I'm currently encamped on my parent's back deck, watching the rain drizzle down, with my feet up, smelling the smells of Winfield. Occasionally I get up to check the temperature on the smoker, and adjust it so the temp stays under 200 degrees. The smoke pouring out of it smells wonderful, and we'll be the talk of the neighborhood today. 2 weeks ago we smoked 12 chickens. Today we are attempting beef--and lots of it! These are the biggest roasts I've ever seen. We'll also do 3 chickens later today, and I'm going to do 2 salmon halves. We've never tried the beef or the salmon, so I'm hoping for good results.
This morning I marinated the salmon in rum, and then put a brown sugar and coarse salt rub on it. They are sitting in the fridge right now curing, and then later today I'll put them on the smoker. It has to be good, right? :) We also made a mop-sauce for the beef--a combination of beer and what we rubbed the beef in. We're hopeful it will keep the beef nice and moist.
Our weather this week has gone between the extremes--hot and humid 100+ to nice and cool and rainy (enough so that I'm all bundled up, and thinking about begging for a pair of pants!) I much prefer the weather of today to the hot stuff we had yesterday, fall is my favorite season after all. Maybe we'll have a longer fall this year--it always seems to go so fast. Instead of fall weather, we end up having 100+ days through September, and then October it is winter all of a sudden. Ok, my perception might be skewed a bit...but the true fall days don't last very long around here.
Yesterday was my first day back at work. I say that, but I really didn't ever not work this summer. I spent much of my summer working for the special education cooperative with teaching summer school, or doing assistive technology work. When I wasn't doing school related things, I was at the massage clinic. Yesterday though was the first day I had to report for the new school year. The SPED coop had inservice yesterday. It is always a boring day, sitting in uncomfortable chairs, and listening to dry reports and regulation changes. I had to present a 30 minute talk on Assistive Technology with my team. It went pretty well, but the director informed me that there will be several more talks to come. I am able to speak to large groups, but it is NOT my favorite thing to do. The director wants me (with help from the other members of the team) to end up doing several teacher inservices throughout the coming year(s). Normally teachers travel to places to hear presentations for inservice from experts in the field, hiring a sub for their classroom, etc... Now he wants to set it up on a more local level, and wants me to do some presentations in regards to specific software and which technology works with which types of kids. I'm nervous about it...again, public speaking is not my favorite, and I feel like I'm still a young teacher, not someone who has been teaching for ages and ages, and very unlike the experts we all go and hear at our conferences. But I also appreciate the fact that he has confidence in me and my abilities. It makes me feel good.
Tomorrow I'm singing a solo at church, and I've invited several people to come and listen. Mom and Dad will be there too, and then we'll go try out one of the new restaurants in Marion.
Monday and Tuesday bring more inservices, this time with Marion District. Wednesday will be a work day for me, a chance to get my room in order, train my paras, etc... Thursday the kids show up, and the school year starts for another round. There are big changes on the air, especially in what is allowed for SPED and pull-out times. It will be an adjustment for everyone, but I'm anticipating a rough year with some of the teachers I work with. They don't always agree with SPED rules and regulations, and take it out on me since I'm the one who has to enforce them. I've also got some difficult kids on my caseload this year, and it will take a lot of time and patience to help them. Please keep me in your prayers as this school year starts. I'm anxious about how it will all turn out.
1 comment:
Still waiting to know the names of Clive and Betsy officially.
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