Where's the Blog?

Like our brain, if we don't use a blog, we lose it. Such was the case with ETXgirl when I tried to connect to my link for ML's Musings recently. I had not posted since September 5. I discovered that I was not to be found in the blog world. ETX girl appeared to be deceased. But never fear, she's alive and well, typing to you now from her Mac.

Since my school year has started back up, I don't seem to have the time to sit and record my many ramblings. And I do mean "ramblings"! My brain is like a flea market of odds and ends with more being brought in everyday for storage. Retreiving the information takes a little longer to find these days.

Last summer (so sad to use the word last) I started a project to organize and file our family photographs. I suppose it was a bit too ambigious and I quit before it was completed. So a perfectly usable bed remains covered by shoeboxes filled with a photo library of the Martin's memories in various stages of completion. It was a neat idea I had gotten from HGTV to organize your photos in purchased photo boxes, the only difference being I saved and painted shoeboxes. My intention was to label each box with a person's name or event which would house the photos that fit the appropriate title. The trouble with the idea was I had more categories than boxes with even more photographs in each cardboard storage container that I opened. It was too much and I needed a better method to complete my project. So I quit and took a trip to Michigan.

The photo marathon took so much effort and remains incomplete to this day largely due to the opening of school for the 2005-2006 year. Preparing a classroom to teach an elementary grade level is like no other preparation you will ever do with the exception of getting ready for a new baby. Much like readying a nursery, the classroom must be decorated and organized for optimum efficiency. Fresh, clean reams of handwriting paper and manilla drawing paper fill the trays. Posters with cute animals showing strategies for decoding a word, adorn the large sand colored walls. New pencils are sharpen and crayons unpacked while the adult caregiver reads, and plans for the "big day". It is enough to boggle the sharpest of craniums let alone my feeble brain.

With the blessed event only two weeks old and the offspring from so many community families filling the hallowed halls of the school; one huge "Katrina" rampaged across the Gulf Coast. Many of us fortunate enough to be out of the hurricane's path felt her effects just the same. We felt the pain as we were forced to witness the 24/7 news coverage of the massive storm destruction. I spent one weekend volunteering in a shelter where I helped to distribute basic toiletry needs to those left with only the clothes on their backs. Lesson plans for school took a backseat to the images and thoughts that engulfed my awaken consciousness. My addiction to the aftermath news coverage was undaunted.

It is now the fifth week of school and many evacuees of Katrina are finding apartments. Even though their need of help will be a fact for many months, getting back to some form of normality is the goal. With the goal for them set, I am faced with a backlog of paperwork on my teacher's desk. My students haven't really suffered from my leave of absent-mindedness. They have gotten all of the lessons of routine and schedules, homework and discipline they need. I have stayed at school a couple of days after the dismissal bell rang to rearrange student desks and copy worksheets for the next week. More than one night found me sitting at my dinning room table grading papers or writing lesson plans long after my husband went to bed.

So here I am semi-caught up and writing a blog once again. I can't promise that I will write with any regularity. Life is uncertain and my routine is anything but established. Keep checking in on my blog though, and I'll try to post as I am able. That is unless I find a better way to organize those darn photographs.