Glass Fusion

My principal asked me if I would be interested in being trained to do glass fusion art for our school's GATE class. My friend Joua and I have been going the last few days to be trained and make a project of our own to show our students an example. First you have to cute the glass the way you want it to be shaped, then there are tools to shape it the way you like it. Then you take bits of colored glass and place them all around your art piece to create the image you want. Joua and I both made wind chimes. I cannot wait to get them back from being fired to see how they turned out.

A weekend with my best friend

Jenna came to visit me and see my new house this weekend. We had a rainy, relaxing, and fun weekend. On Friday night, she arrived around 9:30 p.m. (unfortunately she had to work until 5:00, which made it so she had to leave Santa Rosa way late). When she got here, we watched some t.v. and ate some home-made lasagna, yum:). On Saturday morning, we went to Bidwell Perk, one of my favorite places to go get breakfast. Then we did a little shopping with Alison, came back to the house and watched two movies with Austin (My Best Friend's Girl and Step Brothers), the movies were hilarious. Once Austin left, I decided I was going to blow out a bunch of candles so we could go to bed, that was interesting. I had 8 tea light candles going and decided I was going to try and blow all of them out at the same time. So, I took one huge breath, and...... wax went all ovre my face, all over the coffee table. Jenna and I were rolling on the floor laughing, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Yesterday, we went over to Alison and Zack's house for the Daytona 500. Basically we went over there just to hang out, I am not that into racing. We had some good food, drinks, and laughs.
This four day weekend was great!

Valentine's Day Cards

So a bunch of friends that I teach with at school love to scrapbook. They were the ones who actually really got me into it. We decided once the new year started we wanted to try to get together once a month to scrapbook, visit, and eat some good hordurves. So, last month we went to my friend Megan's house. All I brought to do was finish my scrapbook for my new house. Once I was finished I decided to make Valentine's cards. I love scrapbooking cards because I feel like I accomplish so much in such a small amount of time. Other than just the feeling of accomplishment, I also love being able to send my family the cards that I have made and just imagine their faces when they open a card from me:) So, what do you think? Do you think I could try to sell some of my home made cards somewhere?

Layoffs in education

This is my fourth year of teaching and I am finally starting to feel like I know what I am doing and everything just feels right. I am about to be tenured in my school district and now we are having all kinds of issues with the budget and they are talking about laying teachers off. Or school had a staff meeting Thursday morning and I found out that our district is possibly giving out 130 pink slips, come March 15th. I am so nervous, because I just bought a house. I keep thinking about what is going to happen if they get rid of class size reduction. I am hoping that I have been in the district long enough that I can keep my job in the district. I love the school that I am currently at and would love to stay there and continue working with the great staff that we have, but I think that is probably not much of a reality. I have a feeling they are going to layoff and then shift people around. So, even if I do get my job back, I will probably have a different grade, at a different school. I know that no matter where I go, I can make new friends, and work really hard to learn a new curriculum. Keep your fingers crossed for me. :)

I bought my first home

Well, it is official. I have bought my first home and have paid my first mortgage. I now feel like an adult! It is amazing to me that I was able to qualify for a home loan all by myself on my small teacher's salary, but I did it. I was able to qualify through the teachers retirement system, STRS. I have two loans, my first is an 80% loan and my second is a 17% loan, that I do not have to pay on for the first five years.

The whole process of looking for the right house took me FOREVER! My dad and I started back in 2006, my second year of teaching. We knew that it was a buyers market, but were not able to find much. As the years went by, my dad and I continued to look for houses because we knew that it would be really smart to get into real estate and get into it as soon as possible because the rates were so low and the house prices were getting lower. So, finally I found one that I really liked and my dad helped my configure a good offer, and the seller agreed:)

My escrow was very short and I received my keys for the house on December 31st, Happy New Year to me! I was on Christmas vacation, so it worked out perfectly and I was able to move everything in to the new house as soon as I could. My mom, dad, and sister (Ashli) came to help me move everything in and arrange everything. It was fun having my family here to help me with everything.

Future plans for the house: I would like to add a little bit of curb appeal, by adding shutters and a flower box to the front windows. I want to add a kitchen island with storage in my huge kitchen. I also want to expand the backyard and add some better landscaping (luckily my house came fully landscaped, unfortunately it was kind of ugly landscaping).