Struggle, Sheepie!!!

"But, she's not struggling!  How are we supposed to see how this works if she's not struggling?"

There I was, being held in a chair while my two fellow-instructors demonstrated the Two Person Seated Stability Hold for our captive audience.  Day two of the safety training in which I've been trapped since yesterday is the shorter version, but includes mostly the physical moves one must learn in order to be certified in our district's program for intervening with students in crisis.  While I am all for keeping in compliance with state regulations and actually using the training for which I gave up three days of my summer vacation, I was getting a bit tired.  I did not want to struggle for the audience.  I wanted to just demonstrate the hold and enjoy being able to sit there.  A seated restraint is a nice one for that.  And, by not struggling, I sort of hoped that I could shorten the training time a bit and get us the heck out of there.

But you gotta give the people what they want.  So, I struggled.  

This is not necessarily the best choice when one is already a bit sore and when one's shoes don't have the best traction on the slippery floors.  Getting my footing led to a bit more of the flailing than I'd intended, I'm afraid.  But, my co-teachers did a fine job of keeping me stable and re-seating me correctly and the audience greatly appreciated my performance.  I suppose this is what matters...

But, I didn't want to struggle.  I wanted to get this done without pain or extra teaching time.  That statement is for the record and should stand up in any court of law should I have accidentally caused injury to anyone or marked up the floors that the custodians have been working on while we are going through these workshops. 

 

With a cold sitting somewhere in my respiratory system, a half-day of teaching followed by mandated attendance at another workshop of my choosing, random power outages throughout the morning and actual, real, live snow falling from the sky, this day had the potential to be a giant bucket-load of bleh.  

But, one can always find the happy in the day before a vacation.  Sure, I have a little cold and cough.  But, the school district's recent decision to Go Green and see if they couldn't eliminate some of the disposable plastics that tend to accumulate during staff gatherings meant that we got our very own refillable containers:

Which I used diligently these past two days.  

My last workshop wasn't one that required me to stand up and teach which was almost a luxury after having been front and center for the first three sessions.  It was also a rather useful presentation on how to use Pages and meant that I got to bring my new laptop along with me for the ride today.  Mommy loves being able to bring the new baby to work!  And the whole thing ended with a pretty good performance by a local boy who has made it big on the comedy circuit so we got to finish up with a mighty fine chuckle.  Not so bad, really.  I even got to knit through the last hour!

Hardly a struggle at all...

On the way home, I was feeling the chill.  The snows had stopped, but the day retained its overall "raw" tone.  I suddenly had a hankerin' for something in the "comfort food" realm.  I normally just turn to pizza.  This time, though, I wanted something different...but what?  Then I had it:  Chili!!!  After a brief moment of sadness in which I thought there were no fixings for chili in the house, I suddenly remembered that I had a mix tucked away in the cupboards!  Not really homemade...but acceptable!  And now there is a big pot of the spicy stuff just waiting for me to finish this post. 

 

I barely even had to stir.  No struggles there!

And now, here I sit in my favorite fleece jammies with the pictures of the cookies and milk on them and my softy-soft Noolie socks.

The name is fitting.  She gave me the yarn, after all...

Maybe it all started off with a struggle.  But there isn't much of that now.  I am officially and irrevocably on vacation!!!  From now until next Monday, I am a Sheep of leisure.  And, with the countdown to Thanksgiving easily translated into hours at this point, I am soon to be a Sheep With A Face-full Of Stuffing.  

Struggles are over.  It's all smooth sailing, warm hooves and carbohydrates from this moment forward!

SA