Thanks for being a TERRIFIC staff!!

Friday was quite the day!  This is long blog post – but just that day alone was packed to the brim!!  At about 12:45 a.m. I was finally on my way home and as I had a chance to think and reflect on the day I realized that in spite of how busy, chaotic and at times, stressful, the day I been, I was HAPPY!  And I don’t mean happy because the week was over, I mean I just felt really content and even kind of excited.  At that point I realized that I was either very insane or that I genuinely had a lot to be thankful for.  Well, some people would argue for insanity, but that happiness really came from a thankful heart.  I’ll share with you just a small sample of what I had to be thankful for…..

The graduates who came back for the career fair; that is so awesome and inspiring to hear their stories and see their willingness to give of themselves by coming back and sharing those stories with this generation of students.

The teachers just sort of jumped in and managed students, helped presenters get what they needed, helped clean up, etc.  If there was a base I forgot to cover, they just covered it and went on.  So many people just pitched in and made it work.  Michelle’s creativity and hostess skills turned ordinary into extravagant when it came time for meals and gifts for the presenters.  Michael remained calm and committed as he got us all hooked up with technology.  Rooms were rearranged; tables and chairs set up; the sound was hooked up - lots of efforts by lots of people!     

I felt like the students were great participants at the career fair.  You must have instilled some great manners and respect in them when they were in elementary school!  You could have heard a pin drop as the high school kids listened to Willie give the keynote in the morning, the rest of the day continued like that.  Then came the homecoming dance.  I don’t always put fun and high school dance in the same sentence; but the high school students made this dance fun.  I wish you could have seen them; they had black lights, all sorts of glow jewelry and clothing and even glow balloons.  Everyone appeared to be included and involved, it was probably the most fun dance I’ve sponsored. 

And then there’s the BIGGIE of the day.  This thankfulness resulted from a huge blunder I made when I went into Dillons early Friday morning.  I did not take my phone into the store with me.  You just have to realize; I sort of have a love-hate relationship with my cell phone.  Since I took over as principal I have really tried to make a conscious effort to try to be attached to it 24/7, as opposed to losing it several times a day.  I really have been having it right beside me at night so that if you call and need a sub, it’s there.  I wake up at 6:00 a.m. so that if you call, I’ll be coherent enough to answer and communicate.  So anyway, back to the story….

Because I set my phone down and failed to check my messages, I didn’t know that Joyce had a sick little guy at home and she wouldn’t be able to come to school on Friday.  I was mingling with the career fair presenters in the library, breaking the news that we didn’t have Internet and some rooms didn’t have electricity, when someone came in and said – do you realize that there isn’t an adult in one of the kindergarten rooms.  YIKES (the actual expression that sounded off in my head was not really “yikes”, but lets just go with “yikes”.)  So at this point no Internet and no electricity became rather insignificant!  Stress just mounted as we found out that Joyce had in fact called in for a sub, I had ignored the phone call and every sub in the county was already busy that day!  Not only was it a bad situation, but also it was obvious that it was my fault, I couldn’t even soothe the wound by blaming anyone else!  But you know within minutes, at least four of you had stepped up and said “hey I’m available, I can help out” and eventually Susan and Hannah left their ‘normal’ jobs and subbed in kindergarten that day.  I was so thankful for all of you who were willing help out! 

So I’ve been practicing the death grip on my cell phone this weekend!  In fact when I went to Dillons on Saturday, I had forgot my purse so I had no way to pay for my groceries, but I was just happy that I had my phone!  All I could do was laugh and go home and start over again!   

Oh yea, and I told you last week that I thought I would have a few exciting things to tell you by the time I blogged again.  One was that Vernon and I would only own one house by the next blog post, and YES, we closed on our ‘city’ house on Friday during the homecoming assembly!  Another item of good news that I was expecting to share was that Marcia would be feeling better by now.  She had her surgery on Monday and from what I hear she is encouraged by the results, I’ll try to know more about how she is doing on Monday to share with you.  I also told you that I thought the Skyline family would be one bigger by this week, I was off a week – give me another week on that one! 

I know this post does not include an ounce of information you need for your role as an educator this week!  I’m looking forward to working with you on Monday, I think we are doing some important work and preparing the way for some exciting times.  We’ll be in the library.  We will start the day with a meeting just to get us all on the same page, ready for the day and ready for this final stretch of the school year!

My biggest point of this post is…..

THANKS

so much to all of you, you are very special people!!