Life Lately

The time has come to give a life update.

The last day of August we packed up all our stuff from our adorable first apartment and moved a few hours southward to the big city.  We had originally planned to move sometime in the first week of September, but the couple that was taking our place in the apartment needed to be out of their apartment the last day of the month, so we agreed to move up our move-out date.  We thought it would be do-able, but it ended up being pretty ridiculous, especially since we both finished up our last day of work the day before we moved.  Somehow we got it done and made it to the big city in one piece and with our marriage still intact.

For the most part we like our new apartment.  We used to live in the main floor of a house, and just our landlord (an elderly southern lady) lived below us in the basement, so we were a little spoiled with general quietness.  Our current apartment is in a pretty big complex and there are apartments above, below, and on two sides of us, so things are a little bit louder.  It's not too bad most of the time, but kind of awkward when we overhear other people yelling at each other.  Our apartment faces a little pond, which gives our windows a little more privacy (which is lucky--a lot of apartments you can see right in), and the pond happens to be the dwelling place of a bunch of ducks.  I'd have to guess there are at least twenty.  The ducks are kind of fun, but they never stop quacking.  Never!  I don't think they sleep.  Or maybe they take turns sleeping so someone can always be awake quacking.  I worried it would drive me crazy, but I've gotten used to it and hardly even notice it anymore.

While we lost a lot of the quaintness that made our old apartment so fun, our new apartment has some bonus features our old apartment lacked.  For one, a garbage disposal.  I don't use it very often because I've become so well trained to scrape every scrap of food into the garbage before putting it in the sink, but it's nice to have around anyway.  Secondly, we now have a dishwasher.  Greatest invention ever!  Our dishwasher was a little nastastic when we moved in--there was a delightful curry-esque film around the drain.  Gross.  There was no way I was putting my dishes in there.  Not that I have very nice dishes, but I happen to eat off my dishes and didn't want the curry monster to lick them.  Thanks to Pinterest, some vinegar, and baking soda, the dishwasher looks clean now.  Anyway, another bonus feature is that we have quite a bit more storage space, which makes things look far less cluttered than in our old apartment.

My husband didn't start his new job until Sept. 10th, so those first nine days of our new apartment were like a really bizarre, disorganized extended vacation.  Once he started his job it started to feel a lot more like home, but we're still getting used to it.  When we watch the news, they'll be talking about breaking news in our city, but it still doesn't occur to us that it's happening in our city.

My husband has an unusual work schedule called a 9-80. So in the space of two weeks he works 9 nine-hour days instead of the normal 10 eight-hour days. Thus, he gets every other Friday off, and the Fridays he does work he gets off an hour early (9x9=81, so that's why that extra hour gets cut off). Three-day weekends have become commonplace around here, which is awesome. Another weird thing about his schedule is that he works 6 am to 3:30 pm. It's super early for him to get up, but it's also nice having him home so early.

In other news, I got a job teaching preschool last week. After we moved I looked for social work jobs and found none that I felt excited to apply for, so I was beginning to get a little discouraged. But then I saw this job on a job board and it was smooth sailing from there. School started about a month ago, but one of the teachers had some family obligations come up and had to quit, so I was super lucky that this job even opened up.

A few years ago I ran into my preschool teacher and told her I was studying social work. She told me she'd graduated in social work, so now I weirdly feel like I've come full circle. I once was a preschooler taught by a social worker, and now I'm a social worker teaching preschool. Life is complete!

Anyway, this new job is crazy but so far it's fun. I co-teach one class of 22 three-year-olds and two classes of 23ish four-year-olds. It's definitely been trial by fire, seeing as school has been going on for a month without me, but I'm ok with figuring things out as I go. The other teachers have been super nice and patient with me.  I've been on the job for only a week, and I already have funny stories to tell.  However, I'm going to save them for a later post.