I went to visit my principal yesterday and took a tour of the school. The school is lovely and the staff was very kind and helpful. This school seems to have it all buttoned up on the support side of things. We have a TOA (teacher on assignment) assigned to new teacher on each track. I'm lucky, I'm the only new teacher on my track. This teacher is assigned to shadow me for the year and help me with anything I need. I also have supplies galore. They will give me anything I need, I just have to ask. The only bummer is that I have to change classrooms at the end of each trimester. They do give me a rolling cart that I put all of my supplies in and the custodian moves to the new class so it wont be too bad. It sounds like the entire school is going to a modified traditional calendar next year so I wont have to change classrooms.

I got my TEs and my info about my students. It is going to be a tough and interesting year based on what is written on the students' cards. I definitely have my work cut out for me and will most definitely be leaning on any teacher that offers support. My next few days are going to be spent planning, planning, planning. I have two days in my class before the students arrive and I should be able to spend most of the time setting up lessons, making copies, and laminating. Having a borrowed class means that I can't do too much decorating.

I LOVE THIS!

Too much fun!

This would be Tim after waterskiing today. Yes, the rest of us followed the "re-apply" rule. As you can see, he did not. Now he is radio active and sitting on the couch covered in aloe drinking a beer.

Besides cooking my husband, we had a great time on the lake. I even got up on a knee board on my first try!

Just because I don't want to be left out of the fun...This is me after a day of teaching, or being a mom. Notice the margarita in one hand and the ice cream in the other. I can't really tell you why I don't have any shoes, but I guess those do come off at the end of the day anyway.

Today is a much better day. I have to apologize to all that have had to read my drivel lately. Could I feel more sorry for myself? I don't see any happy teachers here. So, after a very good night of much needed sleep, I have decided that I need to buck up and take life as it comes.

I mentioned before that I love weekends and today is no exception. I turned off my cell phone, slept 'til 8, made scones for the boys (now only three but still smelly), and watched Anchor Man. The best part was that Paul Bunyan intoduced his step-brother to Will Farrel. That was a fascinating little social experiment. You would have to know my kids for this to be funny. Kathie and Beth will laugh as they picute this little event. This was followed by even more fun...making teen-age boys sort laundry. This project took three boys 30 minutes to complete. Making kids do yucky chores on Saturday mornings is where we mommies reap our rewards. I've decided I will make this my work today. I should take advantage of having all these boys around and I think the dog yard needs some attention ;)

Running on empty

It's almost 4am and it's pretty obvious that sleep is out of reach at the moment. Note to self - Never, and I mean never, work two jobs again. I am teaching six days of summer school and working at the conference center every day. My dreams alternate between parents and administration heckling me because I know NOTHING about ancient civilizations and guests yelling at me because the bowl they painted didn't have the specs of green like the picture. So here I sit typing. Actually, because I am so exhausted, mostly backspacing because my already deficient spelling gene is dulled due to lack of sleep.

Fear is taking over and the joy of becoming a teacher is sitting very far in the back of my brain. Because the school is year round I can't get into my classroom until the 30th and the kids start on the 1st and that is causing some severe anxiety. I have so many questions and nobody to answer them until the 30th. My teacher list is huge right now and, to be perfectly honest, I don't really care about ancient China. I will of course eventually look like I care. I'm really worried that I have spent so much time planning the little things in the class like the prize box and the color of the reward tickets but I haven't seen a teacher's edition of any of my subjects.

My house is full of boys. That alone is enough to cause a break down. Too many boys! Everywhere I go...BOYS! For those of you that don't have boys in your house, they smell. They smell bad. Four of them between the ages of 9 and 16 smell really bad. They are also messy little buggers. I have run my dishwasher two times a day for the last seven days. That can't be good. Apparently, your head will explode if you use the same glass twice.

I suppose I should head back to bed seeing as I have to get up in a couple of hours to teach 1st grade. On the very cute and happy side, little Memo looked at me yesterday and told me had the "hipups".

Just in case you were wondering. When your bowl comes out of the kiln and it is not the color you expected it to be, the bowl suddenly and very dramatically becomes useless. Go figure. I guess my parents did something right...In my book, a bowl of any color can hold some cold cereal.