Moving On...

'Cuz we moved.  Like 6 months ago.  If you missed it, we moved off of the acreage we lived on for the last 9 years in December in favor of a newer (like the daughter is older than this house...) place in the small cityopolis about four miles away.  It wasn't totally random -- the kids go to school in this place anyway, and we've been THRILLED with the teachers.  It's also where one of our clinics has been located for about 6 years now.  And, realistically, it was the compromise between big city and acreage.  And I love it.  A lot.

Cancer junk out of the way:  6 month check up was in mid-May, but because we'd done all of the "hard" tests in November, it was just a blood draw and check in with my fab local doctor.  Who is, apparently, now on a billboard.  Yep, he's fab.  Anywho, everything was fine, I'll see them again mid-November for a chest CT and mam (which is a step up, they're "relaxing" by just doing a mammogram, NOT an MRI).  Then we'll talk about slowing things down.  That might be a light at the end of the tunnel...

So, I took this year out of the classroom to work as an Instructional Coach in my building.  Same boss, same peeps, totally new role.  Basically another teacher and I stepped out of our teaching gigs to "coach" teachers.  We'd pop into classrooms, observe for a bit, help out, interact, etc, and then give feedback on the whole deal.  We varied in our focus -- sometimes it was assessment (which is truly what our training is in that caused this job opening to occur), sometimes engagement, sometimes modeling, sometimes small group learning... it really depended on where our brains were at, and frequently, what that teacher was looking for.  Overall it went well, I think.  Not everyone was appreciative of our presence, sometimes questioning our skill set (we're NOT administrators, and at least I never plan to be), but between us we've got about 25 years of experience running our own pretty engaging classrooms, and that's what we fell back on.  The good comments usually outweighed the bad, but it's tough to be criticized when you're just trying to help.  Really.  In the end though, we both REALLY missed teaching.  Not grading so much, but teaching, so we'll be back in the classroom for a block a day next year (it ends up to be two periods, but the same kids).  I'm only an English teacher, so that meant we had to teach a Literacy class... he was primarily a math teacher before all of this.  I've been most comfortable in the upper middle school/early high school classes for most of my career, but he was a 6th grade teacher.  So, compromise:  my content (though truth be told, he's an excellent literacy teacher as well), his grade level.  Me.  And 6th graders.  I'm sure it will be fine.

In fun family news, Ki's soccer team took 1st place yesterday in the area's Soccer Cup.  It's his first year playing, and it's been a fabulous way to get us more connected to the little town we now call home.  They've been a great group of families to hang with, and I'm sorry that most of the players are just that little bit older than Ki and won't be on his team again.  Regardless, he now LOVES soccer, and has even convinced the little sister to play next year.  That should be entertaining....


Little sister finished her first year in dance with a recital a few weeks ago.  I think she was more excited about the sparkly dress and makeup than the actual dance, but she worked pretty hard in the last few weeks leading up to the recital to make sure she had all of her steps down.

And the hubs -- well, when we see him, he's doing well!  Work is crazy busy for him (like always)!  When he's not at work, working, he's home, working, as we're trying to get our basement officially finished.  We've tackled more of the detail work ourselves than I originally planned on, which means it's taking a bit longer, but we're pretty happy with the results so far.  I'm not sure what we'll do when it's done... oh yeah, the yard.  Sigh.

carpe diem.  -- Trela