Friday, Friday, Friday!

I am now less than a week away from starting back to school. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love my job, but I'm always sad to see breaks come to an end (just like weekends). Something that I have come to realize this summer, more than any other, is that I sort of fall apart without a routine. I mean, our daughter is grown, there is no one here on a regular basis through the day but me. While I do get things done that are necessary, I fall behind on other things or they completely are non existent during the summer. I have no schedule. Shame on me! For that reason I am ready to get back to school and to a routine! I have been watching the three or four Facebook counseling groups and they are such a great resources! It's amazing to me how many counselors are working throughout the summer. I save documents I find online and pin things on Pinterest. I may order a book or resource, but that's pretty much it. A couple of years ago I wanted to do a Girls' Night Out: show a movie, eat, give away some door prizes and just have some fun. I ordered a movie and began gathering door prizes. That's a far as it got, until now. Today I previewed the movie and plan on hosting a Girls' Night Out this year. The movie is amazing and so well done. I saw a post by Danielle Shultz on her School Counselor blog and plan do to something similar. The movie is age approriate, there is no violence, nudity or foul language in it. It is very well done, but then it IS an American Girl movie. I can't wait to schedule that event! I highly recommend you looking at Danielle's blog to see what she did, or just wait until mine is complete and go from there. I have a busy last week before Friday's work day is here. Everything from car to doctor to funeral and completion of a couple more projects is ahead this week.

Good-bye June

June is almost over. Wow, hasn't it passed quickly? I have made a few trips to school this summer. I went down a couple of times to help with some testing data which had to be finalized during the month of June. My next couple of trips were to work on my office. My husband and I went down last Saturday to paint it. I sure appreciated him spending his day off tackling that with me. I made two trips this week to put thing in place and things on the wall. The paperwork that had accumulated needed to be sorted and/or discarded as well. I worked on the desk and it's contents along with the credenza and hutch. It is all almost finished. I had hopes of getting it comopletely ready for my return on August 1st before this month was over. I'm very close. I think one more trip and I'm there. That trip may be Saturday morning. It looks very different already than it did a week ago. The previous counselor was there two years, she took my place when I left after being there two years. She passed away from an inoperable brain tumor. We had become friends before I left and it has all been very sad and trying. I wanted to make a change in the office so that it looked really different. I thought this might help students and staff as well. I think I've succeeded. The walls have gone from an off white to a bold green. The windows now have a pretty yellow, floral topper and I've moved in an extra file cabinet and some furniture. I can't wait to get it finished and pictures posted.

Summer Break

Summer break has begun. Last week was spent with my daughter and grandson. We were together nearly everyday. During the evening I had VBS. I got to help in the 3rd-4th grade boys classroom. They were all really great! The week before that was my actual first week off. I spent some time with family, enjoyed the holiday weekend and lounged around a lot in hopes I'd get rested up and be ready to jump in again this week. It worked! I have done some decluttering around the house. It's amazing how quickly the general clutter grows throughout the school year. I cleaned out my closet. It's not completely organized, but clothes I've been hanging on to for way too long are now gone. Today I worked on my craftroom. The leftovers of many projects were scattered here and there, many scraps of fabric and office supplies were just everywhere.

I am going back to my previous school this next year. The school where I began as a school counselor. That is where I was when I started this blog. The administration is very supportive, encouraging and kind as are most of the staff from maintenance, secretaries, cafeteria and teachers. I'm excited to be returning. Last September, we were at a flea market/trade days. I found an amazing deal on some coffee cups. I bought a whole big box! I thought for the price they'd make great Christmas gifts. I have a Silhouette and thought they would be perfect to put initials on in favorite or school colors along with some hot cocoa/coffee/tea or save for teacher appreciation week to do the same and fill with candy. However, the year came and went, teachers at the school weren't close, though there were no rifts between them. It's just how the atmosphere was. As hard as I tried I couldn't change anything. The way things went with my office and the school in general, I chose to just leave the cups at home and save them for another time and group of coworkers. I knew I was going to be leaving by December. I turned my resignation in the first part of January, after returning from Christmas break. Now that I'm going back to were I started as a counselor, I can't wait to decorate the cups and give them out! Now it's just a matter of when. My husband came home today, took one look at the newly cleaned craft room and the box of cups. His words were, "Maybe you'll get to actually give those out this year." I replied, "You can count on it!"

I've not only been working on things related to home, but also things related to work. I've been plugging things into my calendar so it's already there when I report (August 1st). I've been looking at ways to improve things such as my testing routine (organization, training of staff and volunteers, timelines, etc). I've been researching organizations for assemblies in an effort to promote a positive environment at school. There is always so much to do. Summer will pass by oh, so quickly, I'm sure. Enjoy everyone!

Spring Break Blues

In this area, we have been on Spring Break this week. Our school paired this week with a snow day so we were out Friday last week, too. It has been a good week, with lots of time to rest early on. As the week went by I realized more and more projects I wanted to finish before returning to school. I even realized there were some things I really wanted to tackle in the cleaning, organizing or tidying up department. I managed to get some of every category done. I'm ok with that. I spent time with my grand baby, which is a high priority these days. I hung around the house in my pjs some and went without hair and make up fixed and on at least two days. Many years I go on trips over spring break. Years like this I'm thankful to just stay home. This week I read blogs, researched programs and curriculums, and watched several videos, all in an effort to improve what I do. All in all, it was a great break from the routine. Tomorrow starts the beginning of the last quarter of the year. It, too, will pass very quickly.

Motivation

We are in a slump here. It's partly due to the long, cold winter we've had. We've missed so much school we now have two days to make up. We started school late this year so that means we're already going a little later than usual. The end of next week, March 14th, we start our Spring Break. After that we will be on a down hill slide sort to speak. We will be in the last quarter of the 2013-14 school year. It has been a long, trying year for me. I ran across the TEDtalks video by Diana Nyad last week. She is inspiring in so many ways. Her age, gender, strength, record and probably friends and family all said she couldn't accomplish her life long goal of swimming from Cuba to Florida. Yet, she made it, finally, after many years of trying. She didn't give up. She didn't lose her motivation. She didn't lose sight of her dream. I like what she says about following dreams, staying motivated and going against the odds. I hope it inspires you as much as it did me. I may have to watch it again!

http://www.ted.com/talks/diana_nyad_never_ever_give_up.html??utm_medium=social&source=email&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=ios-share

SPREADING LOVE

I almost forgot to post this! I found these cute notes online and thought the students would enjoy them as much as I did. I cut them out and put one on every locker in our HS/MS the morning of Valentine's Day. I'm sharing a link where the actual notes can be found. They're free, which is even better. http://assets.skiptomylou.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/kindness-notes.pdf

She has several other free downloadable notes, too. Our tables were filled with lots of candy, stuffed animals, pop and flowers on this day as I'm sure your offices, hallways, and/or classrooms were as well. However, there were some students who received nothing. To them, I believe, this little locker note meant a lot. I received quite a bit of feedback from the students. There are three hallways in our building. One hallway decided that one or two students needed more love than the rest and they collected their notes and placed them all together on one locker. I didn't get a picture of it, but I thought it was really cute when I walked down that hallway and saw it for the first time. It is now a week since I did this and two hallways still have their notes on the lockers. By the way, I signed every single one of them myself, too. Enjoy!

Today was great. Not only was it Friday AND Valentine's Day, but I was able to do something that will impact our students in a huge way. I got our pantry set up for our MS/HS students! I worked with our Regional Food Bank, filled out many forms, asked lots of questions, sent many emails and phone calls went back and forth. I surveyed nearly every student, teacher and cafeteria

worker in the school to find out who might be going hungry or who might be going without food at various times each month (between parents' pay days, etc.). I went to an amazing training, submitted my order and stood outside, unsheltered on the coldest day of the year (wind chill -4) for over an hour to unload and load our food last week. Today, I had time to break open boxes and get the food to students! It may not look like much, but our school, MS/HS, serves less than 250 students. This is our first shipment. I'm thrilled to be able to serve the students in our school this way!