In other words, we attend some conferences for certain reasons, and we attend other conferences for other reasons.  Often, these reasons overlap, and just as often, they do not.  Don’t expect every professional need you have to be satisfied by every conference; you need more than one, to wit, a combo of conferences.

In the long run, however, by attending various types of conferences for various reasons, I have learned far more than I ever learned in graduate school.

At first, everyone at every conference was new to me; even those whose blogs and websites I’d been reading for a while, but had not actually met, seemed new in many ways.   No matter what kind of conference it was, though, I felt I already knew these people somewhat because of their online presence.

Now, since I’m no longer a conference newbie – well, not as much of one as before -  I feel almost as if it’s Old Home Week when I go to a conference.  It’s wonderful to see familiar faces, and just as wonderful to see unfamiliar faces which I know will be familiar at the NEXT conference.  I’m far from being an A-list writer,  but the actual A-list people don’t seem to know how A-list they are and are really, really nice.  (This attitude can be different, though, depending on what kind of conference you’re attending and what kind of expectations you bring to the table.)

I guess you might say I’m thoroughly hooked on conferences.

They have greatly enhanced my ability to do my writing gigs, my social media gigs, my watchdog gigs, my teaching gigs, my help-my-students-become-writers gigs, and my time-to-surf-and-find-new-things gigs.

At each conference, I’m agig agog at the awesomeness of the attendees and presenters.  I’ve never met such smart people in my life.

For a small-town chick like me, it’s been a whole new world.  Alert Aladdin at once.

Another reason I love conferences is that because I’m a small-town chick, there really isn’t anybody close to home who understands what I do for a living.  At conferences, I can have actual conversations with actual people who actually understand!

Conferences help me hone my mad skillz.  Come with me next time and we’ll hone together.

Fortunately, as John Donne liked to remind us, no man is an island.  This is the key to all education, no matter what our age.  No man is an island, and that means CONNECTIONS.

Education is about learning to make connections.  Understand that one point and you’ll know how to keep on learning until they carry you out feet first.  The sooner we learn it, the better off we are.

We are human, and humans mess up.  That doesn’t mean – it NEVER means – that we should give up when we mess up.  No, no, no, no, no.  No matter how many times we mess up, we must try to pull ourselves up and try again.  And if it’s just too hard to pull ourselves up, we need to give our families and friends the privilege of helping us do it.

Never give up, and never surrender.  No matter what “it” is, never give up.  We can do it.  Life likes to hit us below the belt sometimes, but we don’t have to let it get by with that.  Never give up.  Never surrender.  And it doesn’t matter how many times we’re down, either.  Each time, get back up and vow again to never surrender.  Eventually the lesson will sink in.  And if it doesn’t  happen soon, or when we think it should, well, keep on trying anyway.

We are all surrounded by people who love us, in real life or online – and what does that say for social media that some of our best friends are online friends – and together we will always be stronger than anything that doesn’t love us.  We might have to wait for it.  It might be late.  We might worry that it’s not coming at all.  But be patient, for love really does conquer all.  It does.  Never give up.  Never surrender.

1. Superman’s not brave. You can’t be brave if you’re indestructible. It’s every day people, like you and me, that are brave knowing we could easily be defeated but still continue forward. — Unknown

2. No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara ever turned light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined. –Harry Emerson Fosdick

3. People are hungry for messages of hope and life. What are you broadcasting? — Morgan Brittany

4. Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don’t do it. there is someone who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill. –Jacob M. Braude

5. Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. –Thomas Edison

6. Shame is guilt in overdrive. If it helps, think of the difference between shame and guilt as this: shame says “I’m bad, I’m flawed,” and guilt says “What I did was harmful to myself and/or others, and I can do better than that.” Thoughts of healthy, unbiased guilt are how you converse with your conscience, while feelings of shame don’t even let the conversation begin. — Renee Bledsoe

7. Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. — Dale Carnegie

8. Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget about everything except what you’re going to do now – and do it. — William Durant

9. If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves. –Thomas Edison

10. You don’t have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you. — Dan Millman

11. Ninety percent of the world’s woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailities, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves. — Sydney J. Harris

12. If you are aware of your weaknesses and you are constantly learning, your potential is virtually limitless. — Jay Sidhu

13. You can come out of the furnace of trouble two ways: if you let it consume you, you come out a cinder, but there is a kind of metal which refuses to be consumed, and comes out a star. — Jean Church

14. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time. — Og Mandino

15. Facing it, always facing it; that’s the way to get through. Face it. — Joseph Conrad

16. Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending. — Carl Bard

17. Life is very interesting. In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths. — Drew Barrymore

18. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. — Ambrose Redmoon

19. Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life, as by the obstacles one has overcome trying to succeed. — Booker T. Washington

20. You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. — Margaret Thatcher

21. Determination, patience and courage are the only things needed to improve any situation. — Peter Sinclair

22. Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing. — Abraham Lincoln

23. Fall seven times, stand up eight. — Japanese proverb

24. Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new. — Brian Tracy

25. It’s never too late to be what you might have been. — George Eliot

26. We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. — Martin Luther King Jr.

27. Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think, there are no little things. — Bruce Barton

28. Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was. — Richard L. Evans

29. Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town. — George Carlin

30. How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway. And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness! — Anne Frank

31. Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born. — Helen Keller

32. Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings. — Elie Weisel

33. To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. — Anatole France

34. When everything seems like an uphill struggle, just think of the view from the top. — Unknown

35. He who has hope has everything. — Arabian proverb

36. Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it. — Bill Cosby

37. History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. — Maya Angelou

38. When you’re going through hell, keep going. — Winston Churchill

39. Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it. — Jacques Prevert

40. Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle, and a victory. — Ghandi

41. Real heroes are men who fall and fail and are flawed, but win out in the end because they’ve stayed true to their ideals and beliefs and commitments. — Kevin Costner

42. It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

43. What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? — George Elliot

44. A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives. — Jackie Robinson

45. The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you. -–John E. Southard

46. In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.–-Albert Schweitzer

47. No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.–-Elie Wiesel

48. Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. — Calvin Coolidge

49. When life knocks you down you have two choices- stay down or get up. — Tom Krause

50. Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. — Unknown

* Bonus points if you know the source.  Kudos, too, because it’s a cool source.

Most schools are in their last couple of weeks now, so I thought maybe it was time to post this again, in case a community is in the market for a new principal for next fall.  If any teacher or parent has more ideas to add to this “list,” I’d appreciate hearing them.  Comment away!

What are the qualities of a good principal?  I’ve never had one, but here is what I wish I’d had:

I do not need my principal to be a mentor. I need a principal who understands what kids do in a classroom on a daily basis, because a person who has never been there would have a hard time believing some of them.

I need a principal who is not a good ol’ boy.

I need a principal who knows for a fact that occasionally, a parent can be a moron. And who isn’t afraid to stand up to them, no matter how rich or influential the family might be. And who will work just as hard for a poor non-political family who can’t ‘do anything’ for him socially.

I need a principal who is not afraid to mete out consequences to any kid who chooses to break or disregard the rules. He/she should also have the ability to know when rules SHOULD be broken or disregarded.

A good principal is very visible. He/she doesn’t hole up in the office all day.

A good principal doesn’t have two or three cronies in the building who get all the perks. He/she will make bloody sure that both the pleasant and the unpleasant duties are equally shared.

He/she will treat the secretary as an equal, and not condescend to the janitors.

However, he/she will require that the janitors do their job, which includes cleaning up vomit and poop. And if the janitor can’t lift, carry, and clean, then that janitor must go, even if the janitor is the son of someone important in the system.  He will require the secretary to keep current with computer software, etc.  A secretary who won’t use anything but a typewriter has to go.  A janitor who won’t do poop and vomit must go.  A counselor who won’t do sex and friendship spats must go.

A good principal doesn’t give a rat’s ass about petty politics.

A good principal will not allow any of his/her teachers to be bullied by a parent, under any circumstances.

A good principal will not allow bullying in the building, even if the bully is the son/daughter of a friend or the corporation superintendent or the mayor.

A good principal will not let athletic functions override the academic intention of the school.

A good principal will enforce the “no pass, no play” rules. Consistently, and it doesn’t matter if a tournament is coming up.

A good principal is frequently seen around the hallways, occasionally drops in to observe a class, in the cafeteria during the students’ lunchtime, and at the door during bus loading.

In most other ways, a good principal is invisible. But when he/she is needed, he/she is there in a jiffy and will whisk any troublemakers away from the scene and scare the shit out of them with quiet dignity and the aura of ‘things to come.’

A good principal never yells, nor does he/she ‘get down on the students’ level’ with teenie-bopper slang and attempts to be cool.

A good principal will support his/her teachers in every way, until such time as the teacher (in private) must be advised about procedure, conduct, etc.

A good principal will not assume that classroom disruptions are the result of poor teaching. He/she will fully support the removal of any consistent disrupting force in the classroom.

A good principal will find out the facts before making any kind of assumption, and especially before putting any kind of negative note in a teacher’s file.

A good principal does not immediately assume that gossip is truth.

A good principal knows from first-hand experience exactly what shennanigans a student is capable of, and does not act surprised and disgusted AT THE TEACHER when a student displays such shennanigans.

A good principal never says “Now, now, I find that hard to believe” to a teacher or any adult in his building, for that matter.

A good principal understand social media, and isn’t frightened when his teachers and students use it.

And no, a principal is not an ‘instructional leader.’ A principal is a ‘facilitator,’ a ‘director,’ a ‘manager,’ a ‘backup,’ and a person to whom a teacher must feel free to consult when things go wrong, and to share the good things with, too, and know that he/she will be ABLE to rejoice or help fix any kind of tidings.

Teachers are ‘mentors’ to each other. The principal’s job is to run the school in a business and intermediary sense. To do so requires in-depth knowledge of the workings of a real classroom, not a textbook classroom, and not the classroom of a seminar leader’s youth.

Good principals are there before anyone else, and are the last ones to leave. They attend concerts and plays, not just ball games.

They’re like a good bra. You need one, you’d like to have an attractive one, but ultimately, you want one that supports and lifts you up.

When most of us first started putting bits and pieces of ourselves “out there” for “strangers” to see, we didn’t use our real names.  We made up fake or cute names for ourselves, and for our spouses and children, too.  After all, the internet is huge and strange and full of dark, creepy neighborhoods and “iffy” people, and if nobody knew who we really were, we felt safer.  Well, I did.  Now, most of us don’t bother with the original fake names; we use our real names because everybody knows anyway.  Heck, pole dancers are coming out of the woodwork these days, trying to buy “Mamacita” from me, but they can’t have it.  Not officially, anyway.    They can sign their posts that way but they can’t have the url’s or the Twitter name.

But, most of you know who I am now.  I don’t mind.  I like it.  Some of you know where I live because you’ve been here, and that makes me happy, too.

Fake internet names.  It’s almost funny now.

Then something happened.

Those internet strangers. . . they turned into real people.  Then the real people turned into real people with actual names and locations.  And then, well, then. . . a lot of them turned into real and actual friends.

Not just people with whom we exchanged advice and ideas and conversation, but friends.

I know there are those who do not believe an internet friend is the same thing as a real-life friend, but they are wrong.  In fact, I think we sometimes end up knowing more about an internet friend – assuming (and we have to assume this) – that we’re all telling the truth about ourselves – and I think we are.  Oh, there’s the occasional scam.  I’ve been scammed that way myself twice, BIG TIME.

This made me perhaps a bit more wary, but ultimately, I trust people because that’s how people become trustworthy, and I know that 99.99% of the blogosphere- at least the neighbors I’m familiar with – is populated with awesome people, and I’m proud to know them.

Proud to know them, both online and off.  Yes, I’ve met many of my online friends for realz, as the kids say, and it’s bloody awesome when that happens.

Conventions, conferences, meetings, Tweet-ups. . . . these are safe and convenient ways to meet online acquaintances and friends, but let me tell you something.  When someone you have come to know well and like and love to talk to invites you out to visit, that’s a happening one never forgets.  It’s a blind friendship date, and mine turned out wonderfully.  You know who you are, you wonderful, beautiful, fabulous people you.

But I digress.

Blogging has changed me.  It has encouraged me to be retrospective, to look inward and find ideas I didn’t even know I had.  It has helped me understand myself and other people.  It has forced me to look at things I’ve done, or that other people did, with fresh eyes.  It has helped me forgive.  It has made me look closely and from afar, because both microscope and telescope are equally important.  It has helped me deal with various situations.  It has renewed my trust in people.  It has helped me find myself, and others.

Part of these changes came naturally, as a result of this new way of looking at and expressing myself.  However, some of the changes came in another way.

Comments.

Total strangers who had something to say about what I had said.  People who were kind, and unkind, and full of wonderful advice.  People who came back to this blog again and again, like people with something in common who meet for lunch.  Occasionally someone told me off, which I occasionally needed.  People made accusations, and yelled at me with capital letters.  Sometimes my daughter and sister commented, telling me that my personal view of a situation or occurrence wasn’t necessarily the only one.  We all need to be reminded of THAT, you know.  It helped.  All of it helped.

In other words, after six years of blogging, I think I know myself better.  I think I understand other people a little better.  I think I’m able to look back at certain situations with a more understanding eye.  I’ve “met” people who were hurting much more than I was, people who were much more talented than I am, people who were WAY nicer than I am, people who were mean and hateful and dishonest, people who were kind and loving and genuine, people whose creative talent made me stand up in awe, people I’ve actually really met, people I can’t wait to meet, people who banded together and raised money for someone in need who they’d never actually met, people who were hurting, people who were helping, people who were living in the Blogosphere as if it were an actual neighborhood (which it IS),  people I’m now working for, people I’d love to work for, people I like so much there simply are no words. . . . .

Before I moved to the Blogosphere, my world was pretty limited.  I taught in the same room in the same building all day and then I went home.  Sometimes, after school, I waited tables all night and cooked in a deli all weekend.  We never had much money.  Every day was pretty much the same, and I’d been working with the same people for years and years.  It’s not just online that people are fooled about other people.

Once I moved into the blogosphere, though, my entire life was different.  I had a different job, different schedule, different EVERYTHING, including a different outlook on life.  It took a little while to let my guard down and trust people, but once I did, it was liberating.  It was like one of those corny commercials that show a woman running along the beach, arms uplifted, living the moment.  It seriously was.  And we all know that most corny things are also true things.

Anyway, now that Scheiss Weekly is six years old, I wanted to thank you all for freeing me from the cage in which I was apparently living, even though I didn’t realize it at the time.  A public school teacher is a slave, and I’m not kidding, and most of them don’t even know it until they leave and start doing something else.  But that’s another post, isn’t it.

I am free, and doing work I LOVE, and meeting all kinds of people and finding them awesome.  Nobody will ever cage me again.  And if I want to show my students that all things are in some way connected, I damn well will and nobody can stop me.

I love my blog.  I love the Blogosphere.  I love the people I’ve met through this blog and through people I met through this blog.  They are real.  We are all real  The Blogosphere is real.  It is here, and it is now, and it is here to stay.  Twitter and Facebook, etc, are all wonderful and I like them and I use them but ultimately, somehow, it always comes back to the blog.  Some things need more than 140 characters to be said properly.

This is a long post.  If you’ve made it this far, I thank you.  Corny, sentimental mush?  Oh, sure.  I’m good at that; just ask my kids.

But just so you know it’s really me. . . . . BEHAVE YOURSELVES!

The only part of any of my jobs that I don’t like is grading essays.  I have too much respect for my students NOT to tell them when something needs to be changed in some way.  To give every essay a big red A+ without reading it properly and letting them know when they’ve done something improperly is to do students a grave disservice.  Self esteem is one thing, but letting a serious student think that a piece of writing is perfect just because he/she wrote it is to play a dirty trick on the student.  Future employers won’t appreciate it, either.

And yes, I fully believe in the use of the RED PEN.  Red is the color of attention.  Pay attention to the red and you won’t get a traffic ticket, cause an accident, or fail to pay careful attention when you see it.  I like a nice red gel pen, so the color jumps right into the face.

So, what am I doing this afternoon?  The music is still cranked up to eleven; the player is set on “random,” and I’m as usual doing about ten things at once.  When my husband gets home from CA tonight, he’ll find his side of the dresser cleaned and put in order.  (N0thing was thrown away; I would not throw anything away that belongs to someone else.  How would I know what’s important to someone else?)  But it’s organized now.  And yes, I am so territorial that our dresser top is divided into “his” and “mine,” and if you know what’s good for you, you won’t touch mine unless you ask first.

And yes, there is a dividing line on our dresser top.  I keep my side tidy and bare, which makes him crazy because everyone in his family, it seems, views a cleared-off space as an invitation to put something of THEIRS on it.

Shut up.   If everyone kept his/her hands off anything that doesn’t belong to them, there would be world peace.  Besides, I’m sure I’m not the only one who labels things in the refrigerator so that when you finish yours you can’t easily help yourself to mine.  When the kids were home, this was a very handy system indeed.  (You drank yours already and she has some left, and you can have hers only if she gives you permission to touch it. If you take it without permission from the owner, you’ve stolen it.) And how did we keep track of who still had Cokes and who had drunk his/hers?  I labeled them, that’s how.  Because it’s not fair when two people each have a 12-pack of Coke that has to last for a week or more, and one person drinks up all of his/hers and then tries to help himself/herself to someone else’s. . . .  They knew not to ask me to make exceptions, either.  The Cokes weren’t mine any more and only the owner of something has the authority to give permissions.  Forced sharing only creates resentment and destroys trust.  Yes, I am a weird Mom.

Oh, I need to stop or I’ll start delving into my childhood again.

The ironic thing is, I will gladly share and even give you pretty much anything I have.  All you have to do is ask me nicely beforehand.  How hard is that to grasp?  My kids and sisters will tell you that I’ve been known to practically hound people to take my things if I suspect someone might need them.  I will not, however, give you permission to touch or use something that doesn’t belong to me.  I might even take it away from you until the owner gives you permission.  But you’ve all heard this little quirk about me before, and giggled discretely behind my back.  Or in my face, if you’re family.  Sigh.  It’s all right.  We all have our little quirks and mine at least doesn’t give me lung cancer, VD, or a hangover.

Oh, and if you think I am doing all this work in a creepy silent cave, you can think again.  Music up to eleven, remember, and on random?

So far these past few hours, I’ve cleaned, written, arranged, rearranged, washed, dried, folded, and surfed to the following:

1.  All the Pretty Little Horses – Shawn Colvin

2.  White Room – Cream

3.  Girls With Guitars – Dave Matheson

4.  Don’t Turn Around – Ace of Base

5.  I’ve Been Everywhere – Mike Ford

6.  A Summer Place – The Lettermen

7.  Forgive Me Love – Alanis Morrisette

8.  I Am the Highway – Audioslave

9.  Norwegian Wood – Beatles

10. Piano Man – Billy Joel

11.  Rivers of Babylon – Boney M

12.  If I Threw My Guitar – Cake

13.  Dream Police – Cheap Trick

14.  Creep – Damian Rice

15.  Coke – Flickerstick

16.  Bring Him Home – Gary Morris

17.  Wuthering Heights – Hayley Westenra

18.  Funk #49 – James Gang

19.  Across the Universe – Rufus Wainwright

20.  Dancing in the Street – Mick Jagger and David Bowie

21.  Time Is Running Out – Muse

22.  Let It Be – Nick Cave

23.  Santeria – Sublime

24.  Zard Snodgrass – Moxy Fruvous

25.  Bittersweet Symphony – The Verve

Now playing:  Mars – Holst

I love the contrasts of a random song setting.  And look at all those Beatles covers!

Snack time.

Mamacita says:

Happy New Year to all of my Blogosphere friends.

We’ll be spending New Year’s Eve, as we have done for the past many, many years, with our best friends, playing euchre far into the night and talking about everything under the sun.  It’s a mixed metaphor kind of evening: the very best kind.

I hope all of you are doing something lovely tonight, brand-new or traditional.

Traditions, remember, are lovely things, but important as it is to keep them, it’s equally important to create them.

Have fun tonight, and get home safely.

Tomorrow begins the taking down of all the Christmas things, so I’ll be sleeping in late and inventing tasks to put off the big task that I really don’t want to do.

I don’t really want to do laundry, either, but it’s better than removing the vestiges of the happiest time of all the year.

I might even clean the oven.

Nah.

. . . interrupting my post-Christmas blues, my wallowing in Love Actually, my longing for visits from family, and my dread of taking down all my holiday decorations, with the Twelve Rules of Christmas, just for you:

1.  Christmas is always better than you thought it would be, even if it’s not.

2.  Christmas brings people together, even if it’s by contrast and not comparison.

3.  Christmas gifts made by childish hands are the best.  Christmas gifts FOR a child are even better.

4.  Christmas dinner is always great, even if it’s frozen pizza.  Because it’s Christmas.

5.  No one is alone on Christmas unless he/she chooses to be alone.  There are just too many places to go or to volunteer, to stay at home or in one’s room and whine.

6.  Every Christmas tree is beautiful.

7.  Every wrapped package under the tree is beautiful, especially the ones wrapped by inept fingers.

8.  Christmas M&M’s taste better than ordinary M&M’s.  Ditto Christmas Snickers and Christmas Reese’s Trees.

9.  Christmas fruitcakes make great footballs, doorstops, and stories for next year, unless you actually like to eat fruitcake, in which case, bon appetit.  Watch your teeth.  And what exactly are those green slimy things?

10.  Christmas trees often bring the outdoors inside for our pets, ifyouknowwhatImean.

11.  Christmas season begins too soon and ends too quickly.

12.  The proper and polite response to “Merry Christmas” is “Thank you,” even if you do not believe in it.  Rudeness is always a choice, and it’s never appropriate to throw someone’s well-wishes back into his/her face.  If you’re insulted by someone’s wishing you well, keep it to yourself.  Charming Fairylit Woodland Seasonal Solstice Nothingness Greetings to you, too.  (Thank you.)

I’ve watched Love Actually three times this Christmas week, and I might have to give it another couple of viewings to get the sentiment and emotion out of my system.  Otherwise, I might be like Rebecca Randall’s Aunt Jane, so soft and sentimental it’s a wonder I don’t leak out the doorsill.*  It’s been suggested before.

Just to hear the music. . . . That soundtrack – it’s blazingly fantastic.  Fantastic, and, well, lovely.  Just lovely.

Excuse me.  I have to go mop myself up off the floor before all of me oozes under the door and out onto the yard.

If you haven’t ever seen Love Actually, what the bloody hell is WRONG with you!!! oh dear Lord, watch it now.  Be aware, however, that it’s not exactly family friendly in a few scenes.  Watch it late at night, with someone you love.  Or all by yourself in your kitchen whilst making homemade bread and fudge and trying not to weep copious tears into the dough.

P.S.  #13.  Christmas is a time for family and friends, and it’s so magically wondrous when they come to visit!  I can believe in God when I’m with family.  Without them, it can be difficult.

*Bonus points if you understand the reference.

Mamacita says:  Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Fruitful Kwanzaa. Happy Holidays. Peaceful December. Happy Solstice.

Please pick one, or two, and apply them to yourself and to your family.

Christmas Eve is such a magical time. It’s all ahead of us, you see. To paraphrase Katie, age 8, in What Child Is This, by Caroline Cooney, the night before Christmas isn’t called a ‘night,’ it’s called ‘eve,’ and Christmas morning isn’t called ‘morning,’ it’s ‘morn.’ Eve and morn: two special words to highlight two special times.

How special are they? They are special already, in their own right, but how you make them special for yourself and for your children is entirely up to you. I hope you give them memories they will cherish all their lives, so much so that they will pass the glory along to their own children.

Children flourish with roots, but they soar with wings.

May your Eve be full of anticipation and warmth, and may your Morn be all you hoped it would be.

#25 is my favorite.  I think of it regularly.  It reminds me of my father, before the diabetes made him. . . different.

1. There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. — Erma Bombeck

2. This is the message of Christmas: We are never alone. — Taylor Caldwell

3. Remember, if Christmas isn’t found in your heart, you won’t find it under a tree. — Charlotte Carpenter.

4. Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it ‘white’. — Bing Crosby

5. Christmas, my child, is love in action. — Dale Evans

6. My first copies of Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn still have some blue-spruce needles scattered in the pages. They smell of Christmas still. — Charlton Heston

7. My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that? — Bob Hope

8. The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others’ burdens, easing other’s loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas.
– W. C. Jones

9. Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect. — Oren Arnold

10. The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect! — Charles N. Barnard

11. Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. — Hamilton Wright Mabie

12. Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves. — Eric Sevareid

13. Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind. — Mary Ellen Chase

14. There has been only one Christmas – the rest are anniversaries. — W.J. Cameron

15. Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time. — Laura Ingalls Wilder

16. Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish. Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself. — Francis C. Farley

17. Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen. — Author unknown, attributed to a 7-year-old named Bobby

18. In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukkah’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!’ — Dave Barry

19. When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? — G.K. Chesterton

20. The message of Christmas is that the visible material world is bound to the invisible spiritual world. — Author Unknown

21. The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn’t for any religious reasons. They couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin. — Jay Leno

22. The earth has grown old with its burden of care, but at Christmas it always is young. — Phillips Brooks

23. Nothing’s as mean as giving a little child something useful for Christmas. — Kin Hubbard

24. Christmas – that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance – a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. — Augusta E. Rundel

25. There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it! — Charles Dickens

Back in early 2004, my friend Wes talked me into starting a blog.  This blog, to be specific.  Best advice I ever got.  Eternal thanks added to the eternal love and friendship, Wes dear.

Yes, former students do sometimes evolve into friends.

Once I’d decided to be a blogger – whatever that was – I had to name the blog.  I gave this task more time and thought than I put into naming my children.  But then, I’d had their names picked out since I was a child; they’re both named for beloved book people.

But my blog. . . . this new-fangled online journal thing that was destined to be an extension of my heart and soul and personality and self. . . . what to name it?  It should be something profound and catchy and cool.  It should be reverent and classy and professional.  It should be, well, me.  That pretty much negates what I thought it should be, doesn’t it.  Sigh.

My husband and daughter both speak German.  They like to speak it in front of me.  Over time, I’ve picked up a few expressions and phrases, and, being me, a few choice little expressions that struck me as worth remembering.  Two things in particular always hit me right in the funny bone:  Scheisskopf, and something about having a dead bird in one’s pocket.  It was close, but I chose Scheisskopf, partly because it was a way to express my opinion without openly offending those who didn’t know what it meant.  I’m a really classy broad, but I do love my little inside jokes.

I didn’t want to use this word in my blog’s title because I do have a modicum of dignity; besides, I was afraid people would think I meant ME.  Or them, which of course I occasionally do but still. . . .

So I tried to get “Scheiss Daily. “  I was too late; it was taken.  So I grabbed up “Scheiss Weekly,” and it’s been “Scheiss Weekly” ever since.

“Scheiss” really ought to have an “e” at the end, but I was so anxious to get the name before some other German name-caller bagged it that I didn’t type it in and therefore, “Scheiss Weekly” was born.

I love my blog, and when you come to visit me and comment, I feel validated.  As if I had a right to live in the Blogosphere and ogle the cool kids at that OTHER table.

As for all the hits I get from people searching for scheisse because they want to look at a website about scheisse, well, shame on you, you perverts! they’re just funny now.  Once in a blue moon, someone I know hits me up for scheisse; I never tell on them, but I do giggle a lot, late at night.

I can be a scheisskopf at times; don’t think for a minute that I can’t.  I even take pleasure in it sometimes.  It’s part of my perfection: part mommyblogger, part professor, part educational issues commentator, part child advocate, part bad habit criticizer, part whiner, part social media maven, part astronaut, part ballerina, part Hogwarts fourth year, part rabble-rouser, part nostalgia specialist, part sentimentality wallower, part social critic, part retrospective parenting expert, part reviewer, part holiday reveler, part mind’s eye encourager, part imagination sparkler, part grammar nazi, part societal behavior critic, part funny bone tickler, part heartstrings puller, part professional writer, part international lawyer, part spy, part Broadway fanatic, and part curriculum advisor.  Put them all together, plus all the stuff I forgot, and you get: me.  I left out the really bad stuff on purpose; I figure my enemies can fill all that in.  There may be a few exaggerations in that list; I really can’t be arsed to go back and edit it.

Daughter in Question:  please comment and tell me that complete “dead bird in my pocket” expression you used to say to make me laugh.  I need a laugh.  We all do; times are hard.  Don’t actually fart, thankyouverymuch; just tell me the whole expression.  Whoops, now you all know what it means.  My bad.

I’m assuming y’all know what “scheisskopf” means?  So if I say something such as “My former public school administrators sure were a sad bunch of clueless  scheisskopfs,”  I would not need to explain further?

Good.

Your turn.