Our Week

Here are the things going on this week as well as some of my thoughts

• Little man has daycamp at the local Y.M..C.A. camp near our house. It has been so much fun and they do some really cool activities. So far he's went swimming twice, went on a pontoon boat ride, went in a canoe, read stories, sang songs, made GO.OP, dug for hidden treasure, played with Play,-doh, made a bead necklace, and went on a pony ride, just to name some things! He's having a great week and it's nice for us to get a break from him sometimes too, change of scenery is nice sometimes for everyone.



• R had his interview on Tuesday and it went well, but like I mentioned before they ALL seem to go well. They aren't done with first round interviews until next THURSDAY! (why, o why do they have to take FOREVER???) So the earliest we would hear anything would be probably the 10th of August.



• I'm so ready to be done babysitting but we need the money so bad that I'm fortunate that I have this opportunity, though, several times per day have to restrain myself from beating my head into the wall. The little baby just cries all the time. The mom is pumping and giving breastmilk and the baby just has gas ALL the time. He just screams for long periods of time and my patience is running really low mixing that into our crappy situation, it's a recipe for disaster!



• On to our crappy situation. We don't have enough money to pay our bills. What are we supposed to do? Well actually it's R's bills that we don't have money for. I'm pissed because all summer he could have been working a minimum wage job to prepare for our upcoming situation but he didn't. He applied at minimum wage jobs but I think he should have beat the pavement a little harder trying to find something! I don't know how much longer I can put up with this situation. I waver between trying to stick up for him and being so utterly pissed off at him. It's a really crappy situation to be in.



• I hate the government. I've been trying to get ahold of someone for the past three days because obviously since I got a job the kids aren't going to qualify for the current health insurance that they have. I need to call and explain our new situation and probably fill out a new application for another program. However, if I fill out the new application without talking to someone then the application will automatically be denied because I have another active policy. Just a big run around :(

• I finished reading this book this week and it was really good but it also reminded me that things aren't really that bad and all that really matters is family and love. It definitely put things in perspective because one of the characters had cancer and she was only 31. I'm 29, it scared me. My mantra in life is "things could always be worse." I guess I really should feel VERY fortunate that all we're dealing with is a lack of money for a short period of time. All in all I'm picking myself up once again by the bootstraps and trying to plug along to brighter days, I mean our situation will get back to "normal" one of these days, at least that's what I'm hoping for!

Have a great weekend!!!!!!

Some Good News

So it took me almost a week to be able to come up with a happy post, just one of "those" weeks I guess, but here goes nothing. R got another interview for this upcoming Tuesday. I'm very happy but I have very low expectations. It would be a great job if he got it but he would have to move because it's 2 1/2 hours away from our house. He has to take a portfolio which I don't think any of the interviews he's been on has asked him for so maybe that will be something that will set him apart from the rest of the candidates. He has some great portfolio pieces that visually look awesome.

Another happy thing that happened was I got my insurance info for my new job. I'm going to get a PPO, I've never had a PPO in my life, always HMO so that's exciting. I'm also excited because I get dental and optical so that's great. Also, my insurance starts on September 1, yay!!! When I taught down in FL I had to wait like 3 months for my insurance to kick in so this is awesome.

I'll be writing again soon!

Annoyances

I know this is probably going to be annoying for you to read so you may just want to skip this one because I'm in a crabby mood and therefore this might be a buzz kill. There are several things that are annoying me right now and I just want to get them off my chest. So here goes nothing.......

• My husband....he was literally man of the year last week. He was fun, upbeat, loving, like just downright perfect and now he's just the opposite. It's pissing me off because he's taking everything I say the wrong way and just totally PMSing. I swear men get PMS too!!!!! We had a break from Little man last week so we only had Baby M and then the baby I babysit so we had a little less responsibility, but he was just perfect.


• Little man. He is so mouthy and disrespectful sometimes. I'm getting really sick of the whining, talking back, and rudeness. When did my child turn into such a brat? It's not just a phase because it's been going on forever. It really pissed me off that my mom kept saying, "he didn't act this way for me last week." He got one on one undivided attention, which is really hard for us to do because we have a lot of things to do during the day and grandma can devote 100% of her time to spoiling him. It makes me feel like a bad parent though.


• R's lack of a job. Though it's been nice to have more family time together and raise our children throughout the past 10 months I really think that we'd do better if we both had jobs and the kids were in preschool/daycare. I just feel like we're better parents sometimes when we have that structure and daily schedule that's the same Monday-Friday.


• Baby M's lack of napping. Little man napped 2 hours two times per day and did that until about 18 months. From there he transitioned to one 2-3 hour long nap. Baby M has decided that one nap suits him just fine though he's totally overtired and sooooo cranky every afternoon.
  
• My teeth. My gums are disappearing and they are really starting to get sensitive. The dentist said that it's most likely because of my braces that I had in high school. I'm also getting discolored spots on my teeth, also likely from my braces. Aren't braces supposed to help? I never knew that they had so many negative side effects along with them.

• My messy house. I can clean it a million times and it just gets dirty in no time! I bet I sweep the kitchen floor at least 3 times per day. It doesn't help that our main entrance from the garage is right in our kitchen/dining room. It just gets so darn annoying. I struggle with how to keep the house clean through out the day but also devote tons of time to the kids.

Thanks for letting me get these off my chest. I promise there will be a happier post coming soon!

Some Questions Answered

1. Will I have my own desk/space where I can land and keep my stuff? They already explained that they don't have extra classroom space so I will be "pushing in" to the fourth grade classrooms and meeting with kids at tables in their own room which is totally fine with me but I am a little nervous about not having anywhere where I can store and organize my things. I am going to have my own desk/cubicle in the back of one of the fourth grade teacher's classrooms. I didn't get to see my space or meet that teacher because she was the only one that wasn't there when we planned.
2. What will my schedule look like? Since I won't have my own class per say will I get the same types of lunch and breaks during the day as a regular classroom teacher would have? It seems like my schedule is going to consist of about 6 hours total in the fourth grade classrooms with a lunch and break in there somewhere. I am mainly going to be focusing on math and reading and I'll get my caseload of students and then need to get with the teachers to see when they are doing what so I can plan my schedule. It seemed like I'd be getting lunch at the same time as the other fourth grade teachers but I'll have to wait until late August to get more information on what my specific schedule will look like.
3. What other responsibilities will I have? Some schools have specials teachers and other staff members do bus duty or morning/afternoon monitoring. This I did not discuss with the teachers because I totally forgot.
4. What is orientation going to consist of? I do know that I have a week long orientation starting August 17th for teachers who are new to the school's curriculum. I feel like I should be exempt from new teacher stuff since I've taught for 4 years but this is one exception because I have no experience with their unique curriculum. After that week I'll be going to the school for two weeks for things there but I have no idea what yet. The one fourth grade teacher told me that the new teacher orientation really felt like a cult and she was pretty freaked out after going so I'm just going to have to get through it somehow and pray they don't start passing out cups of kool-aid.
5. How many sick/vacation days will I receive and what will the benefits be like? She mentioned pay, bonuses and health insurance, but does that include optical and dental? Is there retirement? I get 10 sick days which includes personal days but I earn one every month so I only start out with 1. They still didn't have any information on the benefits so I'll be getting the booklet in the mail along with the teacher handbook as soon as they are ready. I'm still not sure about optical and dental I forgot to ask but there is retirement.
6. How many other new teachers will there be at the school this year? I think every new school I've went to there were quite a few new teachers so I wasn't alone with learning all the new things. My first job there were like over 10 new teachers and my second job had quite a few, though I wasn't new to the county so I didn't have all the "new teacher" crap. It looks like there's about 6 people that are going to be at the New Teacher thing with me from my school so at least there is a small group of us!

I'll write more later about my planning session and the school calendar.

The New Job

This morning at 8:30 I'm going to the school so I can sign all the necessary paperwork for my new job. I wasn't nervous about the job interview but I'm a bit nervous about this, not sure why. Maybe because it's a contract and that means that I'm under an agreement to work there, which means that if a better opportunity comes along then things are more complicated (like I'm sure that's not going to happen but I suppose there's a slim chance) I now have to go into my online applications for the school districts and choose the "yes" option when it asks if I'm under contract at a school.

When the assistant principal called me and offered me the job I was so excited that I didn't have clear questions ready to ask. Looking back what I should have done was sit down and generate several questions "just in case." I didn't want to put the cart in front of the horse though so I didn't have any questions ready and therefore, have a lot of unanswered questions right now. Though I'm sure that I'll get a lot of information today when I go to the school.

As of right now here is an explanation of my job......I'll be a fourth grade intervention specialist. Every grade level has three teachers and then an intervention specialist. My job consists of going into the fourth grade classrooms and working on several different types of interventions with the below level kids who aren't labeled as special ed. but are way below grade level and need a lot of help. I will be working closely with all the fourth grade teachers and I'll have access to their lesson plans on a weekly basis so that I can develop lessons for the kids I'm going to be working with. This is very data driven so I'm sure my merit pay increase after the year is up will totally be determined on how well these kids score on tests. That was FL in a nutshell so I'm very used to being driven by data, I'm not too worried about that.

Here are some of my questions that I have right now:

• Will I have my own desk/space where I can land and keep my stuff? They already explained that they don't have extra classroom space so I will be "pushing in" to the fourth grade classrooms and meeting with kids at tables in their own room which is totally fine with me but I am a little nervous about not having anywhere where I can store and organize my things.
• What will my schedule look like? Since I won't have my own class per say will I get the same types of lunch and breaks during the day as a regular classroom teacher would have?
• What other responsibilities will I have? Some schools have specials teachers and other staff members do bus duty or morning/afternoon monitoring.
• What is orientation going to consist of? I do know that I have a week long orientation starting August 17th for teachers who are new to the school's curriculum. I feel like I should be exempt from new teacher stuff since I've taught for 4 years but this is one exception because I have no experience with their unique curriculum. After that week I'll be going to the school for two weeks for things there but I have no idea what yet.
• How many sick/vacation days will I receive and what will the benefits be like? She mentioned pay, bonuses and health insurance, but does that include optical and dental? Is there retirement?
• How many other new teachers will there be at the school this year? I think every new school I've went to there were quite a few new teachers so I wasn't alone with learning all the new things. My first job there were like over 10 new teachers and my second job had quite a few, though I wasn't new to the county so I didn't have all the "new teacher" crap.

I have to get in the shower so I can get ready to head to the school so I'll probably post again when I get a few of these questions answered.

Ring, Ring, Ring

I GOT THE JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Today is our 4 year anniversary and I could not have asked for a better present!!! They called right around lunch time and offered me the 4th grade intervention teacher job. I'm just so happy :)

Waiting by the Phone

I remember in college waiting by the phone a few times because I was dying for the boy I'd met the night or two before to call me. I never wanted to be "that girl" because let's face it, I didn't "need" a man in order to make me happy, but I will admit there were a few times that I would sit in the near vicinity of the phone staring and hoping that it would suddenly be that guy on the other end asking me out. Oh how times have changed, now I'm waiting for a school to call and offer me a job. I'm trying to just go on with my day and not think about it, but it's hard. I haven't had an interview in 6 years and I really am hoping that the phone rings with good news.

The interview went very well! There are 2 positions open (I had only known about the 5th grade position prior to me arriving at the interview) and I interviewed for both of them, though they seemed more interested in me for the 4th grade intervention teacher because of my experience in FL schools. I was interviewed by the assistant principal and the intervention specialist, both were very nice. They had me tell about my teaching experience, how I determined who needed interventions, which programs I was using, my classroom behavior plan and just other odds and ends questions. I'm pretty interested in the intervention specialist job because I feel that it would be a little less work because I wouldn't have my own classroom. I would be focusing more on teaching lessons to under performing children and working with the classroom teachers. I wouldn't have my own classroom, I'd be doing push in where I would be meeting with the students in their classroom and working very closely with all the fourth grade teachers.

So they told me that they wanted to have a decision made by the end of the week and would call and let me know one way or the other. I guess I can be happy that it's Wednesday and that means that I should only have to wait a couple of days to get an answer. At the end of the interview I asked if I could have a tour of the school so I also got a tour from the Parent Liaison and got a little more face time with him. I'm really hoping that I made a last impression and did what I needed to do to get this job!

Tomorrow's the Big Day!

It's my first interview in 6 years! I have spent a great deal of time preparing for this interview, reading over the school's website, curriculum, studying the state 5 grade teaching standards, preparing questions, and organizing all my teaching credentials. Sunday we took a family drive to the school and I clocked the time and miles. It's roughly 20 miles and took about 25 minutes. I will probably leave around 7:45am tomorrow because my interview is at 8:30am. I know that I'll be interviewing with 4 people so that is going to be different because I think the most I've interviewed with has been 2 at once. I'm surprisingly not that nervous, just more wondering what it's going to be like. I'm wearing my black skirt suit with a blue button up shirt underneath and I'm going to wear my hair pulled back. Let's hope that I get this job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! R also has his interview tomorrow so I'm wishing him the best of luck too! Oh and tomorrow is my parent's anniversary and ours is on Thursday. It would be a sweet anniversary present!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I GOT AN INTERVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got a call today from a charter school that I had applied at back at the beginning of the summer. I remember getting an e-mail about the fifth grade opening and just throwing my stuff together and having R mail it one day. When my cell rang today and I didn't recognize the number I had a feeling it was a job interview request and I was right. There is only one position open and the woman only had one time to offer me so I will be interviewing at 8:30am on Wednesday, July 8th she also mentioned that she had the other days filled up, so it seems as though I'm up against several candidates. I haven't been on an interview in like 5 years so I'm busy preparing for questions they may ask me as well as learning as much as I can about this interesting curriculum that they use. I'm praying that this works out because we really need this! I'm just so happy that I've been given this opportunity!

Wonderful Things

Tuesdays just seem to be bad days overall. R and I think maybe no one wants to drop bad news on someone on a Monday because Mondays are thought of to be bad days anyway so they wait until Tuesday. I feel it's only fair now that I've gotten all the things that suck out of the way that I move on and list all the wonderful things that are going on right now :)

• Baby M will be 10 months old tomorrow and he has the cutest belly laugh and it pretty much always happy. He has almost started sleeping through the night. Half of the time he'll sleep from about 7:00pm wake up for a bottle at 11:30pm and then sleep until 6:30am., but there are still nights on occasion that he wakes up between 2:30 and 3:30.
• We're loving summer! The weather has been pretty great with the exception of this week but even this week has been a nice break from the 90 degree heat that we had, though I love 90 degree heat.
• My flowers and R's garden are doing pretty well. We did some major repositioning of plants this spring and it's really improved the appearance of our yard. R planted a kick butt garden and we are hoping for a wonderful crop harvest come late summer, early fall.
• We got a brand new huge garbage container on wheels for our trash pick up days which is nice to have something brand new that will fit our three bags of trash per week, which is going to dwindle even more because we can recycle more plastics now. Before we could only recycle 1's and 2's and now we can recycle 1-7's, yay!!!!!! I just love recycling, it makes me feel so good. I know I'm pathetic for being excited about a new garbage can but hey, we don't get a lot of new things anymore so it's fun to get something new for free.
• I'm still pumping and getting a little milk so Baby M is getting breastmilk still which is exactly 5 months longer than Little man so I'm excited that at least I didn't lose total supply with my crazy schedule and not having the ability to pump when needed.
• I just finished Ne.w Moo.n and have started Eclip.se and am just loving this series. I didn't start reading it because I had myself convinced that I didn't like this genre, but something about Mey.er's writing style has been totally captivating. I also finished another book while waiting for Eclip.se to come in at the library, The Be.ach Hou.se by Jan.e Gree.n which was really great too! I just LOVE, LOVE reading!
• I get to schedule tutor hours early this week, today at 12pm so hopefully I should be able to get some online tutoring in next week. The summer is really slow but every three weeks I get to schedule early so I can usually get some hours for the following week :)
• I have a three day week this week babysitting so that's a nice break. The baby is really good and basically just sleeps all the time so things have been going pretty well.
• I've started running again and it feels really great!
• I've organized the pantry, junk drawer, hall closet, Little man's closet, my bins of bills and other papers that I've been saving, and some files. It feels so great to reorganized things so that the space doesn't feel cluttered and messy!
• I've had time to cook since I've been off for the summer so we've been having yummy lunches and lots of grilled food with homemade side dishes and desserts. Oh and we must not forget all the fruit salad I've been making, I heart summer fruit!!!!!
• Free strawberries! The people I babysit for have a huge garden with tons of strawberry plants and they've given us about 4-5 free quarts of strawberries from their garden!!!!

Well that's my list for right now. We are still hoping for the phone to ring about that job in Arlingt.on, VA but if not, hopefully we other good news about other jobs.