First Day of School and Memories

Good morning! It is way too humid out. When I was out milking and helping Seth get the goats out for the day, the water vapor in the air was definitely thick enough to cut with a knife.

Today is the first day of school. Pretty exciting. Because the girls were being difficult this morning, I wasn’t able to get to the house in time to get a picture of Amena before she left. In fact, she was running a bit late because although she woke up early to be sure she wasn’t late, she then lay in bed for almost an hour and didn’t get up until I did at 5:45. The bus isn’t technically supposed to stop at our house but it did last year for Austin Stanley across the street. It stopped this morning as well which I think makes sense because there are three middle school students right here: Austin and his brother Adam who is in Amena’s grade and Amena. I am going to have lots of homework tonight because there is always lots of paperwork to fill out on the first day of school. Fun times.

Do they look excited?

Yesterday morning, Laura followed me to Agawam. The bug had some things going on that needed to be checked out and Laura didn’t have work yesterday. That was pretty exciting. I forgot to write one step down and so I kept going straight when I should have turned so then I paid attention to the GPS on my phone and we ended up taking a bit of a scenic route. On the way home, we went the way we should have gone. I am hoping that what’s wrong will not take long or be too expensive. Paul also needs to get the Jetta in for a couple of things. One is fairly easy but the other might not be.

Before we left, I put some beans on to boil and then soak so I could make beans for supper. When we got home, I drained and rinsed the beans and cooked up the hamburger and sausage and put everything together for chili beans. Laura made the cornbread while I was gone with Amena.

The pattern.

Amena had been wanting to take some Amish friendship bread to someone from school; I think she’s a teacher’s aide. All summer she wanted to do this and finally she got to yesterday. We left half an hour earlier than we needed to for her orientation and dropped it off in Rutland and then went to Quabbin.

The fabric (pre-preshrunk): Cedric, Seth, Joseph.

I was expecting something like the orientation Daniel had and in many ways it was similar but there was one huge, nice difference in that they didn’t shuffle everyone into the auditorium or high school gym or whatever it is for a few speeches before going to the classrooms. Instead, after picking up her schedule and some papers, we had almost half an hour to find the classrooms. The rest was very much the same with the sole exception being we got to spend fifteen minutes in each classroom rather than ten. I really was hoping that some of the teachers and/or classrooms would catch my eye from when I was there with Daniel but they didn’t. The only one that seemed familiar was the science teacher. Daniel had Spanish first and Amena has art first so I never met Daniel’s art teacher.

Anyway, the whole experience was somewhat bittersweet because I remember so much from being there with Daniel and I can’t help but think how nice it would be if he were here to be there for his sister. He would have made sure she was up when she wanted to be and I know that he would have tips and pointers for her. I did my best to tell her what I remember of what Daniel told me about lunch tickets and the library and lockers but that’s all at least two years old and I don’t remember everything that he said and he would have done such a better job than me.

I think I like Amena’s art teacher. She’s kind of crazy, like most good art teachers seem to be. She said that art is a lot of fun and that she expects everyone to do well even if they aren’t very ‘good’ at art. When a student misbehaves to the point she sends them out to the ‘hall of shame,’ she has them write a haiku poem about what they did and how sorry they are and in order to be admitted back into class on really good terms, a drawing of a butterfly is a must because butterflies make her happy. Also, they get to listen to music—her music which includes Duran Duran and INXS. If students don’t like her music, they are free to listen to something on their own device as long as they only use it for music and don’t share listening devices. I don’t know, I just think I like her.

The boys are off. The bus arrived late, as I predicted it would. The schedule said 7:33, it arrived at 7:39. It is always late on the first day.

I am going to be off for now because there are many things I would like to get done. Have a spectacular day!