This isn't a good sign....

Well, I know it's probably been a month since my last blog. The fact that I couldn't remember my password right away to log in can't be a good sign. Yikes.

It's hard to believe where the past month has gone. In that time, we found a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment about 2 miles from daycare (or less) and about 2 miles from church/school. Perfect.

I lead my first (and second) staff meetings/in-service. It was more of a "tell me what to expect" than a "here's what to expect" and "here's the plan for this year". But my staff is terrific. They are all different but their overall strengths make the school better than if they were all so similar that no one had anything unique to offer.

The first day of school was Monday, August 25. It was SO early -- what kid (or parent - ha!) is ready for school before Labor day?? The good thing was that the 4th-6th graders got to go on a field trip to Salmon, ID which is where Lewis & Clark crossed through Idaho. The museum there is only open between Memorial Day and Labor Day, so I guess the pre-Labor day start of school worked out well this year. I have decided that if the public schools all start before Labor Day next year, we will start on the Wednesday instead of a Friday. It's too hard on everyone to shift from summer to a full week of school right away. We could work up to it with 3-day, 4-day then 5-day week. Live and learn.

Bring principal means you're gonna have some drama, right? Other than delinquent accounts and parents that may/may not reenroll at the last minute. We had a kinder who cried the entire first day so her parents pulled her out. Then demanded a full refund. We don't do refunds. So there was a lot of venting (on their part) and frustration (on my part). Eventually they came and vented to the school board and (I think) because they go to a huge church, we agreed to refund tuition (not registration) so that they wouldn't bad-mouth our school. Maybe they still will, but I hope not.

In addition to all my administration duties, I teach spelling, social studies and English to the 3rd grade. Yikes. This group could almost make me want to retire from teaching forever. 4 girls -- they're fine. 6 boys -- only 1 or 2 of them are on task most of the time. Yikes. It's exhausting to just work with them for 1-2 hours sometimes! But all the kids here are great and they love the "Silent" traveling trophy (we hand each week at chapel for the quietest kids in the hall) and the "Principal's award" for students who help each other - i.e. "Catch 'em being good" award. The trophy winners get mini Hershey's bars and the award winners get entered into a drawing for a prize at the end of the quarter. They are LOVING it.

In addition to administration and teaching, I also lead chapel for PreK twice on Wednesday. I was kind of dreading it because this isn't my age group. But I love it now. They are so excited to sing just about anything and love any Bible story you tell them. I had one little boy seranade us all with a solo of "Jesus Loves Me" because he decided not to wait for the rest of us to join in. Too cute. And I subbed in the morning class yesterday. We did an art project with Zaccheus and sang the song 3 or 4 times. One little boy said, "Teacher, what was wrong with the tree?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "You know, the sick-more tree..." BWAH HA HA HA.... I love 4 year olds. They are so hilarious.

Our house still hasn't sold and the interest has been sparse lately. The biggest complaint is a lack of yard and we really can't do much about that. So we keep hoping and waiting. It's getting easier and harder to be a 'single' parent now. Easier because our daily routine is getting faster and better each week. Harder because she is still going through times where she won't sleep at night and I'm just exhausted. We both just miss Todd really badly and would feel more at home with him -- and our furniture!!-- here. I did buy Kathleen a toddler bed frame and we've borrowed a crib mattress. She thinks she is SO smart whenever she gets out of bed by herself. It's pretty funny to watch.

She is talking more and more. Random things like "puppy" and "yes". She went into our pantry and grabbed a plastic container (the individual size ones) of applesauce yesterday and said, "Here". Ha ha ha -- guess she wanted some applesauce! The other night she said, "Mom bath now". Ummmmm, what?! Her new obsession is the foam alphabet that sticks to the walls in the tub (I even bought a second set on clearance at Target so we can spell her name). She wants to stand up in the tub (which I don't allow) and "teach" with the letters. I also bought magnetic ABCs for her to play with in my office. There's a whole wall of file cabinets, so she's got lots of space to 'teach'.

My mom and stepfather came out for a visit last weekend. That was so nice. I could run errands by myself. Yeah! Kathleen went sight-seeing with them last Friday (which she loved) and we had a nice visit. It's hard to imagine life here until you visit so I'm glad that at least someone from our family has been here. If the house doesn't sell anytime soon, I'm hoping Todd will be able to come out for the week of Thanksgiving. That would be so nice.

I *heart* Craigslist. I found K's jogging stroller here on there for only $70. It is awesome! How did we live without one for so long?! I also have washer/dryer hookups in my apartment and after a few weeks of trying to take 3-4 loads of laundry...and a toddler... across two parking lots to the club house to do laundry (our apartment doesn't have a central laundry room in our building) OR to try and get her to not run out the door at a busy (or not so busy) laundromat is next to impossible. I found used washer/dryer for $200 (total!) on Craigslist. The girl selling it was moving to L.A. for grad school. Her friends from church were storing it. They brought it over AND brought it up the flight of stairs AND hooked up the washer for me. The dryer needed a different plug, so my stepfather changed that when they were here. It is SO nice to be able to do laundry right away and not worry about quarters or hauling clothes (and toddler) to/from the CRV. Yea!

I have a new LG Rumor phone so I can text and read emails/Facebook from it. I can't see attachments and if you forward something with a million other addresses listed, I just close that one because it takes too long to get to the actual message. Then I forget (or run out of time) to look it up again at work. So if I don't reply -- or if I reply with no caps (or all caps! Doh!) it's probably because my phone is my main link for email now. But it is a nice phone and I've been really happy with it.

Keep us in your prayers. Todd found out he's in the candidate pool for a job at ISU (Idaho State Univ) -- their main campus is in Pocatello but the job is actually just across town here at the Idaho Falls site. It would be a slight pay raise (instead of a bigger pay cut) and it would be in town. If Todd were to get the job, he could move here right away. So, I'm praying for that! If it doesn't work out, we're just still praying for the house to sell SOON.

Well, this should be long enough to keep you all updated. I'll try to be better at updating, it's so hard without internet at home. On the bright side, I bought one of the digital converter boxes for our little tv here and now we get 8 channels instead of just 2, so that's a bonus! :)

Check out our dropshots account for some new photos.

- Tanya