House of Lloyd

I have had enough! We seem to be on a never ending winding road of pain, loss and suffering. I am so tired of taking hit after hit after hit. I am tired of everyone telling me it will be alright. Just when we start to see an end in sight something else happens.

Today David took Madilyn to the doctor for a recheck on an illness she had last week. She had contracted one of the many forms of a Rhino Virus and had become lactose intolerant. Today at the appointment they decided that she needed to see a cardiologist for a heart murmur. They had detected the murmur in January but said we should not worry about it, because most kids grow out of them within a few months. Well Madilyn’s is still detectable after 3 months. Her lips, hands and feet have also turned blue several times recently and shivers like she is cold for no apparent reason.

Madilyn has an appointment on Monday at 11…. I hope an pray that nothing is wrong, but with the way my life has been going I just feel like the results are not going to be good.

So a few days ago I bought a bracelet that really spoke to me about picking up the broken pieces of life and moving on. It spoke to me about keeping dreams alive and not giving up.

Well– Tuesday my bracelet broke. I can not believe how much like my life this is. I can not even have a symbol that is positive that stays intact. To put it simply my life has pretty much sucked for the past few months.

So many people told me the bracelet was a “God Thing.” To tell you the truth I am having a real hard time seeing God in anything that has been going on in my life lately. Everyone keeps saying that God will not give me more than I can handle. Let me tell you I can NOT handle anymore. Everyone keeps telling me to move on, all I have to say is when you have been in my shoes you can tell me to move on. I have been sick almost everyday since November. I have zero energy, constant infections, and bleeding all the time. How am I suppose to move on when my body will not heal.

While the bracelet can be repaired, I am not sure that I will ever be the same again.

Two weeks ago I was given some good news, and last Thursday the news was officially announced so now I am free to talk about the situation.

In Jan of 2009 I was asked to work a few days at a second school while the person who holds the job was on a short leave. That short leave turned into long term leave, which has now turned ugly.

So for the past year I have been doing the job of two people for the pay of 1 person. I have had to split my time between 2 buildings, 2 sets of students, 2 sets of guidance counselors and 2 sets of administration. It has been hard but I have somehow managed to keep my head above water.

I was told that I needed to increase my numbers at both schools in order to only be assigned to one school for the next year. I also needed to increase my numbers in order to ensure that the program would be continued. With the way the budget is right now anything and everything is on the chopping block. Well at one school I took my number from 50 to 89. The other school stayed the same, this year I have 25 and I currently only have 25 registered for next year. I have many theories as to why there is such a big difference in the numbers, but I will not go into them here in a public space. All I can say is that I actively recruited students at both schools. At the school with the lower number I did MORE than I did at the school with the higher number. I don’t know why the recruitment did not work, but I do have theories, but once again will not go into those in writing in public.

I was happy with the number of 89 since state law limits me to 100 students. I was disappointed in 25. However, the county was happy and they let me know that they were impressed with the growth at the one school.

I was officially told last Thursday that I would be at only 1 school and that I would be assigned to Creekview. Creekview is the school I was originally hired to work at, and it is also the school my son will be attending next school year. While I will miss the people and students at Sequoyah, I can not continue to serve two schools and remain sane.

However, I don’t think that Caleb was as excited about the news as I was.

I almost laughed when the security agent at the gate to my flight from London asked me, “Do you have anything in your bag that could be used weapon?” What kind of stupid question is that? Is there a right answer to that question? The following is a list of items in my bag that could be used as a weapon but I was permitted to board with all of these dangerous items.

Monday came all too early. I rolled out of bed around 6 am and had a quick breakfast with David at the hotel restaurant. I was in a cab by 7 am and at the airport by 7:30. Then the crap began…

After the very long day we had had in Paris we slept in a little on Sunday. We decided to spend the day in London just wondering around and seeing where we ended up. We only had one stop in mind and that was Harrods.

Once we made it back on the bus we got a break from the scams. Our next hop off was at the Musee du Louvre. WOW! This place was awesome. I am not really an art person but I had an appreciation for this building and all of the wonderful works of art that were displayed. We spent several hours exploring the art. I am sure we did not see half of what the place had to offer.

We did see the Mona Lisa. I have always thought this painting was over rated. I just don’t get it, after seeing the painting I still don’t get it. I am sure that some of my art friends will be able to enlighten me.

We saw everything from sculpture, paintings, drawings, tapestry, poetry you name it we probably saw it. The religious paintings were something to behold. Many of them were twice the size of my living room walls. They had so much detail and so much going on in the painting.

The problem with some of the art work was that the placards were not written in English, so we did not know what the descriptions of most of the paintings said. So David and I made up our own descriptions for some of the artwork.

The Louvre closed at 5:30, so we did not get to see as much as we had wanted to see. We decided that we needed to find a snack and do a little shopping before heading back to the train station. We found a quiet little cafe and order chocolate crepes and coffee. The crepes we quite good. We then walked around the city looking for a doll for Madilyn. We thought it would be nice for her to have a doll from our travels. Doll in hand we made it back to the train station around 9 ready for the return trip to London.

I have always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. It always looks so romantic in the movies and on TV. Well our experience was anything but romantic. However, I did enjoy that David and I got to see this piece of history together.

Once we got off the bus we were immediately inundated with street merchants trying to get us to buy over priced merchandise. I would not have minded if it were just 3 or 4 but we must have been approached to make a purchase by at least 40 different wondering vendors as we walked through the park at the tower.

We also encountered many people trying to pull scams (Descriptions of the scams) At least we were smart enough to know the people were trying to scam us so we just kept walking. I however, did think that David might loose it and pop someone in the face.

The 1st incident happened as we were strolling under the Tower. A man grabbed David’s hand and tried to put a loop of string around his wrist. David jerked back and told the guy NO- but he tried to grab his hand again. Later I researched this and found that once they get the string on your wrist and then demand payment for the present. If you refuse to pay they follow you and continue to harass you until you comply.

The second incident happened after lunch it was the golden ring scam, using a gold ring. We told the man several times we did not want the ring he “found.” But he continued to follow us and try to get us to take the ring. Lucky for us a local was jogging in the park and he yelled “Bull Shit” and told us not to listen to the man. Well we had no intention of listening to the man or taking his ring, or giving him anything. But the mere fact the the jogger had yelled “bull shit” drew the attention of others and the scammer decided to leave us alone and go find other prey.

Through out our walk around the tower and the park we were approach by many asking us if we spoke English. We just ignored them and continued walking because we had already been harassed by others at the train station with the same Question and the same piece of cardboard with the sad sob story of needing money to help their family.

As soon as we left the Eiffel Tower area we did not see or hear anymore scammers. It was stressful just to walk through that area.

We did find a nice cafe a few blocks from the tower to enjoy a scammer free lunch. But in order to catch our bus to continue the city tour we had to run the gauntlet again. I was glad to be back on the bus. I left the Eiffel Tower area thinking how can anyone think this is one of the most romantic places on earth.

David and I decided that while we were near Paris we should take a day trip to see the city and some of the sights that it has to offer. It’s not like we get to go on these kinds of trips everyday or anything.

We woke up early and made our way to the Eruostar train station. The train was very nice and offered a smooth ride and a tasty breakfast of an omelet, bread, yogurt and hash (mashed potatoes with carrots and peas). The ride was just over 2 hours long. During the ride we were able to see a lot of the county side between London and Paris. We saw so many little communities, with old homes and churches. It was nice to be able to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Once we arrived in Paris the day got a little confusing and hectic. The train station was full of beggars, and con-artist. One girl followed us for a long time begging us to do what was right. The problem with the beggars was that there were so many of them, and you really could not tell if they were truly desperate for money or just hanging out in the train station to see what heart strings they could pull.

The station in Paris was not as well designed or set up as well as the stations in London. It could have been that we did not speak French, or it could have been the station set up. It took us quite a while to find our way out and to find our next destination. We had decided that an open air tour bus would be great for the day, since we only had 1 day to spend in the city. In my mind I was also thinking that at least on the bus we would be out of the reach of the panhandlers and beggars.

We found a bus tour called L’Open Tour. This was a hop on hop off tour like the one we did in London. We were able to see a lot of landmarks and learn a lot of the history of the city. While the city had great architecture it just did not seem as nice as London. We enjoyed seeing the sites and enjoyed being together in the City of Love. Our 1st hop off was at the Eiffel Tower. So much happened at the stop, I think I will do a separate blog post.