Let see where I left off...
Not long after returning from my parents' anniversary party weekend, we celebrated Jay's birthday. In an unexpected turn of events, he happened to be in Dallas for business on his actual birthday, so we were all able to have dinner and celebrate with him! He was sans Mark, since it was a business trip, but we enjoyed the night on the whole!
Somewhere in that week, we were ravaged by a nasty stomach bug. And by we, I really mean Thomas who battled it for the better part of 3-4 days. At the end of that week, Thomas and I were slated to make one more trip up to OK to celebrate Emily's birthday and for Thomas to attend Man Day with Scotty. When I got home from work on that Friday, I felt awful. I was achy, tired, and generally miserable. I thought I was catching whatever Thomas had, so I decided to bail on the OK trip, much to my dismay. I think that I was overly exhausted from everything I had done in the past week and from working my teaching and tutoring jobs. I say that because from that Friday through Saturday morning, I slept for almost 12 hours. The achiness didn't subside until Saturday night, but I felt much better on the whole. (Note to self: self-care days are a non-negotiable, like it or not.)
A couple of weeks later, we had a very well-placed inservice day at school. It was on a Friday, and it was a nice light at the end of the tunnel towards the end of the school year! The inservice itself wasn't phenomenal, as we had to listen to a speaker talk about what we, as a school, should do in the event of an active shooter situation. I hate that that is the type of thing we have to do now, but it is what it is, I guess. I have thoughts on this that I'll spare you from hearing at the moment. We ended the day with a nice wedding celebration shower for all of the upper school faculty who have gotten/will be getting married within this last part of the school year. We had a great time celebrating with appetizers, drinks, and cake! Speaking of work, I also took an evening to go to the senior-directed one-act plays. My school has a phenomenal fine arts department, so it's such a treat to get to see the students' hard work come to fruition.
Right after my inservice day, Thomas and I joined Steve and Diana for a relaxing weekend at Quitman! It was exactly what the doctor ordered in terms of relaxation. Around this time, Steve made the decision that, in order to keep an ag-related tax exemption on their property out there, he was going to start beekeeping. This came as a surprise to us, but it made sense to do so. Of all the ag exemptions to be had, beekeeping had the lowest up-front cost and was one of the more low maintenance activities, which was mostly important because Steve and Diana are only out there on certain weekends. We went to the local farmers' market that Saturday, so Steve could meet and chat with the president of the local beekeepers' association. He gleaned some great knowledge from her and figured out a good starting point in the process.
I probably should have stuck around and listened more, since I later found out that Thomas has decided to take an interest in the bees, but I wanted to explore and revisit some of the shops I had been to when Mom and Dad were there last. We ended the day with lunch in town, and work at the house that evening. Nothing else of note happened while there, but it was just fine by us.
A week later, we blazed the trail back up to OK for Andy's first Communion. That Friday night, we met my parents and Emily's family at a new restaurant in the town where I used to teach for dinner and drinks. It was great to visit, and I happened to see a handful of former students while there. They may or may not have been the ones working there who served me a beer...it was an odd juxtaposition, but we went with it! It was great to be surrounded by familiar faces once again. During our weekend, my dad taught Thomas how to use the swather, and Thomas was happy to go in the wheat fields and swath some wheat for this year's hay crop. I think my husband was meant to be born and raised on a farm as much as he loves learning about everything. Andy's first Communion was great. It was my first time of having one of my godsons receive a sacrament (besides baptism, obviously), so my aunt/godmother heart was full to bursting that day!
We had to leave the fun with my family a little early that weekend, but before we did, my sisters and I gave my mom our Mother's day gift to her--an Instant Pot! She was excited to have it to be able to do more cooking out in the kitchen in the shed room, especially with harvest and long nights of field work in their future. I meant to have a cookbook of pressure cooker recipes all put together and ready to go for her, but that didn't happen amid my busy week.
The reason we had to leave my family early is that one of our great friends from OSU, Amanda, had a wedding shower in Edmond, and I was invited. I didn't want to miss it, especially since we were in OK and it was on our way home anyway. I was so happy to have gone. She is quite excited for her upcoming nuptials, but is equally anxious. It turns out that her fiance, who just graduated with his master's in electrical engineering, received an amazing job offer...in Seattle, WA. They are both close with their families (who both live in Edmond), so it was tough, but they decided that they couldn't let this opportunity slip away. John (Amanda's fiance) just moved up there, and he won't be back in OK until the wedding at the beginning of July. Amanda has yet to find a job up there, so she is very anxious since she won't have any friends or family up there, and she will be unemployed. I SO related and empathized with her, because that's exactly how I felt at this time last year. I did my best to give her good advice that didn't consist of cliches that really weren't helpful to the situation. I also made a mental note to be sure to reach out to her after they're up in WA to check in on her. Community is key, and sometimes it's nice to not feel so alone in your struggles.
Fast forward a week to Mother's Day, when we celebrated with Thomas' family (his parents, sister, grandma, and Diana's brother's family). Steve made a great meal, headlined by his pulled pork. We had a great time getting together to celebrate the mothers in the family, as well as welcome Elizabeth and McKenna back home from their year at college.
That week for me, work-wise, was pretty nice. The family I tutor for went on their annual week-long trip to Florida, so I got to work one job for about 1.5 weeks. Even if working with the girls isn't difficult, it was so enjoyable to just go to school and come home. Better yet, it was our review week, so I wasn't assigning any homework, just going through a massive review packet with the kids in class. I almost felt bored in the midst of this time, but I enjoyed getting home much earlier than usual and having more free time than ever before! Going back to tutoring this week was a little bit tough for me, but once I got back in the groove, it was all good.
This past week has been our final exam week. It's nice because they split it up where we only give 2 tests per day (we have 8 class periods in all), and the kids are released by noon. Since we teach the demographic we do, the kids need some rebound time to be able to psych themselves up for the next day of testing. Furthermore, many of the kids really struggle with test anxiety like you couldn't imagine, so it helps allay some of that. From the standpoint of us teachers, it makes our days so much easier to know that we only have to be "on" for about half the time that we normally do. It was awesome.
My students' testing went about as well as it could have gone. I officially finished working with kids on Wednesday. They all did pretty well. Nobody failed my class or the final, which was a good feeling. On Wednesday, I received a couple of sweet notes/emails from some of my students, thanking me for everything I did to help them. One of the girls told me that I inspired her to want to teach Algebra, which was probably the best compliment anyone can give a teacher of any subject. (I may or may not have cried a little while reading that note.) On the whole, my students were appreciative of my efforts, and all that I did to make the transition from their former teacher to myself as smooth as I possibly could. There were also emails from students wanting me to round their semester grade up from an 89 to a 90. I had to be the bearer of bad news and explain that their 89 was already an 88.6 that rounded up, so there wasn't much I could do. I hated being the bad guy, but sometimes that happens. It wasn't all great feedback, but you can't please everyone, so there.
Today, we have a brunch, and then we're (mostly) free for the Memorial Day weekend. We have graduation tomorrow, and inservice days Tuesday-Thursday before we're officially finished for the school year. I'm quite excited about what the next few days/weeks entail, so I'll give a quick highlight reel of everything that is to come...
-Tonisha happens to be in Dallas, so we're planning on meeting up!
-Rebecca is going to be spending the weekend with me and exploring Dallas!
-Thomas and I are about to leave on our belated honeymoon to Colorado!
At this point, I'll make a separate post for pictures from this segment, but enjoy the great Memorial Day weekend--I know I will!
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