Believe it or not, this was all I really wanted for my birthday! I mean, what do I need? For some reason, lately I've become really sensitive to onions, which I happen to cook with a lot! I only buy Vidalia onions, which in the past never bothered me. Now, my eyes burn and water and I end up looking like a raccoon with eye make up smudged all over my face. These suckers really work!
Friday of spring break, my friend Cat and I went to Annapolis where we walked around and browsed in all the neat little shops. We ate lunch at the 1747 Tavern on Church Circle. It is a tea room and it is quite lovely.
Easter weekend we ended up visiting the kids in the Burgh. Saturday evening we checked into the hotel then headed off to the Sharp Edge Creekhouse for dinner. Bird was working the bar and he waited on us. Unfortunately, we were missing the Caps game and we had to watch the Pens instead, relying on the updates during the intermissions. After dinner, we headed off to Sonny'swhere Ems was bar tending. She now has the Saturday night bar tending shift there. Sunday morning we went to mass at the Duquesne University Chapel with the kids and Joan. We met up at Bird's house where I was able to at least get a shot of Ems and Joan:
Note the college boy decor on the mantel! We then went to the Double Wide Grill in the Southside, one of our favorite places, for brunch. We headed home after spending a little more time with the kids.
Tuesday it was back to the old grind. I am totally burnt out this school year. The burnout comes earlier and earlier these days. There is so much pressure to improve test scores that nothing else matters. Kids are not getting a well rounded education anymore and when you teach poor kids, with limited life experiences to begin with, you really deprive them of some of the most valuable learning experiences. With the current economy, we have given up raises for next school year and we have been given a lot more work to do in the same amount of time. I've decided that I am going to more or less work to the rule next year. This means that I'm not staying late anymore. I will bring some things home, but I'm not working hours and hours of unpaid overtime. It galls me that that teachers are actually expected to do that.
Things are getting interesting around here. DH was laid off last week which is a major bummer. He will get 4 weeks of pay after which, we will find ourselves exhausting our savings. I'm just hoping that we won't have to go into our retirement accounts which have already lost about 40%. Needless to say, I didn't attend MD Sheep and Wool Festival this year!'
The high point for us has been the Caps! Not only are they in the playoffs, but they are now in Round 2! It is ironic that they are playing the Pens in round 2. They've never beat the Pens in any playoff round. Game 1 was yesterday and the Caps won! This series is really being hyped up. If you are a hockey fan, then you've read about the Ovechkin vs. Crosby rivalry. To that, I say this:
Kitty Cam: Mikey is on the Caps bandwagon!
Your comments on education reminded me of a book I read recently and really loved - Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I think you would enjoy it! Among many other things, one of the comments he made is that one of the areas where poor kids really have trouble competing is after the summer break - they end up losing a lot of what they learned during the year, whereas better-off kids learn over the summer as well. If those types of learning experiences (that the richer kids get during the summer, outside the classroom) are eliminated from the school year, it seems that poorer students would never get those learning experiences.
ReplyDeleteHappy belated B-day Kozy Kitty!
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