Yeah, so two days ago, I spent a good chunk of time writing all about my living room and its piles of books representative of all of my various goings on at the moment...The aromatherapy pile, the herb pile, the "change your career, change your life" pile, and The Slow Down Diet single book that needed to be finished by this weekend because the author is our presenter at class. Anyhow, there was nice commentary along with the description of book-piles, but alas, the computer touchpad/mouse froze and even after a few firm bangs, it still didn't work. It almost got tossed out the window, but I'm already on the bad list this week at work so I didn't do that (it's a school-owned laptop).
So then, this here weekend is my much anticipated yet way to cognitively stimulating weekend. It was actually supposed to start today when I left school early to go to my mentorship in Coventry, but when I finally rushed out of school into the car, my Check Engine light stayed on. I of course turned off the car and restarted (I have such great technical skills...) that didn't work, so I drove toward the highway, figuring that once the car warmed up a bit, the light would go off. Pull over, car off, car on, still lit. So into Pep Boys I go after calling and leaving a message for Ms. Mentor (who probably thinks I'm just a slacker). Mr. Pep says $90 diagnostic but they might not be able to fix it...He actually recommended I take it to Subaru...thanks for being honest Mr. Pep;) So to Subaru I went, thinking to myself on the way that the reason this happened is because I really needed today to be able to relax a little at least before my next four days filled with class and 12 hour mentorship days with Mr. Author (mentioned above). So I'm taking this all in stride, feeling badly that I missed my mentorship since I was supposed to have my lotion lesson today and then take home ingredients to make more here instead of going up there next week...
So Mr. Subaru finds all these "faults" with my poor little car, who seems to have been feeling a little neglected and just needed some TLC. So we put some new parts in, fixed some other stuff, and $650 later, and 2 and a half hours in the dealership reading my aromatherapy book, and my little car was happy. It's a good thing because everything that was replaced/fixed was standard for having 75,000 miles and never done anything but the standard maintenance. She's almost paid off and I plan to drive her as long as I can!
Ms. Principal is not going to be happy with me because now I need to take another 1/2 day to try to get out to Coventry again...Oh well. This week I was late for school because of the early morning snow/traffic, left early (and She actually had to sub in my room), and worst of all, I had to take Monday off entirely for my mentorship which was a biiiigggg no no because it's CMT time....bad teacher. The final straw was that I completely missed a faculty meeting after school yesterday because my email reminder didn't get to me until today (not my fault, although I should have known anyway...)! So when I called in yesterday to say I was going to be needing to leave early, I should technically not have even been home yet (if I had been at the faculty meeting...) bad teacher!!!
So that's that. When you're busy and overcommitted, stuff will inevitably go wrong for the purpose of slowing you down. I recognize that, but hopefully I only just need to slow down today because I won't have time any other day!!! (Did I forget to tell you that when I Finally got to leave the Subaru place to come home I had to wait for the freakin' draw bridge to cross over the Housatonic!!! The thing is up in the air for 5 minutes, goes down, but the light just stayed red. Everyone waits in line patiently, bridge is down, but light is red...no one wants to chance it of course because God forbid the bridge goes up or breaks or whatever. I waited in that line for at least 20 minutes, like a dingbat (practicing my breathing like I've been brainwashed to do in times as this) until I realized I could just turn around and get on the highway to cross the same damn river!!! Isn't life funny?
Travis engages his super-hero magic powers to cause shovel to remain upright even in the absence of human handling...Simply amazing, ladies and gentlemen (and he's all mine)!
In school, all the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders (aka the Intermediate Academy) has been doing a mini-unit on the Iditarod, The Last Great Race...
See, each class had to pick a musher and we made our whole hallway at school represent the trail and show all the "checkpoints" that the mushers have to stop at, rest if needed, sleep, get their dogs checked by vets, etc. Anyway, I picked one of the top 10 from last year, reluctantly, since I didn't know anything about the Iditarod and how I was going to use it to facilitate learning in the classroom. Well let me tell you how AWESOME this project has been! I'm just as bad as the kids checking in on http://www.iditarod.com/ to see what the latest standings are...Lance Mackey has been rockin' the house! It's all competitive and strategic now which makes me all anxious because Paul is right on his tail and they're in the home stretch...I just want my guy to win!!! Go Lance!! The other cool thing that we've done with this is that each of the kids in each class have also picked their own musher to follow and track the progress. They come in to school either asking what happened over night or else so eager to report what they already found out at home on the Internet. It's so great to see the kids so enthusiastic about something, especially to counterbalance the stress and annoyance of having to take the Connecticut Mastery Tests. Lance is expected to finish tonight!!!!...wish us luck...not to be mean to anyone else that might want to win or anything, but I just thing that Lance should be this years winner...