One day at a time: August 2011

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

First days of school!

So I'm realizing how spoiled the life of a specialty teacher is...yes I know I put my time in to get to this point in my teaching, but WOW...there's so much less to do...only an office to organize and decorate (which now that it's decorated never needs to be changed), no bulletin boards, no grading, very few conferences, no lunch count, half the school emails don't apply to me, getting to leave soon after the day ends....UM, YES PLEASE! In summary, loving my new job...we're stuck in testing chaos right now, but once it's done we get to make our groups and things settle down a bit. The one downside is keeping track of 3 different grade levels and 15 teachers...but again, when testing is done I'll have my 2 kindergarten teachers and my 5 other 1st and 2nd grade groups :) Oh, and did I mention that I have 45 minutes of planning time every day (really it's 30...who can get more than a bathroom break and email/voicemail checked in 15 minutes?) I still don't have an employee number which means no school email (hating getting everything on my personal one) and the no number thing means I can't set up a slew of other things...but I do have a copy code and an ID tag and keys - I just got the last of them....well that's really all, the joys of a lot of new staff, a new building...I also got to pick a lock (which I'm not good at) because we don't all have keys to everything and we'll just say there was a little adventure when the key elf locked testing materials and a lunch in the cupboard!

So here's my picture recap of this last week :)

Back to School Night...meet and greet with the parents at the "picnic" beforehand and after that all I had to do was direct lost people and try to answer questions (usually I had to go find out the answer since I seem to know nothing yet!)

First day of school outfit...have I ever mentioned how happy the 1st day of school makes me?
Good day...full of testing and meeting my kindergarteners

THE OFFICE! Since it's a brand new building we're not allowed any nails or sticky tak, just those removable tabs and hooks...made it work :) Still waiting for my white board so I may have to get creative when I do writing!

Cupboard, pocket chart, door (everything in the building is nature themed so our doors have this tree look...you can tell more in context, but just to say the whole building is so pretty!)

Resource wall - reading strategies, sight words, better word choices...etc and my desk...it's HUGE and takes too much space, this from the girl that's never had one before!

My too cute for words, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree! I was so excited when one of my K teachers told me she does a whole project based on the book too! Cute and a good reference for them :)

Bookshelf, my centers rack turned supply rack, small group table!

Off to enjoy my weekend...cause specialty teachers have time for free time and don't have to go to school on a Saturday!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

The apartment tour

I'm ALL unpacked and decorated (at least my apartment) my office is ALMOST done...hopefully tomorrow...especially since it's Back to School Night (not that I really have to do anything other than mingle! Might be the best Back to School Night EVER!! Anyway, back to what is finished...my lovely apartment! I have a few things that I don't love where they are but as I live here I can rearrange, but for now it's cute and unpacked and I'm a happy camper!

So here's the "tour" excuse some of the photography!

The window wall in my bedroom

The open door is my closet - this is the wall across from the window

Wall across from my bed

My bed with my new comforter and pillows - LOVE!

I had several unpacking injuries: box cuts, scrapes, bruises, and I dropped my bathroom cabinet on my poor foot :( The bruise/lump didn't come out to well in the picture but it HURT!

My bathroom - it has a HUGE garden tub which has been handy a few times already! I'm loving all my shades of blue/green...my touch of ocean in the middle of the country and my picture of Cape Hedo helps too :)

Love seat, new TV, Japan pictures, and wall stickers - best invention!

Couch, a bit of my balcony (it still has boxes on it and there are a few boxes next to my couch that need to go to my garage)

LAUNDRY ROOM!!! in my apartment - so exciting! People in Colorado don't seem to cook (or at least those that live in apartments) so my kitchen is tiny...my solution was to be put my appliances in the laundry :)

Tiny kitchen

The other side of the tiny kitchen, but it does have a DISHWASHER! ahhhh heaven, I haven't had one of those in 10 years!

This is the little desk space next to the kitchen in the dining area - good place for my Okinawa glass

Dining area and front door - there's a little coat closet to the right of that

So that's the tour! Loving exploring the area - TomTom has been extremely helpful, I've tried to go without using "him" when possible...it usually results in an adventurous detour but I am getting the hang of it. Aimee brought the boys up this weekend and we used the pool - it was nice to have my first visitors! Hopefully more are to come :) I'm loving work so far and everyone on staff has been great - it will be fun to get to know everybody! Still looking for a church, 2 strike-outs so far, but I have a few more on my list. I think that covers everything for now. Once my office is finished I'll give the VERY small tour of that and maybe some pictures of my new beautiful school...I have to say it's super kid friendly and adorable!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Moving up 5,000 feet and over 2 states

I keep waiting for things to slow down, but they really haven't...I finished another term of grad school - ONE TO GO!!! Passed my Reading Specialist exam...it kicked my butt, but I'm glad it's done! I finished teaching summer school and tutoring - I don't think I'll be returning to SGCS, but I suppose one never knows...it was a strange feeling to walk out those doors, I grew up as a teacher there. Anyway...

And now I'm in Colorado! I'm still a little in shock...the movers came July 28 and the whole experience was miserable, I don't want to talk about it - I had used the company before and was completely disappointed (the drop off was better, but couldn't make up for everything else...). So my stuff left, I took a trip to Visalia for Jen's baby shower - she's lovely of course! and I got to see her and Jason's house and spend time with Holly and her adorable little boy!

After that I cruised over to Atascadero to spend some time with my parents, Kevin, and some friends...and study my dreaded note cards - I apologize to all of you that had to hear about the history of reading, or the stages of spelling, or whatever set of cards I happened to be studying when I talked to you...I got some much needed beach time in before heading back to Pasadena to stay with Edith and Duff (thanks again!) until my exam...the last few days in CA included studying, a chiropractor appointment, studying, lunch with Adrienne, studying, walking with Kim, studying, and class...no biggie :)

Don't laugh at the giant jackets...it was a little chilly and that was all that was in the car!

After the exam, before it sank in that I had written 13 pages in less than 6 hours I drove to Vegas to meet Aimee and the WHOLE family - cause she's crazy like that to drive 12 hours to meet me to caravan to Colorado with me...love her! Had a yummy dinner with them, crashed out, and got up at 6 to start our trip to CO, I mean home...weird! We were going to try and make it the whole way and did! For those of you that know me in the car...I'm VERY proud! I seem to have the attention span of a 5 week old so it was nice to be able to get out of the car every 2 hours when Tobin needed to eat :) I didn't get my stuff until Friday night (more irritations) and in the meantime, I spent some time relaxing with Aimee and the family, worked 2 days testing 2nd graders, getting my CO plates, and taking care of a few other things! Below is our trip pictures and some moving pictures - I'll take apartment pictures soon - I'm all unpacked...just need to hang things! So far I'm LOVING the job - more to come on that next time!

Most of the drive looked like this...