Today was a staff development day for Howard County. The past several years, the county has built in a day during the first week back, specifically for staff development. On these days, some teachers (mostly classroom) stay at school and have meetings with curricular folks. However, most of the related arts teachers (Art, PE, Music, etc.) meet together at other schools. All of the art teachers today met at Oakland Mills Middle School. I worked on curriculum over the summer with another elementary teacher, mostly concentrating on the Common Core transition. Well today, my boss had the both of us present what we had written. I was a little nervous, but I have to say, I rocked it! I was more than a little proud of myself. The butterflies during the morning were well worth it...
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I stumbled upon something very interesting yesterday. A friend of mine (on Facebook) posted something about free books on weekends in Baltimore. Apparently there is a place called the Book Thing, and they have free books. They are open every Saturday and Sunday from 9am-6pm. You don't have to bring any books, although donations are always welcomed. All of the books are donated, and are categorized. So after I finished teaching my senior citizens at Heartlands, I picked up the family and we headed out to see this place. It isn't much from the outside (nor the inside either), but hey it's free. We hung out for about an hour, looking through what they had available. Everything is categorized to the best of their abilities. All of the work is done by volunteers, and probably not all of them have library/media experience (or something similar). We found a few books for the kids, and one for a friend of mine. However, I talked with some of the volunteers sorting books next door, and I have to tell you, there's a bunch they were going through that looked great. I think I'll have to go back next weekend and take a look. Please think about donating books to them, and even stop by to check them out. It's a great cause, and let's face it, more reading and more books never hurt anyone...
My wife and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary yesterday. I truly can't believe that it has been ten years. I hate to be cliche but it "does feel like yesterday." And as of Halloween we will be together for 14 years. Time truly has flown.
We didn't really do anything special for us. However, we did do something special as a family. Originally, we were supposed to meet some college friends up in the Poconos last weekend. Against my better judgement, I started telling my daughter about it. Needless to say she was amped about going. Well, the whole thing fell through for a myriad of reasons. So we started looking for something, at least similar, to be able to do as a family. That's when I remembered going to Greenbrier State Park when I was a kid. I went there once in elementary school with a childhood friend and his Mom. I told my wife, and we told the kids. They were so excited! We left for Greenbrier in the mid-morning. It took forever to pack (cooler, chairs, towels, sand toys, etc.), but we made great time with driving. The kids had a blast! We all swam, played in the sand, and even went out on a paddle boat. It may not have been a classy restaurant, but we even stopped for dinner at the Cracker Barrel on the way home. I couldn't have asked for a better anniversary... Yep, I said it. I went to see Our Lady Peace again last night. I was hoping that I could take my wife, because I know she wanted to see them too. We had a sitter lined up, but neither of us felt comfortable with not getting home until after 1am. I didn't feel right asking someone to do that. So I ended up going with one of my best friends, Corey.
It was a great show, as I expected. They are one of my favorite bands, if not my favorite overall. And the 9:30 Club is probably the best venue to see a concert. And of course we stayed after to meet the band again. I think I now have all of their cd's autographed. Additionally, I was able to get pics taken with the lead singer, Raine Maida, and the bassist, Duncan Coutts. Awesome night! |
B.D.SchmittHusband, Father, Archives
November 2015
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