October 26, 200

Still no killing frost. A couple of light frosts but the tomatoes are still growing. We are debating this weekend at EGR. Caelun is loving debate. We were debating at City High this last week, and I had him there. Two of my debaters were actually fighting over him. One had a hold of his arms and the other had his feet. He thought it was hysterical. Not wanting a King Solomon moment, I promised them he wasn’t on loan and there will be plenty of him to go around in the next three years they have to debate- they are both sophomores. I just finished judging a round and I have some time before the next round starts. I don’t want to butt in the middle while my kids are debating, so I thought I would up date. We had our family pictures taken last weekend. Tracy Will – who I teach with – and her sister have started a business called Sisters Taking pictures. Dad feels his eyes just aren’t good enough to take pictures and our dear friend Dawn Landis who took them last year is up to her eye balls with six teaching preps. so we decided to bite the bullet and actually pay to have pictures taken. If you like them this is the link to Tracy’s e-mail. sisterstakingpictures@hotmail.com You get a 20 minute time slot for $75. They guarantee you 75 pictures. We got 263. You then get an immediate copy of the pictures on a CD and you own them. For an additional $24 dollars you get 24 color corrected, cropped, proofs. I won’t put up all 263, though it will be difficult to choose. Cae will be six months old on Sunday. He is standing as you can see in the pictures. He is very vocal and laughs all the time. He thinks it is particularly funny if you sneeze. Every time some one sneezes he just laughs like it is the funniest thing. Goofy kid.

My 1994 Ford Taurus finally joined the wounded at the edge of the herd. The transmission is leaking so it has a problem, Clint can’t fix. We have decided that transmissions and engine problems are an irrevocable death knell for a vehicle. Actually we are going to take it to the skill center and let them make it a “project” but that doesn’t get me to work and back every day, so new transportation was the order of the day. We bought a mini van this last Monday, a 2003 Chevy Venture. Dad Conley will be moderately happy. It isn’t new so it doesn’t contribute to his pension but at least it isn’t foreign. I keep telling him we are never going to buy a new vehicle regardless of how much we make but that is beside the point. It has 8 count them 8 seats plus an extended section in the back to put debate tubs, mulch for the garden, building materials or our off road stroller depending on which hat I am wearing. I have had several friends and colleagues act surprised and say things like you finally gave in. I am not sure what I am giving in to. Maybe it is the soccer mom thing. I guess the vehicle requirements fro a soccer mom and a debate coach aren’t much different. I have taken kids to debate competition an hour away in my Taurus with debate tubs on their knees. It wasn’t pretty. I have also filled the trunk with mulch for my garden and the city signs. That wasn’t pretty either. I won’t even begin to talk about building materials. I began to ponder what my friends and colleagues were talking about. I guess many people define themselves by the car they drive. I never really have but if I were going to a mini van would probably fit the profile. Roomy, slightly used, very comfortable, lots of complex inner workings, takes a while to learn, dependable, reliable, steady, good cushion for the bumps. This vehicle is 9 years newer than my last and I can hardly believe the changes. Power doors, seats, everything really. Heated/ cooled everything. I started wondering about why we build cars to do what they do. Why do they make a car that can go 120mph when you aren’t allowed to drive that fast? I see these people driving around in Hummers and I wonder why? Are they afraid of a guerrilla attack in the mall parking lot? I here the Hummers required extra armor when they were used in Iraq. I guess everything isn’t made to suit the need. That being said my mini van has some very useful features such as being able to open the side door with the key fob which is great when you have your arms full of heavy things such as debate tubs, bags of concrete, or children in car-seats. I have had lots of people ask me why I got a mini van when for the same money I could have gotten a SUV. I am honestly astounded that any body would drive an SUV. Not to sound to much like a debate coach but mini vans are better than SUV’s for the following reasons:

1. SUV don’t have 8 seats
2. Older SUV’s are tippy and dangerous
3. SUV’s don’t get 30 mpg
4. SUV’s don’t have sliding doors
5. SUV’s aren’t as long for ease of hauling building materials
6. SUV’s are more expensive to insure- cross apply sub point 2
7. SUV’s are higher and harder to lift heavy things into cross apply sub point 2 and sub point 4

There for judge the advantages of mini vans solve for dependence on foreign oil and thus solve for war, they are better for the economy by decreased health care and insurance costs and out weigh the negative impacts of SUV’s. Vote mini van.

I asked my husband why does anybody drive and SUV? He said four wheel drive. I can see that if you live on a dirt road in a climate like Michigan, but I don’t. I have needed a four wheel drive vehicle about a half a dozen times in the twenty plus years I have been driving, and I am a person who does lots of driving. I log about twenty thousand miles a year. All in all I like my mini van.

October

Today is our first debate tournament. This year’s topic is Resolved: the United States federal government should substantially increase its public health assistance to sub-Saharan Africa. Clint and I have lots of cross over in our subjects this year which is kind of fun. I have a buy round so I thought I would up date you all on the drama we loosely refer to as our family life. I got up this morning to leave and found the first frost on my car. It is the middle of October and we will just now put the garden to bed. Last weekend was Red Flannel Festival and Homecoming for Forest Hills Central. What in heavens is with this weather? It was 86 degrees last weekend for Red Flannel. How does one wear long underwear and eat chili with temperatures like these? Clint has started a grad program through Western Michigan to complete his vocational teaching cert. When he signed up he called me on the way home to ask me if I officially have to hate him now. I told him “yes it is in the contract when you get your degree from CMU, they make you sign in blood to hate all Broncos” I told him I should sign up for some classes with U of M so we could be rivals on two levels.

We just found out this week that one of Clint’s co workers – the same one he long term subbed for last year –Nov. to June while she was out with breast cancer, has been diagnosed with brain cancer and will have to go on leave. Another teacher just left in an ambulance with a hernia and will require surgery so Clint has been asked to teach an over load on his prep. They teach in two hour fifteen minute blocks. A normal full load is two blocks with students and one block as prep. He will now be teaching all three. This is a seven hour contact day with multiple preps, while he is writing the curriculum for the Med. Tech. class as he is teaching it. Oh yeah there is that grad. school thing as well, and did we mention we have a five month old? He called me to ask if he should take the over load and I asked if there was any one else who could do it that wasn’t writing new curriculum or a first year teacher. The answer was not really. I said “I think you have to do it”-I then heard the hollow thudding sound of a forehead connecting and re- connecting with a desk top. “As crazy as this is” I said “look at it this way, you don’t have brain cancer.” One of his administrators said at least he would be well compensated. Clint asked if it was enough money to make his son sleep though the night. Touché

My life seems sane by comparison. Debate is going well. Our book club book is Grave Site. I am not taking any classes this semester. I will take the last geography classes in the spring –post debate season- for my social studies major. I am turning my history minor in to a social studies major to make George Bush and Margaret Spelling confident in my ability to teach civics and philosophy. I find it interesting that the only classes I lacked to teach theses courses are economics and geography. I am not sure how macro and micro econ. and world and US geo. make me more qualified to teach philosophy but apparently they do. What do I know about education? I am just a teacher not a politician. The only other real excitement has been my regular whining to the state legislature about their lack of ability to come up with a budget. Tom if you are reading this I am still mad that it took you seven months and an eleventh hour “save” after a partial shut down to do what the governor recommended last spring. Make no mistake we know there is still no real full solution, and we are paying attention.

The kids are doing great. Abby has started the flute. We just bought her flute from the new music store here in CS and she was very excited to open the box and see the shiny instrument. Caelun is up to fifteen pounds and starting to stand. He will be six months old on the twenty-eighth of this month. He is very social and happy. He loves his big sister and Abby is so good with him. He has just “discovered” the cats, and smiles and laughs when they come to him. He will reach out and “pet” them little do they know what is coming when he becomes mobile and can fully full clasp his hands. He started day care on the day he turned four months old. Kristi Rice, who is doing our day care, is awesome with him and he and her two year old Cole have a great time. Cole sticks his tush out and does his “happy baby dance” when I drop Caelun off. We have also discovered Caelun loves football. Clint was watching the MSU v Wisconsin game and Caelun was enthralled. He would laugh, giggle, shriek, and throw his arms towards the screen. The only issue was he seemed more excited by the Wisconsin team than MSU. I think it was the red uniforms but that didn’t stop Clint from explaining to Caelun that since both he and Grandpa Medford are MSU grads Caelun was rooting for the wrong team. I am coming from the stand point that those cheese head things are really not an attractive look for anyone much less the round bald headed thing Cae has going on. All in all we are doing well. The fact that I have time to write this is a positive sign.

September

Dear Family and friends,

Our Christmas letter is getting so voluminous that I needed to do something. Now I suppose the first course of action for most folks would be to simply write less. This however, would not let me be the obnoxious person that I am regarding the need to wax eloquent about my wonderful red flannel town, my and my husbands students, my fabulous garden club, my invigorating book club or our helpful library, and of course my amazing family. Okay enough of the gushy stuff. I have a week left before students arrive, Clint is already back, and I am feeling the need to reflect. I know the beginning and end of the year occurs December 31/January 1 but that has never felt like a new beginning for me. I think I have been on the school cycle for so long with my dad being a teacher and then becoming a teacher myself in addition to all of the years of schooling that the beginning of the year for me is always in the fall. I am not Jewish but I have always related to my Jewish friends and students who celebrate Rosh Hashanah. It is right around the corner - September 13- which also happens this year, to be the first day of Ramadan. For those folk of the non- Jewish persuasion Rosh Hashanah is also know as Jewish New Year. This not the get drunk and party ‘till you fall down kind of New Year, but a time for reflection and atonement. A time to be thankful for what one has, make changes in oneself regarding things one isn't happy with and in general take stock of one's life. This is my kind of holiday. As the school year approaches and summer winds down I can't help but to look back on this most amazing year. What a difference a year can make. At this time last year I was thinking in the abstract what it might be like to have a baby. This was the month we were going to start "trying" to get pregnant. One year later I almost can't believe I have the wriggling little person in my life named Caelun Rhy Conley.

We are very excited that Clint was offered a contract at KCTC, where he has been a long term sub twice over the course of the last two years. They started him at step five, giving him time for his hospital experience. He is going to teach a Med. Tech. class with a full lab and he gets to write the curriculum. He is very excited. It has been a long road for him to make this career shift but this is really his dream job. Hear hear to a new year- may the marathon begin.

Shalom.