I'm Terrible At Blogging

So, almost a year using this blog, we have learned that I'm TERRIBLE at updating this sucker. 

Matt has successfully completed his first year of teaching.  It was a year of ups and downs and many frustrations.  But he did it!!  He had MANY trials, but one of his students told him how much Latin means to him, so Matt feels the year was successful.  In the beginning of May, we did face a very stressful situation when it came to the job.  Matt got the dreaded, "I'm sorry, but you have not been chosen to come back," letters.  When he was handed the letter, his principal reassured him that it wasn't permanent, and that he would be coming back.  And he is!  He'll be teaching AP World History in addition to his Latin classes, but he'll be coming back!  At the end of this month, he'll be attending an AP conference in Orlando, so that will be fun for him to be able to learn and see what he wants to do with that class.

I have successfully ended my year.  It was a VERY stressful spring, where-in my kid really tried my patience.  But when all is said and done, I really loved my kids this year, all eight of them, and I'm really going to miss them once the year is over.  I'm going to be starting a new path next year.  I'm going to be staying home, and focusing on things that need done around here.  I felt the cleaning and cooking really fell to the weigh side with us both working, and in reality we can live off of Matt's salary, so I'm going to focus on taking care of him and our home.  I'm also going to focus on my writing, but that idea is still in the process of being thought out, so stay tuned.

In the spring, my family came and visited.  We gave them the tourist treatment, and then we became tourists ourselves and traveled to Orlando and did the Universal theme parks.  It was a lot of fun and it was great to see everyone.

We're planning an epic road trip this summer, where we're literally going to hit both coasts and a bunch in between.  We're going to see my family in California, Matt's family in Iowa, and then hit Virginia to visit some friends.  And in between we're going to see caves, aliens, buffalo, a crazy house, a cracked bell and a mountain with faces in it.  It's all going to be very exciting and fun.

Now that I'm going to be home full time, I promise to be better at updating this thing!!  Until then, DFTBA!

New Year, New Attitudes, New Resolutions

I know it's been a long time since I've blogged, and it's not like there hasn't been a lot to blog about, I just kind of dropped the ball on blogging.  The fall was really hard for me.  I had a hard September: I hated my job, I cried every day, I fell into a bit of a depression.  But October really turned things around.  I got a new job that I love, I've made friends, so that really helped turn my attitude around.  I'm now much happier, and we are both really starting to feel at home here in Florida.

With 2012 beginning, I started to think about how awesome 2011 was to us, finally getting Matt a job, moving to Florida, meeting new friends, and I decided I wanted to set some goals for 2012.  Not the typical Resolution of losing weight and getting in shape (those are pretty much given until I lose weight and get in shape), but some other goals that I really want to try and make happen this year.

It's no secret that Matt and I want to start our family this year, so I guess that's our big goal.  Become ready to let a baby join our family.  We want to be both emotionally ready and financially stable, so that's a good goal to have at the beginning of this year.

Another goal I have has to do with my writing.  I would like to make my writing profitable.  So my goals come in 3 parts for this one.  1) I would like to finish writing my novel that I wrote for NaNoWriMo this year. That includes writing the last 1/4, and completing the editing process. 2) I am going to focus on writing more short stories, beginning with working on a short story for a contest the Nerdfighter community is putting on beginning this spring.  3) Finish the fanfiction that I started almost 2 years ago.  My fans demand me finish it, and I know this doesn't go with making my writing profitable, it's something fun, and I love getting the feedback from my friends/fans/readers.  All of these goals will culminate with me either A) Sending things out in the attempt to get published or B) Self-publishing on Amazon

Another goal is to blog more.  I find it relaxing and fun to just put things out there for everyone to read.  I want to try to post a blog here twice a month, if not more.

And finally my last goal for 2012 is to become closer to all the friends we are making down here.  I would like to get to know them all better and become close to them.

There you have it, my New Year's Resolutions.  I'm looking forward to 2012 to become a great year, and if I realize even half of these things, I think I would be a happy person :)

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.