New Beginnings

After a thaw, a re-freeze, we were threatened with a sloppy snowstorm that might have dumped up to four more inches of the white stuff on us. Today was another thaw day, and they're calling for Saturday and Sunday to be warm and fabulous. When I got home, about half of my flowerbed was melted out. The mountain of snow melted down significantly, so I got out there with a snow shovel and helped it along. Tonight I'll put my bulbs outside in their cardboard box to get them good and chilled so that I can plant them on Saturday.

In fact, I feel so confident that spring might almost be here that I ordered my flowers and trees and shrubs today. I am so excited! I just went for it and ordered all of my project beds. Lilacs, butterfly bushes, roses, a all-red bed and a blue-yellow-pink bed. I got the strawberries, too.

This weekend I hope to get down to the home improvement store and get some peat moss and fertilizer to till into our beds. Plus pulling away the nasty hay bales along the front of the house where I want our tomatoes to go. If I'm super motivated, I might even measure and get the edging materials, too.

Somewhere every spring there's the moment when I stop seeing things as nasty, gross, muddy snow and start seeing them as waiting potential, if only I will come and plant something new.

A small school-day story: I was doing a lab today with my classes that marks the change over from "out there" stuff--astronomy, atmosphere, weather--and the "in here" stuff--water movement in the ground, soil and erosion, rocks, volcanoes, plate tectonics, all the stuff that I ADORE. So, it's a good time. The lab involves using a long plastic tube with a clamp at the bottom and a bunch of beads of different sizes. We pour water into the tube and take various data, which tells us a lot about grain size, pore size, water retention, and rate of flow. I'm about two weeks behind the other teacher, so I had a chance to watch her extensively as she worked her way through the lab with her students. I tweaked it a bit and did it with both classes today. We'll finish it tomorrow. The kids loved it even though it was a whole-group approach where each student got to do a different part of the lab. I also thought to add a drop or two of food coloring to the water before we used it. Even just having something nifty to look at drew their attention more effectively. Rule #857,345,320 of teaching: never underestimate the power of adding food coloring.

And finally, some fabulous news from my Oldest Best Girlfriend.

She and her fabulous husband expecting their second bebe in the late fall.

I am beside myself. I can't believe how big her Maura is already, and I've hardly had a chance to visit and meet and get to know their amazing little daughter. And now there's going to be ANOTHER honorary neice or nephew.

I am beyond thrilled!

Lessons Learned

I had a pretty mellow day today, but I learned a few things.

First, I learned that my curriculum is fundamentally broken.

I attended a seminar that was ostensibly about learning to score the state test. The group was small. One other teacher had to cancel, so that left just me and this other guy with the facilitating teacher. I know the facilitating teacher through a few channels--I used to sub at his school, and I know a bunch of the other teachers in his department. He is also neighbors with one of the science teachers at my school. I ran into the facilitator and the other teacher at my school at the tire place a few months ago. In summary: It's a small world after allllll.......

Anyways. So only about the first hour or so was about grading the state test. It was kind of cool--we all graded the same answers for two different tests. We were all pretty much on the same page with scoring, gripes with questions, and thought processes about whether answers were complete or not. It made me feel much better about my current practices.

The rest of the six hours we had together we devoted to comparing notes and sharing best practices. This facilitator is AWESOME. Honestly, he's like freaking Bill Nye and Mythbusters and Mike Rowe and National Geographic Channel all rolled into one young, vibrant, enthusiastic teacher. He shared some awesome materials he's created, including two ten-minute movies related to topics that he created with his friend (the guy I subbed for but have never met!). We talked about all sorts of things. And I realized that this year, my curriculum is horrid and boring and killing the love of science for my kids, and not really helping them. All of the things I want to do with my curriculum this summer are spot on. I want to shift over to more lab-focused learning. More demos. More hands-on fun stuff that teaches the concepts through discovery. Both teachers have highly successful students on the state test, and it's not because they hammer test questions all year long. They thoroughly teach the content all year long, in a much more logical sequence. Then they hammer the test prep the last month or so. Where I want to go with my teaching, the facilitator has already gone. And it's great over there. I really have to get there this summer.

I dropped Brian's computer (which is having a malfunction AGAIN) and did a spot of shopping for him.

Back at home, I scritched the doggies, then got kitted out to go for my second run of the week. Brian and I went for a run on Sunday, and it like to have killed me. But I strapped the shoes back on again, stole Brian's wind pants and ear-warmer, and off I went. The battery on my shuffle was dead, though, so I took the larger iPod. My old cardio circuit music isn't on it anymore, so I picked the 80s mix.

At which point I learned my second massive lesson for the day. I run better to music that makes me happy. It was a battle through the pain when I was listening to Axel F (something I have always enjoyed, but never really loved). THEN on came Come on Eileen. At which point the pain went away, I started grinning like a fool and running down the road with my head up and eyes closed.

Okay, so besides the part where it's not too smart to run blind, that was a major breakthrough.

The song egged me on because I associate it so closely with some of the very best moments in my life. Dancing with my Freaky Friends at the Writers' House in college. Dancing with my Freaky Friends at four different weddings, including my own. Realizing that if I can't run for the whole song, what makes me think I can still boogie down when the song makes me hit the dance floor?

So now I need to go back and make an ultra-favey-80s-running mix.

And get back out there again on Thursday whether I HURT or not.

Back on the Horse

This poor blog has languished for almost a year now.

It's the time of year when I get some spring fever. I take zillions of photos of the ice melt while I wait for the lake to open. I start obsessing on what will go into my flower beds. I get crazy crafty with little to no warning.

It's been way too long since I shared any of that. So it's time to get back to it.

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I was working on my cunning plans for my garden yesterday. Really, we're probably not going to do a garden this year, but I'm going to put in some of the ornamentals that I've been craving for the past few years. We want to put a section of fence up between our house and the new neighbor-lady's, and I am for sure going to get around to putting in lilacs to disguise it.

I want to find a nice, unobtrusive place to finally set up our composting bin that my mom got us for free, and get going on that. Maybe more lilacs will help to disguise it.

I'm hoping that I can get into the dirt while the ground is still cold enough to encourage some spring bulbs to sprout. I got a huge box of gorgeous bulbs from my mother-in-law at Christmas, and I'm hoping to get them to bloom this spring.

I'm also looking at moving my roses and putting in an entire rose bed, plus planting a slew of butterfly bushes and/or other goodies to attract butterflies. Maybe even a shade garden. I'm toying with a red perenniel garden to go around our stump. I want to put in tons of iris and other goodies in the bed I built last year along the house.

I think I'm going to move our tomatoes along the house and stake them up right to the house this year. In the existing bed, either more pretty pretty perenniels, or maybe a strawberry bed.

But for now, I'm contenting myself with smaller projects.

Because my flowerbed looks like this:



I made this today:

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With the warmer temperatures last week (now but a fading memory after our Nor'Easter on Friday), it was clear that I'm going to need some taller waterproof footwear for mud season. So, after much waffling, I settled on these wellies: