My silent rebellion

This year I took a new position within the school system. I’m now the secretary for the principal at the rival school of the school my kids’ attend. And, woo-wee, there’s some serious school pride going on over here. Not so much with the kids, mind you, but with the staff and the parents. I have been asked several times why I didn’t bring my kids with me…and by people who know that one of the girls is not only a senior, but one of the drum majors! Yeah, sure, I'm gonna make her miss out on all that!! Don’t get me wrong, this is a perfectly nice school. I’m proud to work here. I love the staff. But just like any high school, it’s not perfect. My kids know their school. When Jo graduates, we’ll have had a Stokes child enrolled for a solid decade. That’s a lot of history right there.

Anyhow, the first football game of the season is this Friday and everyone here is on super Patriot Pride alert. I mean, it didn’t take me long to know how they felt about my kids’ school. But this week? Wowsers! It’s almost to the level of “methinks they doth protest too much.” Maybe that has to do with the fact that Rockdale beat Heritage at last year’s football game? <giggle>  But, my goodness, really? It’s a football game.

Yes, yes, I know, I live in the South where Football is King. But, still, seriously, folks!! Get it together. It’s kind of sad that they have to have 20+ police on site…because of the alumni, parents, and adult fans!! Really? REALLY???  <sigh>

Anyhow, as things heighten to a fever pitch around here, I’ve decided to do the only thing I can do…wear Rockdale colors all week. I even have a Bulldog necklace to wear, thanks to Meg’s boyfriend’s mother!  I meant to take a picture every day and post it…but it was ridiculously muggy yesterday afternoon after work and after going to the Park to hang out with my bestie, Kim, and my sweet girl, Gloria, and then pumping gas…I was a slimy, sweaty mess and all I wanted to do was to get out of that dress (well, really, the Spanx, girl’s gotta be honest, here).

I will be so glad when this week is over, though. Of course, basketball season is right around the corner and I hear the Rockdale/Heritage basketball game is something to behold as well.

Joy…

The Spotsylvania Adventure...part 1

What a weekend. Still processing it all and still trying to recover so I’m going to write about it in stages.

Some time ago (maybe last year at Beach Week??), Daddy brought up the idea that we all meet up for the 150^th anniversary of the Battle of the Wilderness. Daddy has been doing some family tree-type stuff and found out that his great-grandfather (I think…I get lost in the “greats”) had been a captain in a regiment in the Union Army during the Civil War and had been killed in the line of duty during the Battle of the Wilderness. (Here's some information about him. Especially love the last two paragraphs!)

Fast forward to a couple months ago and I’m talking to my sisters about getting down the nitty-gritty about making plans. Next thing you know, I’m in my car driving to my sister, Annie’s house in Charlotte! This past weekend's travels took me from Loganville to Charlotte on Thursday evening, from Charlotte to Fredrickburg, VA (and visiting a new cousin’s home in Spotsylvania) on Friday, Fredricksburg to Washington, DC and then finally to my sister, Lori’s house in Fairfax on Saturday, Arlington then DC then Fairfax and then to Charlotte on Sunday and, finally, back home to Loganville on Monday. Yep, I’m exhausted and as much as those doofy blind spots in the Equinox drive me nuts, two thumbs up for the nice ride!

That’s the overview…now to take it slow. I wish I had pictures. I meant to take some selfies along the way because I thought it would spruce things up around the ole blog to add more pictures. Oh well, best made plans and all that…

Anyhow, the Plan was that I would leave Thursday after work to drive the 4.5-5 hours to Annie’s house and spend the night there. I worked 45 minutes late on Tuesday and was going to leave 45 minutes early on Thursday. My trusty Equinox needed an oil change. In fact, it told me I needed to change the oil every time I started her up. I was getting tired of hitting the CLR button and also didn’t think I should go on the type of trip that I was planning without changing the oil and getting the car a good once-over. Unfortunately, life happened and I wasn't able to take care of that so I drove to work on Thursday with the car still screaming at me that it needed an oil change. But, hey, I was getting off 45 minutes earlier than I’d planned to when I came up with this whole Plan, so everything was going to be fiiiiiiiiine. Sure…

Thursday at 2:30 p.m. I get a call from my supervisor who asked me what time I was getting off work that day. I had seen him earlier in the day when he had to come out and help with an issue and we’d talked about the 45 min early thing, but it must have escaped his mind. When I told him that I was clocking out in 15 minutes and heard him sucking in his breath, I knew I was not getting out of there in 15 minutes. Surprise! My evaluation was due by Friday and since I wasn’t going to be at work Friday, he needed to get it done now. But we did it superfast so I was still able to clock out 15 minutes early.

I prayed all the way to the mechanic and when I got there heard the words I wanted to hear, “Sure we can fit you in now. It won’t take long.” And it didn’t. However, while I waited I came to the realization that I’d managed to leave my phone’s charging cord at work! That’s a pisser! Back to work I go meaning that by the time I get home, I’m now 20 minutes later than in the original Plan. Shazbot!

I hurriedly take the dogs on a walk, change my clothes, and jump in the car to start this adventure. Traffic bit the big one getting out of metro Atlanta and I had to drive the last part in the dark (thank you, OnStar) but my sister, her husband, her adorable fur-babies and a guest bed with the softest sheets known to man were waiting for me. So that was super.

Next up…the drive to Spotsylvania (love saying that name). SOMEone gets pulled over in the next installment! J

Coming to you from the Blahs!

You ever get the blahs where nothing seems to float your boat? Yep, that's me right now. I'm pretty much not excited about anything. I have so much to do but I just cannot seem to get myself in gear.

Today I started out okay. I got myself out of bed vaguely on time and got to work on time, so that was good. Then I started bustling around working on the 90+ items of technology inventory that I couldn't find or have access to when I came to the school over spring break. Sadly a lot of these teachers have no idea what they have or don't have (a lot because their classroom closets look like they are hoarders! Seriously! Open the closet and it is packed floor to ceiling with stuff!!). Anyhow about an hour into my venture I finished as much as I could in the main building and decided to go back to my office and start updating the information that I had before moving to the other buildings. That's when I realized that I didn't jingle anymore. No, I'm not trying out for the part of Mrs. Claus. I wear my school keys on a clip on my pants so they jingle when I walk. At some point in the last hour in the 20 classrooms that I'd visited, I laid my keys down. Crap. And it's not just the master keys to this school on that key ring, it's also the keys to Edwards Middle! So I retraced my steps. And retraced my steps. I went to every classroom and asked. I finally found them in the server room in the media center after I'd gone there THREE DIFFERENT TIMES!!! So nice to know that everyone in this school has to think I'm a dingbat!! And, yes, this is the school that I've locked myself out of my office five times so far this semester. I did NOT tell the custodians that I'd lost my keys!!

Anyhow, time has marched on and I need to go peek in the 5th grade and 2nd grade classrooms now that they are at lunch and at specials respectively and try to wrap up their missing inventory. Grrr...

At least it stopped pouring rain for a moment. That was actually kind of nice. I'm in my office, got my favorite 80's Big Hair Bands playing on iTunes and then I heard the rain. It was kind of calming, to be honest.

But back to work!! Blech...blahs!