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Friday

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No one is happy at work right now. There are so many emotions happening that are just hard to navigate. Kids are upset because they are not going home. Kids are happy because they are going home. Kids are jealous because their peers are going home and they are not. Behavioral Health Technicians (BHTs) are angry because teachers get a five-day weekend, and they have to work the holiday. Teachers are just trying to get to that holiday. There is no sense of team or working together right now. I do not know, at any given moment, who will be coming into my sessions these days. The BHTs I am expecting are just not with the groups I expect them to be in. It is hard to navigate constant changes while still trying to come up with therapeutic enrichment for clients. Things work so much easier when the BHTs know the students really well rather than coming in and not knowing things like typical responses or communication styles... Oof. This is a rough time for everyone involved in education, but w...
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Thursday - Last One For the Month

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Me in one of the formal portraits  Today is the last Thursday that I work in the month of November. Next week's Thursday is a day off, and I am looking forward to the break. My focus for my five-day weekend is to organize the music room with some of the things that I am bringing home from work. Other than that, I am expecting some extra napping and many different television shows. After this, there are only three more Thursdays before our winter break and the start of the new year. We have been doing our Musicians of the Month listening (music awareness) and leisure choice options (executive functioning and life-long leisure skill development). My other groups are getting an introduction to guitars and then some leisure choice options. My students do not know how to play. It is interesting to watch them just stare into space instead of trying something new or even get something familiar from the cabinets. I mean, I have just about everything. The most used materials are my hot whee...
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Wednesday: I Have to Write Something

I tried to write yesterday, but I was unable to do it. I was late to rise and did not have much ability to think. I am better this morning, but I am stressed about all sorts of things. I cannot really put a finger on anything, but the stress is there... lurking behind the scenes. I've finished the tasks that I needed to get done for OCMT, and now I am thinking more about my own business status. That's right. I now have a business of my own - duly registered with the state and with the IRS. I anticipate that I will earn about $15 in this quarter, so I am guessing I will not have to pay too much in taxes, but you never know. I am already on the junk mail lists. Ugh. It amazes me how quickly information is released to others. Anyway, bank accounts are next on my list of things to do. I have to close one at one bank and open another at another bank. I have a spreadsheet to help me figure out what I should be doing when it comes to taxes. I also have a symposium to organize as well ...
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Make It Monday: Finishing Touches

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On Friday, I put 20 file folder activities into the boxes of four classrooms. It was a huge stack of binder pages with various matching, communication, letter sound, and errorless tasks. I also gave away about 12 safety sign mini folders to another group of classrooms. All of this while the HVAC people have to crawl around in my ceiling so my office is disordered to make space for them. I find it ironic that my broken HVAC system is controlled from my office ceiling space. It took them about 3 years to even find the hub and now people have to interfere with my planning, preparation, and office space to make my room feel very hot or very cold. There is no inbetween. It is really annoying right now because they have smushed my desk space. I cannot get in there easily because they have to access the ceiling system several times a day. It is now time to put some finishing touches on some social stories that I have downloaded that are all about school. I need to take my binding machine in t...
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Sunday Song: Feeling Disconnected

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I REALLY wanted to write over the past two days, but I was thwarted in my desire due to a couple of internet outages in my area. Stuff went down on midnight on Friday morning, and I woke up for some reason to experience the outage in real time. You don't realize how many things are internet dependent until the internet doesn't work. So, I had to go a DAY AND A HALF without my links to the outside world and to the work that I love!! Wow - my privilege is showing, isn't it? I have become accustomed to having the world at my fingertips, and it is hard to navigate a world where I cannot access what I want to access when I want to do it! So, I am searching for songs about being disconnected - from the world, from other people, from things I need to do and want to accomplish. Off I go to the Google machine to find songs about this topic. The first one that shows up is Disconnected by Keane. Then another one - Disconnected by Anna Clendening. Okay, this is a start. I can tell you ...
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I'm Late, I'm Late For a Very Important...Well, Not That Important

Well, good morning from this side of the time anxiety. It is now 5:48 am, and I am just now sitting down to write anything at all. I did not get out of bed until 5 am because I just didn't want to move. Now, I am in panic mode as I am thinking about my usual 6 am departure from work. I was at work an entire hour after the stop time after arriving 30 minutes early, so now I have some conflicting emotions. I have already worked more than I need to work but I still have the need to be on the way early. There is nothing of much import happening today. Just four groups and a meeting. That's all. I just want to sleep in my pjs all day, but that cannot happen. Only nine more work days until our next holiday break of five days straight. I can make it through. I can! I'm feeling the pull of retirement more and more these days. Seven months and two weeks to go. I'm late, but that's okay. No one pays attention to when I arrive or depart except my suite mates. I just don't ...
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Wednesday: Ugh,

Well, at the moment, I do not like Tuesdays off from work for holidays. It will be interesting to see what my Wednesday group members act like with a day off from the structure of school in the middle part of the week. I have forgotten to do some tasks that I needed to do and done others that I did not need to get done right now. It has been a strange week, to be sure. I can't blame the Tuesday off for my scattered thoughts. That's all me. I was scattered before this time and am scattered right now. Lots of fun to be had with menopausal brain function, let me tell you! Anyway, I am sitting here after a scattered sleep night waiting to take a shower and get ready to go to work. Apparently, there were northern lights happening last night - I tossed and turned through them without knowing what was going on out there. I did have the fleeting thought that I should go outside more, but I was already in my pjs, so I didn't. Obviously, I should have gone outside, even in the cold n...
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