How Good It Is To Be Thirty!

For years I have looked forward to being in my thirties...it wasn't that I wanted to wish time away, but my 20s had struggle after struggle.

Friday morning I found out I have a permanent contract.  After 9 years of teaching and chronic terms-I finally have permanent.  That means I'll always have a job, I'll have health coverage, and I'll have a pension.  I don't think anybody can fully comprehend the extent of what this means to be.  My heart is overfilled and I can never express how much I appreciate this opportunity.

I don't think that this was a matter of me being in the right time or place, no-I firmly believe that God had this planned for me.  I also recognize that everything I went through, led to this.  That in order to get to the good, I had to go through the bad.  My favorite quote from the novel, Eat, Pray, Love is, "ruin is the path to transformation".  That quote sums everything up perfectly.  Transformation has happened.  I'm so different than who I used to be-stronger, braver, a lot more smarter.

Next step-to find housing closer to work.  I'm praying that I will-housing is almost nonexistant in this area.  In one town only 25 minutes away from school they are building a hundred bed hospital and only 15 minutes away, over 40 cottages are to be built.  Construction workers are going to be coming and needing lodging...

In the meantime, I am over the moon and still feel like I'm dreaming!

Bad Mood Day

You ever have those days where you just feel like a complete witch (not the word I mean to use, but I'm still a little too proper to spell it out here on the web)?  Well, that was me today.  I don't know how you react to things, but when I know I'm not in a great mood, the last thing I want to be is around people.  I can barely stand my own company let alone someone else's.  Am I that horrible of a person?  No, but I'm human and thus, I'm flawed.

Do I know what made me upset?  Yup.  What it something to be that upset about?  Probably not, but I couldn't shake my head around it.  When it stares you in the face for a whole day, it's kind of hard to shake.

On top of it all, I am my own worst enemy.  I'll think about things, analyze things until I go nuts.  I'm not feeling nuts anymore, but I also know that I haven't let go.  I'm not good at letting go.  I'm not a great person that way.  I hold grudges, even resentments.  That's a really bad side of me...something I know I need to continue to work on...in the meantime, I'm gonna take my feelings to the bathtub...a nice soak might be just the start of turning things around.

So the past many months, well, it's been a struggle.  I've felt like a wayward stranger-not knowing my place or where I fit in.  It's affected me on so many different levels but I appreciate this.  I've been forced to grow and broaden my horizons.  It's been a very long time since I could say I was happy.  Now, I might not be happy with everything, but I do have happiness with parts of my life-something I couldn't really even say before.

I still don't know my place-I know it's at school, but outside of work, I have no clue where my life is heading.  I'm preparing for another move the moment that I know it's safe to go (to have secure employment) and knowing there is one (housing is that scarce)...I have to be closer to work as the amount of travel I'm doing is absolutely ridiculous.  It has me tired beyond belief.

Inspiration is something I'm still fighting and I'm hoping in the next couple of months, that'll change.  As hard as it's been, I know it's been worth it.

New Blog

Okay, I may be crazy and it's not like I have even tons of time for my other blogs, but I've opened up a new blog.  The only thing is though is that while it is my blog, it isn't.  It's my classroom's.  Blogs and wikis have been done in other classrooms to keep parents informed and interested.  My purpose is to do all that, but also have students directly involved in posting at times, adding a new "technology" to their database.

Some of it you might find boring as it does have its mundane things-like spelling words of the week.  But if you work with children at all, you might get to see some ideas that you like and could use with the children in your life.

To find this blog, head to www.wayway4.blogspot.com.  Note of caution though, it is not hooked up to my account that I use either for this blog or for my cheap chic blog.  It uses my work email to give me a little bit of privacy.  I won't be linking from here either, so if you're interested, just bookmark the page, or if you can't find it, email me, and I will send you the link!

Rays of Hope

So the other day I heard BIG news...any teacher that is hired next year for my school gets permanent...PERMANENT!!  This is huge...I have been working for almost 9 years trying to get permanent but never getting it due to politics...Every single person in my school has to reapply for their job-including administration.  As the school was just acquired by the division, I think technically it's the legal thing to do.  I was told before by someone high up that I shouldn't have to worry about my job, so here's fingers crossed...I should know in a month.

So, while I'm not putting all my hopes into it, things seem to finally be getting better, though slowly.  I look back to where I was a couple years ago financially, and the difference now is unbelievable.  Yes, times are tough, but I have money for all the necessities.  I couldn't say that before.  I'm still living with my ghetto furniture (the single bed in the living room), but I'm okay with that.  I'm really hoping that I can get housing on the reserve (there are three teacher houses on the reserve-and I think one is coming available this summer), and then I'd probably get something.

Things have still been lonely, but I throw myself into my work, which can be healthy or unhealthy, depending on how you look at it.  I find that I never have enough time for my work though, and part of it is me living so far away.  I'm limited in the time I can spend in my actual classroom organizing and such.  That's frustrating.

But maybe, just maybe, wonderful things are right around the corner.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a pioneer.  I vividly remember picking chokecherries with my great grandmother at the lake and telling her that.  I had a passion for old things, old tales, and a different way by the time I was entering Grade 2.  I wish I could blame it on the Little House books, but my fascination began even before I started reading this.

What in the world has made this crop into my head you say?  It's the game, FrontierVille, which you can find on facebook. 

I recently started playing it out of boredom.  It has you clearing rocks, chopping trees, etc.  I actually don't even enjoy it.  I find it appaling that I'm doing it by myself, without a husband.  I have to build a fortune before a husband can be sent...ludicrous I say!  If I'm breaking my back, he should be breaking his!

Now bring things back to reality...the fact is that I couldn't have handled it.  I'm not necessarily talking about the work-because I'm a very hard worker, but the extreme isolation.  Right now, I feel pretty isolated and it's taken its toll on me.  I feel cut off, apart, and alone.  As much as I embrace where my life right now is-it's hard.  And I certainly haven't had lady luck leaning my way.  Seriously, I couldn't have been a pioneer-I'd tell the little girl, join a dance hall and dance your socks off...don't go to the prairies...

In My Own Backyard-A Horror Story

So picture in your mind the theme music to Jaws while I get ready to announce this....I met my first bedbug...(GASP)!  Yup, you heard me, the bedbug, AKA the bug that's not just for your bed...

So the story?  Well, without trying to say too much to protect some identities...somebody I know had one crawling on them...I thought maybe it was a tick because guess what?  It bloody well looks like a tick.  Check out the photo:

See what I say???

I didn't know that bedbugs looked like ticks-someone had to point that out to me...so here I tried to be the brave valiant lady and squash the bug to death as I didn't have any matches nearby to see the sucker go to bug Hell....

Truth be told, I don't know if it was squashed...maybe I squashed it so well that there was no evidence left over?

When I got home, I stripped at my back door down to my birthday suit...clothes went in a garbage bag secured to be washed in hot water and jacket and shoes got put in the freezer...I hit the shower. 

Fact is that bedbugs can live in -10 C temperatures for up to 5 days.  Did you hear me?  The suckers are like little demons....can survive most anything...

While I know I was thorough and I'm 99.9999999% sure that I didn't bring any into my home, I still feel creepy, and at times I'm hallucinating that I feel something crawling on me....it's kind of like when I was introduced to lice the first time (not that I had it, but came in contact with it)...it's the same feeling....actually just writing this, I had to hit myself in the head because I felt something crawly...

Fact is that once you get them, they are almost impossible to get rid of.  They can hitch rides on pets, they move at lightening speed (this I saw with my own eyes), can live in cold temperatures, can come in on infested items (even brand new items from the store)...

It makes me cautious in buying certain second hand items...I definitely think people need to be cautious and maybe even leave things in a safe place not inside the home where someone can investigate any possibility of bugs...

I tell you...I think this is only the beginning of me seeing these out in public, but I'm ready for it...Are you????