Well, we're getting

there! We found out at the end of last week that the finish crews would be around sometime this week to work on the siding. I called Darrell today during lunch to see if he checked at the house if they were there and they were! and they also were working on the inside! and they also told us that if there are no major problems the house should be finished sometime next week!!!!!!!!!!!!
We still need to install the boiler, but other then that everything should be done pretty soon! I was very impressed with how quickly things seem to be moving. I honestly didn't think the finishing crews would be getting to our house until next month! At this rate we'll have time to paint while we're waiting for the boiler to be installed and hopefully get to move in in October!!!! almost a month before we planned on being able to actually get into our house!!!

I already have paint colors picked for the entire first floor and can't wait to get started!

Meanwhile, this past weekend we installed a door at the base of the stairs that Darrell built in the basement. Darrell is also planning on taking the rest of this week off and his Dad is coming up to stay with us and start building the garage. The footers have already been dug and they'll start laying cement blocks tomorrow!

I also just realized that I haven't taken any pictures lately of what we've been working on so I should probably get on that. I'm hoping to make a photo album of everything once the process is all finished and I don't want to leave anything out!

Happy Tuesday!!

It feels like

a dream!

We have a house!!!!!!! It was set on Friday the 13th and it was amazing to see! It was shipped in 4 modules, 2 were delivered to our lot, the other 2 were delivered 2 days later to an old out of business Ford Dealership about 10 minutes from the site.

Our original set date was Wednesday September 11th but they pushed us back to the 12th. On the 12th we had thunderstorms throughout the day and down pouring rain so the official date was moved to the 13th. It was cloudy and overcast but thankfully the rain held off!

Here are a few ton of pictures from the house setting:

I mainly took videos of the pieces being set and Darrell was in such awe of it he didn't get many pictures. lol It was pretty amazing to see our house. We found the plans online and have only looked at blueprints so to physically see everything we've designed and picked out was phenomenal. All of our decisions and research to make this home everything we want it to be was finally in front of us.

We only had 1 hiccup and that was the factory didn't send the crew the shingles to finish the roof after it was set... so for now it's covered with tarps and the shingles are on their way. Our next step is getting the septic system installed which is happening this week. We're also waiting on the follow up crews to come to the site and finish the house. The first one finishes siding the outside (and hopefully shingling the roof...) and the second team finishes the inside work- molding, sheet rock, flooring, etc.

It looks amazing so far and I can't wait until we can officially get in there to start painting!
So much to do but it's all fantastic!

It's been pretty crazy

around our house lately. Over the past few weeks I've been going in to get my classroom ready for another busy school year and we've been spending our weekends visiting family and staining and putting up log siding at camp! Our house set date has been officially established as September 12th (at least the push back dates are getting closer together...) with 1 module being delivered on Monday the 9th, and the other 3 on Tuesday the 10th. I plan on taking 1/2 a day off from work to see them set the house on the foundation. I'm hoping they won't do it in the morning, but be setting things up so that I won't miss it while I'm at work. It stinks that it had to be scheduled during our first full week of school but if I don't go I know I'll regret it. It's not like I'll be able to see it on the next house we build because there will be no next house! Also - we finally got power! and we bought a New Holland tractor with a front end loader! (I wasn't exaggerating when I said it's been crazy!) Everything always seems to happen all at once for us. Keeps us on our toes I suppose :)

Anywho! I figured I'd give you guys a glimpse of my classroom this year since I'm pretty proud of it. I've spent a lot of time getting it ready this year, which has been nice since last year I was hired so late in the summer I only had 1 week to get things together! This year we were let back into our rooms the second week of August so having this extra time has been really nice.

So here's a little tour!

Here's my hall bulletin board (still working on it)

View in through my door (with my name on it! Finally!)

Here's the Information Station as you walk in my room. I don't really call it that... I don't actually call it anything... It's where students can grab extra pencils, lined paper, blank paper, look at the calendar for upcoming events (yet to be filled in) and grab work they might have missed if they were absent.

If you turn immediately to the left when walking in the door you see my computers and prayer table. (It's a Catholic school after all!)

Along the back wall next to the computers is my Brilliant Board for student work earning higher than a 90%, mailboxes for notes going home, part of my writing center - worksheets they'll use for vocabulary work and spelling are in the black trays, and the treat jar (thanks to my Mother-in-law for the animal cracker jug!) for the students featured on the Brilliant Board.

This is a view from just inside the door. I have a small reading area set up between the two large bookcases in the back of my room (where the white lamp is). It's a bit hard to see and a bit hard to take pictures of...

The far side of the classroom with my desk, reading table and class library (behind the large white easel). I have no idea why the picture is so dark...

My desk area and shelving with craft supplies and classroom materials for the kids to use.

The small group reading table is next to my desk

Next to that, in the front corner of the room is my classroom library and my summer's work: the tree!

After last year, wheeling the TV into and out of position whenever we watched video clips, I knew I had to find a place to put it permanently this year where all students would still be able to see it without a glare from the windows. I found the perfect spot in the shade of my new tree!

In the library I have books and games and puzzles for students to utilize, some pillows to curl up with and the ever famous dog fan! I also painted all of the purple bookshelves and covered them with contact paper.

On the other side of the library is my supply area during instruction. We have our white board with our daily schedule on it and on the book shelf I have math manipulatives, ELA tools and other odds and ends I use during different activities with the kids.

Student view (sort of) of the front of the room.

and that's it!
So far the kids love it and so do I! I really try to make it as comfortable as possible, not only for the kids but for me. I spent 85% of my day at school so I try to make it a place I really enjoy being. I think the kids appreciate it too :)

Hopefully the next update I'll have will be on the delivery of our new house. Fingers crossed!

The good news

is that National Grid should be out next week to finally install power to the lot!!!!!! The bad news is that our house is now being set on September 11th because rain has delayed settings of other houses and they're about a week behind (the setting team, that is). I'm not too upset - our house is finished and on it's way. We've waited this long... honestly what's another week? Besides - September 11th is my parents' wedding anniversary - maybe it'll be a good omen for us :)

Well, we have

a well! and a basement floor! Last week our basement floor was poured and our well was dug! Here are a few pics!

We had it drilled by Fenlong Well Drilling out of a neighboring town. Darrell thought it was pretty clever that their name is on the well cap. Pretty good advertising! Fenlong came on Thursday last week in the pouring rain and completed our well in 3 hours!! I'm not sure if that's a good time or not since I don't know much about how long it takes to drill a well, but that sounded like some sort of record to me! It is 94ft deep, after 40 ft they hit bedrock (so after that we didn't have to pay for well casing!) and we are pumping at 30 gallons/minute! We have plenty of water and he said we are likely to NEVER have any problems with running out! It is in the front yard, and not very pretty to look at, so we will be covering it with one of those giant fake rocks that they sell at Lowes and planting some flowers around it!

We also had our basement floor poured on Friday, and the supporting walls for our breakfast nook were also poured. We couldn't pour the floor after the house is set (which is what usually happens so the floor is protected from the elements during drying) but because of where our basement windows are it wouldn't be possible for the truck to access it - so we poured this past week! We made sure we had a good stretch of sunny weather so the floor will dry nicely. If it rained we'd have little dimples all over the concrete.. we definitely didn't want that!

Here are a few pics of the newly poured floor, the new supporting walls for the breakfast nook (the bump out at the back of the house) and the stairs makeshift ladder we have that will be replaced by stairs going from the basement to the outside!

Our house is set to be delivered sometime this week and set on September 3rd!! We've contacted G&I and they say we're still on schedule so hopefully there will be some big updates over the next 2 weeks!

In the meantime Darrell and I are thinking more about finishes in the house - paint colors, hardware for cabinets, etc. My classroom is also coming along really nicely this year! It's been nice having extra time to get in and get things set up. I plan on doing a post on that once it's officially done and I can take some pictures of it! It's been a lot of work this year but I absolutely love how it's coming together (which is fantastic since I spend more time at school then I do at home during year).

Thanks for stopping by!

This past Monday

started out horribly. I misread the date on my dentist appointment card and drove 90 minutes for my appointment that wasn't until Wednesday... yup... it was pretty marvelous. To salvage the trip I figured I'd stop by School Daze to grab a few things for my classroom, and Michael's Craft Store to see if they had anything on sale that my kids (students) could use. It was 8:30 in the morning... School Daze didn't open until 10 and Michaels, 9. I wasn't sticking around to wait so I grabbed a coffee at Dunkin' and headed to school (which was on my way home) to get some things done in my room.

I was in a miserable mood...
I turned the radio on and started repainting a few of the bookshelves in my classroom. Then I remembered that I had to call the NYS Education Dept. to check on the status of my Professional Teaching Certificates. I'd applied for them at the beginning of June. When you graduate college and take your certification exams, if you pass the exams and complete your college coursework for the education major, you apply for your initial certifications. You hold these until you get 3 full years of teaching experience under your belt, and a Masters degree in the field of education. After four years of subbing, 1 full year of teaching, and having completed my masters, I applied. I sent in all of the necessary paperwork and waited. 2 of my certifications expire on August 31st, so when the middle of August arrived I was a bit nervous at how long the process seemed to be taking. Thankfully a friend of mine gave me a number at the state to call that would be able to answer my questions about when my Professional Certs would be given.

This brings me to Betty - the nicest NYSEdDept worker I've ever met. I asked her if she could look into my account and see where my paperwork might be in the process of approval. While waiting for her computer to load we got to talking. Her computer was taking forever and she began to complain that it must be Monday because this, as well as the rest of her day, is taking forever. I chuckled, and asked her if I could share a small story. She obliged - and I told her about my morning. Her response: Well, honey - I'm going to make your day a hell of a lot brighter - I'm looking into your paperwork, everything looks good, I've just approved all of your professional certifications.

I could have cried! I thanked her, hung up the phone, and back flipped down the school hallway. (Not really) I called Darrell and my Mom and told them the great news.

I am now an official Professional NYS Certified Teacher and I couldn't be happier!!

After months and months

and months of trying (actually it was only 10 days!!) we have SOLD OUR HOUSE!!! We put it on the market 10 days ago and without the help of a realtor it sold! We received an offer yesterday, countered it today and she accepted! We are selling it to a nice woman who is a single mother to a 6 year old. She's currently going through a divorce and living with her parents - which she said she's happy to do until we are able to move in early November(hopefully). We are coming in at $3,000 under our asking price, which we're pretty happy with since we didn't expect to get our asking price anyway!

She was the first person to contact us about looking at the house and she was the first showing we had. She brought her entire family (brother, sister-in-law, sister and brother-in-law, mother and father). It was quite a parade we had going down the hallway as they all filed in and out of each room. She'd been looking for a while, she'd said, and as far as we were concerned, our house seemed like the perfect fit for her and her daughter. She liked the house and wanted to talk with her parents more about it (they're helping her pay for it) and said she'd get back to us in a few days. In the meantime we showed the house to 2 other couples, and tried like hell to keep it spotless... well... as spotless as you can be with a 5 month old puppy running around...

Over the weekend she called us and asked if she could bring a home inspector by - we, of course, agreed. We knew she must be interested, to be paying for a home inspection. The home inspector found minimal things wrong with the house (everything we had already discussed with her previously). She called us later that night with an offer. We decided to counter her offer, she called her parents to share with them our offer, and within an hour of us giving her our counter, she called us back and accepted! We had already contacted a lawyer to discuss what paper work there would be to do, etc. So now we have a meeting set up next week to draw up the necessary paperwork and get the ball rolling!

Everything is moving so fast lately. Thankfully it's moving fast in a good way and things seem to be going really well for us! (now that I've probably just jinxed us!) The house is being delivered next week and set on the foundation on September 3rd. We are soooo excited! The well is set to be dug tomorrow and on Friday our basement floor is being poured. Busy, busy, busy!

Tonight we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary and it was nice being able to catch up with each other and talk about all of the exciting things that are/will be happening. We are so blessed and so extremely excited for this home that we will be able to spend the rest of our lives in. Thankfully, between Darrell working and me getting back in to school to set up my classroom and start curriculum mapping, the time is flying by. I think November will be here before we know it!