Thank you, Snow Gods.

I love kids.  I love my students.

There, now that we've gotten THAT out of the way, let me tell you how much I LOVED being at school today WITHOUT the little darlings...let's recap first, shall we?  Wednesday was a snow day, and a much needed break.  Seriously, with the high-tension these days, I think the blizzard was a gift from GOD to all of us teachers who needed a day at home in jammies.  I was ultra productive Wednesday, getting several lessons planned that I had been working on in the back of my mind, and grading a tremendous pile of papers that had been mocking me for the past few weeks from the "To Grade" folder I had been carrying to and from school.  It felt fabulous to cross those two things off of my list.

Then, as you know, I got a huge surprise around 3pm--school was cancelled for Snow Day #2 Thursday!  At the time, I wasn't sure what this meant for our parent conferences that had been scheduled for Thursday afternoon and evening, but I later found out that they were cancelled as well.  The district decided not to schedule a conference make up day, and to instead instruct parents "interested in rescheduling their conferences" to contact their child's teacher.  Translation: we don't have to make up every single conference.  I can think of a handful of parents who will still want to come in/who I still want to meet with, but the amount of time and effort that will be involved in these make-ups does not hold a candle to the marathon afternoon/evening that is typical conferences.  Amazing.

FINALLY, because Thursday was scheduled for conferences, today was also a no-kids day, which they did not take away from us!  We are required to put in 1 1/2 hours the day after conference to balance out the late night.  I had two families make up their conferences this morning, and used the rest of the time to GET STUFF DONE.  I felt like Super Teacher checking things off my to-do list!  (Obv I stayed for 5+ hours instead of 1 1/2...I do not regret it and could have stayed longer.  Why did I leave?  I was starving, of course.)  I got lots of copies made (hooray for reading ISAT practice tests... :-P), plans ready for next week and outlined for the following week, materials prepared for Tuesday's science lesson, vocab words and objectives updated on the board for next week's literacy theme, chart paper started with different mini-lesson topics, etc.  It is a wonderful feeling to leave school with things actually in order and WITHOUT a gigantic bag of grading over your shoulder.

Of course, there is still a tiny bit to do this weekend...I've got my math and science manuals home with me to continue planning, but this is all advance prep at this point...I am good to go for next week!  Looking forward to a low-stress weekend and *hopefully* all of this prep work will pay off with a low(er)-stress next week or two.  Thank you snow gods.  I am eternally grateful.