Friday, September 15, 2017

Life gives us melons

Whoa what a week(or two) it's been, I'm finally at a state where I can sit down and write without possibly saying something I'll regret. The school year was off to a great start and then, like always it got crazy. Not normal beginning of the school year crazy, crazy crazy. Three IEP's due in the first two weeks of school is insane, the only good part was to see my students do a superb job running their own meetings and helping me write their goals. That I must say was validating and way cool. Doesn't erase the fact that IEP's that early in the year is nuts. To top it off, some kid decided to light fireworks in the area and started a huge fire (over a 1,000 acres) causing the air quality to suck. Quite literally you'd suck in before you walk outside to avoid smelling the smoke. It was so bad that it was in the hazardous range (worst in the country at the time) so kids at school and Gage could not go outside. Try telling that to a toddler who lives outside. After a week of indoor play, we were all looking forward to the weekend when it cleared up just enough.

Schedules at school have been crazy too. The first few weeks (and sometimes months) of special ed are always like that, but it doesn't make it any better each time, I mean you have much of the school year and summer to forget about it. Either way, spending two weeks with almost no lunch breaks or prep time is not my idea of a great start. I'm grateful that I've got some great teachers that I work with, who understand and forgive me for any lack of my attendance.  I also have great paraeducators that make my job easier and appreciated.

Today the air quality went back down and kids had to stay inside. I didn't have to deal with it though, because I was at home taking a personal day to pack. Great way to spend personal days right? Yeah so a big reason for my grumpiness and irritation lately has been the fact that last Friday John got a call asking us to move out of our place within 30 days for the owners son. This came out of nowhere. One of the fortunate parts of where we live is that we're not expected to pay rent, just maintain the property. The unfortunate part about where we live is that we don't have to pay rent so that means no lease and that means they can take everything we've talked about and understood  and just throw it by the waste side when people make bad choices. Now I get that people have lives and responsibilities and that we had a great set up here. I get that people get sick and that we are not family. What I don't get is how people can just throw a single income family (with a baby) living on an American teacher salary to the wolves with no remorse because of someone else's bad choice and then act like we're strangers. We've done nothing wrong. The worst part is that we were concerned about the health of both owners and assumed that they weren't in a positive mental state. Apparently they are doing better and that had little or nothing to do with this situation. Oh and we were not told the whole truth, we found out unintentionally through the grape vine. Such crap. So now at the age of 30 and 34 we get to move back in with the parents. I'm grateful that we have a place to stay and that we're being accommodated well, but it's still hard to be happy about it. It doesn't help that I lost my cat while we were here. There are perks to being back in town and living so close to a high school for John so that's good. I need to process everything and accept it, which I'm working on but it'll take time. At least we're all healthy right?

I am ending the week in a positive state because I spent the evening walking in quiet Fall colors with the best child in the world who makes me smile so much. I'm also going to bed happy about tomorrow and what it has to bring, yoga and friends to name a few.  Onto a new week with hopefully less melons.







Saturday, September 2, 2017

Weekly reflections...first week of school down.

Well just like that I went two weeks without reflecting. Three weeks into setting my goal and I've stumbled. It's a goal right? So I can keep working on this weekly reflection thing. Anyway I'm sitting here in a coffee shop with a friend on the first Saturday of the school year. Two teachers who have worked their buts off all week and stayed up too late in deep conversation about education and our lives, while our kids played together and our husbands were in deep conversation about some ridiculous video game on their phones. Both of us full time teachers, devoted mothers, and typical learners (that may or may not struggle to balance their passion with time). Here we are after feeling tired, stressed, and agitated feeling successful and relieved to have devoted our Saturday to complete our homework, not to mention excited that we can now get back to our children and enjoy spending time with them without having our brains entirely clouded with worries and things to do.

It's only the first week of school and it will get better, but the season of weekend classroom visits and late night work after the kids have gone to bed is back. I'm happy I have a teacher buddy and mommy buddy who is on the same page as me and who's kids love playing with my kid. I love that our husbands get along too! Today was a much needed, productive, and enjoyable day as a teacher, a student, a mother, a wife, and a friend. The first week of school went pretty well (I can't complain) with just a handful of stressful situations that have or are working themselves out. Now I need to boost my exercise, me time, and husband time up. Gotta love the first week of school and the 3 day weekend immediately afterwards even more. I hope everyone enjoys theirs.