BTS mussings

I love back to school. All of it. Shopping for school supplies has always been pure joy. I was always excited to start a new year. I'm an academic nut who just loves learning. As a teacher the end of summer never bothered me. I couldn't wait to get back, set up my classroom and unpack boxes of newly arrived supplies. I had ordered everything back in the spring and often forgot exactly what I had ordered (art supplies for 700 kids for 9 months worth of projects= about 25 large cardboard boxes to unpack) so it was kind of like Christmas morning present opening. In a word...FUN! There is still a lot of work to be done in my new classrrom, but that will have to wait until I'm officially in my work week next week. My mom even took me BTS shopping for some new work clothes when we visited last week.

The girly girls are all excited too. Thankfully T doesn't appear apprehensive at all about starting kindergarten. She'll ride the bus with her sister, get to walk in hand and hand and go to the same class with her dear friend who lives across the street and has been a preschool classmate for the past two years, and she has Mrs. M!!! A wonderfully kind, loving, all around awesome (and a Christian!) teacher she got to know well last year since she was P's teacher. We even found out last night two friends we adore, one from church and one from dance, are also in her class. Don't know much about P's new 1st grade teacher, but when I talked on the phone yesterday afternoon with Mrs. M and she asked who P got, she told me that the new teacher was fabulous and that her personality and style would be a wonderful fit for P. Cool!! P doesn't have any of her best friends in her class but I'm not surprised that that isn't phasing her a bit. She was Miss popularity last year, so I have no concerns that she'll have a new wide circle of friends in no time. Wish I had been that way.

I have my class list of the 16 recently turned five and almost five year olds that will make up my class. I have brief notes about them and can't wait to put faces to names next week.

About the only thing I'm not looking forward to is our mornings. You see, I'm a night owl. If I'm in bed before midnight, well, that's early. I start the majority of my bow sewing after the girls go to bed, so I'm most productive between 9 and 12AM. We have been rolling out of bed 8ish most of the summer. Now we'll have to be out the door by 7:55. And I'll be ushering two through the morning routine. Last year P and I always made it with less than 2 minutes to spare to the bus stop and T was still soundly asleep. I hate to admit, but there were many mornings we were pulling up to the stop (about 1/4 mile away) as the bus was arriving from the opposite direction. We never did actually miss it though! So in a nutshell, I'm dreading getting all of us up and out on time. The grand plan was to start moving back bedtime and waking up early in preparation. Not happening. In fact we pulled in the driveway Monday night at 9:30 from a play date gone long. But we all had a lot of fun and it is still summer. OK, so we have a few more days to get adjusting going...

This school year will mark a lot of change. First year with both girls in elementary school. First school year back to work for me after six years at home. I know it is going to be a great year! I can clearly see God's hand in placing me in my teaching position and the girly girls in their classes. I'm so excited to get going and see what He has in store for us. That is if I can get us all out the door.