Getting Married Buying a House Starting a Job

Life's a little busy right now...

My part time job just became full time since the second maternity leave teacher had her baby 2 weeks early.

We're getting married in June and have to plan the wedding. I keep coming up with more things to deal with, like music for the wedding and decorations, and flowers, and photography

We want to buy a house, but we're not sure where, so I've spent endless hours of my spring break (thank goodness I have one) surfing the realty site and looking for good options. The problem is there are a LOT of good options, so where do we start?!

I really need to plan some lesson plans but my mind keeps going in circles. Tomorrow I think I'll actually go into work and work through the next two weeks. Plus I need to get my website up and running.

Friday we leave for the Adirondacks to look at some wedding sites, although I'm 99% sure that if we do have our wedding in the Adirondacks I know where we'll have it. Sunday we'll head for the Catskills for a second choice location.

I keep telling myself to stay relaxed, but it's not really working!

Potted Plants and Potato Leek Soup

It's a BEAUTIFUL day outside. This past weekend it snowed. Today...that's right, sunny, no wind...just about perfect. Perfect enough for me to re-pot my new plants. I've had some cuttings from my grandfather's rhubarb for over a year, and yet they were still in the plastic pots my mother used to transport them to me. No longer. They are in their own nice pots sitting on my deck. So are the new tulips and pansies. Since they're potted I can bring them in again in case it decides to snow again. I'm hoping for NO MORE SNOW!

I also had time to cook. Granted, usually I have time to cook but I'm so tired I don't feel like it. It's way too easy to order food from the places nearby. I only eat about half anyway so an $8 entree equals two meals for me. When Gerd's home half of the time we eat bread, cheese, and sliced meat for dinner, which requires very little effort, either to prepare or clean.

I've been getting veggies and fruits from Boston Organics and my box arrived today. Lots and lots of yummy fruits!!! I switched to the 3/4 fruit option. My veggies included leeks, potatoes, cucumbers, and yellow squash. Since I still had a cucumber left over from last time, and really only need one leek, I brought a few items down to my downstairs (usually unfriendly) neighbor to make peace. It was a start anyway, and he seemed really grateful to get my outcasts which also included grapefruit (can't even stand the smell of them) and bananas (they make my teeth itch just thinking of them).

So I grilled some sausages (since it was so nice) and made some mashed potatoes. Not the most healthy meal in the world, but who cares, I made it myself. I wanted to look up a potato leek soup recipe, but I've realized I have terrible cookbooks. None of my crockpot cookbooks have a recipe, and here's the recipe for Swiss potato soup from Good Housekeeping:

Put 1 unopened can frozen cream-of-potato soup in warm water for 2 to 3 min.; empty into saucepan. Add 1 cup light cream, 3/4 cup milk, 1/8 teasp. each of nutmeg and pepper and 1/4 cup grated Swiss cheese; heat, stirring occasionally. Garnish with cress. Serve with deviled ham on Melba toast, followed by cantaloupe halves filled with ice cream and blueberries. Makes 4 servings.

TWO pre-made items (soup and deviled ham) and a suggestion for desert. No wonder I get all of my recipes off of the internet!

Home Alone

Mom visited for Easter and redecorated my house (well, I was planning on it anyway, she just helped...a lot actually)

Gerd is still in Germany and called me after a 2am pub run with a childhood friend.

I didn't see enough people listed for Irish dance tonight.

So, I'm home alone. Lesson plans are done, and whatever isn't done I have time to do tomorrow. The house is clean (Mom visited remember) so I don't have house puttering to do.

It's way too quiet.

Free

I feel free. I haven't felt free in a long time, and I'm not really sure why I feel so today. It's not like I think about being free on a regular basis. I mean, sometimes being tied to your life feels good too. But I've been so worried about jobs and the future that I've been in perpetual stress for the past 5 months. I don't know if I just woke up and said it's okay, but somehow that's how I feel today.

At work I didn't worry about the interview for next year's position. Instead I focused on my own practice and what I can do right now to use this time. I have a wonderful opportunity to become a better teacher. I'm working in a fabulous and supportive school. I have students who do their homework. I have students who can read at, or even above grade level. Discipline problems are almost non-existent. What better time to focus on instruction? For so long my teaching had to be focused on discipline and basic skill building. Now I can actually teach.

And sometimes I'm afraid that I can't teach...that I'm not ever going to get good enough. But today I brushed that fear aside too.

I don't know if it was the sunshine today, or that it's Easter weekend, or that my hormones finally calmed down, but somehow today feels different.

I feel like I've cracked my shell open.

And best of all, I finally free of the Army. I think some piece of me has been worried that somehow the Army will force me back in again somehow. I know it wasn't rational, but it was there.

Today I feel like the person I was when I graduated from High School. I'm slightly ditzy, disorganized, and even (to a certain extent) innocent. At least for the moment I've left the guilt and shame of all the years roll off of me.

Do I think I'll feel this way tomorrow? Well, that would be nice. Probably not going to happen, but it would be nice. I hope that, even if I wake up worried again tomorrow, or some other day, which WILL happen, that I will at least remember what this day feels like.

Food Challenge

A while back I heard about the One Dollar Diet Project and was intrigued by their food budget ($1/per day per person in the household for food). The couple blogging about their experience donated $2300 to a local food pantry using the interest created in their project as a forum for donations.

Now they've posted a new challenge, this time one they found on the Crunchy Chicken blog site. Can you live on locally grown, organic food for the amount you would get for food stamps. Looking at how much you get for food stamps, I'd say, piece of (locally grown) cake.

As a single person I would get $176/month, which is slightly more than $40/week for food.

Including Gerd (who wouldn't do this project because he eats out every day for lunch) we would get $323/month.

A family of 4 would get $588/month, which may be trickier. I wouldn't know how much a family eats, but according to a friend on Adventures in Motherhood, the cost of food for a family is pretty big.

I'd really like to do this project, but I'm not exactly sure how I could keep track of how much I'm spending on me alone. I could ask Gerd to go on the diet, but lunch out is his worktime escape. Maybe I'll got on the challenge only for the next two weeks while Gerd's in Ireland so I can see if it would be difficult (but I think it would be very easy for me, I don't eat much meat). Right now we spend probably $50/week for food for the both of us, but Gerd doesn't eat breakfast and that's not including the times we eat out (usually at least once a week).

Finally Got a Job

I finally got a long term substitute position. I flew back from Colorado, slept two hours, and then interviewed for the position and started that day. I've been frantic catching up with grading, lesson planning, and website design since.

Tomorrow is my first day teaching my own lesson plans (the students were reviewing and testing until then).

So, I guess life's good.

While I'm ecstatic to have have a job, I thought I'd be less anxious about the temporary part of the job. But I'm still anxious. Ah well, somehow I'll be forced into relaxing about the future.