2 weeks

A bullet list for the past two weeks...

• bought a new fridge... it arrived damage... refused it.... three days later shopped at Home Depot and bought a new fridge... awaiting arrival.
• started moving things from my classroom... and in a round about way it was implied that I was taking things that were not mine. Apparently the owner didn't notice how much stuff I actually brought into the classroom for activities and organization, but also planning wise. I almost quit on the spot because really??? Why would I ever steal?? Karma isn't worth it.
• packing the apt... we've finished the office, most of the kitchen, and most of my teaching stuff is at the new house.
• bought lawn equipment... a rotary mower, rake, and gloves. The yard already looks ten times better from cutting the grass and raking up leaves.
• wrote notes to the parents of my classroom to explain that I'm leaving.
• freaked out because I accidentally got on the HOV lane on 59 that is completely separate from 59... by myself. I was terrified of getting pulled over because of a stupid mistake. :(

Work on the house is slowly coming along... the cable wire has been ran, we need to rerun the internet cord (easy since we now know how and where), and we fixed the electrical wiring in the offices. The celling lights were plugged into an outlet instead of hooked up electrically to the light switch so with the help of a good friend new electrical wiring was installed to fix that.

Tomorrow I'll be able to patch the holes in the walls, buy our accent paint, and finally add some color to the house sometime later this week.

This will be my last week at my job...!! I'll start at the new school on Monday. Updates to come.

Two Weeks

Like I said I would in my last post... I turned in my two weeks notice. The director which is (actually a super good friend of mine) was so excited for me because she is a former teacher and knew that I just was not happy with the choices made by the owner and felt that I deserved to be in a school that valued me more and was more school like. Plus this means we can be friends again without having to hide it from the owner. That sounds like Jr. High drama right? Trust me, so many things were blown up that was so silly. Like the fact that I hung out once with the director... the school found out and made her pull me into the office and tell me that we couldn't be friends and hang out. Of course we both took it as a joke, but the higher ups were VERY serious about it. So to protect our rears we just kind of both went with it.

Anyways, so here is how it went. I turned in my notice, the director and I gabbed a bit about the new job and went ahead and set a hang out date. As soon as the house is ready we're throwing a guitar hero party, she is a huge guitar hero fan. (It is a video game where you play a pretend guitar to songs and you have to hit the matching color button to the matching color note). About 10 minutes later I received a text from my assistant (she was out sick) saying that the owner JUST called her and offered her the lead teaching position. Wow... talk about fast right? Well apparently the owner thought that my assistant was quitting too because she was out today when really she was just sick. Of course she accepted the job and I'm excited about that because she too is one of my best friends. Then around 8 a new girl is brought into my class and I'm told she'll be the new aide after I leave. Wow again... that was quick. It ended up great through because she is also from SFA and while she was starting in the 2's room, they moved her to my room once they realized I was really quitting.

The day ran pretty smooth and I even took an hour lunch break during my 7am-6pm shift. At the end of the day I went to clock out and the owner pulled me into a meeting. She asked about the job and if I would please stay. I mentioned that I really wanted to take this other job and she asked if it was about money. I said that a just part of it was, and she offered to match what they offered. First up... if she could match that why wouldn't she meet me in the middle when I first started?? The new job pays 13,000 MORE than what I make now. I still turned it down because while the pay is nice, I don't feel supported at that school. I explained that I'm the type of teacher that needs feedback. I need someone to come in and let me know if I'm doing a good job, offer suggestions on how to improve my lesson plans, and give me guidance when I have problems with my students. I don't like being left in my room with the kids without guidance. I want that critical feedback so that I can grow as a teacher and reach my full potential. I mentioned that I've been struggling and I needed more support and the occasional "good job". She said the reason they don't bother me is because they feel that I'm their best teacher and that I can handle it. That is great and all, but that doesn't help me learn. I've been struggling hardcore with this class from the day they switched my kids and the only person to offer any advice is the director. Everyone else just says things like "give it time" and honestly that doesn't help me. All teachers need a little bit of praise here and there... but most of all they need support.

I don't care what I make as long as I can pay my bills and have a bit of wiggle room because when you're happy it doesn't matter as much. I'd rather have a low paying job that I'm excited and happy about rather than a high paying job that causes me major amounts of stress and has a lack of support.

Plus... like I'm really going to go and say "Sure I'll stay..." after my friend has already accepted it?? No. That would cause issues between us and while jobs are very important in life, friendship is more important.

I'm not that kind of person.

Of course after school I talked to my good friend the director and she said that the owner told her that I was quitting because I "don't receive enough praise".... so I think that she didn't quite get what I meant.

I love my class size, I loved my kids, and I loved my coworkers... but the support just wasn't there that I was looking for as a new first year teacher. So for the next two weeks I'll be training my assistant to be a teacher (like she needs it? she is a teacher) and training the new assistant on how to be an assistant.

Lets hope it is there for this next school otherwise I don't know what I'll do.

The House

My office for now and future nursery once we start that phase in a couple years.

The downstairs powder room that we'll paint and update a little.

The kitchen, eventually we'll change the floors to hardwood or tile.

The stairs, balcony, and railing. Eventually we'll have to change balcony as the spaces were listed as too wide during the inspection, along with the stair railing being unsafe since it is not round.

Living room & entry way.

We spent most of Saturday working in the house, matching the texture of the walls to some textured paint so that we'll be ready once we start cutting into the drywall to run the wires for internet and cable. We also cleaned all of the kitchen except for the inside of the oven. The dust build up in this house was unreal and the worst of it was the kitchen. Hopefully the rest of the cleaning will run smoothly.

I'm slightly nervous about this week... I am turning in my two weeks notice at my job. I hate quitting jobs, but it will be okay. I just need to pump myself up for it.

We close on the house tomorrow, and begin a list of decisions into what we plan to do so we better get our act together. We need to figure out moving, utilities, and all kinds of other things.

Things are going to be a little crazy for the next month.

Year Goals Revisited

Life:

• Implementing Sunday brunch dates again. We use to always go to a movie on Sunday mornings followed by lunch, but as things picked up for the holidays we started skipping out on our weekly date.
• Send more photos to mom, talk every other day at least.
• Email Nana White and Nana Seidler once a week.
• Quit falling asleep after work.

Work:

• Read one new book on education a month
• Stay organized!

Blog:

• Write at least once a week with a picture included.

Health:

• Better lunches... limit frozen food to once a week.
• Eat Breakfast!... For now I'll have hot tea, but once it warms up I'll just back over to the green monster smoothies. (http://greenmonstermovement.com/)
• Workout... we'll start this at 3 times a week and slowly build up. However I haven't had much success with sticking to this goal so we'll see.

This year so far...

My goal for the year is to be more organized. First step, getting back into the routine of being a teacher. I started up going to the library again each week. This week I wiped out all of the Eric Carle books for our author study. I meant to take home all of my files today to organize them B BUT of course I didn't think and I walked out without it. That's okay... I'll focus on it this weekend. I did manage to clean out the art stack and send all of it home today so that helped.

In other news my husband surprised me and told me to go ahead and pick out the color that I want to paint my office in the new house... something must be up right? Yep. He said that he was pretty sure we would have to paint the living room and both offices due to putting cat5 in the house. My first thought... 5 cats that's too many!?!

Well no... he meant this stuff... some kind of internet cable. Apparently we're not running it under the carpet but rather through the walls. I'm not exactly sure what that means in terms of making him feel guilty and telling me to pick out paint... BUT we'll go with it.