Belles of the Ball

We recently attended Jason's Annual Training Conference for recruiters.  This year it was held in Indianapolis, which was much better than Decatur, IL last year! ATC is typically very boring...Jason has to attend classes all day, and while there are classes for wives too, I chose not to attend. This year that worked out just fine though, because our hotel was attached to [insert drum roll here] a MALL!!!   Of course, it turned out that the mall was so ritzy that I didn't buy one single thing there, but it was still fun to have a place to kill some time!

The first night we arrived, there was a big company costume party.  Jason and I had a horrible time coming up with costume ideas, and we ended up trying to put together an eighties look.  (Please note that Jason REFUSED to buy a pre-made costume....he insisted that we had to put together our own. Thus the struggle.)  Anyway, I think I ended up wearing some things that were at least eighties-esque, while Jason ended up wearing....I'm still not sure what to call it.  There are really no words...

Saturday night was the ball, which wasn't too bad.  I rocked my fancy feather-adorned headband (which I bought for less than $5) and some jewelry I got on clearance at JCPenneys.  Jason didn't look half-bad either! 

In the Big Apple (Not to be Confused with the Little Apple!)

Linda, Keith and Jodie's room....this was the big one!!

After all our wedding fun, we headed to the big city for a few days. The train ride from Albany to NYC was nice. We got to sit back and relax for a while, not to mention take in some scenery! When we stepped off the train, however, it was a TOTALLY different story! We were all dragging our luggage through a very busy train station and then out onto an even busier street in the middle of New York City...not an easy task! Our hotel was only a few blocks away, so we were hoofing it. Crossing the street was a rather terrifying experience for my Midwest sensibilities, and left me wishing for the safety of my car, but we managed to make it to the hotel in one piece. After a quick stop at the front desk, we hauled our stuff onto the elevator and up to our room. Our very tiny room. Actually, I was confused about where to go when we stepped out of the elevator...I was facing about five doors only a few feet from where I was standing. I was sure one of them opened up to the hallway and I was busy trying to figure out which one it was when Jason pushed me over to our door. Turns out there are only four rooms per floor!

Times Square

Our time in NYC flew by....three days was not nearly enough, but we did manage to see the main sights. We ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe that first night, and walked through Times Square. The next day, we took a tour of the city, which included a cruise to see the Statue of Liberty. Jason and I ate breakfast in Central Park and spent several hours exploring the Metropolitan Museum of Art, while Linda, Keith, and Jodie visited a wax museum. And on our last evening in the City, we saw Wicked on Broadway, which was completely amazing. I will tell you what was not amazing...the blisters that were ALL over my feet from walking, and the horrible traffic, and the disgusting smells of garbage and sewage in the streets. All in all, our trip to New York was a memorable one, but I am not sure that it is an experience that will ever be repeated!

Posing with the naked man statue (part of an art exhibit)

In the M&M store!

Ground Zero

Jason and Me

All of us on the cruise to the Statue of Liberty (photo taken by "professionals" on the staff! LOL!)

We've Traveled Here, There, and Everywhere!

Wow, this summer has pretty much flown by! Especially since we spent a lot of it out of town.  Our poor dogs have spent a lot of time in the kennel while the kitties have braved it home alone. Right after I finished up the school year, I drove to Georgia to visit Jason for a long weekend. (He was there for an Army school for two months).  Jason graduated just in time to fly to Albany, NY where he was the best man in Justin and Amy's wedding.  I flew up with my in-laws and met him there. It was a beautiful ceremony, and of course it was fabulous to spend some time with some of our best friends!

Husband and Wife!

Jason doing his Best Man duties...and of course he has no clue where to go!

Me and Jas during the couple's dance...not the most flattering expression!

Jason giving his toast.

The happy couple, strutting their stuff!

Jodie, Me and Linda getting in on the action!
 (And me trying to walk and dance at the same time...unsuccessfully!)

A group picture of Justin's "family." :)

After the wedding, we took the train to New York City for a few days.  Pictures and more coming soon!

I'm back...but I'm leaving soon!

Wow.  I know it's been forever since I wrote last. (Seems like I keep saying that!)

I have been enjoying my break so far. Summer is beginning to wind down...there's only about six weeks until I head back to work for trainings and home visits! I'm looking forward to the start of the school year. I have lots of plans for my kiddos.  I can't believe I will have a few of them for the third year this year! It's so much fun to see how much they have all grown over the summer. I miss them a lot. I am also excited to get to work with Laura again..we have a lot of fun together.

We are heading out this weekend on our trip to El Paso to visit our friends who still live there.  I am so excited to see them and be back in Texas for a while.  We have so many good memories there.  We get to stay with Danielle and Ben, and we are all going to head to Ruidoso, NM for the weekend.  It's a ski resort area in the winter, up in the mountains.  We rented a little cabin for our time there.

I will try to update again soon with some of the other things we have done this summer when I get back from El Paso...Justin's wedding, our trip to NYC, stuff we've done to our house, our upcoming move to Fort Riley, etc. Oh, and of course more on our adorable pets! There are so many of them...

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Hooray! My school picture isn't horrifying this year!!!

Another fun week has passed at work! The kiddos have been busy.  To me, one of the best parts of being a teacher is talking to the children.  You never know what they are going to say!  Here are a couple of quotes from the wonderful children in my class:

Conversation during lunch:

Child #1:  "Why is Vance pooping?"

Me: "Well, he couldn't wait until we were done eating, so I said he could go now."

Child #2: "Oh, he's just dropping a deuce.  Mommy always says that! Daddy's in the bathroom dropping a deuce!" **giggles**

A child with a speech impediment during observation by our behavior specialist:

**Child is refusing to sit in circle time**

Me: "You can sit on the rug with your friends or you can sit in a chair."

Child: "Fine! I'm going to shit in a chair!"

Behavior Specialist: "Oh my gosh! Does he curse often?"

Me: "What do you mean? He only said he was going to sit in a chair!"

Next week we're starting our unit on farms in preparation for our visit with Jason and the chickens!

It's a zoo--I mean, FARM--around here!

Ok, so I know it's been FOREVER since I last wrote! Things just got a little hectic between work and taking my master's classes, but since I'm not in school this semester, I have a little more free time at home...hence more time to write.

I'm sure you have probably heard about the special delivery that we had last week. Yes, it's true...there are currently five CHICKENS who have taken up residence on our dining room table.  There were  originally nine of them, but four have already perished. Of course, the cutest one of the bunch died on Saturday night (Furby). We currently have two Easter Eggers and three Barred Rocks left. All of them seem to be healthy and are eating and drinking, so we assume that they are out of the danger zone. 

This is an Easter Egger.  These chickens will lay colored eggs. 

The black colored chickens with the white tufts on their heads are the Barred Rocks. So far, they are very active and noisier than the Easter Eggers.  They run all over the place.

Jason says they should be ready to go outside into the chicken coop (which he hasn't built, of course) in four weeks.  I'm hoping that it will warm up so they can move to the garage before they get big enough to be very messy!

Of course, I am shocked that the cats and Edgar don't seem bothered by the chickens at all. (Nor do they bother the chickens!) I thought for sure Claiborne would be stalking up to the box every chance he got, but he doesn't even go near them.  Edgar is very attentive when the chicks cheep loudly, but other than that, he pretty much ignores them.

Speaking of Edgar, he got a new sweatshirt!

I couldn't resist!!!

So, that's what's going on here in the animal world!

Update on work coming soon!

Santa? Is that you?!!

Home improvement sure does get interesting...

Jason and I have been doing a little remodeling lately. Thanks to my parents, we got a lot of work done in our living room/kitchen/dining room last weekend. This weekend, we are still working to get everything put back together.

Our fireplace has one of those enclosures with the little glass panes. It just so happens that it is gold. NOT my favorite. So Jason and I planned to paint it. Jason wanted to see what the fireplace would look like without the enclosure at all, so he unscrewed it this afternoon. We were standing there admiring the fireplace when we heard some weird noises. INSIDE the fireplace.

Now, Jason tells me pretty much every day that it's almost Christmas. But it's still a little early for Santa to be coming down the chimney. So we were standing there talking about what could be making those noises. Jason noticed that the flue was open, so he got down in front of the fireplace to close it. More flapping noises came from the chimney when he tried to pull the lever, so we thought maybe the wind was blowing it somehow. He started jiggling the lever, and the sounds got louder. Jason laid down to try to look up and make sure the flue was closed, and I started walking to the kitchen. There was a loud crashing noise and Jason screamed...something had fallen out of the chimney into the fireplace...a bird!

The poor thing was terrified (as were we!) and we were trying to figure out what to do. Claiborne was stalking towards the fireplace from the couch and Edgar was trying to hide behind me. There was ash all over the place. The bird couldn't seem to fly back up and out of the chimney, so I told Jason he was going to have to grab it before it got out into the house. He went and got some gloves. I think he was more scared than the poor bird! ("I just know it's going to bite me! It probably has Avian Flu! You'll feel bad when I'm dead!") He had to poke it several times before he finally worked up the nerve the grab it.

Jason cleaning up the ashes before getting our little friend.

Poor little bird...

Be free!

Mission Complete!

That was definitely the highlight of the day! Now I hope we don't get any more birds in there!

I know it's been forever since I wrote on here. I should be able to write a little more often since I only have one class for this eight weeks of school! More about that and my Head Start classes soon!

New Job Jitters

I. Am. Exhausted.

This was the longest week of work EVER. And I am not even getting paid for it! I really wanted to go to all the staff trainings though, and work in my classroom whenever I got the chance. It was nice because I got to know some of the other ladies at work, but it was just plain-ol' tiring!

The maintenance guys were painting the classrooms this week, and they didn't finish until today, which means that we only had today to get our rooms in order. And I was lucky because they finished my room first and everyone helped me move my furniture. The room, however, was a horrible mess, and it took me all day to get it straightened out. I didn't get everything done that I wanted to, but the room is looking decent and is pretty clean now for the most part. I'll finish the rest before school on Monday. (Well, what has to be done anyway. I hope!)

I'm a little nervous. RLCFCC is very different from Head Start...in a good way, but it's a big adjustment for me. The teaching style is pretty different. And, from the very first day of class, there will be practicum students working in the classroom with us for their lab assignment. Yikes! I'm not a bad teacher, but I don't know if I'm good enough to be teaching teachers! This is only my second year, after all. That's what has me worried the most I think...knowing that someone will be there analyzing everything I'm doing. It's stressing me out. And I really want to do well so I get the job.

So this weekend will be spent trying to prepare for Monday. I'm praying it's not a complete and total disaster. But, in the words of my mother, "It can't be any worse than the first week at Head Start!" And I hope she's right!

Pour Some Sugar On Me...

Yikes!!! It's been forever since I posted! Sorry about that, but in my defense, I have actually been sorta busy. Since the last post, I have:

-gone to FOUR doctor's appointments

-subbed THREE times

-gone to a CONCERT

-and lots of other IMPORTANT things that I can't remember right now...

Me and Jason

Jason and I went to a concert at the Verizon Amphitheater in STL, which turned out to be really nice. We had lawn seats, so we just camped out on a blanket during the concert. We went to see Def Leppard, but the opening bands were good too: Cheap Trick and Poison. It was a really fun evening. Of course, my pictures are not good yet AGAIN...just like when we went to see AC/DC, there were no cameras allowed in, forcing me to take pictures on my phone. Which doesn't have a zoom or a flash. Hence the terrible pictures. *Sigh* Next time I am going to sneak a camera in...other people had theirs! I just need to figure where to hide it... Anyway, Def Leppard was AWESOME live, and Poison was really good too! I was disappointed that I wasn't close enough to see Brett Michaels up close, but oh well...I got to see a lot of people dressed up like him! Maybe I can come up with something cool to wear to Crue Fest next month. Hmmm....

This is Def Leppard performing...but I'm sure you could

see that from my awesome photography skills...



The subbing has been great too. The other teachers at the school are great and I'm learning a lot from them. Everyone is so positive there, and you can see how much everyone cares about the kids. A little bit of a change from some of the people at my school. And the results I see in their students are impressive. I'm hoping to use some of what I've learned in my own classroom...who knows, maybe we'll turn this Head Start around yet!

[Blog Note: Sorry for all the crazy formatting....Blogger is not letting me do what I want today! ]

The Waiting Game

"How much of human life is lost in waiting?"

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is a very good question, Mr. Emerson. It seems like a lot of my life is spent waiting for something. Waiting for Jason to come home, waiting to find out where we're moving next, waiting for a doctor's appointment. Right now, it's all about waiting for an interview.

I have applied at 10 different school districts this summer, for multiple positions. And so far I have gotten zero interviews. It's frustrating. And the school districts don't even notify you when you are no longer being considered. Which means you have to call them. Here's how a typical phone call goes:

Me: Hello, I applied for the ____ grade position and I was wondering if you had selected candidates for interviews yet?
Secretary: Oh, no, not yet. We have had so many applicants. It will take us a while to go through all of them. We aren't really sure how we're going to do this. So you can just keep checking back.
Me: Ok, thanks.

After 3-5 similar phone calls over a month's time....

Me: Hello, I applied for the ____ grade position and I was wondering if you had selected candidates for interviews yet?
Secretary: Oh, we filled that position yesterday.
Me: Thank you. Click.

[Note: Yes, multiple school districts have told me that they are unsure how interviews will work. Have they never hired anyone before? Do they not have a set procedure for such things??And why does no one send out rejection letters?! I WANT A REJECTION LETTER!!!]

Anywho, all this waiting for jobs that I don't even get interviews for is getting old. But I really want to work in a "real" school. So I'll keep trying. In fact, I just applied for a job on Friday...

In the morning, I called the school (where the superintendent works because the towns around here are so small that the district office is often just in the school) to make sure someone will be there for me to hand my resume to. After the secretary assures me she'll be there until 3:30, I get everything together and jump in my car to drive out to the school. I was pleased that I found the place easily (you wouldn't believe where some of these schools are hidden) but as I drove through the parking lot I was unsure about where to go. This is the problem with these small districts...there isn't just a central district office where you go in the main door to the counter. Instead, you have to try to find the office of a school which is closed for the summer. Luckily, this school had a big sign on the office, which was in a small building adjacent to the school itself.

I approached the building, carrying my resume, debating what door to go to (there were four choices). I walked up to one with a sign that read "Office". Good choice, huh? But when I pulled on the handle, the door appeared to be locked. Ok. Walk to the next door and repeat the procedure. Locked. Go to the back of the building. The doors have signs saying to use the front door. I head back to the first door, and try it yet again. No luck. I thought about leaving, but I remembered that the secretary promised she would be there, and I knocked loudly on the door.

After a second, I can see a woman coming towards the door, mouthing that it was unlocked and I just needed to press down on the button with my thumb while I opened it. (Well, duh, what did she think I had been doing all this time??) She opened the door for me, and explained all that again. (Maybe I just have incredibly weak thumbs? But I am telling you, that door was not budging and I did understand how to operate it!)

Anyway, I handed her my resume and she recognized me from the phone call to the office earlier. She promised to get my application to the superintendent on Monday and then asked me to be patient because it would take him a while to sort through all the resumes. Great!

And then I headed home. This is how these things go for me. (Although I can usually open the door myself.) I really hope she didn't think I was a total ding-dong. "Uh, Mr. Superintendent, we can't hire this one. She couldn't even figure out how to open the door! She just needed to push that button..."

Or maybe that will make me stand out. You never know! And if I get an interview, I'll make a joke about it. If I can open it successfully by myself that is...

So, here I am, waiting to hear something.

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?