The Sunday Seven: Reflecting on the Good of the Week

7. Miami Heat games being played on East Coast time not West Coast. I’ve always been a Miami Heat fan and I’ve always watched the games. Since my daughter left for college in the fall of 2022, I really filled my water polo watching time with Heat games. I really hate it when they play on the West Coast because I cannot stay up till 10 o’clock at night to watch a game that has that late start time. I can barely make it on an 8 o’clock start time specially during the school week. I’m glad we’re back on the East Coast start time this week. 

6. The last ESSR Saturday: One thing I’ve been grateful about for the past three years is an additional 6 planning days during the school year and time that is paid for teachers. It has meant, however, that I serve as the coach on duty on some Saturdays. It’s been amazing to get a lot of work done, but it’ll be nice not to work six days a week. Some stuff will just have to be undone.

5. The final yearbook pages deadline…Yearbook landed in my lap mid January after a teacher quit, which is all too common these days. It has brought joy, but again a lot of work in tough school year. When we started, there were 120 pages undone, and now we have maybe 12 pages left and by midnight tomorrow we will have two left to do. I’d I’ve loved every minute working with these kids, but it has taken every connection I have at school, all the relationship power I have at school to manifest these pages. 

4. Florida spring weather…I mean look at the news these days and you’ll think of all these things that are bad about Florida, our governor, book banning, etc., but the sunrises, the strawberries, the flowers, the sunsets, the afternoons and the windows open …nothing beats a Florida spring.

3. Support and care from my work mates… This week has been one of my worst for my data in terms of my blood sugars. My Dexcom gives me that 48 hour, that 7 day, that 30 day, and that 90 day time in range percent. This week is probably one of my worst on record. I’ve had a lot of people taking care of me this week at work, while under the duress of all the demands converged.  I appreciate their care and my goal is to resent myself and get back in the groove this week just by the single small step of drinking water and staying hydrated. 

2. Nail Night: Last week I talked about my nails, which make me happy but this week I introduced two more of my friends to my little nail hobby over cocktails at my house on Friday. One of my friends I rarely see and it was great to bring them to altogether and we did Saint Patrick nails and they loved it and I think I may have them hooked  means we’ll see see each other more often. I’m all in.

1. Time with my daughter during her spring break… my daughter’s spring break was this week and it being the earliest one meant that she had a lot of space for family. She got to see both of her grandmothers and I had two of her weekends to spend time with her and her boyfriend. I’m just happy she’s happy and that she values time with her family. She left 30 minutes ago after I whipped up breakfast of scrambled eggs, fresh strawberries, and fresh whipped cream for her.

Listicle: Saturday

I’ve been proof reading and writing all day for the yearbook final deadline and also our school’s Bear Pride Bulletin so I’m not sure how many words I have left. I I default to writing with a list on days like these and also playing with speech to text since my shoulder is hurting from writing at the computer for so long. Here’s a list of shows that I’ve been watching and perhaps catching up with the rest of humanity.  I spent a lot more time reading than writing and viewing, but over Christmas break. I spend a little bit of time watching with my daughter and with my husband. I also have some faves that are just mine and mine alone.

1. Ted Lasso, yes, I’m fairly late to the game, but I do love it. I’m still working my way through season three with my family.

2. The Morning Show I just started season three and I’m really loving it especially how it kind of documents Covid. This is one I’m watching by myself.

3. Star Trek Strange New Worlds I finished both seasons. I loved it but I like to say that there is no Star Wars if there is no Star Trek. This is the show I’m watching by myself, but I suckered my husband into.

4. So it makes sense that my next show is Picard, which I’m still watching. Again, it’s a show I’ve suckered my husband into.

5. Reacher, I think I’ll blame my husband on this one but we did watch the entire season and the second season and are waiting for the third. 

Of course really what I’m watching on most nights if I watch any television is Miami Heat basketball. There’s my secret addiction the Heat play on NBA TV.

What do you recommend I watch?

Fellowship Friday

One of the things that I most proud of in my work with my officemate, she’s an instructional coach, and I’m the literacy coach and yearbook sponsor, is the work we’ve done to carve out space for our staff to come together once a month on Fridays during their planning on our Fellowship Fridays. With over 200 staff members, It takes a long while to know everyone’s name. it’s been a low to sometimes no budget easy way to bring people together who don’t ordinarily come together. We started doing this during Covid as a way to feed people and care for people. At that time we couldn’t really do face-to-face, but we would just set it up as a grab and go. I commandeered a space in our media center that was being used and transformed it into meeting/eating space. It’s evolved since Covid, but now once a month, we have a theme and we set up a coffee pot for the entire day and spa water, and light snacks. The other thing we try to do is to really come up with ways to level up our coffee.  I always make the 1st cup and share it in our social media to remind teachers and then it’s fun to see what they make. So there always must be whipped cream, and some kind of sprinkle on theme. We encourage our leadership team to manage it for period during the day. As teachers, we are often isolated in our classrooms, and this was one way that we could encourage connections and socializations during the confines of the school day. We are currently planning next week’s fellowship Friday and I put a picture of my nails for the upcoming week so you can probably guess our next theme.

We’ve actually never done this theme since we’re normally on spring break and this time we will be too, but we want to celebrate how lucky we are to work together. What are you doing at your school to encourage staff fellowship or make connections? We are stronger together! #whyislice

Writing & Time Contamination

One of the things that I really love doing is writing with my students when they are writing. Most recently I was working on the argumentative prompt for our upcoming BEST writing practice. We had to read about whether is better to have scheduled or unscheduled leisure time activities. Besides practicing and gaining a better understanding of the elements of the updated rubric, I discovered some terms and some research that I had not read before The term that I was most interested in was this idea of time contamination. This word seems to have come out in the literature around 2018 and somehow I missed this. I’ve been really thinking and trying to avoid time contamination for the past few years without really knowing that was a thing. Time contamination as I understand it is this idea work permeates our lives, even when we’re away from work, due to the invasiveness of technology. One of the things I’ve been working on for the past few years is really to avoid sending emails to teachers on weekends and after work hours. I also really try to avoid sending texts. These are some conscious behaviors I’ve been making because as a teacher leader because I think it also sends a poor message about work life balance, which is something I’ve not been good at (ok I suck at it), but I also don’t want people being anxious about work on the weekends or at all. I’m really good at not responding to texts or emails after 7:30 PM because I’m typically asleep which is a good thing. But thinking about time contamination, for example, this past December, I had a teacher text me on a Friday night before our return to work on Monday from winter break. She’s not somebody I would normally hear from, but she wanted to let me know she was not coming back to work after Christmas and wanted me to be the first to know. I really thought to myself Who did this really benefit? Why couldn’t that have waited until Monday when we returned to work from vacation? Because although I’ve worked on conditioning myself to not stress, ultimately there was a layer of stress about her leaving since she was the yearbook sponsor. As a side-note, I’ve actually had a lot of fun these past two months, working with a yearbook students and we have our final deadline tomorrow, but let’s get back to time contamination. Although I’ve been trying to be considerate of my colleagues, I’m really going to work on being considerate of my family, and not letting our time get contaminated because the moments of solid uninterrupted time together matters. One of the best way I can do this is by being out in nature with them, and also leaving the phone behind. How do you handle time contamination?

Spring Break Plans

 1. Install my flooring. I have finally chosen an LPV that interlocks and has a cork bottom with no glue. Going to tackle this project with my husband and step-dad. 

2. Help install my backsplash. I’m not sure I will be help here. I have delighted in choosing the glass brick though.

3. Swim in my community’s pool. We chose to buy here because they have an Olympic swimming size pool. OK that’s just one reason it was a tough market this summer but I love my condo. I just haven’t been in the pool yet and I can’t wait to jump in.

4. Play cards with my family. Playing Hi-Lo-Jack is always a must when my family gets together, so there will be cards in my future and hopefully a few victories.

5. Camp and kayak at the Rainbow River with my friends.I always try to camp as it allows a full mind reset and a total disconnect from the world this spring break. It’ll be no different. Bill Murray gonna be a zombie.

6. Watch a few sunsets. 

7. Start my taxes and file an extension.

8. Vote yes, on the historic 9% raise, the first time we’ve ever been offered a percentage raise in my district over the past 31 years of my teaching career.

9. Rest, Relax, & Rejuvenate.

Extra More Than Ordinary

Today seemed more extra than ordinary. While I was on the go from the moment that I stepped onto campus at 6:38 am today, I was reminded of the title of one of Jane Yolen's short story collections, Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  My work seems more like that than not lately.  By the end of today, I saw that my apple watch had awarded me 43 workout minutes which is rare. I get many many steps and hit my stand and movement goal each day before I leave work, but to be awarded exercise minutes, that tells me that I was definitely on the run today. I should count myself lucky to roll a workout into work since my doctor says only the walking that I do at work that gets my heart rate up counts as exercise. Walking fives mile at work on ordinary days should count for extraordinary even if my heart rate is not up. I'm moving aren't I? I saw a post from someone today that this was the last ordinary school week 4 years ago.  I think I'll continue to seek ordinary as we all collectively recover from extraordinary.

What R U Reading?

 

I’ve been in a book club for 19 years. What’s amazing is that of our current members we have four original members. I’m not sure what your book club does if you’re in a book club but we have very few rules. We expect the host to provide appetizers, dinner and coffee with dessert. We don’t necessarily expect the host to cook, but there are some outstanding chefs in my book club. If you don’t read the book, we’d prefer you come just because we want to see you because that’s more important than the book.  Our members range in age from 82 to 32 and we all have a connection to teaching somehow. Of our 19 years together I’ve only not finished two books and I’ve only missed one meeting. I can keep count because my daughter was born the year we started the book club. In the fall we will be we will starting our 20th year. What’s great about this book club is the fact that it’s just not a bunch of English teachers, so we read all over the shelves.

We met last night and it was a rare circumstance where I did not actually finish the book. If you’re wondering, the book was Spencer Quinn‘s Miss Plansky’s Revenge. (The other book I failed to finish, was Uncle Tungsten.) I didn’t find the writing great and the story was a little too close to home for me. Last month we read Elizabeth’s Acevedo’s Family Lore. I loved it. Next month we are reading The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore. Other books we’ve read this year are Remarkably Bright Creatures, the psychological thriller, The Silent Patient, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hill, and my personal favorite this year, The Dictionary of Lost Words. What I do love about book club is it does force me to stop and read something outside of my comfort zone, but I do make time to read every single day and this month I’ll be writing each day.

Are you in a book club? If so, what are the rules if any? Also, what titles are you enjoying?