Catch Up!

It's not like I have any followers, but sometimes it is nice to just write down the things that have happened in the past few months so that I can remember how much I have to be thankful for. Time goes by so quickly, and I am so relieved that so many things have ended in my life and so many things are about to begin!

First of all I finished my student teaching at my first placement and moved on to Ridgeland twelfth grade. My first week I made a spectacular impression by getting horribly ill. I don't know what it was but my eyes and nose were watering like crazy and my head felt like it was about to explode. So my second and third day I went home sick and my fourth day I called in and skipped class all together. That was horribly embarrassing, but I definitely think my teacher understood. But after Spring Break I came back healthy as ever and learned a lot about the students. Wow what a difference from the seventh grade. I really liked Ridgeland, especially the teachers. They were absolutely crazy and wonderful. I feel like I learned more from them than I actually did teaching the students. The twelfth graders were...interesting. I am far too young to teach students in the twelfth grade. Give me a few more years and then we will see. The students were semi respectful, but I feel that they did really like me, nor did they want to be there. This made it really hard to teach them, but fortunately I only had one group of twelfth graders a day so it was nice to observe my cooperating teachers other classes during the periods I wasn't teaching seniors. That came to an end in May and I was so thankful to be finished, but so thankful to my cooperating teacher for all of her insight and patience with me as a young teacher. She was wonderful. :)

May 7 was the best day so far this year! I graduated from college! Finally! I had calculated in like February that I had to get all A's this semester to graduate with honors from MC. Well I did not know how hard my supervising teacher was grading me, so I stressed out each time she came and about every log I had to turn in making sure that they were perfect so that I could get my honor cord. Lame I know.
Well graduation came, and I picked up the program to look for my name under the honored students but I wasn't there. My heart dropped. I couldn't imagine how I had missed receiving honors because I knew that I had received all A's for the semester. Well I've been told that I don't have to be smart because I'm beautiful, ha, but lucky for me there was another page on the program that I had not looked at, and Praise Jesus, there under Honored Students was my name Grace, Middle Name, Middle Name, Maiden Name, Last Name. YAY! I got a honor cord! My mom, grandparents, aunt and uncle, cousins and second cousin were there from my side of the family, and Travis' parents, sister and grandparents were there to watch me graduate. I love my family. :) After graduation we rushed to P.F Chang's for a scrumptious graduation lunch. It was wonderful. The only thing bad about May 7 was that I had to say good-bye to another best friend. I have this habit about making wonderful friends and then they all move on me. I don't get it. But Elizabeth went home to Indiana that day and I am sad without her. :( No more sushi, OEC, cake balls or her fixing my terrible grammatical errors in multiple papers. (I giver her credit for my A's the last few semesters. Without her I would have been lost.) But we are graduated and I guess moving on with life is what you do after college.

The next logical thing to do after graduating from college is to get a job. Before graduation I had interviewed at Richland, Florence, Puckett, and Northwest Rankin but I heard nothing and was utterly at my wits end about what to do for a job. Little did I know that most schools don't start calling for interviews until the summer. Because the phone calls flooded in. I got offered a job at Richland, Puckett and Northwest Rankin. Puckett offered first and so I accepted the position, and I know that God has me here for a wonderful purpose. I will be teaching seventh grade. Heaven help me, and them!! So far I have met a handful of the faculty and staff and they all seem like absolutely wonderful people. The teacher before me retired so I inherited all of her accumulated goods over the last twenty or so years. Needless to say I have a lot of stuff to go through! I did acquire really great posters and teaching ideas and I can't wait to put them to good use! Send up a prayer for me every time you think about me though because only God is going to get me through my first year of teaching!! Feel free to send me chocolate and Loft clothing size XS to brighten my day though...then again the clothing may not be a good idea if the chocolate keeps rolling in. You may have to roll me out of my classroom at the end of the year like Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

So student teaching, graduation and new job all in the last few months. What on earth could possibly come next? Well we just moved into a new apartment! Our old apartment was in Clinton, and it was in TERRIBLE condition. Not because of us though. Last June we were bringing over stuff and setting up our furniture before the wedding and it started raining. Well I never mind the rain, but when it starts leaking down the wall into my newly rented apartment I have a serious concern! We called the landlord and they informed us not to worry because they would fix the problem right away. We figured that they would keep their word, but not. I do not know what they "fixed" but since June 2010 rain has consistently dripped down the wall in our living room. At first it was not a big deal, but then the ceiling began to dip and eventually a gaping hole became apparent. A little squirrel noticed it too because his foot came shooting through our ceiling a few months back. So we have lived with a hole in our ceiling for the past year and heaven only knows what kind of creatures have had access to our apartment. Well when I accepted the job in Puckett I knew that we would have to move closer to there because it takes a good fifty minutes to get from Clinton to Puckett one way and a two hour commute daily was not going to work for me. Travis and I went to one complex in the area and absolutely fell in love. The apartment practically look brand new and everything seemed like it would work out perfectly. The only thing I was worried about was the price tag. It seemed high for the are and the staff seemed a little shady. Well Travis and I thought about it and because he loved it so much I went to sign the lease and make a deposit on our apartment. Well when I got to the complex not a week after we had looked at it for the first time they had decided to raise the rent a good thirty dollars. I'm sorry but changing the rent from week to week may be what's economically sound right now, but for me charging another thirty dollars to the already high apartment cost broke the deal for me. I went home and Travis and I went apartment hunting again. We discovered another apartment complex about a mile away that was more than two hundred dollars cheaper and almost as nice, just a little bit older. Automatically we knew that we had found our new home. We didn't even have to think about it. So on Friday and Saturday we moved! YAY! Now we have a beautiful two bedroom apartment with no holes in the ceiling and a rodent free attic! I am so excited, and it even has a pool! I still have a lot of unpacking to do, but it is almost a pleasure to unpack because I love the apartment so much. Word to the wise though, if you plan on moving in the next few months go through stuff and throw away what you don't need! I never realized how much stuff Travis and I had crammed into our 600 square foot apartment but it exploded all over the place come packing time! I couldn't get everything packed and it only took 100 trips to get everything out of the new place! I am in the process of going through stuff and getting rid of the things that I do not need and packing up the things that I like but have no use for right now because there is no way that I am ever going through a move like that again! Clutter free is the way to be! Regardless of the clutter I love our new apartment! We are even considering the idea of a puppy. I am  a bit skeptical on this because of all the training and vet bills but Travis and I are such dog people that we talk daily about getting one. It's going to happen sooner or later. Hopefully sooner!

Well that is the last few months in a nut shell. I am not grand at blogging and probably won't write for another six months but I am so grateful for all of the things God has blessed me with. A wonderful student teaching experience, graduation with honors, a wonderful job, and a new apartment. This year is going to be the best year yet.