Wake Me Up When September Ends!

I don't have the same angst at the Green Day song, but September is always such a hectic month. My dad's and my birthday are in September, we always have Open House at school, and are just getting adjusted to the school year. I am five weeks into the school year, and don't feel settled yet at all! I'm not sure what to blame for that, but I am just so tired all the time, and feel out of sorts. I only teach one subject this year, so there is less grading and less lessons to plan, but things are different at school. We have to turn in lesson plans, which is stressful to make sure I have them written on time and copied before I leave for the weekend, and we have a lot more meetings this year. I also have a special-needs child in my regular-ed classroom, who really needs more than I can give her. It is my smallest, but most talkative homeroom, and in order to work with her, I have to completely ignore the rest of the class. In the meantime, they crawl on the floor, run through the room, and talk in incredibly loud voices. I am not certified to teach special education, and I hope that everyone is getting what they need out of my class right now. I guess that is weighing pretty heavily on my mind.

Besides school, we are currently in the middle of yet another home improvement project. We painted the bathroom Labor Day weekend, and have been planning to paint our bedroom for months. After finally settling on metallic silver paint, we have worked on it all weekend. The paint is $40 per gallon, so we really only planned to buy two gallons. We bought the special Ralph Lauren roller covers, but after two coats, it looks as though another gallon is in our future. I just want to finish this project so we can have our weekends back for a while. Then, we'll forget about our previous projects, and be ready to tackle the next one, which is tiling an upstairs bathroom floor.

In addition to my previous worries, my Creative Memories career is not exactly flourishing. I was really excited about it when I signed up in July, had two great parties, and have only had one since, which I hosted. I scheduled another one for yesterday, and invited over 50 people. No one showed up, which really sucked. I had 4 people who were supposed to host shows for me, but I haven't been able to get them to commit. I have a sorority fundraiser/show as well as a Croptoberfest event coming up in October, and if neither of those is successful, I think I might call it quits. I have contacted (and probably bugged) everyone I know, but no one has scheduled a show. I have spent way more than I have made, and can't afford to keep doing so, so maybe this wasn't meant to be for me. I don't take failure well, and this is hard for me to accept. I keep hoping to find that one person who will book a show, and that will really make my day!

While I am griping, my son has had an attitude change for the worse recently. He has begun talking back, saying things that we don't allow, and growling and yelling when he doesn't get his way. That makes for lots of discussions and punishments, but nothing seems to affect him. We had a very long battle tonight, which resulted in several spankings, and Zach going to bed without dinner. He also didn't get to sleep in his tent tonight. I don't know if this behavior is coming from school, because we certainly haven't taught him these behaviors, nor do we condone them. I want my sweet boy back!

I think it is time for Darren and I to have a night out without Zach. Our weekends lately have been filled with too much work, and not enough fun. I can't remember the last time we had an evening with friends. We used to get together with our friends regularly for dinner or games, and we haven't had an invitation to do that in forever. I guess we need to invite people over here, and get the ball rolling again. I'm ready to have a social life again; staying home all weekend is making me stir-crazy! Darren and I will go out to dinner next Saturday for my birthday, but there won't be a party this year. I don't feel like there is a whole lot to celebrate right now. Maybe in October we can celebrate that we survived September!