Let's Contemplate What's Happening in Chattanooga

Ran across this photo of the kids with the Dog statue from when we first moved to town. It seems like we just got here last week, but it's been almost 4 years!

So long to a Queen. It's a bittersweet feeling around town as  the Delta Queen left this weekend. Everyone says the same thing: So sorry to see her go, but glad she's going to be back on the rivers soon. We were running errands in Atlanta and didn't witness the actual departure. Here is a story with some interior photos.

We worked at a scrimmage hosted by Chattanooga Junior Rowing this weekend. We were outside from 7:30-5:00 as we helped with food and then manned the finish line, marking the order as boats finished. It was a beautiful day and the six teams who came to town were very complimentary of our hospitality. Caleb finished second in his two races. He was in a 4+ (one oar each and a coxswain) and a 4x (two oars each and no coxswain). This photo is from last year in Florida. Eric took photos but they aren't on my computer. Here is a story featuring Chattanooga Junior Rowing. They were the cover story of Get Out Chattanooga this month! So exciting!

One more week 'til spring break. Yay!

This Girl

Do your kids ever get old enough that you can stop worrying about them?

Madeleine called last night to tell me about her exciting day at rowing. Somehow they flipped their four (????) and ended up in the river. This was in 25 degree weather. It sounded like it took some time just to get all the girls out of the boat and water. They were bundled up and taken by launch back to the boathouse where they went into warm showers. By the time she called me, she was perfectly fine. So glad that everything turned out okay, but now I'll always have one more worry in the back of my mind.

A Day

Today was a day that I had been dreading for several months. Do you ever have one of those days that you know is coming, but there is no way you can ever really be ready for it and there's no way to get around it?

I generously offered to host the math lab at our school at the beginning of the year, before I understood what that would entail. I foolishly thought that a math coach would come in a couple of times and use my classroom to demonstrate how we should be teaching math lessons. That is how it went the first time. And even then I had to participate in extensive planning for that math lab. Today I was the one who had to present the lesson, as all of the other primary teachers at my school, various math coaches, and administrators watched on. If you have never been in this situation then you can not imagine how nerve-wracking it is to "perform" in front of this audience. Needless to say that I have been very stressed out.

To make matters worse, they switched our work email over the weekend so I had to install and learn a whole new system while I was trying to stay in touch with everyone while planning everything. I hate change!

Everything went well. We are learning how to add groups of ten: 3+4=7 groups of ten, so 30+40=70. There were the typical "teacher moments" when the students said impossibly stupid things and I just wanted to scream, "What the hell are you talking about!!!" Like when one of my brightest students answered the question, "How did you get seventy from seven?" by saying, "Add a D." What?!?!?! Oh--sevenD, seventy. Or when another student tried to explain how they had added 30 markers and 50 markers by saying, "First, look at the triangles." I still don't know what that was all about. For the most part they got the concept and we'll move on, privately, tomorrow.

At the end of the day I just wanted to jump in the car and head home. But no, we had parent conferences until 7:30. I didn't get home until 8:00.

My wonderful husband had take-out pizza warming in the oven, a glass of malbec,  and a classic Doctor Who on RetroTV. I love getting RetroTV with our antennae. I love Tom Baker's Doctor. If anyone wants to make me a Tom Baker scarf for Christmas, I will love that too.

After a long, difficult day, a pretty good ending.