My newest "New & Exciting"!

There's been SO much fun & excitement happening since my last random post! But for now, I'm just gonna put this little update out there!

I'm moving!

I'm moving next week.

Next week I am moving to Satan's Basement*.

*Satan's Basement is also known as Yuma, Arizona. Since Yuma is Hotter than Hades, I decided that to get hotter than Hades, you must be in Satan's basement. Hahaha!

I don't know WHY I'm going to Yuma, other than a Super Excited Principal who offered me an amazing job! But I am pretty sure that I'm supposed to go to Yuma. Here's why.

One Wednesday I sent out my resume, cover letter & letters of recommendation to about 12

school districts with Rodel qualifying schools. That afternoon/evening I got calls from 3 schools in the Crane District in (You guessed it) Yuma. I missed 2 of the calls because my phone only vibrated for calls, instead of ringing. The last call that night, I answered. I talked with a Principal who wanted to interview me for a 2nd grade ELD position, with 12 students in the class! That sounded amazing! She (like the other 2 principals who'd left me voice mails) wanted to do a phone interview on Thursday or Friday. I was leaving EARLY Thursday morning to drive through a lot of unknown cell phone reception, to hike all day of Friday, so.... Yeah. Instead of trying to set something up for the following week, she called me back about 10 minutes later & did the interview. .... & she unofficially offered me the job!! The next morning she called my references & texted me- excited to tell me my references were fantastic & officially offer me the job! H.L. Suverkrup.... I knew that if I went to Yuma, it would be for this job.

Thursday morning/afternoon 2 or 3 more principals

called me, again hoping to set up phone interviews. ... ALL of them were also from Yuma. The only other responses I got from those 11 or so other districts were a couple e-mails telling me the positions that had been open had been filled, & a couple districts telling me to fill out an application before they would even consider me. (Not that there's anything wrong with that! I just felt Yuma calling me... LoL... LITERALLY!)

This was about when I started asking myself... Yuma? Yuma...?? YUMA????

My phone died on that trip, & so bought me most of a week of more time to decide. I kept in touch with the Principal through e-mail, but by the time my new phone came on the Following Wednesday (A WEEK after our phone interview & job offer), she thought I was calling to turn down the position. (NOT because of anything I'd said, or lack of contact, she said, but because I'm "SUCH a good teacher, why would I want to go

to Yuma??" lol) She had asked "on a scale of 1-10", where was I? ... 1 being I'm unable to relocate, 10 being I'm absolutely coming. She was SO excited when I said that I wanted to say 10, except that I hadn't yet found a place to live. I went to Yuma the next day, got my contract & keys to my classroom, & started networking! Before I left Yuma on Friday afternoon, I'd found a place to live, with roommates, a different place for my sweet Bear to live for a year (*SAD thought, but....), & I'd already found some friends!

To be perfectly honest, changes can still be hard for me. I'm SAD to leave some amazing friends & roommates in a place that I love & that has really become home again. I'm scared, but excited! Yuma may or may not melt my brains out, that is yet to be determined. BUT, I know that Yuma will hold many adventures & hopefully a lot of growing experiences!

1999

10 Years Ago...

• It was 1999, a different century!


• I was a sophmore/junior at Prescott High School.


• Daily life consisted of PHS & Seminary, & getting closer to some of the biggest changes of my life.


• I was seeing a strength in my Mom that I hadn't seen before, a strength that has been an inspiration to me ever since.


• With the exception of one small memory, all of my "home" memories were of the same house I grew up in, until we moved... 3 times THIS year...


• My family became "Homeless" (McKinney-Vento Act style, but not living-on-the-streets style).


• For most of the year I wasn't old enough to date yet, but I was already falling in like with the first boy who liked with me back.


• I went on my first date.


• My aunt took me to Williams, & I got my driver's license, after I passed the parallel parking on my fourth try.


• This was probably when I was really learning how your family can be your best friends.


• Change was not my favorite thing. It still isn't, but a lot of changes during this time of my life helped me learn to appreciate CHANGE!
  
  
• I would've liked the idea of staying in P-town forever. I'm glad I didn't stick with that plan!
• This year held the first anniversary of losing my Aunt Misty. Ten more years have passed, & I still miss her.
  
  
• We were still kids, & all of us kids were still together. The years have taken us apart to distant places, but I will always love the good memories from those times that brought us together stronger than before.

Thanks to Jodi for this idea! :)

Needing to catch up...

It's somehow been a long time since I've added anything on here! (I blame in part moving, another part to working on my classroom, & even more to internet that is sporadic at best since I moved)...

Moving really did happen, and I think I counted that this is my 17th-ish address in about the past 5 years! I'm ready to settle down sometime, I think. ... As long as I can still travel a little every once in a while. I guess starting out a career, with plans to stay in the same area for a while might help reduce my moving incidents. ... We'll see.

I need to catch up on lots of things that have been going on, but just as much, I need to catch up on some sleep. I'm beat.

But! Rather than make this be just a lame blog (like so many journal entries from my younger days: "I haven't written in a long time. A lot has happened & I need to catch up"... same thing next time a long-ish while later...) Well, here's a funny story from tonight!

I'm sitting here on the couch, wasting precious sleep time reading blogs about people I lost touch with years ago, when the doorbell rings. Mind you, it's 10:30 at night, I'm tired & sitting up alone since Trenton & Seth have both already gone to bed, & I didn't think we were expecting anybody.

Well, I went to ask Trenton if he was expecting anyone, thinking he would still be asleep since he can sleep through just about anything. Well, I opened his door, & he was right there. Not only was he standing right at his door when I opened it (not in bed like I expected), he also cocked his gun right as I opened the door.

I Jumped.
about a foot into the air!
I Jumped a foot in the air & practically stumbled backward.
After the jumping & stumbling, & confirming that this wasn't a visitor either of us was waiting for, I asked who was at the door.
It was Jake.
Trenton's little brother-in-law.
& his mom.
coming to see Seth.

Really late.

I was shaky from the whole sleepy, gun, door, late visit thing.

We laughed hard.
Trenton wished he could have recorded me jumping.

I'm glad he didn't.

Good-night.

A New Roommate!

So since I got the job, I'm moving to Prescott. And since I quit my illegal immigrant job, I'm ALREADY moving. It's change, & this one makes me sad & excited, but I still think it's good! With these changes... This is one of my new roommates in Prescott. I love him lots!

Smaller Circles

My last post was titled "It's a Small World"... and sometimes it really feels really small.

I've moved to this big city, but it seems like my world has shrunk. The milage on my car would indicate that my world has gotten much larger- I drove 350 miles in two weeks down here, without going on a trip or anything! I don't have as many people in my life, and I don't go as many places. This is what my world includes right now:

1. Home (the New House)
2. The Blue House (Where I just moved from and visit occasionally)
3. Eisenhower Elementary School -more specifically room A4
4. ASU Art building -Where I have my spanish class. Also the computing commons.
5. Tempe Institute
6. Mesa Arizona Temple
7. Church -which is so new that it doesn't quite feel like it's widening my world-especially with going there only once a week
8. and recently added to this list on a more frequent basis is Terina & Brent's house.
9. Today I also went to the gym, and I want to make that a regular place in my week.

Probably part of what makes everything seem so small is that both of my roommates went to Hawaii last week and are gone until Tuesday morning, so it's just me in our big, new house. They'll be back soon though, so I'm glad. The other hard part is that I can NOT do the college kid schedule anymore. My mornings start early, some days I don't get home until pretty late, and I'm always tired! I'm usually feeling ready to wrap up the night by 8:00 lately (probably partly because I've been sick for the past week) or by 9:00, and all of the hanging out and such usually happens around that time or even later.

Here's to broadening circles, making friends, and being happy and productive in what I'm here to do.

Yesterday was the strangest day. All day it felt like Friday, and I wasn't the only person to feel that way or say so. Really though, it was Monday, and really, I'm glad that it was Monday instead of Friday. If it were Friday, I probably would have been leaving instead of spending my whole evening with the Duttons again. I know that I need to finish my final. I know that I need to pack. I know that I am moving away and I need to get settled into my new place quickly before everything starts up. I know that I need to stop being sad about it. And I need to accept that life is moving on, and this time, again, I will be moving with it. Litterally.

When I get discouraged about the changes life is bringing, I should look at the big picture. I am changing too. I am moving towards goals that I've worked for a long time to accomplish. I'm making something of myself and my life. But it's so easy for me to see instead, everything that I want to become, and feel that I should already be, that I'm not. That probably just has a lot to do with how I see myself... might be something good to work on.

Yesterday felt really wierd too, because I was entirely unproductive for most of the day. I went to sleep very late Sunday night because my roommate and her boyfriend were in the living room, and I just couldn't fall asleep until he left... at least partly because I was afraid that he wouldn't leave. Monday morning I worked at the butt-crack of dawn (okay, it was BEFORE dawn because it's winter and it takes the sun a long time to come up right now). But I was really tired, so when I came home from work at 9am, I laid back down and watched more Heroes. I'd kept myself awake Sunday night watching several episodes, and then spent my entire morning yesterday watching more. It's another one of those shows that's addictive to me, but at the same time, another one that kind of leaves me feeling dark. Ugh. Why is it always that kind of show that reels me in? I have a goal to not watch Heroes at all today. I've got way to much that I still need to do.
1. I should hurry up already and finish my final. The semester's over, but I'm not going to get a grade in my technology class until I submit my final. And if I did, I'd just have to chant the mantra: "C's get degrees." over and over. Because I would still get a C. 2. I need to move this week. This means that I need to pack. This means that I need to get everything cleaned. And it means that I can't keep procrastinating, because I've got to rely on others to help me out. 3. There are books that I want to read. There is my journal that's been highly neglected for months. There are people I want to visit with before I'm gone, or they are. I need to priortize so that my life can be productive and joyful. So, for this morning I'm done.