75 Degrees & Crazy April

See Cat Stressed

Today it is a rockin’ 75 degrees outside.  This is the first in a series of really brutal weeks that will make up my April.  I’m calling it Crazy April. If  I make it successfully through this week, I will be nothing short of very impressed with me. If I make it through the month, I am going to celebrate.

First, grades are due this week, by the end of the day Wednesday.  I was busy straight through the weekend, unable to get much grading done and none today.  That means that tomorrow and Wednesday, are the only two days I have to get grades in and I can’t do this during school hours because usually I’m sitting back watching t.v. and eating bon bons teaching.  I say, usually, because I have a student teacher in my room who is doing her practicum and thus, I am relieved of most of my teaching duties, but none of my grunt labor supervisory duties. 

Today,  all by my lonesome, I had to make sure all the invitations to our Math After School Club for 140 students were printed, folded, labeled and delivered to classrooms so teachers could send them out today.  That Club starts next week and will run through the end of the month. I’m in charge of organizing it.  This means I’m scheduling nine teachers and four aides, coordinating schedules, gathering materials, training, communicating and basically running my butt off (this is a good thing) to make this thing happen. Oh, yeah, and I’m also responsible for coordinating the snack.  Yeah, this ought to be good!

Today, was the start of our After School Science Club which will run all week.  I am teaching a play with stuff and get pretty messy Hands On Science Inquiry segment.  This, like the Math Club, will take up all my after school planning time.  Fortunately, I can rely on my student teacher for some of that.  I’m glad she’s so competent.  This entire scenario would be a nightmare if she were not.  I must make a point to thank her and tell her how wonderful she really is.

The big finale is the Professional Development Class that I will crash and burn teach on May First.  This one has me in fits…well…it just does.  There’s nothing worse than teaching teachers.

Of course, in addition to all these things, life’s normal demands still exist.  For example, tonight, my second oldest daughter told me her play rehearsals changed from being over at 6 to starting at 6 and going till 8.  This completely wipes out the plans I made with my oldest daughter to go shopping for a prom dress after she gets off at 6.  Somewhere in all this mess I have to fit in dinner. 

So, it is a rockin’ 75 degrees outside and I am not able to be out in it grading papers.  Instead, I’m here, offgassing some of the stress of my week and celebrating the fact that I made it through Day 1 of Crazy April. 

When it is all over, I’ll have a few additional dollars in my paycheck and this will be a great thing.  I’ve already decided that I’m buying 2 tickets to the Special Olympics Wine, Food & Chocolate tasting event on May 2nd which is the day after all this ends.  I’m going to treat a special friend ( identity yet to be determined) and I’m just going to go and celebrate a month well done.  But I have to get there first! 🙂

Seedling Stories in Good Company

Ack!  What I really want to do is take my time.  I want jot the words down quickly then go back through slowly to edit and rewrite choosing each word carefully.  I want to think about ways to creatively portray the events and capture the sights, sounds, scents, emotions of the experiences of the last week.  There have been many. 

Last night out with friends listening to a local live band was one.  Hearing updates from both Mexico Friend and Chrismas Friend were others.  Another story is poking its way into my gray matter like a small bean sprout working its way out of the earth.  I don’t know whether to refer to this friend as the Bag Lady or Roadkill Jill?  I’m stumped on that one. Maybe she gets to be both.

But what I really don’t want to do is delay this wonderful day anymore.  I haven’t time this morning to meander here.  I’ve got plans.  I’ve usually got plans but these plans are going to absorb most of the next two days and I won’t be able to multitask like I do with housecleaning, laundry and home maintenance.  I’m going wine tasting and will have a wonderful dinner which I do not have to prepare for myself. There will be a movie and breakfast and who knows what else? Most importantly I will be in great company.

You know, the kind of company where the other person actually shows up and talks.  The kind of company where the either of you can begin the conversation and it can go any direction and there’s never a dull moment.  The kind of company where the humorous, dorky and silly moves seamlessly to deep, thoughtful, reflective and back again without so much as a break in the conversatonal tempo.  The kind of company you’ve known for a short while but feel so at ease with that it is as though you’ve known them for years.  The kind of company that makes you wonder why you didn’t meet earlier.

Yeah, that kind of company.

The where and what about my weekend isn’t so significant as the how…and I’m looking forward to it all. 

So, I can’t even edit this piece (I’ll have to do that later) nor can I savor the process of plunking out the new Friendship Stories bursting forth in the soil of my muddy mind. The stories can wait.  Company’s coming, and you don’t meet this kind of company every day.  After all, that could, quite possibly, be the most interesting story of all, well, at least to me.

The Wild Mind and her seedling stories will be in Good Company today!