Empty Chairs, Empty Boxes

     To stare at the computer screen after a day of chaotic teaching creates a tone of wishful longing to stretch out on the grass of the hillside that is in view from my classroom.  What a March already!  I was grilling at my daughter's birthday party the other day without a jacket.  There's no time like the present to start this mural, although state-mandated testing, budgetry, children neediness, and other various projects are overwhelming my excitement, turning it into the need for more vitamin D.  Right now, I'd like to be laying on a picnic blanket with my girls, eating strawberries and worrying about getting sunhats for their little heads. 
    Alas, I am in this classroom, typing away as the kiln room fan hums the noxious gasses into the air outside.  If you are wondering, I do worry about my footprint on the earth, but I digress.  I am feeling gloomy because the start of the mural was the antithesis of what I aspired it to be for the children.  I found myself in second period teaching to 5 children.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  So, what's a teacher to do?  Carry on, students!  We'll get 'em caught up when they come back!