Saturday, August 14, 2010

It's Almost School Time!!

Summer is definitely over!

I never did get my menu typed up on here last week. I made it last Saturday. But then Monday morning right before our first teacher meeting of the school year, my principal pulled me aside and told me that I would be teaching 3rd grade (I've taught 5th the last two years) in a new classroom, which is across the street from my old one.

So, to put it very mildly, it was a rather busy week. :)

Meetings galore, packing, moving, unpacking boxes, taking the boxes back across the street and packing them up again, and attending more meetings is what I have done all this last week. I never did get to the store to buy what was needed for what I planned for our dinners. Instead it was all about looking in the freezer and pantry and finding what I could that would be fast and easy.

TDaddy has been wonderful. Monday and Tuesday I picked the kids up from daycare, came home and started dinner and then he let me go back to school to work for a couple more hours. Wednesday I had to leave work early to take Tgirl to ballet. After inhaling fast food for dinner and driving all the way there (a 30 minute drive with lots of stop lights) we spent about 40 minutes in the bathroom with Tgirl having stomach cramps, that I think were due to eating food that was a bit too spicy too fast, we turned around and came home to go stand shivering in the cool wind and watch Tboy's soccer practice. Thursday and Friday were full days of meetings as my stress level has begun to rise. The shock of all that needs to be done in the next two weeks has worn off and now I am just feeling rather frazzled and not at all sure that I can get everything that needs to be done, done.

Welcome back to school! :)

A Visit to an Art Museum

Last Friday, the kids and I got to go see "The Birth of Impressionism" at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. It was so much fun!

Ok, so Tboy wasn't crazy about it, but he didn't hate it either. And if we hadn't had to wait in so many lines before we got in to see the paintings he would have done much better. As it was, he kept trying to sit down on the ground every time Tgirl and I stopped in front of a painting and I ended up giving him my iPhone to keep him busy so that he wouldn't start whining about wanting to leave.

One of the things that I liked most about the outing, besides how amazing it was to see the original of paintings that I have seen in books, on stationary, etc for most of my life, was watching Tgirl discover the art. She was fascinated by it and could have spent a lot more time standing looking at all of the paintings had I not been hurrying her along concerned her brother might explode.

I did learn how useful the audio guide it when visiting a museum. I hadn't been planning on renting one. They were $7 a piece and after buying the museum tickets, I just didn't think we needed to be throwing money all over the place. But as we stood in the second line waiting our turn (after standing in another line for nearly 45 minutes, including 30 minutes after our time of entry on our ticket) and my little natives were starting to get restless, I bought one audio guide and told them that we would all take turns listening to it and sharing it.

Which worked ok. Except, both kids were rather impatient with each other when it wasn't their turn.

So I bought another one. Each kid had their own and I just looked at the paintings. Then, when the boy gave up on the art and I gave him my phone, I got to listen to the audio guide and it was definitely worth it. I learned so much more, the narration definitely enhanced my experience. And from watching my girl honestly enjoying art that was made over 200 years ago, it was absolutely worth it.

So even though we got lost/missed our turn about 4 times on the way there and once on the way home (thanks to my horrible sense of direction - hooray for the GPS on my phone!) and the parking garage was full so we had to drive up and down the surrounding streets, trying not to get lost again and ending up having to walk rather a long way from the parking spot we ended up getting into the museum, it was a great outing and a wonderful experience!

Monday, August 2, 2010

Menu Plan Monday

We are easing out of the summer schedule and back into the school schedule this week. I am in my classroom (and have childcare) for Monday - Wednesday and we have activities planned for Thursday and Friday. Next week the kids will be in childcare all week and I am back for real with meetings, a firm morning arrival time, etc.

While the new year is always an exciting opportunity to start fresh, it is still a bit sad to be leaving the relaxed days of summer behind.

This week on the menu:
Monday: birthday party for my sister in law at my mom's
Tuesday: fish and chips
Wednesday: chicken alfredo
Thursday: meatloaf and mashed potatoes
Friday: grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches
Saturday: dinner out with my siblings and spouses
Sunday: grilled chicken and baked sweet potatoes