Orinday man's exhausting ordinary day

An ordinary man’s exhausting ordinary day August 14, 2009

I woke up at 5 a.m. Got about 5 hours and 40 minutes of sleep. Not that unusual during the school year. Actually I hit the snooze button and woke up at 5:07 a.m. After my shower I threw on my light khaki pants, my teal polo shirt and I zipped to Super Saver. The first Friday of the school year I have traditionally brought donuts for my homeroom. By the time the day ended I had eaten four donuts. Such willpower. It is my favorite food. Donuts. I had one on the way home from Super Saver. Why didn’t I wait until I got home? Jen didn’t want one (She is doing the couch potato to 5K program, and she is really doing great with her exercise program and losing some weight). I didn’t want to eat in front of her, but I did get the kids donuts. Even our 12-month old Claire had a few bites of her plain donut. Davin was excited to have his white-frosting and sprinkle donut. Kylie was devastated that I bought her the chocolate sprinkle donut. She wanted a white-filled long john. Luckily I had 2 dozen rolls and donuts in the car to take to school, so I traded her donut for the long john and she was happy. By the way – of my four donuts, 3 of them were filled long johns. Yes I sometimes eat ridiculously. My weight was 1 ½ pounds down today – at 173 pounds. I’m curious what it will be tomorrow morning. We got the kids fed, dressed, brushed teeth, etc. Jen took off with Claire and Davin for Nancy’s and I took Kylie to Kids Network before school. I love Mr. Flynn. He does a great job of being so positive and interacting with the kids before and after school. Jenna, who helps him, is also pretty cool. I found out that she had Ms. Gauthier for Spanish at Millard South.
I balanced my briefcase, lunch bag, laptop, 2 dozen donuts all the way to my new classroom, which has a window, 2 marker boards, and a lot more space. German I first block went great. 28 kids in that class – my biggest this year. I have 106 students in my 6 classes all together. I hate 2 of my 4 donuts during PRIDE Time. Yes I am crazy or I have the brain of a 5-year old when it comes to eating sweets. Then I had two great classes of Honors German III. That is a fun class to teach just about every year. Students who are very bright, still very excited to be learning German, and fluent enough to have good conversations with in German. Lunch with my foreign language teacher colleagues was great. At least for lunch I just had grapes, a pb&j, and a Pepsi. Fourth block I had free to get ready for all of these things: German 2, German 4 on Monday and German 1 and Honors German 3 on Tuesday. Luckily I have been teaching German for 15 years, so I’ve got lots of stuff in my files to use. My voice isn’t too sore; usually the first week of the school year gets sore after summer vacation because of all the talking I do in my classroom.
Got out of school by 4:00. Zipped to Nancy’s to pick up the kids. Nancy is watching Davin, Claire, Aaron, and Garrett. Aaron and Garrett both have parents who teach in Millard. Claire is wearing her orange cast. She broke it over the weekend, and we don’t know exactly how it happened. When I got to Nancy’s Grayson told me that I need to buy Davin Pokemon cards so that he can play when he comes next week. Grayson explained to me a couple weeks ago when they had us over for dinner what each of his 100+ Pokemon cards can do.
We drove home via 144th. Davin reminded me that we could have gone the other way (Bob Boozer Drive is open again.)
As soon as we got home, the neighborhood boys and girls (Zach, Eric, Kyler) were all riding scooters.) We had to hurry. Jen was throwing together her ‘salad’ with cool whip, apples and snicker bards. We zipped to Michelle’s house for a party with Jen’s teacher colleagues and their spouses, kids, etc. The five of us arrived with jen’s ‘salad’, Claire’s diaper bag, a stroller, 3 of those outdoor folding chairs. Yep, we were moving in.
Jen’s parties have been more fun each year – with her co-workers. It helps that I’ve known some of them for 8 years. It definitely takes me a few years to feel at home in a new place, job, etc. It was a lot of fun. The kids had fun too. I’m always impressed with how quickly Kylie meets other kids and starts playing with them. She had a huge backyard. Davin had fun playing pirates, swinging, playing soccer and all. Davin and I had fun playing soccer for a while. Left the party around 8:00.
I think Kylie is liking 1st grade after three days. I don’t think you always get the best answers from kids when you ask – ‘how was school’ or ‘what did you learn or do at school today’ -- I like to wait for her anecdotes or responses to questions I may give in a few days or couple weeks as it naturally comes up in conversation. Wartburg Oufly picnic on Wednesday, golf league on Thursday, and this party on Friday, so I haven’t had tons of time to talk to Kylie to see how things are going, but I think I’ll find out more each day

We tried to straighten up the house for 20 minutes since we are meeting with a realtor tomorrow. We may be putting our house on the market very soon in order to buy a 4-bedroom house. We’ll see what happens. We also have a chance to meet the Trix Rabbit and the Lucky Charms Leprachaun at Bag-n-Save tomorrow. I am pumped.

A nice day. I really think we all should just take things one day at a time – one moment at a time. Enjoy the ride. Focus on what you want to accomplish for that one day. But also just be as actively engaged in all the experiences of life as possible.