Another shocker of a day

One of the teachers wrote this on her Facebook status this evening:

"35 degrees on 9/22; 16 degrees on 9/23. Lightening strike takes out the internet and the phones on campus about 1:15. Water, water everywhere coming out of the sky and formed 6 in-deep puddles for Back to School Day...lots of parents braved the elements." 

Yes, a bit of a shocker of a day.

 CAJ holds a special event once a year called "Back to School Day". It is a combination of an Open Day (without the students) and an information day for parents. We went to school, sat in the seats of our kids, met their teachers, and, in the case of middle and high school, walked in their shoes. Not literally (though I could, my 11 y.o. has the same size feet as me at present). But we walked through an abbreviated version of their daily timetable. 13 minute periods with 5 minutes in between to find our next room. It reminded me a lot of my high school days, without the annoying boys! I staggered home after that feeling very much overloaded with information. It was good, however, to be introduced to all my kids' teachers. Reassured in many ways. Encouraged and challenged too. Being the parent of a school student is no party. I wonder how much stress my Mum felt when I was at school?

These days I have to ensure that not only does my middle school son does his daily homework and assignments, but he checks his email, checks iCal (the internet based school calendar) and has time to access websites to work on his maths. And that is just one boy. Thankfully the others are only in kindergarten and grade 2.

 And then the weather. Yesterday was so hot I just about got heat exhaustion working out in air conditioning! Perspiration running down my face wet my glasses and clouded my vision. Today? A low pressure system hits. The rain comes down and the temperature halves! 

Today I spent the whole day at school, but had to go between buildings several times during the heaviest of the rain. It was up to my ankles in places. My eldest went home at lunch-time and then was due back for cross-country training. He rang me in a panic, wondering how he would be able to train as his shoes were sopping wet. I assured him that everyone else's would be too. In the end they cancelled training. The lightening and thunder in themselves were frightening, but running through torrential rain obviously didn't appeal even to the hardiest of souls.

The rain brought blessed cool, though a 20 degree drop in one day is a little tough to take. We slept with air conditioning last night. Tonight I have my flannies pants on (flannelette pyjamas) with a t-shirt. I also pulled the heater out to dry off shoes.

As the above Facebook status says, an extremely close strike of lightning as well. I was under an awning just putting my umbrella up when it hit. I was particularly worried as I knew that my 11 y.o. was probably walking back to school at that time. As it turns out he wasn't. And he was more concerned about his wet shoes than the thunder!

I'm ready for bed. I was going to iron tonight, but somehow recently middle school homework or exhaustion are taking up the evenings. Tomorrow, however, I have an almost free day. Finally I'll be able to get to some important matters that have been waiting since last week. And then it'll be the weekend again. Amazing how the weeks are flying past.