Up at 5:30 AM they kept me company in the kitchen while I cooked this week's dinners. Matzo ball soup, broccoli and cheddar quiche, and baked ziti are done and in the fridge. This is the only way to avoid driving through, running in, or grab n' go dinner with our schedule. I woke early to cook because we really need to log some miles today. Our next half marathon is in 3 weeks! The dishwasher was loaded, the food was wrapped, and I had the Nikes laced up. One step outside and that was it. It's too darned cold for this tired body to get going. Standing still, without the sun I was shaking. Moving down the block in our walk/jog/shuffle created uncomfortable breezes. I should've taken a cue from the cats, snuggled close on a Snuggie on a shelf. It's fleece and slippers for me, until cast call this afternoon.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Raise the Curtain
Strange, but I love being in a show. Tonight I'll arrive in a cold, dim rehearsal hall and transform myself from Middle School teacher to Dickens-Era villager. I'll lose the Nikes and shove my feet into tall, uncomfortable boots. Instead of jammies, I'll don form-fitting undergarments to lift and shape. I'll paste on some eyelashes, paint on a face, and pin down a wig that will make my head sweat and itch. Then I'll thunder around a dimly lit hallway and wait for my turn to stare into blinding lights. I'm crazy...for theater!
Posted by JSG at 4:42 PM 3 comments
Labels: performing
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Division of Labor
Posted by JSG at 11:13 PM 3 comments
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Early(ish) to Bed
Well it's 8:23, and I'm in bed. We're home from tapping. Tomorrow's clothes are ready to jump into, and yesterday's are bouncing around in the dryer.Our crock pot stew has been eaten, the leftovers are packaged in lunch-size portions, ready to go in their respective lunch bags in the morning. Cats are fed, dishwasher is loaded, and I'd like to retire for the evening. Just a bit of schoolwork, a blog post, and then happy Zzzzs. The next few days offer up daunting schedules, from school to lessons, to performances, without a stop at home. I'll kiss the kitties goodbye at 6:45 tomorrow morning and not be back until they demand some treats at 11:40 P.M. Friday will be much the same. So for tonight, I'm planning to enjoy an early evening.
Posted by JSG at 8:22 PM 2 comments
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The more things change...
Out the door before 7 AM, home for a bit from 4:30 to 6:00 and then back home after eleven. That's been the routine lately. Between rehearsals, school, piano, tap dance, voice, and preparing for the next half marathon, we're visitors in our own house. The permanent residents are not impressed by our busy lives. They expect the delivery of treats on schedule... that is, any time they want them.
Posted by JSG at 5:33 PM 4 comments
Labels: cats
Monday, January 25, 2010
Ready, Willing, and Delicious
Chicken and rice today, chili tomorrow, beef stew for later in the week. I prep them at 6 AM and they are smoking hot when I get home, providing dinner for 3 and leftovers enough for lunch the following day. Thank you, crock pot.
Posted by JSG at 5:30 PM 1 comments
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Ess, Bublelah. Ess!
Faint are my memories of my actual Bubbes. I did know three of them, technically. My great-grandmothers all passed when I was young. I do have faint memories of sitting at the table in the upstairs kitchen at a Bubbe's house in Brooklyn, potato latke in hand. Grandpa (actually he was my great-grandfather, but everyone called him grandpa) sat at the head of the table, hot tea in one glass, teeth in the other, and a pocket full of Hopjes coffee candies for the kids. Bubbe showered (pelted) us with rich, delicious foods and wouldn't take no for an answer.
I like to make the occasional spin through the kitchen myself, but the schedule we've had lately has kept me away from cooking anything more interesting than a pack of ramen noodles or a fried egg. But tonight we were treated to a feast that would make a Bubbe proud. Matzo ball soup, brisket with gravy, fried kugel, a week's worth of calories. Each dish so rich and wonderful. My mother-in-law is a great cook, and she was obviously a great mother (I did marry her son, after all). What's even better is that she's become a great friend as we've gotten older. Delish.
Posted by JSG at 8:55 PM 5 comments
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Buzz, buzz, buzz
I do like being busy, and today was a good example. We started with a 6.25 mile run/walk. Our pace isn't what it used to be, but it's not exactly walking either. We like to call it the shuffle. Then we were off to a piano lesson, costume store, Target for our dressing room make-up supplies, and then about an hour of practicing our tap steps. Enough time for a shower and spruce-up before heading out to meet a good friend for dinner and a show at Theatre Jacksonville. Back home at the end of the busy day, and my book waits on the nightstand. Doubt I'll get through more than 3 pages before my eyes give out, but I wouldn't change a thing!
Posted by JSG at 11:05 PM 3 comments
Friday, January 22, 2010
Teacher Workday
Posted by JSG at 5:27 PM 3 comments
Labels: planning day, teaching
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Han - sel Musical
Post-practicing, and at the end of a long day of school, the teen is channel/sofa surfing. Hansel can't stand us watching anything but him. I have to agree. He is much more amusing than anything on the 100+ cable channels.
Posted by JSG at 8:39 PM 2 comments
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
It's a life-long game
I love our busy days, though sometimes juggling is exhausting. It's 8:30, and I'm ready to retire for the evening, ignoring the laundry in the dryer, the ungraded late work students turned in today, the notes I should be learning in the Gilbert and Sullivan selections for chorale, and the repertoire I should be reviewing for an upcoming NATS vocal competition. Sometimes the body speaks louder than the mind, and I just can't will it to do any more. I am looking forward to another productive day tomorrow, but I think the clock beat me today.
Posted by JSG at 8:27 PM 3 comments
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Not Sleeping Yet
Posted by JSG at 10:45 PM 1 comments
Monday, January 18, 2010
Ready, set, tap!
We were fitted for tap shoes tonight, the husband and I. Before we went to Chorale rehearsal we stopped in the dance store. Tomorrow night is a play practice, Wednesday night all three of us will tap, Thursday two voice lessons, and Friday another play rehearsal. In between we're jumping into a bunch of Gilbert and Sullivan. I love this crazy family!
Posted by JSG at 9:44 PM 4 comments
Labels: rehearsal
Sunday, January 17, 2010
In appreciation of appliances
With all of us here at the house, residents and visiting family, I am most definitely in appreciation of modern appliances. The dishwasher is getting a 2 - 3 times daily running. The washer, dryer, coffee pot, stove, toaster, microwave, and fridge are all serving us well. It's beyond my imagination, the life of the homemaker before these conveniences. If I had to scrub your clothing on a washboard you wouldn't be wearing something for 5 minutes and tossing it into the basket, teenage daughter. The dishes would be done on a rotating schedule, sharing the burden, though I imagine I'd be the one with my hands in the dishwater every day. I have a hard time getting help in emptying out the machine that does the washing and drying for us!
Posted by JSG at 11:59 PM 3 comments
Labels: appliances, housework
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Better Together
Maybe only one or two times a year are we all gathered in the same place at the same time. Funny, though, it's like we haven't missed a day. The old familiar inside jokes are still funny, and we're right back to the sisterly antics. In a perfect world, they'd be my neighbors to the left and right. The world's not perfect, but my sisters are.
Posted by JSG at 6:28 PM 3 comments
Labels: sisters
Friday, January 15, 2010
Big Mouth
I can't help it. When I feel strongly about something, and I have an opinion to express, I have to say it. So maybe I was a bit overzealous in front of a district muckety-muck at today's Professional Learning Community meeting. I believe strongly in teaching to mastery, even if I was told, "Why bother, they won't all master it." I believe strongly in workshopping a skill, providing a minilesson and then conferring with individual students to differentiate instruction, even if I was asked, "You mean you spend an entire 90 minute block period teaching one concept?" I guess it was easy for me to open the yap because I had no idea who I was talking to, but I don't regret a single word. Nice to know my co-teacher and colleagues weren't ducking and running. I could get used to this place.
Posted by JSG at 10:06 PM 2 comments
Labels: teaching
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Lunch box
10:oo PM and I just arrived from the airport. First unpack, then hurry up and relax. Tomorrow's lunch is in my bag. They're overpriced and full of preservatives, but they're always in the freezer. If purchasing a lunch from the school cafe is the alternative... I'll take my plastic-coated cuisine.
Posted by JSG at 9:59 PM 1 comments
Labels: lunch
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Priorities
Professional Development Center in Chester, PA has all the high tech tools. Wow, these would really be helpful for classroom use. Whiteboards, flat-panel screens and projected images of a presentation, wifi, surround sound, cushy chairs. I like when teachers are respected and given nice digs for their professional development days, but it would be nice for kids to have some amenities too. How many classrooms have this set up? I've seen too many crumbling classrooms, worn and weary, inadequately heated in winter and overheated in summer. I've seen situations where kids were expected to ignore rodents or holes in the wall, sitting in the hard plastic chairs their parents might've found colorful and new, but now are cracked and sun-bleached. I remember teaching second grade in my "portable" classroom, wary of the one spot on the floor where the only thing between indoors and out was the threadbare carpet. A classroom without a phone for emergencies, without a shelf or a closet. Interesting, the priorities...
Posted by JSG at 7:17 PM 3 comments
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The voices in my head...
Posted by JSG at 10:01 PM 1 comments
Monday, January 11, 2010
My Snuggie Bunny
Enough of this weather, I say. I'm not able to shake the chill, wearing several layers of sweaters and sweatpants under several layers of blankets when going to bed at night. The master bedroom in our house is the coldest in the winter and the warmest in the summer, being at the end of the ventilation, so lately I've been chattering and complaining. Usually the first to bed, I complain until the crew joins me. My girl doesn't usually start her night in our bed, but when it's this cold, she understands the mathematics involved in 2 times body heat under the blankets. Even with her and my husband-the-radiator I couldn't shake the chill last night, so I finally caved. We stopped and bought Snuggies this morning. It is a great invention to wrap up my cold teen during a chilly car ride to school, but when I put mine on in the afternoon I found I was tripping and dragging. It's only meant for sitting still, and that's something I rarely do when home. It's practice, laundry, fuss in the kitchen, run here and there. I'm glad we have no steps in the house. If I tried a staircase in that thing I'd likely be found at the bottom in a crumpled but warm pile. So it occurred to me. The freaking thing is less practical than a bathrobe. A simple, fleece bathrobe would "snug" and it would allow me to move too. I'm such a sucker for advertising.
Posted by JSG at 5:43 PM 5 comments
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Home (for a little while), Sweet Home
Posted by JSG at 6:18 PM 4 comments
Labels: Jacksonville, travel
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Bayou v. Brooklyn
They laugh loudly and they grieve losses with brass instruments. Now that the Christmas eating is over, they're headway into the seasonal king cake. Year-round there's the etouffe, crawfish, gumbo, and boudin, and the chicory Community coffee. New York Jews and Cajun folk may come from very different places, but we live our lives similarly, savoring every last drop. One workshop participant today spelled it out for me. See, if we don't feel like walking somewhere in New York we can jump on the subway for a quick trip. Back home, she said, if they didn't feel like walking they jumped into their boat and zipped up the bayou. A culture that believes flavorful, full-volume living, that believes that their way of life is the best there is. I can relate to that.
Posted by JSG at 5:55 PM 2 comments
Friday, January 8, 2010
Neither here nor there
Straight from the classroom to the airport, there was some prime people watching time for me with my 3 hour layover in Atlanta. I've been out of airports for about 5 weeks, probably the longest stretch this close to sea level in the last eight years. I'd forgotten to appreciate the wonder/hassle of flying. Every walk of humanity passed me in the Hartsfield airport from the well-to do families with thousand dollar strollers and kids wrapped in J. Crew head to toe, and a bleached-out sixty-something woman, clad in mismatched sweats, using a Walmart bag as her carry-on luggage. The wonder of covering a couple of hundred miles in the time it takes my sixth graders to write an essay - that isn't lost on me, even as I approach the million miler status. I'd forgotten to appreciate the hassle of unpacking a couple of thousand dollars of electronics while undressing and submitting myself to scrutiny, and I'd forgotten to appreciate the hassle of spending two hours in a seat that might barely contain one of those essay-writing sixth graders. Out of the classroom and into the air, chasing the mighty greenback and doing all I can to secure our future. Next year may or may not offer me a classroom to do my bidding, so I guess I'll restock my sealed ziptop bag of 3 or fewer ounce sized liquid and gel grooming products.
Posted by JSG at 11:15 PM 3 comments
Labels: travel
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Gettin' my groove back...
Eight years out of the classroom can be a long time, but didn't really step out of the loop pedagogically. In fact, some of my presentations the last few years have been on the most trendy educational topics such as Differentiated Instruction and Response to Intervention. My chops were in reasonably good shape when I unexpectedly landed back in a classroom in October, but I still felt a bit rusty. My lessons felt shallow and ineffective, rushed and meaningless to the kids. I fretted over this considerably. Was I fraudulently doling out advice to teachers, just spinning tales like a stereotypical consultant? When I reentered the classroom I promised myself not to be the martyr, the super-teacher, the rebel, or the overachiever. I swore that below the radar was exactly where I wanted to be. And I still do. But in my desire to lay low I thought I'd march to the tempo and tune of the "learning calendar." This cyclical, shallow, fragmented, one-size-fits all prescription for best practices is anything but. I'm not interested in rebel, martyr, or overachiever, but I need to do what I know is right. With the collaboration of my co-teacher and the blessings of my administrator I've been striking out with lessons I planned myself. I have been teaching them thoroughly and I taking all the time that the kids need to do it, and I've been seeing results. The kids are smiling and feeling more successes, and for me...it feels good to think that maybe I've still got it.
Posted by JSG at 9:07 PM 6 comments
Labels: teaching
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Like Herding Cats
It's the subject without a specific product, the content area that is critical to all others, the skill without which we could not learn from recorded history, take in bible verse, or reproduce recipes from generations ago. It's fundamental to everything we do, yet it is perhaps the most difficult to teach.
Posted by JSG at 8:34 PM 6 comments
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Y am I up this early???
Getting out of bed is the hardest part, but there are far fewer excuses available at 4:30 in the morning. At the end of the day the I'm-tired-I-have-to-cook-clean-launder-grade-plan-rehearse excuse is too easy to come by. The only other thing I would be doing is sleeping, and how much of a difference would one hour of sleep really make?
The cold weather plan is the YMCA, a ten minute drive from the house. Ten there, ten back, thirty on some torturous cardiovascular machine, and another ab-blasting ten balancing one ball under my back and another, heavier one above my head. On warmer mornings I much prefer the five mile morning trail to coffee and back.
Having endured a routine like this for three-plus years, I guess I should see some remarkable results. My dress size is still well into the two digits, and other numbers and measurements shall not be uttered, much less published electronically. This isn't part of a resolution or a gimmick. I just genuinely feel better if I get the old sack of bones moving every day. My step is lighter, my head is clearer, and my mood is better. So Y not?
Posted by JSG at 6:42 AM 2 comments
Monday, January 4, 2010
Brrrring back Summer
Posted by JSG at 5:44 PM 3 comments
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The best of the best
In life, we are sometimes blessed to have a friend like this. A friend who can smooth the bumps in life. A friend with whom we don't need to pretend to be anyone but who we really are, who knows what we're thinking before we say anything, and who knows just what we need to hear, even if we didn't know we needed to hear it. That's the way it is for my girl and KF, her bestie. When our world nearly came crashing to an end in May, she called KF from the hospital, and they were there, almost as soon as she closed her phone. K was there, along with her mom and her husband, and they stayed well past visiting hours...waiting with us for the miracle that gave husband and daddy back to us. K and I walked the halls and found distractions. Her mom and husband sat with me in a dim waiting room, steadfast in their determination to see E back to vitality, daring anything but the best outcome for him. Friends like this.
KF is practically a member of our family. She's the kind of friend who doesn't need to ask where things are in the kitchen cabinets, at home in our home. We always keep K favorites on hand. This girl lives with the motto that everything tastes better covered with ranch and washed down with diet coke. We've shared many tables together, from her discovery of the joys of lox, to her first Jewish deli in New York City, to a Maggiano's feast, her love of food and conversation is a great addition to every meal. She has traveled with us, from younger day Disney trips to last summer's New York excursion, sharing the tiny space of a hotel room for four. She laughs at our family's inside jokes, yet always treats the adults with well-mannered respect.
Today as my daughter felt her heart break a little with the pain of being so far from her boyfriend, she held fast to her K. Somewhere between the loud harmonizing, silly monkey faces, text messages, late-night giggling, and diet coke they comfort each other. Someday they will stand up for one another as they graduate, complete college, marry, and begin lives and families of their own. I can begin to imagine the young women they may become. And I'll bet anything they'll be there for one another, smoothing the bumps in life.
Posted by JSG at 4:30 AM 4 comments
Labels: bff
Saturday, January 2, 2010
My resolutions, more or less
1. More home-cooked, less restaurant
2. More exercising, less excuses
3. More outdoors, less indoors
4. More being, less doing
5. More engaging, less worrying
6. More play, less serious
7. More writing, less procrastinating
8. More understanding, less judging
9. More self-appreciation, less self-deprecation
10.More now, less woulda' coulda'
Posted by JSG at 9:20 AM 7 comments
Friday, January 1, 2010
New Year, Old Us.
Our quiet celebration at home involved a Glee marathon, followed by a Rockin' New Years Eve including equally horrifying views of Dick Clark's condition and JLo's unitard. Libation consisted 1 glass of champagne, a couple of hot wings.
Posted by JSG at 10:30 AM 3 comments
Labels: 2010, Maggiano's, New Year