Coming up for air

I'm trying to take a moment to come up for air. So far I've been working for 8 days straight and don't really see myself taking a day off in the next week, possibly for 2 weeks. Because of the fact that I've spent most of my past days in meetings, I've had to spend evenings and a good part of the weekend getting my classroom ready for the first day of school on Wednesday.

Tomorrow is another morning of meetings, and then I head over to my school to try to pull together a simple lesson plan for Wednesday. The meetings have hit all parts of the the spectrum as far as their usefulness. At the top of the usefulness index would be the meetings presented by the publisher of our new textbooks. This was informative, to say the least. Going lower down on the scale of usefulness would be the county's presentations. This vacillated between very useful and 'wake me up when we are done.' Finally, at the very bottom, was the presentation by the state representative on standards. Seriously, dental work would have been less painful.

What I have been both delighted by and grateful for is the support being given to me by my colleagues. These are truly wonderful people. Not only do I have the great fortune to have an amazing mentor assigned to me, but our department head and another senior teacher have taken me under their wings.

What should I do this weekend?

So I need to plan activities for myself for the weekend. Of course, I'll be going to see the new Fantastic Four movie. I think I'll wait to see the Nancy Drew movie until next week. Monkey Boy has hinted that he wants to see it but can't publicly admit that he wants to see it because he's a 10 year old boy. So he needs me there to say that I made him go in case he runs into friends. Here are the other options:

• shop: I need to pick up a couple of twin mattresses for the new kids guest room I'm making out of the 3rd floor. Of course my shopping will not be limited to mattresses.
• read: I have a pile of books about 3 1/2 feet tall to work through. I would read at Starbucks to be near to a source of caffeine and to avoid soon-to-be ex.
• knit: I want to finish the blanket I'm making for Monkey Boy so that I can start a new project. Again, I would do this at Starbucks for reasons listed above.
• go to beach: I could work on my tan, read and check out the boy toys.
• 2007 Annual Georgia Sea Islands Festival: featuring storytellers, singers, exhibitions, displays, arts & crafts, musical groups and traditional coastal cuisine & desserts. This one is actually a must-do on my list.
• drag some friends to Mudcat Charlie's: seafood and boats. What more could you want?
• go to library and work on portfolio for teacher interviews: I want to be ready with lesson plans and stuff during my interviews.
• drive down to Daytona for day to check out the big flea market there: I love flea markets and this one is supposed to be huge.
• hide at a friend's house: This is my backup plan.

What do you think? I'm open to suggestions.

Strep is BACK in the House

Monkey Boy has strep again. Satan failed to notice that he was running a fever and had a sore throat during his visitation weekend, so he took Monkey Boy to the mall and swimming. Great. The good news is this bout of strep isn't as bad as the last one. His fever isn't that scary high fever. The bad news is he's out of school during a major standardized test and will have to make-up two days worth of testing in just one day.

On a more upbeat topic, my garden is looking gorgeous. I planted a small herb and tomato garden this year and already have flowers on one of the tomato plants. I added new cushions to the swing in the arbor and the confederate jasmine in just starting to bloom. And the converted grill works great!

Go over to my sis-in-law's blog and tell me what you think of the header. I created it out of a photo I took of her horses.