Compare and contrast

 Since I have a one line a day journal, I know that last year on this day, I was still waiting to get my PET scan and surgery scheduled.  I was a mess emotionally and I didn't feel well.

Things are, gratefully, so different this year health wise.  I am not cured, but I am better and don't have anything scary hanging over me.

Last year, I mostly sat on the Buddy Bench during recess duty because I was so tired.  Now I walk around and chat and break up fights and tell them to stay away from the bees.

My class is different too.  Last year was a refiner's fire I guess because it was the school year of not fun things.

Last year, when I was walking my class down the hall, it seemed like the loud circus was in town.  This year, my class follows me down the hall like a little silent row of ducklings.  They are just...civilized.  

Last year my kiva was constantly getting knocked around and I was constantly adjusting it.  This year it just stays in its spot.

Last year, when I would ask the specialty teachers how my class had behaved, they would give me an exasperated, "Not well."  This year, they say things like, "Excellent!" and "They were great!"

Last year, I had a student who was nonverbal, a student who spoke no English, several boys who were wild and raucous.  I had major behavior problems.  I had lots of kids who couldn't read much of anything.

Yesterday, I had them read their story aloud and I went around and listened in.  They were all just dutifully sitting there...and reading.

I don't even know what to think about that.  

Last year we had wild temperature swings.  Sometimes it was so hot and miserable.  Now it is cold.  Still miserable, but different.

Eventually, hopefully, they will get it fixed and I think I will be sitting pretty.

I take it back

 For years we've been saying at school that we would rather have our rooms too cold than too hot.  We've been saying you can always put on a layer.

OK.

I was freezing yesterday.  

My classroom was 62 degrees when I got there in the morning and warmed all the way up to 67 by the end of the day.  That doesn't sound too terrible, except I wore sandals! (It was in the 80s outside and I had recess duty.)

I had a cardigan, but I was cold.

Our AC is fixed and (obviously) working really well.

What isn't working is the regulator.  It is just on.  And cold.

Guess who is wearing socks and shoes and taking a jacket today?  

Weekend

 For the second Friday in a row, I got sleep.  I went to bed fully at 8:00 which was my bedtime in elementary school and slept 10 1/2 hours.

Glorious.

Also glorious: some rainy weather.  I took a few pictures of the sky on Saturday.

We met up with Emma at Deseret Book in American Fork, because I had offered to buy her new temple clothes.  Her car was broken into last summer and her temple bag was stolen.  We interacted with two different ladies at Deseret Book and it was a wild time.  One of the ladies was super excited because she thought Emma was a new temple patron.  We let her down gently that her clothes had just been stolen.  Then the woman was horrified.  She was practically reeling from the atrocity.  She finally asked Emma where she had been when it had happened and Emma said, "I live in Salt Lake City.  It happened there."

This woman said, "Oh!  That's good!"

(In other words, Utah County = still safe.)

The other woman reminded me of Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest.  At one point, Lady Bracknell says, "To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."

This second woman looked at Emma and asked, "How were your clothes stolen?!?"

The ladies at Deseret Book are always a little scary.  First they greet you with such energy and then you seem to disappoint them every item you don't buy.

We went to lunch to celebrate making it out of Deseret Book.

I had Adam help me hang this picture:

This frame had been in my grandma's house.  She had pictures of "her missionaries" in it, grandchildren on missions (and one of my parents when they were in Nauvoo).  Since there were eight holes for pictures, I bought these maps of the eight places where we have lived. (We don't exactly live in Starr Valley, but sometimes.)

The frame is really heavy and of high quality, because it was my grandma's.  I usually find the cheapest frame I can find.  Here's hoping it stays afloat.

We had a nice Sunday.  Church and family history--part of the time I was preparing for our family reunion where we are each presenting about an ancestor.

Emma came over and we had dinner and Come Follow Me and took a walk.  She sang us part of a new song she is writing and Mark played a song for her that he had listened to recently.  We played a few hands of golf.

Sundays are good.

Today it is back at it.  Adam is home all week!  I am looking forward to that.

Grateful Friday

 Yesterday I was driving to work and got a phone call from Whitney.  She said, "No one died."

I didn't know how to respond to that.

She said, "I know it's early for you, so I don't want you to think anything is wrong because I am calling so early."

Then she explained that she was at Costco (in Atlanta, where she lives) and they had Esprit sweatshirts.  Did I want one?  Because she would buy me one and ship it to me. (She was there to witness the angst of me not being able to get one when we were in Washington in July.)

It was just the nicest thing and I said, "Absolutely!"

I am grateful for people that think of me and act on their kind impulses.

I am grateful for the torrential rain we had yesterday afternoon.  Monsoon season is a good time.  And we need it!

I am grateful Adam is home.  I wish he was home all the time, but at this point, I will take what I can get.

I had a student gift me with a book she had written (about her hamster).  A boy said he wanted to write a book too, but he didn't have any paper at home.  I gave him paper.  He wanted to do it at school and I told him that he could, when his work was done.  He kept doing everything except his work.  

Then he would cry when we would transition to something else and he didn't have time to work on his book.

Finally at the end of the day, there was a block of time that he was finished with his work and I told him he could write his book.  He had me staple it to his specifications.  I had to hear all about his pencil sharpener.  (I can't tell you how much I have heard about his pencil sharpener over the last week.  A loooooot.)  He finally got situated and said, "Hmmm.  It's actually hard to write a book."

He wrote about three words before time to clean up for the day.  I coaxed him to take his "book" home to work on.

Despite the sort of maddening characteristics of these people, I really love third graders.  I am grateful I get to be with them.

Speaking of third grade.  We had our first fire drill of the year yesterday.  One little girl is terrified of fire alarms.  Terrified!  She was in the special ed. room at the time, but the teacher told me she started crying and shaking and yelling, "I need Jesus!"

Same.

We all do and I'm grateful for the reminder.

And that's how wacky Wednesday began

 Yesterday my document camera was displaying my screen like a keystone.  It's a problem that I kind of know how to fix and kind of don't know how to fix.  I got one side going straight, but I couldn't get the other one straight.  Miriam suggested resetting the whole thing.

Then it was upside down.

(The bell is there because every day, one of the class jobs is to pick a picture to draw by their name.  It weirdly helps them to remember to put their name on the paper.  The student picked a bell and some of them didn't know how to draw a bell, so I put a bell on the board.  Like you do.)

During my lunchtime I plied Google for answers about my document camera and everything was for document cameras that are much newer than mine.  

I finally went to find Riley.  Staying in the custodian's good graces is the best advice I could ever give a teacher. 

He said, "Oh, yeah, that's an easy fix."

But then he struggled a bit to read upside down and I can read upside down easily--a skill honed by helping students at my desk.  Between the two of us, we figured it out.

Before I rest on my laurels too much, here is another thing to attend to....

Highs and lows

The lows:

I woke up feeling anxious.  No reason.  

I came home with a sore throat.  Too much talking.

I went to Walmart on the way home from school and I don't know if there is a worse time to go to Walmart (so busy) or a worse mood to take to Walmart (stick a fork in me and I am done after school).

Mark is sick.  We don't know if he was glutened or what.  He doesn't feel like eating and his blood sugar has been all over the map.  It is wearying to helplessly witness his health struggles.

Dolly Parton passed away.  I don't know if I have ever felt more sad at the passing of someone who 1) I didn't know or 2) isn't a church leader I have loved listening to for years.  I broke the news to my team while we were meeting, because Mark had texted the news.  They were stunned and sad as well.  What a legend!

I had two new students yesterday and I struggled to catch them up while I'm still trying to move everyone along as well.  I had them water color painting their self portraits at my desk while everyone else was doing other stuff and everyone needed me at the same time.  One of the painters spilled his entire cup of water on my desk and guess who is out of paper towels?  (I have put in a custodial request, but here we are.)

The highs:

Kim is back from her vacation and we are going to resume walking today.  I need it!

Every day, no matter what the day throws at me, I have a safe comfortable place to come home to.

Adam isn't halfway around the world, just across the country--makes talking easier.

Megan (the ILC coach) helped me get my students logged into their computers for the first time.

Fuji Apple Clear soda from Walmart is almost worth going to Walmart.  So good!

We had a very productive team meeting yesterday.  It was long and we were scattered all over the place, but at the end, we reached some actual clarity about things that had been percolating in our brains.  Alissa said, "Good sesh."

She wasn't wrong.

Finally, it turns out you can find something on Amazon to help you display the silver mounted bits your dad made you.

These are the days

 These are the days of paying the piper at home because last week I just collapsed in a crumpled heap after school each day and I have some tidying to do!

These are the days of our boys texting back and forth in our family group chat about who will inherit what.  (I think it's spurred on--pardon the pun--by the silver my dad gifted us with.)  It's funny to me that the business major knows exactly how to divide things advantageously for him, the PhD jokingly said Emma could keep the stuff and he would keep his "sense of superiority."

As for Emma, she was at work and didn't chime in.

None of it surprised me, is what I'm saying.

These are the days of starting actual curriculum at school.  I forgot how to access the phonics slides and I was answering so many email before school, I didn't have a chance to practice.  Jamie came in serendipitously and saved my bacon.

These are the days of Adam leaving again.  He flew to the East coast and then in a few days he will go to Nashville.  So in the span of a week, he will have been in Greenwich time, Pacific, Mountain, Central and Eastern.  On the way to the airport, he called me and said, "I am tired."

Shocker.

These are the days of absolutely baking on the blacktop during afternoon recess duty.

These are the days of looking longingly at the mountains for the first signs of autumn, my favorite season!

These are the days of my team and me walking into each others' classrooms and asking, "What are you doing for this?"  "Did we talk about that?"

We share a brain.  It's a good brain (collectively).

These are the days of Mark and I getting home about the same time.  "How was class?"  "How was school?"  "Dinner at 6:00?"  "Yep."  Then we went our separate ways like the introverts who haunt this place when Adam is away.

These are pretty good days.