34 days since my last post, 19 days until I move to Houston, 29 days until I assume control of a classroom full of 10-11 year old boys. A lot has happened in the last month and a lot more is going to happen in the next month! Allow me to backtrack.
When I wrote my last post, "Simple Joys", I was staying alone at my house in La Grange, dog and cat sitting for my parents. I was alone for three days while they went to my mom's high school reunion in Beaumont, and then I was alone for eight days while they drove to Little Rock, Memphis, St. Martinsville, and New Orleans. Staying alone has never really bothered me except that there just happened to be a rapist on the loose in La Grange. Anyone who knows La Grange knows that something like this is a scary thing -- there aren't very many people here so it seems it would be easier to become a target. I also live a little out of town, surrounded by woods, and close to train tracks, so it's a pretty scary here at night...not to mention I like to watch scary movies and shows like "I Survived" which do nothing for the imagination. I didn't get raped, obviously. Perhaps it's because I traveled around armed with pepper spray, the remote control to our alarm system, and an arsenal of self defense moves just aching to be used? Or perhaps it's because the dude skipped town?
The positive side of being alone for such a long time is that you really get to know yourself. Being alone here is not the same as living alone in a big city or in college. I'm talking you can go two days without conversing with another human face to face. It really teaches you to be comfortable with yourself, because a person could drive themselves nuts when left alone with their own neurotic thoughts. I just did a lot of talking to myself (and my dog) and God, as well as a lot of reading, running, and relaxing. It was a nice break from the rigors of the world, but it also made me appreciate conversation and ...people.
In the next few weeks we babysat Caroline and Thomas for a few days, a bunch of us went to Travis' lakehouse for the 4th of July (epic), I made some intermittent trips to Houston, I went to a legit math teacher conference in Grapevine, and my family went to the beach sans Pat, Allison, and Parker.
Sidenote: Pat, Allison, Parker, Sully, and Oscar, (the latter are their dog and cat), moved to Owatanna, Minnesota at the beginning of June for an 11 month training program for Pat's new job. It was pretty hard to say goodbye, especially after having lived with them this whole last semester. Thank God for skype, which we will HAVE to do more often, Facebook, and Allison's blog, otherwise I would be having serious issues. It hurts my heart sometimes to watch my sweet little Godson grow up and not be able to hold him, but it will be that much sweeter when they move back to Texas! I'm also lucky to have another little baby nephew to spoil in the meantime :)
So, as I was saying, the last month has been busy. On one of those Houston trips I mentioned, I signed a lease at an apartment and am super stoked about it! I'm not going to say where it is because I don't believe in sharing that sort of thing over the internet, but it's in a great area! I can't wait to buy furniture and decorate -- I absolutely love to decorate -- and be a grown up in the real world with my own place and a real, big girl job! The only thing that stinks is that the soonest I can move in is August 12th which is actually the second day of my new teacher orientation at St. Thomas. Oh yeah, I got a job at St. Thomas' Episcopal School teaching 5th grade boys. I think I forgot to mention that. Hence why I'm moving to Houston! It will be a busy couple of weeks with moving, getting settled, and getting everything ready for the big first day. Some would say that I could just set up the necessities in my apartment and leave the decorating for later, but I can't do that. I'll be up all night that weekend putting things in the right place, hammering, cleaning, etc. Don't try to talk me out of it...I'm a woman on a mission!
I'm going to Houston this week to get some work done in my classroom. I'm going to lock myself in that room and MAKE myself get organized and make some decisions. It's hard to focus on school when I'm so far away and don't have all of my materials. Hopefully this will put my mind at ease.
That is as much catching up as I can do right now. I have a plan for waking up at 7AM and running through the hills on the bluff in La Grange. I want to do a half marathon next spring and need to do some outside running over hills and stuff and not just on a treadmill to see if I have what it takes. I have been doing around three miles a day, but I think it's so different on a treadmill in the A/C than on a windy, steep road in the heat. We shall see. I love having leisurely mornings with coffee and a newspaper and working out after lunch, but that's not how it will be when school starts so this will be a good test!
