I've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (at least temporarily)

I have had a tough time lately, hence the lack of posts to this blog. I think the euphoric feeling of being in New York, where it has felt like we've been on vacation, has worn off and now the reality has set in. The reality is that I need to adjust to my new home. I have felt homesick, but I have no home to return to. Let me explain. Richard and I left Texas when we were 30. Even though we were both born and raised there, neither of us really felt at home there and wanted to find a new "home" of our own. We chose Montana. When we settled there, in Big Timber, we left behind our extended families, which was very hard. Richard still owned a software company in Dallas, so he had to travel back and forth, between Texas and Montana, every week. I was in a strange place, physically isolated from others and especially from our families. Within a year, Richard's parents chose to relocate to Montana, so we finally had family close by. This was especially nice for our kids, because they had grandparents there for all their milestone events. We even had my grandparents living in our guest house for a couple of years, until the financial fallout which caused us to lose the ranch. When Richard lost his company, others believed that we should have moved back to Texas to get our careers and financial future back on track. Instead, we chose what we considered a kinder and gentler setting in which to raise our children.

We decided to stay in Montana, although we moved to a different area--Kalispell. You can probably imagine how difficult it is to replace a 6-figure income in Montana. Naturally, Richard had a very hard time securing a job. Instead, he tried to start another new business, but it never took off (that's an intentional pun because the business was related to flying). I even tried to get a job, but having been out of the work force to raise my kids hurt my chances of getting anything beyond a typical, minimum wage job. We stayed in Kalispell, limping along financially, until I saw the movie, The Rookie. It focused on small town living, which reminded me of Big Timber. I wanted to "go home." We knew things were not going to improve in Kalispell, so we moved back to Big Timber, the small town that I fell in love with, only this time we weren't moving to a log mansion on 500 acres, but into a 100-year old house in town. Big Timber is not a place that many "outsiders" move to. It is isolated, very small, lacks job opportunities, and is made up of residents whose families have lived there for generations. It is small enough that everyone in town knows everything about you. I grew up in a small town in Texas that was very similar, and I HATED that aspect of it. I suppose it was because I was young and wanted my independence and the space to make mistakes without being under a microscope. I dreamed of moving to NYC as soon as I graduated high school, but went another path. Now here I was, as an adult, choosing small town living for my own family. I was happy to have Richard's parents within a few miles. We continued to have trouble making a decent living, and eventually moved to Montana's largest city, Billings. Although there were many ups and downs, we were at least able to survive. Note: I didn't say thrive.

After both kids graduated high school, we decided that we absolutely must move to a place where Richard's technical skills would offer a respectable wage. He was offered a 6-month contract position in Charlotte, North Carolina, so we moved there. Alli was just about to start college at Tulane University in New Orleans, so she stayed with her grandparents in Montana for a month, rather than moving to NC, and then again a month later to New Orleans. Wes was living with a girlfriend in Billings, so we said tearful goodbyes and headed to NC. Charlotte is a beautiful place, but it never felt like home.  Richard's temporary job turned into a permanent job and I was able to find a teaching position, so things were finally turning around for us. Wes left his girlfriend in MT and came to Charlotte. He was able to get his dream job as a web developer. Alli decided to leave Tulane and transferred to University of NC at Charlotte. We were all back together! Even so, this place wasn't home.

After 3 years in Charlotte, Richard had received enough positive attention on the job that he was offered an even better and more visible position in NYC...my dream city! He accepted the position in order for me to fulfill one of my bucket list items. Now that I'm here, everything feels off, for lack of a better word. Take into consideration that everything in my life has changed. Alli and our 13 year old cat had been living with us in Charlotte, but we left them behind so that Alli could continue to attend college there, and have her cat to keep her company. We left Wes and his new girlfriend. We sold both of our cars. We got rid of all of our furniture. We have nothing familiar around us. We have had to adapt to public transportation. We no longer have wide open spaces or the freedom to go for a drive. On a good day, this feels very freeing. On a bad day, it destroys me. All weekend I cried about wanting to go home, but realized that I have no home to go back to. Texas is no longer home to me. Most of my relatives have crossed over. My mom and step-dad are there, but that's the only attraction I have to Texas. I can't go back to Montana YET because I need to earn enough money to retire someday. (I DO plan to retire in MT!) I have to create a new version of home. I have a great job, in a nice school, working with wonderful people, and I'm paid more that I've even been paid in the past. Richard's job is fantastic and allows us to finally put money into savings. We're in my dream city. I'm sure I'll continue to have ups and downs, but I'm going to have to learn new ways of adapting.

The Week Before Students Arrive

Ahh...Back to work. I love it! I am not someone who particularly likes a lot of down time. I like to be busy and can become depressed if I don't feel like I'm doing something useful. There's not a lot of "useful" stuff to do when you live in a 400 square foot space. Cleaning the apartment takes me about 5 minutes and doing laundry is almost a non-event. I was a stay-at-home mom when my kids were little. I kind of wanted to be a working mom and hated when I would meet someone and the first question they would ask was, "What do you do?" When I said I stayed home with my kids, they practically turned and walked away, assuming I had nothing intelligent to talk about. This really bothered me. Of course I gave my all to my kids, but I also spent lots of time on more visible forms of "useful" stuff, particularly cleaning. I thought I needed a visible form of my usefulness, so I kept my home meticulously clean. Our home in Texas, when Wes was 2 and Alli was a newborn, was about 4,000 square feet. Cleaning took lots of time. The front entry had a very dark hardwood floor that showed every speck of dust. My workload grew exponentially a year later when we moved to Montana, into a 10,000 square foot log home on 500 acres. I had no idea how much upkeep was required on a log home. Every wall in the massive home looked like this (very few drywall walls), which meant that dust collected on EVERY SINGLE LOG!

For some reason, dead flies lined every windowsill as well, so they required regular vacuuming. (By the way, vacuuming dead flies creates a unique and not-so-pleasant smell.)

I feel useful! Work is about to begin! Students at The New American Academy start school next week, so this week the teachers have been setting up their classrooms. Four teachers share our massive, open classroom. There are several different shapes of student tables. No one seemed to want the trapezoid tables, so I claimed them. Most teachers arrange this type of table like so.

I arranged mine like this.

The teachers had never seem the tables arranged this way, and they kept calling other teachers in to see what I had done, each saying, "I've never seen anyone arrange them this way!" They may have been rethinking their decision to shun the trapezoid. It took me many tries to get them just the way I wanted them. I think I've achieved a sort of stadium feel, with all the table groups facing the Smartboard, so that all students can see the Smartboard from their tables, if I ever want to show something while they are seated at their desks. My style is more suited to teaching while students are gathered around me on the rug, but it will be nice to have another option. This is the first time I have not had a teacher desk. I've never actually sat at my teacher desk, but it is a good place to keep all the office supplies and a place to pile all the papers that need to be graded. Instead, I have a traditional student desk, on which sits my very nice Mac desktop computer that operates the Smartboard. Inside the desk, I've tucked all the necessities, like tape, paperclips, pens, scissors, Post-Its, stapler, etc. I love my Smartboard! I have typically had a Mimio, which also requires a projector, but the Smartboard has the projector attached to the front of it, so there aren't wires to trip over, which is the obvious advantage so far.

My kindergarten team worked at breakneck speed to get everything ready because we had an Open House scheduled for Thursday of the week before the start of school. We would rotate students to all 3 areas, which they will be doing during a typical school day. We would each start with our "homeroom" or "house" students. My group will be called the "green house." My kiddos will start the day with me, then go to one of the other 2 houses: Ms. Balsan's red house for writing and phonics and Miss Brittany's blue house for reading.  Each teacher will teach "interdisciplinary" to their own house. Interdisciplinary is science/social studies/engineering, which we plan together. I will be teaching math. I like the way we're doing this because it makes lesson planning much easier. In years past, I've spent up to 6 hours on the weekend working on lesson plans, because I've always taught every subject. I will be using a workshop model, teaching a math mini lesson to the entire group that's in front of me at the time, then sending the majority of students off to work in small groups at math centers while I work with a small group. Then I will see the next house and repeat the same procedure.

Yesterday was the Kindergarten Open House. I wasn't nervous, for the first time in my teaching career. I think it's because I had my teammates in other parts of our massive classroom doing the same thing as me at the same time, with our Master Teacher circulating to help if necessary.  I got to meet my adorable students and their sweet families. I am so excited for school to start!