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Another Sign of the Times

Posted on November 5, 2016 by auburnchick

Yesterday evening, the Mr. and I went out to eat, as we’re prone to do as empty nesters.

We went out to a local establishment that’s the equivalent of a Waffle Shop.

Y’all, we ate real fancy, let me tell you.  That’s how you do things on a Friday night when you’re middle aged and live in Podunk, USA.

But seriously, though, the Heavenly Hash (veggied up hash browns) are to die for!

As I waited for my food in the diner, I happened to notice something on the wall across from me…

What.  The.  Heck?

We’ve been eating at this place for a number of years, and one thing that I’ve liked about it has been that it’s a bit of a throwback.

Think back to the show Alice, and you’ve got this place, without the hairnets and retro aprons.  Heck, it even has its own Mel, except his name is Charlie, and he’s actually a very nice guy.

Did I just date myself.

Yep.

Anyhoo, one of the signature pieces in this eatery, besides the cute plaques hung haphazardly, has been the jukebox.  This isn’t a picture of it because I never thought I’d need one, but it’s an image I grabbed after a search on Google…

 

 

Does that picture bring back memories for anyone else?

I remember eating at Pizza Hut when I was a teenager and putting quarters in to the machine to pick my favorite songs.

It was the original playlist, of sorts, with each patron setting the ambience for the place.

You often had to wait awhile to hear your song selections because you never knew how many quarters someone ahead of you had plugged into the thing.

Can we talk about the songs we listened to?

The list satisfied patrons of all ages.

There were always Elvis songs.

There were songs by the Carpenters…hello 70’s road tripping!

Oh, and don’t forget some 80’s rock and roll like Pat Benatar.

I can’t tell you how many bread sticks I dipped to the tunes spit out by those wonderful music machines.

And, for years, I ate my Heavenly Hash to the same tunes in my local eatery.

Until last night.

I looked over to the space that the jukebox had inhabited prior to yesterday’s visit, and I saw this…

I just can’t like that.

Not one little bit.

It doesn’t fit the feel of the place.

At all.

Sigh.

Getting older is hard sometimes.

Watching traditions fade away just makes me sad…especially traditions that have nothing to do with money and everything to do with priceless memories of good times, great music, and fun fellowship with loved ones.

You can’t find that in a toy that you got through chance and a metallic set of arms.

Filed under: This-n-That | 1 Comment »

The Art of Finessing

Posted on November 4, 2016 by auburnchick

Finesse…it doesn’t always mean what you think it means.

Especially if you teach at the high school level.

If you’re old, like me, when you hear the word finesse, you think of doing something with style.

In a way, this sort of fits the new-fangled slang that the kids have turned it into.

According to the Urban Dictionary, finesse means, “To talk someone out of their things. Not stealing persuading someone out of their belongs, or to do you a favor.”

Please do not go to Urban Dictionary and look this up for yourselves.  The sample sentence that uses the word is definitely rated PG-13.

I’m just sayin’.

So anyhow, what in the world am I doing writing about a slang word?

Well you see, I tried really, really hard to finesse something from one of my students.

It all started last night when I posted the following picture on my favorite social media sites:

This book had arrived at my house just two days prior, and although I’m already in the middle of one book, I was curious, read the first two chapters, and was hooked immediately.

Rebecca commented on Facebook and told me how much she had enjoyed reading Everything, Everything by the same author.

I got excited because I already had that book in my class, so that’s what I looked for when I got to school this morning.

I couldn’t find it.

That meant one of two things:  1) A student was reading it, or 2) Someone had made off with the book already.

As my first period students began their silent reading today, I mentioned that I was looking for the book, and one of my girls told me that she had it.

Oh my.

I was so relieved and began hatching a plan.

A plan to finesse that book right out of her hands for the weekend.

When reading time was over, I asked if she was leaving it in her folder.

No such deal.

Dang.

I admitted that I had planned on finessing the book when she wasn’t looking because I really, really want to read it.

The entire class started laughing…because I was using their slang…and because I wanted her book.

She did take it home, which really is fine because I still have the newer book to read.

I’m going to have to work on my skills though.  Apparently my modus operandi is not stealthy enough.

And that’s Latin, not slang.

Filed under: Books, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Celebrating Readers

Posted on November 3, 2016 by auburnchick

My students continue to impress me with the rate at which they are finishing books.  It seems like a day doesn’t pass when a student stands in front of me and announces the end to another story.

I love hearing them explain why they liked certain characters over others, or why the stories touched their hearts.

As you can see in the picture below, Kwame Alexander continues to be a favorite for my boys, while Jennifer Brown is reigning supreme for the girls.  The Bluford series is also popular with the kids who aren’t exactly in love with reading or get intimated by larger books.

Oh, and the gal who read Lucy in the Sky?  She read Go Ask Alice a week or two ago.  This gal is on a roll!!!

Filed under: Books, Teaching | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Coming Up for Air

Posted on November 2, 2016 by auburnchick

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

I am just now coming up for air after three hectic evenings of brain-frying lesson planning.

It started on Monday morning as soon as I got to school.

I was so immersed in my work that I barely heard the first bell ring and had to rush to the rest room for one more quick potty break before the crazy began.

Sometime between Sunday night and Monday morning, my brain had conjured up lofty goals…write lesson plans to take my students all the way through the week after Thanksgiving.

Three week’s worth, y’all.

Although I like getting plans written as units, this year has been extremely challenging with two very different preps to manage.

Throw in the random assignments that get haphazardly thrown into the mix from up above, and it’s a bit like juggling flaming monkeys.

Take, for instance, the school-wide writing prompts.  I conducted writing conferences with my students.  It was a messy process.

Writing that many weeks’ worth of lesson plans in such a short amount of time can seem nearly impossible.

I worked hard, y’all.

I hardly talked to people.

I had tunnel vision.

I stayed up until almost 12:30am Monday night with nearly all of my plans for my Intensive Reading classes finished.

Stations, though.  If you’ve ever taught remedial reading, you know exactly what I’m referring to.

Tuesday was all about my Honors classes.

I’d had a meeting the day before with the other Health Science Academy teachers I work with, and I’d gotten an idea that I started research about when I got home from work.

But first, I stopped and voted early.  Go, me!

Shout-out to God…seriously, though.  He is a God of order, and He helped me find several pieces of information that slowly began to morph into a long-range plan.

It was a beautiful thing to behold, even from my own head.

I worked until almost 1am Tuesday night.

I had flashbacks to my first four years of teaching when staying up that late happened almost every night.

But…

The payoff was so worth it.

I went into work this morning exhausted but wielding four sheets of things to-do.  Although I’d crossed a bunch of things off of the list the day before, the Never-Get-It-Done fiends had visited while I slept and added a passel more.

Sigh.

Such is a teacher’s life.

But wait.

I had a really good day.

Don’t ask me how, but I think that my typing hands turned bionic, because I cranked out a ton of documents in between helping my students reflect on the first nine weeks of school.

When I got home, I only had four things on my to-do list.

Glory hallelujah!

I delayed dinner and pretty much everything else, and almost five hours later had an amazing Honors English 1 unit and substitute lesson plans (I’m attending training next week) in my hands.

Don’t talk to me about the copying I have to do tomorrow.  It will probably take me two days.

I do not care.

The hard work is finished.  I even uploaded the assignments I created into my digital grade book.

Y’all, though.  I’m a happy camper right now.

Teaching isn’t easy.  You have to have stamina, and you have to be patient enough to wait for the Lord to give you ideas and help you make the pieces fit together.  You also have to be persistent.  I had seen references to a document that was located on a website that I did not have access to.  I found the document somewhere else.

And so, I’m about to sit down with a glass of wine, cue up my DVR, and relax.

I’m relieved that I can be a fairly normal person for the next few weeks…at home anyhow.  If you see me out and about, well, I can’t speak for that.

Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Blast from the Past

Posted on November 1, 2016 by auburnchick

Last Friday, the Mr. took my car and traveled a few hours to eat lunch and spend time with his parents.

When he returned, I got ready to take the car out to my school’s football game.

“There’s a tent in the back,” he said.  “I’ll get it out this weekend.”

Well, Sunday came, and the tent was still in there, so after grocery shopping, I went to get it out.

I had to stop and collect myself for a moment or two.

Y’all…the sight of this tent brought back so many memories.

We bought it eons ago when the kids were playing travel soccer.

It was the thing that parents did.  They bought tents, bought big SUVs to hold such tents, and they traveled from one tournament to another with said tents.

Then, each dad loaded his tent on his shoulders and walked the forever distance from the parking lot to the field the team was playing on.

Sometimes, it took two or three dads to put up a tent.  They weren’t super easy back in the day.

The sight resembled what I imagine to be a barn raising of old.

We got to be pros at this by the time the kids had graduated.

If those tent flaps could talk, boy would they have stories to tell.

They would tell of screams of joy and tears of sadness, depending on how the games were going.

They would speak of many shouted “Ohhhhhhhhhs” at good plays and the covering of faces at missed opportunities.

They might contain strands of pulled hair from stressful games when all we could do was grip our tendrils in desperation.

The tent would certainly tell of frigid days when prayers were offered up for the cessation of rain and, during the heat of summer, a lessening of the hotter-than-hell temperatures that rendered hair straighteners useless and wet, cold towels a blessing.

They might tell of muttered, multi-colored words spoken against horrible refs who either needed glasses or retirement papers.

Oh yes, our tent would be able to speak volumes, let me tell you.

We passed our tent down to Super Sis and her husband.  Our youngest nephew had begun his baseball career, and they were living our lives all over again, with a different sport.

Nephew boy is now a senior.  They have no need for the tent, so the Mr.’s mom gave it back.

I’ll be looking to either sell or donate it.

The memories, however, will stay.

Filed under: empty nest | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

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