Getting Down To Busy-ness...

Wowzers... And I thought I was busy in the weeks leading up to the wedding... Unless I am forgetting the "pain" so to speak, I am just as busy now!

River, the art teacher who I share my classroom with and I finally got a chance to get into our "new" classroom Monday and get it set up... At least mostly... As I said before, the school rents space in an old high school that currently houses the town's library on the first floor... The school I will be teaching at is only starting it's sixth year and each year it grows... Last year we were able to "borrow" the space for art classes but since the school didn't rent it they couldn't set the room up as a classroom. This year the room is ours but we couldn't get into it until this week... The rush was that all the students and their parents would be at the school at 6:00 Monday night... River and I wanted the room at least a little classroom like before they got there... As of 11:00 AM it was a big empty room... Actually, it was worse then an empty room... The school secretary kinda panicked about how bare it was and spent all morning setting up the meeting in that room.

So we arrived at 11:00 at the school with all hands on deck... River, her husband and their three little ones, Paul, Allison, Dakota, Jed, Katy and myself  ready to tackle the room and found it full of chairs and fully set up for a meeting. We had to break it to the super sweet 70+ year old volunteer school secretary that we were going to have to undo what she spent all morning working on! We had three trucks loaded down with shelves, tables and desks that had to go into that room... So we started the day by moving all the chairs and such into the lunch room and re-setting up the meeting... Next we had to move all the donated furniture into the room, clean it, (as most of it came out of garages and basements) then set it up... It turned out, after the first two hours we had too many helpers... River and I were spending more time answering questions than working on the room, so I sent my crew home, only keeping Allison to help me, and River sent her kiddos off with her husband, but unfortunately started to not feel well and ended up leaving herself... It was fine, I had Allison until 4:00 and we got tons done... I wish I'd thought to take pictures... I will tomorrow when I go up there to finish. I ended up calling Paul and asking him to grab me some clean clothes for the meeting, since I was just going to stay and work. It was about 80% done by the time the parents and student started showing up at 6:00! Yay!

The meeting went great... We had a good turn out. I only got to meet about half my students... I am the "new" teacher so I am somewhat of the "unknown", so it was a bit strange. All the new students and incoming freshmen and their parents were bold and came right up and introduced themselves, but the returning students either avoided me altogether or were very timid... The school being so small and young has had staffing changes every year, so you think they would be used to it, but having a new teacher seems to really unnerve them... Which is especially strange, since a least half of them already know me! The students I did meet seem super great, and I can't wait to get going. I really wish I didn't have to wait until next Wednesday to start teaching! We have teacher work day all day Tuesday, then the student are there Wednesday! WooHoo!

The whole house sort is still going on... I am nearly done with the basement, and will be moving onto the main floor later this week... The biggest challenge so far has been getting the donation piles bagged/boxed and the trash bagged and out of the house... It kinda piles up quick and I am always trying to wrangle people to haul it out, so I don't have to keep starting and stopping. To answer one readers question as to why 40 days... This was originally a Lenten challenge, I first heard about it two years ago, but Lent was already half over so I decided to do it the next year... This year I was so crazy busy with the wedding I didn't even realize it was lent (being protestant) until it was a week into it... I decided that if I put it off for another whole year, it wasn't ever going to happen and decided to commit to doing it before the summer was over... It wasn't looking good, to tell you the truth, but when I got the teaching job I felt like "it's now or never" and am trying to power through all the big areas before school starts...

I am also trying not to be emotional as Allison and I shop for her very last first day of school which happens later this week... (sob)... I can't believe my baby is so close to done... She could have graduated last year but we missed the cut-off... She is only going in every other day for two classes... One science, and French 4... She really didn't need much in the way of back to school stuff and was willing to forgo the whole thing with the exception of some new jeans, since we are sorting everything she saw how much she has... Such a mature attitude, but I was not willing to give up my last back to school shopping adventure... I convinced her I needed stuff and so she went along with me... She did let me buy her a new Vera Bradly wristlet, some new bras and the stuff to make a new tote bag. (More on that later.)

I have to get back to lesson planning...

Thanks for listening,