The End of My Week.....in Bullets

What a weird week this has been. I would like to never repeat it again. Ever.

• Wednesday night I lamented that I was going to take Thursday off from anything NB. Well I didn't have much choice. I woke up around 1:30 a.m. Thursday morning with the worst headache of my life. Took a couple ibuprofen and about 45 minutes later, threw them up. Not my idea of a good time at all. I would rather do anything than throw up. I felt better after I did though, it relieved some of the pressure in my head and I was able to sleep fitfully the rest of the night. I went to work anyway because I knew I was not sick. The headache lingered in the background. Got through the day okay but by the time school ended I was ready to die. So I left right away, picked up my kids, went to the store to try to get some migraine meds (not knowing that all Excedrin products have been recalled!) and went home and crawled in bed. It was 5 p.m. I ate jello for dinner hoping it would stay down and only got up once to use the bathroom, eat more jello, take my normal nighttime meds and go back to bed. I never, ever want to feel like that again. 

• Friday morning it was snowing like crazy and every single district in the COUNTY except mine was closed. There is nothing worse than driving past 4-5 CLOSED districts in a snowstorm on your way to school. I'm not sure why our district did not close. I saw 4 slide offs on the highway on my way to school. That is not safe. *shakes head* Fortunately I only had 4 kids absent so we still had a pretty productive day. I ♥ Fridays because, well, it's Friday but also because I purposely make my Fridays as easy as possible. We have math, spelling test, writing, reading test, lunch, computer lab, book buddies, Fun Friday, recess, SSR, go home. Such an easy day, even though I have recess duty! We got a lot done despite our missing kiddos. 

• For our Fun Friday, the kiddos got their recycled materials out and started to actually design their "trash projects" (inspired by Magic Trash and the Heidelberg Project). It was so fun to watch how creative they were. AND they were so willing to share their materials between groups. For example one group had a HUGE load of straws and shared some with two other groups who asked if they could use some. It was really awesome. For the next two weeks the kids are going to use their science/social studies time as well as their Fun Friday time to construct their projects. I am super excited about it and they are too. We are donating our projects to a senior citizen center on March 13. I can't wait!

• My tattoos are healing very nicely. They are in that itchy phase. This is normal of course. I have been keeping Lubriderm on them and that helps. The outer layer of skin is starting to peel off and the skin is smooth underneath. A couple more days and they'll be all healed up. It's amazing to me how fascinated the kids are with them. A couple noticed them on Tuesday (we didn't have school for the kids Monday) and I just moved on. Wednesday during Tier II time, a couple kids said something else and so I quickly said, "They mean peace and harmony and we're not talking about my tattoos right now, we're focusing on reading" and they dropped it. *wink* I think so much of what goes on in our minds is psychosomatic because oddly enough, I feel better about everything going on in my life since I had them done. It's almost like they are a daily visual reminder that I have not been broken yet -- I am not a victim, I am a survivor and I will always be one. They are almost like part of my battle scars. The Husband gets it and doesn't think I am insane, so that's good!

• I have two million things to do this weekend. The Husband's cousin stopped breathing and was found unresponsive on Thursday and is on life support right now. We're going to the hospital shortly. I have a feeling dear Cousin is already passed and just his shell is left behind. It's so sad because he was only like 51. They're pretty sure he has irreparable brain damage and he has not been responsive to anything they have tried. I can not imagine outliving my child. It's such a sad, depressing situation. After the hospital, I have a huge pile of things I need to work on today. Mostly catching up on grading which won't be too bad. But I also need to work on my writing samples for the unit we're working on. It's so much easier for the kids if they see MY sample so they can use the frame that I am using. I need to clean up my conference log too because it is a mess. And of course somewhere in all of the craziness of this weekend, I need to find some time for National Board. It's scary to me that we're down to the last 5 weeks!