Show Us Your Life-Alma Maters

Two blog posts in the same week? Be still my heart! Today at Kelly's Korner, her weekly "Show us your life" is alma maters. Those of y'all that know me in real life know I'm a die-hard Auburn fan. With that said, you might be surprised to learn I, in fact, never actually attended Auburn (my sister is an alum though, which makes me part of the Auburn family anyway). I grew up in a small town in NW Alabama (like about as far into that corner as you can be). I say small, but it was the largest town in the area. Of course, to a high schooler, it felt smaller. I wanted the heck out of there!

My parents told me early in my high school career that I can attend any school I wanted and they'd make it happen. The catch? It had to be at least 50 miles away. I knew even then what my parents were doing. The college in my hometown is very much a "commuter" school. The students live at home and attend classes each day. And they never leave, never exposing themselves to people and things that are different. They didn't want that for me. Luckily, I didn't want that for me either (although, I did actually enroll to take one summer class at that university. However, my parents had moved to Tennessee, so I think it still fell within their "50 mile" rule).

I considered a handful of small, liberal arts colleges smattered around the southeast. My high school was very small (72 in my graduating class. We were all up in each others business), so I felt I'd be lost going to a huge school like Auburn. I eventually settled on Transylvania University in Lexington, KY. Pretty much everyone at home had the same reaction: "Where? Isn't that with the vampires?"

No, non-Latin speakers! Trans is a prefix meaning "across" or "through." Sylvania, of course meaning "the woods." As Transy was the first college founded west of the Allegheny (or Appalachia) Mountains, it's a fitting name!

Truth be told, picking Transy was more of a process of elimination. All of the other schools I considered has religion or chapel requirements. I had that for all 4 years of high school, plus middle school and elementary. I was done. However, Transy is affiliated with my denomination, Disciples of Christ. So it has religious affiliation without being religious. Check! Small student population? Check! Set smack-dab in the middle of a mid-size city's downtown? Check! Not in Alabama and fulfills the 50 mile rule? Check and check! Sold!

Seen here is Haupt Humanities building. What college doesn't have the iconic clock tower building?

Seen here is Old Morrison, Transy's administrative building. It's also the inspiration for all of Transy's logos. There used to be gorgeous cherry trees lining the drive around, but they were lost in an ice storm my freshman year. They replanted, but are obviously much smaller.

My college experience wouldn't have been complete without these girls. My freshman roommate convinced me to go through Recruitment with her (Transy has 4 national sororities and 4 fraternities). We didn't end up sisters, but I found these ladies (Aren't we beautiful?) This is actually a picture of just the seniors on Bid Day my senior year. We went through a LOT as a pledge class, but they taught me the meaning of love, honor, and truth. Oh, in case you don't read Greek, I'm a Phi Mu.

These ladies and I were pledges together, sorority sisters together, rabble-rousers together, and best friends to this day. I love these ladies and they have continually showed me true sisterhood. We may not see each other often (although only Nancy has that excuse as she's currently in Haiti saving the world), but we always pick up where we left off.

So that's the Transy experience in a nutshell. It was some of the best times of my life as well as some of the worst. I'm thankful to have had the awful times though, because it all led me to where I am today.

Roller coasters

This past week has been a roller coaster to say the least. Our families showed up bright and early Saturday morning and helped us move. We all get along well together, so we ended up having tons of fun. After all the hard work was done and small projects were wrapping up, Husband and I treated everyone to dinner as a thanks. We couldn't have done any of it without them. Not only was moving part of the deal, but our dads (and brother and grandfather) had to hang ceiling fans, put furniture together, etc. Moms and grandmother helped put things away and supervised the boys (and talked about them when they weren't around. Shhh!) Tough jobs all around. We are so grateful to have such great families. Especially ones that get along together.
Since then things have been...interesting. Husband has had the sniffles since before we moved, which has since turned into bronchitis. Super. My school ended up not having the numbers to split a class like they hoped, so it's back to subbing for me. Both things kind of fell upon us at once combined with the stress of moving and expenses that go along with it made for a very stressful past few days. I lost it at one point, not wanting to make Husband feel worse. I have since regrouped and feel much better about the situation. I now realize I've managed to forget the most important piece of news. *Disclaimer: I told you this blog was typed in my stream of consciousness. Please forgive the random insert!* CHARLIE HAS BEEN FOUND!!!! While we were in Canada, my parents had a message from Animal Control that they should come in and check out a cat that had been brought in. So used to false alarms, they weren't hopeful. Even after the vet there compared markings, they still weren't completely sure. After they got him home though, Mom got a glass of water with ice and at the sound of the ice dispenser, Maybe Charlie came running. It's Charlie! He's a little worse for the wear, having been found over a mile away, not in the neighborhood (part of why my parents didn't recognize him), but he's been eating steadily...when he's not curled up on Dad's lap! Barbara doesn't quite know what to do since she doesn't really recognize him either. Oliver is happy to have another playmate, although initially he took cues from Barbara and hissed. Those cats are a social experiment in and of themselves! So funny!
Anyway, back to what I was coming around to. With my prayer that God take care of Charlie and bring him home, that if God cares about the sparrows, He'd care about Charlie, I knew it would work out. God answered my prayer completely, which gives me even more faith that He will take care of me. I have several opportunities at hand with tutoring and substituting at both the public schools and a private independent school. I can't help but believe God used Charlie to show me that I will be taken care of, that He is working out a plan for me, even if it's not going the way I hoped or expected. Like I said, I've been rattled the past few days, but even through my tears, I held fast to that belief. Continue to keep me in your thoughts, prayers, whatever.

Hard to Believe

Summer is over half over. I have a week of work, a week of Canada (yay!), roughly a week of work which is also our walk-through and closing date (double yay!), and a potential trip to Florida for curriculum training.
Week of work: Luckily, I'm scheduled for the afternoon shift, which means my first hour at least is nap time! The afternoon goes by so fast since kids start leaving. I'm just grateful to not have the 3 and 4 year old class all day like I thought. Even the director says they're the hardest class she's seen in her 20+ years of pre-school.
Canada: Annual trip. Preceded by a short trip to Maysville to celebrate Mother-In-Law's birthday.
Work/House: I'll potentially have the 5 year olds/school age (not totally official though). They're generally a good group. Almost all girls, so there's lots of drama, but nothing horribly bad. I'll have to take 2 days for the house stuff--inspection and a walk-through with our builder. The inspection is just to ahve an unbiases set of eyes on it to make sure everything is as it's supposed to be. The walk-through is so we can point out what we want fixed (potentially results of the inspection and other stuff we've found). All to be done by that Friday so we can have one more walk-through to ensure everything IS fixed and then CLOSE!!!! Husband will have to tie me down to keep me out of Lowes/Home Depot/Target/Pier 1/Homegoods/etc.
I intentionally left August open for school stuff, whether they be (at that stage God forbid) interviews or setting up my room, as well as getting settled in the new house. I will in all likelihood though be a second kindergarten teacher at school. One of the curriculums we use, most of the teachers are not fans of, but the incoming parents love. There's a training for the curriculum in Florida that week of August, so my principal would like the other teacher and me to attend. Maybe we'll learn hidden secrets. Or maybe we'll just learn it is as bad as we think and we'll just have to keep doing what we're doing. Technically, that trip isn't definite as they haven't officially split the classes, so be in prayer that I will need to go!

Computers and Kids

My classroom's computer hasn't been working for probably at least 2 months, probably closer to 3. The computer teacher looked at it when it first died and said it was probably the graphics card as several of the computer lab computers were doing the same thing. She said she had some on order and would let me know when they came in. I finally asked when we came back from Christmas Break and she said she'd just give me one of the computers from the pre-school. When the switch happened yesterday, my old computer suddenly started working. We have no idea why or how, but it does. Well, since I hadn't used the computer in so long, my password was no longer valid, so I had to get the church's tech guy (aka student pastor) to reset it today. When my kids came back from Specials, the computer was on and working and they freaked out! They had JUST come from Computer and you would have thought they had never seen a computer in their lives! They all stood around it looking at it. LITERALLY! I didn't let them get on it when it was functional, so I don't know why they went so crazy. They've decided that I'm going to let them play games on it now. Been there, done that last year and I think unless more than one student can play at a time, it's more trouble than it's worth. If we have that kind of time or if they need to do some research, I take them into the lab. My kids are crazy!