is the only tree that our cats will not attempt to climb! i have no desire to come home from work to find my mercury glass ornaments shattered on the floor because cecil and percy were playing jungle cats in my living room.)

i'm not ok with...

...being good at basketball if it means that KSU will have more games on ESPN being called by dick vitale. he's awful. his voice is awful, his comments are useless, his "diaper dandy" makes me want to surgically remove my ears, and he is off-topic for 90% of the game. if you're calling the game between the #1 and #4 teams in the nation, Duke and KSU, then why are you talking about how KU is such a great team and "keep an eye out for that Selby kid?" does he not know the difference between KU and K-State or does he only know how to talk about the KUs, Dukes, and Tarheels of the world??? i'll take bob knight over dick vitale any day, and he's about the MOST negative person that exists in the world. but, he's actually knowledgeable about the game of basketball and has never uttered the term, "diaper dandy."

...KSU's free throw percentage. what do you do if you're coach martin??? how do you coach free throw shooting at this level? can they spend the entire practice just shooting free throws?? and why has pullen's percentage dropped off? this is strange to me.

...stress fractures. or "beginning of stress fractures," as that is apparently what i have in my right hip on the top of my femur. what am i, 90 years old??? apparently, i've been playing soccer 2-3 times per week, enduring the pain of what i thought was hip bursitis, but is actually a smidge more serious. so, no soccer or running for 6 weeks. awesome. swimming and elliptical trainer it is!

...having to do my final project for my master's program over thanksgiving break. i just want to eat, sleep, swim and elliptisize (not a word you say? i defy you to think of a better word for exercising on an elliptical trainer!), watch football and basketball and wear pajamas for 5 straight days. this plan does not include working of any sort.

...finishing a good book and dreading starting a new book that cannot possibly measure up to the book i've just finished. do you know that feeling? when you've just watched a really good movie or read a really good book and you don't want it to end, but it has ended, so you must move on with your life?? i've a stack of books with which to "move on", but i'm struggling to choose THE one to read next. i'm also in the middle of 3 other books simultaneously, all of which are quality, but it makes for rather slow and/or confusing reading to do things this way. the books i'm presently enjoying: eleanor roosevelt's biography (entirely fascinating so far!), the distant hours by kate morton (who is quickly becoming a favorite author, up there with joanne harris who wrote Chocolate...morton's books are a great blend of all things that intrigue me: british people and history, mystery, flashbacks, and uncovering of characters' pasts), and loose cannons by henry louis gates (harvard professor and expert on race relations and african-american history). anyway, all really interesting books. you'll really never hear me say that "i'm not ok with" anything regarding books, except that moment of finishing a good book and having to start a new one while burdened by the weight of expectations from the previous book.

that's all i'm not ok with this week. all in all a pretty good week. considering that i do have 5 days off of work for thanksgiving break, i am THANKFUL.

get your literary fix

i consider myself an avid reader and a fan of a wide range of literary genres. i've been steadily working my way through some of the "classics" and re-reading classics that i read as a child or in high school, but must not have been overly-focused as i have hardly any memory of doing so. in honor of my reading addiction i'm posting this link to The Modern Library's 100 top novels list. there are also links you can click on to see the top 100 non-fiction list, etc. as much as i consider myself an avid reader, and as smart as i'd like to think i am, i have to admit i've ready shockingly few of the books on these lists. and i was also surprised by some books left off of the lists.

my favorite books (to date) off of the lists: brideshead revisited (evelyn waugh...a summer 2010 favorite, beautiful book), the great gatsby (f. scott fitzgerald), to kill a mockingbird (harper lee...atticus is one of my all-time favorite characters), a prayer for owen meany (john irving...i was definitely captivated for the duration of this novel, but there's always something subtly, or not subtly, disturbing about irving's novels...i've read several and had the same thought each time...especially the world according to garp...disturbing)

books i've been stocking up but have yet to read: other evelyn waugh novels, henry james, e.m. forster, ayn rand is on the list for several of her books (i've just never been very interested in the genre, but i feel i HAVE to read her), and LOTS of books i'm ashamed to say i've never read!

books i love that were excluded from the lists: maya angelou's autobiographies, tolstoy, dickens, jane austen, the diary of anne frank,...oh crumb, i can't think of any others at this moment. of course.

check it out, see what you think, let me know which books you've read and your critiques. it'll be our own little book review. hutsoneister's book review. hmmm. i like books, i am critical, sounds like a career at which i could excel!

summer reading list and boulder pics

so, i realize that summer is almost over (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!) but i still haven't posted about my summer reading.

intriguing quote from the book i'm currently reading (Brideshead Revisted - Evelyn Waugh):

"'Sometimes,' said Julia, 'I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.'"

that really stuck out to me. i think i can identify with that. but that could be entire post on its own.

ok, here's the stack of summer reading:

the first stack are the books i've already read or am in the process of reading. the other two stacks are the books that i still have to read before school starts on august 9! don't think i'm going to make it!

also, here's some pics from our lovely trip to boulder, co for the buchheister family reunion. we have these every 5 years and there are descendants from my grandfather (dale buchheister) and all of his siblings(there were 12 siblings total!!!), so it's kind of a big deal. there were 110 people at the reunion this year, which is fewer than have been at previous reunions, if that gives you an idea. pretty amazing.

1. the ernie buchheisters playing on pearl street

2. hiking with kirk, my sis and bro, and some of the "cousins" (2nd cousins, a few times removed or something)

3. overlooking boulder from the not-quite-but-close-enough-to-the-top

4. theresa, me, and liz (my 1st cousin). theresa cannot be trusted with a gravy boat.

5 and 6. some of the dale buchheisters (not my brother dale, my grandfather dale) including my grandmother mary ruth, dad's brothers john and mike and their families and my family. dad's sister dalene and her family had already left by this point. confusing yet??

i'm really glad for these reunions and love my big family. it makes me sad that we can only all gather every five years but there are just so many of us and it's hard to get together in one place.

i'm back!

i've decided to take a cue from my friend, shannon d, and choose 15 random things to tell you all (you all...wishfully thinking that i still have some friends that occasionally check my blog to see if i'm still living) about my life in the months since i've fallen off the blog-wagon (hahahaha).

1. percival had a near-death experience but is back to his thriving percival-self minus a functioning tail. whew! kirk says he looks like snuffleupagus because his tail just kind of hangs. very sad.

2. i successfully survived my first year of teaching!

3. i am OBSESSED with the world cup. i've been watching as many games as possible and trying to pretend that i'm studying while i watch. i had to do a case study and conduct observations for an hour for one of my classes in an area of interest, so i decided to observe spain vs. portugal! i kept a stats sheet and wrote a research question about whether cristiano ronaldo is a "selfish" player. my hypothesis was that he would take more shots and have fewer assists than anyone else on his team. my hypotheses were correct.

4. i've "run" almost everyday since summer began. and by run i mean shuffle. me running + humidity = me not really running, per se.

5. i have not made much of a dent in my summer reading stack.

6. i planted flowers! and they are still living! mostly. i'll post pics soon!

7. i think i may have broken my finger in, like, march or february. it involved trying to carry too much to my car on my way to work at 6:00 am (ick), dropping things, trying to catch things, and jamming my finger in the process. so, i can't fit my rings on my finger anymore. sad. and it's still hard to grip things with my finger. i know i should go to my chiropractor to get it fixed, but now i'm just afraid he's going to have to re-break things which makes me want to vomit.

8. i'm getting a new camera! i don't know when, but i'm excited!

9. i have this problem when i run that my calves start to get really tight and then it starts to spread down to my achilles tendon area and across to my shins and it just becomes horrendously painful! i don't know what is going on. any runners out there, please tell me what to do! i've tried stretching better, using those band-y things to stretch my calves, eating potassium sources before or after the run, warming up for longer, altering my stride, new shoes, icing my shins, massage (ouch, that really hurt! having my shins massaged is NOT fun)...

10. i'm not losing any seniors this year, and i'm gaining something like 7 freshman! that's a whole lot of freshman! teachers, you know what i'm saying.

11. i'm getting a new classroom next year. it's bigger, which is good.

12. i had about 13 zillion things that i was saving for summer to do, or plan, or re-work, or fix, or whatever, and summer is just FLYING by. how does that happen?!?

13. resource books i've found very useful lately: garden anywhere by alys fowler, national geographic photography field guide, voices of protest by i can't remember who (for teaching), no time to garden by anne swithinbank, and runner's world complete book of running.

14. i have an antique dresser sitting in my basement waiting to be sanded and painted! as soon as that project is complete i'll post pics. trying to decide what direction to go with new hardware for the drawer pulls. the dresser is a short 2-drawer with a curved front. i'm painting it a bright, glossy yellow. suggestions for hardware??

15. i have been strangely silent on all things football, basketball, etc. and the formerly-big-12-but-still-called-big-12. mostly because i don't even know what to say. i hate texas now more than ever. they have quite a little dictatorship going. sassy move, nebraska. sassy.

i love books

i love all my friends' blogs that list the books they are currently reading. i also really love my books! i have to admit that when we moved into the new house before i even unpacked our bathroom necessities and clothing (useful for everyday purposes) i unpacked my books. no kidding. i am usually reading several books at once, but never more than one from the same genre, so as not to get confusing! so here's my "playlist" so to speak:

Octavian Nothing: the first in a young adult series set in 1770's boston. i love a good young adult series, personally, plus i'm always on the lookout for books that might interest my students. i've been enjoying it, but it may be a difficult read for my students because of the old-style language.





Glimpse of Jesus: i always love Brenning Manning. he has a way of speaking grace and truth right to my heart. i chose this book because i am studying the life of Jesus in Luke with our housegroup and felt this would be a good compliment.








The Green Mile: yes it's Stephen King, but, no, it is not your typical horror story. if you saw the movie you understand. i'm reading this along with my sophomores as it's part of the English 10 curriculum. anytime you can read a book with an accent, you're in for a good time, be it southern, british, or any other. yes, i read books out loud in accents. i really mastered my british accent with the Harry Potter series! by the way: you would use a southern accent for the Green Mile.




Ragamuffin Gospel: i am pretty much always reading this book, so don't expect me to list it every time, but it is worthy of mention. i usually get through it and start immediately back at the beginning. each time i highlight with different colors so that i can remember what was significant to me more recently. it has become a veritable rainbow. i always need to hear what brennan has to say to the soul who is battered and beaten up and in need of grace.