oh, august

i've decided that i'm not going to get all hung up on not writing long detailed posts about the things i do complete on my 101 list. i do feel obligated to address the things i've done, since that's why i started this blog, but i also just wanna write about whatever i wanna write about, so no more feeling bad about not maintaining the blog. freedom is mine!

this has also been the craziest start to a school year ever. in my short three years of teaching, i've never experienced or even heard of a start to a year that was as discombobulated and disorganized as this one was. we've had some changes in our district, the major one being that a new elementary school opened up down the street from the one i work at, so that meant rezoning and transfers and all that. without getting into all the details, basically our school was told to get rid of two teachers the day before school started, which of course caused a lot of chaos within our school and an uproar with some parents, but that wasn't the end of it. the two teachers who got the axe were in first and fourth grade, but those two grade levels have the most amount of children enrolled, which means they still needed teachers in those grades. first grade was a mess, but it ended up being resolved right after the first day of school. third grade wasn't so lucky: one of our teachers was told she was going to have to move to fourth grade, meaning we all got new kids added to our rosters in the middle of the first week of school. i'm trying not to complain too much, because at least i wasn't the one who had to move to fourth grade, but the way the situation was handled was unprofessional and disrespectful, and our third grade team was shown absolutely no courtesy. anyway, things are smoothed over now and instead of a nice small class of 16, i'm now at 21 kids, 13 of which are boys. lots of energy in the class this year! i think mostly everyone is adjusted and happy now, so here's hoping week #2 goes by more smoothly than week #1.

jj and i finally got around to some unpacking this weekend. with the moving happening right smack dab in the middle of my birthday, beginning of school, my trip to new york, and his trip to germany, our house has been slightly neglected and we've still got a few boxes of stuff here and there, but we really got after the mess on saturday and it feels way better already. a clean kitchen means i can start cooking again, which i've missed, and now our table is also cleared which means we don't have to eat standing up or on the couch. exciting, i know. i am so in love with our neighborhood and how close we are to everything. we can walk to restaurants and ride our bikes basically everywhere, which i love since my old place on lamar wasn't connected to any bike lanes or neighborhoods so i barely ever rode my bike. it's also nice that we have a second bedroom for visitors; jj's friend from new orleans already came and stayed with us so anyone who needs a place to crash and doesn't mind having cats harass them in the middle of the night is welcome!

i haven't been able to find my happy thoughts/things that make me smile notebook since the move, so i'll just write down my recent ones here:
goodbye hugs from my students.
coming home to a home and jj every day.
catching up with my mom, and getting to hear her voice.
third grade honesty (one of my kids told me on friday that i was getting on his nerves, ha!).
cooler weather.
riding my bike.
claire's upcoming return to texas.