My Mother's House

We are currently in the process of packing up my mother's house and getting things ready so that we can put it on the market. For the most part, everything on the inside of the house has been packed up and moved. We painted the majority of what we need to paint today. We only have the floors, ceiling, and garage to do and then we'll be done. It's a bittersweet feeling. I don't want to sell my mom's house. Although I never wanted to be put in this position in the first place. Sharie and I drug our feet for a quite a while, and at one point I thought we were just doing lazy, but I really think we were just putting off having to deal with it. I will be happy to be done. It's emotional to be there every week going through her things and packing, and so I will be happy to be done with that. I know that when it does sell though, that it will be an incredibly hard day. When we were painting today, it almost felt like she was home. I think it's because it's spring. I think it had something to do with the way the light came through the windows. For whatever reason it reminded me of Mother's Day last year. I will miss my mother's house because all of it reminds me of my mother. It also holds nearly all of my high school memories and a large portion of my grown up memories as well. I know that I don't need a house to keep those memories alive, but it will still be hard to let go of. While I am thinking about them, I thought I would jot a few of them down.

*Sunday dinner's with my Grandpa.
*Stumbling through the halls with Sharlee on the day we coined "Big Shoes"
*Sitting up until all hours of the night on instant messenger with Rob. I remember hiding it from my mother:)
*Wendall and every memory associated with her from the first day we brought her home, to the day she stood up for the first time after she lost control of her hind legs, to the day she died, when my mom met me at work to tell me. She even told my manager I wouldn't be in that day. I know that's not a house memory, but I love my mom so much for that.
*Watching "In Her Shoes" with my mom, with each of us curled up on the couch.
*The day Ken and I told my mom we were getting married, I remember that I told her we had something to tell her and I was incredibly nervous (and looked incredibly nervous) and so she responded with "What? Are you pregnant?" Only my mom would ask that:)
*Planting the bushes with Brandon in the front yard.
*Croquet, every Mother's Day weekend.
*Christmas Eve. We used to spend the night there. We'd have snacks and margaritas and we'd always stay up later than my mother:)
*The Thanksgiving that I was highly emotional. I remember drawing myself a bath and then when I went to get into it, Brooke had stripped down to nothing and hopped in. I was already emotional and bratty. I remember I cried and Brooke felt to guilty that she crawled out of the tub and hid in the spare room.
*Helping my mom make stuffing two years ago.
*All of the kids birthday parties in her back yard.
*Ken falling asleep at her house the first Halloween that we were together.
*Even though I was married and had my own house, I went there once because I had a migraine while student teaching. My mom tucked me into her bed, gave me migraine medicine, and placed a cool wash cloth on my forehead. I still remember how it felt to have her sit down beside my on the bed, with her hand rested on my forehead; I remember the indention the bed made, and the cool feel of her fingers. It's sounds horrible, but I loved being sick at my mom's house.
*Wheeling my luggage down the driveway the day Sharlee and I decided to stay at a hotel for the night (randomly, I may add).
*Each of my birthdays. I will remember every haphazard looking cake that she made. They were never pretty, but I loved them. If anything I loved them because they were never pretty.
*Moving back home when I was 19.
*Crawling in bed with my mom after my Grandma passed away.
*The day a guy brought me roses for the first time:) I had no tact. I left him on the porch, meanwhile I tossed the roses in the sink. My mother came home to a sink full or roses:)

I have a lifetime of memories and I'd like to write them all down if I could. I think I'll have to end for tonight though.

I am SO bad at keeping this up to date!

Well..I can honestly say that not very many exciting things have happened since I last updated this:) Here's the short version of the last few months:

1) I had my last observation and I have a job next year! Woohoo! Well, possibly I am speaking too soon. There is a chance the district will decide to cut positions, at which point I am on the bottom of the totem pole, although I am really hoping that won't be true, and according to the school board, is at the bottom of their list. It does sound like we will be following suit with so many districts around the state and declaring a financial emergency. I love my school. I'd like to teach there for a long time. Although I do not want a cut in pay, I'll take one if it means I still have a job and that I get to stay at a school I love. I really do feel like I have found the right school for me. I'm attached to both the students and the staff and I feel blessed that it's such a positive environment. This year as been a hard one. I was very afraid I'd lose myself, and I think that teaching has really kept me grounded.

2) My students are in the midst of ISATS. This has been incredibly stressful! I had no idea that I would stress this much over ISATS, but I have. We just did our first round of them on Wednesday, and when I arrived at school, I really thought I was going to make myself sick to my stomach with nerves. My kids are doing well though and I'm proud of them. On whole, they are putting forth their best effort and that's all that I can really ask for. They have made a lot of growth. There were quite a few yesterday that went from basic to proficient and that was really neat to see. There were also quite a few that made me ache because the tried incredibly hard and worked really hard this year, but their growth wasn't accurately measured on the ISATs. I have another group testing tomorrow, and then we have a little over a week until we take the Language Usage test. I'll be happy when we're done and school can go back to normal.

3) We built an arbor and bought grapes! Well, Ken built an arbor:) We haven't planted the grapes yet, and we really won't have any this year, but I'm looking forward to having them in the future. We're hoping to try our hand at wine making:)

4) I finished "The Hunger Games" and it's sequel and they were amazing! I have yet to get really into a book since. They were phenomenal!

Hmmm...sadly, that's about it:) I usually have a funny story or two from school each day, but I'm drawing a blank today. I did actually send a student on a mission to find my stapler (that she borrowed from me during advisory) only to have her find it on the corner of my desk, buried under papers. That was after I sent out of my classroom to look for it. I laughed at myself when we found it, although I think I was possibly the only one that was amused:)

Middle School Memories and February Update

I love teaching Middle School for many reasons, one being that my students constantly make me laugh, even if sometimes I have to wait until the lunch period to do so. Here are just a few recent memories that make me laugh and that I want to hold on to.

***Today the Shakespeare festival came to our school to perform the play "Othello". It was amazing! I really enjoyed it and I think my students did too. They used the word "whore" pretty candidly, and naturally, because I teach 7th grade, this was a big deal to some of my students. Coincidently, the students it was a big deal to, are also my students who watch rated R movies. After the play I had a student come up to me and say, "They used the "H" word a lot!" :) At which point, I responded, "No, actually, they used the "W" word a lot." It made me chuckle.

***A few weeks ago my students were discussing the movie "The Lightning Thief". The book series has been a huge hit with my kids and so I recently read the first book in the series. My kids know me pretty well and I have no problem sharing with them how much of a book geek I am. At the beginning of the year, I explained that Sharlee and I loved "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" series and so when the movie came out we made our own sisterhood of the traveling pants, pants, to wear to the movie. As my students were discussing "The Lightning Thief" movie I overheard one of them say, "Are you going to bring a pen to the movie?" (The main character has a pen that turns into a sword.) Then I heard the other student say, "That sounds like something Mrs. Dietz would do." :)

***Each quarter we cover a new set of root words. My students keep track of their roots in a chart with a definition, example words, and a picture to illustrate the definition. I usually use my whiteboard to create my own chart as they are creating theirs. One of our roots for this quarter is "auto", which means self. So, my example picture was a stick figure of myself. My stick figures always have curly hair, and I managed to make the hair on this particular stick figure huge. In response to my stick figures massive hair, one of my students said, "Do you have a hard time playing hide and seek with that hair?" :)

These were just a few highlights from the last couple of weeks. I'm sure I have more, but I don't write them down like I should. I really appreciate my classes sense of humor. I'm looking forward to summer, but I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to seeing this group of students go. I've really enjoyed them this year and I have a feeling that summer will be here before I know it.

As far as updates from my life outside of school, not much is new. Things are pretty much the same as always in the Dietz household. Fenix is loving school and doing incredibly well. We got to see a large chunk of Ken's family over the Thanksgiving holiday, which was really nice and we're planning a trip out to the Nebraska/Colorado area to see them again this summer. Ken and I also got to take a trip to Jackpot to celebrate a friends birthday in Decemeber. Unfortunately we didn't win big, or at all, but we had a really good time. Other than that we've been spending a lot of time working and just being homebodys. That's pretty much been our life in a nutshell the last few months:) Oh, and we have been playing a lot of Wii, which we can thank Santa for.

Formal Apology to Sharlee

I just wanted to formally apologize for never commenting back to you when you leave comments on my blog. I never check for comments and it doesn't notify me when I have them (or if it does, I don't see the notification:) You left me a comment well over a year ago and I just read it today:) Oh and I do like that cover of "Imagine". I was just saying that I normally am not big on "Imagine" covers:)

It seems like each time I post a blog, I open with something like "It's been a really long time since I've updated this..." etc, etc. So, I figured why stop the tradition now? It's been a really long time since I've updated this and quite a bit has happened. At the end of May I was offered a teaching job at Marsing Middle School, which I started almost three weeks ago. In June my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and she then passed away in July. I'm not ready to write too much about it and I'm not sure if I ever will be or if when I am ready, if it will be something that I share. I miss her every day, all the time. I feel blessed to have had the amazing mother that I did/do. I feel like I've actually been dealing with it well, considering at one point I thought for sure that when she passed I'd have to be medicated:) I've actually been proud of myself for the way that I've handled things. It most definitely hasn't been easy, but I'm doing it. My mom was my best friend. I was saw her everyday and I was on the phone with her constantly. I think I'm dealing with the fact that she's gone and that I can't call her or see her. I'm not sure if I'm dealing with the fact that she's dead and that probably doesn't make much sense to anyone but me:) There are moments when I am completely overwhelmed with missing her and then there are moments when I'm still a bit in shock. Sometimes I'll ask myself, "Did that really happen?" In some ways it feels like I was living in a vacuum for those six weeks and then all of a sudden it was done. Blah... anyway, I'm going to stop for now.

School is going really well. At some point I'll post pictures of my classroom. I love it. It's an incredibly odd shape with walls an interesting shade of yellow, and a drinking fountain I can't drink out of because the water in Marsing is literally THAT bad, however, I LOVE it! I really do. I love my classroom, the staff, and I love my students. I think I could stay in Marsing for a very long time... if they'll keep me:) They have no curriculum, which overall is really nice, because it means I get to choose everything I teach, as long as I adhere to the standards. As a first year teacher this has been somewhat overwhelming, just because it requires a little more work, but I'm really grateful for it. I don't think that everything happens for a reasoning, but I do think that this district is the right fit for me, and that I was supposed to get the job that I got there. Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm the supervising teacher for drama club?! Yeah, I completely got roped into that one:) I don't even DO drama, however I'm easy to convince. It's supposed to be "completely student run", but we'll see about that. The first meeting, the drama club president spent most of the meeting explaining how the vice president would be chosen. This is a direct quote, "The vice president will be chosen for their commitment, how many meetings they come to and... spirituality!" Possibly he meant school spirit?

Well, that is my update. I will hopefully write again soon, with a funny middle school story or two, and at some point I will post pictures of my classroom.

I wrote this over a week ago with the intention of posting it on here but I managed to get distracted and I forgot.

12/18/2008

Today was my last day at West Junior High and it was hard. As hard as it was, I left the school feeling incredibly high. I am so thankful for my experience there. I'm thankful for my mentor teacher Yvonne. I'm thankful for Tessa and chips and Salsa at Chile's. I'm thankful for Amanda, my fellow student teacher. I'm even thankful for Amanda's mentor teacher. I'm thankful for my experience on team, for the library ladies and the special ed teachers. I'm thankful for everything I learned and all of the positive experiences I had there. And of course, I am so incredibly thankfull for my students. I am going to miss them for a very long time. They have made a permanent imprint on my heart. I really, deeply, cared for each of them and what's really great about that, is that I know that when I left today, they knew that.
I cried every periord except fifth and then a good portion of fifth came to visit me after school ended so I cried then:) And I'm completely O.K. with that because I'm a cryer. I'm sure each year it's going to get easier, but the truth is, I don't want it to. I always want to care this much.
I am graduating now in less than two days. Technically I was done with school last week, but I wanted to stay as long as I could. I guess I'm a college grad now, or at least almost. It's so weird to say that! It's going to take some getting used to. I have been in college for 5 and half years!!!!! I'm finally done! At least with my bachelors. Boise State has yet to see the end of me though. In fact, they're getting another grand out of me next semester for a 3 weekend workshop to finish up my reading endorsement. I'm still not quite sure where we're going to come up with that grand, but I guess we'll work it out: ) With me graduating on Friday I almost feel compelled to make a list of amazing/funny/great/memorable college memories. In fact, I think I will.
Our first apartment (Ours, as in Sharlee and I's, that we had our freshman year).
Thomas. The experience of meeting him when I walked into class and it was just him and he had that funny accent and we went to the Flying M.
Thomas at Shari's.
Sharlee pretending to be me on the phone with Thomas.
Thomas talking to Angie.
"The last thing I want to do tonight is fight with the two of you."--Thomas
Sharlee seeing Thomas in the computer lab years later.
Scott's poetry class.
Friday lunches when we used to eat healthy (Sharlee and I:)
Friday lunches when we stopped eating healthy (Sharlee and I:)
Reaing poetry from other classmates during Friday lunches.
"Scott's going to be a little late for class."--Sharlee
Julius in Bio
Bio in general--except for me failing it.
Juluis in the elevator years later.
My Prufrock paper.
Falling in love with Prufrock.
Rashmi!!!!!!!
Reading notes in Rashmi's class and laughing uncontrollably while we sat in the front row and Rashmi was teaching (Sharlee and I:)
The John Mayer Concert and then staying up till like 4 am writing our papers for Rashmi's class and then somehow getting an A.
Sharlee and I reading off the incredibly corny lines we wrote in our paper.
Michael in Rashmi's class.
Not watching eated R movies:)
Michael years later.
That dirty, creepy, poem that Michael wrote.
Ryan.
Jason.
Meeting Derek in that first Ed class and him saying that line about MLK that we will forever laugh about.
Me telling Ken about that weird guy in my Ed class that said the line about MLK and then me walking into Ken's apartment and Derek being there and me not knowing they were even friends until that moment.
Ken.
Sharlee coming to Ed class just for fun.
My multi-media project for Bruce.
Writing "Losing Seventeen" and "The Grocery Store Diaries".
Susan's class despite how it dragged:)
Bruce's class last semester and my Sci Fi unit plan that I DID NOT want to do but then ended up loving and growing so much because of it.
Working in Mrs. Gratton's class.
Realizing I had made the right choice in regards to my major.
Realizing I was actually good at teaching-- Huge relief.

I know there are more memories. At some point I may edit this so that I can add to it. Or course, one of my biggest highlights of college has been student teaching. These have been some of the best four months of my life. I have so many memories. I am trully blessed. Sometimes soon I need to make a list of those too. Sometimes they're hard to explain. Sometimes it was just a look, or a laugh. It was finally breaking through to a student I've worked hard at cracking all semester. It was a poem that was shared by an otherwise shy student. It was two boys in my classroom every break and every lunch, playing the computers and storing food in my cupboards. It was all the students that hugged me as they left today and all of the students who came by to do it again after school. It was seeing myself in a student. It was laughing at myself. It was an amazing four months. I am extremely grateful for every moment of it.

The last few weeks have been so busy!!!!:)

Just as I suspected I would be, I have been horrible at keeping this up to date, which is sad really because so much has happened! I've been student teaching for nearly a month now and it's been both incredible and incredibly busy. Along with student teaching we also moved into a new home (which we bought:) and traveled to Nebraska for Ken's grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary. So the last few weeks have kind of been a whirlwind and they've moved incredibly quickly. I love the school that I'm at, I love the staff, the culture of the students (though a bit harder to grasp with uniforms, but still there), I love my mentor teacher, and I even like the additional program I'm doing along with my student teaching. I don't know that I could have been placed with a better mentor teacher. We view kids in the same light in a lot of ways, we're both sensitive to pushing kids too much in regards to speaking up in class. I'm already attached to the students this year. I was terrified to go back. I was scared I had lost my teacher persona. I had felt like after my internship in the spring that I had that down. I felt comfortable in the classroom as the teacher. I was afraid that the summer had somehow dimmed that level of comfort I had accrued. I was also afraid that I had somehow forgotten how to talk to teenagers. I was relieved to find that I hadn't lost any of that at all. It all came back right away, although I'm sure that will be a fear every summer. Classroom management has been so much easier this year than last. A part of that's the kids and some of the different things Mrs. G has implemented to make it easier to transition from activity to activity and then another part of that is me. I do feel like I'm getting the hang of it and I'm finding my niche. I'll never be the disciplinarian type and that's fine. I think I have my own subtle ways of dealing with management issues in the classroom. Of course I still have a ton of stuff to learn. I have yet to really handle a situation well in which I'm engaged in a power struggle with a student. I experienced that last week in a more subtle way. There is one student in the modified class who drives me up a wall. I've worked with her before, a part of me really feels for her and than the other part of me, the part that sees her make fun of someone in class or blatantly talk while I'm talking, absolutely can't stand her. I know that seems harsh, and in truth that's not how I feel. I'm jut frustrated because naturally I'd like everyone to leave my classroom knowing what respect is and how to show it to those around you including yourself. I just haven't exactly found a way to get that concept across to every student in the classroom although most of them exhibit that anyway. I know a part of it is that it's junior high and a lot of time teens are so self involved they aren't necessarily seeing themselves as being disrespectful but rather just as having fun, etc. It will be something I have to work on over time, especially with her. I will try and be patient. But something will have to give sooner or later.
Our house is great. I don't know how much it's really sunk in yet. I think I really felt it last night after my meeting at BSU. I was tired and driving back from Boise. I almost turned up the street to go to our old apartment and it hit me, "Wow! I'm finally back in Meridian." Seeing pictures of Ken's family birthday party on Sharlee's myspace made it sink in more as well. It was neat to see us on our back porch or Sharlee and Ken in the dining room because that's our dining room now and we own it! It will be the same dining room we have Thanksgiving in and the same house we have babies in:) It's an exciting thought. We still have a tremendous amount of unpacking to do. I haven't even touched the office yet, although I feel like I should soon, so that I can be a bit more organized when it comes to school and lesson planning.
Anyway, I think I'm done writing for now. I am going to relax on the couch and read guilt free:)