Adventures of Downtown Houston

I wanted to post some pictures of my new place and adventure to Downtown Houston, TX! :-D

First I will share pictures of my apartment. We don't have any furniture for the most part. I brought only what I could fit in my parent's van they loaned me.

Our very empty living room. Complete with fireplace.

(Not that we need it in Texas...)

The dining room with our patio furniture table....

Our breakfast bar and view into the kitchen

The kitchen

Utility room

The pantry

That wall would be where I would put a TV if I had one.

Our bathroom.

My bedroom.

My closet is huge!

So that was my new apartment. I like it here, its is in a great location and is gated. I am close to just about everything! I share my apartment with my roommate Nabil. He is also here from Ball State for student teaching. He's a great roommate and friend!

Patty, her boyfriend UJ, and I went drove downtown Houston, Texas to explore the city! Here are some pictures of our trip:

This is the view from I-45 South into the city.

Miss Patty's driving us on our excursion.

ooooh, shiny!

I was intrigued when I saw how huge this building was!

It has a mini museum, too!

Old time police car

Trooper bike

The memorial wall.

Miss Patty and her friend UJ.

We rode the train through the city.

I'm excited to start school next week. It will be the time for me to see how much I have grown as an educator. More pictures to come, stay tuned!

Welcome to Texas

So, it has been one full week since I have lived in Spring, Texas. I have had the chance to meet some great new folks and scope out my surroundings. I like it thus far, even though it is incredibly hot I would have to admit that I don't hate it.
Well, my activities that I have done involve Teacher In-services and a whole lotta movie watching.

I have watched:
Serious Moonlight **
Kate and Leopold ***
The Blind Side *****
The Lovely Bones *** 1/2
Dear John *** 1/2 (the book is way better.)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ****
Valentines Day ** 1/2 (predictable)
When in Rome ** 1/2 (cute but also predictable)
Precious ***** (This will make you cry, but a must see)

I have given them a Star rating as well those with the most stars I highly recommend.

So, what are some movies that you think I should see?

I start teaching the 23rd of August at Rayford Intermediate in Humble (pronounced without the "H"), Texas. I will be teaching in a 6th grade Deaf Ed classroom and I am not sure how many students I will have in class. I also do not know if I will be using American Sign Language, Sign Exact English, or Pigeon (Which is ASL in English word order.) I have been thinking about a lot of ideas for my classroom and for my LAMP project. The LAMP project is a huge lesson plan that involves a lot of meat and potatoes with standards, assessment, and documentation.
I have been thinking a lot on what sorts of things that I think will be a good fit for my students as well as me. One idea I have thought about, keyword thought, is performing through the art of music. I want to give my students a chance to show that they can be musicians if they want to be. No, this is not because Mr. Holland's Opus, or any other movie you can tie to this. It is however steamed off of the success and inspiration that D-PAN has given to me and many others. Now I have to figure out the meat and potatoes...
1. How to tie this to Texas Standards
2. How to figure out assessment for this...
3. How to connect music...the physics of vibrations or speed of sound to my students.

Any ideas?

With that I am going to do some research.

Do you ever feel as if you have a billion things to do and don't know where to start? I am a to-do-list kind of gal and like to be able to scratch off the items as I get them done but for some reason I'm not getting there lately. I feel as if my brain will explode from everything that I keep cramming into it. I have no one to blame but myself for the condition in which I get myself into. . . I think that one of my goals should be putting my needs first before others. Which is hard for me to do since I am a people person but, the first step is my acknowledgment in the fact that I know that I have a problem.
So, Joey and I talked for a whole 5 mins tonight and I think that we will be in Muncie for at least 5 years before we will move. . . with the promotions and his career goals it will be about that time frame. I really don't know what I will be doing. . . teaching for the Deaf in this area seems to be quite out of reach. That was one of the reasons why I am working on my Plan B as an EMT...
But, it is annoying to me in the simple fact that I have spent a heck of a lot of money on this degree and will be working hard to pay it off for what? ? ? ...Nothing?
I know that in life we have paths that take us on journeys... in which we find new loves, passion, and meaning. . . and that is what I have gotten out of my journey here. I am on a new path of Public Safety/Service... I like the responsibility and rush. But as far as careers go- I don't have an insight in which I should be doing, so far the places in which I like to be the most I do not get paid.
**SIGH**
I like this new background. . . summer is a great season and I love the beach. Joey and I will be able to feel the sand in our toes in a few weeks. Our honeymoon will be in Orlando, FL!!! We'll be driving down there after the wedding on Saturday and just going hitting the open road with the destination being a condo in FL. We'll take our time and explore and just LIVE...which is what I am excited for. . . being with my husband and making memories.

It's about time!

So, I have not had the time to update my blog. Sorry to those who were following. Life is just crazy and busy lately.
I passed all of my classes, of course... ;-) ... and now I am ONE class away from Student Teaching...then graduation.

Wedding planning has been difficult with school, EMT class, volunteering, working two jobs and having a little time for a social life. The wedding countdown is less than a month away and we're close to having everything accomplished.

For our honeymoon we are going to drive to Orlando, Florida. We are very excited and hope that everything falls into place, mostly financially.

Well, I am exhausted. . . this morning we woke up to our next door neighbor's house on fire. We woke up to seeing lights outside and Joe said: "I think their house is on fire." By the time he made it out of the room I had my clothes on and was going to get on my shoes to help. I got outside after making sure my medical bag was accessible from my trunk I found the I.C. (incident commander) of the person in charge of the scene. I identified myself...(Hi, I live next door and I'm an EMT student for Gaston Volunteer Fire Dept.) I checked out the kids and the neighbor and I tried to make them as comfortable as possible. She has a daughter so she grabbed a pair of pants for one of the kiddos and two pairs of socks. After the house was secure and the Fire Department was packing up gear, the family came was ready to have family members to come and get them. I invited them to come into my home but I think they felt bad/embarrassed.

After the wakeup call this morning I think Joe and I are going to put another smoke detector in our home and test them to make sure that they work.

Have you checked your emergency supply kits, smoke detectors, and emergency plans with your family? This is the season for severe storms and we all need to have a GAME plan in place when something happens...
Its just like they say, it's not IF its WHEN.

Take care guys leave any questions you can think of and I will do my best to answer them.

UPDATE!!!

Today we did some kickin' awesome cleaning for Joe's get together at the house. Unfortunately, I found some mold in the bathroom and made the mistake of cleaning it up without wearing a mask and now I feel like I have a bunch of crap in my lungs. :(
I got the most amazing gift yesterday for helping my friends with their computer issues.
She made the snowman with a 5 gallon bucket that has stuffing around the outside of it. Then Felt, Lights, candy and spray on snow. Its BEAUTIFUL!! :D

We also have our Christmas tree up. It's table top size just because we have NO room in my house for a tree anymore with the sofa, cuddler recliner and love seat.

Well tonight Joe has friends coming over for the UFC fight on Pay-Per-View. I am excited to have company and glad that Joe finally is able to hang out with the guys.
We made cookie brownie bars, cheese and smoked sausage, chips and salsa!

Well, I am finished with my last week of classes and now I am going to study like mad for my Math final that is on Friday. The only bad part is that I work over 40 hours this week.

Did I mention that I have a job interview on Monday??
Thanks to Sarah Wood I am going to try and work at Meridian Services Part time to make some more money before the wedding. I am also going to start giving plasma as well to get some extra money. It has been some hard times lately. We have been living paycheck to paycheck this entire year. I am hoping that we can get more financially stable next year!
(Probably not anytime soon in this crappy economy.)

Time to go and cut the brownies and make my cute little food display for the guys. :D
Aren't I just the lil' Suzie Homemaker!?

Hello readers. It's been since Halloween since I have posted on my blog. It's about time to refresh and get a great new background to invite the holiday season into my life. I cannot believe that it is nearly time for finals!! I have just one more week of school before I take my one final exam two weeks from tomorrow...that means lots of time to study!! I am very thankful for that!
Over the past month of my non-blog-existence I have been busy with school, work, wedding planning and my family's visit here in Indiana. I'll talk more about their visit later. I do not want to over populate my blogs with the wedding topic.

So is everyone sick right know? I feel that just about everyone I know is feeling just as sick as I am...and with that its like we are living in the darkness. I cant tell you how exhausting it is to sleep and never feel refreshed... I need my warmer weather-stat!! I haven't been to the doctor just because I do not want to risk getting sicker just by having to wait the several hours it takes to get into see a doctor.

This is the first year for me that it really does not feel like the holiday season. I know if we had kids it would be fun, exciting, and more stressful...but really it is not at all that stressful right now. I am hoping that I can get to feeling better so that I can put in a lot of work time to get a reserve up for the wedding...

Speaking of which i am going to briefly discuss wedding plans as of right now. I have my dress. It's fantastic, I do not want to put up spoiler pictures, but I will tell you that when I walked out of the dressing room all who were by the mirrors gasped or clapped!! :D Which was AMAZING!!
The next thing that we finally gotten care of is the DATE and the RECEPTION hall.
We are getting married on June 11, 2010 in Schererville, Indiana. (YAY!)
As far as colors....and flowers.... not completely sure. I like the idea of Hydrangeas. Colors... are difficult right now. But, I'm sure it will fall into place.

The visit from my sister and mom was great! I had a good time with my mom and am sad that we do not get to do it very often. I miss going out and doing things with her, but it does not make me want to up and move to Georgia any time in the near future.

Alright now I am off to find a fantastic new background. Does anyone know how I can fix my posts so that my cute divider comes back??
Thanks!!

Hope you all are well.

zombie mode....zzzz

I am kinda going through this zombie mode right now, and not because it's Halloween or anything, but because I am not so good at sleeping other places than my own bed. Right now I am with Joe at his parent's house in the Northwest Indiana area. They live out in the middle of the country in a beautiful old farm house. But, since its windy its kind of creepy out and the old house makes lots of noise. Not so bad-- but I hear voices. In the dining room is a EMT radio that is always on... and I hear a series of tones then the voice of the dispatcher. Creepy.

So, I am working more with the Delaware County EMA now and have been put in charge of making them a super awesome website. I am working with a software called, "RapidWeaver". It's proving to me more trouble than I anticipated. I want to post some of the pictures that they had given me, but for some reason it keeps loading my entire iPhoto.... not soo good!!

Speaking of photos--- I have some to share! As you know I bought Joe's Wedding Band last week, and I've been very good at keeping it a secret! Well, I wanted to be cute and propose to him- so I did and he has been wearing it any chance that he gets! :D hehe
Well, we went to Minnetrista, in Muncie to take some pictures in the beautiful fall landscape.This is my Joe. He picked this spot, and I would have gotten a picture of me next to him, but my batteries died! :( sadness


It's great what you can do with a tripod!! :D
There are not too many pictures because the brand new batteries that I got failed me!!
We are going to try again as soon as the weather cooperates. :D


Well, I hope everyone has a fantastic and SAFE Halloween!!!