Tales from the Cart

It's almost been three weeks now, since I began my teaching career... from a cart. Not a shopping cart, but a nice little, 3 shelved cart that allows me to travel from room to room with all of my 'crap'. And if you know me, you know I always carry a lot of crap. In order to be prepared for everything. Not a day goes by that I don't forget something in my office at least once, resulting in me sending a student to fetch my belongings. And the inevitable question, "Mrs. Middaugh, why aren't you prepared?" I in-turn always respond with something sarcastic, which shouldn't be surprising. The Mrs. Middaugh thing, by the way, is still not normal for me. It sometimes takes a students saying it 3 or 4 times before I respond. You would think I would be used to it, considering I hear it at least 100 times a day- especially on days students are working independently. Any who, back to the cart, I never leave my office without a package of 'Wet Ones' so that I can wipe the chalk off my hands before wiping it all over my clothes; since the school I'm at doesn't believe in white boards. Which is totally fine- just different. After today, I will be adding a 'Tide' pen to my cart because of a coffee and white shirt accident first period. I lose at least one pen a day, leaving that pen to the teacher who's classroom I borrow for one hour each day. Chalk is lost daily as well, but I don't have to buy my chalk; however, a chalk pen/ holder is on my teaching wish list.... maybe that will help. Teaching is great. Some days are better than others, but that's with any job. I have great students! They continually make me laugh. Sometimes I feel like I am barely scraping by- but hey, I'm making it!

Aside from school, Chris and I survived the record breaking low temperature for August 31. The low reached 42 degrees... I froze. And turned on my heater. The teachers laughed at me. That's Christmas weather in Arkansas. Not August. That's nuts.

We also finished painting the office- it has been taken over with fish. It looks good, even with the fish. :)

A Separate Peace

My high school English teacher was awesome; however, being in high school, I could have cared less about reading. Or writing. Or anything related to grammar. I still hate grammar. Now, being an English teacher myself, I am realizing that I missed out on a lot by not really paying attention to the things we read. I am reading 'A Separate Peace' with my sophomores and I am absolutely loving it. I remembered the plot from when we read it in high school, but nothing else. It is on the road to being favored over 'A Great gatsby', but we will see. Gatsby has been my number one since high school, so it won't go down that easily. I can't read it without rereading every couple of paragraphs to Chris because it's so stinkin' awesome... he actaully appreciates it too, and will soon be reading it. :)

Movie

Chris and I rented 'The Soloist' last night, and it was wonderful. We found this link and read about the story too. It made me cry a tad- so cool.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez-skidrow-nathaniel-series,0,1456093.special

Pictures. :)

The following two pictures are Chris and I on our way home from the farmers market.

The Pedestrian Bridge

Dixie and the cat across the street.

Teaching

It's recently come to my attention that teaching is by far going to be one of the hardest things I have ever done in my entire life. And I am not exaggerating. I guess I always thought I would have a 'plan' of what to teach; and, by have a plan, I mean that I thought someone would give me a plan. I know, I know- an immature thought, but this blog is for my thoughts. Right? So now here I am, I have one day in between me and my first day of teaching. I could get pretty far away in that one day, but I would miss Chris. I have standards. That's it. No books. No advice, or this is how we do things here. Just standards and an office in the back of the library. Am I excited? Of course. I can't wait. It's just hard to allow the excitement to override the feeling of being terrified. I also have not seen my cart yet- and I should add that my cart is not a 'shopping cart.' It's an educational cart, whatever that means. I am thinking it looks like a short TV cart. I could be totally wrong, but I know it's not a shopping cart. I plan on decorating it for Christmas, and Halloween, and fall, and Spring... and all Holidays and festivities. Everyone keeps telling me I will do great, which I am very thankful for, but I want someone to tell me what to do. Is this part of growing up? I don't like it. Let me go back to college- it was easier. But, let me take Chris and Dixie with me.
With all of the immature complaining done, I bought a cute frame for my desk! I also made a voicemail for my phone, in my office. Even if no one ever calls, it makes me feel important. =D Any who- other than being scared out of my mind about Thursday, life is wonderful here in West Lafayette, IN.

I found the most amazing coffee shop! It has amazingly good coffee and crepes that look amazing. They are on my 'to try' list. :) I even found my way to it. Which is even more impressive.

Also, Dixie made a friend. A cat. it's really quite cute. I will post a picture as soon as I figure out how to load them from our NEW camera! Yay! I broke our last one; though in defense, it was already breaking. I just accidently helped it along.

Indiana

Me and Chris by the Canal walk in Indianapolis.

The canal walk

Enjoying the rainy, cool 4th of July at a local park.

I honestly wondered if Indiana was going to be a place I could really enjoy. There are fields everywhere, mostly corn and soy beans. It's mainly flat- not many lakes or mountains to enjoy- and from what we've heard, cold. So, it put quite a few doubts in my head. But once we started exploring the town/ state a little more, we are starting to really like it! :) West Lafayette is a small town for the most part, but being a college town it offers everything you need, plus more. Everyone is super friendly and they are always up for a good conversation. There are lots of cute festivals on Main Street, and a farmers market 4 days a week! A lot of people walk and ride bikes wherever they need to go, which is fun. We try to do the same. Well, Chris rides his bike everyday since we only brought one car. Indiana itself, seems to have a few cool state parks and a few rivers to float. Chris has even heard of a few places that he can fish. We checked out Indianapolis and found a brewery we really liked. It seems to be a great community that we are coming to really appreciate. The town I teach in (Chalmers/ Brookston) are super cute towns! They have a lot of ma and pa shops and restaurants, so I can't wait to check those out!

Speaking of my job, I just found out I was going to be a 'floater'. Which means I don't have a classroom of my own- I walk from one room to the next. At least this way I don't have to worry about classroom decorations!

Chris is loving Purdue! He plays with fish... his dream! He gets samples of fish from lakes in Indiana and then measures and identifies them! Soon he will be teaching and taking classes.

We painted the living room a light blue color! It looks great! We have soom peeling problems in the office, so it's a work in progress.

Life here is wonderful!

So, we went to our first wedding since we got married, and I must say, it was much less stressful! :) It was nice to just sit back and watch- well for me. Chris was a groomsman. Ryan and Megan got married in Harrison, AR, and the wedding was beautiful!

Our wedding pictures are done! Yay! I am waiting on the CD so I can post some.

Other than that, there's nothing really interesting going on. I still haven't signed a contract at Frontier- so I am anxiously awaiting that event. I am ready to get started!

We found a church that we really like. It's Redeemer Lutheran Church in West Lafayette. It's very small and very friendly! We are excited about getting involved there. There are a bunch of kids, a few young couples, and some older folks- so, it will be interesting to see how God uses us.

As far as home improvements lately...I've been lazy. We are working on getting blinds up in the kitchen and Chris's office painted. I did finally organize all my craft 'crud'.

Chris has started on his grad school research! He has gone on two sample collecting trips in northern Indiana. I am not really sure what he does... I know he shocks fish. The next few weeks he will be processing those samples and getting ready to teach in the fall.

We have met a few fun people that we are excited about getting to know. Everything is great and we are looking forward to what is to come. =)

A job!

I just accepted a position teaching 10th grade English, Speech and Advanced Speech, 8th grade Exploritory English, and 12th Grade Literature for Life at Frontier Junior/ Senior High School in Chalmers, IN (Home of the Falcons!). I am also the drama director and assistant softball coach! This should be fun! :)

And here we are...

Well, as of June 29, we are officially in Indiana for the next few years. At least two. Chris has begun his Masters degree at Purdue, and I am currently a professional job seeker. We have one dog, Dixie, who is spoiled- and becoming more and more spoiled by the day. She keeps us quite entertained!
I have had this blog for a while, but never really wrote anything. So, we'll see how it goes. really, it's just about us, and our 'adventures' as newlyweds in a new place. And whatever we decide to tell you all about. :)

So, here are our adventures so far...really just our day to day 'dumb doings.'

1.Mistaking oxy clean for windex...and cleaning every window and door before noticing the streaks.

2. Mistaking chicken thighs for chicken breasts, and thinking something was wrong with our meat.

3. Wondering why the heat wasn't working on our dryer, with the setting on air dry.

4. Having to ride our bikes to Auto Zone (Chris carrying a car battery in a backpack) to get a new battery for our one car.

5. Dropping what Chris calls an essential took, into the front of the element, and watching Chris spend an hour determined to get it out. Even tying a magnet to a string so maybe the tool would attach.

6. Getting lost on a daily basis in a city smaller than Jonesboro.

On a not so dumb note, we have painted the hallway and part of the living room of our super cute house! We pulled up bushes and trimmed quite a few trees. The neighbors behind us remind me of a fraternity house in college. There's definitely a constant game of beer pong, plenty of fireworks, and music... at all hours. Other than that, the neighbors are old. So that's nice. However, at certain times, usually in the evening, you can hear the people across the streets tv... I think they are hard of hearing. It's fun!
We've spent a couple of days hanging out with Chris's lab friends. Super nice, but very different from my usual clique. I actually feel bad about using my drier after hearing how environmental they are, but I need to figure out why driers are so bad before I stop using one. We do recycle- so we're at least doing a little... and we don't get sacks at the store. That's good right?
Yep, that's it. In between trips to Bed, bath, and Beyond and Wal-Mart, we seem to be painting or staining wood (just one lamp on the stain part, but we were proud!).