Exhaustion.

Started my summer job at camp this week. Let's just say it is not exactly what I expected, but I'm going to try to make the best of it. Totally and utterly exhausted. Fortunately, we do not have a camp next week and it will be Gearry's last week in Indiana as well, so at least that works out as far as spending some quality time together before the month apart.

Bed. Now.

Changes

Life seems like one big change right now, which is a little exhilirating and a little scary at the same time. Even just sitting in my living room today, doing absolutely nothing except watching "Family Guy" and cuddling with the puppies, I realized that in just a couple of months I won't be able to ever do that again. I mean, there will be tons more "Family Guy" and puppy cuddling sessions, but they won't be in this living room, because it will no longer be our living room. Those times will be 700 miles away. I keep going back and forth between wanting to enjoy every last minute here and feeling uncomfortable being here now all seems so temporary, so unsettled. I think I liked settled. Then again, it seems every time "settled" comes around we get the urge to make a change, so perhaps I'm not as much of a "settled" person as I think.

Either way, I'm committed to eeking out every ounce of fun, relaxation, and good times that this summer can bring and have one last fantastic Indiana summer to remember (for now, as we never know what the future holds). The summer is looking a whole lot brighter after Gearry found out yesterday that instead of starting at CIS on June 18th, his new start date is July 1st (to coincide with the start of the school's fiscal year). Therefore, since today is his last day at the resort, that means three whole weeks of Gearry! It will be the most I've seen him... probably ever. We already have a list of all the things we want to do before he goes... Drive-in theatre, lots of lake & boating time, lazy days at the clubhouse cabana bar, dinner at Story Inn, etc., etc. I hope that three weeks together will make the month we'll be apart a little easier to handle. I start my summer job at camp on Monday, so I'm going to be working quite a bit these next few weeks, but it's nice to know that when I come home at the end of the day he'll actually be here.

A lot of people keep asking me what my plans are for Savannah. I am hoping, praying, and keeping my fingers crossed for a teaching or teaching assistant position and have started sending out some resumes. Like the public school system here, the Savannah-Chatham system is in dire financial trouble, with something crazy like a $35 million budget cut. That makes things a little challenging, but since it is such a big system, they are still hiring a few positions and I have applied for those. There is also a HUGE private school system (one of the largest numbers of private schools in a city that size in the U.S.) and they hire a position here and there, so I'm keeping my eyes peeled. Most hiring will likely be done in the couple of weeks (or even couple of days) leading up to the start of the school year, so I unfortunately have to be very patient. If the beginning of the school year comes and goes and I am still jobless, then I will subsitute or tutor or both, whatever I need to do to get my name out there. I would be completely fine with serving for another year as a teaching assistant, so I'm hoping that if a full-classroom job doesn't pan out, a paraprofessional or some sort of assistant job will. I just want to be in a school, doing what I love.

I'm learning more and more about the area we're going to be living in through internet research, talking to people who live there, travel forums, etc. Our neighborhood, Talahi Island, is a small island between two larger islands, Whitemarsh Island and Wilmington Island. This world of "island suburbia" is halfway between downtown Savannah and the beach. The islands are highly residential, although they do have their own restaurants, shops, etc. From where we are living on Talahi Island, we can access an 8-mile bike path that leads all the way out to Tybee Island and beach life, which is pretty cool. I should have no problem staying in shape there! We also learned that Tybee has a very strict no-dogs-on-the-beach policy, so if we want to take Bailey and Zoey for some beach strolls we'll have to do it at Hilton Head (just to the north) or one of the several beach areas to the south. We also learned a little bit more about our "duplex" we are renting for four months. Actually, it's not a duplex at all. It's an attached guest house/mother-in-law-suite of a large home on the island. So I guess technically it really is a duplex, but not in the traditional sense. The house looks really nice and we're happy to have found a place in what seems to be such a nice neighborhood.

Let's see, what else have we learned? Oh yes, I discovered today that even though it is the south and when I think of southern cooking I think of meat, meat grease, and gravy, Savannah has quite a few restaurants downtown with vegetarian options, mostly because it is home to SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design) and you gotta cater to those hippie vegetarian art students :)

A woman who I have been communicating with via e-mail who is from Boston but owns a home in Savannah and spends as much of her time there as possible, with intentions to retire there in the next few years, has been giving me lots of wonderful insights on the culture of the place. I asked her about the attitude toward northerners who move in there and she offered this: "It is quite a cosmopolitan small city. So many 'Yankees' have moved in that a lot of the 'old south' of the place is gone. We are ALL over the place so its not a novelty being a Yankee. There are great people and there are jerks everywhere, so once you ignore the accents, we are all the same."

Alright, so if I can only get past the accents...

Bound for the Coast!

If you haven't heard the news, I am happy to tell you that Gearry recently accepted a full-time faculty position at the Culinary Institute of Savannah and, therefore, we're of course moving to Savannah, Georgia! Happiness is the main emotion surrounding this big change in our lives, with a little bit of sadness and anxiety thrown in for good measure. OK, a lot of anxiety on my part, not so much on Gearry's part ;) While we are very sad to leave behind family and friends here in Indiana, we feel incredibly blessed that Gearry happened to find his dream job in an area of the country that we happen to love.

Gearry has been wanting to make the move to teaching culinary arts full-time for some time now. He's been teaching a class each semester at Ivy Tech, as well as recently taking on the role of Progam Coordinator for their culinary arts program, for the last couple years and quickly realized he had both a passion and talent for instruction. Not only is it a field that he loves, but it is also so much more conducive to family life (i.e. actually getting to see each other) than the restaurant/resort field. He'll be making more money while working less than half the hours a week that he works now, and he will have weekends, evenings, and holidays off, as well as fall, spring, winter, & summer breaks... Hard to beat that!

We randomly came across the job opening way back in early March and, seeing that it was in an area that we both love, Gearry applied. We thought it was probably a long-shot, as the position was bound to be very competitive. However, a few weeks later in April we were happily surprised when Gearry received a call inviting him to interview. He flew down in mid-April to interview and teach a demo class, and he thought it went really well. However, days began to pass, then weeks, and still no word. We kind of resigned ourselves to the fact that it wasn't going to happen. Then, suddenly, while Gearry happened to be on a business trip to Chicago for the resort just last week, he got the call from the Dean that they wanted him. It was kind of a no-brainer.

We just listed our condo on the market and are in the process of hammering out all the many, many details that come with a big move. We know a few things... After many stressful hours on the telephone and internet, we finally found a temporary lease today. We wanted to rent a place for a few months so that we can house hunt (or long-term lease hunt, if we don't find anything we want to buy right away) and it proved very difficult to find a short-term lease, let alone a short-term lease within our budget, as we wanted to take on a lease with the idea that we will also still be carrying our mortgage (although we are hoping our condo sells quickly and that won't be the case!).  We happened upon a little duplex in a nice part of the city, on Talahi Island, about 10 min. from the beach and 20 min. from Gearry's job. Our little temporary (4 months) home is indicated on the map below with the red dot:

It's just a one-bedroom, so we'll have to keep a lot of stuff in storage while we house hunt -- assuming that we sell our condo. We don't want to carry two mortgages, so we'll rent as long as we need to, but we both enjoy owning our own place and are looking forward to the house-hunting process.

Let's see, what other details should I share? I have begun the teaching job hunting process, e-mailing various people, sending resumes and such. The public school system there is in sorry financial shape, just like those here in Indiana, but they are still doing some hiring and there is a very large number of private schools, several of which also currently have jobs posted. I'm hoping to get either a teaching or asssitant teaching position lined up this summer, but as a lot of hiring happens in the couple of weeks before school starts in August, I may have to be patient and hoof it out on foot, resumes in hand, in those days just before school begins. Everything else has seemed to work out for us so far, so hopefully this will too.

Gearry is moving down on June 14th, beginning his job on June 16th. However, I have a summer job commitment that I don't feel right backing out on and I would like to be here to try to get the house sold anyway, so the dogs and I won't be moving down until August 2nd. It's going to be a long month and a half apart, but we'll make it work.

Okay, tired of typing for the moment, but I'm sure you're also probably tired of reading ;)

Back at it!

I've decided to start keep up with the blogging again. I always go in spells... This last long "off spell" was brought upon by the fact that most of the people who read the blog are now Facebook friends and I felt I was keeping everyone pretty well updated that way. But, as I've had several people ask me to start posting again, I am going to make an effort.

Yesterday, while looking for a picture that had been erased from my computer but I knew was posted somewhere on the blog, I started reading some of the past entries from the three years the blog has been in action. It was such a cool experience to re-live some of the best (and even worst) moments from the last three years and I realized that the blog is not just for others... In some ways, it is even more for Gearry and me, like a diary, a record of the various chapters of our lives as we saw them at that point in time.

So... Look for more posts soon.

Beer Ride Pictures

For those of you who are not yet on Facebook, here is a link to the photos I just uploaded of yesterday's Beer Ride in Columbus, Indiana:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2719744&id=6807128&l=0dc2ca7f4a

Can't Believe It's November!

Had to post this cute picture of Bailey hanging out on the John Deere pillow at Mom and Dad's house today. What a cutie pie! A cutie pie who desperately needs a haircut, but nonetheless a cutie pie. I was glad the puppies and Gearry and I got to see Mom and Dad a bit, but sad that instead of hanging out with them and watching the Colts this afternoon, I spent most of the day working on an assignment for my master's class that is due tomorrow. Only three weeks of class left, however, and then I'll have ample hanging-out-on-the-weekends time, since substituting will mean pretty much no lesson-planning, unless I get a long-term sub job. Working on an assignment or not, it was nice just to see the parents and let Zoey run around their land off leash, since she doesn't get to do that often up here.

Lunching, Shopping, and Chocolate Pancakes :)

Finally, finally, the long-awaited fall break arrived yesterday. I was super pumped to enjoy a Thursday and Friday off, mainly because it involved sleeping in! Have I mentioned that I LOVE to sleep? Well, I do. Unfortunately, the puppies had a different idea. Gearry spent the night at the resort on Wednesday evening due to an early Thursday morning meeting, so it was just me and dear little Bailey and Zoey woke me up to go to the bathroom at 2:30 a.m., again at 6:30 a.m., and were a bit restless until I finally relented and got up around 9:30 a.m. Sleep wasn't much better last night and this morning, as for some reason Bailey was convinced the best place to sleep was in between my legs and could not be convinced otherwise despite multiple attempts to move him, Gearry was a snoring MACHINE (worse than usual), and I'm pretty sure I tossed and turned more than I actually slept. However, I still probably got more sleep than usual and I can't really complain about that! The funny thing is that even though I'm grateful for the much-needed days off, I miss my kids! I look forward to seeing them again Monday, even though I am NOT looking forward to the planning for my reading, lit group, and Pridetime (math intervention) lessons that needs to happen before then. I could definitely be doing it now, instead of updating the blog and watching Ghost Adventures Live, but that would be far too logical and would not create enough stress for me on Sunday night ;)

Gearry is working, of course, so even though I had yesterday and today off it didn't mean getting to see him any more than usual, which bummed me out. He is a busy, busy boy, but his restaurant continues to do very well and get great reviews, so at least the hard work is paying off. There are some prices to pay for being the man in charge. Unfortunately, most of it involves precious time. I realize that I have friends and family with spouses overseas whom they must sometimes go months without seeing, and so I try to be optimistic and thankful that I do get to see my husband at least a couple times a week. I need to make sure I am taking full advantage of those moments.

Yesterday, I pretty much hung around the house all day, minus a trip to the dentist for a much-needed cleaning & check-up (3 cavities -- whoops -- means another trip to the dentist in December, darn it). Today I definitely needed to get out of the house a bit, so I was glad that I had made plans to have lunch with a few friends. Emily, Catherine, Karen, and a first-grade teacher friend of Emily and Catherine's (I'm horrible, I can't remember her name!) and I had lunch at Lennie's/Bloomington Brewing Company and then decided to head over to Columbus/Edinburgh to do some shopping. Catherine needed a nice dress for a couple upcoming weddings and the rest of us just like to shop :) I ended up doing mostly looking but came away with a couple new pairs of earrings, which is something I needed since my favorite stand-by, a pair of little pearls, broke recently. Given the weather -- windy, dreary, rainy -- shopping was a great plan for the day.

While everyone else is planning on some Halloween party fun tonight, I'm chilling here at home in anticipation of an early wake-up call and a trip right back to Columbus tomorrow morning for a 50-mile charity ride! Stebby is driving up from Louisville to meet me (she is in Louisville for a few weeks for clinicals) for what I really, really hope will be a dry and not too windy ride (the forecast keeps changing!). It is called Beer Ride, as it begins at the Power House Brewing Company in Columbus, and is a fundraiser for the Clifford Volunteer Fire Dept. After the ride, you can swap your wristband for a frosty drink :) It is a lot like the Hope Ride that we did back in September, as it is a fully-supported ride (technical assistance along the way, multiple stops with snacks, drinks, & entertainment), and I am pumped, despite the fact that I have ridden maybe, at most, 60 miles this entire month!!

Hopefully, if it is not raining, I will get some good pictures and be able to post those on here or on Facebook, with a link on here, later this weekend. Tomorrow evening, after the ride, I am heading down to Mitchell to spend the night with Mom & Dad and watch the Colts game with them on Sunday. I think they are more excited about the puppies coming to visit than me! Haha...

Oh yes, just remembered I put chocolate pancakes in the title of this post and, therefore, I should probably mention why. I made them tonight as sort of part of my dinner, sort of dessert, sort of an I-just-really-need-some-chocolate thing, and they were AWESOME. The taste of dark chocolate cake but not as sweet with the consistency of a pancake. The recipe ended up making about 8 small pancakes and I only ate two, so I put the rest in the fridge for tomorrow morning, as part of my pre-ride breakfast. Given that I burn about 600-700 calories an hour on the bike, a huge-mongous breakfast is a must! The recipe is super simple, so if you are interested let me know!

A Quiet Saturday

With both my master's degree work and my student teaching beginning to wind down (both will be complete on Tuesday, November 24), the work that must be done before then is stacking up. I spent most of last weekend and most of today trying to catch up and/or stay ahead, depending on how you look at it, and it all feels much more manageable now. I didn't cross everything off my list, by any means, but I got a lot done, including some readings and assignments for class, updating my resume, and applying to substitute for MCCSC. I think it is safe to say I have been productive, although I always manage to finally give in to the temptation to leave a few things until Sunday night (and then usually kick myself for it). I am guessing that tomorrow night at this time I will be frantically trying to finish up those last few things, including writing a cover letter that is due for class and reviewing my lessons for the upcoming week. It is crazy to think that in a month from now I will no longer be a student and that I'll be out there trying to make my mark in the teaching world.

Other than working, I enjoyed breakfast with Gearry, went for a run, listened to the IU game (pitiful ending) on the radio, and made time for a nap (of course) with my favorite girl, Zoey:

My friend Katie (also student teaching) came over last night to make dinner (rice & bean tacos... yum!) and watch a movie (Hocus Pocus, an absolute MUST this time of the year). We were both a little pooped from long weeks at school, so it was nice to just spend Friday evening relaxing and laughing and not thinking about much. Even though teaching often leaves my brain and body feeling taxed, I do have to say that student teaching is going very well, it is certainly one of the most rewarding things I have ever done, and that I feel a little more comfortable and assured with myself in my role as a teacher every day. It's all worth it.

Gearry and I finally get to spend some time together tomorrow! We're planning on lunching and watching the Colts game at Scotty's Brewhouse and then going to the theater to see "Couples Retreat."

A New Look...

Randomly decided to change the look of our blog tonight. I like it... it reminds me of summer. How I love green.

Now I just have to get myself to actually update it from time to time.

But not at the moment, as the thought of the 22 second graders who need me to be on my toes tomorrow is chasing me towards bed! Goodnight!

UPDATE: OK, on second thought, I don't really like it that much. It will probably change again tomorrow ;) Maybe even with a real accompanying post? You never know.

Appreciate.

My farmers' market bounty from this morning looked so pretty sitting on the kitchen counter, I just had to take a picture! Maple syrup from Burton Farms in Medora, clover honey from Hunter's Farm in Martinsville, Capriole Farms herbed goat cheese from Greenville, and "good corn" from Daviess County. If you are a frequent visitor to the Bloomington Farmers' Market, you quickly learn that although there are many stands selling corn, there is one and only stand that sells the "good corn." I'm not sure what makes it taste so much better, but waiting in the line is worth it. Sometimes the line will wrap all the way through the market, 50 people long. I am definitely thinking grilled veggie burgers and corn for dinner tomorrow :)

Rode my bike to the market this morning. A little over 11 miles, so a nice 22ish mile ride with a pit stop at the market. Bought my goods and relaxed for a bit with a cup of coffee and the newspaper near a local bluegrass band. The morning was a little chilly and very overcast, but great for riding. At about mile 20, just a couple miles from home, the sun finally started to push the clouds away, revealing the most beautiful blue behind all that gray. It was one of those beautiful, awe-inspiring, "I'm so happy to be alive" moments and what I would qualify as a fantastic morning, even though I am desperately missing Gearry. He has been staying at the resort all week because of a huge event this weekend he's been helping prepare for, so I haven't seen him since Tuesday. I cannot even put into words how great it will be to finally see him tonight and to spend all day tomorrow with him.

Alright, the shower calls... Despite the coolness, it was very humid this morning and I am disgusting! Heading back into town (this time via car... haha) to watch the IU vs. Michigan game at Brian's with Catherine, Emily, Brian, and the gang, then back here to devote myself to lesson-planning. I AM going to get it all done today so that I can enjoy tomorrow with Gearry!

Look for an entry coming soon about last week's Hope Ride... 50 miles of awesomeness!