Hot Sauce

My boys (how I refer to the students in my house) love hot sauce. So do the other staff that work in the house with me. And I really have no problem with it. Well, that was until Saturday.

I had made a chicken soup and tried to flavor it nicely, getting it as hot as possible so that I could still eat it, though I know the boys will like it at least 5 times hotter. As soon as we sat down to eat, the housefather gets up to get his hot sauce: 100% Pain. For some reason, it hit me hard that time. The food has not even been tasted and yet they are changing the flavor! Almost everyone put some in the soup and commented on the zing and "pain" they felt because of it. Even Eric, sitting next to me, had little bits of sweat on his face. I began to wonder why I should even flavor the soup when they are going to do it themselves. And how can you eat food that always has the same flavor: hot sauce. There are other tastes in this world. It was a low blow to the time I had spent in the kitchen.

So how did I feel when the dare comes up to see how long the students will last with some on their lips? Terrified. I had made dessert! It was chocolate! They had BETTER not do that until after they had dessert. I was already worried about their taste buds being a bit numb after the hot sauce soup. Much to my relief, Barry was smart enough not to start the challenge (which was fun to observe) until after the dessert was eaten. Yet I still walked away from that meal offended.

What am I supposed to do now? I know they all, house staff included, love hot sauce and I don't want to take it away from them altogether. Is it worth it to talk with Barry about reserving the flavor-destroyer for only certain meals? For now all I can say is I hate hot sauce even more than I did before.

Day 1 of the new job

I made breakfast in the morning and was getting ready to make the boys' lunch. But I couldn't find the chick peas for the hummus. They were there the night before! I looked all over for them and was starting to get very frustrated- who took the chick peas and why?! What would I do for their lunch? Nearly in tears, I loudly ask “Who took my chick peas?” At Barry's* command, a few boys get up to help me look, but they don't stay long and everyone goes back to cleaning and getting ready for school. Why aren't they helping me? What am I going to do? What will the boys have for lunch? This is horrible!!!

I wake up...I was only dreaming. I didn't sleep well last night. I was too worried about making sure I had the right food and enough of it. I was worried about not waking up in time to get the coffee started and the granola finished. So, I barely slept. But the morning went well. The granola and yogurt were good, though there were no leftovers (what will I do for leftover night??). Things got cleaned up and I went about making the hummus for their lunch. My chick peas were all there, however, the power was out, so I had to hand mash it. I hope it tastes ok.

And now I am off. Only on for one shift and now a break. I guess that's good. I am thankful things are going better than I expected, though I still feel a lack of communication between me and Barry, the housefather. But I'm pretty sure it is all in my head, since I can be a control freak at times of major change. I look forward to getting to know and being there to love on all 7 boys who moved into the house and the 2 new ones coming today. I hope to share stories and insights and lessons learned as I grow in my new position of housemother at a therapeutic boarding school.

*names have been and will be changed to protect the staff and students involved.

I'm a nerd OR my feelings about my new position

I was trying to think of a good way to communicate my feelings about being a housemother (HM) this fall. Since they have changed and continue to change, the first thing in my mind was a mathematical equation and graph. However, I didn't want to sit and try to make an equation to clearly communicate it, so I just went about drawing a graph. Here is what I came up with. I know the bottom scale is not consistent, but it would be too wide if it was.

Explanation of a few points:

• January is when I came down here. I was excited since I was just hired as a housemom, but was going to in education until they had an opening. That excitement quickly decreased when I realized I would not be in a house for some time (it probably dropped faster than on the graph)
• Mid July I found out that the main plan in the fall was to have me in a house. I probably had two days of high excitement before settling down and waiting for details and the fall to come closer so I could be surer.
• At the beginning of August, the summer semester ended and I moved to the HM position, which was (and is right now) training. My excitement has continued to grow steady as the fall comes.
• However, as training continues and the move-in date approaches (Aug 12), I am getting stressed. A few things that are concerns are my menu, shopping, and the house getting cleaned and ready in time for me to get set up before the students move in.

Wow, this has just made me even more stressed and slightly depressed. Dear God, please let everything go as smoothly as possible, even though few things work that way here. You know I can't handle things if they get crazier; I will break.