New School Year, New Job

When I left school in June I packed up my stuff and knew I wasn't coming back but I really didn't know where I was going... but now I do! I have been hired to teach 8th grade math at a middle school in Greenville! My commute will now be 7 minutes instead of 50 -- I don't know what I'm going to do with my time! It will definitely be a challenge because "city" kids are going to be different than my "country" kids. And not to mention that my class sizes will go from 15 to 32 (ahhh!).

Getting used to a new school, new staff, and new students will be another challenge for me but I think it will be for the best. I will be comfortable and in a routine and soooo much closer to home so whenever we have kids I'll be right here instead of an hour away. I'll be able to stay after school and not feel so bad. And I can be a part of the athletics and other things going on at school. I've already figured out that I'm just another teacher in a huge school system but I knew that before I left my old school... I sure will miss my old school and old county but I have to have my sanity.

In the next few weeks I'll be moving my classroom into a new classroom and setting things up so that I can start off a new chapter in my career!

Ulster Project

Way back in 2003 I was introduced to the Ulster Project by hosting a teen from Northern Ireland. The whole intention of the project is to have Northern Irish Protestant and Catholic teenagers come to the US for the month of July in hopes of building relationships and peace when they return to NI. I LOVE this project and it's really opened up my eyes to the world (and taught me that there's so much more to this world than Eastern NC...)

In 2009 I served as an American Counselor for the kids and I've been on the Board since I was a teen host. Sooo it's really of no surprise that as soon as our life has settled down for a bit that we volunteered to host one of the Irish Counselors this summer. And boy oh boy did that keep us busy. The kids arrived June 24 and for four weeks they do service projects, fun trips, and worship together. It is as much of a learning experience for the Irish teens as it is the American teen hosts. This year's group was a lot of fun and we stayed busy keeping up with Barry (our guest for the month) and all the activities they had planned.

So the group left yesterday and now our home is all quiet again... except for the zoo we call Paisley & Lilly... but we really and truly enjoyed our experience with the Project again this year.

Mini Vacay

Back in May Blake's work started talking about shutting down for 2 weeks in July... no big deal, right? Soo after I got over the fact that money would be tight in July we decided to use this extra time off to our advantage and to go off on a mini vacation. After my dreams of a cruise were crushed because I haven't updated my passport (URG!) we thought about something cheap and close to home... so we decided to go to Biltmore.

Living in NC you have to visit the Biltmore Estate at some point in your life... most people choose to go in the fall or at Christmas but we had to be different. We went when it was a million degrees outside!! We drove up to Asheville on Monday (which is a LOOONNNNG drive btw) and spent the night downtown thanks to an awesome Priceline.com find. We got up Tuesday morning and explored the Biltmore. It's pretty beautiful and awesome.

We then drove to Charlotte because Blake is a NASCAR lover and he wanted to tour as many race shops as he could. On the way in to Charlotte we saw a billboard for the Summer Shootout Series at Charlotte Motorspeedway so for $14 we had an evening of entertainment. 

We spent the night in Concord (again, another -- even better!-- Priceline deal on a hotel!) then Wednesday was full of race shops and driving home. We really enjoyed this trip to places in our own state that we'd never seen before. Blake's time off ends this weekend but he has off every Friday so we'll take advantage of that while we can :)