One week down!

Well. Matt and I survived our first week at school!  And boy, was it a week.

The good news is, Matt didn't come home saying he didn't want to teach anymore, pack up we're moving back to Iowa! The days leading up to the first day of school were pretty stressful.  We spent the whole week before going into Matt's classroom and setting things up.  We painted cabinets and we hung things on the wall.  Then Matt spent lots of time planning and planning.  When school finally started, Matt felt kinda ready.  And you know Matt, he's very critical of himself, so everyday he would come home and we would discuss his day, and I would reassure him that it sounded just fine.  He is having a blast teaching Latin though.  It's been his dream, and now he's teaching these kids his hobby! 

While Matt was spending every waking moment at school, I was at home...being bored.  By the Sunday before school came, I had my first breakdown.  Crying, I told Matt that I was lonely, I hated Florida and I wanted to move back to Iowa.  Matt, who I inadvertently made feel guilty about the time he was taking to plan the first week of school, reassured me that once school started the next day I would feel better.  And that eventually I would be making friends.  I dried my tears and sucked it up.  We moved down here so he would have an opportunity to do what he loves, and deep down, I'm happy-ish here.  I just wish that I was involved in more.  AWANA is starting at the church I attend, so I'm going to get involved with that, so hopefully eventually I won't feel so sequestered and lonely down here.  And work is going well. It's part-time, so I only work 5 hrs a day, but it's 5 hrs where I'm not sitting all alone.

Beginning the second week of school, Matt left this morning feeling more confident than he had all week last week.  He doesn't get home until 5:30, and only then it's because I force him home with dinner being ready on the table.  Compared to this time last year, this is a completely different Matthew.  By the middle of last year, he was incredibly depressed.  This is the happiest I've seen him in a really long time.  I'm so happy that God blessed us with a teaching job this year!

Starting Habits, Facing Fears

So one of the perks about living where we live, is the fact that we have a lot of amenities that are included in the rent.  We have a fitness center, a swimming pool, a tennis court, a dog park and a walking trail around a pond.  In this pond, lives dozens of ducks.

We lucked out when getting the last available two bedroom apartment in that our windows over look the pond and we have a beautiful view.  We also live far enough away from the pool and fitness center that it's a nice relaxing three minute walk to get over there.  The problem though is we have to walk on the walking trail to get there.  The bigger problem: the ducks LOVE to hang out on the walking trail and sleep on the little foot bridges.  And anyone who knows me knows that I am TERRIFIED of water fowl.  

When we moved here, I was determined to utilize the fitness center as soon as we got settled in, and last week was that time.  Matt had inservice, so I had to walk to the fitness center and around the ducks...alone.  I did it, but every time I walked past a duck, I would eye it suspiciously, and walk just a little quicker.  And our ducks look scary...just see the picture above.  Why couldn't we have mallards? At least they look harmless.  These ducks look like they want to peck you to death.

This is our second week of being "settled" and my second week of working out daily at the fitness center.  I'm still terrified of the ducks, but I don't procrastinate going to work out because of them.  One of these days I might be able to walk to the fitness center and see a duck and not shriek a little or make a wide berth around them.  Until then, I'll just try to form my new exercise habits and face my fears one day at a time.

Our First Crisis

So last night Matt and I experienced our first "emergency" in our new place.  It's also the first "grown-up" emergency we've had to face--ever.

Yesterday, we finally hauled our washer and dryer up our stairs and hooked them up.  After being here for a little over a week, and it being almost two weeks since we've had clean laundry, we were really excited to hook up the appliances that would lead to us getting clean clothes.  After rewiring the dryer with the right plug and using internet directions to hook up both the washer and dryer, we decided to try them out.  To make sure the washer was draining properly, we ran an empty load and sat there and watched it.  Everything seemed fine.  Excited, we filled the washer with give away clothes to run a load with bleach to clean the washer out.  We set the cycle, closed the doors, and walked away. 

Fast forward about 20 minutes.  I went out to the main part of the apartment from our office with the purpose to get something to drink.  As I walked past the washer area, my feet squished on the carpet--not good.  With a shout of  "We're leaking!!" I immediately shut off the washer and Matt and I proceeded to get every dry towel we could find and try to clean up the mess.  A call to emergency maintenance was made.  They showed up within 20 minutes with the carpet guy.  An hour and a half later, things were cleaned up. 

Now, Matt just went out and bought a new clip for the washer drain hose, and it's on there SUPER tight.  We're going to try and do laundry again.  This time we won't walk away until we are CERTAIN it's going to work.  In the meantime, we need to live with the dehumidifier and fan blowing on the carpet to dry it out completely.

The First Week

 

So we've been in Florida for almost a week now, and boy has it been interesting.

Our drive down here wasn't very exciting.  We had technical difficulties with our technology, so instead of listening to "Catching Fire" like we had hoped, we ended up channel surfing the radio and listening to NPR.

We did go see a Civil War battlefield in Tennessee, and that was really cool  It had a great museum, and the grounds were really nice.  We learned a lot in the two hours we were there.

We got to Florida on Wednesday night, and had a very optimistic attitude about everything.  We were going to sign up for internet the next day, our stuff was going to get here Friday, we were all good.  PLUS I got a call Wednesday morning from a school asking me to come in the next day for a job interview.  So we went shopping and got me some clothes to wear to said interview, got some food, and then called it a night.

Thursday we were still having a great time.  I went to my job interview, and it went REALLY well, and then we went and signed up for internet, and that went really well.  We chillaxed at the apartment most of the day and everything was going well.

Flashforward to Friday: The cube people called and told us that because of the rain, they couldn't deliver the cubes until Monday....so that meant we were going to be without stuff through the weekend.  We were bummed out majorly.  Then on Saturday, Comcast decided to screw us over, and we couldn't get internet.  I won't get into it all, but by Saturday night we were super angry.  So, on Sunday, we decided to make the best out of a crummy situation, and we drove to the beach.  We walked around, and enjoyed it.

Monday came, and after fighting and debating, we quit Comcast, only to rejoin it.  Our Cubes came in the evening, and then today we got internet and tv and internet.  Things are beginning to look up!   Oh, and I got a job at the school I interviewed at.  Everything is coming up Caffrey right now :)

Hopefully things will slow down, and we'll get to enjoy our last month of vacation before school starts!!

All Packed Up

Well, Iowa, you've been good to us. 

Our cubes arrived on Wednesday, and we spent all day on Thursday and half the day on Friday loading them.  It all comes down to this: We have WAY too much stuff.  Seriously.  WAY too much stuff.  We ordered 3 cubes, but were determined to use only 2 cubes.  And we did it!  We fit in all into 2 cubes.  Of course, we had to sacrifice a few pieces of furniture to the trash gods.  But who needs a couple bookcases and a headboard for our bed anyways?  And of course, we ended up having to UPS two boxes to ourselves, but we really do need sheets, blankets, duffel bags and our tool boxes.  We had to get creative on how we fit things into the cubes, but we always wanted the project of reassembling the futon and our desk chairs when we arrived in Florida anyways.  And thank goodness for Matt's parents!  They're letting us store important items like the other 4 dining room chairs, our end table, a nightstand, a table lamp, the globe and our sombrero until we come back at Christmas and pick them up.  (Yes, we're gluttons for punishment and are now planning to drive back at Christmas in order to pick up the things we have to leave behind).  But all and all it was very successful.  We packed the cubes, 99.9% of our stuff fit, and we only had to shove a little bit!

Of course, after 2 days of killing ourselves to get everything packed up, we're going to have to do it all over again in a couple days.  We leave tomorrow morning for Florida and will get there Wednesday night.  The cubes should be there Thursday.  So we're going to enjoy our two days of sitting in the car, listening to Catching Fire, since there will be no time to rest (or see Harry Potter) this weekend.

Trip 1 to Florida

So we've made our first trip to Florida, and it has been a success!

When we left on Saturday, at first we didn't think we were going to be successful at all.  We got into our car at 4:15 am and went to plug TomTom in, and low and behold, the cigarette lighter in Matt's car doesn't work.  Thank goodness we hadn't left yet, so we ran back upstairs and printed off lots of Google maps.  Since our entertainment was on an MP3 player, we ended up driving the entire trip down here in complete silence.

We got to Florida on Sunday afternoon, and drove around exploring the main part of the city, and we ate late lunch/early dinner at a local pizza place, and called it a night.

Monday was SUPER busy and productive.  Matt got all signed up to teach at his school and got to see his classroom.  Then we went apartment hunting.  Because we needed something available NOW and not like August, we had 2 choices: a cheaper place that looked run down or a more expensive place that had more square feet and storage room and looked nice.  We went for the more expensive one, and are happy about that situation.

Now, our plan is to go explore the new apartment, map out where we're going to put our furniture, and then tomorrow, we drive home to Iowa!

Steph

The Adventure Begins

I'm pretty sure everyone knows by now that Matt and I are moving to Florida.  I wanted to start this blog in order to keep in touch with all our friends and family who now stretch across the country.  We're both going to be contributing to this blog...yes you read that right, Matt will be contributing to this blog every once in a while.

For the first entry on this blog, I wanted to tell the story about how Matt happened to get a job in Florida.

Back in April, we made a decision to begin applying to Latin teaching jobs outside of Iowa.  The teaching jobs Matt had been applying to in Iowa were not panning out, and after a year of no job, we decided it would be best  to open our horizons. I sent out 28 e-mails to 28 different schools all around the country. Then we waited. Fast forward to May.  Matt had the interview with the school in Albuquerque and it didn't work out.  Discouraged, I sat down and applied to 12 more schools across the country.  3 schools became interested: One in Kentucky, One in Philadelphia and one in Florida.

Florida was unique, they wanted him to fill out an e-mail interview and then they followed up with a phone interview.  During the phone interview, they told Matt he was in the top three.  But after being rejected from every school, we didn't get our hopes up.  Flash forward to last monday (6-13).  The school called Matt and told him he got the job.

Now we're excited, and we're getting all packed up to move to Florida!  We're excited, terrified and nervous all rolled into one.  But we're ready to take on whatever gets thrown at us.

--Steph