Updates 2.0

Here are more bits and pieces of my life.

~ We just got back from Maui! It was the most fabulous time in paradise with my family. But the best part of it was getting a vacation from being a mom. I know that I had said we would take Micah with us, but we had a reality check when we took him to camp and decided to leave him at home instead. Thank you Nick and Lois for watching Micah! Here are some pictures from the trip. Actually there won't be pictures since Blogger isn't letting me. I've gotten 5 error messages. I'll add them later.

~ I have to go back to work next week. I'm both excited and very nervous for another year to start. I know in my head it should be good. I have a great schedule with school starting at 8:35 and me being done with students at 1:05. I get to start and end my day with GATE students. This is the first time in 2 years that I haven't had a general class after lunch! I'm looking forward to actually having the majority of students in class when the bell rings after lunch than out of class. Seriously, there were days where there would only be 5 kids in my 5th period class when the tardy bell rang. I'll have my students for the whole year this year! No sub damage to try to correct. I'm nervous though, what if my new schedule isn't as good as it seems? They have me listed as having 6th period prep. which would mean that according to contract, I'm supposed to stay during that time. I know what the contract says, but everyone I've known has just left. I can't ask admin. or they might make me stay, so I need to ask some work friends about it. I'm nervous that I won't start the year right and will wind up regretting it later. And I'm not looking forward to the stress of a routine again. I like sleeping late and knowing that I don't have to be anywhere or grade anything the next day. I'm definitely a jumbled bag of emotions and nerves about this.

~ I'm so not perfect. While God has really helped me hold my tongue more and more the last few years and especially recently, there are times when frustrations slip out. Here's an example: At work I'm forced to do WAR reports (Weekly Attendance Reports - with an extra reports thrown in because it sounds better - I didn't make it up.) Basically this is where I have to look at my roll book for a week and make sure it's accurate with what I entered in the computer. There are a lot of little letters and lines and dates. One lesson I learned my first year is to never get behind on these. I've tried giving them to TA's to do, but that's "not their job". Don't you hate it when you can't pass off your work to someone else? I had 4 subs while on maternity leave. Two of them were great at doing the WAR reports and the other two weren't. Now I'm of the impression that since I wasn't getting paid while on maternity leave, I shouldn't have to do any work from that time. My union rep. and the admin. disagree with me on this, but I digress. So at the end of the year, I had two WAR reports missing from the time while I was on maternity leave. The administrative secretary said that I would need to make them up. I had to go get my old attendance records (from when my sub was there) and redo them. The worst part of it was, it didn't print up in the traditional format. In my frustration, I snapped at the secretary. I don't remember exactly what I said and it wasn't anything really mean or demeaning to her specifically, but it was definitely complaining to her about something that she had no control over. I felt awful as I walked back to my classroom; not only had I snapped at someone, it was my favorite secretary - the one I would laugh with and would rescue from the crazy history teacher that talks her ear off. When I got back to my room, I immediately apologized to her in an email. She said that she understood and she accepted my apology. Sounds great right? But now she's different towards me, she's not as friendly anymore and in my head I'm thinking it's because of what I did. I'm desperately hoping that I'm just reading more into things and maybe she's just stressed out with the start of the new school year. I hate when I'm rude to people, but even more so I hate when I try to make it right, but it's still not forgiven. I know that I have to just know that I did the right thing; I apologized both to her and I asked God for forgiveness. I just wish it didn't haunt me so. I guess I need to find a good verse to memorize to remind me that God has forgiven me.

~ Micah has been weird lately when it comes to his health. He's had really painful gas and some skin problems. At first I thought it was eczema, then I thought it was ringworm, and now I don't have a clue. So off to the doctor we went and apparently he has an infection which is making the skin flare up. I'll spare you all the details, but the good news is he got some antibiotics and he's not contagious. Hopefully, this will take care of all the problems. Other than the sickness, he's been a busy little boy. He's into everything. We are trying to be extra vigilant about keeping the toilet seat down and the bathroom door shut. If he gets into the bathroom and the toilet lid is up, he thinks it's fun to splash his fingers in the water. I think it's gross. I guess it's all a matter of opinion. He continues to be very cautious and poke things with his finger before he really touches it to make sure it's okay. I do see him gaining more and more confidence though.

~ I'm reading a scary book. It's called The Mom Factor. It's all about how our relationship with our mom affects us later in life. I feel like my mom did a great job raising me and while she wasn't perfect, I don't feel like I'm saddled with the issues that the book addresses. To me it's a scary book because it's making me more and more aware of how many ways there are to screw up my child and leave him emotionally lacking. I do recommend it though. It's really making me think about my parenting strategy.

~ The background on my blog is driving me crazy. I hate how it looks, but when I try to change it, I get told I'll lose all my archives and that makes me sad, so I don't change it. I guess I need to spend more time figuring it out.

~ I'm still a faithful blog reader. I'm just not as much of a faithful commenter anymore. That's mostly because of time and sometimes I'm just too plain lazy to sign in.

~ Thanks for all your sweet comments on my Grandma's passing. I think that I'm finally adjusting to the fact that she really is gone.