Update: New Job

Last week I posted about all the career changes that have happened for me in the past year. 

And I now have an update! Drumroll please....

I will be teaching Social Studies full time once again beginning (gasp) August 5th!!!  It's at a not so local, full 55 minutes away school, but that's a minor issue. I am PUMPED. 

I'll be teaching WHI (which I have never taught before. Ever.) and WHII (the only course I've had regularly). I have to call in tomorrow to complete the official paperwork. Hopefully, once the principal returns from her vacation, I can head down and pick up some prep materials.  

Thank you to everyone for all of the support you have given me over the past year! I am so looking forward to an exciting new journey. 

Plum Paper Planner Perfection

Recently, I saw a post from a former colleague about her new, personalized planner. (You can find E's post here.)

I immediately wanted one.  Then and there.  I mean, the covers are gorgeous; they can be personalized; they have areas to jot down notes, month and week views, pretty tabs. The problem: the price and the size. I mean, did I really want to spend $35 plus shipping for a calendar that's the size of notebook?

So I messaged my friend L (who's super sweet family blog I'm constantly plugging.), asking her to bring along her planner, a similar one made by Erin Condren, when we met for lunch earlier this week. I spent a few minutes flipping through hers and falling deeper in love. (Note: hers has a few more bells and whistles than mine, but mine has lines. That was important to me.)

So here are some pictures and descriptions of the brand new planner. (I'm frantically typing away here so I can start filling my planner with dates!)

Here's the cover. It also has a clear, hard plastic cover over this gorgeous personalized page. The top right hand corner shows the years the planner covers. You can choose to start at any month and it can run from 12-22 months. I started mine in July 2013, and ran it for 1 year.  And under the envelope? You can put your name there, or whatever mine says, "the ourlastname"

Look: tabs! I love pretty tabs!

The first page, also includes a place for your name, number, etc. 

The left hand side of the week view (Thursday-Sunday). See those 7 boxes of lines per day? Those are customized. Check them out below. 

The top right hand side of the week view. See that checklist? That's where I envision things like "order the dogs medicine". There are 10 lines. 

The notes section, and a sneak peak at my fave part. I ordered the family planner, which allows for 7 personalized sections each week. Here are 3 of mine. The others include my name, my husband's, and some other things. Want to save $5? You can choose to separate your day by 1/2 hr increments or into morning, afternoon, and night. I wanted to be more specific. 

A page of contacts at the end. Where I intend to write my husbands cell numbers, because I have yet to learn them after 3 years and 51 weeks together. 

A glance at 2015 (and in the front there's one for 2013 & 2014) as well as a pocket for receipts, handouts, or whatever.

The whole thing is glorious, and I'm super pumped to use it for the next year. Want one for yourself? Head to etsy and search plum paper or go to www.plumpaperdesigns.com and they link back to their etsy shop. 

And just as a heads up: Plum Paper Designs didn't give me anything for writing this review. No free shipping, no discount. I'm just in love with it. 

Changes

Can you believe it, but D & I have been married for almost an entire year.  Seriously.  That's like, incredible to me.

And in that year, things have been a little different for me professionally.  This time last year, I was confident that I would find another full time, in the classroom, teaching job.  Very confident.

Then came July.  I got married.  I applied for what felt like a bazillion non-relevant positions, and one teaching job.  I was asked to consider coaching a JV volleyball team 30 minutes away.  I interviewed for ONE teaching job, that was part time, within that school's district.  Turns out, it was for the ONE high school social studies course I haven't taught yet.  I didn't get the job.  I didn't take the coaching position.  I took another one, with a local community college.

Then came August.  I found a teaching job!!! Well...sort of...  I was asked to become a homebound teacher with a local district.  (Find more about that job here.)  This has been a great experience, with awesome students, with a fantastic supervisor, with at BEST 1/2 of the take home pay I'm accustomed to (and at worst, didn't cover the full 4 wheeler payment one month.)

In December, I quit the coaching job, which offered up more opportunities to tack on more students, leading to the better paychecks.  Awesome for the wallet, and the relationship with the hubby since I could see him more and more.

In January, I was notified by several former colleagues that a school I have taught at previously was going to have an opening!  I immediately contacted the principal in excitement.  I continued to contact him monthly.  At the same time, I applied for an opening in my current school district.  (That one, I'll go ahead and tell you, I never even got an email about, much less an interview.  In questioning the principal later about why I maybe didn't get an interview, he answered in a nutshell, "We had a lot of applicants.  I don't remember anything about you."  Only nicer, and more politically correct)

In May, I was notified of a coaching opening in the same district as the former school (and about 15 minutes closer to my house).  I interviewed there, was asked to consider teaching Special Ed, and asked to notify them of my decision The. Next. Day.  In what seemed a brilliant stroke of luck, I secured an interview that next day with the school I'd been in touch with for weeks.  The interview: teach the same subject I taught there before. YAY.  Notified the school that was interested in me coaching of my new interview, and told them I would definitely want to coach there if I got the teaching job.

Cut to 3 weeks later.  No notification from the school with the Social Studies job. The coaching job went to someone else.  No prospect for summer work.  I get notified, unofficially, from someone who technically wasn't supposed to know, that I didn't get the job, after nearly 6 months of corresponding with the principal about returning to my former position.  I sobbed.  I sobbed again when I got the official notice 2 weeks later.

Cut to the present: my homebound supervisor gave me some part time summer work (like, way part time, like at MAX if there are no absences from anyone I'll get 16 hrs per week.  It's day 1 and I'm already down 3.75 hrs.)

So I'm starting a temp office job.  That's right, a temporary, answerthephonesandmakecopies, office job.  And I am very grateful for it, because I will have steady employment that I can depend on.  Also, it will allow me to continue to work with the homebound students, even after the school year has started.  And I'm pretty stoked.  I bought a few new shirts.  The first new clothes I've bought in 2013.  I told you, I'm stoked.

Oh, and also:

 I have a Social Studies interview in TWO days.

So fingers crossed for that one!!!!

Heard at my parent's house

Momma: "Tell her about how you rescued the bunny?"

DP (age 3): "Did I rescue a bunny?"

Me: "I don't know, did you?"

DP: "Yeah. He hopped away." (A further explanation of the story detailed the fact that one of the dogs had carried a baby bunny to the yard. My mom thought it was dead. DP went to get my brother, who went to pick up said dead bunny, and it jumped up and hopped away)

J: "Tell her about talking to the policeman."

DP: "I talked to a policeman."

Me: "What did you talk about?"

DP: "Wowzers in the woods that eat you."

Me: "Did you learn about George Washington?"

B (age 6): "yeah. He's our first President"

"What is a President?"

"They make the rules and tell people what to do."

"Well, yeah, kinda. Who is our President now?"

"Abraham Lincoln."

"No...not Abraham Lincoln. Who was he?"

"He was like the 3rd president." 

"Not the third, he was like the 16th or so."

Then my dad stepped in. "Tell her about who Jesus was."

B: "He was a man who they killed on a telephone pole."

My dad: "But why did they kill him?"

B: "Because they didn't like the rules he made."

O (age 2): "Yamaw Yamaw! Your car is raining!"

My mom: "What? My car is raining?"

"Yes! Your car is raining! Come see!"

She then drags my mom to the window and points at my moms wet car. 

"See! Your car is raining. See my car? It's not raining, but your car is raining." (Note here, my sister in laws car was too far away to see whether it was wet or not.)

From the mouth of babes huh?

Currently: June

Currently
Listening	To the sounds of the yard, including the hummingbird that just flew up to the feeder
Loving	The fact that it’s warm weather time for sure!
Thinking	About the many trials and tribulations that accompany the end of the school year.
Wanting	A settled mind
Needing	To go for a run
Favorite Things	1. My flower bed, all decked out in pink windflowers once more 2. Nike+ App: even though it only works when I actually get my butt in gear 3. The Audiobook section of the local library – Beverly Lewis in my car, Please and Thank You!

Dishwasher Disaster

If you had talked to me early Friday morning, I was gearing up for a lazy weekend with my husband, with a few errands and work related tasks sprinkled through.

If you had talked to me Friday afternoon, I was gearing up for a full Saturday of husband-less errands and chores and a completely lazy Sunday enjoying having him home from his 16-hr shift on Saturday.

If you talk to me today?  Neither was the case.

On Friday evening, D & I enjoyed a mediocre dinner at a local restaurant of fame.  Not sure what had been going on in the kitchen, but D's Bostonzone had 2, count em TWO pieces of chicken in it.  My small pepperoni & cheese calzone turned out to be an ENORMOUS pepperoni, ham, & mozzarella-with-a-giant-glob-of-ricotta-in-the-middle calzone.  Throughout dinner our topic of conversation was whether or not he should go out of town to work on Saturday.  Pro:  16 hrs of overtime.  Con: 16 hrs of work on a Saturday.  We reached the verdict that he would go, because who are we to turn down that kind of cash?

(Sidenote: the money he would have earned on Saturday was more than I made all week...in the most hours in a week I'd worked all year)

When we returned home, I was unloading my dishwasher, which had done a terrible job washing the dishes.  Half the load was being placed back in the sink to be washed again.  As I unloaded the last pieces, I noticed, to my horror, that the bottom of the washer was full of dingy water.  GROSS.

So we had plans to fix the washer.  D checked the hose and found nothing.  He ran his hands down along the bottom checking for clogs.  Nothing.  He called his dad.  Advice: put some Drano in it and run the rinse cycle again.

Here's the key point here:  Drano + dishwasher = disaster.  After about 5 minutes of rinse cycle, we had bubbles pouring out of our dishwasher.  Top, sides, bottom of the door.  Bubbles.  Laughing, we cleaned the chlorine reeking mess.  D's Mr. Fix-it advice to me, "Don't open the door.  Dad & I will fix it on Sunday.  It's a good thing I'm working tomorrow; we might need a new dishwasher."

Cool.

So we go to bed, and at 11:30 (yes, 11:30 PM, after a glorious 1.5 hrs of sleep), D's out of town boss calls and decides he does not indeed need to work Saturday.  Pro: D is home all day.  Con: we still need that cash I'd already mentally spent.

So here comes Saturday.  I had already planned a mega trip to Sam's Club.  I asked if D wanted to come along.  He said sure, and why didn't we just go look at dishwashers, too.  Several hours later, we made it to Lowe's, Sears, Home Depot, another Lowe's, and Sam's Club.  We also had made the decision to just buy a dishwasher rather than fix the one we had.  Besides, I had broken the soap dispenser months ago and it wasn't apparently, even really cleaning our dishes.  It rinsing them with the soap and then washing them with just water.  Gross.  Again.

So, by the end of Saturday, we had bought a dishwasher (this one, on sale), loaded it, ran it, went out to dinner with D's parents, and returned home to a washer full of clean, shiny dishes.

What kind of adventures did you have over the weekend?

Oh, and a public service announcement: Per the Lowe's guy - never put Drano in your dishwasher, it eats your seals.  So even if we had fixed it, we may have had water running out of it the next time we ran it anyway.  So don't do that, unless you want your husband to buy a new dishwasher.

Another public service announcement: When your husband is using his shop vac to get the Drano out of the dishwasher, it'll spew the bubbles out all over your refrigerator.  He'll laugh at you as you clean that up.

Getting Back in the Groove

Happy May 1st!

I simply want to refuse to think about how fast this spring is flying by.

In light of that, I need to recommit to getting back in shape.  Last summer, I was diligent in running three times per week.  Then, over the winter, I just stopped.  Since then, I have gone running maybe 3 times.

So now, here I am, committing on the internet, available to all, that I will get my lazy butt back in shape.  And not just by running!  A facebook friend shared the 30-day ab challenge I have posted below.  I think I'll try it, and let y'all know how that goes!

It doesn't look too daunting, does it?

What are you doing to keep your body in shape?  Wanna stay on track with me?