Home What the HECK?

I'm a teacher by trade.

So I sort of get homework.

Sort of.

I get assigning math fact flashcard practice.

Reading minutes.

Outside book report reading.

Revising/editing papers.

I even understand--though I totally hate that due to time constraints and budget cuts, it's necessary--assigning certain "projects" for homework.  Things like dioramas, science fair projects, PowerPoint presentations.

And of course I totally get the homework that happens because the kid screwed around in class and now gets the logical consequence of "You can do it now, or you can do it later.  Your choice."


I do not, however, understand assigning a seventy-nine term word search in the shape of a Parthenon where the unused letters (in order) spell out the name of the creature that was engraved on Athena's shield (according to myth).

In addition to your "Cretes" and "mythologies" and "Poseidons" this thing has words like Down.  East. Farm. Plots.

I want to scratch my eyes out just looking at it.  And I like letters.  And words.  And Ancient Greece.

This is the sort of activity that you have in a file folder on the back table for those kids who always finish whatever you've planned for a fifty-five minute class in three seconds flat.

Or what you keep in your bottom drawer for the substitute to pull out on the day that your kid develops a 102 degree fever ten minutes before you're headed out the door and detailed lesson plans just "aren't gonna happen."

It shouldn't EVER be homework.

It isn't even a good extra credit assignment.

So I'm off to help my kid with a Google search on Athena's shield.

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

It's a Sign

I've got this morning routine.

I wake up and IMMEDIATELY go to the bathroom sink and brush my teeth.  I don't pass Go, collect $200, or even start a cup of coffee.  I brush my teeth.

And there's really only one kind of toothpaste that I like.  It's Crest, and it's cinnamon flavored.

Yesterday morning, true to form, I woke up, hit the bathroom, grabbed a tube of toothpaste off of the counter, squirted it onto my toothbrush and stuck the thing in my mouth.

Not cinnamon.

Not even mint.

Bubble gum.

I would like fifteen minutes alone in a room with whoever thought it was a good idea to make bubble gum flavored toothpaste.

Anyway, I took this as a sign that yesterday was going to be, in the famous words of a little boy named Alexander, "a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad, day."

But it wasn't.

It was a great day!  The weather was beautiful. I had a great morning with some of my dear friends. I found hardback copies of all of the "Divergent" books for J dirt cheap at Costco.  I found OU vinyl clings at our Target for N.  OU stuff--at a Target in Southern California.  I'm still confused, but whatever.  We've been looking for some for months and I finally found them.  I spent the evening with my kiddos eating homemade macaroni and cheese and watching The Voice.  Then J and I read in bed for awhile before turning in.  It seriously was a really great day!

So this morning, I double-checked the tube of toothpaste when I woke up.  My brushing routine went off without a hitch. I took this as a sign that today was going to be a great day.

  I looked at the clock, remembered it was my spring break, and decided to start my great day by going back to bed for a little bit.  I had some extra time, due to late start at the high school on Wednesdays.

I apparently cannot read signs.

I woke up half-an-hour later completely panicked.  Sometime during my morning doze I remembered that Corb had to be at school an hour earlier than usual due to a field trip.  Good thing he's a boy, because he totally ROCKED getting ready in fifteen minutes.  We even got him to school with five minutes to spare.  I dropped him off, pulled out of the parking lot at school, and the phone rang.

"Mom, you're gonna kill me, but I left my permission slip at home.  And we're leaving in 10 minutes."

It's kind of hard to be rip-roaring mad at your kid for his lack of responsibility, when some of it is your fault.

I drove all the way back home, got the permission slip, and took it back to the school.  Then I went back home to pick up J and take her to school.  While I was waiting for her to get ready, I turned the water on in the pool.  The level had gotten a bit low.  I set the timer on the stove to remind me to turn it off when I got back from dropping her off.

J was out of sorts this morning.  Math tests do that to me, too, so I totally get it. But it made for a less than ideal ride in the car.  I got her delivered to her school and then headed BACK home to pick up Nelly, who has late start on Wednesdays.

By this time I'd been driving my car for an hour and used close to a quarter of a tank of gas.  I still hadn't had a shower or a cup of coffee.  But my teeth were clean and shiny!

When I got home, our power was off.  The security system was beeping, I needed some information off of the computer,  Nelly was trying to get ready for school with no electricity.  Lucky we have lots of natural light in our house.

And in the mad dash to try to find out what are electric company is even CALLED out here to try to look up the number and report the outage, I completely forgot that I was topping off the pool.  And since the timer on the stove that I set is electric, well...

I dropped Nelly off at school, went back to J's school and did some volunteer work (which went pretty well considering no coffee) and headed home.  As I pulled into the driveway, I remembered about the pool.

My pool is now VERY full.  I am certain it is also now VERY cold.  And our next water bill is going to be VERY high.

So now I'm going to go pour that cup of coffee I've been needing since 6:30 and try to head off the rip-roaring headache that I know is coming.  I'm going to grab a book, set my alarm on my phone for 12:45 (when I need to head out to pick J up from school) and spend the rest of this "terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad, day" outside reading.

I had grandiose plans to clean the kitchen and start de-junking the garage, but with the kind of day I'm having, I'm going to play it safe.

Especially since I'm still not sure where the nearest hospital is located.