Well, it is Friday..the Friday before my Fall Break ends :( It went by way too fast, and the whole time I think I thought about work. Does that ever go away?! Probably not. Oh well, I guess that is the life of a teacher. I have conferences all next week and my kiddos get out at 2 everyday. When is my first conference you ask??? On Monday morning at 7:30 am! Ahhh!! So not ready! I think I will be ok, but seriously what was I thinking when I scheduled at 7:30am conference on Monday morning after having a week off.....clearly I wasn't thinking at all. Enough about my job, Matt and I have had an awesome week! It has been nice for him having me home, because usually he only has a few hours a day to spend with me. He works from home, so it was nice for me too because we actually got to do some things together.
My break started off with me and my wonderful family and bridesmaids going to look for a wedding dress! First of all the place screwed up and called us a few days before saying they had overbooked for our scheduled appointment time....umm sorry but we made our appointment a month ago, why do you need to switch ours?! Well being the wonderful customers that we are, we changed our appointment to an hour and a half later. Thank goodness everyone was still able to come out and help me find my dress. After about the 4th dress (going into this I had no idea what I wanted except maybe a sweetheart style top) I put on a really elegant looking dress. When I walked out everyone ooohhed and ahhhhed, and my mom got teary eyed. I of course got teary eyed when I saw her. Everyone loved this one, but I told myself I had to try on at least a few more just to make sure. So after 3 more dresses, I put "the one" back on. That confirmed it. We put it on with the veil and they had me walk around in it. It is so comfy and it is so me! I decided that was the dress! We put our money down, and it comes at the end of November! It feels so real now that we actually have the dress! Next is finding bridesmaid dresses! After the appointment we decided to all go to lunch at Oregano's. Big mistake. 45 minute wait at 2 in the afternoon.....we headed to Olive Garden for soup and salad instead. That was a really good day and I am so lucky to have had wonderful friends and family to share it with :)
The following Monday, Matt, my mom, Sadie, and I all headed to Flagstaff for our engagement session. You can see some of our pictures here. We left Phoenix around 9:30 am because we just wanted to get up to the cooler weather and hang out around the town. We stopped in Camp Verde for our usual Starbucks run, and headed on up the mountain. My mom was funny because she has never done a long car ride with Sadie. Our dog has really high anxiety about car rides. We have found a way to take her on long trips. We put her in her kennel with the seats down, and she lays down and relaxes. She still wont look at you and she wont let you touch her when she is in the car. Our dog is weird. My mom thought it was funny, and she tried to get her attention the whole way up. We got into town around 11:30, and decided to go eat lunch somewhere outside. It was breezy and cool, about 60 degrees! We went to the new brewery downtown (Flag has changed so much since we lived up there) and asked if we could take the pup out on the patio. They said we had to tie her up outside of the fence and that she couldnt be with us. Um hello? Isn't Flagstaff dog friendly? Apparently not the new places..We walked over to Altitudes and ended up on the patio there. It worked out better because Mondays are half price burger days. :) We got some wings and some burgers. So yummy! After lunch we walked around downtown and just enjoyed the beautiful weather. Then we headed up to Snowbowl to meet Lizzie for our pictures. We had so much fun goofing off and kissing each other all afternoon :) Lizzie was so great with us and our crazy dog, and she took some amazing shots! After the mountain we headed down to NAU to take some more pics. Sadly North Campus was under construction, but we found some good spots to take some awesome pictures! Monday was so much fun, I did not want it to end!
The rest of my fall break was spent being lazy, cleaning, and trying to get some work done for new lessons for my babes. I really have not gotten much done, but that is OK because I still have 3 days :) I am going to live up these next 3 days, and start a countdown until my next little break....Thanksgiving. Which happens to be my favorite holiday. Enjoy your October everyone, its almost over!
Friday, October 14, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
October Already?!
So I was just looking at my calendar in my phone, and I can't believe that it is October. October 2nd. What the hell. When did that happen?! I feel like this year is already going by so fast! It feels like just yesterday that we were in San Diego, and now its October.
Speaking of October, when is it going to be nice enough to open the windows?! If we were still in Flag, we would be in jeans and sweaters with the windows open enjoying the crisp air. Too bad we live in Phoenix. Its brown, its ugly, and its hot. I long for the time when Matt and I can move back somewhere cool. Who knows if it will actually happen, but a girl can dream. There is hope for us though, my weather app says that on Thursday its going to be 74 for the high....I will believe it when I see it! Don't get me wrong I would be ecstatic if that were the case, but I honestly cannot see that happening. It doesn't get down into the 70's for a high until like January. Us Phoenicians also think that 74 degrees is FREEZING, and we are all bundled up...weird.
Besides griping about the weather and it already being October, I feel the need to gripe about teaching today. Pardon me if this post sucks, but I really just need to gripe!
I love teaching. I love my job. But there are some days when I feel like a complete failure! Teaching is by far one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. I think people really underestimate what teachers do and go through. You can all say you understand and you feel for us blah blah. But until you actually step into our position, you don't get it. It's constantly communicating with parents. Constantly saying "please listen to me while I am talking, its not your turn." or "sit down" or "get to work". It is constant paperwork, assessments, phone calls, assemblies, homework checking and packet assembling, making sure the kids are getting what they need and are challenged, making sure they are not bored. It is also making sure that you have done the right amount of assessments to fill out report cards and have them be accurate, hoping that when conferences come you know what the hell you are talking about. I am completely overwhelmed with the report card process that I don't think I am going to make it through. I want to be able to enjoy my fall break and not stress about conferences, but that is not going to happen. I am too much of a perfectionist to really relax. I want to KNOW that I am doing the right thing. I want everything to be super organized and easy to access. I want my storage to be beautiful and in containers and drawers and boxes. That is completely impossible, unless I want to spend every waking hour in my classroom. I know that I am in the right profession, and I will eventually be good at it. I am just really struggling with finding my groove and wanting to go into work in the morning without feeling some form of high anxiety. I also know that I am not the only one out there that feels like this or has felt like this in the teaching profession. It is just nice to be able to say it out loud. If you are a teacher and you are reading this, I will take ANY advice to make this process easier. I will listen to any instances where you have felt this way. I think just being able to talk through all of this and live it everyday will help, but I am just overwhelmed and I feel like I am drowning. I will get through it, eventually.
Thanks for reading friends. Here is to a better post when conferences are over! :)
Em
Speaking of October, when is it going to be nice enough to open the windows?! If we were still in Flag, we would be in jeans and sweaters with the windows open enjoying the crisp air. Too bad we live in Phoenix. Its brown, its ugly, and its hot. I long for the time when Matt and I can move back somewhere cool. Who knows if it will actually happen, but a girl can dream. There is hope for us though, my weather app says that on Thursday its going to be 74 for the high....I will believe it when I see it! Don't get me wrong I would be ecstatic if that were the case, but I honestly cannot see that happening. It doesn't get down into the 70's for a high until like January. Us Phoenicians also think that 74 degrees is FREEZING, and we are all bundled up...weird.
Besides griping about the weather and it already being October, I feel the need to gripe about teaching today. Pardon me if this post sucks, but I really just need to gripe!
I love teaching. I love my job. But there are some days when I feel like a complete failure! Teaching is by far one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. I think people really underestimate what teachers do and go through. You can all say you understand and you feel for us blah blah. But until you actually step into our position, you don't get it. It's constantly communicating with parents. Constantly saying "please listen to me while I am talking, its not your turn." or "sit down" or "get to work". It is constant paperwork, assessments, phone calls, assemblies, homework checking and packet assembling, making sure the kids are getting what they need and are challenged, making sure they are not bored. It is also making sure that you have done the right amount of assessments to fill out report cards and have them be accurate, hoping that when conferences come you know what the hell you are talking about. I am completely overwhelmed with the report card process that I don't think I am going to make it through. I want to be able to enjoy my fall break and not stress about conferences, but that is not going to happen. I am too much of a perfectionist to really relax. I want to KNOW that I am doing the right thing. I want everything to be super organized and easy to access. I want my storage to be beautiful and in containers and drawers and boxes. That is completely impossible, unless I want to spend every waking hour in my classroom. I know that I am in the right profession, and I will eventually be good at it. I am just really struggling with finding my groove and wanting to go into work in the morning without feeling some form of high anxiety. I also know that I am not the only one out there that feels like this or has felt like this in the teaching profession. It is just nice to be able to say it out loud. If you are a teacher and you are reading this, I will take ANY advice to make this process easier. I will listen to any instances where you have felt this way. I think just being able to talk through all of this and live it everyday will help, but I am just overwhelmed and I feel like I am drowning. I will get through it, eventually.
Thanks for reading friends. Here is to a better post when conferences are over! :)
Em
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