April 5

We have been home from the hospital for a whole month now. Individually, many of those days felt like a year. It's already hard to remember details from those early days because it seems like eons ago. But at the same time, I can't believe it's been a month!

Highs for today: Tons of human adult interaction! We have a seasonal plan with an exterminator to deal with ants and a couple other things we just couldn't get under control when we moved in. Since we always have the same tech, we do have conversations with him when he's here. Plus, he's a very chatty guy in our age range. He was happy to see our new addition today and we chatted for a bit after he finished the treatment since he has a couple little kids. Then, mike surprised us by coming home in the early afternoon to watch opening day. (and because I think he was worried about me on Wednesday when I lost my marbles after seeing him for a combined 6 hours in 3 days...he called to check on me Thursday too;) He even brought Taco Bell home. Finally, my carpool friend and her daughter came to visit this evening. All good things for a healthy me!

Low: In reading some emails today, it appears I'm going to be missing some important stuff at work. Things that will impact me far into the future. I'm disappointed about that, but I'm not going to work even for a meeting during the unpaid leave time. I just can't. That is frustrating. It's hard to have such sweeping educational change happening right now! Just at the moment where our kids' performance starts counting in our evaluations, I'm at home learning how to be a mom. Already a hard balance.

Year 3 - Day 125 - May 4

As part of a refresher in 2nd grade, my kids have been doing a scavenger hunt to get quicker at finding things on the shelves. I differentiated the game by making sure certain kids got certain cards. The cards on the bottom (without the underlines) match exactly to a shelf label. (Some are the first number or letter on the shelf label, some are the last number or letter on the label.) The "bonus round" cards are underlined. They exist in the room (and in the case of the letters, there are a whole bunch of books with that call number to make it a step easier.) But the shelf might just be labeled "BLA - BYA" so they have to figure out that's where BRO goes.

Even the kids that took awhile to get going eventually got speedy with the bonus number cards. Those bonus letter cards are hard. That's tough, since that's 99% finding a book in the library! Luckily they get to practice all the time. :)

Year 2 - Day 329 - November 16

After being out of my classroom for 2 days at a meeting, I came back to a big pile of mail this morning. On top was a nice, linen envelope with my district's return address. Inside was a letter on nice, linen paper thanking me for being their employee for 10 years.

The first thought I had was snarky and related to our refinance - "Think they'd take THIS as proof of employment?"

But overall, it's nice to be recognized for sticking with my job even when times are tough. I have one from my 5 year anniversary too, and it's in my folder. I guess they're assuming I'm not going anywhere between now and January, since that's my actual anniversary date! :)

Year 2 - Day 286 - October 14

Tonight I attended the Maryland State Teacher of the Year banquet with some of my colleagues. One of my friends and fellow media specialists won the honor at our county level and was a top 7 finalist for the state. Due to those awesome circumstances, the higher-ups in our county paid for a table of media specialists to go and enjoy the evening. While our friend did not win, we had a great time and the person who did win will be a great voice for our state.

There was a tanker accident on 95 in Harford County, so it took 3 hours to get to Martin's West from Perryville. Ouch. Luckily we got there just in time to see the ceremony begin. Whew. If you ever have an opportunity to go, you should because it's a great evening. I saw lots of people I know from other counties, as well, and enjoyed a chance to get dressed up.

Years and years ago, our high school had prom at Martin's West. I have a picture with me and the same three guys from two consecutive proms in this room. (One was from my senior year and one from the year after since the guy I was dating was younger.) The pictures both have this chandelier in the background, and the pictures together in side by side frames made a complete chandelier. I always thought that was pretty cool (and random, because we didn't do it on purpose!) but tonight I realized the same chandelier is hanging in a few different spaces throughout the room, so our pictures were a little less random than previously believed.

Year 2 - Day 241 - August 30

My room at school didn't fare nearly as well as my house did. There's a seam in the (flat) roof that goes across the library, and it leaks often. However, it's never been THIS bad before. We got an email recently saying they were going to stop just replacing the tiles and start fixing the root causes. I'm glad, cause this is yucky.

Many of the stuffed animals at work are mine from childhood. The dog with the sock in his mouth was a gift from my mom's friend that she grew up with and the dark one in the middle is a chimp from my friend in high school. The other two (orangutang & horse) were there when I got there, however the horse is currently sporting a purple scarf from my "$50 Boardwalk Bear." The kids play with the animals all the time and I never know which animals will be wearing which accessories. :)

Year 2 - Day 236 - August 25

I'm going to be teaching a section of Children's Literature at a local community college this fall. It's exciting, but I'm a little nervous too! I just got hired in the last 24 hours, and class starts on Tuesday. I have materials from a previous instructor and everyone has been MORE than helpful and encouraging which is wonderful! I spent this evening at a meeting for adjunct professors learning all about the ins and outs of the school. I'm on brain overload! I'm going to spend the next several days working non-stop to get ready. This is a good stress though, because I know I can do it, it's just going to take a lot of work. That's the kind of stress I can live with!

Year 2 - Day 235 - August 24

I had an interesting conversation with a couple people today regarding a second, part-time job. No i's are dotted and no t's are crossed, but it looks promising. It's scary, although in a good way and not in a bad way like the last couple weeks!

Year 2 - Day 229 - August 18

And so the school year begins. I snapped this early this morning when I got to the park 'n' ride. These older guys meet up every couple weeks to go golfing. They drive us crazy because they don't pull the last couple cars into parking spaces and instead fill up the one-way road to the parking spots while they stand there drinking coffee standing outside their cars. It's a huge group of men, usually 8 but sometimes 12, and they appear to be retired-already age. What a life to look forward to someday! Although when I'm retired, I won't be meeting my friends for fun at 6:45am. :)

Year 2 - Day 212 - August 1

I spent about 8 hours today working on financial things for an organization that I am the treasurer of. I was pin-pointing details and looking at pennies and making spreadsheets, all things I love to do. It's easier to be objective with the organization's money than it is with our household money because emotions stay out of it. I could do that with our family money, but personal needs & wants are different than organizational needs & wants. It's always easier to deal with logic & reason than emotion! :) But I have beautiful matchy binders with post-its telling me things and spreadsheets to match. My math brain was glad for the workout because it doesn't get used very much as a librarian. :) I should have taken a "during" picture - every inch of the floor & desk in the office was a pile or chart of something different. I probably should have done it on a day Mike was at work since I took over the whole computer room, but he enjoyed the excuse to play Xbox for hours!

Year 2 - Day 192 - July 12

As part of our STEM activities today, we used what we learned in a pendulum activity to make a safe swingset. It was safer before we moved it to the green paper so that it could go sit on a shelf...the pencils got crooked. :)

Year 2 - Day 180 - June 30

I spent some time helping friends/coworkers with a computer project today. It's so easy to be helpful when this is the view! :) Much nicer than the cinder block walls we have for inspiration at work, right?!

Year 2 - Day 171 - June 21

Another dinner at a golf course! Who would have thought that would happen twice in a little over a week? Tonight's dinner was with my fellow media specialists to say thank you to our leader. It was going to be a goodbye dinner, but circumstances changed and we decided to still have the dinner and enjoy the happiness!

Year 2 - Day 138 - May 19

I used to hate weeding.  It made my stomach hurt.  I could justify keeping almost everything. "Oh, we'll use this one as the non-example in a currency lesson." "Oh this series will come back around on the popularity scale!"

Not anymore.

I'm a weeding machine.  I had never done a deep thorough job on the picture books before, but wow. Today I cleaned house!

Year 2 - Day 135 - May 16

We're creeping closer to inventory time in the media center.  Today's "bet you didn't know being a media specialist was THIS awesome" task was scrubbing shelf fronts in preparation for their new shelf labels. 

My right arm is definitely feeling the workout!

Year 2 - Day 117 - April 28

I have spent every waking moment this week either teaching students or working on my portfolio.  Yes, I've known about this assignment since mid January.  But old habits die hard and here I was working my butt off at the last minute. :)  It was due tonight, and now my class is over.  It was not a "for a grade" class, but I got continuing ed credits and learned some things and met some people.  And who knows, I might actually work on the portfolio some more to get it past the "made for class" stage and make it useful.  Maybe. :)

But now I need to go to bed so that I can get up early and watch the Royal Wedding.

Year 2 - Day 96 - April 7

There are lots of checkmarks on our chart .... that means that Black Eyed Susan voting time is getting close! :)

Year 2 - Day 67 - March 8

It's MSA state testing week.  My schedule is all flip flopped.  This is what my desk looks like after 6 hours of not knowing if I'm coming or going....

Year 2 - Day 60 - March 1

Today, I shadowed my media supervisor as part of a leadership class I'm taking.  (Photo of a PBS video collection in central media.)  I had so much fun.  I don't really want to move into an admin position at this point in my life, but it's definitely something I'd be interested in down the road.  I don't have my admin degree yet, so that's one thing.  I'd also be working year round and driving all over the place-  so living so far from the county I work in would be an added difficulty.  But I loved having conversations at the more global level rather than the classroom level. 

Year 2 - Day 6 - January 6

My library looks awesome today ... this is just a tiny portion (on top of the shelves, and on the tippy top of the shelves in the background) of all the new books we have on display! The kids are in agony because I make them leave the new ones on display for a WHOLE WEEK before I let them check any out or put them on hold. 

In addition, I went with the photo tips tweet of the day (from yesterday) to do something diagonal.

Day 322 - November 18

This is the view under my coffee table.  It's where my shoes go every day, and every day I choose a pair to wear.  Currently I'm rotating between the dark blue Nikes with my orthotics and my slip on silver and light blue Dr. Scholls with the occasional brown New Balances thrown in as I break them in.  What's it like to have a job that doesn't make your feet hurt?  I love my job, but I couldn't do it if my shoes were cute instead of uncomfortable.  It's hard enough in sneakers!