It's That Time of Year

Ugh! While it's a wonderful time of year with the holidays, cookies, presents, and cozy time spent indoors, an announcement after work reminded me that this is the time of year for some other less pleasant things as well.

Namely, the talk of layoffs.

Our district has decided to raise the class sizes in K-3 classes from 20 to 25, meaning that each elementary will lose around 4 teachers. I have even lower status in this district than in my district last year, so I'm not sure what to think. My adviser today tried to be reassuring, but it didn't exactly help (though I know she meant well).

It's funny, because I was feeling so stressed this morning, and had nightmares all night, but didn't connect with why until she brought up the potential layoffs. Then I connected the dots.

There's nothing to do besides make sure my paperwork is in order and keep an open ear for future news. Layoffs will be in March again, but I'm not sure when I'll know for sure if I should start looking for a new job.

But....I just need to breathe out this stress and in the holiday cheer. It's a bit stressful on that front too, especially with trying to get presents for my students' parents made and wrapped in time for them to be taken home, but it is a lot of fun doing so much art with the kids. I love the ornaments they're making this year, and they are having a blast painting and glittering and gluing. This is the only time this year, besides during our official art class, that we've done anything purely for creativity's sake, and it's fun. We might do some math today, but all in all, it'll be a low key day at work.

The great thing about kids is you can always count on them to raise your spirits and distract you from the stresses of life. Fingers crossed that they work their magic today!


(One of my lovely ornaments that we made this week)

Science and Running

Hi everyone. I still need to finish up posting pictures from Thanksgiving, and will try to get on that before Winter Break is upon us :). I had a subpar week for running this past week, since my cold got worse. I even took a day off from work which I generally only do if I'm about to die. It wasn't that bad, but I decided not to push it and use one of my many sick days. I ended up with no running the whole week, but did get in a fun run with another couple on Saturday and a hard 'long' (6.37 miles) run on Sunday. This week I'm hoping to keep a normal schedule, even with all the present wrapping, craft supply buying, cooking baking, and lesson planning I need to do to make this a good week at school :). The kids are making ornaments for their parents, which is fun, since I generally never get to do crafty things with them (ah....state standards). We are making cute Christmas Trees out of wooden spoon sticks, and wreaths out of puzzle pieces. They're having fun, and so am I!

This is always a fun week, even though the kids are a bit nutty. Lots to get done in the next 4 days though.

I'll leave you with a backwards picture of the craft I did today for science. I took it with my computer and can't seem to rotate it, but you can still get the gist :). I was telling my sister about it and she wanted to see it, so here it is!


Have great ones all :D



edited to add: I have been pretty quiet about my efforts at eating healthier lately, but I need to brag because I am (as of tonight) down 17.8 lbs and am officially no longer overweight :D. I have about 7 to lose to reach my lifetime weight and another 10 after that to reach my goal wedding weight. I'm feeling really good though, and loving that I can be losing weight while still enjoying good food and good wine. Running really does make everything wonderful :D