Time (Can you tell I haven't been trying ten titles?)

Lately, I have an aversion to everything that is required of me. Cleaning, grading papers, going to work in general... I guess it is spring fever.

Just last weekend, I had all of the students' grades caught up and handed out progress reports. Then by Friday, I had a bagful of papers to grade again. If I could spend 15 minutes every day working on grading, or cleaning, or laundry, or dishes, I'd have a lot less piling up going on.

Over the past two weeks, I have tried to do less worrying about what I have to do and just doing it. It is amazing how much less time things take when you just go ahead and do them without the bellyaching.

On a fun note, this past Tuesday my mom and I both called in sick to work. (I am not one to feign sickness much, but she's retiring and we thought it would be a fun day.) We went and spent the greater part of the day playing golf with another friend of mine, Robin (who also called in). It was a great treat- the weather was beautiful, and it took until the 12th hole for me to want to walk off the golf course in frustration.

Mackinac Pictures #2

So these are pictures that I also like, but that didn't publish the first time. Note the muddy shoes and smiles, the $12 entrance fee for the Grand Hotel, and the chairs facing out into the mist. The school in the picture is the school for all the kids, K-12, on the island. Their typical graduating class is 4 students. I loved the fact that they just left their bikes laying outside school all day!

"She really needed it..."

I spent two (long) days this week accompanying the 4th graders to Mackinac Island. It was a treat for several reasons. First, I hadn't been there since I was 7 years old. I remember the ferry dock and ride over the best from that trip. Secondly, I had only five fourth graders on the trip, but I got to be a chaperone anyway! I left the rest of my 23 students at school with a sub. One of my students reportedly told her mom, "I'm glad Mrs. Pawlowski gets to go to Mackinac. She REALLY needed it!"

It was a fun two days. The first day was completely rainy, but we all survived the cold and wetness to have a beautiful second day exploring the island. The highlight of day #2 was trying some "Geocaching" with another teacher and a student. If you haven't geocached before, you use a GPS monitor to help find certain spot where someone has hidden a "treasure". We were successful in finding one of the hidden spots, but on the way to the 2nd, we ended up hiking a huge, slippery hill and climbing over a fence into the backyard of the Grand Hotel! Luckily, we were not caught trespassing.

pro·cras·ti·na·tion

Procrastination is the deferment or avoidance of an action or task to a later time. For the person procrastinating this may result in stress, a sense of guilt, the loss of productivity, the creation of crisis, and the chagrin of others for not fulfilling one's responsibilities or commitments.

transitive verb : to put off intentionally and habitually

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Coaching has started again. It is a fun session, with plenty of coaches and a reasonable number of kids. It also means that when I get home at 8:00, I am dead on the couch. I would have posted sooner, but there was absolutely nothing of any value to say.

After 2 1/2 weeks of coaching, I have piles and piles of papers to grade. I am going to head off to do some tonight, but I spend every evening thinking about the things I have to do without doing them.

OH! I remember what I was going to say! A friend of mine had tickets to the Norah Jones concert here Friday night. She gave them to me as she had something come up. They are front row tickets. Yahoo!!! Of course, I can't keep a secret worth anything. I had hoped to just bring Dave there on Friday, but within half an hour I was jumping around with the news.