Hooray for Pumpkins

I've spent the last few weeks really focussed on trying to pare down my clutter and clean up the apartment. Tomorrow S and parents come for Thanksgiving dinner which may explain partly my haste. I'm pretty happy with where it's at so far... not done, of course, but my life isn't a TLC show.
I was going to buy the stuff to make a pumpkin pie today, but then I realized I could just buy a pie for $3.00. I guess mom's spirit has loosened its hold on me, cause it didn't bother me at all.
I finished getting the dining room wrangled into position and planning a menu. Nothing too fancy. I'll roast the potatoes with the turkey, make bread stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, and maybe some sweet potatoes/carrots, and of course, gravy. Should be ok.
I'm tired as heck. Wish I wasn't. Rainy days always get me down. (Mondays too, sometimes).
Think I'll make some coffee and keep trying to get Maddie to go for a walk with me to have a look at where the flats are in the West End.

accountability rant

I've been reflecting the last few days on the dazzling stupidity of "accountability" as it is currently interpreted. There is so much damned emphasis on measuring and measuring, and goddamn baselines, that nothing can ever get done.

Baseline measures take forever; and in the meantime, we don't want to start anything, by god, cause if we do, we might adversely affect the baseline measure and then we'll have to start again. So we wait and wait and try to get a perfect measure in an imperfect world, and in the meantime... students don't learn, greenhouse gases ruin our atmosphere, our government wastes dollar after dollar on studies to study the results of the studies.

Ugh. Rant, rant.

Time keeps on slippin...

It seems like time keeps getting away from me, and not enough gets accomplished, but my progress on "clean sweeping" my apartment at least is coming apace. I have only a few trouble spots left to tackle and I've moved out massive amounts of garbage and unneeded items.

Today Maddie and I sorted her room, including all the tiny toys, and let me tell you... whoever invented Polly Pocket was an evil, devious, demented human. I mean that.