a little vent about work

i know i am lucky to have a job. and extra lucky to have work which i actually care about and sometimes enjoy. but lately i am not feeling that positivity. i am feeling pulled in a million directions and stretched out so thin that i don't feel like i am doing much good at all. a torrent of needy children coming my way, with needy teachers and parents lined up behind them. help.

i did get away for thanksgiving. we had a delicious dinner at grandma's in sonoma, and the kids were very good and quiet thanks to satellite tv. miles did manage to be obnoxious in the few minutes he was not staring at a screen and when it was his turn to say what he was thankful for stated "i am thankful there are toilets in this house because i really have to go!" ha ha, thanks little boy.

we played in crunchy leaves at the square and we visited a mossy old cemetery on the hill above sonoma on a wet saturday morning. then julia and her two boys picked us up and we went to the calistoga village inn. there we alternated between being furious with our spoiled and bratty children and feeling heavenly as our little sweethearts frolicked in the sunny warm pools for hours. on the way home we hit the calistoga petrified forest, and saw 3 million year old trees that had been knocked down by volcanic blasts and replaced cell by cell with silica, turned into stone. they looked exactly like redwoods, even the bark was intact. kitchy wooden statues stood along the path through the petrified forest, and we were all wary of the rattlesnakes and mountain lions which never seem to appear.