On second thought...

It's only been a few hours since I wrote that daunting post and I'm already feeling bad about it.

I chose my career, and I LOVE my career.  It has, quite simply, been a long week. 

Here's to hoping I can learn some things along the way and next year this month (and next) won't be so discouraging.

It's been a rough one...

To be modest, this week has been rough.  Endless days, sleepless nights, daily meetings, early mornings, and work like I've never known it.  I haven't spent much time with my husband either, and that's always draining.  Between my insane week and his evening work schedule, we've managed to miss each other most nights this week. And to top it off, we're out of food.

The kitchen is a disaster (it's probably not the only disastrous room in the house, but I haven't ventured into other rooms this week), I need to do laundry, and as previously mentioned.... groceries are few and far between. 

This morning I taught at our school's Saturday Academy.  I'm glad I'm doing it, and it's only a 6 week commitment (today was week 2).  I got home from school a little after 11:00 with a million things on my mind to be completed before Monday and quickly realized it wouldn't get done at home, and I didn't have any food to sustain me.  I packed my bags and headed to Panera. 

I've been here for 4 hours, got a few of the more serious and pertinent items completed, but in all only crossed 7 things off my "to-do" list of 23 things.  It's the truth.  And I know this is rather gloomy, but the light at the end of the tunnel is 2 weeks and 2 days away.  And even then, it's only a temporary 4 day Spring Break.  Oh yes, 4 days.  The rest of our break was taken away to make up excess snow days.

Lately I've been wondering what's it's like to have a job that doesn't come home with you.

V-day

I'm a day late - but yesterday was Valentine's Day.  Eric and I don't celebrate the day.  I find it quite disgusting that chocolates, flowers and balloons can be twice their average price on this fancy holiday.  If you want to buy flowers, great!  But do it on a different week and save a buck.  Anyway, we were in Target on Saturday so we picked out cards for each other, traded, got a good laugh from the cards we had chosen, and placed them back on the shelf.  And that was our extent of "celebrating."

I planned a Valentine's party at school basically because I knew the kids would want to trade cards.  So I sent a little letter home about our party with everyone's name so students could accuractly address cards :)  I let parents know that I would be making cupcakes, and they were free to send other goodies if they chose.  I expected a few bags of chips.  I was blown away!  The "goodies" just kept coming!

Also new to me, the way kids show appreciation for their teacher.  Here's a taste of my gifts from the day.  Though most of these are trinkets you could pick up at any dollar store (except the carnations, and single rose), I do feel loved and appreciated.  Especially so with this obnoxious pink-heart mug.  The precious boy said, "I wanted you to have this for the tea you drink everyday."  Awww!  I had to re-heat my tea about 5 times today before it was gone because it got cold so fast, but I just had to use the mug.  And the child had a huge smile across his face all day long. 

I do love teaching.

Atlanta Weather

I've been watching some of these reports - they're all good, if you're interested - but I just had to post this one.  It compliments my utter frustration over the weather.  And while I know I don't live in Atlanta, the weather is similar enough for this to be accurate.

Snow Days

Today I was reviewing my blog from last January (2009-2010) and found a post about snow days.  After just 4, I realized I was unproductive, irritated, and needed something to do.  Well friends.... today officially marks snow day #11 of the 2010-2011 year.   Yep, you heard right... 11!  Not only that, but we've let out early on 2 other occasions, really making a grand total of 12 snow days.  How much snow, you ask?  Oh, an inch here are there.... once we got 3 inches.  That put us out of school for the entire week.  Anyway, just imagine how I feel now. I try to be ambivalent.  I mean, there really is nothing I can do about it.  But it's hard.  I hate that school is cancelled when it's 40 degrees and sunny and seriously all snow except what can be found hiding in dark sheltered and shadowed crevices is MELTED.  I hate that we can't seem to string together 5 uninterrupted school days.  I hate the lack-of-anything-structured that leaves my children running around like they simply forgot how to do school.  I hate that after-school tutoring and Saturday Academy have also been cancelled far more than 12 times due to additional "fear of snow" warnings.  And I hate that my summer break is getting shorter by the minute. 

Here's to 2011.... Please get better, soon.

Fall 2010

So it's been a while...  Here's the Reader's Digest update:

We moved ... a whopping 5 miles!  New apartment, a little quieter, and we love it.

I'm teaching 3rd grade at a school 2.5 miles from our home :)  I love my school and my class.  It has been a great transition.  I'm in the midst of report cards right now.  This is new, I feel like I've put in 12 hours and have finished one.  Here's to hoping the rest move a little quicker. 

This week is fall break!  WHOO-HOO!  While I technically have the week off, I'll be spending the first part of the week doing school-related tasks.  In better news, the hair apt is scheduled for tomorrow, so that should start my week out great.  It should end on an even better note as Eric and I will be spending the weekend in Asheville, NC next weekend. 

In health-related news (which I'm sure you're dying to hear), I stopped drinking coffee when school began.  My main motivation was that I don't have a break in my day until 11:45 (school starts at 7:45) and I couldn't drink coffee and make it 4 hours with no restroom break.  So in the place of coffee I found it quite fitting to add Diet Dr. Pepper to my afternoon routine.  School ends at 3:00, popcorn enters microwave at 3:15 and Diet Dr. Pepper promptly follows.  I find this "one-a-day" to work well.  To my dismay, I recently read on facebook (the source of all true information) that one carbonated beverage a day increases your likelihood of developing Type II diabetes by 83%.   Ugh.  What will I drink now?  Water... all day? 
*If anyone out there has research to support this statistic, I would love to read it.

Our home is an utter disaster.  While I've never experienced such a cluttered mess, Eric says he's proud of me for leaving it this way.  I think it's his attempt to steer clear of cleaning duties!  Teaching has been overwhelming which has forced me to let our home fall through the cracks.  This week should at least move our status to "controlled chaos," and if I'm lucky to "tidy." 

On that note, I should get back to report cards, so I can finish by Wednesday and still have half-a-day to clean before we leave for Asheville!

Flood

Several friends and family have been asking about our well-being as related to the recent floods in Nashville. Here's the story and a few photos. As most of you know, Nashville received 15 inches of rain in a 48 hour time period (Saturday and Sunday). We realized it was raining hard when a friend of ours called Saturday evening and asked if we were still coming to hang out due to the interstate being closed. We had no idea, so we turned on the news! Sure enough, the interstate was closed due to flash-flooding and more than 70 vehicles were trapped. As it unfolded from there, we kept getting word about more and more things/streets/buildings flooding.

This first picture is Saturday evening. We were trying to make a home-made pizza and ran out of flour (I know, what kind of wife am I?!). We drove literally 1/4 of a mile and it took 30+ minutes. This is our street.
The rest of these are from Sunday. Here you can see our swing set and the actual swings are under water. You can also see the top bar of a fence toward the center of the photo.


This picture shows water coming right up to the porch of another apartment. This is NOT our apartment, but is in our apartment complex.



Here is another shot of the playground. The top part you can still see are the monkey bars.


This picture is late Sunday afternoon/early evening. You can start to see the swings again... the water was starting to subside.


In all, we are fine. Our whole city is on a mandatory water conservation effort. Schools have been cancelled thus far and many, many homes are still under water. The damage is far more than we can begin to comprehend and it really seems surreal. Eric has been out making sandwiches for shelters and he's out today delivering water. We continue to help where we can, and stay out of the way where we can't. If you haven't already seen some of the pictures of downtown, or Opryland, I encourage you to visit http://www.wsmv.com/ for more information/photos/videos. You can also visit the Red Cross for information on how to help.