Taste of Teaching

On Wednesday, I had the privalage of teaching a lesson to a 3rd grade class. As part of a project in my Physics for Elementary Teachers class, I had to teach a physics lesson in a classroom. I chose Payton's class - as she's in 3rd grade, and I thought it would be neat.

The lesson I chose to teach was How to Make A Magnet. The kids had a great time learning how to make their own magnets - and I had a total blast getting to teach it. It was such a great experience and left me really wanting more. I know in my heart that I was born to be a teacher, and having the opportunity (even just a small one) to teach students was such a blessing. I get so excited making lesson plans, and gathering information on lessons that I will teach my students in the future.

Now that there's only 3 weeks left of school, it's the busiest time for me. I have 3 major projects that I have to complete - and they are going to involve a lot of work. Even though I'm excited that I will be done soon for the summer - I also dread the next couple of weeks. I have presentations, lesson plans, and final exams just around the corner - and I have to do good on all of it so that I can wear honor cords at my graduation. I'm currently making a 3.41 GPA - and in order to wear the honor cords, I have to make a 3.5 GPA. I should be able to do it if I make A's in all of my classes.

This weekend is Easter weekend - and even though I don't celebrate the Christian holiday, I do participate in the festivities - which are actually Pagan festivities anyways. Tomorrow, I'm taking the kids to a egg hunt at the college. It's Jada's first year of being able to hunt Easter eggs, so I'm excited about that. After that, we're going to a friends house for dinner. The kids will get to play and Steve and I will have a chance to catch up with our friend.

Sunday - the weather is supposed to be really nasty. I had bought some Easter eggs for the kids to hunt here, but if the weather is bad it might mean doing an indoor hunt. I'm sure the kids won't mind - and it can still be fun.

Well, that's it for now - I will post pics of the kids doing their Easter stuff next time. :)

University - Here I Come!!

I'm down to the final stretch, the finish line is in sight, just have to grab that checkered flag and I'm on my way....no, I'm not a Nascar driver - I'm a student who is making the big leap from community college to University!

For 2 1/2 years I've been in Community College pursuing my Associates of Arts in teaching. When I enrolled in the college, I signed up for a transfer program that the community college offered which offered students wanting to get their Bachelor's in Elementary Education the chance to take the full program on the campus - but earn the degree from the University of Arkansas. Being that I've wanted to be a teacher for 20+ years, I was so excited to be a part of the program. Well, devastating news came at the beginning of this semester - which also happened to be the last semester before transferring to the University of Arkansas classes. I found out that the University of Arkansas was no longer offering the program at the community college, and current students in the program would have to transfer to the University - which was no big deal EXCEPT for the fact that they were only accepting 40 students!!

I, along with the other 70 or so students in the program who were planning to start the UofA classes next semester were completely devastated. We were all informed that we would have to go through an interview process for the University to determine who was going to be accepted. Well, the interviews were supposed to start this month - but I got a phone call on Friday that made my day, month, and year. The advisor from the UofA called and told me that the University had decided to accept all of the students that had completed the intro program - as that has what had been promised to us from the beginning. I'm so excited - I was really worried about not making it into the program next semester because my whole career depended on it. Thre was no way that I could take a year off from college to wait to see if I'd be accepted next year - so this has taken such a burden off my chest. I still have to go thru the interview process, but it's more an advisory meeting now rather than a formal interview.

April 30th is the last day of classes - so I literally am down to the finish line now. I'm doing really well in all of my classes - so that's a relief. On May 8th, I will walk across the stage and receive my diploma for my associates degree...it will be my first graduation ever and I couldn't be more excited!! All of my family are going to be there to help me celebrate this very important milestone in my life..and I'll make sure I post photos so I can share it with you too. :)

Till next time!

Spring Break - Over Already?

The fastest week of the year is officially over in just a few short hours. This week was Spring Break, and what should of been a week of relaxation turned out to be a week of running around and chaos. It wasn't bad chaos, just not relaxing by any means.

Monday and Wednesday I had to work. My days ended at 2, rather than the 5pm that I'm used to.. but it still didn't allow for those days to spent on anything remotely relaxing. On Tuesday, I ventured to my mom's in Oklahoma. My cousin was there with her new baby girl, and I did the baby's first photos. They came out really well - I will post some when I get them all finished. Wednesday, after work, I went and helped one of my bestfriends take his daughter's senior photos. I'm going to be doing some editing for them, so I will post some of them when I get through with them also. Thursday, it was back to my mom's to spend the night. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with my family - but I end up coming home from their house drained and exhausted as it's customary for my mom and I to stay up to the wee hours of the morning playing Yahtzee. Friday evening, we all came home and my youngest brother came with me to spend the weekend. I love having my siblings over for the weekend - but this, again, is hardly a recipe for relaxation.

Here are pics of the kids that I took at my mom's on Tuesday:

Saturday morning I woke to the smell of waffles cooking, and looked out the window to see hard snow falling. WTH?? It's the end of March and it looked like a blizzard outside. This wouldn't be so weird, but the day before I was wearing shorts for Christ's sake. Ahhh - gotta love Arkansas. My brother and I ventured to Wal-Mart Saturday afternoon for a few basics, and it was freezing outside. Reminded me more of December than late March. It was kind of cozy to have the fireplace going last night. Today, I spent the day moving Jada out of Brayden's room and putting her into Payton's room. That involved rearranging furniture...hardly relaxing.

The best part is that in a couple of hours (around 9pm tonight) I have to meet my parents in Siloam Springs (about 20 minutes away) so that they can pick up my brother. They are on their way back from Norman, OK where my sister competed in the state Spelling Bee. Unfortunately, she didn't win - but I'm proud of her anyways. So, that's my week...tomorrow life goes back to normal. Back to work, back to school, back to the craziness. Ahh - only a month and a half and it'll be summer!!

Feeling Better!

So, despite the drama that's going in my life with DHS I've chosen just to move on with life as usual and let them do what they need to do.

I went to meet with the principal at Decatur, yesterday, to discuss Brayden going back there next year. Being that I'm going to be starting University in the fall, I won't be able to do as much running back and forth between my house and my mom's, and being that Brayden has done so well at Westville it seems a good time to let him go back to Decatur. The principal seemed genuinely ok with Brayden returning, and actually thought it would be a good idea for him to start back after Spring Break as to help him transisition a little easier. I agreed that it would be a good idea - so that's what we're going to do. Tomorrow, I get to take Brayden up to Decatur to meet his new teacher and visit with the principal for a while.

Tomorrow is Brayden's birthday, so we've got a few fun things going on this weekend. Tonight, a friend of the family is taking all of us out for Chinese food - Brayden doesn't know but he's going to be so surprised and happy. Tomorrow evening, my parents are coming over to spend the weekend. We're going to play video games, board games, and possibly make a trip over to Chucky Cheese on Saturday. I think Brayden will like that too.

I'm on Spring Break with Payton next week. I'm going to spend the week relaxing, cleaning, getting caught up on some homework and project work. I need to rejuvenate, that's for sure, so this couldn't of come at a better time. I can't believe that there's only about 4 weeks of classes left - then finals - then graduation!! I'm so excited to get it all over with.

Well, until next time. :)

I Knew It!

So, in my last post, I predicted bad. Well, my predictions were right. Only a week after that post, I received a visit from a DHS worker because they had received a complaint about me. I'm not going to go into specifics, but obviously I pissed someone off - and they thought that the best way to get back at me would be to take it out on my kids. UGH!! It's a very frustrating situation, but I'm trying my best to just move on and let them do what they need to do and be done with it.

So, while I'm on the subject, do people actually realize how much they affect the children involved with they make false accusations to DHS or CPS? The end result is rarely some kind of problem for the adult, and more on the child. If I piss someone off and they want to retaliate against me - fine! But don't do something that involves my kids!! The "grown up" thing to do would be to confront me - but no, that's the decent way out. It's much more satisfying when you go and try and screw me over with DHS, hurt my kids, and stir up my entire life - that's so much better!! I wish people would just grow up. No matter what anyone did to me - I would never make false allegations about them to DHS just to make myself feel better.

Ok, I'm done ranting. I needed to get some things off my chest - and I guess this was the best way to do it.