The Little Darlings

I thought I'd post a few pictures of the "fur-babies." (Isn't that such a weird name? But I see people use it all the time online. Go figure! )

Edgar loves to nap on the floor in the office.

He definitely believes he's a person. He loves to sit on our laps!

It's hard to get a good picture of Eva, so this is what you get.

Claiborne got a haircut recently, and he's enjoying his new-do.

He's always so happy with short hair!

See? He's completely comfortable!

And hopefully in a year or so, the pictures I post will be of much smaller cats! Their diets seem to be working...both cats have lost a little weight already. Thank goodness they aren't begging so much anymore either. I don't know how many more 5AM wake-up headbutts I could take!

I'm Going Back!

I have been officially accepted to graduate school! I'll be starting my Master of Arts in Education to become certified as a reading specialist this fall. This will mean that in addition to teaching in the general ed classroom, I will be able to teach reading classes, as well as providing technical assistance to other teachers.

Everyone knows what a book nerd I am, so the idea of working with books and reading all the time is very exciting to me! I do still want to teach in a regular classroom for several years too, but teaching children to read is such a key part of early childhood education that I think this degree will definitely be useful immediately.

Oh, and another good thing about it is that I shouldn't have to pay for much of it at all! Since Jason's in the Army, I am eligible for a spouse tuition assistance program. All you have to do is set up an account online and talk to a career counselor, then they send the money to the school. Good deal, huh?

So, yippee!

As for the job hunt, I...........am..........still...........waiting. There are some possibilities out there, but these school districts are in NO rush to make any decisions! So, I continue to wait and call occasionally (without being a bother, of course!). Hopefully I'll get "The Call" soon!

I'd really like to start planning for next year, since I have way too much free time on my hands these days, but that's hard to do when you don't know where you're going to end up or what age of children you'll be teaching! Oh well. I guess I'll try to enjoy this time while I have it.

Right now it's time to enjoy folding some laundry. Let the fun begin!

Home Improvements (It is better, right?)

This took forever!

Jason and I have been working hard to make improvements to our yard. Jason's taken a liking to trying to grow things in pots, so as you can probably see in this picture, we now have pots covering a lot of our patio. We added mulch around the edge of the patio; the grass there was sparse at best in most areas, and there is a place that floods right in the middle. Jason is going to build a little "bridge" over the mulch directly in front of the door going out into the yard. It may not look like we've done much, but this is actually the product of several weekends' work.

Along the side of the house, we've planted strawberries. They've been growing well and producing berries, however we haven't gotten to eat any of them because some nasty white slug things keep eating them before we can pick them!

R.I.P

Originally, we planted azaleas on either side of the area where the bridge will go. They died. (Remember how I said one area flooded? Yeah, it still does when it rains a lot, even with the mulch.) So, after the drowning of the azaleas, we decided to plant these rhododendrons instead. Of course, we failed to notice when we purchased these beauties that they are low-light plants. Since they were planted out in the open, all that's left is burnt-to-a-crisp twigs. Oops...

Edgar always enjoys our pursuit of lawn perfection, because he gets to play with all kinds of cool new toys, like this giant piece of mulch he discovered. I'm glad someone gets to have fun!

We also bought a new grill, since we left our old one in El Paso when we moved. Jason was determined to get a charcoal grill (I think he's scared of the gas ones, though he claims it's just because it's annoying to fill the tank). At least it seems to be functional and we haven't destroyed it yet.

So, there you have it. Our new-and-improved backyard paradise. It's a little better, right?

The Imagination Library

While reading an article online, I discovered a wonderful program that was created by Dolly Parton to promote literacy in young children. She calls it the "Imagination Library."

Taken from the website (http://www.dollysimaginationlibrary.com/), here is a little background on the program:

In 1996, Dolly Parton launched an exciting new effort to benefit the children
of her home county in east Tennessee. Dolly wanted to foster a love of
reading among her county’s preschool children and their families. She wanted
children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can
create. Moreover, she could insure that every child would have books,
regardless of their family’s income.

So she decided to mail a brand new, age appropriate book each month to every child under 5 in Sevier County. With the arrival of every child’s first book, the classic The Little Engine That Could ™, every child could now experience the joy of finding their very own book in their mail box. These moments continue each month until the child turns 5—and in their very last month in the program they receive Look Out Kindergarten Here I Come.

I think that is such a cool idea! Any community can adopt this program now. (On the website you can see if your area participates). The community raises the money to pay for the books through donations, and they are sent to all the children in the area under the age of 5. It costs about $28/child/year to cover the books and the postage. What a great way to promote reading and a love of books from a young age!

In my class, there are lots of children that don't have any books at home. Head Start sends home a bundle of books to any child whose parent actually admits to this (it's a question on our first home visit interview), but they are old, second-hand books....usually not the greatest. With this program, the kids get beautiful, brand-new books that are chosen by a board of early childhood experts to help build a solid foundation for the children and prepare them for school.

I think it's a fabulous idea! Kudos to you, Dolly!

A Father-Son Weekend Project

If you know Jason and me at all, you know we both love to read. Because of this hobby of ours, we have a lot of books. I mean A LOT of books. Currently, all of our books are still in the boxes from our move. This is for two reasons.

1.) From moving so frequently in the past six years, two of our three
bookcases were barely hanging on after this last move, so we got rid of
them. This leaves us with only one small bookcase.

2.) Jason insisted that he wanted to unpack the books so
he could catalog them into a spreadsheet to keep track of them. Since he
buys such boring nonfiction books, he can't remember which ones he has and
doesn't have, which makes it difficult to buy more books.

Of course, he kept putting this off, and we didn't have anywhere to put them anyway, so we still have all the books in boxes. They take up quite a bit of space, as you can imagine.

Anyway, last weekend when we went to Columbia, Jason and his dad worked really hard to build us some bookcases. They got three of them built and they are beautiful. I got a couple pictures (not very good ones though. I am so horrible about taking pictures!

My father-in-law, Keith, working on the bookcases

Two of them bolt together to look like one

They turned out so nicely, much better than the ones we found at the store! (Not to mention WAY cheaper!) Now, Jason and I will stain them to match our other living room furniture and then we can FINALLY unpack our books!

A Graduation

Hickman High School Class of 2009

My youngest sister, Shannon, graduated from high school on Saturday, so Jason and I went to Columbia for the weekend. (I believe she's the blonde without her cap on in the picture above. Notice the beach ball....the teachers literally took about 30 of those from the graduates during the course of the ceremony!)

It's hard to believe that Shan is out of high school now and starting college this summer. Seems like only yesterday she looked like this:

However, she's grown up a lot since then! She's a very talented photographer, and she's studying digital media in school. (I'm honestly not really sure what that means...other than it has to do with computers??? But I'm sure she's good at it.) I have a feeling she'll do something pretty neat with her life.

Congrats sis! You made it!