The Chronicles Of Nay

Hello there! How are y’all doing. I hope that everyone is doing well. I wanted to start this post with a quick update from the last post. Yes I got to talk to my mom, she was in fact in a meeting! haha I didn’t realize I left that off and so many people asked! haha

I hope that everyone is safe from the crazy weather we had Monday night. I just can’t get used to the scary weather. Gabbana and I went to bed early so that I didn’t have to worry about it! Who would have thought I would have woken up to such a crappy day! 

So It has rained so much lately that my grass was out of control. So yesterday I messaged my lawn guy (that is how I had him saved in my phone “lawn guy”) and asked him if he could come take care of the lawn today. He said sure we agree to $25 and I would leave the money under the mat like last time. So this morning, I got up and I let the dog out and got ready. She usually has access to the doggy door but since the lawn guy was coming I had to leave her locked in the house today. I had an early morning meeting in preparation for state testing next week. I stopped for a cup of coffee at the QT. Bear with me my day is still good as of right now. I wasn’t in a bad mood about anything! The meeting was good, there was Air conditioning in the room. Then I made the fatal error. I told Jess “It’s gonna be a good day! Here we go!” So the first period starts and I am trying to talk to the kids sitting in front of me in person. Trying to get the failing kids to do some work. And also talk to the kids online. I am trying to get some of those kids failing to turn in work. I tell them to do the missing assignments first before you do today’s assignment. Those are 6 weeks old and today’s assignment will go on next 6 weeks. The old ones will go on the 6 weeks that ends friday. DO THE MISSING WORK FIRST! Then I had this conversation with my computer screen because none of them talk they only type and none of them have cameras on:

G: ms this assignment isn’t working

Me: I can help you… Do you know how to share your screen?

J: sorry I’m late

Me: that’s ok J I need you to do this assignment I put in the chat

G: ok

Me: no G you show me your screen so I can help you and J you do that assignment 

A few minutes go by nothing going on online 

Me: G did you get it to work?

G: *crickets*

Me: g? g? g are you there? g?

F: ms did you call me?

J: what ms?

B: in spanish because she refuses to speak english: I’m working on my work!

Me: none of you, I was talking to G

G: i don’t know what to do

Me: SHARE YOUR SCREEN!

g: Finally shares her screen and has no issues goes exactly to the assignment and it opens and she starts it. 

After that conversation there was an issue with B refusing to speak english, not doing work and when I started trying to get her to do work she logs off. I was dealing with all of this while I had kids asking to go to the restroom, asking to borrow headphones and a charger and then a counselor at the door asking to borrow a student that is missing 10 assignments. Hybrid “learning” isn’t working. From any perspective. 

So that class ends. I take a deep breath and tell myself I can do this. It’s fine. It’s gonna be a good day then my lawn guy texts me. He says how tall is the grass in your backyard? I said I don’t know you didn’t mow it last time (because he broke the gate the time before and I was in the process of getting my fence replaced last time he came) so it is taller than the front. He said it is very likely that it is very high and if so my machine will not be able to do the job. I said ok… now what? He told me I needed to find someone else who has a bigger machine or do it myself. I told him thank you for the past but our time together is over. He said ok bye. So I message a couple people on Next door trying to find someone to come and do the lawn. I know what you are thinking. Naomi why don’t you just do it yourself. Thank you for that but no. haha I don’t enjoy yard work. I also don’t mind paying someone else to do it. We all have our things. This is mine. So I get a hold of a guy that says he will charge $45 since it sounds like it is overgrown. I was like that’s fine. He shows up to my house and says he should have seen it before he gave an estimate it will actually be $65. I was like nah dude don’t worry about it. I don’t understand. It is not like the grass was THAT tall. It was overgrown but I mean Simba wasn’t hiding in it! So I got another number. He agrees to come and look, he gives me an estimate of 40. I was like yeah that’s fine. Let’s just get this mowed.

So back to school, we have this calling log where they divide all the kids in the school by the teachers and we are supposed to call the parents of the kids that are failing. It was a great idea at first but now the parents are tired of hearing from us every other week that their kids are failing or not attending the meetings. So they are rude when they answer at all. I texted a mom and told her “hey your kid is missing assignments in science and is failing reading with a 0.” her response. “My daughter said she has at least a 70 maybe an 80 in science.” to which i responded “No ma’am she has a 66” she hasn’t responded. Another mom told me today that she needed the teacher that is actually having problems with the kid to call her and that he told her that he was failing his classes because he was waiting for his teachers to grade his work. I told the mom that if that is in fact the situation then he turned the work in late. I tell the students all the time that if they take extra time to do the assignments I get extra time to grade it! She agreed that was acceptable but she needed to find out what the teacher wanted her to do about her child’s behavior in that other class. So I passed that information along. Man, I DO NOT get paid enough to deal with people! 

So at the end of the day the new lawn guy texts me that he finished and his venmo name to send him the money. I was like dude I hope you understand but can you send me a picture that you finished and I’ll venmo or wait until I get home. He said he was already home so to give him a few minutes and he would send me a picture. I got a picture and I venmo him 40 bucks. We talk about possibly just making this a regular thing… Whew this debacle is over… or is it… 

I get home to let the dog out before I head to dinner and to grab that $25 I left under the mat for OG lawn guy and it isn’t there. I shake out the mat. I look around the porch. I look under the mat again like if maybe i missed it. Clearly I missed it. I leave for dinner and I text OG lawn guy “really? You took my $25 anyway!?!” He assured me he had never made it to my house. He just assumed my lawn would be too tall so he just bowed out. So I text the guy that I had already paid $40. I asked if he saw money under the mat. He said “OMG yeah I almost ran it over with the mower. Let me shower and I’ll bring it by.” So many questions. The big ones were What was he doing mowing under my door mat? And at what point did he decide that it was ok to keep $25 and still let me venmo him $40? I don’t understand what the issue was. It’s not really like I was being cheap. I mean $65 was a lot for my little yard. But I was willing to go as high as $50. It was short notice and the back was longer than usual.  

If I was dealing with just one of these things today I might have been fine. However, dealing with all of it on top of the stress of moving buildings next year and having no clear answers about what that entails or looks like or will look like makes life very stressful. Which led to staring up at the ceiling for half an hour after work just watching the ceiling fan. 

In different news it is teacher appreciation week. Our campus has fed us breakfast and given us a popcorn bar and some swag bags. If you have friends or family that are teachers… please… appreciate them! I mean most will take alcohol but really just a thanks and a “I see how hard you are working keep it up. This year will end.” I am sure I am not the only one feeling this way! Well it is late and I am exhausted! I hope that everyone has a good rest of the week!