Going...Going...Gone

Sad

Well, I'm back in Terre Haute. I miss my kids, family, and friends very badly and I've only been back since 7pm! They are all together now. It is hard living away from nearly everyone you love and very hard to walk back into a house that is so quiet without Keelan's presence. She always made me laugh and cheered me up. I miss her car in the driveway and keep thinking she's just working and I need to leave the porch light on for her. I suppose I'll have to meet people to hang out with now because she was the one I did things with; ate out with, went to the mall, and numerous other things. We leaned on each other through all the moves the past five years and were each other's friend when we knew no one.

I miss Brandy and Rantz and being involved in their lives and my mother is getting old and needs help in many ways. There's my brother and niece and numerous friends.

Enough! I'm making myself sad.

All poems written by Sherri Hilton Streight

OKLAHOMA
Oklahoma sunshine, Oklahoma rain
Oklahoma wind whistlin' down the lane
Oklahoma cattle fed on Oklahoma grain
morals and values deeply ingrained.
Oklahoma crops in Oklahoma fields
Oklahoma sky, Oklahoma hills
Oklahoma people working with a will
tilled warm soil and oil drilled.
Oklahoma Indians quite aplenty.
Iron red dirt shinin' like a penny.
Cowboys, ranches, rodeos and cows,
tornado alley and powwows,
early morning grass wet with dew,
panoramic views, mountains too,
instill in the heart a closeness to the land,
making life here Oklahoma grand.

AS THE WORLD SPINS BY
The clock ticks
as the world spins by
silent hands collecting time
measuring space from now till then
a new one born,
an old one dies
and me
somewhere in-between.

LIFE
Life revolves
as the world spins along
serendipitly
exit one
as another enters
and the tape plays on.

FULL SAILS AHEAD
She’s leaving, going away
Growing up, in the middle of today
On wobbling legs she’s setting out
Pushing forward, to a new found route
Looking onward, let her have her head
The wind behind her, it’s full sails ahead
While I watch as the sun sets low
Missing her, but letting go
Likening her to a new born roan
Allowing her to stand, all on her own
Mother instincts, a watchful eye
Letting her loose, alone to fly
The last to go, of those three
Head held high, spirit free
Joining the rest, she’ll pass the test
In this venture she’ll do her best.

SANDS OF TIME
The sands of time
quickly trickle by
disintegrating the past while structuring the future
And with each particle that is displaced
another comes to takes its place
Circling round in an ethereal state
finding no restraint
assembling the future from fragments encountered
then tiptoeing through the ages.

CHANGING TIDES
Changing tides are coming my way
As time moves forward, what was decays
Fog up ahead, hinders my view
What lies in front is all brand new.

TIME FRAME OF LIFE
Poems are prose in the time frame of life
Adhered together with molecules of existence
Stanza’s added with each passing moment
building into full blown rhythm
verses lingering long after death
in tidbits of poetry and rhyme long left
each verse exposed and explored by men
to judgment or glory of poetry now spent.

INSIDE OF LIFE
Poems are the interior of life
A glimpse of what makes me
And I decide how much to expose
How much to let you see
And as I sit and type the words
The ones I will allow
It’s up to you to decipher the code
I cannot tell you how
I simply offer a key to hold
A chance to peep inside
A moment to look within the soul
Of a person you'll never know.

Homeward Bound!

Hooray! Tomorrow we leave the Hoosier state for the Sooner state, a week at home; that is, two of us will stay a week. One of us will not be coming back.

Wish us a safe trip!

Tribute to Keelan

KEELAN

Tosseled hair, without care
tomboy through and through
a mixture of feelings
hidden from view
growing into a woman.
Singing songs, loud of voice
off key, but what a joy!
Little girl lost, forlorn and blue
tears inside hidden from view.
Transformation in the making
Space around her constantly shaking
Girl merging into woman
The final product will be something.

The time grows closer when I must let go of my "baby". It is hard to do. Keelan is the last of those three, those children from another life and time. Six hundred and fifty miles separate me from my kids; a long way away from me. It is hard. If she were just moving down the road or across town, how much easier would it be to bear, but she isn't. She's going back home. And, I must let go. It's been Keelan and me for thirteen years. She and I were the last of what once was. I know it sounds sad and I love my husband dearly, but she and I stuck together through the initiation into the foreign world of my husband. When times got rough, we stuck together and bolstered each other up.

Now she has her wings and must fly into her own, becoming who she is meant to be.

She and I share a different time, a different space. We know what it's like to feel the warm breath of a horse on a cold day, to have loads of baby kittens running after you, a huge dog that jumps in the pond to chase horse poop that dissolves before his eyes and then watch him go under the water to try to find it, to see a goats horns glow in the barn on a dark night and have the crap scared out of you by the sight of it. Keelan and I have a special bond because it's been she and me fumbling through the Streight world for a long, long time.

My kids are far away and it's hard for them and me. I can't be there for anything and I am sorry for that.

In a few more days, my life will change forevermore. Keelan has taught me many things. I am proud to call her not only my daughter, but my friend.

I am proud of all my kids; Brandy for what she has accomplished and who she has become.
Rantz for the man he is and the child he was.

May God watch over them all until I can come home once more.

Done!

Whew, I'm done! Hooray... Done with grading and done with the finale and done with students who want something for nothing. I prefer working with the more mature student teacher than the partying pre-service teacher. There is a vast difference in maturity level for the most part and it tells in the commitment to the work turned in.

I don't know how many teachers I'll have this go round. I had 5 the semester before and made the same amount visiting 5 student teachers once a week (also paid mileage) as I did 3 student teachers this semester and 16 in the 250 class. With the class I still drove to the schools I had them in, but didn't get mileage. In short, I make the same with the student teachers and have a lot less headaches.

Son has not shown his face since he left. His dad has talked to him and seen him once and both times he has asked for money. He's supposed to come Sunday for Christmas because the rest of us are heading home a day or two before Christmas and he's decided not to go. He told me several times the last year that his plan was to leave after he graduated high school without telling us and never see us again. He's working on that now because he doesn't come around at all and when we go over there, he is never home. It's sad, but boy, has the stress lifted around this house! No more locking bedroom doors, or waking up in the middle of the night with strangers in the house.

I guess that's it for now. Merry Christmas!

Semester's End

The end of the semester is upon me and the end of my class! My student teaching supervision is finished except for the last seminar tomorrow and my 250 class ends Wednesday with the final. Sometimes, all ends well that didn't start well, thank goodness! I elected not to teach the 250 class this semester due to some things that the MWF schedule would interfere with, but will keep the student teachers. They gave the 250 class I taught this semester to the girl that taught the other 2 sections of the same class. She didn't want it so she asked me if I wanted to keep it. I said I would, but never heard from the division chair as to whether that was okay or not. In the mean time, things came up that caused me to tell the chair that I wouldn't be able to take it. So it goes.

That's it for now.

A Poem I Wrote

THE NEW MINORITY

The new minority that is becoming oppressed
are those who claim Christ, it’s surely a test
along with them are the Jews that God blessed
and anyone else, ignorant people detest.

Because we believe in God and his Son
The whole stinkin’ world is coming undone!
Don’t talk about God or speak of his Son
This ain’t the way, the government should be run

Take his name up off of our money
to believe in God, sure makes you funny.
What proof do you have, that he even exists
Why worship something, that everyone can diss?

And I sit and think of how America started
with those brave men, now long departed
sailing the ocean, to a foreign land
religious freedom, the thing in demand.

Now I stare in horror, at America’s unfolding
religious freedoms, they now are withholding
One Nation Under God, we no longer stand
our forefather’s I know, would not understand.

I am a minority and demand my true rights
to create a Holy nation, our predecessors did fight
and I’ll go down too, fulfilling that right
Long Live The Lord, the only true light!

A Poem I Wrote

ANCIENT

I watched you sleep in your quiet way
as the night wore on
and …
the moon beams danced across the darkness promising another day.
Now the dew falls upon the ground
the sleepy breezes blow
your breathing comes slow and easy
outside, there is no sound
My love for you is stirring
it seems to know no bounds
My love for you, an old, old yearning
lived long before this earth.
An ancient love I have for you
older than the seas
primordial love that will not flee
echoing through the ages.

Just Wonderin'

I was just wonderin', does anyone read this blog except my relatives? It is life, mundane as it is; my life at any rate. Are blogs worth it? The time, the effort to put your thoughts out into cyber space. Hmmm thought provoking, isn't it? I really don't put it all out there, you know. If I put what I really thought, or what really goes on, the world might explode! And, I couldn't' be responsible for such a thing as the world exploding!

Wondered

I wondered how long it would take Hubby to freak out over Son. It took longer than I expected, but today was the beginning and probably not the end. I let my daughter move into Son's previous room until she moves out for good in two weeks and five days. It was silly to have the vacant room and two girls in one bedroom when it didn't have to be that way. One is nearly 20 and the other 12. They have vastly different lifestyles and argued constantly because the older one would wait to do her college work and the younger had to be in bed by 10:30 and blah, blah, blah... Needless to say, they got in each other's space.

Today, Keelan is coming out of the sacred Son room and Hubby first attacks her personally, "What happened to you? Did you get drunk last night?" (She didn't.) Then he says she messed the room up worse than Son ever could (a huge lie). Then he comes into where I am and tells me she's messed it up and calls her Princess several times. Well, we're on our way out and I open her door to tell her something to tell our other daughter and Hubby barges in and sees she has an empty plate and starts flipping out saying I thought we said they weren't going to eat in the rooms and starts in on her until finally he says, "Say ok or I'm going to move you out. Say whatever one more time and your out." Then he runs into her room and starts dismantling her computer. I told him he gave Son a lot more time than that. He got mad at me and left me (we were supposed to go Christmas shopping). He'd already been on me earlier about various things and I was trying to ignore him. My opinion is he's just trying to get even with me and taking it out on Keelan. He's always done that.

He's very emotional; worse than any woman could possibly be.