Baking vs. Broiling. There Is A Difference...

It's shaping up to be One Of Those Weeks.

I take comfort in the fact that I am not alone in this week. I also take comfort in the fact that things can always be worse. My foot could fall off. I could get called for jury duty. It's raining so there could be a hair-frizzing situation going on...

Yup. There is always something worse.

It is testing month at our school and the team upon which my students are placed are scheduled to make the assessment magic happen this week. This isn't the state mandated testing that we finished a while back. This is the testing we do to assess individual progress. The kiddies sit down at their computers and, hopefully, demonstrate that they have learned something more than they knew back when they took the test in September.

We cross our fingers and hope for the best...

I probably should have read the memo that came out last week more closely. It was chock-full of information regarding the testing schedule. I skimmed. I did not process. Hence, I got the part where the kids were taking tests and I knew when to take them to the testing site. I missed the part where they told us the little darlings would not be having Globals this week.

Whether a school calls it Globals, Specials, Unified Arts or Electives, it all means the same thing. The kids head off to Art, Music, Computer and other fun-filled locales so the classroom teachers can have an hour or so to figure out what the heck they are going to do with them for the rest of the time. We also can return phone calls, use the restrooms and take a minute to reflect upon our career choices. Sometimes I like to beat my head on my desk for a bit just to get a little perspective.

I don't get to do that this week. That is going to be a problem.

It's a busy week. There are many meetings. I have two Individual Educational Plans to write and there is a deadline on that, according to the Department Of Education. There is a staff meeting tomorrow afternoon and those tend to run rather long. I am eventually going to need to use the bathroom. I am middle aged. I see no way on God's green earth that I can go a whole week without visiting that special thinkin' spot.

Then there is the fact that tomorrow is Ed. Tech. Appreciation Day in our school district. Educational Technicians are the good people who assist the teachers in the classrooms and are certainly worthy of all the appreciation we can shower upon them. Were it not for my Teaching Assistants, I would have long since tried to drown myself in that special thinkin' spot I mentioned a while back. If we are planning a big lunch for the ed. techs tomorrow, then I'm on it! There will be something fresh from the Sheepish Kitchen, by gorry!!!

In spite of my absolute exhaustion this afternoon, I raced home to unearth a box of brownie mix. Following the afternoon session on the exercise bike, a little dinner for myself and a wee bit of knitting time on The Dishcloth (with sleeves), I mixed up the brownies just as I have done approximately five billion times before.

When they came out of the oven, they looked a bit underdone. I decided that the ed. techs deserved fully cooked treats and popped them back in for another three minutes. Three minutes. That's all.

For anyone who is wondering, three minutes under the broiler is not good for brownies. Not good at all. A long day of testing, meetings and no time whatsoever without children underfoot can make the best of brownie bakers a little confused. "Bake" starts with a B. So does "Broil." You can see how things might have gotten a bit mixed up...

Now it's just a matter of seeing how willing I am to do this all over again. Are they really that bad? Can I just call them Sheepish Annie's Famous Blackened Brownies and be done with it? Or should I take the high road and mix up another batch? My appreciation for the ed. techs has not waned in the least. My willingness to risk third degree brownie burns, however, has risen markedly.

Stay tuned...

SA