Today finds me home for the second day in a row with a sick kid.....my youngest. He finally got the crud that has been going around and has had fever for the past three days. I think he will be well enough to go back tomorrow, but I will still miss seeing my classes because I am being pulled out for a day of in-service. My kids go to choir Contest on Saturday, so I am sweating things a little bit.

Being at home is causing me to question whether or not I want to keep working. Part of my questioning has to do with the fact that I will be teaching 4 (out of 7) periods next year, instead of the 3 I have taught since I started there. It is a good sign that more kids are signing up, I guess, but most of the people are signing up are girls....hardly any boys. So that means that for each grade level, I will have one all girls choir and one mixed choir, and I will have 4 preps.....4 sets of music to choose 4 times a year (with no money to pay for it other than my concert receipts, which is another annoyance of this job......I receive no money from the school to teach my classes, unless I go ask the principal for it. It is like asking for my allowance, and I hate it. They should give me a budget, imo, and charge book rental in order to take my class) and 4 classes of 40+ students to keep under control while tracking and documenting that I am teaching the state standards for music and they are learning them. It is NOT going to feel like part time, that's for sure. However, we will have a new principal and a new superintendent next fall, and will be moving into a new building next spring. Our new building will have 7th and 8th graders on one side and 5th and 6th graders on the other, and I am thinking that down the road, I might have the opportunity to take on some of the 6th grade music, which I would love, and maybe even transition out of choir all together and just do general music....less time on weekends, etc. So maybe I just need to hang tight.... who knows. I asked the kids what they thought this morning as I took the two well ones to school. They both said "will we still get to take fun vacations if you stop working? Will we have enough money for that?" They're all heart. I think DH would like me to quit sometimes, but he would never say that. He works a lot of hours, but does have non-call Fridays off and post-weekend call Monday afternoons, which may turn into entire days at some point. I miss most of his "off" time due to working, though. I am sure I will continue to think about this.....

Speaking of fun trips, DH and I decided how to spend our "half" of spring break (we split it with his partner) at the end of the month. We are going to spend Friday night with our good friends that live an hour south of here.....we have had a hard time getting together with them due to busy schedules on both our parts. It will be nice to spend an evening with them. On Saturday, we will head down to the Gatlinburg area, where DH found a "mountain cabin" to rent. His brother (and family) will be driving over from Charlotte to spend Saturday with us....there is enough room in our rental for everyone. I am excited about this, because they have a baby girl that just turned one....I have only seen her once AND they adopted another baby, born December 31, and I can't wait to meet him. They also have a six year old girl. They will leave Sunday and we will spend one more night in our rental and then head to Nashville to visit with my sister and her husband on Monday night. We will head home on Tuesday. So that is one trip. The boys have April 23-25 off, too, for some reason, so I have saved my personal days all year in order to have days off then. DH took the afternoon of the 23rd off as well as the 24th and 25th.....and we will have the weekend too.....so we are flying to Tampa and staying in a three bedroom condo on Clearwater Beach! I am so pumped about this, especially after our FREEZING trip to Florida over Christmas Break. We will only have three full days there, but I plan to make the most of them.

One thing casts a shadow over all of this vacation planning, though. My half-sister's baby is due March 31st, and we have known for months that it has chromosomal abnormalities which include a very serious heart defect. The doctors do not expect the baby to live long after he is born. My sister is doing really well and has met with all sorts of doctors over the past few months, finding out as much as she can. She and her husband have also talked with their priest and feel like they have thought through the ethics of the situation as much as they can ahead of time. The situation really reminds me a lot of what Kate went through and I have thought of her so often. So this is going to happen around the time we get back from Spring Break, and I am trying to brace myself for it so that I can be supportive. My half-sister's mom hasn't really been there for her kids since she decided to divorce their (and my) Dad.....in fact, she will be on a cruise during the week this baby is due. I really have a hard time understanding that! So, if you have them, good thoughts/prayers would be appreciated for my sister Adrienne, her husband Mark, and their baby boy Owen.

Oh, I almost forgot! DS #1 qualified for the state geography bee, which will happen on April 4th. He is totally pumped! I am proud of him. He has always loved maps and has gone the extra mile to study this year, hoping that he would get to this point. There were 103 kids chosen from 4th - 8th graders around the state, so it is an honor for him.

A couple of pictures to end with.....the first one was taken when we went to the Cincinnati Aquarium a few weeks ago. There was a rainforest area that had lorikeets flying free, and you could buy nectar in cups and try to get them to perch on you to drink it. The boys each got a cup, but got a little closer to nature than they had intended. One of the birds scored a direct hit on Joel, but there were several near misses. I was cowering in a corner watching the poop raining down from the sky, laughing my head off. I finally managed to get a picture:



This next one was taken last week, on the day that the boys had "uniform day" at school (it was spirit week). After already living through "class color" day and "polka dots and stripes" day, I was a little low on both inspiration and creativity, but DH had it all under control:




Happy spring, everybody![/QUOTE]