Flood Day

September has been a blur.

  

And now it is over.

North Carolina is not infamous for snow days, but we do get the occasional flood day.

School was cancelled and an "optional" work day was put in place for teachers. I left work early for fear they would close the last open road that would lead back to my house.

I caught up on housework.

Warm cider.

A friend.

Schoolwork.

And rest.

I need a good flood day every now and again.

As long as the water doesn't rise any closer to my porch.

I did not want to do my lesson plans tonight. I started anyway. As I pulled up my email and opened my books I became increasingly overwhelmed with this week: editing that movie of my students for Open House, that chapter I need to read before Wednesday's professional development, assessments, planning, centers, visitors coming two days this week, preparing for observations, little tasks to complete, and maybe finding the time to actually teach.

I began to have a brief dilemma minor meltdown. Do I work too much? My house is collecting dust, my garden is pleading for grooming, and a pile of laundry the size of Mt. Everest has been waiting for folding or ironing for well over a month. Has this taken over my life?  How will I keep up? Oh right, and my car needs an oil change. And Adam's car. Am I boring? When will I have time to do anything else? Will this job ever get easier? And I need to go to the grocery store again. Why did I take on more responsibilities at work? It's 9:30pm Sunday and my lesson plans are not done. Is this really what I want to be doing with my life?

Then I remembered: A student brought me an apple this week.
This sweet little girl.
This sweet girl with big, bright eyes and braided pigtails.

Yes. This is exactly where I am supposed to be. I have 21 children depending on me to teach them, encourage them, inspire them.

Whew.

I should probably finish those lesson plans.

Farmer's Day

Today was Farmer's Day in Richlands. You know, one of those only-in-a-rural-town-pronounced-"Rich Lands" kind of events. Jenn and Jackson joined us. It was a gorgeous day.

There were vendors with country crafts and antiques. Firetrucks. And, of course, no Farmer's Day is complete without funnel cakes, bouncey houses, cow milking, and antique tractors.

I have a new toy. I have wanted a digital SLR camera for a LONG time. However, I didn't feel I could justify spending the money when I wouldn't have time to use it anyway.

That is not the case anymore though. Even though I'm still working about 12 hours a day, at least I don't have classes and homework when I come home. I also have my Saturdays back...oh how glad I am to not get up early on Saturday to do grad work for five hours and then turn around and spend five hours Sunday evening catching up on lesson plans.

So as a graduation present to myself, I bought this:

And I have taken every opportunity to use it.

You know those Dominos Pizza ads where they tell you to take a picture of the pizza because they don't need fancy photography to make their pizza look good? Well, neither do I.

Doesn't this look super yummy with jalapenos from my garden?

I made Adam take me on an adventure my first free Saturday. We visited Cliffs of the Neuse state park. "Cliffs" is a loosely used term in eastern North Carolina, and the hike was only a mile, but it was great to get out and explore anyway.

And, Saturday wouldn't be complete without a date night with my husband from the comfort of our own home.

Ok, so I'm still learning how to use this thing. But it feels so great to finally learn photography and to get out of the house a LOT more.