Where Life Takes You
Life is such a crazy ride; one minute you are up, one minute you are down and the next you don't know where the heck life will take you! This past year was that type of year for me hence the very few blog posts. I am hoping that with hitting the reset button this summer it will allow me to get back on track this school year. I am a teacher after all so I measure my life in school years.
The first major change in my life last year was a grade level change. If you are not a teacher this may not seem like a big deal at all but if you are a teacher you know. A grade level change, and one as huge as mine, was equivalent to a career change. When I first started my education as a teacher I mostly taught in the upper elementary grades but as I started to interview for jobs I was deemed more "primary" and so my trajectory for education was set. I ended up obtaining a kindergarten job and taught K for 13 years....until this past school year. I loved kindergarten and everything about it! You truly have to love teaching K kids or they will eat you alive! I loved that they came in as blank slates and that you are the person who shapes their love for education. I love that they have no filter and what is in their heads comes right out of their mouths. I love that you are their second mommy and you teach them about school but you also teach them life lessons and mold them as a person. I don't know if I was ready to give up teaching K but life is funny that way. This past school year I was switched to Third Grade and it was a complete shift from teaching kindergarten. It is like having the rug pulled out from under you and landing on your head. Big kids? I was now going to teach BIG KIDS?!?!?! What was I going to do with big kids who wouldn't automatically think I was the end all, be all? To my surprise, I was shocked to learn how many tricks from my K teacher bag I could still use. How the Third Graders just wanted a little love and a lot of support and how they loved you in return, something fierce. I learned how to ask for help because I was no longer the expert, I was the novice. I learned that life is funny and just when you think you have it all figured out, it gives you a swift kick in the behind to tell you that you are not in charge. I learned to carry on in life with grace and not let the pressure and stress get to me. I not only had my own kids at home to take care of but I had a whole classroom of kids watching my every move and taking it all in.
You would think that having a grade level change would have been enough for the year, but not so fast....life had more in store for us! Just when I thought we were in our forever home and there for the long haul my husband came up with a crazy plan, "How about we build a new house? Across the street!" My husband had been eyeing the piece of property across the street for a long time and it was his life long dream to build his own home one day as his father is a builder and my husband grew up on job sites. So what is a wife to do? I agreed that in the end, after all of the crazy it will bring, it will be what is best for our family. So here we are starting a new build on a house. I just keep telling myself, "This is the means to an end!" I want to preserve these memories for my family, no matter how crazy they may be, while updating those around us on our journey so I created an Instagram account called @thirdtimesacharmhome I would love it if you could all follow my family on this new adventure in our life and offer advice, love support or just a funny quote to keep me sane!
