Phew!

Phew indeed!  What a storm we had last night.
I loved the awesome lightning display late in the evening (far more than my dog and cat did, anyway) and I never mind a good crack of thunder - the anticipation and counting seconds between one and the other is always a good game to play and reminds me of nighttime storms of my childhood.  If I couldn't sleep because of thunder my dad would sit up with me and count the seconds and this was a  masterpiece of distraction, turning something that was unsettling into a fun game.
The thing that I was less impressed about was the small leak that developed in my kitchen ceiling at about midnight.  However, the bottom of the bowl that I left to catch the drips was barely covered by 5.30 this morning, and the drips had definitely stopped, so I am not too worried.  I'm certainly not going up on the roof until the wind stops, so that will just have to wait!

I'm back in school today, after my usual Monday working on my own business.  We had a great meeting with a local Principal, and this might just be the start of a wonderful Professional Learning Partnership!  Can't say more yet, because the Board of Trustees has to give us the go-ahead, but if it works out as we all hoped at the meeting then it will be a symbiotic win-win situation.  Excellent!  And I am so very excited about the whole thing. It has a good feeling about it and could well be the way forward for us.
School will be fun today as well - a little haphazard as we are busy up to the eyeballs already and it's only the second week of term - but I get to meet with my MST facilitator and discuss the programme I'm going to run, including the paper I'm taking through Massey university.  I can't wait to get my teeth into this as I find learning new things tremendously exciting.  I'm going to focus on our parent community as a way of raising their children's achievement. 
If anybody is actually reading this, that last statement and the fact I'm getting so excited about it must seem pretty sad.  That's what makes me a good teacher I guess - the ability to be enthused by my job in all its aspects.

And this year might just be a bit about blowing my own trumpet a bit more too - nothing too arrogant, but acknowledging my skills and value instead of blushing modestly and muttering "oh no, it's nothing".  I'm not nothing... I'm a damn good teacher and proud of it.  I'm also working on being a good mother, a great wife, a good business partner and an interesting writer... when I've had 20 years practise at each of these I hope I'm as good as I am at teaching!