Summer Begins

Summer school ended this past Thursday so I can finally begin my summer vacation. I will have three weeks of summer before we have to go back for pre service. Summer school was a breeze and I really enjoyed just teaching math. The kids made some great gains and I feel like most of them really are ready for 5th grade math :)

I'm going to fully enjoy my three weeks that I have left of my summer. We're going to Sou.th Carol.ina from the 10th-16th to visit my brother. My mom is taking Little man and myself so that should be a fun time! I'm really hoping to relax and get rejuvenated for the school year. I'm really starting to freak out about all the work that I have to do so I'm really trying to get some planning and stuff out of the way right now.

Last week the two other fourth grade teachers and myself got together to meet and just discuss stuff. We are all new and are all pretty unsure of the upcoming year. I'm not sure if I've disclosed details or not but we have a teacher that is coming from Kindergarten and one that's coming down from 6th grade math intervention and then myself. In addition the intervention teacher that's taking my job has yet to be hired. I am really pretty ticked about that because I really wanted to meet the person and hand them the reading intervention program that we are going to be co teaching together so that later on this summer we could actually get together for a planning session. It's not going to do any good to try to plan before the person has had time to delve into the program and just look it over. I'm not planning on going back to school until I absolutely HAVE too because I've been there for the past month.

So far it's been a really great summer but I'm looking forward to having some time off where I don't have to go to work!

Success!!

I had my first scrapbooking get together yesterday and it went great. It was for my aunts, cousins, and grandma. They had a great time and it was so fun to see their creative sides come out. My aunt is even going to get started with scrapbooking and I am so excited. The rest of my family is going to begin getting their photos organized and that's awesome too! We actually had the event to keep my aunt busy while my uncle and cousin got her surprise 50th birthday party ready. Then when she left the get together everyone piled in their cars and raced over to their house to get there before she arrived. It's amazing that people don't arrive to a "surprise" birthday party on time!! There were tons of people that got there after the surprise. Not a time when fashionable late is really in fashion!!

I haven't blogged much about running lately but my ankle is almost back to normal and things are going really well. R ran a 5K yesterday and took first place for his age group so I'm so proud of him!!!!!!!!!!! I did speedwork tonight and ran my personal best lap at 1 minute and 45 seconds, too bad I can't keep that pace up for all my laps!!! R was very proud of me and helped me a lot with my form. The greatest thing is that my lap times kept getting better the more I ran, which usually isn't the case. I am loving the way my body is feeling from running and probably am hooked for life!!!!!!

Well I have to get to bed because despite it being Labor Day tomorrow I am going to be busy doing school work due to my heavy work load this semester! I just finished my last assignment for this week a few minutes ago and now tomorrow starts a new week. Half of the battle is just time management, thank God for my planner! Well I am whipped so I'm off to bed. I hope everyone takes it easy tomorrow :o)

Busy!!!

It's been so long since I've written! I've actually started many posts but then something has come up and I just never posted. The water situation is temporarily fixed, we needed a new pump. They didn't have the size that we needed so we have a smaller size in now and it's getting replaced to the bigger size. I'm not sure how much it's going to be yet because we don't have the final product. Apparently though the pump was shot and in really bad shape and I can hardly believe it was one night that made it that bad. I think the sprinkler situation sped up the process a little faster but it was inevitable that we'd need a new one sooner or later.

On to the next piece of business.........R got a call from a job!!! The bad news is it was last Wednesday and they have been playing telephone tag since then. He called again today and left a message so hopefully she'll call back. It's not his first choice but hey it's a job. It's also in an area that we weren't really keen on, but again, beggars can't be choosers. We'll see what comes of that. I haven't heard anything, but was accosted at the local football game by the elementary and high school principals to get signed up to sub teach. They were definitely begging me by the end of the night, apparently there's a sub shortage. I'm going to seriously consider it, but I need to find out where we are going to be. If R would get that job it would be 2 hours from here so I wouldn't be able to do it. I don't want to pay the money and get signed up until I'm sure it will work out.

Next, I started three online master's classes today so that's going to keep me really, really busy!!! I'm trying to get organized today and come up with a plan for time management. I woke up at 6am this morning as I will every morning from now on because I need to have time before Little Man gets up to take care of shower, breakfast, etc... I also can get e-mail and blogs read along with checking my "to do" list :o) It worked out very well and I just have to be sure that I don't stay up too late so I'll actually be able to get up in the mornings.

Lastly, I have my first scrapbooking get together this Saturday with all my extended family (grandma, aunts, and cousins) so I'm pretty excited about that. I have to find some time this week to get everything set up and go through my trial run of my presentation. Hopefully I'll get some orders and I can start getting my family into organizing and preserving their photos!!! We are having it at my house so at least I won't have to try to pack everything up and take it somewhere.

Little man just woke up from nap so I have to get going. I'm glad I got to catch up!!

In a Funk

Aunt Flo began right as I was posting my last blog, funny I guess. I've just been feeling off all week. R has been gone since early Tuesday morning and things have been more hectic than I thought. I scheduled online tutoring hours not really thinking about the fact that he wasn't going to be here to help with Little Man and then on top of that I've had my nose buried in Little Woman all week long and I still have 200 pages to read. My four to five page paper is due Sunday night at 11:59pm and I wanted to have the book completed by today so I could focus on the paper. Well it's just not going to happen. I've been reading at pretty much every free moment that Little man is napping or down for the night. It's just a long ass book.

Luckily tomorrow my mom is not working and we don't have anything going on. Running has fallen by the wayside this week and I'm feeling really bad about it. I have to get my ass up to the track at the high school tomorrow morning and do my five mile speed workout. For some reason I'm nervous about going up there alone. It's open to the public and at my old high school but I don't know. R went to the track on campus where his conference is and did his workout today so I'd better stop making excuses and get my butt up there tomorrow!!!!!!!! If he can work it into his busy schedule in a strange city I sure as hell can fit it in!

So back to my Little Women paper, I have to write about a theme in the book. I chose poverty vs. wealth, not sure why I chose that, but of the options that were recommended that seemed to appeal to me the most. Maybe it's more obvious too when they talk about poor people and wealthy people and describe various things throughout the book. Up until now I thought that I had read this book before but now that I am rereading it, I don't think I ever got through it. I did watch the movie though and maybe I counted that??? The prof for this class is the worst, maybe not in person but she is online. To me if someone is going to teach an online class, they should be online checking their e-mail and responding to students fairly often since that's our only means of communication with this woman. I have yet to receive a response to a question/concern before just pulling my hair out and doing what I think is right. There was a book that I couldn't find that was required to do an assignment. I e-mailed her THREE times and finally got an e-mail back stating that she was going to address my concern through a class e-mail later that morning.....SHE NEVER DID!!!!!!!!!! I finally had to get another version of the book and attempt the assignment hoping that she would accept it. She was the same prof who I e-mailed requesting the book list and she posted the book list after reading my e-mail and responded back that she posted the book list awhile ago. She did it the same day she read my e-mail!!!!!!!!

On to more interesting things.....shopping!!!! I got some great deals at Old Navy today. I love the summer pj's for Little man that are separate cotton shorts and tops, fit very snug, and come in cute little prints. I guess they are normally $14.50 a pair or 2 for $25 which I think is outrageous!!!!! I would never pay that much because they are just pj's!!!!! Anyway I got two pairs for him today for $14!!!! I also got two colored shirts (plain, scoop neck, nothing on the front) for $10!!!!!! I was quite happy with my bargain shopping. Oh and on the shopping note I started making friends and finally broke my way into a conversation with some of the other moms at swimming today because the topic was shopping and I'm hoping to maybe make some friends. They were talking about how great the outlet malls are and telling me what good buys they got. I think I'm going to try that for Little mans next season of clothes. They have all the good stores (Gap, Children's Place, Gymboree, etc...) and it's more reasonable then paying full price. Sales are also my favorite so I'm keeping my eye open now for clothes for the future. I think I could safely buy 4's an know they would fit next summer. I mean you can't pass up buys for $2 and $3.

We still haven't heard from any potential employers requesting interviews :o( Every night I pray that the next day will yield a phone call from the university requesting R for an interview. He's been gone all week so I thought maybe something would happen while he was gone, nothing. I found quite a few positions open this week but none of them are remotely close to where he is applying. I thought I would apply anyway and maybe get some interviewing practice. I know good things come to those who wait!!!! I just keep telling myself to be positive and patient. I talked with my old principal today because I needed him new address and phone number because he moved to Georgia and I need to list him as a reference. He's doing okay but sounds like it's going to take some time to adjust. He's such a nice guy I hope that things work out for him. He told me that if things don't work out up here I could always move to GA and he'd give me a job, haha. No more long distance moving for me!!!!!!!!!! Although we are pretty much still packed, haha. Okay so there it is....one long update :o) Hope you enjoy!

Homesick and Rejected

I'm really missing Florida right now, or maybe just the feeling of having a life that didn't impede on someone else. Living with my parents is so challenging. My mom is very critical of everything and makes snotty comments here and there to get her points across. I feel like R and I have been pulling more than our weight around here by cooking, cleaning, having a garage sale, running errands, etc... Yet my mom never fails to micro manage every freaking little thing. I ignored it for a couple weeks and now it's really getting to me. She's very judgemental and feels that if people aren't doing things her way then they are doing them wrong. I don't eat enough fruits and vegetables or R needs to plant his garden at a certain time, the list goes on and on. I feel bad for R because it's mostly the kitchen and cooking that he catches heat from her about. He cooks awesome and his method is different than most, he piles dishes and cleans them when he's done. It was hard for me to get used to, but it's his way and who am I to judge, well she's underfoot loading the dishes into the dishwasher because she "can't stand having dishes piled in the sink" I've learned to pick my battles. I used to fault my father for being gone so much but I'm sure it's just because he can't stand to be around her. She's borderline rude making her opinions known and speaking her mind. I miss having a place of our own and doing things the way that works for us. It hits me at weird times that FL isn't our home anymore and that we are home. I just start randomly crying.

On another note I got a rejection letter from a school district today. I applied for a first grade position in the beginning of June and I didn't even get an interview. The job market is so bad here and they can been so picky about exactly who they want. They get over 500 applications for one job opening. I used to complain that I never heard anything from these jobs that I was applying for but now that I got a letter I think I like it better not getting anything. I think that was my first rejection. It was pretty disappointing. Up until now I think I was thinking in the back of my mind that I would get a job, either by luck or a connection, but now I'm thinking that maybe I'm going to be unemployed and that's scary. I thought I would be okay with it but after thinking about living here for months and months I'm really sweating not getting employment and moving on with our life.

I start class again on Monday so at least I'll have something to devote my time to in the evenings and at night. I wish that I had my own space in the house where I could sit and do my work away from everyone, alone. I start my second class on July 2, so then I'll be very busy! Which reminds me I need to order my books. Well I guess I'll do that now.

The Days Are Ticking Down

I picked my mom up at the airport today and we leave to fly back to MI with Little Man on Thursday. I can't believe that it's already time!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm kinda starting to freak out right about now. School is almost over yet I still have to find time to pack up my room. We still have a TON to pack here and we are leaving the place that I've called home for that past 4 years. Damn I can't believe that it's been 4 years!!!
R got turned down for the job that we thought he would get so that was a little bit of a bummer, however, they called him and want him to come in a talk once we get back about other possible opportunities so the door still seems cracked, not fully open, but cracked. I've been looking every day for openings and finishing applications to school districts. My next feat is collecting my letters of recommendation. It sucks but I have to write most of my own and then the person just signs them and puts them on official letter head. No one wants to write them anymore. Hopefully we will get jobs sooner or later. It's such a pain and I have to be way too organized.
Classes are over until June 25th and July 2, that's when my two summer ones start. I so needed this two month break! I feel like I have so much more time now! I did get two 4.0's this semester and learned A GREAT DEAL!! My classes this summer are in my reading cognent so hopefully they will be more interesting, or at least more geared towards a love of mine. I'm half way done though and that's a nice feeling.
Now changing subjects....my husband's nicotine addiction. I'm fucking annoyed and I want him to stop chewing. I'm going to demand that he quit when we move to Michigan but I just have to breach the subject at the right time. He's quit before because I've made it clear that I was no longer putting up with it. My uncle had to have precancerous lesions removed from his mouth and all I could think about was R and his stupid chewing habit and how that would probably be him in 10 years. My uncle isn't even that old. I guess they were really bad too and I really don't want to have to deal with R and that shit later on in life. Ok there was my rant. Time for bed!

DONE!!!!!

I did it!!!!!!!!! I finished my first real semester of graduate school. I got a 4.0 in my first class and I won't find out about my second one for awhile. I have about a two month break and then I start two more classes. I am so proud of how much I learned this semester and not to mention how much I grew as a person. I remember back to the beginning when I was balling my eyes out to R, contemplating whether or not to drop out. Now it just seems silly because classes became second nature. It definitely was hard to get back into the swing of things though.

31 more days until we move......how CRAZY!!!!!!!! I remember when that count was over 150, time sure does fly! My mom flies down on May 17th and then I'm flying back with her and Little man. He's going up a few weeks before R and I just because it's going to be too hard to get loose ends tied up with him here and plus we need to save money on daycare. I feel really bad about this and I'm scared that he's going to get abandoment issues, but I'm praying he'll be okay. I'll be staying with him for awhile so hopefully he'll be having so much fun that he won't mind staying with grandpa and grandma at all. Well I have to get to bed.

HELP!!!!!

Well I finally got my paper back, it's about time. I didn't do that bad, 13/15, but now I have less than 1 week to finish my 15 pager and I feel lost! I had to scale down my study because I was having issues collecting the data. I now understand why people do research with teams. My prof took out a whole page of my paper so that left me less to work with and most of the limitations that I discussed were based on the part of the study that I threw out. I really am left with hardly anything to work with and I've never written this type of paper before. I'm freaking out because I feel like I have more to do then I have time for. I am not really going to be able to work on it on Tuesday night because I have to go to bed early for the field trip on Wednesday. We are taking our third graders to Anim@l Kingdom. We have to be at the school at like 4:30-4:45 and then we won't get home until 11pm on Wednesday night. There goes two days that I have to work on my paper. I'm just a little bitter that I had less time to work on mine then everyone else. Some people got their third assignments back 3-5 days before me. Sorry about the venting. At least I have some good new also.......I got a 4.o in my other class that ended on Easter!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so very excited about that! I am hoping that I can get a 4.0 in this class too so I keep my GPA up to perfection. It's just a little thing that keeps me happy :o)

So we officially have less than 40 days until we move, ahhh!!!!!!!!!! I'll be glad when school is over so I can concentrate on packing and figuring everything out. I basically have one more week of classes. We have 28 more days of school, of course, I have 21 because I have to use all my days off before I leave because I don't get paid for them and I don't want them to go to waste. I think I might be taking one this week so I can get this freakin paper done. Little man is so cute and I hate when I have to spend days doing school work and can't spend it with him. Well enough of my bitching for tonight. Thanks for listening!!!!!!

Where Has the Week Gone?

I cannot believe that it's Friday :o( The weather hasn't really cooperated this week, rainy and overcast for a lot of the week. I think the nicest day was Tuesday when they were painting the stupid floors! At least we got to go swimming once. We also walked to the store yesterday to buy some strawberry sorbet and came home and enjoyed it sitting on our balcony. It was fun and Little man was very cute enjoying his "ice cream".

He did the craziest thing yesterday! We have this red metal bucket we use for beverages or toys that he tipped over so the flat bottom was sitting up. He constructed 6-7 towers to Duplos and arranged them on the top of the flat bottom on the bucket. Then he started singing "happy birthday to you" and pretended he was blowing at them like they were candles!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe that???? He has such a great imagination!!!!!!!!!!! I am so proud of him.

My car isn't going to be fixed until Monday they said but then I haven't heard anything else so I'm not sure that's still true. R was going to take me to work and then hopefully I will either get to have someone bring me home or to the place to pick up my car. I'm hoping my friend A will be able to drive me to pick up my car, hoping that it's done. I guess I need to call today. Well I just called and they are very annoying. Apparently they can't give me a specific day it's going to be done, just an estimate. They said Monday but they might not call until Tuesday depending on when the shop brings the car back to the insurance center. Hopefully R doesn't have to take me to work on Tuesday too! I'll definitely have to talk to A today to see if she could bring me on Monday and then I'll have to talk to J to see if she could bring me on Tuesday. Or R will have to leave work early on Tuesday to bring me there. What a mess!

The sky looks like it might be clearing up. Without a car I just have to be careful about going too far away in case it rains. I don't want to walk a mile or two and then have it start pouring like it frequently does here in Florida. I wanted to go to the library this week and return my book but my next one isn't ready to be picked up yet. I reserved it and I'm on a waiting list. I should reserve the third book in the series now so it will be ready when I'm ready to read it. Sometimes they take awhile to come in. So I have one last paper to write for my one class and then I'm done!!!!!!!!! Yippee!!!!!!!!! The thing is I have to make myself sit down and write the paper. I need to improve upon backing up my thoughts with the readings and making more citations. Our last paper for this class is 6 pages, which usually they are only 3, so it's a big one. I will be so happy to have this class done. I have to go to the post office tomorrow to mail my 6 page paper for my other class. I finished that last night, well it's been done, but I revised. R will look it over tonight and then I'll prepare it for the mail. Our prof said it could be mailed on Monday but I need to get it done before Monday because I don't have a car that I can just drive to the post office. Three more weeks of that class. I have my research project to complete, but apparently we can use our 6 page paper as part of our 15 pager so I just have to add on to what I already have. That shouldn't be too hard.

Well I should go get Little man's lunch ready. I made egg salad that he seemed to like yesterday so I'll try to give him that again today.

Art Festival Doubtful

Well we woke up all ready to go to the art festival today but it's now pouring cats and dogs. It was pretty cold yesterday, but I suppose we should have gone yesterday. Being as busy as I usually am I don't really get a chance to catch the news or weather forecasts, my own fault. It looks nasty outside, one of those days you just want to curl up on the couch and watch movies. We were going to go this morning and be home by the time Little Man needs to nap at around 1-1:30. I've always wanted to go to this and since this is our last February down here I thought this was our chance. Guess we'll have to plan a February vacation down here sometime and attend then.

I got my paper written last night along with my fourth discussion question posted. I had a lot of reading to catch up on so that's why I wanted to get it all done so we could enjoy the art festival today. We did end up going to the mall for a little while yesterday to get Little Man an outfit for his 2 year old pictures. I got a cute short overall outfit with a bug theme. They didn't have anythink really cute like they usually do but they were having a sale so I was happy about that. I wanted something a little summery looking since he already has a winter looking school picture. The weather is winter feeling though so I'm sure how the outfit is going to go with the weather tomorrow.

There are many phone calls and e-mails that I need to catch up on today and cleaning so maybe this was a good thing that the weather is crappy. We have Little Man's teacher coming over to watch him while we attend an event on Tuesday night so I want to make sure that the house isn't looking like a tornado went through. I remember when I used to babysit for kids at the daycare I used to work at, all the other teachers would always ask about the house and the decorating. I can tell you right now that we have zero decorating style because I never wanted to invest the time or money into an apartment. I always dreamed of decorating our first house. I probably should have just went ahead and done it because we'll probably never get a house and if we do there won't be a cent for decorating.

R did the taxes yesterday for three hours and we owe $2700, WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!! He had $10,000 from his side job at the university in Michigan that was MAJORLY undertaxed and he didn't realize it until yesterday. Here we thought we were get around $900 back, but nope, we have to come up with almost three thousand dollars in a little less than 2 months. Here I've been desperately trying to save money for the move and now we're going to be lucky if we have any money left by the time the move rolls around! Money sucks! I hate the fact that whenever things seem like they are looking up, something ALWAYS comes up! I was just working on the budget yesterday and we were going to have extra money at the end of the month to put into savings, which very rarely happens because it's so expensive to live down here. Oh well I hope everything works out okay. The last thing I want to do is put things on our credit cards because I've been paying them off FOREVER.