Defining My Priorities

We have one more day of TAKS testing, leaving the social studies test for tomorrow. A co teacher traded places with me, allowing for a day in the class room. I truly enjoy reading to the boys and hearing them read as we discuss issues and new words they have never heard of before. Words you and I take for granted, such as paranoia, fascist, and euphoria.

Deciding on what to teach, which words they should know rocks my boat at times. Thousands of words come to mind, hundreds of books on the shelves, and good books at that; create a mind swirling effect for me. I have the same problem on deciding on my priorities, picking the most important.

One way I found that aided in my defining my priorities was to first define me. How do I define myself? What do I want to be? I don't define myself through a corporate world. I don't define myself as the Wink goddess. I don't define myself as religious...so I know what I'm not, but what am I?

Defining oneself may sound old school, but the process can be truly eye opening. Here's me in a nutshell: family, nature & environment, security, fun and adventure. Very basic ideas that should get further defining, such as family, I'm referring to my son and daughter. Nature and environment, to me means doing my part to create a beautiful place in which I live, enjoying the wonderful world around me and protecting it for my children.

Recently, I've been giving the environment a bit of consideration, considering I live in oil country. In and around Wink there are pump jacks doing their thing. I guess I never gave it much thought until about three months ago, when I noticed that the usual oil and gas smell started smelling a bit different.

The smell that I'm smelling is similar to that of a chemical perm. You know, the one you get for your hair. A couple of years ago, I smelled this same smell on my way to work in Pecos. That's about the same time that Chesapeake moved in and began drilling 400 new wells. I don't know much about it, and I'm learning a little bit every day. I just found out about this new process they call fraking. AND from what I've read so far, it's bad...very bad. Like I said, I like to know about things before I actually say anything, because if not then something embarrassing happens, like thinking somebody likes you for more than a friend and then you say something stupid and well, you know.

What I found out about this Hydraulic Fracturing is that the oil companies use very toxic water. Well, there have been some cases where the water seeped out and killed livestock and could have possibly contaminated the local drinking water. I don't know about you, but that's a bit scary! The kids and I already don't drink the tap water, but we still have to bathe in it. I was trying to figure out something I could do to help out this problem. I don't have a lot of time, but I did find a very helpful link. I clicked on it and was able to send a little note to some people in Congress. It only took me a few minutes to fill out the form and then send it on line. No stamps, no printing, no writing...just a few keystrokes!

Now, before you think I'm some sandal wearing, tree huggin' hippie...think about this. We have proof just from the HUGE bailout, that Congress doesn't read everything they sign and put into action. Ponder on that for a moment. You never know what they've agreed to and neither do they.