Why did I say anything?

Yesterday might have been the craziest day of the whole crazy week at the school where I work. I shouldn't have said anything here on the blog about hoping for a calm Friday. It was nuts!

Cro asked me in the comments on the last post why we had to have police come to our school multiple times in one week. Well, to begin with, we have an SRO (school resource officer) at our school every day unless there's a shortage at another campus in the district. This is an armed sheriff's deputy with his own office, where he can sit and monitor the cameras stationed all around the school. We all really like the officer they've assigned to us this year. He's a young guy that has a great rapport with the students, in fact, lots of kids try to hang out in his office between classes because he enjoys talking to and joking with them. When there's a fight or a student gets in trouble he's always a voice of calm reassurance to the parents, and he's well liked by them, too. Some of the troubled bigger boys really seem to crave his attention, and it's good for them to have a positive male role model.

Both times when the police were called to our school last week it was when our SRO was off campus, having been sent to other schools for the day due to absences. Both calls came from pissed off parents whose kids had either been in a fight or were having mental health issues along with a discipline referral and they disagreed with how the school was handling it. One father was ranting and raving at me in the front office and I was actually glad when he called the police! 

There was actually a third case of the police being called to the school, on one of the days that our SRO was actually there. This time two extra officers had to be called in because a student disclosed serious physical abuse that was happening to him and his siblings at home. After DSS came out and investigated, they had to come take the student into emergency custody. Thank goodness the boy didn't have to go back to his house--I heard that under his shirt sleeves and pants legs he was just covered in bruises.

In addition to all of the above drama, we had at least four serious fights between students this week. Serious as in bloody mouths and noses and, in the case of two sisters, cold calculated pre-planned attacks where they jumped two other girls unprovoked, at lunch and in a classroom. 

Yesterday morning I was greeted first thing to a private message on the school's Facebook page (which I manage) from a parent alerting me to the fact that anonymous students had created an Instagram page filled with videos of fights at our school! So two of the administrators had to spend the morning figuring out who was responsible. They did eventually catch him. If we could somehow ban cell phones (which all of the kids have) at school  it was save a ton of trouble, but parents would be outraged. They think their kids "need" those phones for safety reasons, but they do nothing but cause trouble. (Side note: one tiny little 7th grade boy got written up this week for having his phone out in class, and when the teacher took it from him he turned to his closest seatmate and said, incredulously, "That bitch took my phone!") Then all morning long I had calls from classrooms asking me to get an administrator for the teacher because of outrageously bad behavior. It was so bad, you guys, that a teacher walked out and quit at lunchtime yesterday! Walked into the office, threw her lanyard and door key fob on my desk, and announced to us all that she was headed to the district office to resign!!!

I don't know what in the holy hell has gotten into the student body at our school, but I really hope they got it out of their systems this past week! It was absolutely nuts! I should never have said anything yesterday morning. 

More rain

It's Friday! It's been another long (and stressful) week at work. I'll have to blog about some of the craziness later this weekend, but there's still one more day to get through. So far we've had the police called to our school twice this week, a "Showcase of Schools" open for the public to come visit, a vote on Tuesday for a contentious local referendum (our school is a polling place so the band room had to be blocked off from the rest of the school) that failed to pass...so it's been another wild and crazy week. Everyone is ready for a rest.

I would love to have some sunshine this weekend, but no, it's going to rain....again! It's done nothing but rain every single weekend all winter. Sometimes the sun will peek out for an hour or two but always on weekdays, it seems. I'm so tired of gray skies and rain! I've started taking vitamin D supplements again to try to get some energy back. I'd rather get it the old fashioned way.

Well, off to the jungle  middle school. Wish me luck. Here's hoping that the drama stays at a minimum and we can end this week with some kind of calm!

Have a great day, everyone!

Wine for one

Last night I posted this on Facebook:

Wine for one. It's been a rough day! 

And it was. A rough day, I mean. The school secretary was taking a vacation day off, the office assistant had to cover a classroom all day when a substitute failed to show up, and I had responsibility for the whole office--all the phone calls, buzzing people in at the front door (the camera and speaker are on my desk), checking IDs on people signing students out, taking messages for the administrators and counselors, etc..--all by myself. On a Friday, when dozens of kids get signed out early.  And yesterday we had a surprise assembly for the 8th graders at 2:30 where two former NFL football players came to the school to speak. That meant that all the kids that got signed out from about 2pm on were down in a noisy assembly in the gym and I had to radio down there repeatedly to get someone to find them. Then after I did afternoon announcements at dismissal, I had to listen for buses to announce as well as calls on the walkies for kids to report to the car lines. And I still hadn't finished my discipline reports that have to be done before I can leave. I was ready to pull my damn hair out by the end of all that!

So I felt that a couple of glasses of wine were well deserved. Gregg doesn't care for alcohol in any form so I had to drink alone. Note the pretty wineglass with my initials on it--it was part of a set that Marla gave me for Christmas that she engraved herself! The wine is a nice red blend that I enjoy.

The only bad thing about having a couple of glasses of wine was falling asleep at 9:30pm on a Friday night! I can't hold my liquor like I used to. 

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Sheffield fly-over honors WWII American airmen

I read an article in our local paper yesterday about a movement to honor a crew of American WWII airmen who sacrificed their lives to save a group of children in Sheffield, England in 1944. I immediately thought of my friend Yorkshire Pudding who lives in Sheffield. I hope he will get a chance to see the memorial fly-over on Friday.

Here is the first part of the article:

SHEFFIELD, England (AP) — Tony Foulds has a routine when he visits the memorial for 10 American airmen killed in World War II.

First, he kisses his finger and lays it on the metal plate bearing their names. Then he sits beside the rock, laying a shaky hand on its smooth slope with the care of someone offering comfort to a loved one. As he taps the stone, Foulds tells the airmen about the weather and his plans for the day.

It's the least he can do, because Foulds believes the young Americans sacrificed their lives to save his. The pilot decided not to land his crippled plane on Endcliffe Park, in the English city of Sheffield, to avoid a group of children on the grass.

"I pray for them every morning," the 82-year-old retired engineer said. "I would've been dead if they didn't do what they did."

Tony has long dreamed of a more public recognition of the sacrifice made by the crew of the B-17G Flying Fortress nicknamed "Mi Amigo." He wanted an aerial display — a flypast— befitting men who fought in the sky.

On Friday, he will get his wish. The U.S. and the Royal Air Force are set to honor Lt. John G. Kriegshauser and his crew.

But even that won't ease Foulds' guilt...

Read the rest of the story here: https://www.scnow.com/news/trending/article_d29b754b-5ddd-5a49-99c0-32464ebd482c.html?fbclid=IwAR1KCnJN7YpBbokjkh1M979pL2dvS8x4XFShhnxqloN9s-zAW-UlHdvuiYI

Another lazy weekend

I've spent another weekend basically hidden away at home. The weather has been chilly and damp, as per usual for this winter, and not very nice for being outdoors. Since I got most of the household chores I was planning done yesterday I did absolutely nothing today...unless you count a two and half hour nap! I slept so hard that I had vivid dreams and woke up confused about what day/time it was. There went the whole afternoon, which was kind of  a bummer, but it felt good to rest.

Ah, well. Such is life.

I need to go shoe shopping. All of a sudden last year I realized that none of my shoes were fitting properly. Apparently I've gone up a half size at the ripe old age of 43. So I had to get rid of most of my shoes right before moving here and I only have one good pair for work. I meant to go out and shop for more today, but it just didn't work out. I couldn't bring myself to go out and face crowds of Sunday shoppers on a cold wet Sunday afternoon, so I took a nap instead.

Now that I'm really awake and it's almost time for Gregg to get home, I'm off to pour a glass of wine and begin our supper. I'm making a hamburger casserole, one of those classic ones that have a mashed potato and melted cheese topping. Not fancy food, but it will taste good.

How was your weekend? Did you do anything good, get anything accomplished, or rest and relax like me? 

I'll be girding my loins to face the craziness of a Monday morning at a middle school tomorrow. 

Have a good one, everyone!

Procrastination

After only 3 months in our new house, last night we cleaned out and organized the garage enough to fit my car inside. For three months we put off a job that only took an hour and a half. We felt kind of foolish.

The whole left side of the garage is full of aquariums, aquarium gear, buckets of coral skeleton and substrates, and on and on.... but at least it all makes more sense now and we can walk around and access everything. Most importantly, we can fit my car inside to protect it from the weather. We just paid it off right before buying the house, and it's our only really reliable vehicle. Gregg has a 1996 Ford Ranger truck that probably has over 300,000 miles on it. He uses it for driving to work at the pet store and also for his nearby aquarium maintenance jobs, but we don't trust it for using outside of about a 10 mile radius. But for an old Sanford & Son type work truck, it's awesome...perfect for hauling stuff around and not worrying too much about the paint job or getting dents in it, and it's super cheap to own. The insurance and taxes on it are negligible. There's no real need to keep it inside the garage, since it's in poor condition on the outside. My car, however, is the "main" vehicle and we're trying hard to keep it in excellent condition, inside and out.

Speaking of cleaning out the garage last night, both of our dogs freaked out. They were on the porch watching us move around boxes and rearrange stuff and it seems that they got scared that we might be about to move again. Ginger watched us with big eyes full of reproach, and George started whining and barking at us. We felt so guilty! Ginger, in particular, has had a hard time adjusting to the move and is just finally starting to seem settled in here and happy again. We had no idea that working on the garage would be a triggering event for both of them! The move was apparently more traumatic for them than we knew!

Honestly. we should have gotten the garage cleaned up long before now. There's no excuse at all for it. As soon as we got the inside of the house somewhat in order, the holidays  hit, and after that was over we just wanted to sit around and enjoy the place for awhile. Well, it's time to get back to work! Spring is coming (actually, judging by the weather this month spring is here) and there are a million and one things I want to accomplish in the house and in the yard before the heat of the summer arrives. Do you procrastinate? How do you overcome the tendency? I always wait to the last minute to get things done, and I hate it.

Garden plans

Three friends came to visit on Sunday who hadn't seen the new house yet. Look at the beautiful hyacinths they brought for a housewarming gift:

It was a funny coincidence that just the night before I was telling Gregg that I plan to plant hyacinth and daffodil bulbs around the bottoms of five crepe myrtle trees on the side of the house. Now I have a head start with the hyacinths! As soon as these finish blooming I'll plant them outside for next year. 

I've been having a lot of fun planning what I'm going to plant on our tiny little property. So far these are the things I've decided to have for sure:

• Four 8x4 raised beds as a permanent place to grow veggies and some annual herbs. These will be on the sunniest side of the back yard, and will probably be made of brick or concrete blocks instead of the standard wooden frames. 
• A large raised bed in front of the back porch that will be planted with perennial herbs and flowers for attracting bees and butterflies.
• A fig tree in the back left corner of the back yard. Probably the variety "Celeste".
• Two pomegranate shrubs, also in the back yard. I already have one that's been living in a large pot for years, and now it's time to give it a permanent home. I've read that you can increase flowering and fruiting if you have two or more, which is why I plan to buy another. Some of my neighbors had them when I was growing up and we kids enjoyed eating them in the summer.
• Two or three camellias in the back, too, to cover up the spots where we can see through to our jerk neighbor's back yard. Camellias have that wonderful evergreen foliage that will make a nice screen year round. In the winter, nothing is any prettier than camellias in flower, cheering up the otherwise dull landscape. I have no idea what colors/varieties to pick, though. If Ms. Moon has any thoughts on this I'd love to hear them! She's the Queen of beautiful camellia flowers!
• In the front yard, I want to eventually plant a small bed of roses with some nice companion flowers to go along with them. One rose I know I want is the famous "Peace" rose, but I've not decided which others to include. Any rose lovers reading that would like to offer suggestions? Somewhere on this property (maybe up the Southeast corner of the house) I'd like to plant a climbing "Don Juan" rose, but that's the only other variety I've decided on for now.

Of course, this is all going to take some time to accomplish (and to afford!). I plan to start with planting the fig tree (this spring) since a tree needs the most time to get established. Hopefully this summer while I'm off I can work on building the raised beds, at least.  I have enough plans already to keep me busy for years!

Beer and Skittles

A little while ago I did a Google search to find out when Chinese New Year falls this year. As of February 5th it will be the Year of the Earth Pig! 

While looking for the date, I ended up on a website with forecasts for every Chinese astrological sign coming up in 2019. Just for fun, I read mine and Gregg's. (I'm a Rabbit, he's a Dog). The horoscopes were awesome. Here's an excerpt from Gregg's:

you people under the Dog sign will be in good spirits, get more chances to beer and skittles and develop more consuming desires

Hey! I want more chances to beer and skittles! Doesn't that sound like a blast? :)

Here's a link to the website so you can look up your own forecast for the year ahead if you're interested. May we all have a year filled with chances to beer and skittles!

https://www.yourchineseastrology.com/chinese-new-year/