The First Night

We did it! I am finally moved into our house! And to celebrate the first night in my house, I treated myself to Easy Mac and Cheese (in one of my favorite bowls, I might add). And since there was no cable at that point, a marathon of Roseanne and a nice quick pedicure topped off the night! Just what you need after 2 long days of moving. It was so nice to cozy up and relax on our new couch.

Changes

It seems like there are a ton of changes coming all along in one big swoop. My parents will be moving out of the place I have called home for almost 23 years. I will be getting married and managing a home of my own. My brother will be back after a long absense. And there are almost 2 new babies in my family that I am so excited about. It is getting down to the last 3 weeks of school and I am feeling the chaos coming on quick. I feel like this semester has flown by so fast. We have 81 days until the wedding and in about 24 days I will be moving into the house that James and I will call home for the next year. I am so excited and in no way at all upset about leaving my apartment. It is an old friend that I feel I can let go of and never see again. It helps even better when my dear apartment decides to flood not once but twice, leaving me with a big mess to clean up and wet carpet.

When I first moved into this apartment, I knew it was an older, beat up place, but in the last two years it has really gotten to be an eyesore. It is no longer a semi-safe place and I live under complete dysfunction. Every time I am home I can hear (clearly) the craziness of the people upstairs and I witness their drug deals all the time. Needless to say, packing my stuff this week has been more of a joy than a chore. I have all of our shower gifts packed up and ready to go as well. I can't wait to get in our new place and set everything out. 

During my spring break I painted some furniture that will go into our home. This is my project that I was able to get done.

The table was bought at a garage sale for $5 (I think). I sanded and painted it a soft white. I bought the lamp yesterday at Goodwill for $3. I love it! It will look so good once it is in our home, next to our new couch that we will hopefully purchase in a couple of weeks. It will be here before you know it. Time moves so fast and changes are a' comin'! I can't wait!

3 months and 3 days left!

Spring break has come and gone and we are now down to 95 days until the wedding. Holy moly! Spring break was crazy. I got a lot done, but I still have lots of things still left on my to-do list. I feel like every time I went to mark something off my list, I was adding 3 more things to it. Here are some things I did get to mark off my list. I was able to paint 5 pieces of furniture that will go in our new home as well as meet with our minister, doctor, wedding planner, and reception venue. We also picked out our wedding cake which will be super yummy and met with the florist again. Mom and I printed the invitations...they look great. And lastly I attended my bridal shower that my future sister-in-laws hosted for me. Everything was so pretty and I was showered with gifts and love. (Boy that sounds cheesy!)
The next Saturday we held a garage sale and made $163 which will go towards something for our home. James and I were at Lowes last night looking for a lawn mower and as we were leaving, I noticed they had their swings on display outside and so of course I had to go sit in all of them. I fell in love with one right away. I asked James to sit with me to show him how comfy it was and the necessity of owning it. Twenty minutes later, we were still sitting there, no longer talking about buying the swing but discussing the events of our day and what we had on our agendas and so on. We were so relaxed that we totally forgot we were sitting in a store parking lot. I love that swing! I am thinking that is where the $163 will be spent.
When I returned back to Valdosta Sunday night, I came home to find my bathroom sink had backed up and water had overflowed creating a flood that ran down the hall and into my bedroom. It is funny how quick your landlord will send a plumber over when you tell them there is a flood destroying the place, but it took two days to get a locksmith out to un-jam my front door. Luckily, there wasn’t much damage, even though I did have to throw away everything on my counter and my bathroom rugs. Plus, my carpet smells horrific now. I just keep telling myself that I am moving out in a month and I won’t ever have to deal with this mess again (hopefully). Speaking of moving…James and I are “house hunting” tomorrow. I can’t wait to finally get an idea of what our future will look like, even if it is just the house we will be living in!

First Day Of School

Today was my first day of actually teaching for an entire period. It was my responsibility to come up with a lesson plan, explain it, and make sure the kids knew what was going on. I will make an overall judgment on the day by saying it was quite interesting. The teacher warned me that it was a pretty crazy class and she was not lying. On top of their outgoing personalities, there were SO many things that had me gagging which I will just have to get used to and always have antibacterial stuff around! I say this because in that one 45 minute class, I had four kids dripping with snot and touching everything. And the finale.......a girl threw up all over the table! If that is not a welcome into teaching, I don't know what is. But in all of that, I loved it! I am so excited that my job is going to be teaching kids how to make cool arts and crafts. I was really worried about if teaching was what I even wanted to do because I hate public speaking and I always felt that if I dread doing that, then how can I get up in front of a class and do that every day? But it is so different. I feel so comfortable and confident in what I am doing and I can't imagine doing anything else.

One thing that did break my heart today was a little girl's comment she made about her artwork. She kept asking to get new paper to redo the assignment. I told her that her work was beautiful just the way it was. She kept saying it is horrible and after a couple more times of me encouraging her that it was fine she said, "Well my mom will say it is horrible." Now I don't know anything about this girl and maybe her mother actually wouldn't say that, but it just makes me feel terrible that a second grader could feel that pressure and have such low self-esteem about themselves from their own parent. I also don't think the teacher in the class is that encouraging either. Maybe I am just naive about teaching and things are different when you are with the same kids every day, but I never heard her go around and compliment the student's work or really even have that much interaction with them besides harshly reprimanding them. I understand you need to set rules and implement them, but I also believe that respect and kindness goes a long way too. These days of observation that I have been doing are really teaching me what to do AND not to do in my own classroom and I cannot wait until I can do this every day, even with the occasional throw up.

Hoot Hoot

Tomorrow I will be released into the classroom and will take the reins of teaching kindergartners how to make an owl collage. I am mixed with nerves and excitement! This is what the final product will look like.

We will go over what a collage is and why our owls are on dark paper ( because owls are nocturnal!) Hopefully the students will enjoy it and I don't mess up or look stupid.

Bitten By The Blog Bug

Here we go again! I have caught the blog bug and I am ready to go! So here is my "blogumentation" of my Live-Life-Love-Life mind set.


Life as an art major/educator is going great! I am currently taking printmaking and sculpture which are two areas that I am slowly learning to appreciate. As for the actual art education side of my degree, I am finally going into the elementary schools and observing and even teaching students. The other week I was given the task of giving a pre-test. And this coming week I will be teaching an art lesson for a kindergarten and second grade class. I LOVE it!


Spring break is starting next Friday and while most college students go to the beach, I will be going home to do MAJOR wedding coordinating. On my to-do list so far is:

• Print wedding invitations
• Order a wedding cake
• Meet with our minister
• Meet with our wedding coordinator
• Meeting with reception venue
• Go to the doctor
• Have a garage sale
• Start addressing invitations
• Re-finish some furniture for our new home
• Attend my first wedding shower

And I am sure I will be doing a lot more. But in all that chaos of getting things done, I am really excited! I can't believe that in 3 months, 2 weeks, and 6 days I will be marrying the love of my life. It has felt like it has taken forever to get here and now it is going faster than ever! And I know that after spring break time will fly even more.