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Fall weather and not enough time...

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Chilly and windy-- perfect fall weather. The wind knocked down most of the pears, so Holly and I went out yesterday and gathered as many as we could. Poor sweetie slipped in some mushy pears and came up covered in pear mush-- it was comical, though. The sunshine was lovely, the wind was brisk, and we were outside gathering fresh fruit. Not a bad way to spend a bit of time.  Today, Weathervane theatre is coming to my school to perform a shorter version of Much Ado About Nothing. I am hoping it all goes well. I always get so nervous about events that I have planned. At least this year there was no chasing permission slips, arranging chaperones, and figuring out busing. Amen. I just hope that the kids like it, and it goes well, and I'll be able to cross this one off my list of things to do.  My list is getting rather long again. Work things, home things, fall project things-- never enough time or enough me to go around. I do what I can, but I sure wish I had a free day or two to...
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It's not about the game so much, but yeah...it is.

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Well, then. Sunday turned out pretty good, which was just what I needed. Church was fine, G, Holly, and I got breakfast out, and I got some chores done before the football game. That said, what a game!  There was not one person (myself included, alas) who thought the Patriots would win, especially since they were playing the Bills in their new stadium. A road game? Yeah. And no doubt, the bookmakers were astonished, as was the whole rest of the universe, or so it seemed. They won. The kid who caught the game-clinching TD one-handed it, and he's not even all that tall. He seriously went airborne, snagged the long ball, and came down with it. Meg and I were losing our noodles, to be sure-- it seems one of the life lessons I imparted to my daughter was a masterful command of salty language. O jeez. Thankfully, Holly was at home with Tim, so we could yell all we wanted to. Poor G-- at one point, he dryly remarked, "You know they can't hear you, right?"  And yes, we know. ...
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Okay, I am giving in to autumn...

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Yesterday was a lot of fun at homecoming-- the girls won a nailbiter in the last seconds, the boys won handily, and Holly was awesome. The weather was perfect; warm sun, chill breeze-- and the trees are in their glory, all the gold and red and orange. Lovely. Idyllic? Probably not, but close enough. Today, I have a pile of mini chores and a set of papers to grade. First, church, find breakfast somewhere (leaf peepers take over all the usual spots, sigh), and see what the day brings. Well, I know it'll bring football-- probably a heartbreaker of a game-- and I'm roasting a small turkey. I needed the freezer space, and it'll be nice to have leftovers for a few days. I made a pear and raspberry crumble pie last night after dinner-- it's an experiment, and let's hope it tastes good. Those pears are ours-- so many pears!!-- and I wanted to make something fallish. I mean, I've been overwhelmed by the apple harvest (there's still more to do), and apple pie and appl...
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It's Saturday, it's crisply fallish out, and I'm being very lazy. Soon enough, I'll have to get going, because there's homecoming stuff to get to, but not just yet. I'll finish my coffee first. We had a lovely time at Weathervane Theatre again last night. Anything Goes was light, funny, and the music and dancing were spot-on. We're going to go to one more show in early December; they are doing a musical review for the holidays in the style of the old Bob Hope or Carol Burnett holiday specials-- the kind we grew up watching. I'll get tickets this morning. And Theatre UP is putting on Guys and Dolls in November-- more to look forward to. Escapism? Yup. No apologies coming from me. We need to fill our lives with moments that give us a reprieve from the abject horrors and nightmare scenarios. If local live theatre can do that, great. Whatever we can do to shore ourselves up, right?  I'm also signed up for a writing workshop in mid-October with former Ma...
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How to survive the news-- maybe

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So, it's a drizzly Friday. I hope it clears off (it's not predicted to do so, though), but at any rate, we have a half day at work. There's a fundraiser this afternoon: a big ol' golf tournament that raises money for our Education Foundation, the organization that funds things like field trips and so on. In this age of python-tight budgets, we depend heavily on things like today's tournament. It's part of the homecoming festivities, so it's pretty well attended. School's out early because many of the teachers either work it or play in it. Not me, I can't, but it's still a good cause. So, c'mon, Momma Nature. Be nice. The float building went okay yesterday, and from what I hear, the mini parade was fun and enjoyable. Again, I was home. I had Holly, and G had a tooth extracted, so my priorities were here. Maybe next year I'll go and take Holly, but she needs to be in bed by 7:30, and the event started at 6:30. Not gonna happen. And I didn...
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Juggling the stuff I gotta do...

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Short post today, because I am running behind a bit. Not that I slept in or anything. I finished doing laundry before I even came downstairs. Ah, the life of a person who must work outside the home, do the house work, and take care of all the details. It's a crazy schedule, to be sure. I just want one day to catch up. It will not be this weekend, I'm pretty sure.  Saturday will be devoted to being at the high school homecoming games, supervising sophomores as they sell food from crockpots. I'll have Holly with me, so I hope she is patient. If the weather is good, it'll be fine. If it's cold/wet/windy, it'll be miserable. I've done this a lot of years, so I've had my share of all of those conditions. At least I only have to do a middle of the day shift; we have three class advisors (for a crew of about ten kids-- another story). I'm not setting up, and God willing, I won't be sticking around for the clean up. Both are usually fraught with minor ch...
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Wednesday. It's supposed to be warm and sunny-- it'll have to clear a bit for that to happen. It's been a rainy week, to be sure.  We finished Macbeth , and finally --finally!-- the sophomores are warming up. Who knew it'd be reading Shakespeare aloud that would do it? I hope we can keep our momentum. The APLang kids are fine, and I'm glad. I just don't know what I'd do if I had to pull two classes along.  My colleague is a second year teacher, and she --and the other veteran teachers, new teachers, and apparently the world at large-- is having a difficult time with the freshmen. I suggested we talk about it today, and maybe I can dig up some ideas. But honestly, kids are not quite the same as they used to be. There is a real attitude among many of them (the ones whose parents "pay [our] salary" and who kvetch about everything they think is too "lib'rul") that they only have to do what they want, and if they don't like it, they ha...
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