Razorbacks, Wampus Cats, and Bears, OH MY!

We were headed to a football game at UCA, but Evan did not own a purple shirt.  I got my UCA shirt at the consignment store when we first moved here.  I just found it by chance and it was $2 and I figured it would be handy.  Before the game we went to Wal-Mart for some errands, and hoped to find a UCA shirt while there.  We have seen them there.  Football is very important in Arkansas.

Well, there were no UCA shirts.  So we tried just a purple shirt.  Not so much.  There were however plenty of Razorback shirts (University of Arkansas) and Wampus Cats apparel (Conway High).

What?  You don't know what a Wampus Cat is?  What rock have you been hiding under? Obviously not the Arkansan rock...

A Wampus Cat is a six legged cougar looking animal.  "Four to run at the speed of light, two to fight with all its might."  Yes.

We did find one purple shirt on the bottom of a display near the front.  I pulled it out and started laughing.  As it was the only purple shirt in the building, and Evan was feeling school spirit that day we went ahead and bought it.

I asked Evan to pose like the monkey on his shirt.

Yes, the monkey's necklace says, "I work out"

Yes, I've had that song stuck in my head since the game.  A month ago.

Before the game

At the game.  

You know, I still don't regret buying that shirt.  Every time I see it I laugh.  Laughing is good for the body and the sunshine is good for your teeth.  Or so says Bob Robbins.

Trick-or-Treat

Last night was out ward Trunk-or-Treat.  We don't have any kids, but we went and decorated a trunk anyway and gave out some candy.  We went as Toad and Princess Peach.

See, Evan found this hat at a garage sale before we got married, and it has been with us every since.  He finally had the opportunity to wear it, and a lot of the kids were really impressed!  Apparently, my sparkly head band was not close enough to a crown, so they didn't recognize me.  Oh well, I got to dress up anyway!

The sun was setting so I wore my sunglasses... that may have been another part of the problem.

Halloween

I didn't decorate much for Halloween this year.  Mostly because Evan's family is coming and I want to be well decorated for Thanksgiving, so I've put a lot of my time into getting everything clean and planned for the month of November.   But I did make a wreath!  It's a loose interpretation of Halloween according to Evan.  I like it though.

I covered a straw wreath with black tulle and added some purple and orange flowers and feathers.  The colors look off in this picture, but you get the idea.  I got this from pinterest (of course) HERE!

I also made a centerpiece at work.  That house just does not feel like a home yet.  I'm working on it.  Over the summer Nanny#2  found a red tablecoth and put that on there then made a simple centerpiece with red candles and rocks.  It looked very nice.  Since Nanny#2 is no longer with us, I did Halloween.  I guess I'll have to change it soon for Thanksgiving!

White candlesticks, orange and black rocks, orange flowers and glittery spiders.  I didn't even use pinterest on this one.  I made it all by myself walking around Wal-Mart for an hour  (The first half hour my shirt was backwards... I had to go to the restroom and turn it around.  It was one of those days).

Glittery spider.  The only kind I will tolerate.

The End!

The Dresser

Evan's family is coming to visit us for Thanksgiving.  There will be 8 people in our little apartment- it sure is a good thing we love each other!  This has also motivated us to get some work done around the house we've been putting off, such as refinishing one of our dressers.

Evan has had this dresser for as long as he can remember.  At one time it belonged to his grandfather (until recently he thought his grandfather had built it, but according to The Tycoon this was not the case).  Ever since we got married and he moved it into our first apartment he's been saying it would look really good refinished.  I saw the potential and agreed.  I also think it is pretty cool that we will be able to pas it on to one of our kids who can refinish it how they want and keep it going on.

It took us about a month (we put in a few hours each weekend) but we finally finished!

Day 2 of sanding.  This is the closest I have to a before picture.  Apparently, I never thought it picture worthy... lol.  You can see the color though, and some of the missing handles.

We sanded by hand.  Oh my word it took forever.  But it was well worth it!  You can see my spring/summer wreath behind him :)

After we finished sanding.  We took all the handles off (since half were missing anyhow).  This was a big moment for us.  No more sanding!  YEEHAW

Then Evan stained it and added new handles.  It's like a whole new piece of furniture!  You can see where the handles were because that part wasn't stained originally, but I am choosing not to notice that.  We put a lot of work in and I am very pleased with the outcome!

We just have a few more projects to do before our visitors arrive!  Good thing we have a few weeks still!

Road Rage and Musings

Forgive me if you've heard this already, it's at the top of my "things to complain about list."

First off, Evan and I share a car.  This has proved difficult for us, but we make it work.  We had two cars in Richmond, Evan drove a bit of a clunker and decided to not bring it with us when we moved because there was a very real possibility it would break down on the way.  And neither of us wanted to make the 16 hour drive alone anyhow.

For the most part, it has been fine.  Evan can get to class easily(less than a 1/3 mile walk), we go to church together anyhow, when we need to go different places at the same time we either time it so one can drop the other off, or hitch a ride with someone close by.  This semester however, Evan has practicum.

This means he has to spend 8 hours a week shadowing a school psychologist and gaining field experience.  Over the summer, Evan went to the professor in charge of placements with a friend (the only other male in their year) and both voiced their concerns that they were without transportation.  It is known that placements in Conway are rare so even though he talked to her he knew it was still not a guarantee.  Her response, "I'll take that into consideration," Wasn't very reassuring either.

When she had made all of the placements she announced to the class "There are two placements in Conway!"  Evan had fingers crossed he had one of them.  He got his e-mail and he was assigned to...

...Pulaski County.

One of the first things my teacher friend told me was- Don't work for Pulaski County.  Apparently, the district has so many issues at the district level, it trickles into the schools and it is always a struggle.  That isn't even our biggest issue.  This placement is a FORTY FIVE MINUTE drive.  Luckily (and unbeknownst to this professor who has seemed to be out to get us) one of the schools this particular School Psych works at is the middle school of one of the kids I nanny.  So we worked it out so Evan would ride to work with me and either I drop him off or he drops me off and then we ride home together when we are both done.  It takes a litle finagling and a lot of extra driving, but we make it work.

As it turns out, Evan isn't getting all of the experiences he needs at the middle school and really needs to go to a different site (the school psych has different schools she visits, elementary, middle, and high).  He asked what elementary school she worked at, and we mapped it.  45 minutes in no traffic.  Also, 30 miles from where I work.  Sigh.

So yesterday we set out to find this place.  We drove through every bit of morning rush hour on the Arkansas Highway System of Death.  It took us nearly an hour and a half to get there.  On the way home I was nearly run off the road multiple times by pickup truck drivers that choose not to see my tiny Yaris.  By the time I got home (two hours after leaving the house) I was tired of driving and mad about how far we have to go to fulfill this requirement.

I set out to pick him up in the afternoon before the kids got out of school.  I was hating my life at that moment and thinking over and over that this is all that professor's fault.  And just channeling my rage toward her.  Then I thought, this isn't fair to her.  She only has so many places to send her students. This is the placement we've been given, there is nothing we can do to change it.   We are in a place to get Evan a car and are working on that so before too long we won't have to share rides anymore.  A thought came to my mind then, "When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed..." And I realized, yeah.  I should sing some hymns.  I turned the radio down and sang what hymns I could remember.  By the time I got to the elementary school to pick Evan up I felt immensely better.  And he was pleased with his experience.  Much more so than he had been any day at the middle school.

Somedays I come home and my head feels like a beehive, just buzzing and throbbing because I spent the day listening to kids that aren't mine whine about EV-ER-Y-THING while I make them a hot meal and clean up after them, and shuttle them to extra-curriculars, and fold their laundry.  And somedays I come home happy because they said, "Thank you" and smiled and told me they loved me, and were happy to spend time with me and their siblings.

What is it that makes these days so significantly different?  My perspective.  Every day has all of these elements, it has much more to do with what I see and acknowledge.  As I've taken on spending more time with them (especially since the other nanny left) and trying to fit in with their family, I've noticed that when I choose to look for the good, I come out of the day more energized and happy.  It is all about how I choose to act and feel that changes the mood of the day.

Sometimes we make sacrifices and compromises, and it is irritating and seems unjust.  But when we stop to look, there are blessings there too.  It's all about how you choose to look at it.  I need to relearn that lesson a lot it seems.  But I'm ok with it.  I'll perfect it one day, but for now it is a work in progress.

The Butterfly Effect

I came home from work the other day and told Evan my day had been like Final Destination (you know, that movie where people cheat death then die anyway in freak accidents?), but in reverse.  I almost killed a whole bunch of stuff.

First, I was driving down the road on my way in to work and butterfly got caught in my windshield wiper.  I watched it die as I sped along, trying to free it by turning my wipers on.  That was not a good idea by the way.

Then, there was a turtle crossing the road that RAN into my lane as I approached.  I swerved and missed.  This happened two more times before I got to work.

THEN as I was leaving, I saw some dark shape coming from the tree that hangs over the road.  I thought a crow was diving to grab something.  Turns out, a squirrel FELL OUT OF THE TREE.  Had I not slowed down on a hunch, it would have landed on my car.  I have no idea what happened to it, I guess it was fine because it wasn't on the road as I drove off.

Then another turtle.  I see an awful lot of turtles crossing the road on my drive, but four in one days was an all time high.

And that is my day of bring death or near death to an assortment of wildlife critters.

Interviews

All of the sudden, interviews are filling up my days.  In the last two weeks I've had 8.  It all started when Evan's professor called to tell me they were hiring at Ann Taylor Loft (and that apparently seemed like a really good idea to her).  So I filled out the application and sent it off.  Within a couple days I had an interview at two different stores.  I get through those and am freaking out that I will have to start working retail when an elementary school in Conway called.

No Way.

So I did the interview, I felt pretty good about it, but they didn't call back til Monday.  The job started Friday.  Which was also the day I went for a round two 'interview' with Loft.

Wednesday I had a screening interview with North Little Rock.   She told me, "You are knowledgeable and obviously have the heart to teach.  However, you are quiet and you look like you are 16, I'm just not sure how you will handle yourself in front of a class."

LIKE A BOSS.  Is what I should have said.

"I'll take a chance on you and send you to this elementary school."
So off I went for another interview.  I thought it went very well.  But they didn't call me back, til this morning when they asked if I would be interested in a long term sub position.  More on THAT in a moment.

Thursday I interviewed with the state hospital.  I had no idea going in what the job entailed.  So I had no way to prepare.  But I did my best and I think it went well.  Turns out, they work with teenagers that have essentially dropped out of foster care because of behavior problems, and adults that are sent from the court because they are deemed 'mentally unfit' for trial.  And then try to rehabilitate them.  Oh boy.  I should hear back in a couple weeks.  I have a feeling looking 16 will hurt me way more on this one.

Today, Friday, I got a call from North Little Rock asking if I was interested in a long term sub position (with no mention about my previous interview, so I guess I didn't get it).  I said sure and went and interviewed.  I think it went well, I don't really care.  Here's the thing.

Long term subs get paid $90 a day.  That isn't a lot of money.  Short term subbing isn't a lot of work, so I don't expect sub pay to be that high.  WHich is also why I don't sub. But for this position (at least 3 months, possibly the rest of the school year) I am expected to take on ALL the responsibilities of the classroom teacher with NONE of the benefits.

All lesson plans, staff development days, team meetings, staff meetings, parent conferences, testing, etc.

Part time pay and no health benefits.  Are they kidding me?

People are always complaining about how low teacher pay is.  I would now like to amend that to include long term sub pay.  A long term sub MUST have a degree and go through the same interview process as a full time teacher.  And MUST take on all of the responsibilities. For NONE of the benefits.  I'd wager the parents don't think you are nearly as capable either.  Which will make my life wonderful.

Funny thing is, I might take it.  Because I don't think anyone will hire me until they see that I survived an Arkansas school.

They have apparently never been to Richmond.