The Why of Why I Have Been Gone For a Week.....

I am in pain, excruciating, mind-numbing pain.  This is not something that happens to me, I can take pain, so if I am not blogging, not working, not moving, the pain is bad, real bad.

So, you would think I know what it is that is causing me to lay in bed all day, everyday, while my kiddos are slowly forgetting everything I have taught them.  They think I am never coming back and why wouldn't they, after the principal, AP, 2 nurses, a wheelchair, a blood pressure machine, and the lady with the alligator purse came bursting into my classroom last Wednesday, they thought I was dying.  I wasn't, but I wanted to.

UTI they said, nope can't be, I don't have any symptoms.  Take the antibiotic, go back to work, you will be fine, they said.  Two days later, I cried the entire day at work.  My back was derailing and I couldn't do a thing about it. The cramps, they were back.  Everyone said kidney stones.  Ok, could be.

Come Monday, I had to be escorted out of work again and sent to the ER.  8 hours later, NOTHING!!!!  Sounds like kidney stones, your pain is indicative of kidney stones, but no stones.  Just infection, now in the bladder and the kidneys.  There might be sand in your kidneys.  Oh, good, that trip to the beach was well worth it.

One week later, I still cringe and cry.  I can't work until Monday and I can't do anything else.  I am writing this to get it off my chest and to ask for prayers from my blogging buddies.  I need the pain to go away. I don't know how to rest and not be a teacher.  I want to go back to my babies.  

 Thanks for listening to the ramblings of a Percocet filled mind.  

Who looks like this when they have kidney pain?  Pretend this is me, this is what I look like right now, LOL.

Is it June Yet?

Yes, that's right, I am ready for June!  The first two weeks of school have left me exhausted and overwhelmed.  I am just going to put it out there:  this has been the worst opening of school I have had in my entire career.  Phew, that felt good, after all the first step to recovery is admitting there is a problem!

So, it isn't my students.  They have picked up on every routine and I LOVE them.  We have already completed some really fun stuff.  It isn't administration.  We do have a new principal, but from what I can see, he is on the ball and pretty cool.  

We have a new reading series and a new edition of Go Math, but I am flexible and use to change, so it can't be that. The person I ranted about last year on my blog (the one who stole my teaching identity) left, so that was probably the happiest news I could have ever received.

So what could it be?  Everyone, and I mean all of my favorite teaching peeps, feel the same way, so it isn't me.  Is it that we are all older and we get tired faster than we use to?  Is it the state of teaching as a whole? Maybe it is the extra responsibility that has been handed down to us, the stuff that takes us away from teaching.

I can't put my finger on it, but I am sure it will come to me soon.  Until then, I remain my old positive self and will let all the other stuff work itself out.  Maybe you have had a similar opening of school, if so, let me know so I can be part of the in crowd.

The Big Reveal (isn't so big after all)

Cue music.  Blow the horns.  Get ready for it....

As of yesterday, I was teaching this grade:

I have been asked a few times to move up to third floor and strut my stuff, so I said yes.  I was scared people!  I am not gonna lie, I teach 6-7 year olds, what the heck do you do with kids 6 years older????  I ask you, do 7th graders like Junie B. Jones, making Mother's Day cards, walking in a straight line, well do they?  I could do this, I thought.  They must be like big first graders, only smellier and attitudier (my word, but it sounds about right).  7th grade English Language Arts, this is the stuff dreams are made of.  I will finally have a class stand on their desks and recite "Oh Captain, My Captain".  I will be the teacher they love.  I will be the bomb.  I will be shorter than them.  I will be scared of them.  I think I can do this.  Well, maybe not.

So, I text my AP and chicken out.  Yeah, you heard me, I chickened out.  Cluck. Cluck.  So as of today I am teaching this grade:

These kids love me and they are smaller (even the picture I found is smaller than the one up there ^^^^^).  I can breathe again and I can get back to creating this summer.  I am back on track.  Go first grade!  Yeah me.

Now what to do with all of the middle school stuff I pinned when I was teaching 7th grade for the last 4 days!

Spring Break is Just a Memory

I had huge plans for this week, grandiose to umpteenth degree.  I was going to knock my own socks off with the plans I made...

My socks are still on and the only degrees I can get to are on the thermostat. I did nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Except:

Watch every episode of Downton Abbey
Clean the bathroom
Write 2 1/2 papers
Pin the things I wanted to do
Entered Giveaways
Posted 2, count them, 2 blog posts
Transferred to Bloglovin and Feedly (I like Bloglovin much better, so I think that will be my new home when Reader fades into the night)
Catch up on over 2000 unread blog posts from all of my favorite bloggers

The only thing on the above list that I planned to do was write the papers.  It should have been 3, but I can't seem to think of anything else to write about Culturally Relevant Mathematics Lessons (If you have anything to share, please do).

I am going to chalk this up as a loss, all the way around.  I think losing Grandma on the 17th is still very heavy on my heart, so I am doing mindless work to pass the time.  Easter Sunday will be hard, but she has risen to heaven, so I should smile knowing she is in His glorious kingdom.

Spring break has come and gone, but now I am closer to summer and that list is going to knock everyone's socks off!

Procrastination...Friend or

I didn't even have time to finish the title... Well, don't we all claim to have this friend called procrastination?    I have known this fellow since I was about 12 and had to write my first term paper.  Term paper, do we even use that term (pun intended) anymore?  What the heck is a term paper anyway?  I guess it literally means a paper due this term.  I am smart like that you know, smart as a whip.

Anyway, I think I am procrastinating about writing about procrastination.  I hope you are still with me, if not, thanks for stopping by.  If you are, I promise to get to the point.  I am on spring break from my master's classes, not from my own class.  My professors think it's cool to give us umpteen (spell check said it is a real word) papers to write over spring break, because we aren't on spring break from work.  Oh, ok, look at me writing away, hahaha.  Hence, the title and my procrastinating self.  

I attempted to make a template for one of the papers.  I put some paperwork together to start another paper, but it is sitting here next to me on my bed.  I think it fell asleep.  I won't bother it right now, let it rest.  After all, it's spring break.  I have ideas in my head, but the other stuff in my head keeps bullying the ideas.  I am not getting involved, I am a lover not a fighter.  My husband is now laughing at the lover part, but that is a story for another day.

I truly can't think about writing anything (well, except this post, apparently) with my grandma in the hospital.  I want to thank those of you who have sent me good thoughts and prayers, we need them, badly.  Grandma hasn't woken up and we did call in hospice today, so I guess it's a matter of time. I hope procrastination takes hold of that time, so I can hold on to grandma a few more days.  

So, I guess I might not be procrastinating at all.  I might be thinking, no, I am thinking of grandma all of the time.  I even told my students about her. They want me to take their 100 day projects to her to cheer her up.  I cried. They said I could keep them after grandma sees them so I could cheer up.  I cried some more.  I am a mess.  Ok, this isn't procrastination at all.  I thought it was, but it isn't.  

It is rambling.  Talking on and on with no point.  Rambling and Procrastinating at the very same time.  I am forever talented.  I hope you laughed at this silly post.  I did.  It got me through ten minutes of no tears. But....

I still don't want to write my papers.  

You Won't Believe It

This post is going to be a little confusing, but just work with me.  Drama.  Do you know about, drama?  Not the great TV show we love to watch, not the class we took in high school that made us feel like we could make it on Broadway, not even the first grade girl who screams when she sees a lizard, drama.  I'm talking about the people in our lives who suck the very life from us because everything is a problem, everything is turned into a problem, and everything is about THEM.  You know exactly what I mean, I can feel your brain filing through the names of more than one person who fits the bill.  My drama, this person who confuses loyalty with "let me step all over you", this person who "one ups" you on everything, like when you talk about breaking your arm and then jumps in and says they broke both arms at the same time, that drama.  This person STOLE MY TEACHING IDENTITY!!!!!!!! Ok, I said it, out loud for everyone to read, maybe even the drama.

Imagine the look on my face when I was given a copy of something I could use and was told that drama gave it to them.  Ummm, this something, this one little very big thing, happened to be my LESSON PLANS!!!!  After further research, I find out that my PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER SHARED or MADE MYSELF was not made by me.  I don't even write on my very own blog, I don't have a Master's degree and I am not working on a Master's Certificate in math.  Guess what???? Drama has all of this.

I am befuddled or am I?  Maybe I really am drama?  Hold on.  Nope, it's me, I looked in the mirror.  I have so many ideas for my blog this year, but now I am concerned that they aren't my ideas at all.  One more thing, Drama is my FRIEND!  Drama has played its (no gender for fear of creating more drama) last role.  I have the upper hand here, because I was in drama and I am about to play the role of a lifetime.  My identity will not only be returned to me, in tact and better than ever, but drama will do it with a smile and not even know that I took it back.  This will be the last time drama creates drama about me when I am not in the room.  Bees, honey, vinegar, you know the saying.  It goes in line with the great friends, enemies, and closeness deal.  Drama and I will be so close you won't be able to tell where one ends and the other one begins.  

I digress... I won't do anything to drama, but that last paragraph sounded great.  I even believed I was a revengeful person, but alas, I am not.  Hence, the reason drama can walk all over me and I wipe off the footprints and wait for the next step.  It hurts. A lot.  I have to think of a way to get over this and move on.  It will be hard.  Very hard.  I can do this.

I don't want to stop sharing with my team, I don't want to stop being loyal, I don't want to stop being collaborative with others.  I don't want to stop being ME.  

That One Student...

We all have it, that one student who just turns us into the exact person we don't want to be.  Some are worse than others and many of them act the way they do because it is just a matter of survival.  This year I have that one, but this one is like no other that I have ever had in my career.


This one, breaks my heart and makes my blood boil, at the very same time.  Thank goodness I have my friend co-teaching with me because I wouldn't be able to get through the day, the week, or even the hour when this one is in school.   I have always said when a child behaves the way they do and all the strategies in the world do not work, there is only one label that fits this student.  Forget EBD, SLD, EH, or any other label made up by the powers that be.  These students are Parentally Disabled, because I can't fathom that a child would do any of the things I have seen unless a parent has not lived up to the pact they made with God when they were given this child.


This week was the worst by far and without giving out too much information, just know that the police were called.  I had an out of body experience watching this unfold, I lost all the spit in my mouth, my knees were so weak I had to lean against the wall, and I wanted to throw up, a lot.  I am praying and hoping that this time help will come and all will be okay, but reality has a way of sneaking in and reminding me that unless the parents are on board, all may be lost.


Tomorrow is Easter and this little one is not in a good place, but I know that He will take care of her.  I have to believe this to be true or else I might lose it.  This is why I am a teacher and it is the same reason that sometimes I don't want to be a teacher anymore.  This has to be fixed, it has to be ok, it has to be left in His hands.

Spring Break, FINALLY!

I am loving that I have a whole week off and I am praying that it won't end quickly.  Don't you hate that weeks at work take forever and when we have a few days off they fly by?  I have so much to do this week and playing blog catch up is on that list.  I have high aspirations for myself, but I also have to be realistic, in that my 17 year old will probably have me driving her all over town.  At least I can stay up late and wake up even later, so that is the best part!
I hate that my college girl was home last week while we were still in school and I had a migraine her last 2 days here, so that was an epic fail.  We will just have to Skype a little more this week.
I am almost finished with the HM first grade focus walls up through Theme 10, so all my fans out there will be happy when those are posted.  I will then re-post the earlier themes, since I took them down when DJ Inkers scared us to death.
That's it for today.  Enjoy your Sunday blogging peeps!

My Mom, She Lied

Hold on to your hats blogging buddies, this is a doozy!


Everyday when we take attendance we ask the students who were absent the previous day if they have a note.  I am sure this is just your favorite thing to do, as it is mine since it really isn't my favorite.  I'm a parent, I know how to write a note that will excuse my child for an absence that isn't legit truly shows how sick they were.


Sorry for the rambling..... student A brings up the note, hands it to me and says "my mom, she lied".  My partner had to get under her desk (I think she was going to pee in a bucket because she was squatting and laughing all at once).  I said "what do you mean, she lied", fear must have set in because student A sort of looked like a deer caught in headlights.  


The letter said "sick because of an awful sickness, really really really bad sickness, blah, blah blah (I improvised here).  So I figured it out and said "were you really sick or were you at....".  I am a genius like that!  Student A couldn't believe that I knew the truth!  So Student A proceeded to say that is what the lie was and there wasn't any sickness.


Moral of the story:  Parents, your kids will sell you out to their teachers.  Especially a first grader, so don't waste your time with the infamous my kid was on death's door letter, because they will tell us all about their trip to Disney World, LOL!