Friday, December 31, 2010

Cue the Twilight Zone Music

Okay, so I have weird and stressful dreams at night. In fact, if I blogged about my dreams this blog would probably be a whole lot more interesting than it is right now. I’ll have to keep that in mind if I ever feel like I need to write about something besides cooking, clothes, shopping, etc.

So a lot of my dreams are about school. As Belle can attest, when you are a principal your to-do list is never-ending. And while there are days when you make progress and can mark several things off at the end of the day, there are other days where nothing is marked off and there are 5 new tasks added to the list. It is truly a balancing act between time spent in the office taking care of business, time spent in the classrooms and with teachers ensuring that our students are getting the best educational opportunities that we can offer them, and the everyday unexpected situations of running a school. Being the Type-A person that I am, I sometimes struggle with this balancing act and the to-do list often runs through my mind long after I have left the building for the day. As a result, I often dream about school. It’s very frustrating sometimes because I would like to let go of things, at least for the 6-8 hours that I attempt to sleep at night.

This week, I have actually let go of things a little bit. I had a couple of days last week where I went into school and worked when no one else was there. Lots and lots of things were crossed off the good ole list. I worked some this week also, both in the building and here at home. I feel like I have gotten many things squared away. I haven’t worried about that student, this teacher, that concerned parent. It’s been nice. Until I go to sleep. Then the dreams have come. I think that my mind is so used to worrying about school that it couldn't "turn off" this week. I actually dreamed one night that it was the morning of our Fall Festival and I hadn’t done anything to prepare for it-hadn’t contacted donors for the festival and auction, hadn’t ordered the concessions and prizes, hadn't worked with the teachers on booths and games, hadn't worked with my PTA at all. It was a very stressful dream to say the least, and I woke up several times during the night. One of the times that I woke up, it sounded like something had tapped on the bedroom window. I dismissed it, figured it was part of my dream, and went back to sleep. However, last night I slept well-a wonderful, deep, almost dreamless sleep. Until the unmistakable sound of something tapping on the window startled me and woke me up. I laid there with my heart pounding, listening for the sound again, but it never came. I finally drifted off to sleep, but I didn’t sleep well.

When I got up this morning, I thought about it and realized it was the same sound that I had heard the night before. I even went over to the window, tapped on it, and realized that was the sound I heard. I mentioned it to Mr. P (who sleeps through everything), and at first he dismissed it, having heard one too many of my crazy dreams. But as the day wore on, he and I have both tried to figure out what could be making that noise. Not the dog-she was curled up at the foot of the stairs in her usual spot. There are no tree branches near the window because it looks out to the deck. I’m more than a little creeped out by it, and I’m just hoping that it is the product of my crazy dreams and that I won’t hear it again.

Have I mentioned that our house backs up to a wooded area? One that is beautiful and Iovely-except when you are worried about strange noises in the night? Let’s just say that this morning around 2 a.m. I was longing to live in a crowded suburb of a big city.

I’ll keep you posted on the things that go bump, err tap, in the night…

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Christmas Recap



Warning-long post to follow. I started writing and just kept going, and going, and going…


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope that your Christmas season has been as wonderful as ours. The 23rd through the 26th were busy, busy for Mr. P and me, but that it the price that you pay for being blessed with many family members and friends. Quick rundown of our holiday schedule:

23rd-Was supposed to be a fairly quiet day, but turned into some last minute deliveries of gifts to friends, baking desserts for our family get-togethers, and picking up some custom made gifts that were not finished until the last minute. (My awesome creative person who made the gifts had an unexpected death in the family two weeks ago which put her dreadfully behind. I had assured her that said gifts did not have to be finished before Christmas, but she insisted on finishing them, bless her heart. A heartfelt thank-you note is already in the mail to her.)

24th-Left early for my parents’ house, got there in time to help The Mama (as SIL and I have dubbed her) with dinner preparations, attended an early church service, then back to Mama and Daddy’s for dinner along with brother, SIL, niece, niece’s roommate, and my uncle. Awesome dinner of prime rib, au gratin potatoes, squash casserole, green beans, corn salad, strawberry salad, and rolls. And of course dessert-choice of red velvet cake, coconut cake, Toll House Pie, or Hershey Bar Cake. Snow was falling and the roads were getting slick as we went to bed, causing much anxiety on my part because we were supposed to head back home the next day to spend the rest of Christmas with Mr. P’s family. Although I would love the extra time with my family, I would feel terrible for Mr. P and his family if we didn’t see them on Christmas.

25th-Woke up to an inch of snow on the ground and no snow on the roads-a perfect white Christmas! Back to Mama and Daddy’s (Brother/SIL have an apartment attached to their house, which is ours when we are in town) to open presents with the family, followed by Christmas breakfast of egg casserole, cheese grits, hash brown casserole, sausage balls, ham, and rolls. We then packed up our gifts and lots of leftovers to bring home (thanks to The Mama), gave lots of hugs and we were back on the road. Arrived home, opened up our gifts to/from each other (which included a Nook for me-I’m in heaven!), spent a little bit of time just enjoying our beautiful tree and the fire in the fireplace, then headed across the road to Mr. P’s parents’ house. Spent some time with them before Mr. P’s sister arrived with her family, then it was on to Round 3 of the present-opening. After that, we had dinner then played board games the rest of the evening. Got back home around 11:00 and collapsed into bed! A very lovely albeit tiring Christmas!

26th-Up early for church, then back in the car-this time with MIL and FIL in tow. We headed to MIL’s brother’s place for one last family gathering. It is a two hour drive, so I broke in my Nook for part of the drive. After returning from there, we went back to MIL/FIL’s house for round 2 of board games-Apples to Apples and Trivial Pursuit being our choices.

27th-Mr. P and I did not leave the house all day-we were total couch potatoes as we recovered from the whirlwind weekend. Thanks to Mama’s leftovers, we didn’t even have to cook!

Mr. P and I are enjoying a low-key week. We’ve caught up on things stored in the DVR, watched more than one LMN movie (he would probably prefer that I didn’t post that, but oh well), cooked a little, done a few things around the house, and just enjoyed not having to be somewhere all the time. We will be back to our usual crazy schedule in due time!

I hope that you all have had a wonderful holiday season. I am truly sorry to see it end because I have enjoyed it so much this year-especially the time spent with our families. I could honestly forgo all of the presents and just spend the time with our loved ones. We are so blessed to have a good time when we get together with our families. Games, stories, jokes, etc. told around the table as we eat good food-that’s my kind of a good time!

TPP

P.S. I vowing yet again to be a better blogger-we'll see how that works out! ; )