The Monday after

Yesterday was quite a day.  

I got the most bizarre injury ever.  I was simultaneously eating lunch and talking to Braeden on the phone.  I was having lasagna from the night before and it wasn't exactly hard, but I was cutting into it with the side of my plastic fork and the handle broke in a jagged fashion and cut my finger.  I think I'm the first person in the world to get a plastic fork and lasagna injury.

I told Braeden, "I'm really multi-tasking here.  I'm bleeding and eating and talking to you."

He said, "Why don't you get a bandaid?"

I said, "I'm starving."

Priorities.

I eventually got a bandaid and I have one on the other hand too because I cut a finger cleaning the church on Saturday.  I don't know.  Imagine how it would be if I led an actually dangerous life.

In winter I always spring a lot of leaks because my skin gets so dry and thin and now I'm jumping the gun and struggling to type with all these bandaids.

My students were either sneaking candy or being sort of naughty all day.  One boy was downright defiant.  I didn't enter into a power struggle with him.  I'm hoping things will improve when he's not strung out on Halloween candy.  If they don't, I'll have to take my mom's advice that she gave me once concerning a certain unnamed offspring.  She said, "You need to take the day off and show them who's boss."

I may need to with this student.

Sigh.

My class wondered what happened to Dreamer, Box and Dan.  They asked if I took them home.  I said yes.  It seemed like a more acceptable answer than the truth; I'd stuffed them in a bin on the shelf.  Better they think they are happy at my house.

They want me to do an elf on a shelf for Christmas.  I have different plans with my little elf door I got from IKEA.  (Also I bought a tiny wreath for the door at Hobby Lobby on Saturday because elves have to decorate too.)

One of my cranky students who is the 3rd grade embodiment of Eeyore said, "We'd better not do the elf letter thing at Christmas time."

I said, "I don't know what that is."

He said, "Good.  Because I hate it."

Of course he does.  He hates everything.

After school, I went to the office and asked Jami, the principal, a question about an app where you can send messages in different languages to parents.  (I needed Vietnamese.)  He hadn't used it and said, "Maybe you can ask the other teachers at the faculty meeting."

I said, "When's the faculty meeting?"

He said, "I forgot to send the email!" and he ran out of the room.

The faculty meeting started about ten minutes later.

Mondays are hard.

People sometimes kindly, undeservedly, unknowingly tell me that I'm doing a good job as a teacher.  Then I grade assessments like I did after school.  It didn't go well.

I need to reteach and then reteach some more.

Mondays are hard.

I came home droopy and Adam told me 1) he would make dinner and 2) there was absolutely nothing I could do last night that would make a difference.

And he was right.

But I told him I'd make dinner.  He still had miles of work to do and we'd already established I wasn't going to make any difference last night.

So I made dinner.

And I'm ready to try again today.

Unrelated, but here are some pretty pictures.  Because the world is lovely.

On Sunday Adam and I took a walk on the hill behind our house.

Then we sat by the fire pit and talked to Braeden and Anna on the phone.  We didn't have a fire, but it was still pleasant in the golden sunshine, under the red tree.