Productive Weekend

I am FINALLY take back control of the yard. After today, I am no longer embarrassed with the state of our front yard. The back yard is a different story, but at least no neighbors can see that.

This weekend, the weather was BEAUTIFUL. It was so nice to get outside and do some yard work again. Meg thinks I am nuts for this, but I really enjoy yard work, and one of the most depressing things about winter is that you miss out on all of that. I spent about 4 hours outside today, first raking and bagging up all of the leaves in the front and side yards that were left over from the fall. Then, I weeded the garden, and discovered that many of the bulbs I planted in October are starting to come up. Some of my crocuses are already blooming. I can't wait to see what this garden will look like when everything blooms. There will definitely be some pictures.

Yard work was just one major accomplishment for the weekend. This morning, I did mail and money stuff as usual. Last night, I did not get much sleep. I stayed up late to get a large chunk of grading done, since I won't have time to do much of it next week with it being the last week to work on the yearbook. Then, we decided to try to sleep Maddie with one arm unswaddled--bad idea, she woke up 7 times last night. Usually when she wakes up, you can just give her a pacifier and she will fall back asleep. At about 6:30 (this is after going to bed around 1, and then losing an hour due to daylight savings), she woke up and wanted fed. I know this sounds like typical baby behavior, but Maddie has been consistently sleeping through the night for weeks now, so this was a bit of a surprise. After that feeding, Meg took over on baby duty, so I could catch up on some sleep. I woke up at 9 to the smell of coffee and the trumpet theme that is played at the beginning of CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood.

Saturday was also a very productive day. We started with a $268 trip to Sam's Club. Since we've been shopping there, there has always been a little left over at the end of the month, meaning we only had to buy a little bit every month. Well, that overflow supply ran out. The 'store' was pretty much empty prior to Saturday, so this was a big trip. I don't like spending a lot of money, but it is fun to load up your cart with a bunch of stuff. Feels kinda powerful. After getting home, I organized the store, made sauce, and separated all of the meat into freezer bags portioned for meals. It doesn't sound like a lot, but I pretty much spent from 1 to about 8 or so in the kitchen doing something. After dinner I got to work on my grading (see above, I am working backwards again, whoops).

The rest of the week was busy as usual. Let's just say I am looking forward to the yearbook deadline being past us. I really enjoy working on the yearbook, but I don't enjoy finding the time to do it with everything else I have to do. My office is once again a disorganized mess. Until Saturday, I was behind on grading. Despite all of this, I am keeping up with my new discipline strategy, and life is actually much less stressful because of it. I am also teaching stuff that I perfected last year, so planning has been really easy.

Thursday was the annual Teen Arts Festival at the local community college. Last year, I took a very small group that I had just thrown together beforehand. This year, I actually started a 'music club' to prepare for the event, and brought 9 kids, divided into two different performing groups. I am glad I did this, because I felt much more prepared, and the kids took it much more seriously. I had a very trusting group, and didn't have any behavior issues, so all-in-all, it was a great day.

Next week is a crazy one. All of my free time will pretty much be devoted to finishing the yearbook. Next week is also round 1 of state testing, meaning my schedule is all wacky. It is also conferences, and I usually don't have any scheduled, since most parents don't have an issue with their kids in music class. I was looking forward to all of this extra time to work on yearbook, but that was all foiled when I was given a booked-solid conference schedule. The related arts teachers were included on several 'round robin' conferences (where all of a kid's teachers meet with the parent at once, sometime with the kid included). So, there goes that time.

Basically, here is what my week looks like:

• Monday: Regular length school day * screwed up schedule due to testing * schedule actually allows for extra free time, which will be completely devoted to yearbook * leaving school at a decent hour * handbells at night
• Tuesday: Short school day (dismissal at 12:45) * More weird scheduling * Meggie and Maddie visiting me for lunch * Yearbook until 7 (with dinner in there somewhere) * conferences till 9 (I just love the idea of being at school for 13 hours <- read that last statement with lots of sarcasm)
• Wednesday: Short school day * weird schedule * conferences till 3:15 * yearbook till whenever I have to leave to make it to a rescheduled lesson, which hasn't been rescheduled yet--add that to Monday's list
• Thursday: Short school day * weird schedule * conferences till 3:15 * yearbook until it is finished, regardless of how late that is.
• Friday: Regular length, testing free school day. (hopefully) celebrating a fully-submitted yearbook.

Wow, lot's to do. Some unwinding time, and then I gotta get some sleep.