I realized this morning that for some reason I am an entire calendar week behind. I keep thinking that it’s the week of the 18th. I have no idea why I’m thinking that, especially since this has been a long month already.

A friend said "It can’t be the 18th, September has to end SOMETIME!"

I agree, I just didn’t expect it to be this week!

Two cute kid things happened at school today.

The first was when I was editing a story that one of the kids had written. I designed a project a few years ago (that I know many other teachers also do – so much for thinking I was being original) that has to do with a book called The Harris Burdick Mysteries by Chris Van Allsburg. This is a really neat book of black and white drawings that have only a title and a caption. Every year I have the kids pick a picture and write a story to go with it.

This girl had picked a picture called "The House on Maple Street" and the caption is "It was a perfect liftoff". The house looks as if it’s taking off into space.

Well, I was correcting this and the family was in the house when it started to lift-off. Baby Bobby is a very intelligent baby and decides to call the sheriff. He asks the sheriff if he knows where the house might be going. The sheriff answered "Why yes. It’s going up, and a little bit to the left!"

I can’t tell you how hard I laughed!

The next good laugh came in a science class. The teacher was up at the front of the room talking about space and the ozone layer. He wanted the kids to come up with the term global warming. So he drew a picture of the earth, then drew a circle with a gap in it around the outside of it. He talked about pollution trapping the rays of the sun and not allowing them to be reflected back into space. Then he asked the kids what that was called. From the back of the room, in an under the breath voice one guy pipes up. "A cookout?"

It was all I could do to keep a straight face. It wasn’t appropriate, but darn it was funny!

Oddly enough I’ve discovered that I need to be thankful that I had one of the worst migraines that I’ve had in months yesterday.

I woke up with a pounding headache (and I woke up really late, I didn’t get out of bed until 9:45 which is dang near unheard of for me). At first I thought it might be one of those too-much-sleep headaches, but it didn’t show any sign of lessening. So I walked to Dunkin’ Donuts for my shot of caffeine, which is usually a help.

Not this time.

I then decided to take an Excedrin Migraine or two. Nothing. No help.

Finally I took three more Advil and went back to bed. At this point I was bordering on nauseous and having those little sparkly flashes before my eyes. When that happens I know I need a soft pillow and a quiet room.

I was done for most of the day. Didn’t even watch any football games or any Olympics.

Now here’s where the thankful part comes in.

I had planned to try to figure out the new forms that I need to use to write Educational Plans. The forms I have no training on how to use. The forms that have me baffled. I had decided that I could probably find some online help from the Mass Department of Education, so I was going to tackle that and master it as best I could.

Then the headache hit and I gave up that plan.

Well thank goodness I did. Today we got a call from the Ice Queen telling us to stick to the old forms until she could have them printed up with the letterhead on them.

If I had spent my Sunday struggling to figure these things out only to discover that all my work was for nothing (and likely wrong) I would have been fit to be tied.

In a way I’m relieved, but I still need some clear training in order to ever put these forms to use!