Summer

Finally...I didn't think it would ever get here.

This has been one crazy year. Since getting married a year ago, things have been a whirlwind.

I got back to school last year only to discover I was teaching 3 different preps and had no prep period. Yep...that's 7 classes with no break except a 30 minutes lunch. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time "off the clock" (if that exists for a teacher) working on lesson plans and grading papers. Doesn't look promising that things will be much calmer next school year, but on the upside I am supposed to have a prep and we are moving into a new building. I am so excited to not have to walk through a ditch to go to the bathroom or make copies. PTL for that! Just keep your fingers crossed that it is done so we can move in before school starts and aren't moving in everything the day before school starts.

Married life is going well. Just super busy. Daniel and I had the opportunity to go the Kirk Cameron Marriage Conference at our church last weekend. It was a great time of learning and worship. Daniel and I rarely have the same schedule and almost never have a weekend off together. After teaching that extra class this year, I need a vacation so that is exactly what we decided to do. We are going on another cruise for our one year anniversary. Other than that, the summer is going to be busy with church, VBS, vacation, professional development, and getting a little rest when I can. Overall, things are going well.

Grateful

There are those days when I am reminding of how big God is and how awesome that it is that He knows everything. Today is one of those. I woke up a little before 2:00 to the Code Red weather warning call. It said Torando Warning for your area. Daniel rolled over and went back to sleep when his phone went off but I decided to get up and turn on the tv. I am not easily spooked by storms, but I've lived in Arkansas long enough to know that you shouldn't ignore tornado warnings. Too many close calls in my life. When I turned the tv on, I realized there were 4 tornado warnings for Lonoke County. Crazy. These were from 4 different cells. Luckily they stayed south of here, but they headed straight toward Lonoke with one moving just north of town and one moving just south of town. After some crazy hard rain and some hail, I went back to bed since the tornado threat had passed. It was only this morning that I am reminded of how blessed I am. Our house is fine. LHS is a mess. We are actually out today due to no power and trees and powerlines down all over town. Other than that, everything appears to be intact. Stories of tragedy and survival always come to light in the daylight after the storm. They are reporting at least 4 fatalities and tons of devastation. Here I am looking out the window and other than the small lake in my yard, there is no sign of the storm. None of this is a surprise to God. He knew it was going to storm. He knew I'd be out of school today and that I needed the time to recover from a cold and a really rough week. He knew. He always knows.

Snow and Spring

It has been one crazy winter here in Arkansas. We aren't much for snow and cold temperatures around here. Personally, I like one good pretty snowfall and just enough cold temperatures to make you appreciate spring. This winter we've had 4 good measurable snowfalls, three or which have been in the last week. This past Wednesday, we got the most snow I've seen in a long time. Probably since I was about 4 when we got close to 2 ft. Here in Central Arkansas we got about 8 inches. My parents got about 10 inches and my sister got almost 2 ft. Arkansas shut down for a good 3 days. Today the only memory of all the snow is the snowy patches in the shade as the 60 degree temperatures this afternoon melted it all away. I for one am glad. I love a good snowfall. It makes the world look so different, so pure. But seriously, bring on the sunshine, green grass and flowers. I love Spring! I'm looking forward to getting our new house looking nice and well kept. Since we moved in late October, we didn't get much done in the yard. I'm also ready to get school going. We've had one 5 day week since we came back from Christmas break. I don't want to be in school when we have to start back to school. For now, I am going to pretend it's spring since the temps are supposed to be near 70 at the end of the week. Bring it on!

The End of 2010 and Looking Forward to 2011

2010 has been a great year. I finished my second year of teaching at Lonoke. Adjusted to teaching in a trailer (aka Portable Education Unit). Had a fantastic but hot experience teaching Saddle Ridge Ranch at VBS. Daniel and I got married. We had a fantastic wedding and several showers with hundreds of family and friends. Took a fantastic cruise to Mexico. Got to see the beautiful ocean, fantastic beaches and even the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. Came home and began adjusting to married life. Started my third year at Lonoke. Meet a whole new group of kids. Survived a whole semester of teaching 7 classes straight of three different subjects with no prep. Celebrated the holiday and several birthdays including Daniel's 30th with family and friends. Got my traditional Christmas cold and now enjoying the few precious hours until school starts back. We ended 2010 with dinner with my inlaws and watching some tv. Went to bed early but were awakened by tons of fireworks at midnight. Going to bring in the New Year quietly as Daniel has to work and I am still under the weather. Think I will put a Pot Roast in the Crock Pot and enjoying the last few quiet hours before a crazy week begins.

Our First Home

Since I am averaging about one blog post a month, I figured I would write a little about our new house. We closed last Monday on our first home together. We are so glad to be getting out of our apartment mainly because there is only one, very small bathroom. It just doesn't work when we need to get ready at the same time. So on the the new house...not only are there two bathrooms but two sinks in each bathroom. We have spent the better part of the last week cleaning. This house was a foreclosure and needs a little work but all in all is in great shape. We have been scrubbing baseboards and painting walls. The carpets will be cleaned on Tuesday and we are planning to finish moving at the end of the week. We are so excited to finally have some more space. I will have to post some more pics once everything is decorated and moved in. For now, I am staying busy moving and cleaning.

Buying a house

We decided a month or so ago that we would start the process of buying a house and see where it goes. Interest rates are great so why not. I knew that the experience would be stressful. I definitely needed something else to do with my time (not!). Anyways, it will be worth it in the end, right? The preapproval process with my local bank with easy. Great people, no problems. Called a lady I know from church that sells real estate, easy. Saw like 10 houses in 2 days....found one we loved. That is when life got complicated. It was a foreclosure and one of the conditions was that we had to prequalify through Bank of America even though we were preapproved with another bank. Oh my goodness, I had no idea how complicated this would be. Extremely long story short, 2 days, over 4 hours on the phone, almost 20 phone calls, I finally got it. I will never deal with them again. Trust me, I would recommend them to my worst enemy. Got the offer in! They countered. We accepted. That was pretty easy. In the process of the doing the prequal with B of A, I discovered an error on my credit report from an old student loan. It was resolved with a few emails and a fax with a local bank. Lessons learned: always stay local. Anyways, I will have to let you know how it goes. We are waiting on the inspection before we will know for sure. The inspection was a requirement on our part as well as my realtors because the owners are gone and the house in foreclosure. It is a great house in a great neighborhood in a great location. It needs a little elbow grease but otherwise is in great shape. I will keep you posted!

What a year it has been and promises to be

Lots of things have changed over the last year. Not even a year ago Daniel and I were talking about getting engaged. It has been a month now since we were married. Things are going great minus the fact that twice in the last month I have had a summer cold. Yuck. I went to Lonoke the other day to take care of paperwork and got more than I bargained for. I found out that they didn't rehire for the Spanish position for the teacher that left so therefore I am teaching all three levels of Spanish. If that is not enough, I am teaching an extra class and getting no prep. My principal tried to console me with the fact I would get paid extra for that class. I am just not sure my sanity is worth a little more money. So it is that I will be teaching 3 levels of Spanish, doing Spanish club, teaching 7 classes a day with no prep...it promises to be an intense year. After freaking out about my workload, I decided to head to Lonoke to work on my computer for a few hours and get the ball rolling with all these classes I have to teach. I get to Lonoke only to discover my computer is not a happy camper. I get the blue screen of death a few times and then notify the tech guys. I head to the main building to try to catch the principal so I can voice some of my concerns about the new teaching scenario, but he is no where to be found. I decide to see what work I could get done on my network drive, but my password doesn't work so I have to bug the tech guys again to reset it. Finally, I get in but there is nothing on my network. Don't know where it magically disappeared to, but I am hoping that when I return to Lonoke some time in the coming weeks that the technology disaster of Tuesday are resolved and I can magically find everything that has disappeared. The rest of the week has been spent trying to get things organized and now I have a stupid fever and head cold. It has been one of those weeks. I even got bit by a neighbor's dog. One of those weeks I will be glad to have in the past. Think I will work on my wedding photo book.