Kathy's Diary: Oct 26 - Nov 2

I made it through the busy three weeks. Today was the last day of back to back things. Monday after school, I met with Michelle of Roth and Ramberg, the photographer from Canadian Living, to get some digital pictures for my presentation on the weekend. I met Tim and the kids at hockey. Haley blabbed her face off and my ears off in the stands!! It was fun. Once we all got home we decorated the house for Halloween.

Tuesday was another busy day at school but things were getting back to normal – so I was enjoying it. This was a big relief as for the past two weeks while hosting the teachers I was so preoccupied and stressed out – I was questioning wanting to teach! Tuesday after school Haley went to her piano lessons and the boys and I hung out at home together. Then Haley and I went to Brownies for the Halloween party. The boys were so upset that Tim didn't have a meeting that night because they really wanted to come! We had a good time, Haley even sang a song in front of everyone. She has such a nice voice and many commented on it. At home I worked on the self-marketing workshop participant handbook. I was to be facilitating a workshop on Wednesday night. I fell asleep exhausted with the last few pages still to go.

There was a horrible snow storm that night. In the morning the snow was so bad that I decided I wasn't going to sit in traffic for two hours to go volunteer at the kids school. So I did some work for awhile, sat in traffic for 45 minutes and arrived at the university in time for my 11 am meeting. No one else was coming due to the weather so I finished my workbook and photocopied. Then I headed off to the kids school. Turns out the teacher wasn't expecting me anyway – I had mistakenly signed up for last Wednesday (even though I wasn't available on the 22nd.– I thought I signed up for the 29th!). So I signed up for next week and said I would be there for sure! Anyways I headed back home and worked for awhile on my staff meeting at school for Thursday, when I was to be facilitating a meeting on the new ESL Benchmarks report card. Then I got stuck in the driveway in the snow going to get the kids. I called Leisa and she rescued them in her 4-wheel drive and brought them home. I was in the driveway trying to shovel my way out. I spent an hour in total but only got through a bit. By the time Tim got home I was a mess – my hands felt all arthritic and my back was sore. I could barely type or hold a pen. It was a relief to find out that the workshop was cancelled for that night due to bad weather. Anyways we started to carve our pumpkins and Tim left for a meeting. The kids and I just had a nice stormy night bundled up inside. I worked on my Benchmarks till bed time.

On Thursday morning I left early so that I would be at work on time for an ESL committee meeting. I got there by 8 am but everyone else was late. The roads are just nuts - it takes me 1 hour to go 7 kilometers! I had brought my witch costume and haunted house supplies for a little Halloween party in my class for all of my students. They just loved it! I did the staff meeting in my costume complete with black warts and witch hat with built in black hair! The teachers were really receptive to the Benchmarks so that was a relief – I didn't have to cast a witch's spell! The day flew by and then it was off to University. Between school and university I finished off my presentation stuff as I was presenting at school that night also! Boy when I have a full week – I have a full week! Back at home I worked on my speech for a bit then just sat like a zombie in front of the tv (it is my favourite tv night). Friday was a good day because I didn't have students so I could get caught up on my paperwork while they had an assembly and class parties. In the afternoon we had no students so we had a meeting and then individual time – so I did work on a ESL report. Friday night I plugged away at my speech and got ready for my Public Speaking workshop that I was facilitating for Alpine ski athletes for the AADAC/CODA Sport for life module. It went well!

That night Tim and the kids and I went out for dinner. I photocopied my handouts for the workshop. Thank goodness my mom was able to post my and Sue's new website http://members.shaw.ca/imaginethepossibilities - we are going to host a women's retreat in February to do a similar thing that I did for this last year. The women get to attend workshops instructed by all of the professionals and get a chance to REFLECT RELAX REJUVENATE AND REDEFINE! I fell asleep from 9 till midnight then woke up and finished my speech and Power Point by 4:30 am. Well then it was two hours sleep and head off to the Women and Wellness conference for my speech.

Mary Ann Owens and my mom were in the audience. It went pretty well with around 300 women in the audience. The Power Point was great. Of course there were a whole bunch of things I thought I could do better and so I was second guessing myself a lot. But all in all as people saw me throughout the rest of the day and gave me good feedback – I decided to stop worrying so much and to give myself some credit. I am proud of myself and know that even though there are some things I can improve on – overall it was a great presentation with people laughing and engaged! I am such an over achiever!

Anyways I sure had a nice time hanging out with my mom for a few hours and going to workshops with her. We laughed a lot. Back at home we cleaned up for a couple hours. Our old neighbours Monica and Pierre were coming over with Elijah and the twins and Mark with Eric and Bianca. We had a nice casual time – it was great!

I fell asleep in bed after reading the boys their bed time stories and didn't wake up till morning!