Even though it's the weekend, they've turned back into those weekends where I have to go to work on Monday. Those weekends feel much different than the ones with the open week stretching out ahead.

Friday was my first day back from summer break. I spent the first couple of hours of my work day at another school with a new librarian I'm mentoring this year. She's taught high school English for ten years, but it's her first year in the library, and at elementary. After talking to her for oh, about 10 seconds, I knew she'd be great. She's a real go-getter, but not in an annoying "Did you forget to take your Ritalin today?" way. She's also one of those people that really lets you know how much they appreciate what you're doing for them --she's very good with thank you emails. That doesn't happen very often (RR is very good at that, though).

When I finally got to my school, it was probably the worst starting day back I've ever had. The library was such a mess. Not a trashed-out kind of mess, but things had been moved all over and not put back. That annoys me so much in the library. I don't care that you move things, tables, furniture, just make some half-hearted attempt to put it back where it belongs. The primary election voting had evidently been in there on Tuesday, and the big black voting stands were still in there. They were all packed up but just sitting here and there. One of the rolling picture book cases had been moved out of the way, and not been moved back. Chairs were all over here and there. And the equipment I had so carefully arranged in order, waiting for teachers to pick up, was all over the tables. And the final straw-- the new materials that had come in right before spring were completely messed up. I had them all in piles with the teacher's name on a sticky note on the top. They had been moved so the top of the bookcase could been dusted, and then just restacked in any which way. I have no idea who gets what. I.was.not.happy.

I also spent most of the day unlabeling (marking through our school name, tearing out card pockets, etc...) discards and loading them on a cart, then loading them in my car. When I had a car full, I went to CP's shop and threw them in the dumpster. It took two carloads. I really should have done that before I left for summer-- to have that to do first thing was not fun. And see-- everyone thinks I just stand around and check out books. How wrong you are!

Last night we frosted our cakes for the class today. Lesson learned: read the instructions in the book before you start. Nooooo, you don't just mix up the frosting and have at it. Those days of popping open a can of ready-made frosting and slathering it on a cake are over, I guess. As we were both spackling our cakes (because it was doing anything but slathering) I was getting more and more frustrated. I kept telling B my frosting wouldn't stick to the cake, every time I got it smooth then did one last swipe, off came the frosting. He said his was doing the same thing. We finally got them done--his looked pretty good, mine looked ... okay.

Later we mixed up another batch of frosting to use for practicing roses, writing, etc.. in class today. I looked in our books to see how much we needed and noticed it said to make medium consistency icing (there are three-- stiff, medium and thin. You actually just add certain amounts of extra water to change it). I went back and looked at the instructions for frosting the cake and it said to use medium or thin consistency. Well, smack me in the head and call me Leroy. We had used the regular stiff consistency to frost the cakes--that's the one you use to make flowers, roses, etc. No wonder it wasn't spreading very well. At least my cake isn't the only one like that-- his is too. After he left I almost scraped my frosting off and started over, but if he had done that and I walked in today with the original cake and he had fixed his, I would've been pretty upset.