Knee jerk leads to what a jerk!

Mr. Grumpy - courtesy of http://www.mrmen.com

It’s Saturday morning and I should’ve been writing for over an hour, but I’m just starting right now. I have successfully distracted myself with various interesting, but not necessarily important tasks this morning. It has been a crazy week and I should have done the smart thing last night and simply gone home, gone downstairs to the basement to my incredibly messy work area and tried to work before going to bed on a Friday night at a sensible time, say nine o’clock. But, I didn’t and I ended up making an idiot of myself and staying up far too late.

As I mentioned it has been a doozy of a week. Overall, it has been good and I can count several successes along the way. I have wanted to write several posts in the seven days since my last, but they have ‘died on the vine’ and I’ll have to move forward and on to today.

It was the equinox yesterday and I am sad. I should’ve been sad at the time of the Summer Solstice when the days started getting shorter, but I waited until we were at half sun – half-dark for the sadness to set in. It’s officially fall and it means cooler temperatures are on the way; for the most part, they are already here. It’s 51 outside now and it’s only supposed to climb into the low 60s this afternoon. Olivia has a softball game at 11:30 and it will be nice to watch and cheer in a sweatshirt. I have a bunch of tasks to work on in and out of the house today. It will be nice to get a few of them checked off before the big game – the Aggies vs. the Cowboys. It comes on at 2:30. Officially, we get 12:05 of sunlight today that is twelve hours and five minutes between sunrise and sunset and that is three minutes less than yesterday. They’ll get a lot shorter before they getting longer in late December. The good news is, even though it’s fall, the leaves haven’t started to fall yet and today’s yard work consists of picking up dog poop, picking up sticks, and mowing the lawn. I won’t spend a great deal of time on any of those tasks.

Ivy is looking for something - most likely a critter of some sort.

Speaking of dog poop, the official score is Ivy 1, Raccoon 0. Last spring, I repaired the vent spaces along the deck and effectively sealed the deck to keep critters from getting under it. But, last week Ivy was very interested in something under the deck.  There is a water spigot and an access hole we leave open (and probably shouldn’t) and Ivy would walk over and peer into it with great interest. I hoped it would move, and made a mental note to work on it in the coming weekend (that’s this one), but Ivy beat me to it. Thursday morning I could hear something, but I couldn’t see it. Ivy was very agitated and wanted to go outside. She sniffed, pointed and I pulled her inside because I had to go to school. Being late to your teaching job (or any job, for that matter) because your dog is sniffing critters under your deck is not an acceptable reason to be late – funny, amusing, but not acceptable. I went to school and put the thought out of my mind. I had a meeting after school and I called home to check-in and that is when I got the score – Ivy 1, Raccoon 0. Beth filled me in on the incident and evidently Ivy corned a raccoon and Beth had to call animal control, a wildlife rescue center, and eventually the police to come rescue a wounded possibly ill and very frightened raccoon. I am glad it was a raccoon and not a skunk, which left us a surprise one winter morning a few years ago. I’d been worried that Ivy would get into a tussle with a ‘coon because despite their looks they can put up a fight and put a hurt on a dog. ‘Coons  and skunks aren’t the only wildlife we’ve had in our yard or under our deck over the years, there are coyotes close by and I’ve seen a fox and even a wild turkey cross our backyard.

As for school, it was a hectic week and I stayed late Friday afternoon and into early evening to finish grading papers and update grades. It is progress report time and I can report all is well. I am keeping up my end of the bargain and so are most of the kids. I could have stayed and worked a couple more hours last night but I elected to pack up the geography projects and fiction tests and grade them at home. Bad decision!

Mr. Bump courtesy of Google - one of 16 Google doodles for 5/9/2011

We’ve had 23 days of school, so far and the kids have really impressed me. This past week we worked on writing project – writing a paragraph based on the premise of the Mr. Men and Little Miss by Roger Hargreaves. I led off by sharing my collection of books and the Google doodle from May 9th – which would have been Hargreaves’s 76th birthday and that reminds – check out today’s Google doodle! As for the assignment, it was to write a descriptive paragraph and the purpose is to teach the writing process and essential parts of a paragraph – topic sentence, supporting details, and a concluding sentence. It’s just a downright fun project and the kids always have a great time with it and I sneak some actually learning in while they are not looking! I model the process with them and this year, rather than selecting my own topic, I allowed them to help me brainstorm a possible topic for me. I picked the topic from their list, which included necktie, happy, loud, smiley, Language Arts, boy, teacher, blogger, and a few others. We settled on necktie, which I suggested should be changed because Hargreaves’s books are usually titled with adjectives and necktie is a noun. I usually wear a necktie and try to wear a different one for each day of the week. So far this year, there have been no repeats. As for the replacement name, someone suggested fancy, another suggested snazzy and that was it – snazzy. I am Mr. Snazzy. I’ll be publishing my book later this weekend. They turned there’s in Friday and every student turned there’s in, impressive!

And that leads me to Friday night and Friday night football. The Tigers have spoiled us. After two years and two state championships, and only one loss – the team is struggling. Last week, we saw them go to defeat for the third time this season and fall to 1-3. Friday night’s game was against a perennial power and a local rival. The Tigers ended up winning 14-7, but it wasn’t pretty. And I ended up –having to apologize. Sometimes, I should really just follow my instincts. But, I didn’t. I won’t go into the details because it’s just too personal and too embarrassing. However, I am going have to apologize and say I messed up.

Today is gonna be a great day, possibly the best day (Saturday) ever. Making the Days Count, one day at a time, and even one (or two, or more) apology at a time.

Have you ever (or care to share) made a fool out of yourself and had to apologize? What was the hardest part – admitting it, or saying you were sorry?

3 thoughts on “Knee jerk leads to what a jerk!

  1. Of course – I’m 52! Couldn’t have gotten this far without messing up somewhere along the way. I figure the ONLY one who hasn’t made a mistake is the Lord, and, sometimes, I even wonder about him (he did make us!!!). Hardest part? Admitting it to myself. Saying sorry is hard, too, but…REALLY meaning it is harder. I so hate when people apologize and you KNOW they don’t mean it.
    So…you admit it, really mean it when you apologize for it, and carry on. We’re all human 🙂

    1. I am so sorry – I read your reply last week and it was so, so,,,, hummm – Toni! The apology call went well and i ma glad I reached out. Trouble is there are a few apologies left unsaid. It is really hard to admit to yourself you screwed up, many a time i have spent more energy on convincing myself that what I did was right, when in fact I know deep down, it isn’t.

      Go niners! You guys finally have the right Bear for a head coach – I don’t think this one will drop trou – like the last one did!

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