Purging and Cleansing!

I'm doing the opposite of everyone else...I'm fall cleaning. Actually, I'm purging and cleansing! It feels great and is very cathartic for me.

As I'm not returning to school this year, I decided to downsize all my teaching materials both at home and at school. As anyone who knows a teacher can tell you, we hang on to an awful lot and can't bear to throw away anything we, or anyone else might possibly ever use! At one point, I had 24 boxes of files, books etc. in my attic....and you should see what's at school!

I decided to start at school last week. I coined the phrase, "pitching from the source" because I finally realized that it made no sense to cart it home and up to the attic where I would just have to cull it at some point anyway. Years of dust came sailing out from those old hall cupboards! I gave away 14 plastic tubs of books for kids to read, seasonal decorations, story tapes, bulletin board borders, binders, art supplies, resource books, and over twenty resource activity books teachers use to photocopy work.

The two new Gr. 2 teachers in our school were happy to stock their empty shelves with all this and not have to shell out the money. And I felt glad that I could pass them on as a legacy of the years I put them to good use in my classroom. After all, I remember someone doing that for me. Full circle, just as it should be.

I am now starting my attic and will be carting a few more loads over to the school soon. But this morning, as the teachers are calling out their class lists, I shall be relaxing in a cafe, with eight retirees, for the traditional first day back, "To Hell With The Bell Coffee"!


Mother of Invention, wishing everyone's year gets off to a great start, no matter what you're doing!