All our ducks in a row

 

Good Morning,
I am sitting in a hotel room with one of my teacher friends in Austin, TX.  My sister has nursing training down here for the week, and we are accompanying her.  I wanted to update everyone on life because it has been happening very fast and several big things have changed.

In chronological order:
1.  We bought a house!
As many of you know, we have been house hunting for a while.  We had even put in offers on a couple foreclosures that didn't pan out.  We moved in May 17th.  We still have boxes scattered throughout the house, and most things are mismatched, but we are in no rush to make our house perfect.  We want to enjoy the process.  I do have some summer plans that I am sure I will keep you updated on.

2.  We have a furbaby!
I know that word probably grates against some of your ears as it has the potential to be somewhat annoying, but I love the word!  We drove to the middle of nowhere to pick up Gentry.  At that point, she was 7 weeks old.  She is a boxer\australian shepherd mix.  Little background--I have never owned a four-legged pet.  We had chickens, turkeys, and ducks.  I had no idea what to expect, and for some reason I thought we needed a puppy.  She is a lot of work, but she is super cute.  She wakes us up on mornings that we would normally sleep in.  She cries in the middle of the night.  She makes messes.  She bites.  We call her our monster.  I take a lot of pictures of her on instagram, you should follow me.  (Username is livingpretty22)

3.  I got a new job!
I have been thinking about quitting teaching since last year.  Last year was tough (team issues).  This year the students and parents were the most difficult I have ever had.  (Thank goodness for an awesome team!)  I was really contemplating leaving the profession altogether.  This year I started revising my resume and networking with other teachers and principals.  I had had an interview a few months back, but I never heard back either way (rude!).  Last week, I had another interview that I totally thought I ended on the wrong note.  Surprise, two days later the principal called and offer me the job.  I am so excited about this transition.  I am hoping that it will reenergize my love for teaching and students.

All of this happened in the time frame of less than a month!  Wowzers!  I am thankful that God has a plan for my life, even the itty bitty details.  Anthony and I very much try to make decisions to do things if all our ducks are in a row.  Fortunately, God has blessed us when he sees fit.


Hopefully, now that I have caught everyone up on life, I will be back in the blogging scene a bit more.  I miss writing.


xoxo,

What are these things growing out of my head?!?

I had to take a day off.  I just had to!  The kids were driving me insane.  I could not handle it, so I took the Friday off before my birthday.  My birthday always lands the day before state testing.  How lame is that?  It is like the most stressful and irritating time for teachers.  Even though a sub did not pick up the job, I couldn't care less.  I spent all day pampering myself.

I got bang bangs!  Look out!  I like them in this picture, but when they are on my face sometimes I get annoyed.  I needed a new look though without cutting off the length.  

I also went and got my nails done...finally!  I opted to get the GEL NAILPOLISH for my manicure.  I am so glad I did!  It is a little bit more expensive, but so worth it.  I have a chip or two on my nails, and I got this done like 14 days ago.  There is nothing more frustrating than spending money on a manicure to have it look ugly like 2 days later.  I highly recommend shelling out the extra cash.

Oh and by the way, we bought a house!  We move in in two weeks!  We have quite a few projects lined up, and I will try to  keep you up to date on how that goes.  I can finally put all my Pinterest boards to good use.  Hopefully we won't have too many fails!

P.S. Always looking to host guest bloggers and swap buttons for free!  Let me know:)

Living in the in-between

Living in the in-between.  The first time I heard this phrase was when I was reading Cold Tangerines.  I feel like I am living in-between in many different areas of my life.  For example, I have applied for a middle school position at a new middle school.  Who knows when I will hear back and what will even come of that.  We are also house hunting.  I am loving this, but it has been and will continue to be difficult.  I want to paint our bedroom furniture.  I have wanted to paint it for forever, but we can't in the apartment. 

In the book, the author explains that we shouldn't always be focused on the next big thing.  We should focus on the here and now.  I don't want to look back on my life and remember in high school that I wished I could be driving.  Or when I was commuted to college, I wished I was living on campus.  Or when I was single, wishing I was married. 

This kinda goes along with One Thousand Gifts.  So, even though I am ready to be in the next stage of whatever, I am going to enjoy the journey of the here and now.

You should do the same.

I am alive!

Good Morning all!  I feel like I have not blogged in forever which is super sad because I have some great people on here that I love connecting with.  I am going to try to do better this week.  If you are visiting from the link-up, follow along, and I will be sure to come visit your blog and follow you back!

Life has just been kinda fast paced lately.  We are headed into the crunch-time season with my students as we prepare them for the state assessment.  This is the second year to take STAAR, but we still don't know much more about it than we do last year.  The pressure is just as intense if not more so to be successful though.  Being responsible for the only writing score for the whole school is kind of crazy amounts of pressure.

Anthony and I are in a very exciting time of our lives.  We are currently house hunting!  Most of the time this is fun.  We will detour from our route every now and then and slowly creep by a new house.  We have even gotten brazen enough to go pick in a few windows of houses we knew where empty.  Not only is it exciting to try to pick a house, but we have had discussions about what the rooms will be used for and how we envision our life going.  It makes me happy to plan a future with this guy knowing that whatever house we pick, it is who we share it with that makes a difference.  (BTW Anthony, there will be no man cave unless you are referring to the garage, and there will be no naked room unless you are referring to the bathroom.)  House hunting also gives me added reason to be on pinterest and go thrifting for awesome deals.


In other news, God has really been revealing my sin of a judgmental heart.  Sometimes I don't think that others were raised a different way or are in a different place than I am emotionally or spiritually.  I pass judgment on them because I assume that they are in the same place as I am.  What is really neat is that God is working on us in DIFFERENT areas and in DIFFERENT ways.  My biggest gift to them is to extend them grace instead of judgement.  If they are a believer, it doesn't excuse me from not calling their attention to their sin, but it is with grace and not judgment.  More on that here.