It Was Indeed a Rachael Day

Stupid buzzer!  I hate waking up!!!


Unless it's 9am or so, but 5:30am is simply too early.  So I snoozed until 6:15am.  My best laid plans for doing a load of laundry before getting the kids up, making a 3-course breakfast, and NOT doing my make up in the car were sacrificed on the alter of "I Stayed Up Too Late Last Night."  


Why do I kid myself?


Anyway, that's pretty much the start of every day.  Snooze, snooze, snooze, rush, rush, rush, drive, drive, drive, kiss the kids, get to work.  


Now, as I have mentioned before, in the morning I work part-time in the school office.  In the afternoon I teach Music. This year is my first year in my OWN classroom!  I am SO loving my classroom.  I could go on and on about all the reasons why and then start bragging on all my students, but I won't.  I'll just tell you that my classroom is in a basement.


No, they have not locked me up yet.  


It's a big basement.  There are two classrooms, a library, a computer lab, and a teachers' resource room.  The basement can be quite cold in the winter, but pretty nice in the summer...until you get 15 or so kids in the room, and then it can get warm!  There is a newly installed air conditioning/heating unit.  I usually forget all about it until the last hour of my Music work day, but today I actually remembered before any kids arrived!  I was so proud of myself.  Seeing as how the basement is cooler than other places, I simply turn on the "clean air" button to keep the air circulating and prevent overall stuffiness and the smell of B.O.  


The first class comes in.  Room is feeling great.  The kids sing, then me and the kids dance, and away the kids go.  I'm warm, but not too bad.


The second class comes in.  The kids sing, me and the kids dance, and away the kids go.  I'm hot, but then I've just been waving my arms like a mad woman directing and dancing.  Go figure.


The third class arrives.  I assemble them on the risers and begin to teach them the song.  One kid on the middle riser starts fanning himself.  


"I know!  I'm hot, too!  But the air is on, so it should get better," I say.


The kids sing, me and the kids dance, and now that same kid is sweating and looking miserable.  I'm doing the same.


"Hey, Joe (fake name).  You only THOUGHT you were hot before, huh?  I'm dying!"


Kids leave.


The fourth class arrives and it is getting just plain miserable.  I shut off the lights hoping that will help.  After all, the ceiling is only 8ft. high which makes the lights fairly close to our heads.


The kids sing, me and the kids dance, the kids leave, and now I am downright ready for a cool breeze!


I figure I might as well turn on the air conditioner.  Forget this clean air function!  


I grab the remote that I don't really know how to operate very well and look at it.  GEEZ!  It's 88 degrees in here!  


I start pushing buttons.  When I pushed one of them, the little word, "heat" changed to "cool."  Oh, dear... I did NOT!


Yup!  I had the heat turned on the whole time blowing out air at 88 degrees, the max setting for the heater!


When my last class came, I asked the teacher how to work it, she showed me, and 20 minutes later the room felt great.  


Of course, there was only 10 minutes of my day left, but hey.






Oh, but my day isn't over yet!  


Music is over, pick up the kids, go to the store, head home, do the "Do your homework...NOW!" routine with the kids, and start dinner.  Since Travis had his episode with his heart, I've been trying to fix healthier dinners.  Lentils.  Truly, you KNOW you've crossed the line into the ultra-healthy zone when you cook lentils!


I have this book called, "More With Less," and it has all these cool recipes from missionaries around the world who made great dinners with few resources.  Awesome book in this economy!  Anyway, I chose sweet-n-sour lentils.  I followed the recipe to the...well, almost to a T as I was out of onions.  I boiled them in homemade turkey broth I made a few weeks ago and froze (pats self on back), added the bay leaf, cloves...blah, blah, blah.  Did all the right stuff and then got to the very last line of the recipe...


"Serve over rice."


Oops.  I didn't make rice.  Oh, well.  I'm sure it will taste fine on it's own.


And it did.  


I pulled the salmon out of the oven, arranged it on a plate, and then decided that the cook really should get a taste before she serves it to her family!  I mean, who would let their family eat something they hadn't tried themselves, especially things like cookie dough and such.  


I grabbed a chunk of salmon, fresh out of the oven mind you, and placed it in my mouth.


***********SCREAM******************


It was HOT!  But worse, it was trapped in my bra!!!


Yes, it fell down my shirt, past the undershirt I was wearing, and straight into my bosom.  


And did I mention that it was HOT?


Travis ran in.  


"Can you take my iPod please?  And glasses?  Hurry!"


I then proceed to undress from the waist up until the offending piece of salmon falls to the floor.


And did I mention it was HOT?


And that is such tender skin!  I had to keep blowing on it and  it still burns slightly.


Travis, my knight in shining armor and iPod preserver, got some pictures.  Once he saw that I wasn't dying, he grabbed his camera and took some shots.  Some I allowed, others I did not and threatened him with his life or his dinner or something if he posted them.