Rock me like a baby doll and hold me to your chest, but I'm always moving too fast

Sorry it I didn't return some of your phone calls today, but I was soooo drained. The first day of school was exhausting! I feel like I haven't done anything except work for the past two weeks, which is a bummer.

But today went fairly smoothly. The kids are cool, some will be handfuls I can tell. And I don't think I was strict enough today. At lunch they told me I was "sooooooo nice", so that must mean I'm doing something wrong. They'll probably run all over me tomorrow.

I ended up going with a Frog theme for the room, so I thought I'd give you a few pictures.

The infamous green wall: (the other teachers at my school think I'm crazy for keeping it that color, but I like it)


The door view:


And the reading area complete with the bathtub:



{** I just discovered these pictures are WAY too big to fit, but it's too late to fix the problem tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll figure it out**)


Also, funny story. At Meet the Teacher night someone seriously said to me: "OH My GOSH, you are the little girl from down the street!!"
I was totally embarrassed and slightly amused.

[oh, and for you professional bloggers, I know my titles are obscenely long, but a good song lyric is always better than something witty/corny I might make up myself]

thank god that life is so long, and the city's so big

Friday was supposed to be the best day of inservice so far. And it kinda was. My task was to spend $400 of the school's money on supplies for my classroom in 3 hours. The day started out pretty rockin' -- I secretly love office supply stores. I don't know why, but nothing cheers me up like a new sharpie. I got this super expensive pencil sharpener that holds your pencil for you then ejects it when the point is nice and sharp. (ps, these are too expensive to buy on your own)



We were doing our shopping at The Wise County Messenger, which in case you don't know is the city newspaper offices/town office supply store. The day quit being the best day when I got a call that my friend Jackie had been hit by a drunk driver at 8:30 that morning and things were not good. Obviously, the Messenger is the information hub of the town, so I was right where I needed to be to get the updates about what was going on.

Within the hour I saw almost the whole town share the information about what they knew, and how they knew her. The next day I saw two whole hospital floors filled with people from our high school, our church, and family. I saw adult friends comforting each other like I do with my own friends. I saw people turning inward to their faith, and outward to each other.
But mostly, I renewed my ideas about community. Maybe it doesn't have to be a bunch of twenty-somethings and cute older man in a funny hat that we all love. Man, when it is, it's awesome... but maybe the people here have something to offer me too.

Things are starting to look up for her, and I hope things keep on improving.

Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down

At the request of some friends, I've decided to start up this ol' blog thing. Just a way for me to update you on the silly happenings in my life as I'm starting my journey into the grown-up world of teaching and health insurance. Well, I probably won't actually write about health insurance much, it's just one of the things I had to make an uneducated decision on this week...

Anyway, come back a lot, comment away, read my weird thoughts, and don't forget me while I'm out here living the small town life. :)



Oh, and if you haven't seen me recently, this is what I look like now. Just so you recognize me if you see me in Wal-mart or something.