Newest developments

Ok, so now I am supposed to be in a 5th grade bilingual class. I started in kindergarten as of Friday, then Tuesday it was 3rd grade, and as of yesterday I am in 5th grade. I am freaking out!! I am not scared of 5th grade, I am scared of 5th grade in Spanish. I am supposed to meet my teacher today at 4pm, so hopefully she got the memo that she is having a student teacher this year and she can make it to the meeting today. Well, I will just go to the meeting and see what happens! On a positive note, I have decided to sport some pink nail polish for the next few days and see if I like it. My nails are really long right now and I don't want them to break, so I am trying something new, haha. Like you care, but whatever.

I am so excited about getting to go home this weekend! I have been here for a week and been to like 11 hours of meetings, total, and 8 of those hours were on the same day. It is really frustrating that I have so little to do while I am here, but at least I have some good friends that are helping me through it. I have been eating out a ridiculous amount these last few days and I am sure I have gained some weight because of it. And not only that, but I have not been working out like I should have been. I run every couple of days and do weights, but I am not doing as much as I used to and I know it is not going to get any better when I start student teaching. Hopefully I can motivate myself to stay active, but I am afraid I will not have any energy left when I get done with school every day. I guess I will just have to try my best and that will have to work.

Again, I am so excited about going home this weekend I can hardly stand it. Hopefully we can work on the bathroom and spend some quality time together before I have to get back to Lubbock again. Gotta run! Another movie to watch, by myself, and maybe I will work up the energy to do some homework. Or maybe not. whatever.

House and school update

I will start with the house. Jason has done all the demolition on our hall bathroom and it is a completely bare room now. It is actually kinda crazy. We are completely redoing the whole thing, so he had to rip everything out. Thankfully his parents are amazing and are willing to help us do all of that. And by us I really mean Jason since I am not there to help. He keeps calling me to ask questions or see my opinion on things and whatever, so I answer him the best I can while I am not there. I frankly don't care. As long as they don't do anything crazy and use at least most of the stuff I already said that I liked, it doesn't matter to me! He is an amazing husband, though, and wants my "ok" on everything he is doing, which I appreciate even if I am not much help.

I played ultimate frisbee tonight with some of my friend from church. I hardly knew anyone there, which is really weird because last summer I pretty much knew everyone. Actually, one guy remembered who I was, so that was nice, because we were on the same team. I had some good plays and some not so good plays, but it was fun regardless.

Before going to ultimate I went shopping with my friend Rachel. We went to two stores in the mall and I was actually pretty successful! I found 3 pairs of pants and 6 shirts this weekend and that is more than I have found in a long time! Plus I had coupons and it was tax-free weekend, which made it all worth it. I actually don't think I even spent $200 on the whole amount! It was pretty awesome.

Then I went to dinner with my Gran, my cousin, and his two little girls. It was so nice to see him and his girls, I don't think I have seen them in like a year. He is going through a rough time, so if you could pray for him that would be great. I'd rather not go into details, but he and his family need a lot of prayers right now. On a bright note, though, his oldest daughter starts kindergarten tomorrow, which will be exciting! Anyway, that made for a very nice evening before going to hang out with still more people and play.

I think I have decided to try to go to Paradigm if I am able to. It is a Thursday night worship service and I haven't gone to one since freshman year. They are amazing but I normally am too busy on Thursdays to go. I am going to try really hard, though, because that will be the only time I will see my church friends since I will be going home every weekend until I move back in October.

So those are the updates. I am trying not to dwell on being apart from Jason but the weekends make it especially difficult- hence why I tried to stay SO busy this weekend. I won't have to do that again, though, so that is good. Good night!

This weekend

Actually, I will start with yesterday. I had a student teaching orientation meeting from 8-5 yesterday and it was crazy. Well, crazy is kinda the wrong word... more like ridiculously boring and tiring. Have you ever been so tired of sitting that your butt goes numb and your legs feel like they are going to go crazy? That is exactly what I was feeling all afternoon yesterday. I didn't necessarily learn anything I didn't already know, but I did get reminded of some things and one teacher gave a pretty good classroom management presentation with some good ideas. I got my placement, though, and that was a great feeling to finally know where I was going to be. I honestly don't know anything about the school, but now I can at least go drive by and scope out the neighborhood. I am starting to feel a little nervous, but mostly I am excited because I know I will learn a lot and I will also get to try some things that you can't be taught, you can only experience. I hope I am not disappointed!

After the meeting I came back to the house, changed, then went to Dion's for a salad for dinner. Then I went to a movie with my friends from church. We saw Post Grad and it was so funny! "The Passion of the Guacamole" "It is mexiCAN, not mexicant or mexicould" "Cat's dead. I ran over him on accident." HAHA!! Oh, and Megan cracking up next to me for like 10 minutes after a funny part made it just that much better. The quality of the movie was about mediocre, but it was funny and very entertaining, which is what I was in the mood for last night. We then had Starbuck's and hung out for a while. It was a very pleasant evening and I am so thankful for friends like that.

Today was a very nice day. I got to sleep in a little but I did set an alarm so I didn't sleep too long. I worked out today for the first time in a while, running anyway, and I did weights for my arms, too. It felt good to get back into it. I am going to have to figure out a way to exercise when I start student teaching because it is too dark in the mornings, but I hate taking a shower in the evenings as well as the mornings, so the evenings aren't great either. That is probably what I will end up doing, though, so I just need to suck it up and be OK with taking two showers.

After working out I got to have lunch with Gran at Olive Garden. MMMMMMM!!! Then we saw Julie & Julia at the theater (a super cute movie). After that I went shopping. I know, crazy because of tax-free weekend, but the store was surprisingly calm and I was able to find a pair of pants and a cute shirt, all for under $30. I had a $10 off coupon which helped a lot, and I was able to part with another shirt that I wasn't sure I loved enough to buy. It was probably a really good idea, though, because I didn't love it, and I'm not entirely sure I would wear it. I'm very happy with what I bought though.

Then I came back to the house and ate dinner with Dale and Gale. It was a great day and I am so glad I didn't have any homework or other obligations to keep me from enjoying it. Tomorrow I will go to church, see all my friends again (which I am really looking forward to), come back to the house and maybe do some homework for my class, maybe go shopping at the mall (if I can stand to fight the crowds- I have a feeling they will be worse at the mall than they were at Kohl's), then have dinner with my Gran, my cousin, and his two little girls. Should be a good day and I am hoping I can enjoy it as much as I expect to!

On a side note- Jordan cracks me up. Every time I talk to him he asks, "Where is uncle Jason? Where is Abby? Are you pulling weeds?" LOL. He's so funny and his mind works in mysterious ways. He keeps talking about the "tractor" he rode a few weeks ago, meaning the ride his mama took him on at the amusement park. He was scared while he was on it, but now he says, "I had fun on the tractor!" and that he wants to ride it again. Or when he sees my sister-in-law he says, "You fall? Kneeboard?" Because months ago we were at the lake and she was wakeboarding (a word he doesn't know) and she fell once. It is hillarious what he thinks of! Anyway, I just wanted to give you a little idea of the joy he brings to my life. I adore that child and I am having a very hard time thinking about how I could possibly love my own children any more than I already love him. I know that feeling will come soon enough though!

Not sure

Well, so far I have had much more time to blog since Jason isn't around. It is kinda nice to not have distractions, but it is also not nice that I am not with him. One thing that has kinda prepared us for this two months is that he has been working for a while now and I got used to him not being at the house or around me during the day. So really, during the day I don't miss him nearly as much as I do around dinner time (like right now). It is very strange knowing that I will not see him for more than a week, and I am not entirely sure how to handle it.

Thankfully I was pretty busy today which made the day go by quickly. I helped a friend finish getting her classroom ready for the kiddos, which was fun. Then I got my school books from the book store and came back to the house to finish getting my room organized. The closet looks really bare because I don't have very many clothes (especially since I didn't bring any of my winter clothes, that really dwindles it down). I have a TV in my room but no cable hook up and no antena, so it is just sitting on the table right now. All my school stuff is organized on a little shelf and I am trying not to get overwhelmed by the amount of work I am going to have this semester.

Things are going well, though, overall. I am not depressed or anything like that with being away from Jason. I miss my sister and her baby like crazy, but I have to get used to not seeing them every day anyway because I am going to have a job in a few months (hopefully) and the baby will be at daycare when my sister goes back to school. I miss my family as well, but they are out of town right now anyway so I know I wouldn't get to see them if I was at home anyway. This is just an interesting time in my life and I am not entirely sure how to handle it. Hopefully these next two months go by quickly (but not so quickly that I don't get to spend any time with my friends) and I can be home for good and move to the next phase of my life.

Quick update

Tonight is going to be stinky. It will be the first night away from Jason since last summer when we decided we wouldn't be apart for extended periods of time... wrong. I am exhausted, and I am glad for it, because otherwise I don't think I would sleep very well. I drove to Lubbock today by myself, 6 hours with stopping to eat lunch, for a meeting that was scheduled for 5:30-6:30 this evening. Well I got to the meeting and it was a whole 5 minutes, basically just meeting the teacher and checking our names off of a list. That is pretty irritating. I am all settled into my house for the next two months. The Latimers are fantastic people and I am so blessed that I am able to stay with them, rent free, for two whole months. It is going to be really rough without Jason, but if anyone can make me feel a little better and a little less homesick it is Gale, and that is why I am so thankful for her.

Nothing is planned for tomorrow. My Gran is coming into town for the next week and we are going to hang out over the weekend, which is exciting. I have a huge long orientation between me and the weekend, though, and I have to get through that before I can have any fun. Student teaching here I come!

Overwhelmed

I am starting to feel very overwhelmed. I only have three more nights here (including tonight) and I have to go back to Lubbock on Wednesday early in the morning. Not only that, I have to go back to Lubbock by myself, for four meetings over a week and a half with nothing to do the rest of the days. Thankfully my Gran is going to be there at the same time, so I will get to see her over the weekend, which is nice. I will also get to see a lot of my friends whom I have not seen in several months, which will also be nice. But nothing quite makes up for Jason not being there, you know? It is just very stressful.

Also, we are starting to plan our first remodel. We are going to remodel the guest (hall) bathroom. It is the first time we are going to rip something up in the house and I won't get to be here at all. Hopefully I will have time before I leave to help pick out tile and countertops and things like that, but chances are slim. I will just have to find time when I come back over the weekends to do things like that. I won't even get to help do the project very much, which is also kinda not good. I guess Jason will get to do a lot, though, and since he didn't get to help doing the painting and things like that this will make up for it. I just want to be here for those things. it is a good thing I will be coming home so often, though, so I won't feel completely out of the loop.

And, on top of everything, I am starting to get a little worried about my sister. She is having a harder time being on her own than I thought. She is getting stressed out being around Jordan all the time, with no helpers, and I am afraid that is going to make her be an irritated person all the time. I know she won't do anything that will hurt Jordan or anything like that, but I am still worried for her mental health. She is a great mom, considering her circumstances, because apparently it is very tough being around a child all day even if there are two parents around. She had a doctor's appointment yesterday and her baby's dad went with her. I can't decide how I feel about it because it is his baby too (she thinks...), and he has a right to be at the appointments just as much as she does, but I can't stand the thought of her being with him. I am pretty sure they are not together right now, but her being alone is a huge invitation for someone to come keep her company because she hates being lonely. I am just concerned she is going to do something crazy and eventually get herself in a situation that is not good for her or the babies. It is just a little dicey, and I hope she does OK with the situation, at least until my parents get back from their vacation because then she can hang out with them when she gets lonely instead of this guy. I feel a little guilty about leaving because her and I are getting much closer than we have been in a long time, and I feel like if I am here she can come to me when she is lonely and not him, but I can't be because I have to do what is best for me. It is just a little stressful and I don't want to feel culpable if something bad happens.

So, these are all the things that are going through my head right now. As I said, I am feeling overwhelmed by all the things going on, and I am just trying to take everything one situation at a time. I know God can help me through it, but I have to remember to rely on Him, and not myself. He is always good to me, and I am so thankful for that, even when things get a little tough and out of (my) hand. Please help me once again, Lord!

Ugh

Ok, so we are still working on the house. We have finally finished painting all of the closet doors and they are all up in their appropriate rooms. They are especially nice in the office because it hides the pink that we haven't painted yet, lol. As soon as we hang up some of our decorations I will take pictures and post them so everyone can see what we have done to the house so far.

I just found out, unfortunately, that I have to go back to Lubbock a day earlier than I was planning. Because I have a class that was thrown at me to take this semester, I have to go to an orientation for that class on Wednesday, and my first student teaching meeting is Friday, meaning I can't leave Thursday mid-morning like I wanted to, I have to leave Wednesday early to make it back before my meeting in the evening. It is pretty frustrating, especially because I had to ask about it before anyone told me. This class is going to be a bummer, but I have to take it and there is nothing I can do about it.

Ok, I have one week left here so I should probably be doing something productive (like making my sister's baby blanket that I am going to give her hopefully before Shelby is born in mid-October). Hopefully I can get a lot of things done while I am still here so I don't have to worry about them while I am away. Ugh, I hate that I have to leave...

Internet and house update

We finally have internet! However, I am still too busy/lazy to get the pictures off of my camera to put up that shows what we have done to the house. I will get to that soon, hopefully, but I simply don't have the energy today, lol. I can tell you what we have done, though. We have finished the guest room (minus the closet, but taking a picture of that wouldn't make sense anyway) and our room (again, except for the closet, but hopefully we will finish the closet doors this weekend then nobody will ever know what it looks like inside the closet). We did a bunch of yard work today. I got a good chunk of the weeds taken out of the front flowerbed, so it looks much better. Jason took out a couple of trees that were growing next to other trees in the front yard. Jason's dad, Ken, came over this morning to help with some of the weeds in the back yard and he also helped trim some of the trees in the back yard so hopefully they will start looking more like trees and less like bushes. We are hopefully going to plant some grass very soon for poor Abby, but that is going to have to wait until we get the back yard ready for it. We have a lot to do still, as usual, but we are just taking it day by day, project by project, and know it will be done eventually. Well, like I said, pictures to come in the next couple of days! Until then, more work to be done!

House update

We have two rooms done! Except for the closet doors our master bedroom and the guest bedroom are complete. Same goes for the office/sewing room but we still have a lot of furniture and stuff to move into the room, so I am not counting it as done yet. The livingroom is really close to being done, too. All we have to do is paint the trim and hang stuff up on the walls and then it will be done! I have a few pictures of the completed rooms, but since I don't have internet at my house yet they are going to have to wait.

We purchased some couches today, so that was exciting! We got a couch and a love seat, and with our chair that we had in the house in Lubbock that makes almost a complete livingroom set. We are still missing end tables and a coffee table, but those can wait a while. We are getting really close to being able to take a break from all the work, but it is a few days away still.

The first big project after we finish all of this will be the hall bathroom. We are going to take out one of the walls in the bathroom and make the whole room feel a little bigger. We are planning to make it really nice but are going to stick to a budget at the same time. Jason's parents said they would help us with that so we get used to doing projects on a budget, instead of just saying, "We need new ceiling fans." then going to get them.

Speaking of Jason's parents- They have been such an amazing help in all of this. They have done more than both Jason and I have done. They know what they are doing, which helps them be efficient, and I feel like I am in the way when I try to help them. They called me yesterday and actually asked if it was OK if they come work on the house while I was gone... Can you believe it? Like I would turn them down! They are so awesome, though, and I am so thankful that they have been so willing to help us, seeing as neither of us have much experience in this area.

I want to thank my parents and siblings as well. They have all helped out: even my dad who just had hernia surgery one week ago today. He was over at our house the day after that painting... crazy! That is the kind of guy he is though. My brothers moaned and complained the whole time they were helping paint and move, but they stuck it out. They even kept going after they found out I wasn't going to pay them! (I told them, "This is what families do for each other. They don't ask for payment. If you move some day I will help you, so you can help me right now." Yeah, they didn't really want to hear that, but whatever, at least they helped a little.) Even my sister, who is 7 months pregnant, was helping us move and paint and do things like that. Obviously I didn't ask her to do anything that would strain her, but she willingly did what we was able to do. So thank you, family!

Ok, enough for now. I will post pictures when I have internet at my house. My house? Still sounds weird. Can't wait to be all settled!

New home

We have, as of yesterday, officially moved into our new house. We have junk everywhere and wouldn't even think about having people over (other than those willing to help on the house, haha) in the state it is in, but we are slowly but surely making progress! We have painted every wall in the house except the bathrooms and kitchen (those are first on the remodel list so we thought it would be a waste of time and energy to paint it then rip it up). We are even painting the ceilings, trim, and doors. We have started replacing all of the switches, plugs, and faceplates in the entire house. We have new blinds throughout the house and new ceiling fans. We are all set up in the master bedroom and the kitchen, but the other two rooms are complete wrecks, and don't even get me started on the livingroom. We can see the progress already, though, and it looks like a completely different house. As soon as I paint the closet doors in our bedroom I will post the "before and after" pictures, hopefully soon. We don't have internet yet so it might be a while, but I'll do what I can.

So, that is the update. The first night in the house was horrible, but that was mostly due to the cat keeping us awake because he hated being in a strange place and he simply would not settle down. We will just go to bed early tonight, though. Hopefully I will be able to update again soon!

p.s. my parents just bought my sister a house, also, and she will move in tomorrow. It is a cute double-wide on a nice lot and pretty close to our parents' house. Everyone was ready for her to have her own space, my parents included, so this should be a good thing. We will see how it ends up and what the situation is like in 6 months, but we are all thinking good thoughts and praying that she is able to make it on her own (with some help initially, of course). I'll try to stay up-to-date on that situation as well.