Back in the Groove

Man, you guys.  Last week was a doozey and a half and I am still recovering!  I don’t know why, but it seems that every committee that I serve on meets the second week of the month!  I had meetings every night last week, sometimes TWO in a night.  Plus, it was my last week of teaching before our state standardized testing begins, so I had kids in my classroom before and after school for tutoring almost every day.  Add to that the fact that it was Holy Week and we had family coming to town this past weekend, PLUS the fact that we are putting the last bells and whistles on ClassMax and it made for one tired momma!

Here are some of my highlights:

MONDAY – Gracie has been extra firecracker-y lately.  She is talking NONSTOP.  And it’s super cute half the time and super annoying (bad mommy).  And she was my mini-me all week long.  If we weren’t in school, that girl was glued to my side.  I thought my ears would start bleeding.  At gymnastics, she took my glasses out of my purse and picked up my iced tea that I carry with me everywhere, all the time, and said, “Look!  I’m Mommy!” and then she laughed for 15 minutes straight.  All while I was trying desperately to finish grading papers for school.

TUESDAY – We had a baseball game for Bean and a Cub Scout meeting.  Since Chris is coaching baseball this year, he and Bean went to the baseball game and Gracie and I went to Cub Scouts.  We were working on STEM activities and I pulled out our Osmo for the iPad.  The kids got it for Christmas last year, but we don’t play with it nearly enough.  The Cub Scouts ate it up!  It is an educational tool that makes your iPad interactive with manipulatives.  Lots of fun, actually, and really gets those brains working!

After Cub Scouts, Gracie and I booked it over to the baseball field to catch the end of Bean’s game.  That poor boy is about to give up on baseball.  He has really struggled this season.  He is the youngest in the league and is having trouble keeping up with the boys that are a year or two older than him.  He hasn’t gotten a hit all season long, and it is just defeating him every week.  Chris and I had to sit down with him and pump him up last week because he had just completely given up.  At practices and games he wasn’t paying attention or even trying.  We told him that he didn’t have to play anymore after this season, but that we weren’t quitters and when we committed to something, we gave it our 100% – even and especially if we were struggling with it.  He’s sort of bucked up a bit since then, but, gosh, I hope he gets a hit in a game soon.  🙁

WEDNESDAY – I had two meetings at church on Wednesday night, and in between them I found myself with time to spare.  I decided to try our church’s prayer labyrinth.  During Christmas and Easter, our church has a prayer labyrinth in our fellowship hall.  It has stations all around it that you can walk through, praying over various things that are usually based on the holy season.  During Lent, our church has been studying “baggage,” or all the things that hold us back from living completely for God.  Each station was dedicated to a different type of baggage people might have – cynicism, distrust, faith, honesty, etc.  But the best part to me was the actual labyrinth.  It is a giant maze on the floor of the room.  You take your shoes off and you simply walk the path.  There is worship music playing, and the idea is that you focus on your prayers and meditations as you walk mindlessly through the maze.  It took me about 15 minutes to go through, walking slowly and praying over the goodness of what Jesus had done for us on the cross.  It was a beautiful, unscheduled break in the midst of my overly scheduled week.

THURSDAY – I am on the Cheer Committee at my school.  We do little gifts and treats for teachers throughout the school year.  We’ve had breakfasts for them, goody bags in mailboxes every month, birthday treats on teacher birthdays, and we coordinate the Holiday Dinner Party for the faculty.  It’s a fun way to connect and serve the people who I work with.  My duty this semester was to provide testing treat bags for teachers to pick up when they picked up testing supplies for our state’s standardized testing, which begins on Monday.  Because I had been so busy, I didn’t get around to making the goody bags until Thursday night after the kids went to bed.  And did I mention there are 100 faculty members that needed goody bags?!

I bought clear cellophane goody bags and giant bags of Starbusts, Jolly Ranchers, and Dum Dums – anything teachers could have during testing when they have to just sit there for HOURS at a time watching kids take tests.  I made a little tag that said, “It’s go time, teachers!  Thanks to you, our students are no DUM DUMS!  You’ve prepped them to be superSTARS, BURSTING with information and knowledge!  Because of your hard work, we know how JOLLY we’ll all be when test scores arrive!  Thank you for all you’ve done to help our students succeed!  Happy testing season, The Cheer Committee.”  I tied the goody bags all up with brightly colors yarn that I had leftover from my Christmas blanket I crocheted, and I put them all in a big basket.  It was an inexpensive, simple way to tell teachers how important they are.

FRIDAY – My MIL, Jackie, and her husband, Charles, came to town on Friday to spend Easter weekend with us.  We went to my SIL, Annie’s, house and had dinner and a belated birthday celebration for Gracie Girl.  It was such a nice way to relax after a long week.  We watched hockey (the Rangers are in the playoffs!  whoo hooo!!) and caught up on how everyone is doing.  Jackie and Charles are going to Peru in June to hike up Macchu Picchu (have I mentioned how awesome my MIL is?) and we hard all about their training for their trip.  I can’t believe how intense it is going to be, but knowing both of them, they will sail through it like champs.  I’m so excited for them!

CLASSMAX – Just about every free moment I had this week (ha ha), I spent working on ClassMax with our team.  We are getting SO CLOSE and it is simultaneously exciting and terrifying at the same time.  This week, the web team began turning our wire frames into working features, which was just the coolest.  I’m actually able to USE the website now, and it makes me giggle every time I open it.  I just can’t believe we are doing this.  I go back and forth between OH MY GOD, THIS IS AWESOME and OH MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING?!  And let me tell you how healthy that is for someone who struggles with anxiety.  Oy.

This is the class dashboard, with the timer feature up and running.  So exciting!

As I sit here, it is Saturday morning and I am grabbing about 15 minutes before we have to head up to the ballfields for Bean’s baseball game (Lord, please let him get a hit!) and then to Girl Scouts and then to a birthday party and then dinner with family and then Easter morning and then….  It’s a busy season, isn’t it?  And I love everything that we are apart of.  I love planting my feet in our community and being an active part in my kids’ childhood.  But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t counting down the days until summer…

46 days, in case anyone wants to know.