Saturday, September 7, 2013

life as of late

Fred Meyer had Captain Crunch on sale for $1.88 a box. Like a normal sized box and everything. I figured I could splurge and endure ripped up gums for the next week or so. It was my favorite cereal as a kid. No crunchberries, please.

I made a peanut butter cake with peanut butter frosting (recipe here) to take to the church potluck tomorrow. I'm pretty sure that's what heaven is going to smell like. . . peanut butter cake with peanut butter frosting. 

School started on Wednesday this last week. I, again, do not have my own classroom. To say that I am sad about this is an understatement. Since I attended candidate day in April, I have had two interviews with the district for two very different positions. I didn't get either of them. Disheartening? Yes. Emotionally draining? Yes. Forget announcing it on facebook, it got to the point where I started telling only a handful of people I was even interviewing. That way I don't have as many people to tell the bad news to when it comes. 

You get all worked up about going to an interview - trying to figure out what to wear, and making a good first impression, and remembering to smile and be yourself, and worrying about how you're going to answer the sure to come questions about differentiation and assessments, and then the torture of waiting to hear back. Hopeful, yet doubting. Always doubting. 

A couple of people have mentioned to me in conversation that the Lord must be trying to teach me something. In all honesty, I feel like I've already learned that lesson. I'm ready to move on, but I guess I will continue to wait and read books about differentiation because I don't know what else to do.

I will also continue to sub. I worked as a para sub the first three days in two different buildings. The first day I was in one of the bigger elementary buildings, just sort of floating around and doing lots of recess duty. I was standing inside one of the doors and students were coming in all ready to start their year. What was fun for me (besides seeing their cute faces and shiny new backpacks) was hearing, "Mrs. B!" from a few students who had transferred from another building and were seeing a familiar face in a strange place. I even got a couple of hugs out of that. For the other two days I was in a one-on-one position with a non-verbal autistic boy. I have absolutely no training in special ed and that's not really what I want to do at all, but it was work and I am happy to soon be receiving some sort of paycheck. Hopefully, and this is sort of sad in a demented sort of way, teachers will start getting sick soon so I can get back in the classroom as a certified sub. And then try to be a darn good one so I'll get called back.

I've got a different para position lined up for the next six school days. Hopefully it does not include crossing guard duty because I absolutely hate doing that. I also hate cafeteria duty on rice day, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Last Saturday was Phil505's birthday. We spent the greater part of it at the beach. It was absolutely the most perfect beach day. We sat in our chairs, played with the dog, ate chicken strips from Safeway, and got sunburned. You can't get more perfect than that.




My niece Hannah is in fifth grade this year. I had my old flute out in the garage collecting dust and I saw it the other day. I called my sister right up and asked her if Hannah had mentioned wanting to be in band and that if she did I had a flute she could use. Turns out, she was totally excited by that idea, so I spent $5.15 on a box (because flute cases don't fit in flat rate shipping boxes) and shipped it off to her for the low, low price of $27.00. I'm not even kidding. I hope she has as much fun with it as I did because it cost me a small fortune to get the thing to her and having a musical outlet is a good thing. For the record, before I mailed it I put it together and played a couple scales. I have totally lost my lips. It was so bad it scared the dog and he went running outside and wouldn't come back in until I threatened him with the shock collar (aka - shock-a-tron). I think I'll stick with the piano. Banging on it is a pretty good musical outlet.

The other night I was flipping through tv channels (so uninspired by tv right now) and landed on PBS. Have you guys heard of The Piano Guys? Because seriously, they are so incredibly good and their music is cool, and I want to see them in Portland when they're here in February but that's probably not going to happen because tickets are out.rage.ous. Anyway, if you haven't heard their music, you need to listen to this. And it's not just piano. The celloist is fantastic too. But if you only have time to watch one, you won't want to miss all the grandmas dancing to Charlie Brown. Seriously, funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

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