Overdue

I started this blog because I was bored. The past six months of my life were insanely busy so I no longer needed a blog to fill my time. I had papers to grade, a teacher work sample to stress about, and many library trips to make. But, I find myself decreasingly busy so it's time to blog again.

I recently finished my student teaching and graduated from BYU with a BS in Elementary Education. Yea! Well, it was yea for a week or two. Then I realized that as much as I really wanted to be done with college, the grass wasn't any more green on the other side (the other side being a college graduate with no job.) I knew that I'd have a lot of down time, but I didn't think I would start disliking being able to wake up at 10 am if I wanted to and doing the occasional load of laundry. I started to realize that I really did like being busy and couldn't help but think about all the fun times I had with my students. Like the time one of my fourth graders asked, "What does claustrophobic mean?" Before I could answer another student chimed in with, "It means you're afraid of Santa Claus." Well, why wouldn't it mean you are afraid of Santa Claus? It has his name in it! Or on the first day of school one student yelled out, "Five more minutes!" five minutes before the bell was going to ring. One of my favorite memories is when a second grade girl was relating the kids in our class to the kids in a book we were reading. She said, "I just wish we didn't have so many people in our class that like to break the rules! I mean, I know we have a lot of Mexican people in our class. But I'm not Mexican. I'm Mormon." I tried to contain my laughter and explain to her that a person could be Mexican and Mormon. She was pretty surprised at this new knowledge. As I look back I realize that the students I was able to work with over the course of fourteen weeks really shaped my student teaching experience. I will really miss them. Especially the five more minutes kid. He is awesome.

So now that I have a degree and a teaching license (which is supposed to be emailed to me any day now...weird, huh?) I'm supposed to be set, right? Well, not really. Evan is applying for jobs so we are playing that one game where you wait to see who will give you a job and some money. Don't worry, it's not as fun as it sounds. In the meantime I've been substitute teaching (a grand total of 3 times) and thinking about what other jobs I can get to contribute monetarily to our small, but still-need-to-eat family. So far, I've got nothing. Well, I still have the maintenance job at our apartment complex. Today I earned a whole $10 for trimming some bushes and shoveling snow for an hour. Don't get me wrong, I'll take the $10. I guess what I'm trying to say is being in limbo is not nearly as fun as doing the limbo. Evan and I are ready to move on with our lives and start careers and a family. But then again, I do have the grass is greener syndrome so ultimately I have to learn to love where I am in life now. That can be hard when you don't have a consistent paycheck and are in the middle of another nuclear Utah winter. (I like snow...when I'm looking at it from a cozy couch as I sip on hot chocolate.) So, I guess now is the time for me to catch up on a few things I've failed to keep up with: sleep, journal writing, letter writing, sleep, wedding picture stuff, cleaning, and more sleep. So maybe instead of looking at it like from the bump on a log perspective, I'll start looking at it more like, "When in my life will I have less to do than right now?" That's more like it!

Oh and if you are wondering just how one does the limbo, check out http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Well-at-the-Limbo .