Status Update and Promise

I know. I said that I would keep blogging and I haven’t. And I know that it is bad when my mother’s friend asks her if I am still posting (thanks Heidi for reading!). Yes, I planned on continuing my blog – and I promise, I will. Here are a few “excuses” that I have for not writing!

First, my computer has been on the fritz. The screen starts flickering and nothing fixes it. Before that started, Chris wiped my computer because it was running so slowly. I had to back-up all the files first and because it was running slow, it took forever. And now I am backing up files as I put them on the computer because I don’t want to lose anything. But it has been very frustrating.

Also, WordPress, my blogging site, changed some things and I was having major difficulties posting. It would not publish my posts. I am hoping that it is now fixed and that I won’t have that problem. I tried several times and several different ways and could not get things to publish. Between that and the computer issue, I was done.

My blog is a creative outlet for me. When I got my new job, my brain has been in overdrive on teaching stuff and there hasn’t been much room in there for anything else. I think that I have finally gotten to the point that I can focus on things other than teaching. . . we will see.

On a related note, I’ve been trying to get all of my teaching stuff together. That has involved going through more teaching stuff (that has been in storage) than one person should have. I do know why I have all of it (I had no clue what age group or disability level I would be teaching), but trying to find High School appropriate stuff, well, it has been a challenge.

The reading lists for High School have changed a lot and I have not been familiar with a number of books on the reading lists. So, I’ve been reading a ton of High School Lit trying to figure out what I want to teach in my classes (I’ll write more about my classes in another post).

The next “excuse” I have is that the boys have been busy with their “stuff” and I have been running with them. Michael has had choir and David has had band and choir. Michael had a choir field trip that I chaperoned (more about that later).

I also had the opportunity to sub for 4 days at an Elementary School in Castle Rock (remember the school from the Harvest Festival?) and took it. But, it left me exhausted. I was subbing as the SSN Teacher (Significant Special Needs). And I love these kids, but I forgot how exhausting they are. The school is also 3 stories and I am not used to the steps. My knees were telling me that going up and down all day was not what I should be putting them through. While I loved working with the staff at SGCE (the Educational Assistants are AMAZING!), it became very clear to me that working with SSN kiddos at the elementary school level was not something I would be able to do for the next 25 years. This was a tough realization, as I always thought that SSN would be where I would end up.

The next week I subbed in the classroom that is now mine for two days. It was great, but again I was pooped. I was trying to get stuff moved in and teach and get all sorts of stuff figured out. It wasn’t as physically exhausting as SSN, but my brain was tired.

In the time when I didn’t post, the dishwasher broke. It took forever to get a new one as the maintenance guys first tried to fix it and then it still wasn’t working, then they had to order a new one. Then they were off for Thanksgiving. Finally, they got it installed. I hate washing dishes. And I was working and then coming home, cooking dinner and then having to wash the dishes. It was so time-consuming! It really threw off all of the other chores too!

My last “excuse” is that Monday night I fell. In the parking lot, between two cars, while trying to bring in a case of water. I slipped on the ice and my foot turned on its side – actually first one side and then the other. All of my weight on the outside of my foot and then on the inside of my foot. Talk about pain. Thank Goodness that the boys were with me! Michael ran in to get Chris and David rubbed my back while I cried. With Chris’ help I hopped all the way to the apartment. After I sat down and pulled off my shoe and sock and looked at my foot, I decided the ER was the next stop. I had to hop all the way from the apartment back to the car. And every hop jarred my foot. It was extremely painful.

It turns out that my foot isn’t broken (I am VERY surprised). And when I say my foot, I mean my foot, not my ankle. The swelling was significant. The pain, excruciating. They doctor in the ER sent me home telling me that I had Compartment Syndrome (there is swelling in the “compartment” or my foot, causing pain) – elevate, ice, and wear an attractive orthopedic shoe. What the didn’t tell me was that even with the shoe, I couldn’t put weight on my foot because of the pain. Chris went out on Tuesday to get me crutches. I proceeded to slip (with the crutches) and fall in the kitchen. I stayed mostly in bed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I was supposed to sub for a final at the High School on Tuesday and go to the ISS (Instructional Support Services – or SPED) Department Holiday Party on Wednesday afternoon. I was also going to read files and continue moving into my classroom. None of that happened.

Thursday (yesterday), I let David stay home from school to go to DCHS (Douglas County High School) with me and re-arrange my classroom (the retiring teacher was done in there at 9:20). My classroom is all set, except that I don’t have anything on the walls (hope to get some stuff before we go back in January). I have my school laptop, so I can work on my project for the first week of school, and I am getting my lesson plans together (more on this later, too).

Essentially, life got away from me. I couldn’t keep up. And then life conspired against me – making everything more difficult than it should be. Today I am sitting with my foot up and not really planning on doing much. Tomorrow I hope to do a little bit of shopping – and some chores. Not much for Sunday and Monday (chores and lesson planning, etc.). Michael has a birthday party to go to on Tuesday and we will be babysitting my two nieces (Mike and Courtney’s girls) in the evening (FUN!!!). Chris sees the oncologist on Wednesday (he has scans done this week) and I will be going with him, so expect an update mid-week.

And here is my promise – I promise to post at least twice a week. Actually, I hope to post more, but I am promising two posts a week at a minimum. My schedule at the High School is only part-time and I will have some time during the day when I am not teaching and not planning, but really not enough time to leave to do anything (I’ll explain more in my post about my job – coming soon). So, I promise that I will post at least twice a week. That is until life conspires against me again and I don’t.