Status?

My soul is a bit heavy with disappointment as I look back at how little I have written this school year, this new year. It's one of the many things that I didn't take the time out of the busy-ness that is life to do. A regret. The school year started rolling and the To-Do's started snowballing, and then most anything that wasn't the "Next Immediate Thing Needing My Attention" fell to the wayside. Writing was certainly on that list. I am not going to be a martyr and proclaim that I gave so much of by time-blood-sweat-tears-soul to community service that I did not have one.breathing.moment for myself. That would be a lie. I read plenty (some good books that I also regret not blogging about). I watched plenty of my Reality Junk TV ("Total Divas" - a new fave). But when it came to anything that required creative energy, such as writing- or crafting- it just didn't happen.

I'm not being very "creative" today either, I am afraid. "Status" is a word embedded in our family culture. I am sure its origin roots to Jason's military background. But a text simply stating "Status?" (although irritating it may be at times) can translate to a great many questions and requests for information depending on the current time and activity, such as "Where are you?" "What are we doing next?" "How long until you are home?" or even, "Are you picking up Benjamin or do I need to grab him?"

Status too is, of course, a socially trending term due to the constant cries for its updates every time we log onto FaceBook (and some people on my newsfeed take that way too literally- updating their every.single,status, that is). So, as a fast-forward overview of the past few months, I have cheated creativity by culminating some Facebook pics and statuses that summarize the time sucks that have been my life.

Family can be a generalized term in today's society. I have my "school family" and "Relay family" and "Key Club family." There are those I have walked away from, both created family units over time and those that were genetic/biological. I only point this out to say that I purposely did not include the updates that related to the boys, because I wanted to save family reflections for another day... although these pics and blurbs do represent the many definitions of "family" in my life.


UPDATE STATUS:
Ah-mazing Kickoff for the 2014 Keys 4a Cure Relay for Life team. Laughs, tears, cupcakes, dance mobs. I am so very thankful to be at a place in life that I am inspired every single day.

Baltimore has been good to us! We swept the awards & are ready to head home. Thank you to all my Key Club alumni that helped build this legacy, Thank you to my Key Club parents that share your children's lives with me, and Thank You to Mr. McHenry who made endless round trips to craft stores & Wal-Mart & the school, and who opened our home to our second family week after week and night after night to make all this possible!

My favorite! Key Club teaches Leaders to fly, metaphorically... and literally!

 

Sometimes a Picture is worth... 10,000 words

 

This is what a Cure looks like! Getting the youth involved in Relay will evolve into a legacy of Cancer Fighting Super Heroes that will Finish the Fight!!! Queso, Chips & Relay Planning on the menu today!

 

Just starting to sort through Relay pics and this is my favorite right now by far... This encapsulates everything that is SoCo Relay "After Midnight!"

 

You just won Super Bowl, now what are you going to do? Go to Disney World!... You just finished Relaying, now what are you going to do? Grade Greek Mythology research papers!

 

Thankful for my well-stocked Key Club schwag closet that I could pull a coffee cup from. Thankful for school board gifted Keurigs right about now. Going to be a late school night ahead to make up for all the late Relay nights behind me.

Opened my laptop tonight and found a pile of letters from my Key Club Seniors (+1). Grrrr, dang these kids making me get all crybaby-faced before graduation!

 

Just a few snapshots. Memories. This doesn't, of course, begin to event step into the shadow of all that my kids are or all that they do to keep me busy. Since though, I believe it is inappropriate to friend students and am highly reserved in posting their pics on my Facebook page, here are just a few snapshots- that don't at all allude to depth of memories this year has been. 

 

Unfortunately my latest Update, sans photo (because a selfie just wasn't happening) was:

Is there such a thing as a Summer Flu? I feel horribly sick.

Friday was the last "official" work day of the school year. If all our work was done on Friday, in lieu of coming in Saturday for graduation, we did not have to return for Monday, what the calendar denoted as the "last work day." It is not unusual for me to fall behind on the day-to-day's, but between having lots of miniscule financial details to figure out for Relay (my team of 50 kids really "nickels and dimes" their way to $10k in 4 months) and feeling ill, I got nothing done... and SO much ahead of me tomorrow. I went to bed as soon as I got home early Friday afternoon and carved myself out of the sheets Saturday morning for graduation. I am so thankful to have another teacher offer to cover my "door station" for graduation morning and I slept in the Nurse's Office right up until it was time to march in. In retrospect, I should have just called out. I missed a graduation party that was important to me and thought I would be on the mend today, two days later... instead, I just have a slew of new symptoms that have me wishing I was just feeling flu-like and sleeping the day away again instead.

This is a rather ominous start to summer. A Summer "In Limbo" as usual this time of year, as I wait to learn if there are enough students enrolled in my summer school class to delay the break from school for another month.