Okay. Okay. I'm back. I promise!

Well, I’ve been obviously absent for the past, oh, four months. In my own defense, I've been student teaching.

If you’ve never student taught, you have no idea. I was told when I began that I should expect 60-70 hour weeks. Pfft. That would have been easy.

My average week day:

6:15: wake up. Blindly grope my way to the coffee maker. Drink as caffeine as possible. Quickly. Stumble into shower. Steam grit and sleep from my eyes.

7:15: wake up children. Stumble to coffee maker once again. Work on hair, finding socks, signing that one homework assignment. Remind husbandy face of the day’s events and chores (because I sure didn’t have time to do them!) and rush around printing/preparing my own lesson items for the day.

7:45: kiss kids and husbandy face goodbye and rush out the door to school.

8:00-3:40 teaching. Planning hour usually spent talking with cooperating teacher and/or teaching in another classroom. Lunch hour spent with my “lunch bunch” of students who hang out everyday and inadvertently remind me why being a teenager was fun/horrible/shocking.

3:40-4:30: School ends. Get as much actual work  such as lesson planning, grading, grade entering, prep for next day, etc. as possible. Rush to pick up kiddos from day care since husband has gone to work.

4:45-5: Get home, sit for 3 blessed minutes to check email/texts/phone calls that I couldn’t answer during the day.

5-6: Do Lily’s homework with her. Keep Sage from realizing her world domination and/or destruction intentions. Hopefully have the energy to make dinner from the non-existent groceries in the house (seriously, never let your husband shop because you end up with frozen burritos, capri suns, and pretzels). If not, the pizza guy knows your order by your phone number.

6-8: Bed, bath, play time to help my children remember that I am supposed to be raising them. Ignore the piles of work still waiting to be done.

8:01-10:45: Lesson plan, write 97 page paper (which I got a 100% on, woot!) and pretend to learn Spanish.  Husband comes home. Tries not to feel ignored as I keep telling him “just a minute” when he wants to tell me about his day.

11:30-2:30: Husbandy face finally falls asleep and I get back to work. Creating lesson materials, planning, grading, updating class website (I did blog, just not here!), or reviewing material I need to teach. Occasionally just stressing out and pulling out hair while also searching TPTs for a lesson plan.

2:30 ish: (yes, that's AM) finally just give up and force myself to go to bed. Sit awake for at least half an hour contemplating all the things I didn’t get done or forgot to do.

Weekends were more of the same – just a few more hours playing with my kids and maybe mad dash rushing to the grocery store.  For those of you that think teachers have a cake job, I don’t know if we can be friends anymore. Student teaching is worse because you don’t have the materials. You’re doing all the work from scratch. Whew.

I think I might get some sleep over the summer, but since I jumped right into sub jobs and working a second job as well, it’s probably a good thing my mom bought me dark circle repair makeup. HA.

I sound like I’m complaining and let me be clear, I’m not. I absolutely loved teaching. Even when I hated it. Sometimes, the kids would irritate me with their whining or I’d be really tired and the thought of working on my feet and running from one place to the other all day seemed like too. Freaking. Much. But I did it, and I did it WELL.

And the best news of my long time absence?

I AM A COLLEGE GRADUATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(breathe) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have officially graduated with not one, but TWO degrees. Two bachelors degrees. Two pieces of paper I can hang on the wall and admire. Two tassels to hang from my mortar board as I walked across the stage. I’m officially a teacher and a historian. I did it. 

So now that the dust and papers have cleared, I’m back! I missed crocheting and blogging and being a mom. I am so excited to have the summer to do all of these things and make a plan for grad school. (I’m insane, I know). I received a full scholarship for graduate school and will be also working as an assistant teacher for gen-ed history courses. 

I’m excited to talk to all of you again! Thanks for waiting for me!

Hello, stranger.

Where have I been?!?!

Where are pictures of all the fabulous Christmas presents I made?!?!

Am I stepping out of the blogosphere?!?!?!

Nah. Life just keeps getting in my crafty, creative, word loving way. And it ain't over yet!!!

This is just an update to let you all know... If you are still there... that I am here in spirit at the very least. Work...school...kids...preparing for student teaching....it was either do fun projects or blog about them. Since glitter playdough, afghans, and crocheted earrings were on the menu, I had to step away from the computer.

The next few months may be quiet around here and full of student teaching rather than crochet... but just know, I love you. Yes, you. And you. I love that you are emailing me and checking on me and staying with me. I will try to keep up with the Facebook page and could absolutely use some cheering on as I start teaching Monday. Eep.

Missing you. Really. Missing my crochet hooks too. Loves!

I'm going to stand outside. If anyone asks, just say I'm outstanding.

I think that is my best FB status ever. Just sayin'.

It has once again been WEEKS since I've played on my bloggity blog. I have been super productive though! If you count school work and making sure my kids have clean laundry (mine is another story). I have had some wonderful firsts recently in regards to my teaching internship:

I decorated a classroom with awesome blossom pictures cells and made bulletin boards with GIANT MICROBES. If you need to ever get me a present, just get me some of these adorable little guys. Seriously, too cute! I think my favorite was the little sperm with a bow on it's head. It and the egg are magnetic so they stick together. HAHAHA.

We're starting a new unit on bacteria and cells and viruses and body systems and and and... it's all very exciting to me.

I wrote my first test. It's printed and waiting in a pretty stapled stack waiting to be groaned over this week. It's kind of hard. I'm not going to lie. If I was a student, I'd be a bit freaked. I found that realization invigorating and made myself slightly giddy. Those kids learn quick though, I'm sure it will work out just fine. I'm also proud that it doesn't have one single multiple choice, essay, or true/false question on it. I'm breaking test boundaries here, yo.

My house is a mess. My husband has come to terms with the fact that my absent minded noises count for conversation after the kids go to bed because that's when I'm doing homework. I can't step out of the house without makeup for fear someone could get lost in the dark circles that have taken up permanent residence under my eyes. I don't care. It's all worth it. I am having so much fun even as I am drowning under school obligations. This is seriously the craziest, but best semester ever.

Are ya'll sick of hearing me talk about school yet?

While I'm thinking about it, I want to post this fantastic picture of my girls. Auntie Alli sent it to me after she edited it and played with the colors. I am so going to have to think of ways to terrify teenage boy children later on.

Lily's birthday is coming up this Saturday. Eight years old. EIGHT FREAKING YEARS OLD. How does that happen? Can I send in some form to somewhere requesting that my children don't grow up so fast? She doesn't really want a party, she wants to go to the Museum to see the King Tut exhibit. So we'll do that and have a cupcake party afterwards somewhere. I asked her if she wanted to invite some friends from dance or school and she said, "Nope, I will be just happy spending the day with my family." Awwww.

Well, hopefully it won't be another several weeks before I get back to blog land. I have a few recipes to post because the food that is made in my house is delicious and I want to share it with you all. Not bragging or anything... ;)

Oh and P.S... Not only did I get sick, everyone but Lily got sick. It was like the plague had descended upon my household. Wishful thinking didn't work!

First day of school...again.

Today was the start of Lily's year as a second grader. Apparently, that is so much more older than a first grader. Second graders such as my daughter do not need parental help to find their classroom or be shown where to line up because, "I know where to go, Mom!" Second graders are such old hats at this school thing dontcha' know.


I also had my first day of school. Well, I'd already been in school a week, but this semester, I'm spending some time in the field in a 7th grade science class! I get to go practically every day and work on my teacher look. It is such fun. I'm totally in love with everything I'm doing.

I have to tell you, when you get up on the first day to read the syllabus to a room of about 25 kids, it's mildly terrifying. Even more so when you haven't done it before. They can smell fear. You have to take a minute to squash down all the big, giant butterflies doing the rumba in your stomach and then get to work and put on your big girl teacher pants and go with it or lose face and look like an idiot. Kids can smell idiots too, I'm telling ya.

I got to see the inside of my first faculty room and that was weird too. I had to shift from student to teacher mode so I would quit looking over my shoulder like I was going to get kicked out of the room and put in detention. Ha!

Tomorrow we're doing our first science lab. Gummy worms are involved. I swear, this will never get old for me and I'm so busy, but it's worth it. It feels absolutely wonderful to know deep in my center that I'm doing the right thing and I'm on the right path. It's taken long enough to get here!

My other classes this semester are pretty dang fun too. Last night for Botany, I got to jump in the college SUV and go on a field trip. Field trips are just as cool when you're an adult. We collected plants and took them back to be pressed. I'm totally geekballs over this because I used to love pressing flowers as a kid. There was one plant that was a vine called Virgin's Bower that had seeds that looked like Truffla trees from the Lorax. Totally wicked cool. Every person I rode to the field trip with was in the teacher program. Guess what we chatted about for 40 minutes?

I miss doing crafty things. I know I haven't posted any beautimus creations in awhile. I'm hoping that things will even out and slow down a bit so I can do something fun. I have a couple projects that I'm dying to finish. I don't think Nic misses the craft mess though...

School!

I had my first faculty meeting yesterday.

I got to see the inside of my first teacher's lounge.

I am going to be assisting in teaching a fiesty group of 7th grade science students.

In my other classes, I get to make a pressed plant collection, learn how about all the state standards for teaching, play with microbes, and write an autobiography of how I learned to read.

All in all, I think this semester is going to be fantastic! Yay!