Life is still at a fast pace, as always with our family of seven, but the pace is now down this road we chose instead of in circles. We have our house and we're settling in nicely. I am fortunate enough to have several substitute teacher opportunities to tide me over, and one elementary school that is close by seems to be happy enough with me to schedule me pretty regularly :)  My hopes are, of course, that subbing leads to a full-time teaching position, so the more, the merrier! I am also applying to other positions that are education related (the line is sometimes fuzzy) in case the school arena doesn't pan out. Besides my teaching, the house projects keep rolling along. Shelby is very ready to tackle the big jobs, which has resulted in several downed pine trees (eight so far, more to come), including the large one in front of the porch. Our fruit trees and other trees are in place for planting, which may be happening tomorrow if plans work out - a friend of ours may be sto...

http://yourmemoriesbymandy.weebly.com/  Here we are, a relaxing Sunday morning before a relaxing Sunday day! The weekend before now has been a busy weekend of visiting with friends who dared to make the long drive out here, and back, to see us. It's weird how our apartment life seems so far behind us now - a closed door that I dare not forget but care not to open again. Since we moved in, nearly two months ago, we've been able to have family and friends over to visit and even stay overnight. Our open house brought thirty-nine people into our house, comfortably! We (I'm sure I can speak for all of us here) absolutely love having the space and the surroundings to enjoy having guests, which was not the case in our apartment. I also appreciate knowing that we have still have good ties with friends and family, even after the years that we did not see much of them because of our apartment. It is so nice to have people over, to cook outside and sit on the porch in good weather...

Oh, my goodness! So long without a post so I need to at least throw a few lines down! We did get our house, the Blue House, after a drawn-out closing that included the new septic (which we still need to get the down-low about from the Health Inspector). Or, I guess I should just say WE GOT OUR HOUSE!! We love every inch of it, from the curvy driveway to the poor back yard. We closed and moved in on June 29th and have been SO busy ever since with moving, Aullwood, life, etc. I had a great summer teaching at Aullwood's summer camp, but the drive ends up being around an hour each way, which will have to be a consideration next year. We are mostly moved in and the space is very comfortable. Our crap-ton of living went from the tightly packed apartment and flowed into the open spaces of our two-story home, garage, and yard with much relief. Like pouring a five gallon bucket of water into an empty tub. Like releasing the air from a balloon into the atmosphere. Like cutting the ropes of t...

I've gone through so many papers tonight - ideas, worksheets, and themes that I've used and collected over the past five years. It's been a great look backwards at the experiences I've had in this process towards becoming a teacher. I SO need a classroom of my own and need to get this party started!Looking forward to watching my teaching develop and grow with my career, hoping for that opportunity at a school soon! Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.9

 Summer break is finally here! At least for the kids, that is...they are out of school, but things are (hopefully) ramping up for our move! As it stands: the appraisal was performed last Wednesday and we should hear the results early next week. If that went well, we're looking at moving on the week of the 20th :)  If it did not go well, then we're delayed. That would be bad. We're now to the point where we have to move forward with the moving process in order to be ready in time to move. We've started packing, and Kait gave her notice at work in to transfer to Richmond July 1. Tiff has decided to move in with a friend in order to stay in Dayton - not sure that I agree this is the best for her, but she feels that it is and I hope that it is. We canceled the paper and will be canceling cable, so that we can be sure they both definitely stop before we leave this apartment. Most of our potted trees and bushes are doing great, but a few did not make it through the winter. I ...

So, I realized that it has been nearly two months since my last written post, which is not what I wanted from this blog. I get busy, or frustrated, or blah, and the blog settles to the bottom of my list. So here I am to bring things back up to speed and to catch up. First of all, we're still here. So there's that. We remain a family of seven, dreaming and creating our life together, and supporting each other through the frustrating times. We are all lucky in that respect. Shelby has finally received her promotion and is getting paid the appropriate salary for that jump! She is so awesome and has deserved the title and paycheck for so long - we're all so proud of her, especially me! It looks like Annie will be her Field Coordinator once she gets through the admin process, which will be a great help. So we pretty much have the green light for the Dayton area (unless fate changes that), and also Indiana, which Shelby will also allegedly have both hands in. We're looking a...

It's that time of year again - time to reflect on what I did and did not accomplish last year, and time to prioritize what I would like to accomplish in the coming year. I should preface this blog by saying that my resolutions are goals. I use them as guidance, but they are not law or reason to punish myself should they not work out. This works out better for me and my ego! So here they are.  My New Year's Resolutions for 2011: Get a job! Looks like we are good staying in the SW Ohio region for Shelby's work, so we're running with that. Which means I can seek employment, preferably teaching, or something somewhat in the education field. Get a house!! Oh, how we've waited for this! We should be ready and able to get our family farm sometime before the kids end this school year! We're forecasting our buy using Shelby's paycheck only, but we're definitely going to need to get my career going, as well, to keep up the pace.  Fruits, veggies, chicken...

It's the eve after a wonderful Christmas! We enjoyed our traditional at-home Christmas Eve with a nice variety of snack food (healthy and not) and Christmas movies - this year we watched our pick of favorites: Christmas Vacation, Elf, and our traditional end-of-the-night movie, It's a Wonderful Life. (We started this at-home tradition while living in Florida and realized that it greatly reduced the stress level of Christmas, compared to the running around to both families and then laying kids down and THEN finishing Christmas preparations that needed to happen before Christmas Day! So we decided that this tradition is a necessity, even upon our return to Ohio.) Christmas morning came fast, and it was a great beginning to Christmas day with all seven of us home, and each of us fully aware of the gift that our togetherness actually is. Our kids enjoyed this Christmas with giving as much as they enjoyed receiving, which is a wonderful thing to see in your children. The day foll...

Christmas week is upon us, school break is here, and the kids are enjoying their mega extended weekend. I love this time of year for our family, but I'm finding myself more excited to begin the New Year and begin what I hope will be our transitional year to our new life. As the end of this year approaches, Shelby and I have developed our plan to make things happen...as we realize things may also change as we begin our strategy! #1 We have determined that it is most likely that we will remain in the SW Ohio/Indiana area unless some awesome twist of destiny is bestowed upon us. But the likeliness that Shelby's job will evolve and continue for at least a few years here is good, so we have decided that our best location for our home will be Preble, Darke, or Mercer counties. We are going to start our quest with open houses, and find a realtor that we're comfortable with and who can help us to do the things we need to do to make this happen. #2 Get a job. I have an appointment...