It's calling my name!

What is, you might ask? My bed. That's what. I LOVE MY BED, and I dare say that it loves me, too. Yes, people, I do. I think I say it every night when I crawl under the microsuede comforter in between the super-soft sheets and lay my head on my perfectly-soft-but-not-too-poofy pillow. Ah. It's got to be one of my favorite places in the world. I could stay in bed all day if I had the chance, only getting up occassionally for sustanance and to use the bathroom. (I've done this before.) So, why am I not in my bed now? Why am I not answering the call? I have the wonderfully portable laptop, and I just got home so Taylor's not here. Why am I not enjoying my favorite place in the world? Because, I'm afraid if I were to lay my head on my pillow for a split second this afternoon, I'd be gone for the night. I AM EXHAUSTED!

I'd forgotton until about a week ago how much teaching takes out of me. I feel like I've run a marathon today! Ooh, you know what would be a good experiment? I need to get a pedometer and wear it one day while I'm teaching to see how many miles I walk in a day. Hmm....maybe I'll do that. I bet it's a bunch. ;) All you in the teaching profession know what I'm talking about! I sat at my desk once during my lunch break and after school today AND THAT'S IT! Whew!

You can probably tell that my mind is mush right now because I'm just babbling. I don't know why I felt the need to blog in my current state, but I just thought it would be nice to update for all of you folks who haven't given up on me yet. Hopefully my body will get used to this teaching thing before too long and I'll be able to get back to my normal blog routine. Until then, bear with me, please!

Favorite Moments...

from my first week of school.

~I had duty Monday morning and was talking to a group of kids outside. One of my students (whom I'd met at open-house the week before) walked right up to me and stood there for a minute. Then he looked at me and said, "You look like you're a nice teacher," and smiled. What a sweetheart!

~When we were sharing things about ourselves, one of my kids told me his nickname is Bacon. "Cause I got so dark this summer." Huh??? This kid is a trip! But so funny!

~We do a Bell Ringer after the kids come in from lunch...something for them to work on right when they come in so they don't wreak havoc before the tardy bell rings. I had previously called it "Bell Work", but this period I called it a Bell Ringer. One of my girls said, "Huh? What's that?" After I told her, she gave me this funny look and said, "6th grade teachers sure do have some odd vocabulary, Mrs. James."

~Yesterday while having a discussion about whether or not newspapers have become obselete in our internet/radio/tv-infused society (to my students, this reads, "should we read newspapers or not?") one of my kids (the Bacon one) said, very seriously, "Well, I'm not trying to be funny or anything, but they come in handy when you're on the throne. I mean, sometimes you get bored."

~ Today we were doing a map activity. I was giving the kids instructions orally, only saying each instruction ONCE, (this was SO hard for some of them!) and they had to place the things where I told them to on the map. Ex: Draw a river from the north end of the paper to the south end. Draw a tree east of the river. Draw a school north of the tree and west of the river. Etc... Anyway, my last instruction was for them to draw Mrs. James anywhere on the map. Oh, man! Did I get some laughs out of this one. Here is where I showed up...hanging from a tree in a tire swing, lounging in the hot tub in the house, laying out tanning on a boat in the river, in the fish's mouth, and many more! What a sense of humor these kids have!

~ This morning I had my kids write a response to something I'd read aloud to them. I asked for half a page and was walking around observing while they were writing. This one kid (Whom people have told me was a terror last year...cussed out his teacher, etc) hadn't written ANYTHING, and about the 4th time I walked by him, I tried to get him thinking of what to write and said, "When I walk back over here, I want you to have at least one sentence, okay?" Well, I walked over, and he had 1/2 a sentence. Instead of getting on to him, I decided, hey, I'll encourage the kid. So I said, "You're almost there! That's a great start!" The next time I walked back, he had a few sentences! Again, I encouraged him. "You're almost at a half a page! Great!" Finally, he reached his goal. He raised his hand to call me over to look at it. I read it and told him great job, he was done now. He looked at me, smiling, and said, "Can I write some more?"

This has been a great week!

Update!

Praise God! Apparently all the prayers have worked, cause even though I have had SOOO much to do this week (and, by the way, still have quite a bit left to do), I have had the most incredibly positive attitude about it! It's awesome.

So, if anybody cares to know, the second year of teaching is already about 1.5 million times better than the first year for me. Not that I had a bad first year, but it's the FIRST year. The first year in any job is a little stressful, right? New people, new policies to learn, etc. All that equals stress. This year, I'm much less nervous. I'm actually excited about getting back to school! (I SAID I was excited last year, but I lied. Really I wasn't at all. I was just a big bundle of nerves.) SO, this year is better.

I apologize for putting my blog on the back burner this week. I have been really busy at the school. It's almost 8:00, and I just got home. But I got a lot done on my room today.

I'm excited about school. Yes. But I miss summer already!!! I miss being able to blog whenever I want to. I miss hanging out with friends during the day. I miss watching movies and sleeping late! Summer's great! I guess I can look forward to next summer! (Which, by the way, I have already begun making plans for. I'm going to take the long journey to White Hall and spend gobbs of time with the Parkers and their new baby! Suzanne warned me that I'd be washing sippy cups the whole time I was there, but they're worth it!)

All the time I have for now. I've got to do the dishes and eat supper. Until next time...keep praying!

Panic Attack #1

It's 6:22, and I've been up since 4:15. Around 5:30, I gave up trying to get back to sleep and got on the computer. I've got a workshop at school this morning, so my alarm will sound in approximately 8 minutes to start my day.

So, I had the before-school panic attack about an hour ago. I had several of these last year, but this was the first one so far this year. I lay in bed, just thinking of all the things I should've been doing to prepare for school, and, am I crazy to have waited this long to plan the first day, and, there's no way that I'm going to get all this stuff done before next Monday, and, I have no idea how to hook my AverKey up to my computer, and, I got SO many ideas of stuff to do at wkshops this summer...I just need to process it all and actually use it, and, I need to get my bulletin boards up - why did I wait this long to do that? And... WOW. Then I took a deep breath and thought, I can do this. I did it last year. I was even LESS prepared last year than I am this year, and I got though it fine.

I hate the pre-school panic attacks. I'm sure I'll have a couple more before school starts back up. Pray that God will give me peace and confidence!

The Andrews Family Reunion...in Numbers

about 40.....people attended.
about 30.....people I'd never met before.
1...nap I took on Saturday.
1...baby! Eli - he's so cute! He's on the verge of crawling!
2...babies-to-be. One of the relatives was pregnant with twins!
25 billion....calories I ingested over the weekend.
5...times Taylor and I almost got into a fight in the kitchen. (He was in charge, and I have problems with authority...)
1...great jazz quartet performance
15...times Taylor was complimented on breakfast! He did a GREAT job!
1...thing we left in our kitchen at home...the sink. We packed everything else.
4...games of RA I played. RA is a card game that Taylor's bro taught me...really fun!
14...hours of sleep I got from Thursday night to Sunday. (about 4 hours each night and a 2 hr. nap)
1...family fashion show
14...dozen eggs eaten for breakfast over the weekend!
1...wedding reenactment for the wedding anniversary of one of the couples. No planning, and it went off without a "hitch"!
75....pounds of flour Taylor bought at Sam's before the trip. Yes, we've got a little left over. ;)
2...things we forgot to bring. Sugar and napkins.
10...hours we drove total there and back. Not too bad.
0...times we got lost! Taylor's GPS is growing on me...it really helped us get there.
15...seconds I stood in the FREEZING cold river before I had to step onto a rock to get out of the water.
3...pugs. Those puppies were so cute!
10,000....times I laughed. Taylor's family is great!
3...years I have to wait until the next one.

OK Go

Ok. Quick sidenote to the previous post. Apparently this group of guys dancing on the treadmills is a real band. OK Go. I thought they were just some random guys. Who knew? (Probably everyone but me...that's what I get for not having cable.) Anyway, I like their music...the two songs that I've heard, anyway. They have several videos on youtube and they even have a blog on blogspot. What a small world, huh? (Can you tell that I still can't sleep tonight?)

Something Silly

So it's about 10:50 and my hubbie is sleeping. What am I doing? Watching videos on youtube. I found this one, and I think it's pretty funny. For some reason, I'm reminded of Napolean Dynamite.


Treadmill Dance


Maybe we should start a treadmill dancing team in Monticello. Whaddya say?

I'm melting, I'm melting!

These famous words were screeched by none other than the Wicked Witch of the West as she was melting away into oblivion. You remember? (Can't you just hear her voice in your head?) I feel that if my summer vacation could talk, (ah, if only...) it would utter these same words of defeat. It's getting smaller and smaller by the minute! Last week I had two more weeks left...and many of the days were going to be free days - nothing to do but enjoy my rapidly disappearing summer. But, alas, this was not to be. Suzi called me last weekend and asked if I could keep Josh again Monday and Tuesday of this week. Of course, I said yes, but now my free days this week are gone! Oh, the horror!

I really did enjoy keeping Josh, though. I won't bore you with the details of all that happened this weekend. I'll just mention two new things that Josh is doing. First, he's got a new dance step: the moonwalk! (Okay, he doesn't do it when he dances, and it's really just walking backwards, but moonwalking sounds funny, right?) He always gets this silly grin on his face when he does it. He'll start in one place and take tiny, fast steps backwards. Then, he'll run back up and do it over again! Hilarious! Also, he's started this thing where he'll crawl on the floor with his forehead down on the carpet. He just crawls toward the couch or the wall or something, dragging his head facedown on the carpet until his head hits whatever it is he's headed for. Then he bursts out laughing! That kid is a trip!

It's late, so I'm going to stop now. In the words of Josh, "night-night bye-bye!"