Two to Go...

Well, it seems like I have completed a gazillion steps in getting my application complete--and now I just have two more steps to go. All that is left for me to do is my resume' (in which I planned the format already, I just have to figure out what my "bullets" are going to say), and finally, my letter of application (or cover letter)....which I don't think will be too difficult. Of course, i haven't worked on my portfolio yet.....but I am feeling like that is going to have to be something I work on slowly, and hopefully develop over time. Whatever is ready for the interview, I will bring. Thankfully, the portfolio is mainly used to give more insight into what kind of person/teacher I am and will be. I have an advantage, in that, the people interviewing me, already know me. So at least, I will not be relying entirely on my portfolio to make an impression. I would like to eventually have one--I just don't know how I will get it done before THIS interview.

Ben is going to weight training for diving tomorrow morning. He will be leaving the house at 5:15am! UGH. Then he has practice in the afternoon, which ends a 5pm. Talk about a long day!

Tomorrow is the first day of our Secret Santa program at school. We were supposed to get our person some kind of candy that represented them or the job they do. That is not as easy as it sounds. The person I got is a teacher in the Early Childhood Department. I ended up getting her Miniature Chocolate Bars, to represent her helping the "mini's" at our school. I know, I was stretching just a bit. I couldn't get something that represented her necessarily, because I really don't know her well. All I know is that she seems nice, and she is a bit (actually a lot) overweight. Not very helpful in helping me find candy to represent her!

Today we put up our Christmas tree, but decided not to take out all of our Christmas boxes that contained all of our decorations and "stuff". Mainly, because there is a lot of them, and we already have boxes mounting up around us. So, after a short discussion, and figuring next year we will most likely have TWO trees in our house (one in the front bay window-more for outside effect) and the regular family one in the family room.....we decided to just get a new tree skirt, and some general/basic Christmas balls to hang on the tree. (The we can use the stuff again next year on the LR tree.) I ended up going with a "snowflake" theme.....and bought things very different than we are used to. Our tree has white lights on it already. The tree skirt has white chenille hooked snowflakes on a felted light tan (?) skirt. Then I bought different size and shape glass ornaments. Mostly in silver, some frosted white, some with frosted snowflakes on silver or white. It is going to be different for sure......but, I think it will be pretty. Next year we will be back to putting all of our personal family ornaments on the tree. This year, it will feel good to not unpack all of them, and only enjoy them for a short time before we leave for Colorado.....and then have to pack them all back up again. This pared down look fits with the simplified theme we got going over here for showing the house, anyway. :0)

I haven't started shopping for Christmas presents yet. I am a bit worried! We haven't even talked about our budget for Christmas this year. Now that we aren't moving on Jan. 4th.....we will have a little more $$ to work with-but not much! It will have to be a pared down Christmas for gifts, too. I do need to get going on this, though. I am running our of time! There has been so much going on over here.....I just haven't gotten to the stores to concentrate on this. Soon......I hope!

something new

I thought I'd share what Ben has decided to do. It totally cracks me up and surprises me. He has decided to join the school diving team! WHAT? (That's what I said!) The answer is......No, he has never attempted diving before. It is a BRAND NEW venture. I give him credit for doing something unknown. I suppose, if you can't do that as a Freshman, when can you do it?

Basically, the state champion swim team cannot compete unless they have a diving team, too. (or something like that.....) They do not have enough guys on the diving team apparently. Ben's PE teacher approached him last week and asked him if he would think about joining. He said "you are athletic--I think you could do this". Next thing you know.....he attends a practice, and is diving off the diving board, being coached on form! Can you believe that? I am just glad he is doing something else with his time that doesn't involve the computer or video games. You never know, maybe he will actually come to like it. Maybe he will even be good! In the meantime, I will try and not laugh at him wearing a Speedo. Ha! (Although, he informed me after practice today that there was a bit more coverage than the typical Speedo we were thinking of....thank god!)

Tomorrow he attends his first swim meet--he will not be competing....he will just be going for support. I just think this whole thing is very funny. I can't imagine he will score very well when he starts competing himself--like I said, he has never even gone off a diving board! (with the exception of a few cannonballs and bellyflops!).....I hope he has fun anyway. :0)

Wanna know something even funnier? One of the biggest reasons he thinks he'll like it is because there is no conditioning involved! After a year on Campton, he was done with conditioning for a while. All there is involved is repeated practice on form, and voluntary weight training before school 3 days a week. That is a huge difference than the exhausting conditioning he put in for Campton United Soccer!! It does seem like a fairly large time commitment though......hope he realizes that. ben has a habit of thinking something sounds good until he realizes the reality of it. I hope this isn't just one more thing he has us pay money for, and then wants to quit. I am waiting for him to find his niche. I hope he finds it soon. Maybe this is it, who knows?

Boy, I am tired!

I think that I will go to sleep now. It is early....but it has been a long and hard day. My eyes are sleepy, even though the last time I cried was at about 4pm.
Matt took me out to dinner tonight, so I wouldn't have to cook. We just went to Bennigans. I was craving a loaded baked potato. You know, comfort food. :0)
Maybe I will go to bed and look at a magazine until I fall asleep. That sounds carefree and relaxing, doesn't it?
We told our realtor that we needed tomorrow to get our house back in showing order. We'll be ready again by Saturday.

What a let down!.....sigh

Okay-I am just going to say it. Our house sale fell through. The contract on our house, that is. The guy flaked out on us, and decided to "walk away". He says it is over the inspection--but we don't have details yet about what it was that threw him over the edge. He mentioned the furnace being older, but he knew its age before he made the offer. Something about our washer and dryer being plugged into the wrong power outlet....easy fix on that. Something else about the wiring to an outlet being backwards (???).....the electricity works in all our outlets--so I am not sure what is up with that. We are hoping we will get a full report of what they found. Because right now, it seems the guy just had buyers remorse and used the inspection as an excuse to change his mind.

It is very disappointing. I feel deflated. BUT--I am trying to remember and trust that this was not a surprise to God, and that He is in control. Obviously, this was not the right buyer. This has been a hard thing to accept, though. I won't lie. I have cried many tears over the whole thing. When Matt told me the news, I was in disbelief. Then came the tears and nausea.

Now I am concentrating on moving on, and accepting what I cannot change.

I need to focus

With all of this house stuff, I have gotten a little behind with getting myself ready for interviewing. I have been counting my blessings that so far, the position has not been posted yet! I have GOT to get focused!

I had a giggle today when a little girl in one of my classes told me that she FINALLY made a Santa hat for her pet hamster. A hat for a hamster?? LOL! I tried to keep a straight face when she described how she attached a rubberband to a little hat that had previously been on an ornament, and carefully slipped that hat onto her hamster's head! I asked if the hamster tried getting it off--or if it acted funny when it was on....and she said no. Since I must have looked surprised over that answer...she quickly explained that "actually, the hamster was sleeping when I put it on!" Okay, does anyone else think this is an odd story? :0)

miracle! :0)

Last night, we accepted an offer after 5 hours of negotiations on our house! We actually sold it in less than a week....which in this market, is a miracle, as far as I am concerned! We are very excited, as you can imagine.
Our closing date is set for January 4th.

The only downside to this is that with this closing date, we will be packing and moving the week we were originally supposed to go to Colorado to visit my family for Christmas. It is very disappointing, as we would have loved to be all together for Christmas.....but, we also know that this would be the ideal time to get ourselves moved as it is the only time we both have two weeks off. We will be getting a POD to be filling on our own all month (we might need two PODs!)--so I suppose if we get ourselves all packed up BEFORE the end of December, we might have a chance of going.....but I don't see how that could happen. We would need to be completely packed with the exception of the bare essentials and furniture, all by December 21st. (We are leaving the furniture to the professionals.)

This whole packing thing is overwhelming to me. I don't even know how to approach it. Not to mention, we will need to get ourselves a gazillion boxes, and appropriate packing materials.

My guess is once we finally move in, it will take completely until the summer until we are fully unpacked. Working will slow down the rate of unpacking, I am sure. Especially if I am trying to swing my first teaching job, and dealing with preparations everday for the following day.

Even with all my concerns about packing and unpacking, and my small sadness about leaving our first home, I am VERY excited about moving into our beautiful new home! WOO HOO!! I am still in shock, and amazed at the swiftness of our home sale!

house update

We had a home inspector over at the new house today. Things looked good, with the exception of a hornet's nest in the crawl space, and some white residue in another spot of the crawl space that we need to ask about. I took a bunch more pictures (of the things I wanted to remember, like light fixtures ,and general room shots, floors, etc. Matt took photos of all the pipes, furnace, roof, water heater, etc. :0)
We had another walk through today at our house. It was another young guy. Then we have a 3rd showing with the original guy tomorrow. (That is a good sign, wouldn't you say?) Then another walk through with a new person after that. Not bad, huh?

These are exciting times!! I will post a link to the pictures once they are up somewhere I can share.