busy time of year | Mama Cormier

….to say I’m busy is an understatement

I don’t remember last year’s book fair being so busy. In fact I don’t remember having to fit in report cards during the book fair. I booked the fair for the same week as last year. Maybe report cards are due one week earlier. That would make a difference.

On Tuesday I went to an all day workshop on restorative circles and I left the book fair to my good friend, B, who did a great job. Whenever L or I have to be away from school we always ask for B first to be our supply teacher.

B didn’t have to do the book fair but she accepted the challenge. The first thing she did was rearrange my yard duty so that she could be in the library and invite students to browse. Secondly she got on the intercom and made an announcement to the entire school informing the students that despite my absence the book fair would be open. She worked all the recesses and part of her lunch hour and stayed an extra half an hour after school.

At the end of the day B counted the money, put some of it in the school safe and she wrote me a lengthy note explaining exactly what she did throughout the day. Thanks B, I can always count on you to do the best job.

Tomorrow is our Hallowe’en parade. I’m not 100% sure what my costume will be but I’m leaning towards being a school librarian. I know it’s not very original but it’s all I can think of for the time being. I have my granny glasses, jacket, pearl necklace, skirt and tights ready to go. In the morning I’ll pile my hair into a bun and collect a pile of books to carry around. The look should be everything I’m NOT.

On Friday the book fair ends. There will a draw near the end of the day where one student and their teacher can win up to $25.00 each in books. Then the hard work begins. The money has to be added up and all the books have to be packed away and the cases closed to be ready for pick up on Monday morning. Once the cases are gone then I have rearrange the library and put things back the way they were.

I’ve started putting aside some of the books that I want for the library. When I figure out our total sales I can calculate what 60% of the sales will be. Every year I go over the teachers’ wish lists and pick out some of the books and then donate them to the classrooms. I also prepare little thank you bags for my library helpers with pencils, erasers and sharpeners from the book fair, along with some sweet treats.

I’d better get to bed. Tomorrow is another long and busy day. By the way, Lucy is doing well. Only one little accident today. Given her condition I think we’ll forgive her and let it slide. Good night!

Who works harder than Olympic athletes? Men at Work at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Enjoy!

…..opening the cottage and buying tickets for flights to Europe

It all seems so surreal. We haven’t done either of the above yet. It’s almost the end of May and my focus has been on school and it continues to be my focus.

On Friday we will be hosting our Jump Rope for Heart activity and then I’ll be collecting and counting the donations and filling in the paperwork in the week to follow. Next Tuesday the girls’ soccer team will be playing at the Esther Shiner Stadium for the West Conference Finals. One more practice tomorrow morning.

Also next week we have two more sessions for Girls on the Run and then on Sunday June 9 we head up to Vaughn Mills for the actual 5k race. On Friday, next week, we have a report card writing day which is city wide. Hopefully we won’t have the usual problems when more than 11 000 teachers try to get on the system at the same time. Two of us are the report card administrators at my school we are in charge of making sure that there are no glitches in the system at the school level. Unfortunately there are always glitches but they are usually easily fixable.

The following week I have to print all the report cards for the staff. Not a difficult task but somewhat time consuming because again every school in the board prints at the same time and everything comes through cyberspace. The following day I have my physical. That reminds me, I have to check what time my appointment is. I can’t remember if I managed a time after school or if I have to take time off.

On the 13th my Forest of Reading student book club is having their big celebration day. Plans are underway and so far we’ve prepared a book making activity and one of my colleagues has confirmed that we have an artist coming in to do a drama workshop with the students. A pizza lunch has yet to be organized and prizes have to be obtained.

Tonight I spoke with my oldest daughter and we’ve set a potential date to open the cottage. It looks like it may be the Father’s Day weekend. I have to contact my friend D and see if she wants to go up the same weekend.

The week following, the school will be preparing for the spring concert. I promised my friend L, who is the music teacher, that I would help her with the organization. There is also a possibility that somewhere in the middle of all of this that the girls’ soccer team could advance to the city finals but I guess I shouldn’t count my chickens before they hatch.

In the last week of school the grade 5 students have their farewell assembly and a special activity day. This will be the first year since I started at Rosethorn that I won’t be directly involved with these activities. That means, however, that I will probably be in charge of an activity for the school wide fun day instead.

Somewhere I have to find time to pack up a wall of library books before we leave for summer vacation. During the summer, construction workers will be coming in to remove the wall between the library and the computer lab.

My husband has applied for his new passport and he’s been in touch with family overseas. He’s going to look into booking tickets for our flights in the next week or two and then we’ll sit down and make plans for our accommodations and planning our itinerary. We’re hoping to meet up with our son and his girlfriend when they go to Dublin for a conference. We’d like him to meet the Irish cousins and hopefully we can plan a short trip to the west coast with him.

I know people who plan months in advance for a trip like this. I’m a little nervous that we’ve left it so late but with my husband’s health issues we can’t plan too far in advance. Even at this stage we’re still waiting for one more appointment before we can make definite plans.

In the end it will all work out. If Europe doesn’t pan out, I still have the cottage and my little paradise in the sun and I will see my son in the fall.