Tag Archives: weather

Day 6: Chicken’s Roost

Tuesday, June 11, 2013, @ 8:16 amadventure, Family, Life in General, Scouting, Weather, Writingchildren, Family, gardening, reading, scouting, weather, writingClay

chickensroost

It is the sixth day of summer and it is off to a great start. I just have to keep it moving. I have 15 hours and 10 minutes of daylight today, but it’s light for a bit more. The past few days have been busy with stuff I said I would do when school was over. Now, the chickens have come home to roost.

Summer has its own schedule and as the kids have gotten older the more structured it has gotten. W is off scuba diving with the Boy Scouts at Sea Base in the Keys. I know he is having a good time, how could he not? O started basketball camp at the high school – eight days of basketball drills and instruction with the girls’ varsity team and the head coach. Next week there’s softball camp for four days and interspersed there are softball games – Wednesday, Thursday, and next Monday. Tonight I have a Boy Scout meeting and Word Press training. I’m not going to camp this year with the scouts. I will miss it. It’s a lot of fun Continue reading Day 6: Chicken’s Roost →

Getting started

Sunday, June 2, 2013, @ 8:53 amadventure, Family, history, Life in General, Reading, teaching, Teaching and Learning, Weather, WritingAmerican Battle Monuments Commission, dad, education, Family, great days, hard work, history, making the days count, Paris, patriotism, reading, seventh grade, Summer Vacation, weather, World War I, writingClay

aisnes_marne_memorial_day_trumpet2013_cropped — Memorial Day 2013 – A doughboy plays taps – Aisnes-Marne American Cemetery, Belleau, France photo courtesy of Aisnes-Marne American Cemetery Facebook page

This is a bittersweet time for me. The beginning of summer always is. It is a feeling of relief and joy and uncertainty mixed into one. This should be day 2 of summer vacation. It is day 2 of summer, meteorological summer, that is. Celestial summer will arrive just after midnight June 21^st and we’ll have our peak daylight. But, for now I have three days remaining before summer really begins for me.

We had a snow day in March and two flood days in April that threw a wrench in the school calendar and thus mine. It has been a rainy spring, which is nice because last year we had little rain and the fall fruit and harvest was dismal at best around our parts. Friday was warm and muggy, you could feel the energy in the air and Saturday was overcast with afternoon rain. We’ve been spared violent weather thankfully, but we had a spectacular lightning show last Tuesday evening and rain almost every day for the past week. Continue reading Getting started →

Objects are closer than they appear

Saturday, May 11, 2013, @ 7:09 amFamily, history, jobs, Life in General, Reading, teaching, Weatherchildren, Family, great days, making the days count, reading, softball, sports, weather, writingClay

I don’t sit in the passenger seat often. When I do, I always see the phrase on the side-view mirror, “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.” This weekend is a perfect example of that. Since my last post, which was over three weeks ago, I have been busy – of all kinds – family, house, school, work, sports, a full schedule.

It has been a busy spring and since we returned from Florida, I have written two posts. I am without words, literally. Continue reading Objects are closer than they appear →

Postcards from Spring Break – 2013

Friday, April 19, 2013, @ 4:13 pmFamily, history, Hobbies and Fun, Life in General, Reading, teaching, Teaching and Learning, travel, Writingchildren, education, Family, great days, history, making the days count, postcards, reading, seventh grade, Spring Break, teaching, weather, writingClay

a warm sunny day at Bahia Honda State Park with the Atlantic in background

It has been a great day, a great week, and a great month. I just don’t know where it went. Three weeks ago, I was on a beach on a warm sunny day with the breeze in my hair. It felt like it would last forever and I guess it has. Memories of our vacation to the Keys has sustained me over the past few days – from torrential downpours to flurries in the air, it has been quite a few days.

Yesterday morning, it was raining and I went to the basement and I discovered water pouring in through a crack in the foundation. I soon realized I wouldn’t be able to keep up and woke W who jumped in to the job grudgingly, but soon embraced the task. By 5:30, I knew I had to stay home and was busy writing a quick sub plan when W’s school called the day off. An hour later, my school called off, too. So, I spent the second day of summer vacation (see a NO SNOW snow day) fighting with the water in the basement, moving furniture, bookcases, pulling up soggy carpet up and hauling it to the curb. We were lucky our water was just that, water. Other homes in the area had water coming in from the sewer (yeah, ewwwwww). Continue reading Postcards from Spring Break – 2013 →

Being thankful, the Liebster Award

Tuesday, March 26, 2013, @ 12:12 pmadventure, Cooking, Family, growing up, history, Life in General, pets, racing, Reading, sports, teaching, Teaching and Learning, travel, Writingchildren, education, Family, geography, great days, hard work, high school football, making the days count, Paris, reading, seventh grade, Spring Break, Summer Vacation, teaching, weather, writing, WWIIClay

liebster_award A couple of weeks ago, my phone buzzed I looked down to see I had a comment posted to my about page and it was from the Undeaddad. He had nominated me for the Liebster award an award given to Bloggers by Bloggers and I am honored. I’ve been at this blogging thing for almost three years and I’ve been mentioned on other blogs a couple of times and given a previous award, but never followed up on it. That’s on my list of to dos or wishes, and I can change them to I wills. More on that later.

I stumbled across the Undeaddad after he had been Freshly Pressed for writing about shoveling snow. It was a great post that encapsulated my feelings about work and pride. He has written several more posts that resonated with me, most recently about ‘date nights’ and children who are picky eaters. If you have time, please give him a whirl.

Continue reading Being thankful, the Liebster Award →

We’re here…

Sunday, March 24, 2013, @ 9:09 amadventure, Family, growing up, Life in General, teaching, Weatherchildren, education, Family, fishing, geography, making the days count, seventh grade, teaching, The Florida Keys, water sports, weatherClay

Spring Break 2013. Every year I look forward to this week on the calendar. It’s a break from the normal and an escape to a slower pace. For the kids, and my students, it’s a break from school and signal that the end of the year is near, very near. I am certain they had a day count going to the time when the bell rang and they could rush home and begin their break. I worked to make sure that the day was full of learning and had enough structure to keep them focused and tuned in. For the most part, I was successful, when we come back next week the sprint to the end begins and I’ll have to deal with another day count. Continue reading We’re here… →

A NO SNOW snow day

Tuesday, March 5, 2013, @ 8:56 amFamily, history, Life in General, model railroads, Reading, teaching, Teaching and Learning, Weather, Writingchildren, education, Family, great days, history, making the days count, reading, seventh grade, Summer Vacation, teaching, weather, writingClay

stormwarning Normally, I would be driving to school right now, but instead I am home in the basement nestled in my cave. It’s a snow day. The weather guys predicted the storm several days ago and the media is in full hype. Right now, there is less than half an inch covering the sidewalks and roads, but it is predicted to get worse, probably much worse with the bulk of the snow arriving midday just in time to release kids to walk home from elementary schools with unplowed roads and snowy sidewalks. It is just a bad idea.

The call came in at 5:23 from my kid’s school district announcing that “due to the expected heavy snow, all school and afternoon activities for Tuesday, March 5th are cancelled…” My district called a couple of minutes later with the same news. I’d already been waging a war with the alarm clock, and losing, I might add, when the phone rang. I turned the alarm off and W came in to make sure he could sleep until he wakes up, he was excited, but probably not enough to keep him from falling back to sleep. I tried going back to sleep, but I couldn’t so I got up and went downstairs. Continue reading A NO SNOW snow day →

Old toys

Friday, March 1, 2013, @ 6:47 amFamily, growing up, Hobbies and Fun, jobs, Life in General, model railroads, Reading, Scouting, teaching, Writingchildren, education, Family, great days, making the days count, model railroading, reading, scouting, weather, writingClay

I had been looking forward to last weekend for almost a month because I knew it would be a good opportunity to visit one of my favorite shopping haunts – a hobby shop. Unfortunately, circumstances foiled my scheme.

We have a railroad layout in the basement, not twenty feet from where I sit, dream, plan, write, grade, fume, and for the most part, avoid real work. I suppose I could be over at the table avoiding work instead of sitting here, but the layout has been gathering dust for the at least the past year, perhaps two, who knows, I’ve lost count. I have been lured away from my railroad by other activities – family, sports, scouts, school, and you can just about name it, whatever it was it had a higher number than railroading. Continue reading Old toys →

President’s Day 2013

Sunday, February 17, 2013, @ 9:42 amadventure, Family, jobs, Life in General, Reading, teaching, travel, WritingAmish farmers, children, Family, Grayling, great days, making the days count, reading, seventh grade, teaching, weather, winter sports, writingClay

this morning's report.... — this morning’s report….

It’s another three-day weekend for me and a four-day weekend for the kids both my own kids and my students. Monday is President’s Day and schoolchildren across the land have the day off. I think those days should be spent in school, but I’m a minority voice. My school district has parent-teacher conferences Tuesday and the kids are off while we meet with parents to give feedback, praise, and some serious honesty about how their child is performing (or not) in our classes. My kid’s school district had an in-service day Friday – so we both had a long weekend. What it really does is to provide an excuse to spend time recreating, so we left town and headed north for snow and winter outdoor fun. Continue reading President’s Day 2013 →

Another Saturday evening post, on Sunday evening

Sunday, February 10, 2013, @ 7:48 pmFamily, Life in General, pets, Reading, teaching, Weather, WritingBell's Palsy, children, education, Family, great days, Guys Read, hard work, Ivy the dog, making the days count, pets, reading, seventh grade, teaching, weather, writingClay

I started writing this Saturday morning and I never finished, such is life.

It’s Saturday mid-morning and my plan to post in the middle of the week was foiled, yet again. Honestly, I do have ideas during the week, but I never have time to actually sit down and write them. Looking back on my week, it was a blur. I had to think back long and hard to remember all of the big rocks, small rocks, pebbles, sand, and water, which filled my week to recall all that I did and or more importantly, did not do. Continue reading Another Saturday evening post, on Sunday evening →