We watched on TV as the hurricane Idalia moved up through the Gulf and lands an hour north of our home in Crystal River. It hit Wednesday. We watched as Jose Diaz Balart, was standing in the Plantation hotel’s parking lot showing 3 feet of flood water. Our neighbor, Tony, sent us a picture of our house from his stilt home with 3-4 feet of water. The next day, our neighbor Kate sent a picture of our house with the water down…We packed up the truck with 2 powerful fans, 2 dehumidifiers, the compressor, tools, an air mattress, towels & sheets, and a cooler. We were so tired, from our nagging thoughts that we left early on Saturday and arrived around early afternoon on Sunday. It was heartbreaking. Beautiful furniture (some made by Fred) had floated around and was knocked over. The damage was so pervasive.

We got to work right away, taking all 6 mattresses out to the curb, as well as the large sectional and couch. We were constantly finding things full of water and dumping it. We dumped the dehumidifiers around every 2-3 hours. Ron Desantis, in his motorcade, drove by. He was dropping off our neighbor, Mayor Joe Meeks. He didn’t bother to come help. We took all the towels and linens to the laundromat, but the electronics were down. We needed lots of quarters. Winn Dixie thought they would have some for me in the morning, so we went home and set up our air mattress for the nightl That night I emptied our giant jar of change, finding $95 worth of quarters. The next morning we went to the laundromat and did the linens-4 construction bags of linens. We continued taking stuff out to the curb all day and cleaning stuff. It was Labor Day, so our insurance office wasn’t open yet. That was next day stuff! But we did go to Mattress Firm and buy 2 queen size and 1 king size mattresses with frames!

Tuesday, (9/5), we took all the wet clothes we retrieved from all the rooms to the laundromat. Yes, in 2 days’ wash, we spent $95 worth of quarters. While there, FEMA ladies came in and took our information from Fred, so we had a file with FEMA. Then, we drove to Inglis to our insurance and filed a claim with them. We got all the beds, dressers and night stands out to the curb, We took doors off of every room and closet since the water was separating the bottoms as they swelled. Our friend Sue and Brian came to help. We had begun removing carpet (bedrooms and closets). With one room 1/2 done, Patrick and Sean (all the Callahans) came and within a short afternoon, all the carpet was out to the curb.

On Wednesday our insurance adjustors came to the house. They took lots of pictures and asked questions. We had Peter come to give us estimates on Epoxy flooring for the bedrooms and closets. It was scheduled for October 16, which seemed so far away at the time. We continued to work on the projects, but we were exhausted and had a bit of a rest in the afternoon. So glad we rested. Thursday Fred’s friend, Jim came over from Ocoee. After a big breakfast at the Biscuit Barn, we got to work. I moved stuff to the middle of the rooms. They tore out dry wall 42″ up all the walls and I hauled stuff out to the curb. We moved out appliances from the kitchen We had hauled out the washer & dryer, refrigerator, and freezer from the garage to dry out on the driveway. Jim spent the night and the next day, after The Breakfast Station, we got to work. By late afternoon we were done for the day and had half walls everywhere.

On the weekend we continued to do more clean-up. At this point, Fred was still planning to do the work. Pennymac wouldn’t allow it. We needed to find a licensed contractor for the work, so to make a long story, short…we found one we trust to do a good job in Dan Ryan construction. We spent the next week continuing to pick up and sort, and doing a lot of paper work that we would have to take to UPS to have a notary sign, print, scan, and send! On Thursday, Dan came to have us approve what he is going to do. On Friday we left for Iowa, trusting that it will all get done. We were going to return to Florida around October 8th, but now it will likely be toward the end of October, to allow time for Dan to get going on rebuilding.

Water, although it is my favorite element. It can do phenomenal damage. I’ve had enough damage for this decade. Thank you.

Last January, Fred and my house in Iowa had water damage. We got a call from John, who was checking on our house every week. It wasn’t due to frozen pipes or an over flowing sink. A small section of pipe, going from the boiler to the radiant heat burst. John caught it within the week, but there were 4 inches of water in the basement. This wasn’t cold water. Oh no! This was hot water which makes steam. It lift tile (which covered our entire basement). It rolls up the stairwell, creating wet, humid conditions upstairs as well. Our favorite room, a large room with tile and pine car-siding on all walls and ceiling and 13 windows only had fireplace heat, so when the steam hit that room, it was like a rain shower. We kept our home at 60 degrees, so the thermostat that was upstairs was telling the boiler, “send up more heat!” You can see the dilemma.

John took care of the initial leak. Fred called insurance who sent an adjuster.While he was there, another spot in the same pipe burst. The basement was totalled. Servepro was called. When they are called everything is taken down to the studs, and all your belongings from that area are put in the garage. While working one day, they heard a crash upstairs. The kitchen cabinets fell off the wall. Not all of them. Just the ones with glass dishes. Fred came to Iowa for the month of February. He cleaned mold off walls, moved stuff around, took care of insurance stuff, and shared some horrific pictures of what had happened. Exclusions on insurance…we learned about the exclusion: if damage is caused from excessive humidity ….Yes, State Farm did not cover the upstairs at all. Fred itemized about 1/4th of the damage from the basement and then, returned to our home in Florida, while John continued the work on our home in Iowa.

Easter weekend we drove to Iowa on Friday, picked out new kitchen cabinets on Saturday, went to Mom’s 90th birthday party on Sunday, and drove back to Florida on Monday. What a whirlwind weekend. Loved the cabinets we picked out! Found out that we can do a lot in 4 days when we’re on a mission!

Summer, 2023. Back to Iowa. John had finished a lot of work upstairs. We painted the kitchen first, so we could put the cabinets in. As John finished drywall in rooms, I painted and Fred did trim and made sills (13 windows in the big room), refinished the mantel. All of this was punctuated with the wonderful-ness of Iowa in the summer! Inventory was still happening. Even though we didn’t use the basement unless the whole family was at the house, or we were doing laundry, the basement was full….of stuff! And now it was stinky, moldy stuff. My massage room was in the basement, there was furniture, the piano, treadmill, craft stuff, books galore (libraries have nothing on us!), and boxes and boxes of memorabilia, collections and materials from each of our careers.

Watching the news in late August, a tropical storm Idalia turned into a hurricane and was projected to make landfall by our Florida home…..(continued in Floods, part 2)

22 years ago I completed a course at Healthbuilders Massage and Bodywork School in St. Augustine, Florida. I absolutely loved the work and helping people. Over the years I have massaged quite a few people, adults and children, and gained so much satisfaction in my work. Last week while worrying about what I will do next, I had an epiphany. I always said that when I retired I would do more massage. As a person living in 2 states, I need a license in both, so that is my new employment. Our tax guy once said, “Massage is your hobby, not an income” which is true. So, I need to figure out the business end of massage to make an income.

Last weekend I participated in a Thai Yoga Massage class (16 ceus) in Cedar Rapids. As soon as I received my certificate for the course, I can reactivate my Iowa license. It was a good course and I realized that having not done massage due to an inactive license and a busy teaching schedule, my hands felt foreign to me. Where giving massage felt like an extension to who I am, I began the course by questioning my hand strength and abilities. By the end of the course, my left hand was a little shaky and I felt old moving around the mat smoothly, but all the love of doing massage came back fully!

I question where I will practice. In Iowa I have a big house and can work out of it. In Florida I don’t know all the rules. A new adventure and I am so satisfied with my decision! Now to get back to Florida and get to work.

I know that one school year goes fast. I have determined that this is my last year of teaching at the elementary level. This summer we bought out primary residence in Florida. You see, I am not a cold weather person. I never have been since moving to Florida in 1985. Having spent 13 years there between 1985 and 2001, I fell in love with Citrus county so that is where we bought our home. Every time we go down for a week we go fishing in both fresh and salt water. We are so fortunate. We will keep our home in Iowa to ‘summer’ here! Summers are fantastic in Iowa with our garden, temperatures, and live music!

The school year began for teachers. I don’t have my full roster yet, but I am determined to make it a productive, big growth year. I’m looking forward to working with children in this unique environment. How many people really get to work in a place with 400 young human beings? I am also teaching at the University as an adjunct professor with students on verge of their long teaching careers. Who gets to view education from these different perspectives?

I applied for a couple of professor jobs that are an hour from my ‘retirement’ home. I can now imagine and write my pros/cons lists about what I might do next fall. Yes, I want health insurance, so I will work, but what interest area will get my attention next.

In the education area, I would love to work as a full-time professor. I adjunct at the University of Iowa regularly, but always while I’m teaching full-time at an elementary school. I would love to focus on teaching and researching, improving my skills in both areas. I could also be a Special Education Consultant, supporting teachers and parents with students who have complex communication needs (CCN) and or autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Another area that I would love is as support for college students with disabilities-helping to provide accommodations.

I am also an LMT (licensed massage therapist) and have been since 2001, but have done this on a part-time basis. I am also a Massage in Schools Instructor. I would love to work as a massage therapist for women, persons with disabilities, and teach at a massage school… Or I could provide part-time massage services and teach massage in schools.

Another interest is environmental concerns. I love to write grants, although, I have done a lot on my own. I plan to write an education grant for manatees and environmental concerns in Citrus County. I applied for a couple of jobs in the area of grant administration.

Having never worked in a retail area, I also have a keen interest in working at Target! Who knows…I don’t….yet. Ahh, the power of yet!

Could I work with manatees, an environmental agency, or with the Marine Science Station to include students with disabilities? I can dream and imagine combining more of my interests into the perfect post-first-retirement job.

What provides even more options for me is that I can work without worrying as much about the salary. You see, I will have a consistent retirement pay that will cover my bills. I will be imagining and dreaming of what I will do next. I am thrilled with the opportunity to dream again!

I am counting down…days to retirement, days to the end of the fall semester (university courses), and counting down to warmer weather.

It seems that of these the count down to the end of the fall semester is the most relevant or helpful. There are only a couple of months left, but most of the grading responsibilities happen over the next few weeks. My on-site class has 45 papers/lesson plans to grade between next week and December 14th. The other course which is online has way more students and a lot of assignments to grade. On December 17th, as winter break comes, a big sigh will be had!

Counting down to warmer weather…yes, I am not a winter person. It just began to get cold with our first frost coming at the end of this week. This count-down is more nebulous. Spring break (mid-March) seems like the right aim!

Count down to the end of the school year on June 1st is the most exciting. I find that I have anxiety, which is fairly new to me. The district I work in has a lot of issues, so that may be it, but my guess is that it is the combination of online-on-site teaching. I need to enjoy my last year of teaching at an elementary school. After all, I love teaching kids, just not all the administrative stuff that goes with it…and being the oldest teacher in a school full of 20-30-somethings.

Take a leap now to 12 days of school left for me…. The powers that be in the district decided I would teach mornings at the school in which I have taught, and now drive each day to the school my kids went to when we first moved up from Florida in 2001. This all happened after the new year. I had 8 students, and now 9. A student I taught for the last few years (online) moved to my roster for the last few months of school for 2 hours 3 days a week. When people talk about how hard this pandemic has been on teachers, I still have to say the difficulty is less about the pandemic, and more about administrative people (who may have been teachers before), thinking that they are looking at the big picture, but no. When they should be including teachers in decisions, they are not. Sometimes I think it is their own ‘fake it til I make it’ mantra, but often it is their comfort of telling people what to do from afar, without considering the big picture at all.

Twelve days to finish up the year. I have alternate assessment materials to score and input, end of year progress monitoring, reports to add to cumulative files, ESYS letters to go out, EOY reports, collaborations, rooms to clean out at both schools, and young students to enjoy in the midst of it all! I do love teaching, but look forward to something completely new for my 60s!

Wow…59 days of the school year is done. Today is a conference day and the week prior to the Thanksgiving break. There are 15 papers to grade for one of the University classes that I’m teaching. Saturday we go to Ankeny for our Clara’s 2nd birthday party. Fred will be gone all day next Sunday butchering turkeys with his friend, Steve. I plan to clean and bake. I have an IEP next week on Tuesday afternoon. Then, time home with family for Thanksgiving.

The trimester midwinter is always broken up with Thanksgiving break, winter break, and this year, I plan to attend the CEC (Council for Exceptional Children) conference for a week in January. Yes, I have a lot of work within the second trimester, but it will feel much quicker.

I hope to cherish the final third of the school year that begins March 2nd, 2022. It starts my favorite season with it’s warm up to summer. The moments of children, progress, and laughter will be highlighted in my mind. Loved this career, but I do look forward to the next adventures of life!

A student called me a “f__ b__” when he struggled. There was also some physical aggression toward me. This has happened multiple times in my 24 years of teaching special education, some years more than others.

At this time, during the pandemic, when my emotional state seems more fragile, I projected these same words toward a colleague. I don’t believe that at all about this other teacher, but I was called out on it by a paraprofessional, who within 20 minutes of my word vomit, went to my colleague and my principal. She is 21…and will learn over time that as unprofessional as I was, that understanding that teachers make mistakes as well may require some maturity.

I am quite fortunate that my Principal knows me well enough to know this was not in my character. I had apologized to both the paraprofessional and insulted teacher. My thought process over the next day or so was that I am a horrible person and don’t deserve the honor I so recently received- a nomination for Iowa’s Teacher of the Year.

All of this lead me to use the toothpaste activity. This was an activity I had done several years before, but not with this particular student. Materials include a small plate or in this case a Dixie cup, a small toothpaste, and paper. Step by step directions.

1. What are we going to do with this? (holding the toothpaste) Await answers/guesses.
2. Explain that we are going to pretend that the tube of toothpaste is our brain. Where is our brain? What covers it? it is covered by a skull, hair.
3. What kinds of things are in our brain? (write all the thoughts, and make sure that good and bad thoughts are in everyone’s brains).
4. Ask how these thoughts come out of our brain. (talk, actions).
5. Have the student squeeze out the toothpaste as we say the items from our list, both good and bad thoughts. As the good thoughts are listed, say, “wow, that is so nice. I bet that made someone feel good.” It name calling or mean things come out, label those and note that that might make someone not want to be friends.
6. After the toothpaste is out of the tube, say “OK now put all those thoughts back away.” If the student asks how do I do that?, act aloof and say, ‘you go ahead and figure that out’.
7. After several minutes, talk about the good things and the bad things. Debrief the activity.
8. Put the toothpaste in a baggie as a reminder for review and have the student teach someone else the toothpaste activity!

Reading Mastery (RM) is a curriculum that I have used for 22 years of teaching students to read. Of course I add to my instruction in order for students to learn to enjoy reading, writing, and to become literate. I was trained last summer in the Orton-Gillingham (OG) method and utilized it over the course of the last year. OG has some great ideas with kinesthetic activities and some great instruction on spelling patterns. I had already added to RM in literacy instruction.

Last week I read an article that confirmed my understanding of OG research. The program is based on reading research, but the program itself had not truly been researched. What Works Clearinghouse noted a lack of evidence for OG effectiveness. I appreciate many aspects of the program, but understand that they are based upon research, but know that sales of the program are dependent upon claiming research.

Preparation for a new school year can be anxiety producing in a regular year. In this last year of teaching special education at an elementary school, I have been assigned 3 students on-site (so I have a classroom), and 5 online students. It took until Friday to receive 3 of the IEPs (Individual Education Plan). Everything in special education is framed by the goals/services/activities developed by the IEP team in discussion that includes parents, teachers, administrators, and service providers. Right now it is the Sunday before school starts on Monday and I only received the homeroom teachers for my online students today. I talked with all but one of my students’ parents yesterday. They hadn’t heard who their general education teacher was yet.

Wow, my schedule is full and I have 13 teachers, 5 paraprofessionals, and service providers with which to collaborate. It may be a tough year at the elementary level. On top of that, I am teaching Special Education Literacy at the local university which requires more school prep! Luckily the professor who designed this course did a wonderful job on the text and article selection on which to base my course!

It will all work out. I will enjoy the children and the adults that I am teaching. I will be in awe of the people I get to work with at school. It will be a great last year of teaching….eventually!