Last Minute Move In

I'm a planner. The week after school is out, I begin planning for the following year. I love that I get a complete do-over every year. An opportunity to reflect and revise. Usually, I spend a few hours each week in the summer getting my classroom just right. Last May I had to box up all of my belongings and prepare for the second move in two years. I don't mind moving. It forces me to clean out the stuff that I've hoarded that I don't really need, but I need those few hours a week even more if I have to change rooms. This year there was an additional catch to the move. My new room didn't even exist when I was boxing things up. I was being moved to a portable building (aka "Cottage") since our school has outgrown it's orginal building. I packed and boxed and stacked all my precious stuff and flexible seating furniture in a corner of my old room and waited for the cottage to arrive. 

Initially, I was told I would be able to move toward the end of June. Not great for me, but I could live with it. The end of June came and went with NO BUILDING EVEN ON SITE! I began to worry. I had trips planned in July and knew that I was going to be cutting it close, but I tried to have a good attitude. The building got there, but I wasn't allowed to even look inside. I was told, "The district hasn't released the keys yet." Whatever the hell that meant. July left!

Now, school started earlier this year, and teachers had to be back for professional development on August 8th. And there was very little classroom time allotted for us to prep our classrooms. DUH, THIS IS WHY I DO IT ALL SUMMER LONG! Late in the afternoon while I was in a meeting on another campus, I was told I could get in to my new room. I could move my boxes, but I couldn't unpack yet because they weren't finished setting things up. I raced back to my home campus as soon as my meeting was over and moved all my belongings (which had been moved by other people two or three times throughout the summer, so that I wasn't even sure where they were) into my new space - and left the furniture and boxes piled in another corner. And waited for "them" (whoever they were) to finish their work over the weekend. I was feeling a little stressed. No, I was feeling a lot stressed! I had open house on the Tuesday after that weekend! And would be off campus again all day on Monday and in meetings on my campus until 3:00 the day of open house. That gave me a grand total of four hours (including my lunch) to make my room presentable!

Tuesday Morning

I ALMOST did it. The room was presentable, but not anywhere near the way I like it. Friends came in to help in any way they could, our precious head coach repeatedly reminded me that I needed to have a good attitude, and I left all the "decorating" for my eighth grade AVID students to do when they arrived on the first day of school. They did an awesome job and loved making the room theirs! It's going to be an amazing year! It's true what they say - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!