My assistant

Poor Minnie. She got ripped off. Her Spring Break with me was hardly a break. I worked on my National Boards the entirety of my Spring Break, except one measly day to clean, run errands and cook. Here she is sleeping in one of the dining room chairs as I worked from the chair next to her the majority of today.

I rarely slept in.

I spent close to 20 hours at one of three Paneras in town working.

I went to another candidate's house two full days to work.

I spent two full days working at my dining room table.

Another two days were spent working at Mom and Dad's dining room table.

I took only one nap, and that was only after waking up early to take Ellen to school.

I did zero shopping. Insert sad face here.

I had time to see a few friends, but not nearly as much time as I would have hoped.

And poor Minnie only got to go on two long walks (and lots of short ones) even though the weather was beautiful most days!

This might go down in history as the worst Spring Break ever. When I have been home, she's followed me around everywhere. Wanting to sit on my lap or sleep next to me wherever I'm working. She knows something is up, and I bet she's anxious for me to go back to my usual, lazy self where I have plenty of time to play and take walks.

The countdown is officially on! I will have everything completed, packed and shipped off before March 31st. I don't have a choice, that's when it is due. The next few days will be stressful, so send some calming & positive thoughts my way. I NEVER imagined this process would be so taxing. I'll be proud of myself when it's finished, but until then I can use all the assistance I can get :)

250

Back to school. I feel like we just started a week ago, but we are actually just two and a half weeks away from the end of first quarter. I don't know how we got here.

I'm still running around like crazy. I'm still overwhelmed. I still can't see the top of my desk.

A new daily Math program (on top of the current Math materials), a new way to do literacy centers (on top of the current Reading materials), a new principal (who is lovely and nice and organized), a new class of 27 students (soon to be 28) has me busy as ever! Throw working on my National Board Certification AND what little life I have outside of school on top of all of that, too!

I went to my Heath & Wellness screening last night through the district. When I sat one-on-one with a nurse she asked me to rate my current stress level. Ha! How high does the scale go? Then, we had to log on to our insurance carrier's website to do a Health Risk Appraisal. I was asked how many hours a week I'm expected to be at my job. Then, how many hours a week I actually work. Lastly, how many hours I've done work for my job during the past 4 weeks.

Mitzi and I were sitting next to each other, so we laughed ... and then calculated together. Hmmmm ... let's see. I'm expected to work 8:15-4:00. I can probably count on both hands how many times I've left school AT 4:00 when my contract hours are over. Most days a week, I'm there from 8:00-6:00. Often, I'm the last car in the parking lot. I hate that. I also bring work home to do at night, although I try NOT to do this so I can relax and recharge before the next day. Most weekends I work at least one day, sometimes more. Add it all together ... close to 250 hours of work within the last month. 250!!!! How many hours do you think you put into your job in the last month?

I wear many hats at my job and I attempt to wear a party, happy hat most days. I know things will turn around. I just wish it would happen sooner than later. That's it! Done complaining ... ... ... for now :)

Come on in!

Tomorrow morning is the first day of school! I've been up in my classroom for about 2 weeks, even though our official work days didn't start until last Friday. As always, things really started to come together in the last few hours.

Tonight, we had our Popsicle Pop-In where I get to meet kids and parents for the first time and they get to see the classroom for the first time. The third grade classrooms are right next to ours, so some kids I knew really well, and some I hadn't ever seen. They all seemed excited to be there!

My room finally came together. I have some new decorations, new bulletin boards, new name-tags, new books, new rules ...

... and a new mess! Way to start off the 2010-2011 school year, Betsy!

UGH!

I need your help!

But please don't look too closely at these pictures :)

This is my 2nd bedroom on the first floor of my condo. It's set up to be an office. But let's be honest, it's really just become the room for all the crap I don't know where to put anywhere else.

Since it's officially summer for me, I thought I'd take all the projects I've been putting off all year & "assign" one per week for me to tackle. This room should be one of the easier projects.

I think it needs some rearranging and some organization. I don't use it as an office, except for the occasional day that I hook my laptop up to the printer to have a paper copy of something. I'm not married to the arrangement, and I'm sure it could be done better. I think I can even move the furniture by myself, so I'm not asking for any of your manual labor ... just ideas!

Minnie must have just discovered this room, because it's become her new hide-out during the day when I'm at work. She naps on the couch and I don't blame her. She can see outside & it's really cool in this back room for some reason. I'd like to move the couch away from that window for a few reasons: I don't like that you can see it when you walk down the hall, and that window started leaking with the BIG rain storm the other afternoon. The entire back of the couch was soaked. Not cool.

This is the desk I made out of 2 file cabinets & a piece of laminated plywood for the top. The dresser was found at an estate sale with Mom, and I do use all the drawers & my printer is currently on the top.

I've never sat at this desk. I don't even have a chair for it. 99% of the time, my laptop is on my coffee table in the living room. This is why I feel like I don't really need it set up like this. I will still need the file cabinets accessible since I use them for mail, bills & other things. Well ... my mail & bills should be in the drawers. Don't look at the floor where there are piles & piles to be filed. It's a lot like my classroom :(

This is the opposite wall. I have that small bookshelf which is full of things, but none of it is that important. That closet is full of all my craft supplies :)

And that's the rest of the room.

Ideas? Help? I'm looking for tips. You are all invited over to see the room in person & give advice. It's not a big room, just 9 feet x 15 feet. You don't have to move or pack up anything. You can just point where you think I should move things.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Can I have a do over?

My day ... ugh. I'm thinking that going to bed early will help a fresh day get here even faster!

Here are the bad parts of my day in pictures:

Ready to grab one of the bananas I just bought to run out the door & get to work on time. All of them were soft & spotted already. How does this happen so quickly?

Left school late due to working on grades for progress reports that are supposed to go home Friday. I didn't leave school until close to 6:00, for the third day in a row. I still have grades to do, so that means I'll be staying late again tomorrow.

Had to go to the grocery store on my way home. We are giving our students a pizza party tomorrow to celebrate the end of assessments. I had to get treats for my kids for dessert. When you have a class of 25, buying treats (or prizes or rewards or supplies) can be difficult. Most things are packaged in sets of 12 ... or in this case 24. I don't know that I have any kids that will be absent tomorrow, so I had to get 2 boxes. 48 popsicles for 25 kids!

Walking out of the grocery store, I had to dodge the many cracks and potholes in the pavement. I have a history of being clumsy in these shoes. Remember when I fell in front of my class when I wore these? {Looking back at that post, I laughed because I was teaching the EXACT same lesson today!} Anyhoo ... I stumbled in a hole in the parking lot & broke the strap on one of these shoes. I got them in Chicago a trillion years ago, but I love them to death. Literally ... I loved them & they died today.

Home late ... again. Poor Minnie. She was happy to go on a walk, which was nice, because I walked off some of my stress.

Checked my mailbox. I was able to get the junk mail out, but the package I was waiting for is still in the mailbox because the mailman could put it in my mailbox, but I couldn't get it out on the other side because the hinges were in the way. I had to write a note telling the mailman that I can't get the package out and he'd have to leave it outside my door. Surely they realized this!

After our walk, it was time to feed Minners. Poor baby had to eat off the hallway floor because I spilled the cup of food all over the place! ARG!

That's it! Well at least I hope that's all that is going to happen and make me mad today. Thursday, please hurry up and get here.

If I had an extra $98 in my bank account ...

... I would TOTALLY buy these cute terrier book ends from the Mission Road Antique Mall.

Unfortunately, I have lots of other things in my world that could use that $98, so they are still there. If any of YOU want to buy them (aren't they cute?), then could I at least puppy sit for you sometimes? Tee hee!

We've got a problem :(

Do you remember last summer when Minnie & Ellen really started interacting for the first time? Ellen was curious & Minnie was super gentle.

Then, just a few months later ... the "cousins" were even more excited to see each other. Ellen literally squealed when she saw Minnie, and Minnie was antsy to have her belly scratched.

This fall, when Ellen was really moving around, she could hold her own when Minnie was around. Ellen started to turn her face to avoid Minnie's kisses & she would crawl away when she had enough playing time. This was also the last time I took Minnie over to Molly & Erik's at nighttime. It is just too hard to have a vocal pup when there is also a baby sleeping in the house.

The last time Ellen & Minnie were together was Christmas day at Mom & Dad's. Ellen did see pictures of Minnie during this time and gave her very cute I'm-looking-at-an-animal grunt :) Molly asked me to come babysit Ellen tonight because both of them had meetings to go to. I got about an hour in of play time before bed, so beyond that, I was just a warm body in the house. Molly was nice enough to let me bring Minnie, and I was excited for the girls to get to play together.

Uh oh!

This is what their entire time looked like. Ellen was TERRIFIED and tried to run away! What happened? She was okay with seeing Minnie when she was up in her high chair, but as soon as she got down, she was running off & avoiding Minnie.

Molly broke up the doggie/child chaos with a before-bed snack for Ells. At this point, Minnie was on her leash so she couldn't get to Ellen anymore :(

We asked Ellen to "find the doggie" hoping that she would be interested in looking at & petting Minnie. Instead, she found this book in her book basket called, "Doggies" by Sandra Boynton. That's not what we were looking for, but that's still pretty impressive! {Super cute book, BTW, for those of you with little ones!}

You can't really tell, but this is a terrified face. She ran just out of where Minnie could reach on her leash. Poor thing! She doesn't want to play with Minnie anymore. :(

Poor Minners ... she lost her best friend! :(

I'm hoping this is just a phase that Ellen is going through. I would hate for her to be scared of dogs as a little one ... especially a sweet dog like Minnie. Does anyone have some tips for us?

It started again

I took Minnie out this morning & was thinking to myself that it was nice to see that most the snow had melted in my development. There were still the original piles from the snow plows from the Christmas Eve storm, but we could see most of the grass, which was nice.

Then, I went inside for a few hours and when I left again ... snow. Lots of it. I know most of the country has snow, too, but I'm worried about the fact that I may never want to see snow again. Not this week. Not next month. Next Winter? Probably not.

I did get out to see friends for Valentine's brunch before the snow really covered the roads. I'm thankful I have another day off from school tomorrow, because that lets me get some things done before I have to face the snow.

I hope everyone is driving safe, if they really need to be out on the roads! If you can, bundle up ... stay warm, INSIDE ... and curl up to watch some Olympics! I know I am!

Crossing my fingers!

The snow FINALLY decided to show up tonight! Every teacher I know is crossing her fingers, jumping & and down, wearing her PJs inside out, sleeping with a fork under her pillow and saying the hopeful chants for a snow day tomorrow!

I don't want to get too excited, because last night I stayed up too late (thinking we would have the day off today) and I was dragging ALL day! The snow really is pretty ... I just don't want to have to drive in it and get up early to walk Minnie before work in it.

Okay, enough whining. I'll just leave you with a few nice pictures I took tonight. I hope you are all staying warm!

Still playing catch-up

I feel like I've been playing catch-up since I returned from my 7 sick days. Being gone from work when you are sick is SO MUCH WORK when you are a teacher. In many other jobs, if you are sick, I assume you don't need to leave plans for others while you are gone. I bet you might need to leave instructions or directions to find things, but you don't have a substitute for the day coming in to do YOUR job. Granted, I've only had a job as a teacher ... but I'm guessing that is how it works.

Sometimes when I don't feel well, I'd rather just stay at work than make lesson plans and directions for a substitute. I'm so anal that I tend to over plan and write out more details than necessary. You never know what kind of a substitute you are going to get in your room. I'd rather leave too many instructions than not enough and return to things not done correctly.

Thankfully, of the 7 days I had to be gone (plus one more day for a curriculum meeting), I had only 3 substitutes. 1 was our building sub who knows the ins & outs of 4th grade ... 1 was just for the first 1/2 day when I came but had to leave with a fever ... and 1 was there for five days. She even cancelled other jobs to come back to my class when I found out I had to stay home longer than planned. She was GREAT!

Long story short ... I've been back at school for almost five full weeks and I STILL feel like I'm playing catch-up. I've stayed late at work almost every night. I hate being the last car in the parking lot, but I have a hard time being productive during the day when I'm surrounded by friends, students, to do lists and more!

Minnie's gotten the short end of the stick because I've been working ten hour days and when I get home, it's too dark for a long walk. Poor baby!

I keep thinking things will slow down ... let's just hope it will happen sooner than later.

Stink!

You know how every Monday morning you hear your alarm and think, "I wish I could just sleep in and lounge around today!"? Please tell me I'm not the only one that thinks that. Well, I got to do that today.

Although, I am only lounging on the couch because our wonderful school nurse sent me home after she told me I had a 100.1 temperature before the bell even rang this morning. I think teachers are SO lucky to have a nurse at their workplace. Without her, we would all probably just walk around spreading our germs even more. I woke up and wasn't feeling great but thought it wasn't bad enough to stay home AND I had zero lesson plans, so I had to go in. Well, I rushed around for 90 minutes to get plans made and then walked out the door and came home to retreat to the couch.

I had 5 kids out sick in my room, across the hall in Brenda's room, she was missing 14 (that's 1/2 her class) and her student teacher went home sick right before me, and Mitzi was missing 6. Next door in 3rd grade, one of the student teachers went home in the morning, too. The end of our pod must just be a breeding ground for germs & the flu. Yuck! Word from all the parents is that someone in the family has been diagnosed with H1N1, unofficially, because they don't want sick kids infecting others by coming to the hospital/doctor's office ... and then it just spreads between siblings, neighbors and friends. With 9 & 10-year olds that don't know how to "sneeze into your elbow" and "REALLY wash your hands" the flu is bound to spread and multiply quickly.

Well, my temperature has been going up and down all day (as low as 99.0 and as high as 100.8) and I'm home tomorrow again for sure. If my temperature isn't normal tomorrow, I have to take Wednesday off as well. While that sounds find & dandy that means I'll have to sneak up to school when everyone is gone for the day to make plans. Those of you that are teachers know how painful it is to make sub plans. I'd much rather just be there myself to teach.

Send your healing thoughts my way. My flu shot is on October 13th and I was hoping that I could make it until then. Clearly, that didn't happen ... but I would still like to get better ASAP!

I'm slacking on the blog, but not on much else.

Thanks (?) to my daily photo blog, I feel that there is nothing really worth blogging about without photos to accompany my words. I assume that the readers of The Bets Week Ever are also tuning into The View Across Town ... so I don't want to double up on photos. That has led to a long delay between posts here. While I do take photos EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. sometimes I'm taking pics just to get a post up & there isn't really a story to match.

Today there is a story, but no pictures to match.

I've been overwhelmed with beginning of school. At this time tomorrow night I will have made it through 2 full weeks that included:

26 new names to learn

1 Early Release day

1 Fantastic Friday

1 Back to School Night (2 sessions)

3 strikes given to students

1 broken shelf from a student making it a chair

5 days of recess duty

1 video clip played (about the Iditarod)

6ish times I've really raised my voice

2 students crying

1 fire drill

1 indoor recess

1 game played on the SMARTboard

8 chapters read of our class Read Aloud, Raymond & Graham Rule the School

2 library check outs

1 tornado drill

3 students with birthdays

8 homework assignments

3 sets of papers I've actually graded

30ish feet of laminating that I've cut out

6 nights of staying until at least 5:15pm

260 high fives given at the end of the day

300ish emails

100s of copies

437 times I've said "My turn! Turn off your voices. Listen to me." (Okay, it only seems like I've said it that many times).

Do you see why I haven't sat down to post lately?

The good news is that things ARE getting better. We are always scared at the beginning of the year when the kids don't know anything & don't know how to follow the 4th grade rules. It's easy to forget when the last time we had kids in our classrooms, they were doing so well & we had prepared them to move on to 5th grade. Every year it gets better ... and with a few more weeks of training, we will be like a well-oiled machine!

I'm still here ... I'm just a busier, more exhausted version of me being "here"!

Momma! I don't feel too good :(

It's August. That means 2 things to me. 1) It's time for summer to end and for me to go back to work. 2) It's time for Minners to get her yearly shots.

Neither are particularly good news, but Minnie having to get her vaccinations has NEVER been an easy thing. This is year 4 and we've always had issues since she reacts poorly to all her shots, I think mostly she's allergic to her rabies shot.

Last night, she knew something was up. She refused to lay down on the couch with me & instead found this spot on the staircase. Giving me the stink eye ... .. .

And then this morning, she didn't want to come downstairs, even when she heard me pour her food. She's a smart pup!

The car ride is normally a huge treat for her. She loves to sit on my lap (please refrain from lectures about how this is an unsafe spot ... I'd rather have her still, here, than jumping all over the car) and watch for the neighborhood landmarks she knows.

And, she's normally very excited when we pull up here, but this morning, I had to literally drag her out of the car & carry her inside. She used to love coming here because all the employees are so friendly & they know EVERYTHING about Minnie. However, the last time she went, I dropped her off for the weekend. First time to be there for more than a day.

I went inside to fill out paperwork, and I was doing my best to be positive & not let Minnie know how nervous I was. Every time she gets her shots, I get all worked up. She is my baby & I don't like to see her hurting. When I left, she tried to follow me out the door. One of the girls had to pick her up & take her in back.

While Minnie was getting her shots & staying so they could keep an eye on her, I decided to head up the street to get some more work done in my classroom. I worked very hard, from about 8:00am until 4:45pm. I did take time for a lunch break with my friend Chelsey AND a break to hang out with Amy & Griffey!

Finally, it was time to pick the girl up. They said she did great & if she had any reactions, to give her some Benadryl. I had to pull my car over on the drive home to put the little girl in the grass so she could get sick. Then, as soon as we got in the condo, her eyes started puffing up again. Poor thing!

Here she is telling me she doesn't feel well. You can't tell from this picture, but her eyes were swelling up, ears bright red, muzzle was puffing up, too.

Then, the Benadryl kicked in and she got a little nap in. The puffiness in her eyes went away, too.

She woke up & was panting to go outside & see the neighbors. I was on the phone with Mom telling her that Minnie seemed to be feeling much better & then she got sick again. She finally laid down on the chair & she's still sleeping away.

It's been a very big day for my little Minners & a stressful one for me. Every year, I hope that she's outgrown her allergies to the shots, and every year it hurts more and more when she feels crummy. Just wanted to share about our eventful day! The good news is that I made so much progress at work, that I'm not going back until Monday which means that I can stick around here & relax with Minnie!

Dog for sale ...

Ahhhh, yes! Back door open. Sun still shining. Home before 4:30. I might even get to take my sweet dog for a walk.


Uh ... what the hell is that!?!? I that a pillow? It's ripped up? The zipper is crumpled with teeth marks. WHERE.IS.SHE?!?!

There she is ... hiding from me up in the loft. She knows she's in trouble and now things are going to change around here.

Miss Minnie has slowly gained my trust and more freedom in the condo. We first started with her just in my bedroom upstairs.
Then, earlier this year, I came home to her chewing a spot in the carpet right by the baby gate that kept her in my room.
Then, we moved down into the back hall, because that was the only place in my condo that didn't have carpet. That, of course, meant that she was on a hardwood floor and behind a baby gate, again. That lasted a little over a month until I came home one day to find her on THIS side of the gate, with no clues to how she escaped.
Then, I decided that she really was just mad at me and wanted to have the freedom. For over a month, she's had the run of the condo during the day with perfect places to watch the happenings outside AND she could relax on her favorite pillow! She's three years old, surely she's outgrown some or all of her bad puppy behaviors ... right?

GREAT! Things have changed again. She literally pulled on the zipper handle to open this pillow cover and then started chewing up the stuffing inside. What possessed her to do this? I've been home before 5:00 every day since Spring Break. She's going to be really sorry tomorrow when she's back to her kennel :( I'm a grumpy Momma!

"It says he was an English Explorer ...

... that means he was from America, right? We speak English in America."

Oh holy research! We started a research project today in 4th grade that involves every student reading about and collecting "evidence" on one of several European explorers. We found after all 3 classes had a full hour of research in the library, that our kids DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GATHER INFORMATION FROM EXPOSITORY TEXT!

It was seriously terrifying! The kids had no clue that someone that was a French explorer would be from France; and Italian explorer would be from Italy; a Spanish explorer would be from Spain; and clearly they didn't get that an English explorer would be from England! They also had no clue that the two dates in parentheses after the explorer's name had anything to do with the dates he was born & died ... and some of mine couldn't even figure out that the later of the two dates was the date of death. Yikes!

We spent the rest of the afternoon moaning & groaning about how the kids don't know how to research and don't have the background knowledge needed to take notes over the correct information. I read the following quote recently on a blog I read, and I thought it fit the situation quite well:

"At which point did children stop going to school to ask questions and go to school to be given answers to remember?"

We are too busy teaching our students the information that "will be on the test, I know it will be, so make sure you are paying attention" that we don't have time for them to explore (pun intended) to find the answers to the questions they have about the world around them.

Something to chew on ... I'll step down from my soapbox now!

What I'm capable of ...

... when I leave work when my contract hours end at 4:00! Apparently, a lot! I was feeling bad about working until at least 6:30 the majority of the work days last month. I wasn't getting anything done at home, I was super stressed, and Minnie was taking it the worst! She started this new obsession with licking her paws CONSTANTLY. Seriously, it would wake her (and me) up in the middle of the night. Well, I did some online research and most people said it was a coping mechanism when dogs are depressed or have separation anxiety. Great. I broke my dog!

So ... I've been trying really hard to be productive with my day and leave as soon as possible, or at least by 5:00. Every night this week I've left early, and last night when I went to grade another stack of papers, I saw the clock had just reached 5:00, so I put them away and came home. It feels really nice. I can get more done at home at night and I don't feel stressed from working 11-hour days.

We'll see if it lasts, but I hope it does. I know a lot of it was due to Mom helping me grade a GIANT stack of papers last weekend. That helped me to be caught up with my grading for the week. Thanks!

Anyhoo ... this is the list of things I accomplished this afternoon/evening, and the night isn't even over yet!

• Came straight home from school to let Minnie out and change into cooler clothes since it was 79 (!) degrees out this afternoon.
• Go to the grocery store for the first time in weeks. I was down to canned veggies & hot cocoa in my pantry.
• Carry my groceries up the stairs (in one trip) and unload them.
• Unload the clean dishes from the dishwasher and reload all the dirty ones from the sink.
• Peel all the chicken off a rotisserie chicken & put away for meals this week.
• Collect all the trash from the whole condo & take it out to the dumpsters.
• Organize & add to my stash in my recycling bins.
• Make & put away lunch for tomorrow. This is HUGE since I'm always rushing to get it made before I run out the door.
• Take Minnie for a 45-minute walk.
• Make & eat dinner.
• Fed Minnie dinner, maybe even twice. At 7:45, I looked at her and honestly couldn't remember if I fed her earlier. I put food in the bowl & she scarfed it down. That doesn't mean much since she would eat the entire 20-pound bag if I let her.
  
• Relax to watch some great shows on TV.

Not too bad, huh? Now I just need to be this productive on all the days that I allow myself to leave work early!

P.S. I can't tell if I lost some of my regular readers. I know I wasn't posting every day, but I'm trying to get back in the habit of doing it. Are you all still out there?

I've been (self-)diagnosed with Grocery Store Sensory Overload

It's true! I read about this disease in a book.

Okay, it was less of an informative medical book, and more of a fun, girlie novel. :)

I started reading "Drunk, Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair" thanks to Mitzi & Jill passing it along my way. While I am not any of the things listed in the title, it's a pretty good book so far. I'm only 70 pages & 18 chapters in, and it's going so quickly, that I can pick it up when I have a few minutes here or there which is nice.

In the book, Laurie talks about how she has Cooking ADD (will start to cook something on the stove and completely forget about it until the smoke alarm is going off) and she has Grocery Store Sensory Overload.

I laughed out-loud at this part, because it is totally me! Here's what she has to say about her trips to the grocery store:

"I know I should go to the grocery store instead of the 7-Eleven, but I can't be trusted in that place. Left to my own devices I will spend a hundred dollars and arrive home with items that when placed together do not even make one complete meal. I'll buy Shake 'n Bake but forget chicken, buy milk but forget cereal, buy lunch meat and no bread. It just happens. The grocery store is big and the selection is vast and I come down with a case of vertigo every time I walk through the perfectly oiled sliding glass door.

And I love lists. I am a list-making fool. So I make lists for the grocery store on Post-it Notes, and on the back of the light bill, and even in a notebook bought solely for the purpose of holding my many lists. But even if the list makes it to the store (shocking rare incident, but it has happened), the list is not in the same order as the aisles, and I still have to walk around and everything is so pretty and appetizing and ... look! Lucky Charms cereal! Lunchables with mini tacos! Oreos with chocolate filling! Hey, I'm an adult and what fun is it to be on your own and paying bills and doing things like wearing panty hose if you can't buy Oreos? I would be denying my power as an adult if I didn't buy these! It would be a travesty! In fact, by purchasing Double Stuf Oreos, I am declaring my independence!

And dammit if an hour later I'm not standing at the check-out with coffee filters, beer, four frozen Lean Cuisines, a big packet of Oreos, and seventeen other items that make no sense."

Just this week I was at my neighborhood grocery store and ran into some of these same issues! I had a list, but of course, things weren't written down by the store layout. I had to make my way back to the first aisle 3 or 4 times for things I forgot to get while I was there. I've been shopping there for 7 months, you'd think I'd have this figured out! I was good, and I bought things specifically for recipes I wanted to make, but when I got home I wasn't in the mood to cook, so I felt like I had nothing to eat.

I think this means that we need to start up with our food swap again. Too much to do during the week to take time to cook a real meal for myself. Blech!

Overly overwhelmed

The last few weeks (okay, months) have been really overwhelming and chaotic. If you are a 4th grade teacher or a teacher in my district ... or a teacher anywhere in the country, you will understand.

The amount of stuff that gets piled on our plates is ridiculous, and sometimes I wonder if I have any time just to teach. That is what I'm supposed to be doing, right? The last few weeks, I've been staying late at work at least 3 of the 5 days. The last 3 school nights I've gotten home around 6:30 and still felt I could have stayed for 2 more hours if I didn't have a dog to take care of.

Even Minnie noticed that I've been working too many long days. Last week, I came home to find a hole that she so kindly chewed in my bedroom carpet. She has since been confined to the back hallway, the only place in the condo with hardwood floors. I wonder if she is sorry since the hallway has no natural light, no windows to look out of to bark at the cars, no comfy bed to sleep on and no Animal Planet to watch all day.

Tonight, I stayed at work to just get a couple stacks of papers graded (125 papers to grade = 60 minutes of grading) because I need to send home progress reports this Friday. I really wanted to stay and get my "corner" organized. What used to be clean is already a giant mess! It really takes a Saturday afternoon up at school to get things filed away and organized. Who wants to do that after you've already worked 50+ hours in that mess all week!?! I realized the other day that part of the paper-trail mess for teachers is that the papers literally multiply! I start with one original copy, then I make 25 copies for my students. I then get rid of them when I pass them out, but they come right back to me waiting for me to grade them. It's never ending. I can have anywhere from 50-250 papers waiting for me to grade on any given day. When is there time to do that?

I feel like I'm a first-year teacher again. Can't get caught up with grading, I haven't seen my plan book in months (shhhh!), I have lots of paperwork that is required to fill out and I feel like the Kansas State Assessments are creeping up on me and we are nowhere close to being ready! I just wrote all the dates down on my calendar today: 4 State Assessments, some of them with more than one section, it is about 12 hours of testing that starts in just about a month. I had a tiny panic attack tonight when I was driving home, when I realized that it is FEBRUARY! When did that happen??? We aren't ready for our tests that start on MONDAY! Ahhhhh!

Looking back over what I just wrote, it is all very scattered and scrambled and may not make a whole lot of sense. That is what my job feels like right now! Just had to get some of this off my mind, so writing about it was the best way to vent.

How are the rest of you teachers staying sane right now? Any tips for me?

Run, don't walk

This afternoon, Mom and I went to the Glenwood Theater to see Slumdog Millionaire! I always love to go to the Glenwood because they show the small, indie films, the theaters are small and the seats are the most comfortable in town. They took them from the old theater at 91st and Metcalf and they lean back and have soft seats, which I like.

The only thing that is bad about the comfy seats and non-stadium style seats is the close proximity to the other movie watchers. Mom missed it, but I was constantly annoyed by Mr. & Mrs. Chatty McLoudersons sitting right behind us. They felt the need to provide commentary for the movie that EVERYONE IS SEEING AT THE SAME TIME! "Oh Look! There's the bad guy!" "Is he going to die?" "What is he doing with that money?" "Watch out!" "I know the answer to that question!" I tried to turn around a few times to let them know that there were other people there to WATCH the movie, but they didn't seem to get it. They finally stopped when the credits were rolling (stay for them if you go).




A few people had told me how great Slumdog was, and I'm happy we went today. The movie is about two hours long, but goes very quickly! I think this is the only one of the movies that is up for a bunch of Oscars that I've actually seen.

For those of you that haven't heard much about the film, here is the plot summary from imdb:
A Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums, becomes a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" He is arrested under suspicion of cheating, and while being interrogated, events from his life history are shown which explain why he knows the answers.
The movie is so much better than you would think. It gets better and better as the flash-backs go on. It is funny, it is sad, it is full of suspense, and the film has a lot of heart.


The other part of the movie that I thought was amazing was the beautiful scenery. Not all of the settings were beautiful in a conventional way. Much of the movie was set in the slums of Mumbai like this photo and the aerial shots were amazing! Scenes also took place in the landfills, city streets, markets & even in front of the Taj Mahal (which of course was beautiful)!


You all should run, don't walk, to go see Slumdog! If you are in Kansas City, here is a site that shows where and when it is playing, but of course, I recommend the Glenwood! Let me know your thoughts if you go now, or if you've already been!

Excited to face my desk in the morning!

After much whining over the past few weeks (uhhhh months, no wait, years) about my messy desk, I had some help tonight!

The IT guy wrote me an e-mail last night telling me that I'd have to do some rearranging of my computer and desk in order for the new SMARTboard I'm getting to be hooked up correctly. Well, this would be a great reason for me to actually clear off the piles and get things looking nice again. You've all seen the worst from last year AND the best from this year. With a LOT of help from my good friend, Elizabeth ... it looks better than it's looked so far this year! She currently has a SMARTboard and is great with technology, so she knew exactly where all the cords needed to be and would be in the future when things got set up.

I stayed until 6:30 to get things organized and cleaned (yucky dust). I still have two giant stacks of papers on the floor that need to be filed, but things are definitely looking better. My desk might even be cleaner than Jill's desk right now. I know it won't last long, but at least I'm not dreading going to sit at my desk tomorrow.


Here is my beautiful new corner! We basically swapped my large desk and my tiny computer desk. The space now looks so much bigger! You can see that I still have a cord issue with one draping across the "walking" space to my corner, but I think that can be fixed.

Yep, you can see the piles to be filed there on the floor. That might be my least favorite "chore" at school. It takes hours! AND YES, I do know that if I just put the papers away once I was done with them it wouldn't take hours ... but I'm not wired that way!

Look! My desktop! It's been missing since the first week of school. The way my desk is now facing, I don't think I can have a bunch of stuff on this end of it, because it will fall off the back and onto the floor. That is a good thing. If you look closely, you can see my CuteOverload page-a-day calendar on my desk. It is one of my favorite Christmas presents and puts a smile on my face every day when I turn the page!

Had to share the exciting (maybe only to me) news! Hope everyone is doing well and staying warm. It's strange not to post every day, and I can't figure out how I did it every day! Just one picture a day is turning out to be a pretty good deal for me!