Back to work today I went. I feel like complaining about having to go back to work after a two week break is really bratty of me. I mean, most people would love to have a job where such breaks were just par for the course. But then I have to ask, why aren't most people teachers if that's the case? Hence, I do not feel bad complaining anymore.
It was miserable. Lila woke up two hours early because she heard me get up. She broke my heart with her separation anxiety and little footy pajamas. I started Weight Watchers today so my now "skinny" cinnamon dolce latte was not as thrilling as I needed it to be. And the complaints just fall out from there. I know. Woe is me. To make matters worse, Lila's nap schedule changed over the break. Now instead of getting up right around when I usually get home she is going down for a nap at that time. SO, here I sit anxiously waiting for her to wake up so I can spend time with her. Soon I am off to dinner with my friend Kim that I miss terribly. She didn't go anywhere. We just don't see each other enough anymore. So, I have decided dinner with Kim will save this wretched day. It does mean only seeing Lila for a few minutes, but she needs some daddy time and I need to see my best friend.
All of my complaining aside, it was sort of (only sort of) nice to get up, get ready, and make myself presentable before noon.
Showing posts with label job. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job. Show all posts
Monday, January 4, 2010
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Woe is me
So I have been a MAJOR grumpy pants lately. I think what happened is that the transition from mommy only to mommy with a job went a little too smoothly two months ago. Sara was here, it seemed refreshing to get out of the house and be productive every day, and I soaked it up. Yea I was upset that I wasn't with Lila all day every day, but it was shockingly manageable. And now I am having a severe delayed reaction. The dust of the beginning of the year has settled. It's no longer refreshing. Not even a little bit. Don't get me wrong...my perfect class is still pretty darn perfect. They make it much easier than it could be and I am thankful for that. The overwhelming amount of garbage that has to be done that goes along with being a teacher is where the nagging desire to be at home sneaks in. I know....yes I would like some cheese with my whine. I am saying all of this as one massive excuse for the lack of posting these days.
My feelings about my job aside, life is very, very good. Lila is still the perfect little girl baby version of Seth. She has taken to eating her toes, maneuvering herself around in her crib, and intensely staring at us while we eat. We solidified our status as sophisticated rednecks by taking her to a chili cook-off at our friend Josie's house for a GA game where she promptly "went to bed" on the floor in one of the bedrooms. We then decided to take a chance on actually tailgating in Athens with her. This turned out shockingly well aside from the massive blowout she had on her brand new, adorable baby UGA dress. Katie (7 months prego) and I left Athens before the game. I know it sounds pointless, but we got to hang out with people which was the goal. Seth and Brandon stayed and partied like rockstars (as much as two guys who rarely party these days can anyway). Our next adventure is going to last a bit longer than a couple of hours at a tailgate. This Friday we are heading to Boston to visit Kristin and Marc over the long weekend. I am nervous but very excited! Wish us luck...cross your fingers that she loves flying and colder weather as much as she loved tailgating.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
I'm a survivor
Yes we are heading into day three. I have survived the return to the learning cottage. Did I cry? Yes. Did I constantly look at my phone with her picture on it? Yes. Do I feel like the absolute luckiest mother to ever return to work because of my sister? YES. I wish I could afford to pay her an astronomical amount of money for the priceless life she is giving me this year. She brings LJ up to my cottage twice a day for me to feed her and we are hoping that will continue to work when the kids actually show up. I'll keep you posted.
My new school year resolution is to focus on the things I enjoy about my job. If you know me you know that my leap into education has been rocky at best. You also know that making the decision to continue to work and leave mini-Seth at home was TORTUROUS at best. So now that its here I want to feel positive and hopeful about as much of it as possible. Here is my list:
1. I only have 15 students as of now as opposed to 20 last year. LOVE THAT.
2. I hate teaching math. I suck at it. However, I am taking a new direction with math in the hopes that I will learn to like it more. Wish me luck.
3. I feel like being in the learning cottage is isolating and lonely a lot of the time. This year there are two more teachers joining the trailer park. I probably won't work with them much, but it's nice to see more faces.
4. I have hopes and dreams about what I am teaching that I haven't felt strongly about until this year.
While I am embracing this new attitude I reserve the right to become a raving lunatic in the coming weeks.
By the way, if you read this blog please comment. Even if you have nothing to say about what I have been talking about I would love to hear from you!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Random
PS - I know PS goes at the end...I just quickly want to say thank you to those who comment and who become followers...I love it!
1) I just finished watching Oprah instead of grading the mountain of papers I swore I wouldn't let pile up, and I just have to share. Three chefs from the food network were on helping three families spend less and make better meals. Usually when I see these types of things I react one of two ways. I am either overly eager to do exactly what they say or I think the whole thing is a crock. Luckily, today afforded me feeling number one. If you struggle with what to eat/make in general you should check it out....http://www.oprah.com/menu/food/menus/20090227-tows-celebrity-chef-recipes
SIDE NOTE: Seth and I eat the exact same meals every week and almost everything is grilled. However, we eat out A LOT. We eat out more so because we have this fabulous second job of cleaning doctors offices which requires one of us to not be at home one night a week (so two nights dinner gets tough). Anyway, I got in the habit of trying to go to the farmer's market every week and it has astonished me how much I save and how much better we eat. We are lucky to live 10 minutes from the market, but that doesn't mean it's "easy". The DeKalb farmer's market is one of the busiest, craziest, most amazing places to me. I don't know what half the stuff is, but the produce and meat alone make me feel like I am getting healthier every step I take in the place. I typically buy a crapload of fruits, make a huge fruit salad, and we eat it all week. I also buy our favorite meats, steak and chicken, marinate it when I get home and we grill that all week. I haven't ventured much further than fruits, meats, and vegetables because like I said, I don't know what a lot of the other stuff even is. Then, once a month I try to go to Publix to get things like toilet paper and such. AT ANY RATE (I am rambling), I find it hard to find recipes without random stuff I don't already have or typically buy. The Oprah show today gave me some GREAT ideas and when I made a grocery list from the recipes I had 80% of it already at my house.
SECOND SIDE NOTE: It is amazing what you can get accomplished when you don't want to work or get off the couch.
2) I try very hard to stay away from talking about my job on this blog because I just don't know who is reading and all that nonsense. HOWEVER, I have to share this little story because it truly made my day. My class has PE at the very end of the day and there is about a 15 minute mad dash back from PE to get everything packed up and everyone out the door so no buses are missed. At the very beginning of last year I realized quickly that I had to have a very specific, very enticing system for this 15 minutes or I would lose my mind every day at 2:15. I got the idea from another teacher in a learning college (aka, trailer) to turn off the lights and require no talking so the necessities can be done. I tried that and even I got bored. I did stick with the lights off, but I added a few things. Last year I decided that to keep the kids quiet and interested while some packed up and some sat still, we would play the game high/low. I call one group to pack up but it must be quiet enough to hear the high/lows being shared at the same time. Then I call the second and third group in a similar fashion. If you don't know what high/low is, it's a game where you simply share your high and your low of the day. I think it came from a movie....anyway, the kids LOVE it. This year, another aspect has been added to this 15 minutes and I honestly can't remember how or why. Basically, it's a super speedy version of show and tell. If the student tells me first thing in the morning that they have something to share, they can share it during that 15 minutes instead of doing their high and low. NOW is where the story begins:
Today, one of my students said he had something to share but it wasn't anything like a toy or something he could show. It was a story he wanted to tell. This particular child knows A LOT about A LOT of things, so usually his stories deal with how an explosion created Earth or the inner workings of an airplane. We were all in for a surprise today. His story goes something like this (my attempt at truly verbatim telling the story):
My cousin, who lives in Tennessee, came to visit and his grandparents took him to the Georgia Aquarium. They were having such a good time and when they got to the shark tank he kept telling his grandmother to keep a close eye on the sharks. She turned around a minute later and he was gone. They looked and looked for him and someone that works there finally said, "we found him!". To their surprise he was found in the penguin room hanging out with the penguins (Mrs. Burrow interjects and asks how old the cousin is to which the student replies "four"). His grandparents were so relieved! So they got in their car and decided to head back to Tennessee. The entire time my cousin looked very upset and nervous in the backseat of the car. Finally, his grandfather pulled the car over and turned around and said, "Ok, you aren't in trouble and we aren't going to tell your parents, but I just want to know how you got into the room with the penguins". My cousin sat there for a minute and then all he said back to his grandfather was, "I have one in my backpack". Somehow my little four-year-old cousin had a baby penguin in his backpack and they had no idea! (At this point the class is losing their mind with fits of laughter and never once thinking maybe this story isn't true). So my grandparents call the aquarium and they were told to drop the penguin off at the Tennessee aquarium. THE END.
This particular student is a fabulous storyteller but not in the sense of telling stories he makes up. He is very truthful and factual because he just knows so many facts. I am still awaiting an email back from his mother telling me if all of this did in fact happen. Until then, I am choosing to believe that somehow it did.
1) I just finished watching Oprah instead of grading the mountain of papers I swore I wouldn't let pile up, and I just have to share. Three chefs from the food network were on helping three families spend less and make better meals. Usually when I see these types of things I react one of two ways. I am either overly eager to do exactly what they say or I think the whole thing is a crock. Luckily, today afforded me feeling number one. If you struggle with what to eat/make in general you should check it out....http://www.oprah.com/menu/food/menus/20090227-tows-celebrity-chef-recipes
SIDE NOTE: Seth and I eat the exact same meals every week and almost everything is grilled. However, we eat out A LOT. We eat out more so because we have this fabulous second job of cleaning doctors offices which requires one of us to not be at home one night a week (so two nights dinner gets tough). Anyway, I got in the habit of trying to go to the farmer's market every week and it has astonished me how much I save and how much better we eat. We are lucky to live 10 minutes from the market, but that doesn't mean it's "easy". The DeKalb farmer's market is one of the busiest, craziest, most amazing places to me. I don't know what half the stuff is, but the produce and meat alone make me feel like I am getting healthier every step I take in the place. I typically buy a crapload of fruits, make a huge fruit salad, and we eat it all week. I also buy our favorite meats, steak and chicken, marinate it when I get home and we grill that all week. I haven't ventured much further than fruits, meats, and vegetables because like I said, I don't know what a lot of the other stuff even is. Then, once a month I try to go to Publix to get things like toilet paper and such. AT ANY RATE (I am rambling), I find it hard to find recipes without random stuff I don't already have or typically buy. The Oprah show today gave me some GREAT ideas and when I made a grocery list from the recipes I had 80% of it already at my house.
SECOND SIDE NOTE: It is amazing what you can get accomplished when you don't want to work or get off the couch.
2) I try very hard to stay away from talking about my job on this blog because I just don't know who is reading and all that nonsense. HOWEVER, I have to share this little story because it truly made my day. My class has PE at the very end of the day and there is about a 15 minute mad dash back from PE to get everything packed up and everyone out the door so no buses are missed. At the very beginning of last year I realized quickly that I had to have a very specific, very enticing system for this 15 minutes or I would lose my mind every day at 2:15. I got the idea from another teacher in a learning college (aka, trailer) to turn off the lights and require no talking so the necessities can be done. I tried that and even I got bored. I did stick with the lights off, but I added a few things. Last year I decided that to keep the kids quiet and interested while some packed up and some sat still, we would play the game high/low. I call one group to pack up but it must be quiet enough to hear the high/lows being shared at the same time. Then I call the second and third group in a similar fashion. If you don't know what high/low is, it's a game where you simply share your high and your low of the day. I think it came from a movie....anyway, the kids LOVE it. This year, another aspect has been added to this 15 minutes and I honestly can't remember how or why. Basically, it's a super speedy version of show and tell. If the student tells me first thing in the morning that they have something to share, they can share it during that 15 minutes instead of doing their high and low. NOW is where the story begins:
Today, one of my students said he had something to share but it wasn't anything like a toy or something he could show. It was a story he wanted to tell. This particular child knows A LOT about A LOT of things, so usually his stories deal with how an explosion created Earth or the inner workings of an airplane. We were all in for a surprise today. His story goes something like this (my attempt at truly verbatim telling the story):
My cousin, who lives in Tennessee, came to visit and his grandparents took him to the Georgia Aquarium. They were having such a good time and when they got to the shark tank he kept telling his grandmother to keep a close eye on the sharks. She turned around a minute later and he was gone. They looked and looked for him and someone that works there finally said, "we found him!". To their surprise he was found in the penguin room hanging out with the penguins (Mrs. Burrow interjects and asks how old the cousin is to which the student replies "four"). His grandparents were so relieved! So they got in their car and decided to head back to Tennessee. The entire time my cousin looked very upset and nervous in the backseat of the car. Finally, his grandfather pulled the car over and turned around and said, "Ok, you aren't in trouble and we aren't going to tell your parents, but I just want to know how you got into the room with the penguins". My cousin sat there for a minute and then all he said back to his grandfather was, "I have one in my backpack". Somehow my little four-year-old cousin had a baby penguin in his backpack and they had no idea! (At this point the class is losing their mind with fits of laughter and never once thinking maybe this story isn't true). So my grandparents call the aquarium and they were told to drop the penguin off at the Tennessee aquarium. THE END.
This particular student is a fabulous storyteller but not in the sense of telling stories he makes up. He is very truthful and factual because he just knows so many facts. I am still awaiting an email back from his mother telling me if all of this did in fact happen. Until then, I am choosing to believe that somehow it did.
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