Around Here Week 41: 10/09-15

 A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute. 

cheer coaches: tab & brittany!

photo cred: Pam H

photo cred: Brandon Hurley

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 712+ hours (of 1000)
Racked up another six hour day at the football field for youth football/cheer - the last for the year! The leaves are all changing so quickly and the cotton candy skies at sunrise and sunset and the full moon this week! Sheesh, October is just the most lovely month of all. 

Reading and finishing A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson another borrow from my student Mya (thank you!) It was a great quick read and I mostly guessed right from the beginning with a few unknown pieces in there. It would be fun to see it as a movie because I'd love to know if the characters I imagined in my mind would be similar to the actors they would pick! I started The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris a borrow from my student Izebella (thank you!)

Filling up the shed with hay for the winter. A yearly task that is always a relief to check off the list! The kids and Pappy were all ready to help and the goaties were all pleased to see their hay filling up the shed!

Tending to sick kiddos. We had two pukers this week (Vi and Rust) but luckily they can make it to a bucket/toilet in time (bless them!) I took one day off of work this week to be home with them. Hoping very much to keep it just to the two of them and not infect the whole family. So far so good! 

Proud of Gem and her trumpet. She has been practicing so hard and was excited and proud to play with the high school band during the homecoming pep rally at the elementary school this week. 

Volunteering at the elementary school with Brandon on Thursday for Violet and Rusty's marathon fun day. B and I got placed together at the "Oscar the Grouch" station which was hilarious. The kids had a blast and we got to play all afternoon with all the classes Kinder - second grade including Rust and Vi. It was a fun but exhausting afternoon. I love seeing the kids playing with their friends and catching up with teachers and staff too! 

Taking family photos on Saturday with my student Brandon. I pieced together some coordinating outfits from things we already had (thanks Pinterest!) and we all tried to look presentable and good-natured for the afternoon in our yard while Brandon snapped away. He did a great job and I'm so proud to be his teacher! (his photog instagram is: @Brandon.edt if you want to follow!) Glad to have new pics for our wall and also for our holiday cards! 

Ordering and organizing Halloween costumes. Everything is supposed to arrive before trick-or-treat but man, I was pushing the timeframe on it this year! 

Wacky week alert. First we had an Act 80 day, so we split up the big kids for the day (Grey with Pappy for hunting in the morning and then potato harvesting in the afternoon! Gem, Vi, and Rust had a sleepover at Aunt Kitty's house and then had the most fun day hiking, picking out pumpkins, roasting seeds, and celebrating the full moon!) Then I took the next day off of work last minute because Rust and Vi were up puking all night - but they bounced back fairly quickly so thank goodness for that. Wednesday the school schedule was weird because of PSAT testing, then Thursday was a half day so I could volunteer at the kids' marathon fun day, on top of it all - it was hoco week at CT, so that meant dress up days and parade on Friday night. I felt mixed up and disorientated all week!  

Teaching a geography unit in Spanish 1 including the Central and South American countries. Spanish 2 worked through El Silbon novel, and Spanish 3 finished their Self Portraits inspire by Frida Kahlo. We had a Level 3 Lockdown practice so we reviewed what we should do in the event of an intruder. Just so families of non-teachers are clear: your children are spending instructional time going over the steps they need to keep in the back of their mind in case someone comes to school to try to hurt them even though they are looking around thinking is the shooter in the room right now?...it might not be necessary if we had common sense gun laws or mental health support or education that didn't glorify high stakes standardized testing or we had common sense parenting about screens /sports /kindness /bullying /tolerance. Anyway - Election day is November 8th and please keep communication open with your kiddos and also LOVE and HUG the shit out of them. 

Sporting with the last youth football/cheer games at Rockwood on Sunday. Vi headed out early with the Byers family (thank you!) and then the rest of the family spent the whole day at the football fiedl one last youth day this year. Coach Brittany and I had one last cheer end-of-season picnic with majors cheerleaders on Tuesday. I am so grateful to have had Brittany to coach with this year - I would not have been able to do it without her! Grey had three football practices and then played on Thursday night at Bishop Carroll (they won!) On Friday night, we all participated in the homecoming parade (B, Rusty, and Grey with the JrHigh Football team - Me, Gem, Reddy, and Olive with the Majors cheer - Violet with the flag football team). B and Grey stayed for the hoco varsity football game but I took the other kids home because we needed to try to stay healthy! Gem had one basketball practice on Saturday. 

Making shrimp scampi, meatloaf (a family favorite!), cream cheese chicken taquitos, haluski and keilbasa, frozen pizzas, buffalo chicken dip, and pulled pork sammies. I also made mini cheesecakes since I promised them for Grey's half birthday last week.