When in Wemindji...: Wemindji the Beautiful

First BBQ of the season! SO DELISH.

Well another week has come and gone. Wemindji has been #blessed with beautiful weather this week and I have been taking as many opportunities as I can to be outside and soak up this glorious sunshine before the bugs arrive!

If there is one fact I can tell you about Wemindji, it is that this town is rife with black flies once the warmer weather arrives. If you know me you know that the outdoors are more of friendly acquaintances than BFFs so coming up here I had no idea what these little annoying bugs were. I assumed they were little gnats, oh how annoying! JOKES ON ME they were black flies and they FEAST on me. They must have a special taste for ginger blood because they find me and settle in for a 65 course meal courtesy of my body. I thought those big buggers (horseflies) were black flies but nooooooooooooooo. So anyways, I learned quickly last year that I needed heavy duty bug spray if I wanted to keep my blood volume at a reasonable level. I bought the best bug spray I could justify spending money on (I'm afraid of bleeding out from bug bites but not so afraid that I'll spend tons of money, I'm still cheap). Before a teepee fire one night last summer I sprayed myself liberally from head to toe and set out for the evening. When I got there I put my sunglasses on my eyes (they were previously resting upon my head) and noticed that they were cracked all over!!! THE BUG SPRAY HAD CRACKED MY SUNGLASSES. I put that on my peaches and cream skin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Powerful stuff. I didn't get bitten but was the tradeoff worth it? Talk to me in 30 years when I am dying of bug-spray related diseases...

Anyways, this week was lovely, I taught my unit on fractions, we wrote some acrostic poetry on "Spring", went on our monthly swimming trip and made our cookbooks (how to make a ham sandwich).

OH BIG NEWS. The new Wemindji Community Store opened this week!! It is GORGEOUS and fabulous and amazing and everything you could ask for in a grocery store. The prices were even (temporarily) low which was exhilarating! It is much bigger and easier to get around in than the previous set up in the Community Hall. Its also great for the community to get back its hall where lots of community events used to take place. The Grade 1 classes went on a field trip (which I participated in) on opening day and that was pretty fun. They have tons of variety which was refreshing and as long as they keep that up I don't see much need for IGA (although the prices are still better on IGA).

Today Monika, Carmen and Raquel and I went to Radisson to get in one last shopping trip before the end of school. We needed to go to the craft store and spend our entire paycheques and of course fit in a little meal at Chez Mika. It was a gorgeous day for a drive, clear skies, 20 degrees and awesome company. We stopped on the side of the road to build an inukshuk but then we saw a snake and my hair got caught in a tree so we bailed on that idea. We also saw the butt of a moose on the access road which was pretty awesome!

Anyways, this week is going to be a busy one as Grade 2 begins the first round of Cree School Board standardized math testing. They will have Cree Language next week and English Language the following week. I also have CAMS math testing to finish up as well as my last round of PM Benchmarks all to do in 4 weeks!!!! Last year it was quite overwhelming for both teacher and students so this year with a different group of kids with different abilities I am hoping it will go a little more smoothly. I am planning on spending the ENTIRE day in the classroom tomorrow as I make some fixes on the student's paper mache masks we started a couple of weeks ago (filling in holes before we paint!) and planning my units on multiplication and division (noticed I still haven't planned them since the last time I wrote? UGH).

My sister Eryl, a **trained** writer has started a blog which I encourage you all to visit and read! She writes like an adult and actually makes words go together like they are supposed to and DOESN'T abuse the exclamation mark or CAPITALS FOR EMPHASIS. So if you are in for a soulful, inner-peace-inspiring read, head on over to http://erylmccaffrey.wordpress.com/ !!