Good luck to me!!!

After weeks of looking, we finally settled on a dining room table we were happy with. Max spent lots of time putting it together for me... and now we can finally have people over for dinner!!

Here are some different views from which you can ooh and ahh over it:


Do you see those two shelves underneath? They're really to store stuff or display stuff, but our cats think it's a place for them to lounge! We've been zealous with the water spray bottle....

Anyways, I am lusting over FLOR rugs--I would really love to put one under the table to soften the space up a bit! But since we're trying to be careful with money right now, my best bet in getting one of these incredible rugs is to win one!

So I've entered two different "giveaways" in the hope that my comment will be randomly selected to win a free FLOR rug!! You can enter to win one of your very own here, and here!

Keep your fingers crossed!

Getting to know my school ... and the ER

So, I'm done freaking out now. I think. The newness is slowly wearing off and I'm getting more and more comfortable the more time I spend in my new classroom and school. A bit of unexpected grace saved me on Wednesday when one of my deaf ed. colleagues told me that we won't be pulling kids out for the first week of school. What?? A whole other week to get my room and myself prepared? Burden just rolled off my shoulders like tumbleweed in the southern wilderness!!

I've found out more about my position: I'll be doing pull-out services for deaf/hard-of-hearing students for reading and writing remediation. I'll have five fourth graders for two hours in the morning, and eight fifth graders for two hours in the afternoon. The rest of the time, I'll be going into their classrooms for extra help in other subjects. I'll also have a teacher's assistant to send out wherever my kids are needing more help.

We'll also be using a language arts curriculum new to the district this year. The district administration has said that because students working with this curriculum have had lots of success over at the State School for the Deaf, that it's going to be successful with our kids too. Never mind that the school for the deaf is a total communication program heavily emphasizing sign language. Our oral students should succeed with it too. This may be a major headache, but I'm trying to keep an open mind.

For a much more interesting post on why we spent our Saturday evening in the emergency room, see here.

Breaking them in

I've decided that taking a job in a new school (and in a new state too!) is just like getting a pair of brand new shoes.

When you first get the shoes, you think how lovely and pretty they are and what a delightful choice you've made. And then fall comes around and it's time to wear the new shoes. And suddenly you realize that these new shoes aren't as comfortable as your old sneakers. You're not as steady on your feet now and the process of breaking them in is difficult and sometimes painful. You can't wait to get home and take the shoes off and rub where the blisters have formed.

And yet. The only way to be comfortable in these shoes is to keep wearing them until you've made all the right cracks in the leather, until you've endured through all the newness and the discomfort.

And then hopefully one day you'll walk around comfortably and feel like these shoes have always been a part of you...

Where Am I ??

We closed on the house on Wednesday and moved in that night. The next four days were spent frantically unpacking and shopping/buying appliances (also, desperately missing the Internet!). Last night, we got the living room, kitchen, and bedroom looking in tip-top shape then threw the rest of the boxes into one of the other bedrooms. Outta sight, outta mind... right?

Today I started my first day of school. Well, more like the beginning of in-service week before the kids show up next Monday. I could bore you with all kinds of details like how I'm teaching 4th/5th and how I have my very own pull-out classroom for my deaf/hard-of-hearing students. I could tell you haunting nightmares of the DISASTROUS state of my new room and how the overwhelming sense of "no-way-will-I-be-prepared-for-kids-by-Monday" reduced me to tears. I could tell you about my friendly co-workers and how the jury is still out on whether or not I'll like the principal.

But instead I'll tell you about the incident that sticks out the most in my mind today. I went out for lunch with the art teacher and with one of the other deaf ed. teachers who is also new (and a first year teacher!). I'll call her Jane. Jane is slightly younger than I am and she has lived in this state her whole life. She was telling me and the art teacher the disastrous state of her own classroom when she walked in last week:

"There were hundreds of transparencies and note cards covering the floor! Broken crowns everywhere!"

I snapped to attention as I tried to figure out why there would be crowns on the floor. Burger King crowns? Happy Birthday crowns?

She continued: "and it was too bad about the crowns, because I don't have any of my own and Kindergartners really love to color and write with them."

As the realization hit me that she was actually saying crayons, I felt truly out of place. My version of normal pronunciation is clearly all wrong down south!! I stopped myself just in time from saying what I was thinking: "Ohhhhhhhhhh... you mean CRAY-ONS!!"

They talk funny down here :)

I'll miss the family too!

Dear Meijer,

In just one more day, we'll be moving down south, away from all of your hypermarket goodness.

I remember the first day I saw you, fresh off the plane from France, shopping for college dorm room stuff in your huge aisles stocked with overwhelming choice. It took some getting used to you then, but by the time I was doing all of my grocery shopping with you a year or two later, I had fallen totally and competely in love with all you had to offer!

Then later, when we moved to California and you weren't out there, we were a little lost. We spent two years shopping at four different grocery stores every week just to get what we needed. That was horrible!

And what will happen now that you won't be moving with us down south? I suppose there's still Costco and Kroger, but Kroger is usually overpriced and Costco is so... big. Many would claim that Super Wal-Mart will easily replace you, but they haven't seen Meijer's fancy cheese selection, or their organic selection. And Meijer brand food is so TASTY compared to other off-brands. And your non food-stuff is of such better quality than everyone else! Meijer, why are you making this so hard?!?

I will miss you. Wait for me, I'll always come back to you.
Love,
Sarah

PS: Who is going to entertain me with hilarious commercials?

This and that

Well we got back to Michigan with only 24 hours of travel (that's including all the layover time and drive time in addition to length of flight) without any major incidents.

The cats were happy to see us, when they remembered who we were.

I slept a grand total of six hours last night. (I hate jetlag!)

Now we have lots of stuff to do and take care of before we drive down south for the big move. All of it has to do with our stuff, our cats, our cars, and our finances as we close on the house. I actively try not to think about the school year starting because when I do I start to panic...

I have absolutely NO idea what I'll teaching and who will be my co-teacher. I've bugged my new administration about it, but they don't seem to know either as it depends on other staffing issues. So as it stands, I'll either be teaching grades K-1 or 4-5 (with most of the class being regular ed., and a small group being hearing impaired). I would be fine with either, but I am anxious to meet the teacher I'll be working alongside of all year. Day one with the students is Aug. 24th and as it stands, I will be a whole lot less prepared for the classroom than I'd like to be!

So for now I'm pouring all of my energy into moving to a new house, because that's all I can do!!

Small preview of a 20 hour horror film

Well, we've finally moved out of our apartment and into our in-laws. You'd think that moving in stages over a period of weeks would be a smart thing to do, but you'd be wrong. It was a terribly drawn out business... Glad it's finally over!

When it was finally over and we had thrown out the last bag of trash, we captured the cats and brought them out to the car. They were not pleased. In fact, Mrs. Hufflepuff was so upset, she left a permanent claw mark in the fabric ceiling of our car! We set out for our in-laws' (a 90 minute drive) to the tune of three angry cats yeowling in three part harmony. We stopped briefly at Burger King for dinner, and while Max ran out to get our food, I took some footage of the cats' indignation (you'll note that Gizmo, our calico, is suffering in silence here):



And this was them relatively calmed down! When we were about thirty minutes away, Mowgli decided she had had enough and barfed in the little plastic basket she was sitting in. (Max: "Hey what's that smell??"). Then, as she had barf on the end of her tail and on her paw, she decided it wasn't very comfortable to sit there anymore, so she moved to a different plastic basket and sat down. I thought she sat down, anyway, but it turns out she was just squatting to poop. Poop! In our car!! With no litter on it!! Do you have any idea of the stink we went through for the next thirty minutes?!?

On top off all the hoopla, Max's allergies decided that three cats shedding hair in such a small confined space was not acceptable and so he spent most of the trip sneezing violently and trying to breathe.

If this is going to be a preview of the twenty hour trip it will take to drive down south in August, we're in BIG trouble...

And everything's wrinkly

We've been living out of a suitcase since the middle of June, first with our trip down south, and now splitting our time between the in-laws and our nearly empty apartment. When we're at my in-laws, it's all fun and food and new barn kittens and reading and crafts. When we're at the apartment it's all cleaning and scrubbing and packing and apologizing to our cats for being gone!

In early August it will be Go Time with all of the unpacking and setting up and getting comfortable. We will also be hunting for the best deals on our shopping list: refrigerator, washer/dryer, dining room table, dishes, TV stand, and guest room furnishings. Oh yeah, and it will be time to go back to school and start my job.

But let's not think about all of that right now... too much fun to be had first!

Overheard

What happens when a frugal man has to sift through hundreds of dollars worth of groceries to throw away/give away before a big move? A lot of gut-wrenching emotion, that's what.

Today I cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom, while Max cleaned out the cupboards and fridge in the kitchen down the hall. In between my trips to the kitchen faucet and back (refilling my soapy bucket), I witnessed his progress as he systematically put all the food we owned (opened and unopened) onto our counters. Our kitchen looked like this (but with all the counters filled):


And as I scrubbed down the bathroom, I would hear these comments every so often coming from the kitchen (imagine a gut-wrenching-whiney tone of voice):

"Aargh!! So. Much. Food."
"EIGHT CANS OF GREEN BEANS?!?"
"We have FIVE whole jars of spaghetti sauce. FIIIIIIIVE!"
"What are we going to do with all of this food?"
"OOOHHH! My bread flour!! That stuff is EXPENSIVE!!"
"Hey, how long have we had these croutons?"
"We have so much uneaten food, this is making me sick. SICK!"
"Did you know these two boxes of cereal aren't even OPEN?"
"Seriously, this is making me want to vomit..."
"I think I just vomited."


Here he is, choking back the tears. Note to self for future moves: stop stocking the pantry months ahead of time, not just weeks....

On a related note, Hannah, do you need any food?

But mostly I just want the house, please

It's too bad that buying a house isn't like buying a shirt. With a shirt, you just pick out the one you like best, bring it to the cash register, and voila! Pay for it and go. With a house, it's more like: pick the one you like best, hold your breath till the offer is accepted, spend the next week knee-deep in paperwork, run up your cell phone minutes talking to the realtor and the mortgage lender, pack pack pack, clean clean clean, pray pray pray. And in the end, it might fall through anyway.

Of course, it doesn't help matters when the seller is being a jerk. Not only is she in the midst of what I can only assume to be a nasty divorce (aren't they all though?), she has actually sold the house twice before in the last month and both sales have fallen through. So she's been fighting her ex, she's been burned by two previous buyers, and she's making us pay for the sins of them all by rushing us along (and trying to rush the 75 other people involved in buying/selling a house).

I alternate between wanting to give her a hug and wanting to kick her in the pants.

Found and Lost and Found

We found The Awesome One yesterday. We promised ourselves that we wouldn't fall in love with a house but OOPS, it happened. In a way, that's a good thing because the first day we were having issues with Max loving one and me hating it or me loving one but Max hating it.

The Awesome house has many wonderful features: all hardwood floors, super energy efficient because of the top of the line AC unit and the double paned windows, 3 bedrooms/2 bath/2 car garage, FANTASTIC neighborhood, beautiful landscaping and fenced backyard just to name a few.

That evening we put in an offer. When we got home, we looked up the address on zillow and it told us that the house was already pending sale. Max and I were crushed, to put it mildly. We emailed our realtor but had little hope. We had a back up house that was almost perfect, but it wasn't The Awesome One, you know?

The next morning, our realtor called us and said, yep, come on over this afternoon and we'll look at more houses because this one is taken. So basically any hope we may have had was gone. Max was very upset (it's a money-saving house....he was in love!) and we both were quite sad. We went about our day's errands (fingerprinting for my new job and visiting Max's new school) feeling quite subdued. I was praying the whole time that Max especially would have peace about this unfortunate situation.

We were in the truck, and I asked Max how he was feeling. He quite calmly said that he was starting to feel okay about this whole situation, feeling like it was all going to be alright anyway. No sooner had the words left his mouth when our agent called!

She told us the house was still available. [Excuse me, can you repeat that? I'm not quite sure I heard you correctly over the traffic!] Apparently the buyer had committed loan fraud! So the seller was kind of back at square one.

To say we were shocked and overjoyed is a bit of an understatement. I believe Max cheerfully cried: "God's MESSING with us!!"

After our offer, her counter offer, our counter counter offer, and her counter counter counter offer, we accepted. Then she accepted our acceptance. Then there were rainbows in the skies, it rained down candy, and unicorns frolicked in the fields.

So barring any other catastrophe, we are going to be PROUD homeowners! We cloae in mid-August so keep praying and keep your fingers crossed! Pics are up on Facebook for family :)

We'll take The Awesome One

The last three days have been the longest and sweatiest of my life. Day 1, we drove over thirteen hours to a hotel in Arkansas in the hillbilly-pickup-with-no-air. By the time we got out of truck, I could have wrung out my underwear and created a nice salty pond on the side of the road. Day 2, we drove about 7 or 8 more hours until we found our storage unit, at which point we spent three hours unloading 90% of our earthly belongings from the truck. In the middle of the day. In the sweltering heat. There was a short moment of panic when we were wondering whether the couch would fit into the storage unit, but we made it work!

Today we spent all afternoon looking at houses with our very nice realtor in her very nice air conditioned car. We saw twenty houses. I would say about eight to ten of them, we walked in and then walked right back out. A piece of crap is a piece of crap; it's that easy to tell. Many of the homes we looked at were between 20 and 40 years old, 3 bedroom, 2 bath. We saw so many houses, took so many notes, that it started to all blur together. We started dubbing houses by their characteristics: The Smoky One, The Eighties One, The Moldy One, The Wheelchair Accessible One, The Wood Paneled One, The Busy Corner One .... the list goes on!

Tonight, we are going over some paperwork and thinking about our top three choices. Tomorrow we'll meet with the realtor again to go revisit our top three, and then she'll show us the next set of houses. I don't know if there will be twenty houses in this set (I imagine not), but she's been great in working with us to maximize our time here!

Despite the heat, this is definitely shaping up to be an exciting time for us!!

It is WAY past my bedtime

The pickup truck is packed to the hilt (and not everything fit!). We've nailed down the tarp as best we could. Now, all that's left is a very short night's sleep before we attempt to drive at least 12 hours down South (we'll still have about 8 more to go on Day 2) driving a contraption that looks suspiciously like the Beverly Hillbillies!! No air and no cruise control either. Should be fun.

But hey, at least we get to do some serious house shopping when we get there and after we unload all of our stuff in a storage unit! So that will definitely make up for the trip :)

Sometimes I wish I was a cat

Because cats don't have to pack. In fact, cats don't have to do anything except eat, drink, sleep, and poop. Max and I, however, have been very busy with putting things in boxes. And then putting more things in more boxes. It never seems to end!

Here is how Mrs. Hufflepuff has been helping out:


And if you're really a cat lover, you'll enjoy this one too:


I can hear you go "Awwwww..." all the way over here!

Moving On

I've been mildly enjoying my summer vacation. I say mildly because Responsibility sneaked up on me outta nowhere and bit me on the butt. I have a final paper due this Saturday for my grad class. I have to go back to school and hold another meeting to finish up an IEP on Thursday for this girl. That has great potential to be World War 3, but I'll keep you posted. On top of that, we are attempting to pack up about 87% of our stuff so we can bring it down to Texas next week when we go house hunting (we'll be dropping it off in a storage unit). Nothing stresses me out more than seeing this:

Packing up and moving is a tiring, back-hurting process! And I shudder to think how many times my dear mom packed up a family of five to move us across the country, and across the Atlantic.

But I do have some fun things to look forward to. Lunch out with friends! House hunting! Visiting with family! A trip to Europe! I guess it's all about perspective...