Teri Parris Ford's Blog

The yearbook is done!

My students finished the yearbook today and suddenly it feels like school is almost done! There are 44 days left until school is out; or 31 school days. Yes, I am now counting down! Prom tickets go on sale next week and an administrator told me once (when I was the Prom adviser) that once prom is over so are the students. Since the pandemic absences are kind of crazy, add spring weather, senioritis, AP exams, and field trips and it's just going to be nuts. 

I have to be honest, this year the stress of making the yearbook weighed a bit heavier than last. The older I get, the harder it is for me to jungle all the things I do at school. The kids always procrastinate but a few really left it until way last minute, like down to the very last minutes of class today. Spring sports are always difficult and as always, Baseball was the last page done along with Girls Soccer and some senior collage pages. But I walked out of school this evening at 5:29 pm (see picture) and took Monika out to dinner to celebrate. I'll bring in big treats tomorrow (I'm thinking some Dairy Queen Blizzards). On Friday I am taking a bunch of my students to see the Super Mario Bros on a field trip.

Yep, May is just going to fly by!

Change in Weather

Weather in Wisconsin in April is crazy. We had 80's all week and now snow is back in the forecast. We got one last great day yesterday (Saturday) and rain all day today which is supposed to change to snow later this evening. Erika, Monika and I had a BBQ yesterday-- veggie burgers. It was a very pleasant day with our first visit to the Farmer's Market in the sunshine and time to plant veggies and herbs in our garden. 

Sunday started out warm and got colder and wetter as the day unfolded. My Sunday rituals have become pretty regular when I am in Madison. I go grocery shopping as early as possible (usually around 6am) and then spend the morning watching the news and working on the week-- planning my week both at school and personally. The goal is always to wake up on Monday knowing what I am doing or at least what needs to happen. 

Around noon we got a FaceTime from Jessi who is currently in Greece working on repairs on her ship (not her personally). Monika and I got to chat with her for almost an hour. She's on a small ship -- a Littoral combat ship called the USS Indianapolis LCS17. The type of ship that the Daily featured on in February, called the Navy's Very Expensive Mistake, and the New York Time's wrote about. She's currently getting extra time in Greece to make repairs because the both her helicopter (which is one o the oldest ones in the Navy) and her ship (not made for long distance trips) is need of repairs. While in Greece she has phone service, so we've been able to get little bits of communication lately. She is headed to Bahrain and then should be home by August. I'm hoping I have a bit of time to visit her before schools starts, if not, I'll have to wait until Thanksgiving to her next.

 

Holiday Weekend?

At what point did Easter become meaningless in our household? Monika asked yesterday. Jim came down for the weekend so we could celebrate his birthday. We went out to eat to a Jordanian restaurant for an early dinner with Erika & Mon, missing Jess ($120 for just the four of us). The food was amazing but the conversation and joy of being together was the best. I almost forgot it was easter and yes, it is completely meaningless in our household. 

I am just about finished with the fireplace. I hung the mantel on Friday. I need to finish cleaning the grout, add the trim and add a black finishing caulk around the box. I should probable by a fire retardant for under the mantel as I have a bad history of fires running amok. It all looks so nice, I am kind of afraid to have any fires at this point! Here's my Google photo album of before and after images.

I took Jim for a tour of the new art space yesterday and he was very impressed with our spaces. They are currently working on gutting the old space (room 508) which used to be an open studio and creating 3 separate classrooms; a drawing room, computer lab and photo lab, along with an office space and gallery. The days of an open shared studio is over. I am hoping to make the painting room as much my classroom as I can (see below) BUT shared spaces are not complete over. Josh is currently teaching drawing in the painting room since the drawing room is not complete, so he has a strong presence still. In the future, Grace will teach fashion design in that space as well, but I think I will eventually be the primary teacher using the space until I retire-- which I keep vacillating over-- next year or the year after? We shall see how things go next year before making that decision. Right now I am excited to be working and doing all the things I'm doing and I finally feel like I am in command. I have begun to add things to the walls of the painting room I want. I am still looking for a good Star Trek flag to add to the mix!