Time for a Nap

Despite the best efforts of Mother Nature, we did finally make it back to school on Wednesday.  Thank goodness.  We only have three snow days and none of us (well, except for the kids) wanted to use them all up before Christmas Break.  We did, however, have to leave an hour early on Wednesday due to an impending ice storm, but Thursday and today were pretty normal.

As normal as you can be for the last few days of school before two full weeks of freedom.

Mrs. Eagle and I (and every other teacher in the building) had to make some major adjustments to our lesson plans.  Two assignments that I'd planned to have due this week, won't be due until the week we get back in January.  That means that I'm more or less done with grades.

And man, does that have my kids freaked out.

All of a sudden it dawned on many of them that they didn't have the grades they wanted (but certainly the ones they earned) and they were running around in a panic trying to figure out how they could pull their grades up in under a day.

This just kills me.

Oh well, live and learn, I suppose.

The last half day (today) was actually one of the nicest and calmest half days we've ever had.  And, amazingly, most of my kids actually came to school.  We started off with the faculty vs. students volleyball game where the faculty, for the tenth year in the row, won.  (This just cracks me up - we're old.  We're decripit.  And we play one day a year.  And we still beat them.)

After that my kids had voted on watching The Sandlot, so we watched that, I popped popcorn, and for the most part, they were quiet and entertained.  We did have a break, courtesy of the PE department, where the kids went to the gym to run around for half and hour so teachers could have a break, and that was wonderful.

Now, time off to rest, knit, enjoy family and yes, even get together with Mrs. Eagle to work on some of our units for the remainder of the year.

Of Dads, Birthdays, and the Dreaded In-Service Sessions

Yes, I'm still alive.

I didn't really mean to neglect this blog for so long, but sometimes things kind of get in the way and I keep thinking, "oh, I'll do that tomorrow." So very Scarlett of me, I suppose.

In any case, my father has been up visiting for about a week. He lives a little over three hours away and tries to get up several times a year. For someone who's retired, trying to find free time where he can actually come visit is insane. This man is busier as a retiree than he ever was when he was working for the airlines. In between activities with his church, his hobbies, and traveling, finding time to come up to our neck of the woods is a challenge. So, when he's here I like to devote my time to him and tend to neglect the computer. After all, I realize that my parents won't be around forever, so I do want to maximize my time with them.

Even if it means watching NASCAR all freaking day.

Honestly, we had a bit of a heat wave while he was here, and it was brutally hot and humid so we didn't do a whole lot of outside work (we did, however, fix my yard gate which was a mess). Daddy is a handy-man sort of guy (and has taught me quite a lot), so in between daily trips to Home Depot, Lowes and Harbor Freight, we managed to watch a lot of NASCAR, baseball, and golf in air conditioned comfort.

I don't mind the baseball or golf one bit. In fact, I really enjoy baseball and have had a lot of fun watching the College World Series. And truth be told, the U.S. Open with Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate was amazing golf. But NASCAR is not my thing. I do, however, have to give my dad credit - he doesn't have a favorite driver. He likes anyone who beats Junior.

So Dad and I hung out, celebrated my birthday and Father's Day. Mr. Bluebird wasn't able to join us as he was up in Washington D.C. (or as he calls is, the "Lair of Satan") doing research at the National Archives. In other words, squinting for hours and inhaling very old dirt.

And then I had four days of in-service work. The first one, on podcasting, I took by choice because it sounded useful and interesting...and it actually was. The second one I took because I was the middle school teacher from the district that was going to a "train the trainer" session on our new standards, put on by the State. It was local (thank goodness) and had teachers from all over the middle part of the State, and actually was not, for once, a complete waste of time.

Which brings to mind the absolute worst in-service that Mrs. Eagle and I attended a few years ago. This was another one put on by the State and it was mind-numbingly dull. The major focus was a CD that the State produced that had all these very cool links and resources to help us find wonderful lessons that have lots of inquiry and align with the state standards. Not a bad thing at all except it was presented completely wrong. The fellow who did all the work to put together the CD basically sat up at the computer and we spent the whole day watching him click from link to link to link and talk about what he was doing. I wanted to put a needle in my eye. It would have been a lot more effective if they had let us play with the CD ourselves on computers.

Anyhow, I spent three days at this workshop and now will be expected to host some of these workshops (smaller versions, definitely not three days) to help our teachers become familiar with the new standards which go into place in the 2009 school year. There's some big, big changes in middle school science and the workshop really helped me get my mind around some of it. There was also a large section devoted to textbook adoption which should be interesting as new books are often the first thing axed when budgets are tight.

But hey, it's summer, and what else is a teacher to do on "vacation"??

If I'm on Summer Vacation, then How Come I Can't Find Time to Sit and Do Nothing?

I'll be honest. The end of the school year caught up with me and sort of took me by surprise. One minute it was late winter, and the next minute it was "Holy Crap! I've got to get grades finished!" I don't know where the time went.

So, here I am, on summer vacation, and I haven't really seen any vacation yet.

Oh yeah, that's another thing. Don't you hate it when people who aren't in education go on and on about how cool it must be to have three months off all summer to sit around and do nothing? I wish. First off, three months is a dream. I'll be back in my classroom by the end of July trying to get ready for our first full day - with kids - on the 8th of August. I think it adds up to something like nine weeks. As for doing nothing...I've already had one in service session, and I have about five more full days of in service before I head up north to do summer camp, then about two more before school starts. I think I spend more time in a classroom than I do on my deck.

Which brings me back to our topic. My deck needs to be painted - again. My white glider needs to be painted. I need to paint the porch. I'm still trying to finish painting two wardrobes I was given that will eventually become storage units in my craft room/office.

The same craft room/office I've been painting since March.

Last year we let the yard go to hell because of the drought. It did a beautiful job of doing just that. It looks much better than it did, green grass being something of a novelty after last year, but the weeds are amazing. And we had built some raised beds in the back yard that had no landscaping whatsoever but we never got around to putting anything in it. After all, with no rain, who wants to spend money on landscaping?

So I've been running to Walmart to buy bags of topsoil and trying to get these raised beds filled with something other than red clay and rock. Fun. And the wheelbarrow tire went flat so I had to get that fixed. And then I found a sale on daylillies at Lowe's and bought and planted ten of them. And then we're reseeding grass seed in spots that went bare over the winter and last summer, so that needs to be watered.

And that's just the yard. I need to mulch still, need to get more weeds under control and my riding mower is still in the shop so I'm push mowing this entire yard which takes two hours when the temperature is in the 70's. It will take much longer now that it's in the 90's.

I can't believe how many errands I end up doing when I'm not in school. I've been to the eye doctor, the allergiest, and the dentist. I've taken Morgan, my kitty with cancer, to the vet for a look-see. I've gotten a hair cut (finally).

I'm beginning to wonder when the vacation will start.