Back to School, Back to School

We made the trek back to Utah and moved back into Greg's house. What a nice guy to let us stay there. We immediately went to work unpacking, shopping, decorating, and generally making the place a place we love to be. We are actually still in that process. We are now in the finishing touches stage. We need to make pillows for the couch, find a beautiful mirror for the living room, frame some pictures, hang some curtains, etc. It has been fun to work on the house together. Also stressful for me cuz the sad truth is that if I buy one couch it means that I don't get to buy the other couch. Same holds true that if I paint the wall blue, I cannot paint it light violet and I am a terrible decision-maker and I just know that if/when I paint that wall blue, I will forever be haunted by light violet and how life would have been so much better if I had just chosen light violet. Well, that's how it goes, though, so I just have to get over it. This saturday we plan to work on all the finishing touches and will, hopefully, be totally done within a week or so:)
Ummm, lets' see, what else..school started.  I just love teaching. Having the summer off is amazing. It's been a great experience going back to school this year because I had only a fraction of the nervousness and stress that I had last year right before school. What a difference one year of experience can make. Even though I am teaching 3 different classes (humanities, English 10 and English 11) and I have 3 times the lessons to prepare, I just feel so much calmer and happier going to work. I looooooooove getting off at 2:45 every day. I have been leaving no later than 3 (one time 4) and getting home by 3:20 and Ollie, Gabe and I have all evening together. It is the perfect schedule and I am so grateful. Last year I was pregnant and tired and stressed and, at the beginning of the year, especially, I felt like all I could do was go to work and sleep. It felt like that's all I had the energy for. This year is a whole new ball game because when I come home so early I feel like I have a whole day left to do whatever I want and I usually have the energy to do it. Another good thing about his year is that (so far) I have not had ill feelings toward any of my students. I am really trying to see them as God sees them and just be kind to them and patient with them. I know that many of them are dealing with things that they really shouldn't be having to deal with in their personal/family lives and I want to be a safe place for them and show them love and kindness. Last year I was so stressed about making sure the lesson went right and being observed and doing a "good" job that I sometimes found myself losing patience and not being as nice as I could have been. Everything feels better when I choose to be kind. And that's no small feat when you talk to 150 teenagers every day:) The lame-o thing about coming back to work has been that my bff in my department left cuz she got a job in Colorado. And my other friend also moved to Indiana. So so sad. I now eat lunch by myself and no one really talks to anyone else. It's pretty grim. I am going to keep trying to form some friendships. We will see.
Oliver started school this week and Gabey started going to day care at UVU some days and to Susan's house on some days. He seems to enjoy hanging with other people besides mommy and daddy. Every day when I come home and see his adorable face I just laugh and have to hug him to me. He is a doll.
Well, I will write some more about what we've been doing in a few days when I have collected pix. xoxoxoxo