March 10

79 degrees here today!  Too bad I spent almost all of it indoors.  Sunny, bright, and most of all, I'm grateful for the warmth.  I can appreciate certain things about winter but give me warm any day of the week.

Next week is spring break, which I almost always have mixed feelings about.  I would like to be able to enjoy this time off without worrying about things, but that rarely happens because I'm so busy this time of year.  As I have said to both my teams, I am one person.  I can do what I can do.  Amen.  I do work with a person who finds it difficult to go with Plan B, C, or D once we have Plan A in place.  I told him/her the other day that flexibility is the name of the game because so much is out of my control.  Three years ago I fell and broke my elbow in two places and was off work for 6 weeks.  You talk about plan E, F, or G going into effect, that was that year.  Kids can be absent on days I plan to test, I can be ill or have a crisis at my other building, and with testing itself, it can be difficult to predict how much or little I will need to do to get the information I'm trying to get.  I finished with one student last week and it took about twice as long because results were unexpected.  Poor little first grader - I told the dad today that I kinda put his kid through the wringer.

Word for the Day:  Horripilation.  n.  A feeling of cold, accompanied by goose pimples and bristling hair.

Use in a sentence:  I would like to take a tour of the neighbor's house (which is up for sale, after being featured on "The Dead Files" as "haunted") but it may give me horripilation.