Magic Happens Here

This might look like an ordinary office, but let me assure you it is anything but.

When I moved in here last August, I was both thrilled to have my own little space and annoyed by its odd shape because arranging furniture and shelves was a nightmare.

Over the course of the school year, I fell in love with this office.

Not because I figured out an ideal furniture arrangement, because believe me, I never managed to do so and instead just learned to make the best of the quirky shape!

Not because it was the most beautifully decorated place at school, because some of my colleagues' classrooms were so welcoming and delightful that I hated ever leaving them!

And certainly not because of its location, which keeps me centrally located and yet isolated from absolutely everyone at the same time!

I fell in love with this office because of all that happened within it.

Of course math and reading and meetings and assessments took place, but it's all of the other things that happened in here that will stay with me:

• conversations with students about our pets - the ones still with us, and more importantly, the ones who live on in our hearts...children have insightful and deep thinkings about death and I was constantly amazed when the photos of my dogs would be the reason a quiet or shy child would open up to share an important part of their life outside of school with me

• brainstorming sessions with colleagues...how to help our shared students, how to address an issue in the building, how to best support the teaching and learning across all grade levels, or how to help a student or teacher who was experiencing a personal challenge

• fun tutoring sessions before and after school where I had the opportunity to work with some incredible kids one-on-one and really get to know them as we solved math problems and strengthened our reading skills

• the countless shared tears with my fellow teachers who came to my office when they needed a quiet space for a moment to regroup before picking up their students from lunch or after an emotionally draining meeting and then the many hugs that followed those tears

• students stopping by to say hello on their way to fill their water bottles or borrow books from me or just tell me something good about their day

• colleagues stopping by to share supplies with me...tissues, hand sanitizer, paper, dry erase markers...so many of them shared their extras without me even asking

• colleagues coming to share a student success story or show me a picture of their dog or drop off a donut because their class had leftovers

• people constantly checking in on me...the love and support I felt this year, which was unquestionably the most difficult of my career, was absolutely astounding 

All of these little things - which are actually really big things - add up to nothing short of magic.

This wonderful little space is now pretty much empty for the summer and will be getting some fresh paint and new lighting before I return to it in August. I'm going to savor every moment of summer until then, but I know more magic is in store next year.

Happy Tails to you!

Friends Reunited

This past weekend, four friends and I had a mini reunion! We've been friends for over sixteen years, but we hadn't been all together in more than three! Part of that was due to the pandemic and part of it was due to one of us moving to another state, but whatever the reasons, it felt like we'd been apart for about a thousand years. When the last of us arrived, we all cried happy tears that we were together.

We found each other because we all taught at the same school, but life has led in a variety of directions. I'm so grateful for technology because our text conversations keep us connected as we update each other with news, funny stories, pictures, random memes, and whatever else comes to mind!

If you know me, you know I love dates and numbers and keeping track of things, so I quizzed each of them to compile some interesting facts about our friendship!

Over the course of our friendship...

• the five of us have taught in 12 different schools
• we've had 22 different jobs
• there have been 2 weddings and 5 babies born
• we've lived at 18 different addresses

That's a lot of change in sixteen years, and yet our friendship remains steadfast. Spending the day with them this past weekend was amazing and wonderful, and now that life is kind of back to normal, we're planning on seeing each other much more often again! I love these women so much and I don't know what I'd do without them! They listen to my nonsense, support my sometimes crazy ideas, and cheer me on at every turn. I'm so grateful that teaching brought us together all those years ago!

Happy Tails to you!

Lantern Fest 2022

This was our fourth time attending this lantern fest (2017, 2018, and 2021) and it was every bit as magical as those previous events! If you have the chance to go to one of these, you won't regret it!

the front of my lantern

the back of my lantern
(a quote from WandaVision)

the front of C's lantern
(a quote of Ted Lasso)

the back of C's lantern

a perfect night!

watching the lanterns all rise into the sky
is a spectacular sight

I will never tire of this!

Happy Tails to you!

Actual Dream Job

Last August, I wrote a post about getting my dream job and being both the reading specialist and the math specialist this school year, and at the time I was thrilled. However, in addition to this just being an absolutely awful school year for everyone, it was challenging to do both reading and math because I constantly felt like I wasn’t doing enough for one subject or the other.

words of wisdom from
Ron Swanson

The great news is that I just signed my contract for next year and I will have my actual dream job! I’m so excited about being able to give all of my attention to math, which is my very favorite subject! I’ll definitely miss some things about being a reading specialist, but I honestly could not ask for a better new job title! 

Happy Tails to you!

Life Lately May 2022

I can sum up the month of May in three words: hockey, testing, and Ozark.

Hockey: The Stanley Cup playoffs began on May 2 and three of the four teams I cheer for made the playoffs. Every night, there were exciting games to watch, but unfortunately, none of my teams made it out of the first round. All three of the series went to a game 7 and all three of my teams lost. Extremely disappointing. I've had to shift my allegiance to the Avalanche, one of C's favorite teams, which I don't mind at all because I don't care for any of the other remaining teams, but honestly, it's just not the same as cheering for a team you love!

Testing: Ah, spring, the season of state testing. Once our testing started, I proctored tests every single day with the exception of one morning when I had an appointment and wasn't at school. It's very tiring to do that day after day after day! We only have another week to go and I will be relieved when we are finally done!

Ozark: When we were in Puerto Rico at the beginning of the month, it rained for most of our time there so I started watching Ozark. C had watched the first 3.5 seasons already, but hadn't seen the second half of the fourth season which had just been released, so he rewatched as I watched it for the first time. I quickly became obsessed with the show because I've loved Jason Bateman since he played the best friend on Silver Spoons in the 1980s. I had worried that his role as a money launderer involved with a drug cartel would make me like him less, but the opposite happened – I really loved him in Ozark. I finished the whole series in three weeks, and if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's dark, but compelling, and the acting is superb.

After going to Puerto Rico at the beginning of the month for C's birthday, we also went to a concert at the Kennedy Center, which was really fantastic – it was a collection of Disney Princess songs and four Broadway stars who played some of the roles in the musicals, including Susan Egan, performed with the National Symphony Orchestra. I absolutely loved it! We have tickets to another show there next month and I'm already looking forward to it!

Perhaps the most noteworthy thing is that after 18+ months, my mom moved back in with us! I'm so grateful to B1 and S1 for taking such amazing care of her while she was living near them and I will continue to be vigilant about keeping germs at bay to the best of my ability so that I don't inadvertently make her sick. C is working from home, so gives me peace of mind to know he's there if she needs anything during the day when I'm at school.

We wrapped up the month with my birthday; although it was a school day, I was completely spoiled by my friends! Lunch and gifts and love! Then C and I went to St. Louis to finish off our baseball stadiums checklist and we just love driving trips in general, so the long weekend was super fun!

one of the third grade teachers made
these cute shirts for the entire team and
included me, so we wore these on
third grade test days

One of my favorite things about the show
is that the opening features four symbols,
all of which somehow represent the letters
Z-A-R-K inside of the O!
And every episode has different symbols!
SO CLEVER!

I loved these two throughout the entire series!

Our niece made C a birthday card
and told him that she put clovers on it
"because you're Irish!"
Oh my heart!

illustration of me from a student for
Teacher Appreciation Day

rainbow roses for Mother's Day...
my first without a four-legged friend
since 1998

a surprise gift from one of my all-time
favorite students who is now 16!

Dachshunds and rainbows...so perfect!

how have my godkids
gotten so tall?!?

best part of a road trip...
finding a Tim Hortons along the way

a friend recommended this ice cream
place and this specific flavor
last year when we went to Kentucky,
and it was so good that we went out of our way
to stop there again on our way to St. Louis

White Castle has Impossible Sliders
and they are amazing!

Picked up some awesome donuts
at Pharaoh's Donuts in St. Louis
and one of the employees was also from
Virginia and his parents live 20 minutes from us!
What a small world!

TUMS

proudly made in STL since 1930

my favorite human

Happy Tails to you!

MLB Stadium #42!

As I've shared many times, back in 2004, we finished our travel checklist of going to a baseball game in each of the 30 MLB ballparks. While it was a big deal to us when we finally accomplished our goal, by the time we got to the last one, which happened to be San Francisco Giants, there were already some stadiums that had been replaced! Since then, we've been playing catch up sporadically when it's been convenient for us to go to a game in a new ballpark, but getting to these new stadiums certainly hasn't been at the top of our travel plans.

When we were planning what to do on our big road trip last summer, we had six new ballparks left to visit. It wasn't possible to get to all six on that trip simply due to scheduling and logistics, but we did get to three: the Cincinnati Reds, the Texas Rangers, and the Atlanta Braves. That left us with three, so we decided to try to get to them during this school year. We went to see a Minnesota Twins game this past September and then a Miami Marlins game last month, which left us with just one to go.

Today we went to a St. Louis Cardinals game, who we saw play in their previous stadium more than twenty years ago when we lived in Chicago. Their "new" stadium opened in 2006, but we've not had a chance to get to it until today!

Busch Stadium is very nice and they've done a beautiful job with the area surrounding it! We had some time before the game to wander around and we were pretty impressed. We've been to St. Louis three times before today: once when we saw the Cardinals in their previous stadium; once when we went as part of a road trip and we did touristy things, including going up inside the Gateway Arch; and once when we went to see the St. Louis Blues play as part of our NHL Arenas travel checklist. It seems to me that the city has put a lot of work into sprucing itself up, because it was much nicer than I'd remembered!

The Cardinals lost to the Brewers 8-0, so not a great result for the hometown fans, but a fun afternoon for us, because we weren't really cheering for either team! Our seats were literally in the last row of the stadium and we had a chain link fence behind us, but for baseball, we've always been perfectly fine sitting in the upper deck because you can enjoy the game from different vantage points.

This brings me to a little brief cost break down. The tickets were only $10 each, and with taxes and fees, we paid a total of $28 for them. An amazing price for sure! The parking cost more ($30), as did the food and drinks ($54) we bought, but we were happy to find seats with a pretty decent view at such a reasonably low price. We were thinking back over the other baseball trips, and we're both pretty sure that's the lowest we've EVER paid for tickets to an MLB game! Contrast that with hockey, our true favorite sport, where we've paid upwards of $400 a seat to go to a game because where you sit makes a gigantic difference in your experience!

The only negative thing I can say about the game is the during the seventh inning stretch, they played "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," which of course is absolutely fine – but when we went to the Cardinals games all those years ago, they played "Meet Me in St. Louis" and all of the fans sang along. It's one of the things that made it a unique and memorable experience and we were looking forward to hearing it today. No such luck!

For now, until one of the baseball teams decides to build a new stadium, we're all caught up on MLB ballparks!

Happy Tails to you!