Catching up...It has been a year!

Wow I can't believe it has been a whole year since I have blogged! This past year has been so crazy busy but God saw me through and finally things are starting to get back into a normal routine!

With a leap of faith, I quit my teaching job at Mount Pleasant Preschool to go back to school full time to get my Reading Specialist Masters. I was hired at the start of 2011 school year to start a full time position in Wood County Public Schools for the 2012 school year. God couldn't have made himself more clear that I had made the right decision to quit at the preschool and persue my masters. Nobody ever gets hired at the beginning of one school year to start the following year! I guess God knew that I would be stressing about it so as the Good book says, he didn't give me more than I could handle.

Well I did question that giving me more than I could handle thing a few times during the course of working on my masters! The Reading Specialist masters isn't really set up as a one year degree! I had to bunch up classes in order to pull it off. One semester I had 18 credit hours. The recommended credit hours for a masters degree is 9. I said many prayers and had many sleepless nights doing homework and studying!

I ended up on the transfer list for my new job that I hadn't even started yet. It was a blessing in disguise though because I landed a first grade job!

To finish off my masters degree I was required to do a practicum in Charleston, which is a little over an hour away from home. With high gas prices and a complete lack of travel time with the homework load I was carrying, we made the decision for me to stay in Charleston. I ended up finding a dorm apartment at WV State. I will spare you the agony of hearing that story and just say...third floor, no elevator, air conditioner that didnt work, toilet, sink and bathtub that didn't backed up and only a bed for furniture. Probably the worst summer of my life living in that joint! Let me tell you though, it really makes you appreciate what you have when you have to spend a few months living like that!

I finished my practicum in the beginning of August and the next day headed to the Outer Banks for a MUCH NEEDED vacation! We had a fabulous vacation with the most memorable jeep ride on the beach to see the wild horses!

Came home from the beach and started getting my first grade classroom ready! The next thing you know, school starts! I really only ended up having a week to get moved in and situated. It was CRAZY! I really didn't feel prepared at all because instead of working all summer like most teachers do, I had been working at a school in Charleston finishing up my masters! So the first several months of school I felt like I was playing catch up. It is now only 40 some days of school left for the year and I finally feel like I am in the groove and can get out of there by 4ish!

It has been an awesome year and I love my first graders. However, I was on the transfer list again...it happens when you are low on the totem pole! I am currently set to be teaching special education at a school about 3 minutes form my house. I have put in for a reading job that just posted last week and I am really praying that I will get it...farther from home but reading is where my heart is! We shall see...God is in control!