Back to Work

Today was the day I "officially" was on contract to start working at school again. I thought there would be air conditioning, but I was mistaken. I woke up early today to listen to the on-air tribute to Kidd Kraddick on 106.1 Kiss FM. I was in tears. I then went to Staples to have them print the postcards I made yesterday to send to the kids reminding them of band camp starting next week. I didn't want to wait for them to print them all, so I told them I would pick them up on my way home from work. 

When I got to school, no A/C. It was HOT. It turns out that I requested the air to start next week, not this week (not sure why I did that). I continued work on the music library though. I sorted out all the solos and ensembles. 

Here are the solo piles (sorry for the blurriness). I had already boxed up all the woodwind, trumpet, horn, and trombone solos before I remembered to take a picture. I brought the rest home to complete in air conditioning (I have baritone, tuba, timpani, mallets, and snare drum solos left). 

Here are my ensemble stacks. I left those at school. They will take a little more work to sort and box. 

Here are some of the solos I've completed. 

Here's the deal with these little boxes (there's a story attached to them):

Back when Southern Music Company was selling all of their stock prior to being bought out, they were having a huge sale (like 70% off, or something like that). While we were down in San Antonio, my husband and I (who has music published with Southern Music Company) went "shopping." There was an unopened box of music filing boxes that was labeled as having 1" boxes inside. We bought it (without opening it) - at over 80% off after my husband's composer discount was also added. Once we got home to Rockwall, we discovered that the contents of the box held 5/8" boxes (not 1" boxes). I couldn't figure out what to do with them for the longest time (I use 1" boxes for the music at school and my husband uses 1 1/2" boxes for the LSWO music). I finally figured that I could use them for the solos. 

Here's what they look like from a distance on the shelves in the music library. The music on that back wall from left to right is Grade 1 Program, Grade 2 Program, Grade 3 Program, Grade 4 Program, and then the solos. I don't think I have any Grade 5 Program music. I put colored dots on the boxes of the pieces that are on the UIL Prescribed Music List (PML) - red is Grade 1, yellow is Grade 2, green is Grade 3, and blue is Grade 4. 

At 1:30 today, Music and Arts brought back most of the instruments that were sent off for summer repair. I helped them bring them inside and they were laid out on the floor of the small band room for me to then put away. 

Thankfully the A/C kicked on for about an hour just as we were finishing bringing in the tubas. I left all the repair tags in the cases and put the cases in the assigned lockers (a few years ago I painted locker numbers on the sides of the instrument cases to denote which lockers they were assigned to) and left the locker doors open. I did that so that when the kids come to check out school-owned instruments, they will be able to identify more quickly the instruments that were cleaned/repaired this summer. Here are some shots of the small band room/instrument storage room from different angles:

I wish these Wenger lockers weren't so old. There are some doors that have had to be taken off because the hinges broke (and Wenger does not make those hinges anymore). You can see I also took off (well, actually...I had my husband take off) the doors where I keep the euphoniums and tubas. The former director put them on large plastic shelves in the large band room. I think this is the best solution. I do want to purchase tuba stands instead of keeping the tubas in their cases though. They have been getting pretty beat up. This is the one I want to buy:

I will purchase a couple of them. They are pretty expensive, but I think they will pay for themselves in time when we save money on repairs. 

Like I said earlier, I did end up organizing the rest of the solos to take home and finish boxing up (in A/C). I also brought home the rest of the music that needs to be entered into the spreadsheet database which will be uploaded into Charms - I still have a couple boxes of pep band music to enter and file. I'm pretty sure the library will FINALLY be finished this summer. Yea!!!! I have been working on reorganizing this library since I took the job in 2007. It will be so nice once it is organized though and I can easily find and pick music to program and work on with my kids. :)

Tomorrow's plan is to get the postcards sent. My husband was so nice to pick them up from Staples for me today while I was on my way home from work. He negotiated a very low price to have them cut too since there were four per sheet (for $2 total to cut all of them!). He also went to the post office today to pick up my Nike shoes that I ordered online for more than 50% off (saw the site to order them on Pinterest) - here is a picture of them:

They are Nike 6.0's - the yellow thing in the baggie inside the shoe are an extra pair of shoelaces. I like the black because they will "go" with anything. Black and yellow is also my school's colors. :)

I digress... when my husband was picking up my shoes, he also bought postcard stamps. I told him to buy 50, but my math was wrong. I needed more like 90. So, I will be getting up early to buy more stamps and get all the postcards in the mail and sent off ASAP. 

By the way, this blog will post tomorrow (7/30/13 at 5:30 AM), but I am typing it at 7:55 PM on Monday, July 29th.