No wire hangers!!!

Alright. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a little picky about my stuff. I like things to be organized and neat. I make sure to put things away when I'm finished with them, and I expect the same of others.

My classroom is the way I like it. I have the needed things, and then I have a few "homey" things thrown in for good measure. I have "kid things" and "my things". I don't like those items to cross paths. No, you can't use that pencil. It's mine. You can use the student pencils. You got it out, so you put it back.

And maybe, just maybe, I've channeled Joan Crawford once or twice when I've found the crayons in the colored pencil drawer.

So, what has pushed me over the edge, you ask?

It's the reading celebration.

Now, it's a good idea. They have some cute rooms. I love reading. I have a BA and a MA in English, for goodness sake. Books are my friends.

But they are going to decorate MY room for this celebration. And notice the "they". Not me. Other people. Yes, strangers are going to enter my space. They are going to touch my things. They are going to bring "stuff" into my classroom. Seriously. Do these people not know me? Do they think that they can invade my classroom on a Friday afternoon, transform my classroom into a book wonderland, allow hundreds of people into my classroom on Saturday, and then have my room back in order for me to teach on Monday? I think not.

I wish I was one of those people who aren't bothered by those kinds of things, but I'm not. And at almost 40 years old, I'm not holding out hope of changing at this point.

I guess that's one way to make sure I attend . . . use my room.

Well, if you decide to visit the reading celebration this year, stop by and see my room. And say hello to me. You can find me under my desk in a fetal position or huddled in the back corner rocking back & forth and muttering to myself.

Can we do it?

Think we can make it an entire week at work without a snow day?

I think that we might have worked for one entire week in January, after we started our 2010 with 8 straight snow days. It's been pretty much downhill from there. The forecast looks decent. We're sure to have some more snow days before everything is said and done because this IS Kentucky and we have had snow days through March plenty of times.

This week I have front step duty every day after school. It's an amazingly thankless job. Basically it works like this: The person on duty stands at the top of the stairs telling students why they can't go down the steps. I try to ignore the dirty looks from people who are at the bottom of the stairs trying to get children to come to them. And it's even nicer when the weather stinks.

The rule is that I only get crappy outside duties in horribly hot, humid weather and cold, rainy weather. Want to guess what this week will bring?

Pedicure?

Today we have sunshine and 50 degree weather. I can't remember the last time it's been 50 by 10 in the morning. If I had my feet in decent shape, I'd wear sandals to church.

Well, maybe not sandals, but a great little peep toe shoe would certainly help lighten my mood.

Is it . . . sunshine?

Finally! After seemingly endless weeks of snow and cold temperatures, we made it into the mid 40's today. I even see SUNSHINE!!

It's tempting to go outside and work in the yard, but it's way too muddy to do that.

The blog, take two . . .

OK, so I had a blog.

I even had it here.

Apparently during my down time, Blogger changed formats or log-ins or something since I can't log into my old page or retrieve my old password. Good times.

I'll blame it all on MySpace for taking over my life. I kept a blog pretty regularly for quite awhile before making the MySpace switch. Then I blogged there. And then came Facebook, without the blog.

I've been thinking about getting started again. It's not like I'm all that interesting, or that people really ever visited me much. But it was fun.

There's no time like the present!