March Madness

Not only are the college basketball playoffs in full swing (and you know they're on the Big Screen many hours a day here), but the weather is playing its weird March games again. Mild temperatures have been blown away by the icy wind, making the air feel at least 15 degrees colder than the thermometer shows. While the front zoomed through, we had snow in the air, and at one point I had a hard time seeing the trees in the front yard when I looked out the window. Now, an hour or so later, the sun is shining brightly again. This happens often just after the calendar declares that Spring has arrived. What a sense of humor ol' Mother Nature has!

Two poinsettia plants in my dining room are refusing to die. It's not that I want them to, but I expect them to. Most years, the plants get spindly, drop their leaves, and wither back by early February. This pair, one brought by Sis2 and the other purchased by me locally, is defying the odds by continuing to produce green leaves that turn that odd red/green combination, and then they turn that lovely deep red. I suppose I could be taking better and more consistent care of them this year than I usually do, but it feels like I'm giving them the same kind of benign neglect that's typical of my indoor horticultural habits: water the plants once a week if I remember to do it. Maybe this pair has within their genes the stamina needed to endure my style of care, and their lengthy life is my reward. What a nice thought.

While I was shopping yesterday, I ran into my department chair. Even though we both acknowledged that we were "off-duty," she gave me some good news about next year. There's been the request for teachers of a particular grade level to look at the class rosters for next year's classes to ensure that no large collection of unmanageable or troubled kids are lumped into one class again. 'Bout time! Another pleasant possibility is the return to a Writing Lab (or Writing Center, the name doesn't really matter) that's staffed by English teachers to assist students in working on their writing and completing their writing assignments, regardless of which discipline assigned the work. We had one when we first moved into the current building, but to allow for more sections in each grade level, English teachers were pulled out of that program and the Writing Center was closed. Now, we're seeing the drastic need for remediation and support in improving the writing skills that our students demonstrated in the last round of state-wide testing, and a Writing Lab would certainly help. We've had good success with a Math Lab for similar purposes over the past couple of years, so the time seems to be ripe for a Writing Lab. I don't know yet what that'll do to our teaching/study hall schedule, partly because there's a proposal to move all study halls into the cafeteria, and supervision would change, but I think it's a step in the right direction for the kids who need direct help during school time to get their writing tasks finished with increasing quality.

My sisters in law showed up unexpectedly at my door yesterday afternoon to deliver some goodies to my husband, their brother, for his birthday which is today. They tied some helium balloons to our mailbox, as they have for the past couple of years, and they had a small collection of reprints of old family photos to give to him. Of course, he was out on a run, so I chatted with them for a while before they were off on their travels again. (I think all the siblings have some form of wanderlust) He's been given a number of family pictures, so that inspired me to purchase a digital picture frame for him as his big birthday gift. I'll scan in the pictures and save them to an SD card, and then he'll have them in one place, viewable in the frame. It'll take a little time to gather the pictures and scan them, but I think the result will be quite worthwhile.

Bailey's Irish Cream.....mmmmmm! It's one thing that makes Sunday late afternoon easy to take.