She's Baaaaaaaack....

Miss me?? It's been a crazy few months... I could blame it all on school, and a lot of my time has gone to Mercer, but not enough I'm afraid. I've had several distractions....

*My grandfather passed away in September, so my brother and I caught a VERY early flight to Philly where my sister and mom already were. It seemed so similar to the situations surrounding my dad's funeral in Feb., yet obviously so different. My Pop Pop was always so much fun-we'd go up to Philly once a year to visit and he's been to Georgia a few times. He did, after all, invent the 'blooper' (which has now been stolen by society and turned into 'raspberries'). The funeral brought on strange feelings. I will miss my Pop Pop a lot, and I am sad that he's gone, but the sadness I had for my mom and her 6 siblings took over my other emotions. I knew exactly what they were feeling. In a weird way I think it even brought my mom and I closer, like we subconsciously had a better sense of what the other one had gone through. We were both part of the "we lost our dads" club. It's in times that like that I'm extra thankful for my faith in God, because sometimes I just run out of strength....

*Also-a much happier event occurred: Patrick and Marlena got married at the beach! We had weekends filled with bridal showers, lingerie showers, batchelorette parties, and a long wonderful weekend at the beach! We had a really good time! Chase played in the ocean and danced like a fool at the wedding (yeah...mama did too!). Despite a small scare of wet weather, the ceremony really was beautiful! I'm going to attach some pictures from the weekend to the bottom of this post...

*I got pink eye :( I stayed behind closed doors for a week. ugh..

In between my distractions...I did manage to put in about 30 hours at Beaverbrook so far (where I taught my first lesson!) and finish up two more classes at night. I still have a long way to go at Beaverbrook, but I should be done around the middle of November. See...the idea was to make a post talking about how busy I have been doing school work. So busy I can't even blog! But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I am still so behind with school. Which is so unlike me! I am a planner! A Post It girl! Mrs. Organization!! BUT...not with school work. I still have 6 more lessons and a Unit to write! It's odd. Here are some of the things I realize I've done to keep myself busy in the past 6 weeks instead of doing school work.

1. See asterisks above (ok...so not all of those I could help).
2. I painted my kitchen.
3. I rearranged every pot, casserole dish, and utensil in my kitchen.
4. Spray painted my kitchen table.
5. Reorganized all of my school documents (lesson plans, handouts) in my file folders.
6. I did attend a SPAGE seminar on Saturday? Does that count??
7. Ate lunch with my mom a few times.
8. Went to Heather's house and played with Charlie!
9. Mindlessly surfed on MySpace waaaay too much.
10. Slept. A lot.

So. Why did I do all of this stuff when I should have been home writing lesson plans? Because that's what I know I'm good at. I'm a good painter...I'm good at hanging with friends and family. I'm a great organizer. So I felt "busy"(aka, not guilty), but I wasn't focused on school because I don't feel confident enough in what I'm doing. I have all of this factual information about curriculum, kids, learning styles...etc. I just have to get it to connect with my actions when I'm in a classroom. I guess it's a work in progess. But it's FALL now! Fairs and pumpkins and beautiful weather! I LOVE this time of year. The air is so thin and clean. So my short term goal is to find a balance in school work and having an actual life. OH, and to update my blog more often! :)