On the road!

I'll try to write this as best as possible since I am now having to blog from my cell phone (with great difficulty I might add). Just thought I would let everybody know we hit the road and we're halfway to our new home! okay that's all I can handle writing right now. sorry! more to come later. Seriously its really hard to blog on this tiny phone !

Warning: Geek Zone

So I was showing my kids our new home (as of this Thursday) on the satellite version of google maps and noticed that the water on the coast is really, really blue. I'm thinking: What beautiful crystal clear waters we'll get to swim in! Well my geekiness got the best of me and I really just HAD to know why it was so blue so I did what any educated researcher would do... I googled it. :)

This is probably common knowledge for everybody else, but I didn't pay much attention to science in school (ironically it's one of my FAVORITE things to teach now). So here's what I learned: Apparently the Mississippi River carries all sorts of pesticides and animal waste down from farms and dumps it into the Gulf right there on the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana. That all makes sense - I guess I just hadn't thought about it much. Well the effect of this is a Dead Zone in which there is an overgrowth of algae and little oxygen so it kills off a lot of the gulf's ecosystem. This seems like one of those issues to teach kids about and maybe when they grow up they'll seek out a way to fix it, changing the world one fish at a time! I know I'm an optimistic, dorky teacher, but that's the kind of stuff that makes me excited about teaching! I found a pretty cool website for kids about it. Click here for the link.

I'm gonna be honest - I'm pretty excited to know something about Mississippi to teach these kids! I could give them all sorts of Ohio history but I'm not sure the administrators would go for that...

Ketchup and Pickles

I have to share this ADORABLE idea I found in the hours...oops, I mean short amount of time between cleaning and packing, that I've spent on other teacher blogs. It's called "Ketchup and Pickles." The idea is that you post the two pictures (below) on the wall on Friday and if students have to catch up on their work they get their name listed under the ketchup bottle, but if students are all caught up they get to "pick" a fun activity and their name goes under the pickle. You can click here to download the picture. I think this is so cute! I can't wait to use it in my classroom!

Blind Organization

I never thought I would be so excited to get a letter in the mail that says "Dear Colleague." Silly, I know, but at least I know I've not been forgotten... or worse, replaced. Yikes! But the worry is now 90% alleviated. At least if the kind people of the school have forgotten me, some computer data system at the school knows I exist.

I have been able to get my head a little organized despite the little information I have to get my classroom organized. I found this FANTABULOUS teacher binder (pictured below) from The Organized Classroom blog (click here for link) which has everything you forgot you ever needed as far as paperwork (sub plans, gradebook stuff, contact info and so much more that I can't even think of!). AND, it's all in this super adorable black and white theme. I also got from the same website a Core Concepts organizer which will help me keep track of all these new standards. It also helps the students keep track of what they have learned! AWESOME!!!

I also found a huge amount of resources from this other AMAZING teacher blog, The Clutter-Free Classroom (click here for link). I only hope I can be as organized as these amazing women seem to be! What I loved from the Clutter-Free Classroom (among the many, many things I have downloaded) was this Classroom Procedures and Routines Workbook (click for link). I am so glad that somebody out there was thinking of how to get ME organized! I did have to pay for those few things I mentioned but I think they will be TOTALLY worth it. The Clutter-Free Classroom has TONS of other downloads which are FREE!!! And I do love me some free!

So... despite the itty bitty amount of communication I've had with the school, I figure most of this is universal(ish) and so I now feel a bit more organized than I did. A little bit less panicky. I'm sure it'll be okay. Why isn't my Ohio teaching license here yet...? Grrr.

Teacher Blog Insomnia

Okay. It's one in the morning and I should not still be awake but here's the thing. I have become obsessed with teacher blogs! I don't know if its my worry about not being prepared for the new school year as a new (first time ever) teacher or maybe my need to be overly prepared with very little information except what grade I'm teaching and that I think they use Common Core standards, but it seems that the minute I click on a new blog, they have a link for another one that sounds super fun! Then after I've been sucked in, I get further sucked in by "freebies," and for a new teacher, "beg, steal, and borrow" is kinda my motto at the moment. How cool is it that all of these seasoned teachers give me their ideas for FREE?! I have downloaded more things than I know what to do with right now, but one day when I have them all organized into their own little folders inside other slightly larger folders on my flash drive, I will look back and think how smart I was for staying up past one in the morning being sucked in by (I mean, professionally researching) teacher blogs. Currently, I just remembered that I have to throw my sister's baby shower tomorrow and I probably should do so after having had some sleep. Geeze Louise, these days are flying by too quickly!

Is this a dream?

I really have nothing to say, but for the sake of consistency and not wanting to go a month without writing again I'm going to ramble on about unimportant details anyway. To be honest, I wish I had something to say because then I would feel as though things were progressing and this weren't all some big figment of my imagination I'd dreamed up.

So here's the update, as short as it is. My Nana and I went to Mississippi to visit and, with much frustration and A LOT of my grandmother's gas, found me a place to live. Apparently there's some big power plant being built and it's brought in tons of people and eaten up all the rental homes and apartments (seriously, NO APARTMENTS!). We found three places. The first one was a house in a decent school district, but we didn't really think it was worth how much they were asking (aren't things supposed to be cheaper in the south???). The second was a single wide mobile home in a really good school district. Here's how that went: we drove miles and miles and miles into the backwoods country, turned at a bunch of broken down vehicles/dump yard, and finally found four trailers parked behind a row of trees. Three other trailers rented by single men in close proximity to my family out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by miles of trees and nothing else was not really the sense of security I was seeking for my family. Also, the place was a dump and again, outrageously priced. Okay, third place. Also a single wide mobile home in a great school district, but this one was in a trailer park close to town. Not too shabby and much safer feeling. It wasn't too nice looking from the outside but when we got in it was actually quite large and live-in-able (it seemed) despite a slight weird odor that I figured could be taken care of with some fresh air and candles. Until we looked down and saw little black pepper-sized bugs all over our legs and feet. Seriously, ALL OVER our legs. EWWWW!!!! Apparently, the previous owner had a lot of cats and they had been battling cat fleas for months with no such luck. The owner was convinced that they could have them gone by the time we moved down so I (don't judge me, I was desperate) told him I would take it if the fleas were gone with a 6 month lease (as opposed to the year he was asking) and $300 less a month. He basically laughed at me and told me some plant workers would take it with the flea problem for the (very high) price he was asking. We went back to our hotel and I cried my eyes out and in pathetic desperation called my husband and told him we were not moving to "that dreadful place" and I would just substitute in Ohio until the job market changed. He sensitively told me he worked too hard to get me through school, he had already quit his job, and we WERE moving. I went back the next day and took the first place we looked at, which quite honestly seemed like a mansion after the others. 

Also, while in Mississippi, I visited the school I would be working at. I planned on seeing my classroom and leaving all my things but nobody could tell me where it was going to be and, in the midst of all the "where are we going to live" craziness, I was kind of afraid to leave anything in Mississippi as I was not too sure I ever wanted to return. So the school is an inner-city, old school (definitely a stark contrast to the farming school I student taught in last year) but that much I expected. Since being there, I have heard very little from anybody in the district. I gave them my email and they said they would be forwarding messages to me regarding meetings and important info but I having heard anything yet. I'm trying to keep in mind that it is summer, but again I'm feeling a little bit like I dreamed all of this up... 

So here's my current perspective. I will be happy when I have friends and students. People make you love a place and I love people. If nothing else, I'll drag my family to my Aunt's house every weekend to spend time with them. I already love those people. :)

By the way, we leave in 12 days. I start work in 18 days. 

Goals...

I started this blog June 10th and saved it. I was conflicted as you will see. I summed it up and finished it today...

If you had asked me what my goals were when I was 18, I would have said (in fact, I did say) that by the time I'm 27 I want to have gotten my degree, have a teaching job, be married and have 2 kids. I think God laughs when we tell Him our plans, but thankfully He also listens. My goals were certainly not reached in the order I predicted when I was 18, but they were reached. I'm 27, have an amazing husband, who is an amazing father to our two quirky, intelligent, hilarious, adorably rotten children (ages 5 and 7) . I graduated with my bachelor's yesterday and I accepted a teaching position last week.

So, the big question I've been asked a hundred times in the last few days, "How do you feel now?" I've had trouble answering this question because I feel like I cannot feel proud without feeling a lot of humility. Nobody accomplishes anything huge without a lot of support. And I cannot even begin to explain my support system. Let's just say that my real life "circles" include that amazing hubby I mentioned earlier, the best parents, brothers, sisters, and in-laws anybody could ever ask for, grandparents that have truly saved me from drowning more times than I care to admit, and a plethora of friends who have served as last minute babysitters, cheerleaders, or shoulders to cry on regularly in the last 9 years. I feel that few people in my circumstances would have been able to accomplish completing a college degree without such a support system and I am so grateful God gave me the one He did.

So I guess my point is that I have to give credit where credit is due. It would be easy to go on about having reached my goals, but the truth is that this has been a combined effort. We've all gotten me through college and I owe my family big time for that. Unfortunately, I am now leaving them all to move 700 miles away. Maybe they'll see this as me repaying them with a break! Who knows? But I'm sure going to miss everybody. But, God wouldn't have brought my family through all of this, given me that amazing support system and a vision and passion for teaching children, if He didn't have big plans in mind. He's sending us to Mississippi so that's where we'll go.