Twelve days before Christmas

I've survived twelve days in my new job, and now we're on a break for three weeks. It sure would be nice if after Christmas was better than before Christmas in my classes. (I'll avoid the temptation to turn this into a blog about what's wrong with today's teenagers....)

We're looking forward to the days when the cold weather gets a little more mild. Leaving early in the morning for work means a bitter cold start to each day. I'm excited about sleeping in for several days, too. It was nice to do that when I was in class each evening.

Keith has been home when I've gotten done with work each day this week, and I look forward to hearing about his daily adventures. He's been supportive as I've navigated being "the new teacher," and I'm looking forward to spending time together over the next few weeks. The spring semester will be here soon, but not before we get to watch some movies, visit our families, and maybe even ride our bikes!

Merry Christmas to all!

Whew!

I've been at my new job for seven working days now, and the pace is demanding. I have four courses to prepare for, and the daily schedule will change dramatically for the next five school days to allow for standardized testing. Just when I was finding a routine, it will change.

At home, the routine is still unclear to me. My mornings come really early, and I don't know when I'll be getting home on a regular basis.

Keith and I have been thinking about our plans for Christmas, and we're looking forward to seeing our families.

I'm still celebrating my birthday. On Saturday, my mom came to see us for the day. Keith made a great lunch and his special brownies. On Sunday, Keith did some paperwork tasks for me, which was a great gift! Yesterday, we went out to dinner, and lots of folks called and sang to me. On Friday, we're having dinner with PO and MO. It's a great week of special activities.

This break-neck pace is demanding but productive! The best news for me is that all my fall classes are done, and I'm just waiting on grades to be published.

Two classes complete--just in time!

I start teaching in ten days, and I've got two of my five classes from this semester completely done. The list is short for completing the other three courses, but I can't accelerate the calendar any faster for those assignments. I've got two presentations and two tests.

I met my new department chair on Tuesday, and we talked about my classes. I got teacher's editions of books, decided where we'll start each class on Monday, the 29th, and set goals for what each class will learn before Christmas. It's going to be a crazy time!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I'm thankful for all the people who have worked to make this semester more manageable for me, most of all Keith and my mom. They have offered to help me with a lot of things, and the offers have made so much difference in my sanity. My brother has also been awesome to talk to as he works through his classes, too. We've commiserated together and celebrated together, and it's been good to share the journey with him.

I'm also thankful for a paying job. I'm going to teach math, and Keith has decided to teach special education. With those choices, we hope to always have jobs when we want them. I get to get paid for my student teaching, and Keith gets to go to school this spring. We're quite happy with our upcoming arrangement!

Six months out of work

By the end of this month, I will be employed full-time again. My job actually starts before my classes are over, so I'm accelerating my school work in the next few weeks to be able to finish my assignments by Thanksgiving. I'll be working during the day and going to class at night for a few days, which will be quite busy. But, being with my new students sooner is better for them and for me.

With my new employment in a public school system, I'll limit my comments on our personal blog about my work. The personal impact of full-time employment is great--steady salary, a full package of benefits, and no more job hunting. I've been visiting classes in various schools since August, but I've started looking more carefully at the curriculum for the classes I'll be teaching. It's a variety of levels of math, which will keep me on my toes.

Since I'm still finishing up the MAT program, I'll have class one night a week in the spring. I'll also satisfy my student teaching requirements with my new job. Add in a complete portfolio, and I'll be graduating in May. That will convert my temporary teaching certificate to a more common status.

Things are looking great!

But, who's counting?

I have a few optional classes during the week before Thanksgiving, which leaves me with 14 more classes to attend this semester! The projects are still piled up, but there's only one way to take care of that: finish them! I'm going to work on some of them this week.

Also good news: I have an interview this Friday with a school that might have a math teacher opening coming up. It's not posted publicly yet, but there is a ton of turnover right now in our county. Even if the school I'm meeting with on Friday doesn't have an opening, maybe another school will. I have decided, though, that not having a job is not the end of the world because I'll teach far fewer weeks as "only" a student teacher. The advantage with a job, of course, is that I could make some money.

In order to make my file more appealing to principals, I moved my availability date up from Jan 1 to Dec 6. That sounds like a month earlier, but it's really seven school days difference because of Christmas break.

So, pardon my absence as I try to finish up projects and get a job. When I can, I'll keep this site updated with my status.

21 classes left for the semester

All of the work left to do is written on a single piece of paper, and I'm marking it off as I finish it. Some assignments are small, but lots are large since they're final projects.

I start my last field placement tomorrow in a high school teacher's class. She teaches three different levels of math, so I'll get a lot of variety in the day.

a quick trip across the state

After more than 18 months, we finally got back to Jekyll Island this weekend, and we had a great time! We rode our bikes all over the island, and we've even developed a list of places we will regularly visit when we go back. We saw Driftwood Beach again, we went to dinner at Blackbeard's and Latitude 31, and we played mini-golf. We spent more time on the beach than we did on our honeymoon, and we also got up early enough one morning to see the sunrise! (It's the first time in all the time we've known each other that we've managed to see the sunrise together, but we have our loud neighbors to thank for waking us up in time this morning!)

Our legs are tired from the biking that we did--we think it was about 25 miles from Friday to Sunday. We had a lot of wind yesterday, but all three days were beautiful.

Before we came home today, we went north a little ways to St Simon's Island. Jennifer took Keith to Epworth by the Sea, where her family visited several times when Jennifer and Jay were children. While we were there, the prayer tower played a couple of songs while we were sitting only a few feet away from the tower. Later, we went into the "village" on St Simon's and ate at a local cafe. We rode our bikes to the beach, walked out to our own private island (some people call them sandbars), and rode back to the car. We decided to save a visit to the lighthouse for our next trip to St Simon's because we're pretty sure we'll get back there again.

The days are flying by!

I like to stay ahead in my classes just a little bit. With each class meeting once a week, that's usually manageable. I like doing it that way in case something comes up and I can't get to the next assignment immediately.

With Keith's birthday two weeks ago, we got to do some low-key but fun things. My mom came to visit, we had dinner with MO and PO, and Keith talked with his parents by phone. It was a good weekend, but not a lot of fanfare (just the way he likes it!).

It rained and rained and rained and rained overnight, so Keith didn't work the next day. My schedule pressed on, though. Normally, I visit schools two days a week, but there were some things going on that caused me to visit three days that week. I also had some part-time work on another day, so I was quite busy with classes, school visits, and work last week! Keith worked on Friday (since Monday was rained out), and I did some research for a paper. I told Keith that I needed to do something fun over the weekend and not think about education.

PO asked me to help him build bookshelves in his office, and that consumed all day Saturday (but it was definitely different from thinking about education!). Keith joined us to help all day Sunday, and we finished about a third of the project. It's required some geometry calculations, and they're turning out great so far! But, that consumed the weekend, and I was glad I'd already done my assignments for Monday and Tuesday night classes.

I visited schools and taught classes on Monday and Tuesday, and today is the first chance I've had to study since last Thursday. But, I'm blogging instead of reading for classes! :)

At the end of this week, I'll be halfway through this semester, and it's wearing me out. I've come home from class with a headache every day this week, but I'm hoping a little slower schedule over the next two weeks will help me get some energy to finish the semester.

There will be more bookshelf work this weekend, which I'm looking forward to.

Two more months for this semester!

check out my video

I decided to try uploading the video again, and I got better results. We'll see if this works. It might be too small to see all the details in each frame, but you can still get the idea. Turn on your speakers, or it won't make any sense at all!

If you're a calculus teacher and want the file, I'd be glad to send it to you. The normal size is full screen.

weekend visit with a friend

Melissa called to find out what our weekend schedule was because she was planning to come to Macon. Turns out, she got to stay with us, and all three of us had a great time together. We stayed up late, watched football, laughed a lot, and agreed that we need to do more together.

All three of us got practical things done over the weekend, too.

We were really glad that we planned to be home all weekend already because we enjoyed Melissa's visit a lot!

my experiment failed

I've got a video that I made for my technology class, and I really wanted to post it here for you all to see. If there are experts out there, I'd be glad for you to leave help in the comments.

I made the video in PhotoStory 3 and created a Windows Media file as the final product. It's about 5 minutes long, and the file size is about 20 MB. Blogspot says it will take videos as large as 100MB. When I click the "Add video" button at the top of my text editor, the window opens and says "service unavailable" where it wants me to choose the file. Ideas?

Four weeks down

By tonight, I'll be four weeks into the semester, which means I've completed one field placement. I spent two days a week for three weeks in a middle school in our area, and I loved it! (For all of the nay-sayers who thought middle school wasn't for me, I think you might be wrong.) In my next placement, which starts in two weeks, the freshmen are separated from the rest of the high school, and I'll be visiting with the freshman crowd for four weeks.

Because of Labor Day this week, our Monday class was canceled. Then, the teacher of our Tuesday class doesn't want us to get ahead of the Monday class, so Tuesday class was canceled. When our Wednesday teacher was making our syllabus, she was originally scheduled for Monday nights, but she forgot to add back in this week when her night was changed to Wednesdays. So, our Wednesday class was canceled as well. This week, our only class meeting will be Thursday. There's no field placement next week, so I'll have all day every day to get some work done. Here's hoping for a chance to get ahead, work on some projects, and reduce the stress going into the next placement experience.

Recently, I've been working on some job applications, hoping to get a paying job starting in January. I sent an email to check on the status of my application and make sure they've received all of the documents that I sent (they haven't, so I'm glad I asked), and the HR person who wrote me back said she would forward my file on to some principals for their review. I didn't even ask for that, so I was pretty happy to find out that she thinks my application is worth considering.

Keith and I were both sick last weekend, but yesterday was a good day for both of us. We don't have major weekend plans, so maybe we'll both start next week feeling much better than we did this week.

With four weeks of this semester completed, I have less than three months before my current courses are complete. I think I can manage that.

We've been discovering new adventures

Last weekend, we went to Lake Tobesofkee to check out the beach there. When we came in, we decided to go to the beach that was right next to the pavilion where our pre-wedding dinner was held last year. It was a nice, quiet time with a little bit of sun and shade under the trees. Jennifer wasn't too crazy about the muddy bottom in the water, but it sure was close to home.

This weekend, we decided to investigate the pool at High Falls State Park, which is about 30 miles north of Macon. The pool was big, and we didn't feel too crowded even with lots of people there. It was mostly cloudy, but there was a brief period of bright sun coming through. Keith wished we had some shade around the pool so we weren't always out in the sun, but he did enjoy seeing the waterfalls at the park after we were done in the pool.

While we were in Jackson, GA, we saw a water park on the way to High Falls. On our way home, we drove up to check it out. There's a pool and a couple of water slides, and the price is not bad at all.

Today, we got to see the Braves with free Home Depot tickets. The Marlins scored three runs before the first out. The Braves scored a run in the bottom of the first inning. With a losing score of 6-1 at the end of seven innings, we were convinced that the game was a loss. Then, the Braves found a way to score three runs in the eighth. Matt Diaz hit a 2-run homer in the ninth to tie it up. Then, Brian McCann got a long hit that the umpires had to review to decide if it was a homerun. When they saw the replay, they sent him around the bases with a walk-off homerun, and the Braves had come back from a 6-1 score to win the game 7-6. We talked about that drama most of the way home.

We're enjoying our water adventures and baseball, and we're looking forward to some more water next weekend at the river.

One week down

I've spent the past week learning what my life will be like until December.

First, the good news is that I'll be done with the semester before my birthday, and that's never happened before. Maybe I'll have a countdown on here to the last class of the semester. I'm already looking forward to it.

On Monday nights, I go to my Reading class at 5pm. The class is based on the assumption that students will be reading in every discipline and that they need to be taught how to read the texts that are specific to each course. Already, I know that when students struggle in math, it is usually with the directions on tests and quizzes or with word problems. If someone sets up the problems for them, then they can do the math. So, I'm hoping to learn how to teach them reading skills so they don't get in the way of doing the math.

On Tuesday nights, I go to my Technology class at 5pm. The class starts with the assumption that educating students is changing with the technological advances we are seeing in the 21st century, and teachers need to use what's available and already understood by students to make the learning environment more accessible and student-friendly. Some of our classes will be online (we won't have to go to campus). There's no book for this class, so it will all come from our teacher and the articles that she gives us to read.

On Wednesday nights, I have a class about special education, which also starts at 5pm. I like this teacher best so far. She started the class with a list of acronyms and asked us to write what they mean. I bet there were 30 items on the list, and I know that wasn't all of them. The class is the most traditional format with tests and two papers. So far, she hasn't even set up an online page for the class. We'll learn what the law is about students with special educational needs, and we'll see how those laws actually work in the classroom. Our teacher is part time at our school because she's a special ed teacher for kids during the day. I think her experience will keep the course very practical.

On Thursday nights, my class in about culture and diversity, and it starts at 5pm, too. We started by looking at pictures of several students and writing our predictions about their race and personality. Then we heard their self-descriptions and got to see how close we were to the real thing. I suppose we were supposed to learn not to judge a student by appearance.

All of my classes are done by 7:45, so I'm usually home by 8:00. Keith and I watch some baseball, I eat dinner, we talk about our day, and then it's time to get some sleep.

The last class I'm taking doesn't have much of a consistent meeting time, but it is already causing the most drama for all of the students. Since we're going to be teaching, we will be seeing "a day in the life" of several teachers this semester. We're going to local middle schools and high schools to see how they work. We'll be doing some lesson planning and teaching short lessons when our host teachers allow it, and we'll also see what students are like in the schools. I will be in schools on Mondays and Tuesdays each week from 7:45 to 3:45. The county I chose to do my Field Experience in is Monroe County, which is just north of us. When I rode my bike long distances last summer, I rode to the high school in Monroe County before I turned around and came home. The county is relatively small, so there aren't many schools there. My first placement is at a middle school (so I can see that first and decide if I like the age group in comparison to the high school kids I've worked with for the last seven years), and I'll be there for three weeks.

During the week, I stumbled upon information about a Ph.D. program for teachers at Mercer, and Keith and I are talking about whether that's a good next step for me.

So, let's all count down together....my last class appears to be on December 2. I know I'll learn a lot before then, but I hope I don't go crazy in the process!

Puzzle update

Two years ago today, we got engaged. We've come a long way since then, including lots of projects in our house. Keith has always wanted some kind of artwork on the wall, and now we have it--assembled by our own hands.

It's hard to get a good picture up close, but you can still see the puzzle pieces around the reflection of the flash.

Thanks to Ginger for her expertise and advice on how to glue the puzzle together and ideas about where to look for frames. Since it's hard to tell in the pictures, the frame is 27" x 40". Those 2000 pieces took us nearly two weeks to get together, and that's with Jennifer on summer break!

We love our new artwork, and we're already thinking about what will be next!

Some fun and two projects

Last weekend, I was "not in Kansas anymore." We went to see our first American League baseball game, and it was insane. We watched the Tampa Bay Rays play the New York Yankees (Alex Rodriguez was eligible for his 600th homerun that night, but it came later). The game was literally sold out, the fans were behaving like northern folks not like the polite southerners that we're used to, the teams were excellent, and the parking was outrageous but cheap for us. As we walked up to the stadium, we passed several outdoor bars where people were already celebrating (or something). Once we got to the stadium, we walked inside and saw what looked more like a basketball arena. I decided that the air conditioned dome would work for me any time. Since we didn't care so much who won the game, we could watch the great teams of the American League East battle for first place in their division. And, battle they did! So did the fans around us--with each other. We managed to stay out of most of the drama, but we sure did get our money's worth for our tickets since a sideshow came with the price! Before we left town on Sunday, we went to Clearwater Beach, which was excellent! That alone makes me want to go back. Since it's close, I think we might get to do it next year. Also before we left, we stopped at Target to look for a puzzle that we've been trying to find. It was there.

Our puzzle was inspired (okay, copied) from our friend, Ginger. She has a framed copy of DaVinci's "The Last Supper" on her wall, and we were really impressed with it each time we've been to her house. The 2000 pieces take up a ton of space, so we've allocated our dining room table plus a card table to the project. We've made a lot of progress, and we'll figure out how to hang it up in our house after we're done assembling it. The disintegration of the art is shown in the puzzle, so most of the features are speckled. That's making it tough for us so far, but we're having fun with it even if we do have to find other places in our house to eat!

Keith went to do some yard work for friends today, so I decided to tackle a drip in my bathtub. It's not too bad, but it's been there a while, and I had some time and energy to work on it today. I've replaced washers in bathtub faucets before, so I had an idea of what I was getting into. We didn't have replacement washers at our house (but we did have all the necessary tools), so I made a quick run to Lowe's. I always say that a successful repair project is one that takes only one trip to Lowe's. After I installed the new washer, I put all of the pieces back together, but the handle wasn't working. Turns out, prying it loose broke the ever so slight connection that allowed the handle to open the water flow. The connection should be better, but the parts are old and just finally wore out. So, back to Lowe's I go for a new handle. None of the modern handles fit right, so I got a universal fit model. The handle fit fine, but it would sink down into the flange like the old one had to. Now, I need new flanges, but nothing is short enough to work with our current parts. I'm ready to concede that we can replace all of the parts to get things that work together, and the salesman explains that it will be almost impossible to get something that will fit the plumbing in the wall of the house. We invented a solution that would work "until we get ready to remodel the entire bathroom," he said, but that solution turned out to be unsatisfactory for Keith and me. In the end, I visited three different stores for a total of five visits, and Keith got involved later in the day. Together, we fixed the situation to the point that we can live with it for a long while. I still don't know if I actually fixed the drip that started this whole thing, but I'll discover the answer to that question in due time.

Certainly our trip last weekend was much more fun than our ever-increasing plumbing issues this weekend!

Moving on to other things

Today is the last day of summer school. It was probably better than sitting around the house every morning, but I miss my bike rides. (Maybe I would have skipped out on lots of days, though, with the steam coming off the asphault.)

Next week, I get my summer back, or what's left of it anyway. I'm already working on job applications. The file is active for a year, so doing the paperwork and legwork now will make me eligible to apply for jobs for next fall when I'm busy in the spring. However, I'd really like to be teaching somewhere this January since I'll have to be student-teaching anyway. As a math teacher, I have a shot at getting a job if someone quits in the middle of the year. With experience, I think I'd be picked before other candidates who are student-teaching like me. So, getting my applications done now will put my name in the system in case something opens up.

Also in the next two weeks, I hope to do some website design for the Christianity Department. I created the site that is there now, and it is in serious need of some updates. It'll be a little bit of extra cash, too.

Maybe I can ride my bike in the next two weeks, too?!

Finally, I'm going to work on my grad school portfolio. It looks daunting, and I know some people who waited too late to start and ended up stressed out at the end of last year because they couldn't get it done. While I've got time, I'm going to tackle some pieces that I can do already. Keith thinks I'm crazy when I say I'm going to work ahead on a project, but I guess it makes me feel like I control my schedule instead of "them." "They" already control plenty about my life for the next 10 months.

So much for getting my summer back, eh? Classes start two weeks from now, so I guess it'll be fall then. If nothing else, my summer has been productive. :)

the wind chill factor for July

If you live in the south, you've had some heat lately. The weather reporters have all sorts of words to describe the degree of heat: "scorching" or "sweltering," for example. The heat index has been well over 100 degrees, and the Weather Center has issued heat advisories every day for the last several days.

My poor husband has to work out in this stuff--I don't even like to walk through a parking lot to my car in it! He does like the heat much better than the cold of winter, though.

When I was a child, my mom called the "feels like" temperature during the summer the "wind chill factor." Somehow, just naming it something different made it feel a little cooler. I don't know if we used "heat index" for winter, too, but I think about the wind chill factor every summer when the temperatures are sweltering hot....and somehow, it helps for just a second.

Our weekend was busy

PO and MO are moving in town, and they asked us to help.

On Thursday, I went to the old house to help with more packing. Friday, Keith and I got rolling early so we could move some of their plants to the new house in Keith's truck. Friday was also "moving day" with a moving truck, so there was lots of excitement and activity. Saturday, we went back to get the last load of plants, and we got some more stuff from the house as well. Keith cut the grass at the old house on Sunday. With three mornings of work outside, we were shocked at how hot it got later in the morning!

Later on Sunday, we went to visit our friend, Ginger, and her dog, Pepper. We played games, worked on puzzles, and went to dinner. We were also unsuccessful at puzzle shopping, but Ginger found the puzzle we want online and told us where to get it.

Whew! It's a good thing Monday got here!

Teaching after learning

Teaching again has been good so far. Summer school is a different experience, which I've seen parts of before, but this is a new course for me to teach. Today, my students learned again about imaginary numbers. Oh, the jokes that are born from the name "imaginary"!

Honestly, I feel for them, my students. In my graduate courses in June, I was in class from 5-9 most nights, and we almost never stayed until nine o'clock. In summer school, we started out with six weeks of 9am to 1pm every day. I was in my own graduate classes at the time, so I empathized with the students I would teach later (a colleague of mine taught the class while I was still taking my own classes). Then, my colleague told me that the students wanted to have Fridays off, so he agreed to have five hour days starting at 8am. Ouch! Five hours of math every day for people who don't like it makes for a painful day for the students and a challenge for the teachers.

During the first two weeks of my graduate classes, I had to create lesson plans for a unit that I might teach. Since my colleague and I had already decided who was teaching which sections, I chose to plan a unit for the last week of summer school. That will happen next week, so I'll get to see how the concepts that we learned in graduate school actually work out in the classroom. I figure, if it works here, it has a good chance of working somewhere else. We'll see how this all turns out....

Summer school ends at the end of next week, and I have two weeks "off" before grad school starts again. I'll be doing some website design and learning about the application process for several counties around us. I'm also hoping to work on my portfolio that will be due in April as my final project for my degree.

We're proud Braves fans

Our boy, Brian McCann was the hero of the All-Star Game on Tuesday night. We turned off the TV after the 6th inning because it was already late, and he batted in the winning runs in the next inning. For the first time in over a decade, the National League won the All-Star game. Just in case we get there, the win on Tuesday will give the Braves home-field advantage if they play in the World Series.

We've gone to lots of Braves games this season already, and there are more on our calendar. We rarely pay full price for tickets, though. Keith's mom sent us some buy-one-get-one-free coupons. Later, a friend told us that college ID gets us half off the tickets we buy most often, and I certainly have one of those now. We still have difficulty avoiding "convenience" fees because we buy tickets on the same day of the game. (who thinks THAT'S a good idea?! if you buy your ticket at the gate on the day of the game, they add $3 on top of whatever the fee is supposed to be, so even half-price gets $3 added! I just think that's ridiculous!) Lately, though, we've invented a scheme that gets us the chance to see lots of baseball for the best price. We plan two days in the same weekend that we want to see games, and we buy all of our tickets on the day of the first game. That means we pay the convenience fee only once. After all of that, our game tickets together are almost as low as our parking fees.

In June, we saw an ad for free Braves tickets if we spend $100 at Home Depot. We needed to spend the money anyway, so we just sent in our receipt with the appropriate form. We found out this week that our free tickets are in the mail, so we should be getting them soon. By the time we pack our sandwiches, snacks, and drinks then have free tickets, we'll only have to pay for parking and gas to see good baseball.

Who knows, we might be witnessing the development of a post-season run all the way to the World Series!

We'll do better, we hope!

Recently, I've learned that more people read our blog than I realized. The joke was, "Keith has been swimming in the ocean for a LONG time!" Well, I hope we'll do better with writing updates and telling our stories.

Jennifer finished her first semester of education classes two weeks ago, and she is teaching summer school algebra two for three weeks in July. Keith has recently had his work schedule compressed so that he doesn't work on Fridays except in unusual weeks. We went camping a few weekends ago for the first time, and we really had a great time! We stayed at Red Top Mountain State Park just north of Atlanta, and that put us close to three different Braves baseball teams, which all had home games. Jennifer has also been riding her bike regularly, and she's put nearly 1100 miles on the bike since she got it last year.

So, that's our quick update, and we hope we'll do better in the coming months. Thanks for continuing to read about us and be interested in our lives.

Before and After

The old storage building.

The new storage building.

Do you see the tree on the front corner of the new building? The building sits behind the tree, but the old one was in front of it. So, we doubled the size of the building, but it takes up less space in the yard because Keith cleared out the bamboo that used to be behind the old building.

Antigua

Keith swimming in the sea.  

Antigua has 365 beautiful beaches.

St. Kitts

We made it to the top of the volcano in St. Kitts!

A scenic view of the Caribbean from the base of the volcano in St. Kitts.

More vacation photos

Dressed up for formal dinner on the ship.

A pedestrian only street in Old San Juan.

Photos from St. Thomas

A picture of us in front of bougainvillea in full bloom.

The harbor at St. Thomas from the top of Paradise Point.  Our ship is at the bottom left corner.

It's been a long time since we posted because...

We've been busy making plans to be out of town for ten days, and it's not something that we put out in public before it happens.

In honor of our first anniversary and as a last hoorah before I go back to school, we went on a southern Caribbean cruise and tacked on three days in Puerto Rico. My Spring Break from school was an entire week plus the Monday after Easter.

We left home on Friday, caught a shuttle to the airport, and flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico. We spend Saturday walking around Old San Juan, visiting El Morro, and eating local food. We boarded our cruise ship in the late afternoon, and we started trying to learn our way around. Our first stop was the next day in Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas where we took a tram ride to Paradise Point and saw an overview of the port and town. We were still pretty worn out from travel and our day in Old San Juan, so we relaxed the rest of the day on the ship. On our second day, the ship landed in St Croix, also part of the US Virgin Islands. We went to Buck Island for a snorkeling tour, and the many fish were brilliantly colored and easy to get close to. Our next port was Basseterre, St Kitts, where we took on the task of hiking to the top of a volcano. Four hours, lots of tree roots and boulders, and exhausted muscles later, we completed our mission, which is better than what some folks could manage. We have great pictures from the top of the volcano. Since we planned on an exhausting day with the volcano, the next day in Antigua, we planned to chill out at a beach. We're pretty good at doing that, too! Our last port was Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe, which is primarily French-speaking. Keith took a tour of some beautiful botanical gardens and a short beach stop while I stuck around the ship still trying to recover from my grueling volcano hike. The last day of our cruise was at sea, which we enjoyed very much.

When we arrived back at the port in San Juan, there was a rental car waiting for us. We picked up the car, and headed toward the Arecibo Observatory in the middle of nowhere. It's gigantic, and the visitors' center was quite informative. We were grateful for a good map that Keith bought before we left home, but we learned that the roads aren't all that accurate up in the mountains where they snake from side to side. The motion sickness was a lot for me to handle (I've only been carsick two other times in my entire life!), and we finally found our way to better roads. I was only delighted to pay the tolls for major highways on the island. We stayed on the southeastern side of the island at a hotel that we've dubbed a "Puerto Rican Motel 6," which is not what we were aiming for. The next morning, we got up early and headed to El Yunque Rainforest, which was lovely. I was a little intimidated by the snaking roads up to the forest, but it wasn't too bad. We hiked a 40-minute trail there that I appreciated so much compared to the volcano! Since it was the actual date of our anniversary, we headed back to our hotel, got cleaned up, and drove over to a major city called Ponce for dinner. Keith found his way to the square in the center of town, and we were overrun by the traffic that was taking people to Easter mass at the church in the middle of the square. We ate a fantastic dinner, sat in the square talking and watching people, then found some great ice cream. We headed back to our Puerto Rican Motel 6 and packed up to leave the next day. We delivered our car to the airport and waited for our plane to take us home. We got home last night about 7pm and started filtering through the mail, DVR recordings, and dirty clothes.

School is back in session today, and I'm going to miss my afternoon nap that has kept me going the last few days.

For the next year while I'm in school, we're looking forward to discount mini-vacations like camping at Jekyll Island, White Water and baseball in Atlanta, a visit with friends in Washington, D.C., some time at the Blackwell river cabin, and hopefully some more camping. We might even manage to find a cheap, last-second cruise for 3 days, but we'll settle for landlocked life if nothing shows up.

So, happy anniversary to us! We made it one to remember. Our parents also sent cards honoring the day, which we really appreciated.

All in a day's work

This is our new backyard!

I've never seen it without leaves before today, and I've lived here for over two years!  Keith counted thirty bags (I couldn't get them all in the picture) that each hold 39 gallons, and that was after he mulched the leaves.  He raked and raked and raked for about six hours, and it looks great!  

Did I mention how glad I am to be married to a man who likes to work in the yard?!

Looking backward and forward

Two years ago tomorrow, Keith and I went on our first date to Chili's. A wedding gift from a friend of ours is getting us back there again tomorrow. We're looking forward to it!

We're also hoping to ride our bikes this weekend, which we haven't done in months. Someone told us that we had the coldest January since 1985 this year, and now we understand why we've felt like it was too cold to ride. Our last bike ride was when we risked our lives riding on Grand Cayman Island, and we've already agreed to ride far away from traffic this weekend. We're looking forward to it!

At Christmas time, we bumped up our cable service to include DVR, and we LOVE it! We record shows during the day, and we watch them in the evenings. We have always enjoyed Jeopardy, but our work schedules have kept us from watching each episode. Now, we record it, watch it on our schedule, and it takes 21 minutes instead of 30! In the last week, I've been able to watch more Olympics than previous years, and I'm enjoying it a lot! With the middle weekend of this year's Olympics coming up, we're looking forward to it!

A year ago, I was constantly watching the weather predictions for April 4. I still watch weather (I'm married to a man who works outside everyday!), but I'm not hung up on a particular day. This morning, I realized how nice that feels. The weather is supposed to warm up here shortly, and we're looking forward to it!

Problem solved!

For well over a year, there's been a slight leak around the base of the faucet at the kitchen sink. Recently, a drip from the same faucet has become more pronounced. Both problems could be ignored and put off for a while, and they were. But, I (Jennifer) knew they were waiting for my attention.

We were both very productive last weekend with some tasks, so I decided to take on the faucet. I called my father-in-law, who is great at giving advice over the phone about home repair projects. Mike asked if I knew the brand of the faucet. Like most things in our house, there is no brand name on the product, which tells me that the maker wasn't confident enough in the product to say who made it.

I tried to unscrew the top of the faucet, but I needed help because it was stuck on tight. Keith got involved for that. We got the parts off, but we didn't see anything obviously wrong. We opted to replace the entire faucet, so I got ready to head out to Lowe's. Keith's only instructions and input were that I not buy the cheapest faucet available and that the layout stay basically the same as our old faucet.

I found a Moen faucet for a clearance price, which was twice the price of the cheapest faucet. I even checked to see that the brand was on the faucet, which of course it was. We put the faucet back together, sealed the leaks that magically appeared, and turned the water back on.
Inspired by the new chrome finish, I scrubbed out the sinks, and they look really nice, too.

Once again, we have another home repair done with only one trip to Lowe's! That's the best it could be, and we love our new faucet!

Here I am, too, thanking myself for checking the shut-off valves under the sink a couple of years ago. All of the plumbing in our house was left without maintenance, and every one of the valves in the house were broken (including the washing machine water lines!). I've turned off water at the street LOTS of times, but this time, I got to use the valves that I had replaced before. It sure does make for a lot less drama when the handle is right there at the sink!

Jennifer's news

I started a master's program four years ago, but I withdrew from the program when I was given a chance to teach GHP in the summers.  Since the master's program required me to start in a summer, I never went back.  Now that Keith and I are married, I'm not going away in the summers anytime soon.  So, I started investigating the master's program again.

Recently, I was accepted into the Masters of Arts in Teaching program at Georgia College & State University.  There's a Macon campus, and I can finish the program in one year if I go full time.  Keith and I decided that was the best option, so I've resigned from my job as of the end of this school year.

In preparation for being back in school without working, we've been putting pieces in place.  Of course, I had an application process to work through, which was tedious.  Along with that, I prepared for a writing test, requested letters of recommendation and transcripts, and checked on the courses I took years ago to make sure they would still count.  We're planning our vacations around my school schedule, and we've refinanced our house.  I know some people have wondered where we've been lately, but I couldn't put this news out in cyberspace until I made my resignation official.  

The Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program is demanding.  I'll take two courses in June.  Then, I'll take four courses at night in the fall while I observe classrooms during the day.  With 2-3 days a week in a classroom and 4 nights a week in class, it'll be quite busy.  Next spring, I'll do a ten-week student teaching assignment while I go to class one night a week.  But, then it'll be over.  

When I get done with my program in May 2011, I'll be certified to teach.  Then, my options for work open up quite a bit.  I like my current school, so I'd be fine with going back there.  But, I'll also be able to teach in public schools for the first time.  

I'm looking forward to being a student again, and I'm excited that I get to do it while Jay is a student, too.  We'll graduate on the same weekend and probably even the same day.  (I'll accept my diploma in the mail since I'll be in Birmingham watching him walk!)

Wow!

Today is a COLD day at our house.  The forecast for last night was snow showers, so my school was canceled today!  When I left our house at 1:30 this afternoon, this building looked about the same as it did when this picture was taken.  But, I said my good bye and good riddance, and off I went to run errands.

The front, outside of the building doesn't look too bad.  The secret, though, is the inside and the backside of the building.  It's falling apart!  It's a disaster.  Here's the inside corner after Keith got to work today.  It really was sunken in.  The roof had two holes that were at least a foot in diameter.

I'm inside writing this post while Keith is out in 30 degree weather finishing the demolition project.

We're going to put in another building that's two or three times as big as the old one, and we're excited to get the ground cleared so we can think about what we want to do next.

The old building was 12 x 8 feet, but we didn't use it for much because it was so nasty inside.  When we add 12 x 20 or larger, we'll get several hundred square feet of storage space.  Oh, we are excited to see that day!