It started out as reading and ended up as a nap for both of us. I recovered in time to mow the grass, but not much else.
Today is Father’s Day and it is a beautiful morning. I am working in my backyard office and B and O are sleeping late. Like always, my trusty companion Ivy is with me. O ran the yard with her friend last night playing with glow sticks and having a great time. Summer nights, there is nothing like them. Continue reading Lazy Saturday afternoon
It is Friday morning, almost a free day, and no camps, only quiet until everyone wakes. Sleeping in is a summer tradition, after all. Even Ivy joined in. Me, I slept until 6.30, then got up, made coffee, read the paper, and then got started on the computer. That was forty minutes ago.
I started ripping the paneling off the basement walls yesterday. It felt good, really good. We have cracks in the foundation, small ones, but small ones leak when it rains especially when it rains a lot. We learned that in April. We knew about one leaky crack, but we discovered others hidden behind the wall that soggy Thursday morning. I have a lot of work ahead, three and a half walls to go and then there is the re-build.
Between Tuesday and this morning, we’ve endured powerful storms Continue reading Oh, how did I get here?
It rained Thursday morning, at least part of the day, when the rain ended, it left a beautiful afternoon. W and I made it to school and got all of my teacher stuff moved to my new rooms. It took only a couple of hours, having W move the boxes made it easier for me to work on the pitch, the pitch where I looked through stuff and tossed into the recycle bin. It felt good, but there is more to toss, but that will have to wait for another day.
Friday was beautiful, the kind of early summer morning when it is not quite summer and yet, still not quite spring, either – cool crisp air, bright sun, a sky so blue that it makes the green deeper and brighter. A perfect day for a walk in the park. Continue reading A walk in the park
Today is the first day of summer vacation. Actually, it started yesterday at noon but I was packing my room and I didn’t leave until 1:30. I could have stayed and worked longer, but I had a chiropractor appointment and I needed to be straightened out. I’ll be heading back to school and the room this morning to move my teaching stuff down the hall to my new rooms. W is going with me to help move boxes. I had forgotten how much stuff I had.
There is always a last day and after the last day there is a first day of something else, something new, a new beginning. One of the teachers in our building retired and as I was leaving yesterday, I saw her family helping her pack her car with her things. She was teary-eyed at our end of the year staff lunch and she’ll be missed, she’ll miss us, too but she’ll move on to a new beginning and someday, I’ll be there. Continue reading First Day
It’s the last day of school. In a few hours, the busses will pull out of the parking lot for the last time and take the kids home for the summer. They are excited and the teachers are, too. But, the last day of school, or of anything, is always the hardest.
It has been a good year and I’m sad to see the group move on – they are all great kids and have done fabulous job in the classroom. They will be great eighth graders. The day is only a partial day and it will be part fun and frenzy. The kids have their yearbooks and they will be asking other kids to sign and leave a note. Many kids will approach me and ask me to sign their yearbooks and I always leave a note and a message. This year’s note will be asking them to make their summer worthwhile and to use all of their 77 days to their fullest. I hope they do, the days go quickly, much quicker than a day in school. Continue reading Last day
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 21st 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
Summer vacation is three weeks away, a mere twelve class days, but for some reason I find myself mired in EOTSYS – End of the School Year Syndrome. Yesterday was softball and errands and we finished the day playing a fun game as a family. I did not do a darned thing having to do with school. I started to write, but busied myself with other tasks, and now I sit on the deck enjoying the morning and watching Ivy patrol the yard for squirrels. The maple trees are dropping their seeds all over the lilac bush is in bloom, and everywhere nature is working, everyone except me.
The past week presented opportunity for me to reflect and think. Most weeks do, but this week was unique. Continue reading Life is Good
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.
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
A week ago, it was cold and freezing rain and ice was bearing down us. This morning it was lightly snowing. In between, we’ve had a sixty-two degree day, rain, near zero temperatures, sub-zero wind chills, and our first significant snow – a paltry two and half inches. It is difficult to believe it is February in Chicago. Continue reading Sixty degrees in a week