Getting closer....

We have finished out the summer with a flurry of home decorating/improvements this year.  It's very exciting as we have been in this house for a few years now and really haven't had the time or money to get much done.  It will be very satisfying to step into my house on a cold winter's afternoon and look around at all the bright and inviting rooms.

Basement before

The last couple of days have been spent doing PD on the couch.  There is so much to look at and read!  Every page has at least 2 interesting links that lead me away to more reading.  By yesterday afternoon, my head was full and I was too overstimulated.  I managed to get into my scrap room and clean some projects up.  My room still has too much stuff on the floor, mostly finished scrapbooks waiting for their new home in the basement.

Basement is waiting for furniture

My next project for today is to make some of the cool things I found on Pinterest.  I need to step away from the computer for a while, I'm starting to twitch slightly.

It's just around the corner

Work is starting again soon, with PD starting next week.  I am loving Summer this year, with all the great weather we've had so I'm not quite ready to go back yet.  I am starting to look at more readings and ideas, but my mind starts to wander when I think of all the start up stuff. 
I went to look at my room last week (which wasn't ready for me to do anything in) and found out that someone had shot at all the classroom windows.  More than once.  It made me sad.  Of course angry too, but mostly sad.  Nobody "knows" who did it, but I'm sure someone has some idea.  That kind of put a curb on my excitement of going back.  I do have some great ideas for this year for in my classroom and some stuff that I want to take on in my school.  I am just having too good of a vacation.

Adventures in home improvement

We had a few days of rest, and then we decided to paint the basement.  As we were sitting down there making our plans of who was going to do what, my husband looks at me and says "why don't we go and see about new carpet".  I didn't want to make any sudden movements as it might make him change his mind, so I calmly agreed.  The next thing you know, we were looking for new carpet AND new furniture for the basement!  It also delayed the actual painting by a day because of all the running around and comparison shopping to be done.  That was Monday.  Tuesday started with us going to rent scaffolding to be able to paint the stair way.  When it finally got set up, I was stuck in the basement for 9 hours.  I painted and listened to pod-casts.  My meals were passed to me through a window.  Luckily, there is a bathroom down there.  Good news, I got the basement painted.  Bad news was we still had to get rid of the old carpet.  That happened Wednesday.  We decided on carpet, went to look at couches and finally got down to the removal of the disgusting-early-80's-peed-on-by many-dogs-carpet.  Back then, they glued the rubber-backed carpet right down to the cement.  What fun!  The carpet it self was so old that it came away quite freely from the backing.  Except the stringers on the stairs.  We got the carpet up and to the dump AND returned the truck we borrowed (thanks to Bryce and Michelle) by 6.  Then I got down on my hands and knees with a putty knife and started to scrape the floor.  In an hour, I only got a 3X3 square done, and not well.  I abandoned the project in favour of pizza.  After dinner I had to get some plants into the flower bed and there was weeding to be done as well.  Thursday came and with it some back and muscle pain.  After some oatmeal with a side of Advil, I went to run errands for the project while Chris tackled the stairs again.  While in CT I came across a floor scraper.  The best $40 I ever spent.  I got the floor done in an hour with that thing.  I tried not to think of all the grossness that was in the dust and wore a mask to keep the worst out of my lungs, but wow!  3 big garbage bags are filled with the carpet backing and we'll need a new filter for the vaccum cleaner because of all the dust, but it's done and ready for carpet on Monday.  Chris has asked that I not request any other improvement projects for quite some time.  I think he may be looking for that commitment in writing....

Back home

We had a wonderful trip South.  It was busy and the weather was great and I got to rediscover parts of the Island.  We did a few nice hikes where Mom and Chris got to practice their photography skills.  There was a big car show, a couple of cruises and a long weekend spent in Victoria with my brother and sister-in-law.   I was also able to catch up with a couple of friends and spend some quality time with my mom garage saling. My mom and her friend are serious garage salers.  They plan it all out, one does the driving while the other manages the map and directions to the next big find.  Hard core!  I got many good deals (much to my husband's chagrin) for the classroom, especially when I told them I was a teacher. 

 We also got to enjoy a couple of fires at the beach, which is something that I haven't done in a very long time.

We are home, enjoying the last weeks of our holidays and the wonderful weather we have right now.

At rest, finally

After my last post, I managed to relax a little more and then we got down to work on our kitchen.  We (meaning I) decided to repaint this year to freshen up our house.  It was the kitchen's turn and I always think that painting is such an easy task.  In theory it is.  You pick a colour, buy the paint and start painting.  I always forget about the prepping part.  I like to wash the walls, fill holes and dents, pull off trim etc.  Those things take time.  This time I also wanted to replace the old fluorescent light boxes with a new lighting option and fan.  I'd bought those things last summer and had them ready to go.  We were going to paint the ceiling at the same time.  It was supposed to take a day for the ceiling.  It took two.  When the light boxes came off, there was ceiling repair to do and when that mess was actually finished (I had to re-texture the space under the light boxes), the actual painting could begin.  What a mess!  Did I mention it was also 30 degrees?  The hottest days so far, and we were painting.  When the painting was finished the lights had to go up, and one of them could not physically attach on to the ceiling.  A job that was supposed to take a couple of days, took 5.  I'd hate to think what would have happened if we were actually doing any serious renos!  We got it done and it looks great, but it's a good thing I got Chris to agree to paint downstairs before we started.  He was not in a very good mood during this process.

Painting done, we had a day to take a breath and then it was time to pack and get ready for our trip to the Island.  My mom's 60th birthday was happening on the 21st.  We left on the 19th at 6am and arrived at 5pm at our final destination.  We drove for 14 hours on the first day (I had a secret wish to make the final ferry but we couldn't) stopping finally in Hope for the night.  It was a long day.  The following day, we got up after 8, grabbed some breakfast on the run and headed to the ferry.  The weather turned the closer to the coast we got and at one point the rain was pounding so hard, we had to almost yell at each other to converse.  This also made the trip a little scarier, as there was water everywhere and people following much too close.  We got to the ferry after 11am and hung out in the village waiting for the 12:50 sailing.  We had to stop off in Nanaimo for a couple of things, including some Taco Bell, and made it to Mom and Dad's for around 5.  We fell into bed that night exhausted and then sometime in the night, I woke up worrying about stupid little things and didn't really get any good sleep after that.  The next day was tough.

My brother and sister-in-law came up before lunch to help out, thank goodness, as by afternoon I was barely holding it together.  We cooked, decorated and got everything together by 6.  People came, ate, laughed and left by 10pm.  It was a good thing, as I was so tired I nearly fell over a couple of times!
Fun was had by all, but most importantly, Mom.

I just can't do it

I have been reading blog posts from teachers and they are still all about teaching, even though it's holiday time!  I just can't do it right now.  I have been on Pinterest a little and have pinned some ideas that look pretty good for school next year, but beyond that, I can't think about work right now.  I need some time to decompress, reflect from the past school year and enjoy my time now.  As I read through skimmed an article, I realized that my attention was not there and proceeded to "Mark all as read" for all the education related blogs.  I am sorry to those people, as I follow them because I normally like what they say, but for now I'm shutting off that part of my brain and being a part of Summer. 

We are always reminded as teachers that we need to take care of ourselves, but I wonder how many of us actually do it.  Body and mind need rest after a long school year.  I know that there are people out there that don't think that teachers do very much, but we know the truth and so do our bodies.  Just because we are not all gym teachers, it takes an incredible amount of energy to be "on" all the time.  Summer is our rest, our reward for all that worry, stress and energy that we exude for 10 months of the year.  So here's to us and the next 2 months!

I've decided

that I love vacation.  I am still in the first (real) week of vacation, and I am thouroughly enjoying myself.  We have managed to leave the house everyday, but everything has been leisurely and relaxed.

My head is better, and the only symptoms left, that I can tell, is word retrieval, visual tracking when I'm in a moving vehicle, and sometimes noise.  This week really feels like vacation.  If only I could sleep longer than 7 am and I'd be set!