Friday!

Or an alternate title could have been "Back in the Blogosphere," since it has been over a month since I blogged. I really wish that I had blogged more, as there is a lot of catching up to do here.

Well, the Friday of Summer began a while ago, on June 1, which seems like months ago. The last few weeks of school are generally very stressful. Even as I spent my last minutes there on Wednesday, I was stressing to get everything done. I am going to need to take a day in August just to unpack and organize, since I was pretty much just shoved everything in the drawers of my desk, since I was supposed to be out of the building by 4 (I didn't leave till 5).

All-in-all, it was a good school year. I think the change in administration helped a lot, as my feelings about work were not as good earlier this year. I am excited, and actually looking forward to next school year. I still made sure to pack up and take home everything I own from my classroom, since maybe that dream job will open up this summer.

Well, there is only 72 days, 8 hours, 26 minutes, and 20 seconds left in this summer. I am going to make a goal to keep myself busy and not waste a second.

As far as what's on the schedule, there isn't a whole lot this summer. Here is what I've got:

• 6/23 to 6/25 - Visit Meg's family in Gettysburg (in progress right now)
• 6/30 to 7/6 - Week in OCNJ
• 7/16 to 7/20 - Working with VBS at church
• 7/21 - Julie's Wedding in Gettysburg (friend of Meg's from HS)

Not a whole lot... which leaves a lot of free time. Free time is wonderful, but it can also lead to a lot of wasted time. When I think back to last summer, I have a lot of pleasant memories. I would like this summer to be the same, if not better. So below, I have a list of all of the things I would like to do/accomplish this summer:

House Projects:

• Lattice around the deck
• Repairs throughout the house (e.g., no toilet paper holders in either bathroom right now)
• Beautify the gardens
• Clean out the shed (again!) and find a way to keep it more organized
• Clean an organize some of the messier areas of the house
• Make weekly and monthly cleaning checklists and stick to them!
  

School Projects:

• Write my own recorder method book
• Make 'Elements of Music' posters for my classroom
• Figure out and plan a better way to structure my middle school general music curriculum
• Start the school year with the 1st marking period planned and ready to go.
• Actually prepare scores for the band (instead of winging it, like I usually do)
• Get into school a couple of days during the end of the summer and clean and organize my room, and find out a classroom arrangement that works better.

Family/Personal Stuff:

• Bond with Maddie, and take lots of videos.
• Go fun places with Meg and Maddie
• Eat better (despite the fact that in the last year I have gone from a 44 waste to a 40!)
• Exercise in the pool with Meg
• Ride my bike
• Take walks as a family
• Have Scamp over to play with Max
• Have friends from school over
• Have my parents/brother/sister over more

Computer Stuff:

• Pick a new theme for the blog (may even do that tonight)
• Blog as much as possible.
• Set up my sister's old computer in the 'office' as a file server and guest computer
• Finish tagging all of our photos (9,000 and counting!) with the names of the subjects of the pictures
• Clean up, archive, and reorganize files on my laptop
• Keep Maddie's blog regularly updated with pictures and videos (we've been really lazy about that lately)

Hobby Stuff:

• Attempt to write an original piece of music for my band to play at school.
• Refer to everything above. Most of the stuff on the list I genuinely enjoy doing!

Okay, so those 72 days (7 hours, 57 minutes, and 34 seconds now) don't seem like enough. In order not to waste any of that time, I need to have a good plan to get all of this done. Not that I HAVE to get it all done, but that I WANT to get it all done. I am going to relax until we get back from the shore. But after that, I am going to spend the rest of July and the first half of August working on all of this stuff. Then, hopefully, I can spend the last few weeks of summer relaxing, and enjoying everything I have accomplished.

Off to tackle that list! Oh, I guess I should sleep first...

Thursday...

MY CONCERT IS DONE!




Need I say more! The spring concert is the product of everything I do during the year, and can be a major stress, so it feels SO GOOD when it is over. And it is now, and it was very successful. Aside from some behavior issues with the students who were waiting to perform, the night was a success. I got some great compliments from my new bosses, and the superintendent is even going to count the concert as my final observation.

The school year is winding down. It is now the "Thursday" of the school year. You know how Thursday is. It's not the end of the week, but the end is definitely near. After Memorial Day is when the "Friday" of the year starts.

Today (even though I stayed home--Maddie did not let me sleep last night) began cycle 27 of 30 six-day cycles. That means there are four more cycles left in the year. 4x6 = 24 days. Plus, we have to make up 3 day fives (unscheduled teacher in-service, snow day, flood day), and Day 1 of this cycle already happened, so that is 24-1+3 = 26 Days!!! There are 3 more day 1's, 4 more of day 2, 3, 4, and 6, and 7 more day 5's. There are 182 periods left of school, 117 hours of teaching-time left, and 188 hours of work day left. If it were possible to finish the school year by working 24/7, one school day after another, we'd be done in one week and one day. Including weekends and holidays, there are 36 days, 17 hours, 19 minutes, and 14 seconds left till Summer Vacation.

While it is completely awesome that summer is so near, it scares me a little that I will only see most of my classes four more times. And, by the way, the last cycle is pretty much a waste, since grades will be due around then. So really, I have to finish what I need to teach this year in 3 more classes. All of my classes are doing a composition project in one form or another. While this is a lot of fun, and takes the pressure off me as a teacher, I am concerned that some classes won't finish, which is going to make a grade for this marking period kind of tough. But, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

* * *

With summer getting so close and the weather being beautiful, I have been spending a lot of time outside. It is funny, because when I was a kid, I hated to go outside. I am still not crazy about some aspects of the outdoors. Mainly spiders, and (even more so), spider webs. I have the strange, extremely irrational fear of spider webs. Spiders themselves never used to bother me, but as I got older, I associated them with my fear, and I now fear spiders just as much. The bigger the spider the worse. Even the various shapes of webs evoke different levels of fear. For example, the typical 'circle web' creeps me out the most, and generally sends me into a panic, my skin is crawling just writing about it. Whereas, a cobweb in the corner of a dusty room does not bother me nearly as much. This time of year I really enjoy being outside. The weather is beautiful, and the larger spiders never seem to show up until late summer. It is then that I walk outside in constant fear of encountering a spider web. Yes, I know, I am certifiable, and probably should get some help, but I have a feeling a shrink would just have me look at pictures of spider webs, or have me actually voluntarily touch one. *shuddering*

Okay, got on a tangent there... Anyway, I have been spending a lot of time outside working on various projects. I have been doing a lot of gardening, and really enjoy it. It is part art, part science. We have this garden on the side of our garage which was always just a bunch of random plants that were all too small for the space. I dug up the garden, prepared the soil, and planted pink and purple azaleas and rhododendrons, along with some hostas, and day lillies. It is a major improvement, and I will post pictures soon. Most of the other yardwork has mainly been cleaning up the leaves, dethatching the grass, etc.

This weekend I got the pool open, otherwise known as the giant chemistry set. I think one of the things that makes me me is that I enjoy things that any normal person would consider to be work. Such as maintaining a pool. Weather-wise, it is a little early to open the pool, but I was getting tired of the ugly cover, and was looking forward to working on it again for another season. The opening went rather flawlessly, except that the cover had a hole in it, meaning it was impossible to get all of the water off the top before removing it. I just gave up and let all of the mucky water slide into the pool, so for a day, I had a green swamp. But five gallons of bleach and 24 hour filtering has cleared the water. It is still cloudy, and needs vacuumed, but it should be swimmable by next week.

* * *

I've REALLY gotta get some sleep. Saturday night I stayed up till 1:30, just messing around on the computer, and then I got up with Maddie at 7. Then last night, Maddie got me up four times for some reason. After the fourth time, I decided that I would take a sick day, so that I could catch up on sleep today. Well, Maddie was not much in a napping mood, so I am still really sleepy. I did manage to catch about an hours-worth of napping, so hopefully, with a goodnight sleep tonight (Meg's on baby duty), I will feel better tomorrow. On that note... Goodnight!