A Day of This and That

Thank goodness it's Saturday.  It felt great to be able to stay up late last night to watch movies, and not have to set an alarm this morning to get out of bed.

That was until I got a quick wake up call when my phone decided to start setting off some form of alarm that jarred me out of my glorious sleep.  Apparently, The Weather Channel has added a new feature to their app that now turns your phone in to a tornado siren whenever a severe weather alert is issued.

This morning, the warning was about flash floods.  

8:00AM, and I'm getting an alarm telling me about flash flood possibilities when I don't live near or around a flash flood danger area.

Thanks a lot, Weather Channel.

So much for sleeping in until whenever I wanted... and I woke up to another day of rain.  One of several this week.  What on earth is going on with this weather?

This time last year, we had 17 days of temps over 100 degrees and no rain for the month of July.  This year, no days over 100 degrees (thank goodness) but almost 6" of rain in the past few weeks.

Cra-zy!

It's been a long week.  I'm trying to adjust in to a routine of going back to work.  I've been in my classroom four out of five days this week.  And with all that time, I'm going to need several more days to get it ready for the first day of school.  Thank goodness I decided to go back two weeks early instead of waiting for our three work days right before school starts.  I may not get paid for the extra time I spend in my room, but it's worth the feeling of knowing that I'll have everything sorted and prepared...and not feeling like I've crammed stuff in to any open area never being able to find it when I actually need it.

That's what happened last year.  Being that my room was so new, I spent all of my time making it "pretty" rather than functional.  I devoted all my time to putting up bulletin boards, laminating posters, and arranging furniture to make it the most comfortable.

Well, after a week this year, I haven't touched a single bulletin board or laminator or even done much with the furniture except for putting it where it roughly needs to go.

All of my time has gone in to clearing out my storage cabinets, file cabinets, and boxes of stuff I stored last year for a rainy day.  I have successful cleared everything out, but I'm now tackling the task of going through the piles of stuff that I've got on all of the desks.  

I want a classroom that's organized, functional, and has everything at a hand's reach away when I need it.  Easier said than done when I've been collecting teaching stuff for the past five years, and now wondering what the heck to do with it all.

The amount of times I've said "huh, I forgot I even had this" this week is unbelievable.

But, I know I'll get there.  I'll get everything in an organized place.  I'll put all the binders together that I want to make that puts my teaching materials a flip away.  I'll get the bulletin boards up.  I'll get all of the furniture arranged to where it needs to be.

Eventually.

Today, though, I'm going to enjoy a normal Saturday doing things that I would normally do on a Saturday.  That would involve grocery shopping, cleaning, and reading.  Reading is new.. I just added that one.. but I'm hoping that it will start to become a habit so that I can start spending my weekends doing stuff that I don't have time to do during the week.

The weather is cool, so swimming is out of the question today.  I probably only have a few more weekends of that even being an option before it has to be closed up for the fall and winter.  Maybe it will get all hot again tomorrow, so that we can enjoy a day of swimming before I have to go back to work on Monday.

I wanted to say "Thanks!" for some of the emails I received yesterday about the post I wrote.  A couple of you were concerned that I was talking about my Peanut.  Well, I wasn't.  My daughter is growing up, but she's far from being the "woman" that I spoke about.  If it was her, I would have handled the situation much differently... like giving her a swift kick in the rear and locking her up in her room until she was 20.  

Kidding. Maybe.

As cute as I think it is that Peanut now has a "steady" boyfriend and seems to be very happy with the young fella she's "dating", I would never allow her to wander in to territories that I spoke of.  The first glimpse of any boy that didn't treat her like a queen and he'd be pounding pavement.  I mean that by him walking away.. but the thought of me pounding pavement with his head also comes to mind.

But thankfully, I have been teaching that girl pretty well... because being only 13, she has a good head on her shoulders.  Even though she was much too young to remember anything I spoke about yesterday, she knows all the stories.  She knows what I went through.  And she knows how I'd handle it if I ever found her with a boy that treated her with anything but the upmost respect and love.  Even at 13.

She hasn't really had many "boyfriends", and the boy that she started seeing at the beginning of the summer has my seal of approval.  They both treat each other like best friends.  They spend time together doing stuff 13 year olds should be doing... playing video games, watching movies, texting each other all day long, going swimming, hanging out at my house...so Momma can keep her eye out. 

I give her freedom, but conditional freedom.  She knows that.  She respects that.  It will be all over if she does anything to jeopardize that.

So, for those worried that my 13 year old was the subject of yesterday's blog post:  Rest at ease.  I would never and will never allow my daughter to go through something like that.

Alright, now I really have to go get ready...or I'll be grocery shopping all day and won't get anything else done that I need to get done.

Have a great Saturday!!

Jo