A bit of an update

I know things have been a little quite on the blog end here, sorry. I've decided that some of the most recent things should be kept off the internet. Well then there was a bit that I was without internet. Regardless, here is the update you've been waiting for. Well I am currently unemployed. Things didn't work out at my last school and honestly, there isn't a lot of love lost there. You come across people in life who just don't like you. So I've been applying for jobs. My intention is to stay in Anchorage since I have a house. I've been plotting my next steps and looking for work. My unemployment is messed up at the moment so I'm not collecting that so suffice it to say, money is really tight. But I'll make it, I always do. My parents came up to visit for over a week back in June. We went and did some cool stuff. My dad decided to wipe out on my bike and fracture part of his arm (that they can't cast). So that really cut down on our outdoor plans that we had made. No fishing or bike riding for him. We did get to take the train and my parents enjoyed that. My dad and I did part of the planet walk. My parents slept out in a tent in my backyard cause my house is quite full. I currently have 5 people living in my house, but more on that in a bit. Overall it was a nice visit. About 4 days after my parents left, Bryan's family came in to town. Some of them for just one night and some of them for 3 nights. I can honestly say that 10 people in my 3 bedroom house is way too many. *Quick side note. Currently there are 5 people in my house. It's me and Bryan, our roommate Carol, and the twins Maz and Seth. The twins are only here for the summer. Carol is possibly moving at the end of this month. So by the end of August it will just be Bryan and me again (I think, but I really don't know). So with Bryan's family in town it was multiple trips to the airport and driving the guys out to scout camp in Palmer. It also meant retrieving them and more trips to the airport. All I can say is that there really needed to be better communication. Next week my good friend Tasha is coming up from Wrangell to go car shopping. She is going to come stay with us. :) Well now that I have some of that caught up, I can tell you about my road trip that Bryan and I took at the end of May/beginning of June. I guess I should start at the beginning. Bryan works at UPS and our facility is out at the airport. When he went to go get his badging stuff done, customs told him there was a flag on his background check and he needed to get it taken care of. Well surprise, that flag was a 5 year old warrant from Utah, that we didn't know about. So Bryan flew down to Utah in April to turn himself in and get it taken care of. Well after they moved his court date, to a month after it was supposed to be. I bailed him out and we made plans to go back down on his court date. So towards the end of May we flew down to Denver to go visit with his sisters for a couple of days. Then we drove in our rental car (that I disliked) to Salt Lake to wait for court. Originally he was supposed to be in court on his birthday but since he wasn't sitting in the jail they moved it to the day after. We wandered around Salt Lake on his birthday and drove down to Provo to have lunch with a friend. On May 31st we went to court. We sat there for better than an hour before the public defender said anything to us. She explained that she had just gotten his file and needed to look over it. She also said that she suggested we get the court date moved for a couple weeks later. We explained that we had flown down from Alaska for this and she said she'd see what we could do that day. It was probably about another hour before she came to see us again. Bryan went out in the hall to discuss everything with her. He explained the whole situation about how there hadn't been any charges filed while he was still in the state (cause in Utah they have 4 years to file charges) and that he had notified that court that he was leaving for Alaska and that he was never notified of the charges or the warrant. So they came back in and the public defender got some more information and talked to the district attorney. While they were talking, Bryan and I were talking and he mentioned that since they didn't do their job that it the public defender thought it would be best to fight the charges. Well after some time and the lawyers talking it was finally Bryan's turn to stand in front of the judge. (While they lawyers had been talking and looking over a previous transcript the word dismissal had gotten tossed around). Well Bryan stood before the judge and the district attorney recommended that the charges get dismissed. The public defender stated the why dismissal was appropriate. The judge dismissed all the charges. It was a better outcome than what we could've expected. We got all the paperwork while we were there and got back on the road. Of course there were multiple texts and phone calls made to let everyone know the good news. We drove down to Parowan to see our friend Cara. We spent the night down there and had a great time hanging out with her family. We then drove to Hoover Dam and then back to Las Vegas, where we stayed at the Stratosphere. All I can say is that I am not a fan of 115 degrees. We had a good time. Next we drove to the Grand Canyon. After about a day there we drove back to Colorado so that we could be there for Bryan's cousin's wedding. It was a nice wedding. Finally Tuesday June 5th we left Denver and got home Wednesday the 6th. My parents came in on the 10th so there wasn't a lot of downtime. It seems to be just a busy, busy summer right now but it's kinda mellowed out. Thankfully Bryan still has his job and things have started to return to normal. Hopefully I will find a job soon. Till then it's more applications and spending time outside walking and hiking. Bryan and I went hiking on the 4th and I think I strained the muscles in my calves. I'm sore but I still get out and go walking with the boys. Till next time. Happy summer and stay cool.

Sitting on the sky bridge at the Grand Canyon

A lot going on

Well I can't say it hasn't been an eventful month. (and it isn't over yet). It's a busy time in the life of a music teacher. I have 3 more concerts left, I've already had one this month. I have one tomorrow, one on the 26th, and one on May 3rd. Not to mention that I need to be at the orchestra and choir concert to help supervise students. That makes 5 concerts I have to attend, 2 have to conduct.
I have other stuff going on too but that's not really for on here. Don't worry, I'm doing alright.
Well the snow is rapidly melting. I can't believe that so much of it is gone. We have considerably less than we did. IF you didn't hear we broke the all time snow record for Anchorage. I wish it had been by more but I'll take it. Lately the temperature has been about 50 degrees and it's been sunny. Not a bad April.

I'll write more later. Have an awesome weekend blog readers.

In a better mood

Sometimes we all wish we could be in a better mood. Things just get us down. It's really a rather awful place to be when it feels like everything is putting a damper on your happiness. Well it has definitely felt that way for the last several months. It's not an all the time feeling but there is definitely more stress than I'd like.
As far as my job is concerned, I'm trying to decide what I want to next year. Bryan and I have talked about what it would look like if I didn't teach and I worked on my masters and did some other kind of work. It's not that I'd never teach again but I'm just not happy teaching right now and it's been for as long as I've been at my current school. I'm not sure transferring schools would make the feeling go away. I'm thinking if I get my masters and then go back to teaching it would give me 2 years to make that kind of decision. Bryan is finally working again and we are both so happy about that. It's been a tight couple of months and it's going to continue to be that way until he is either full time or finds another part time job. So honestly this isn't the best time for me to be thinking about stopping teaching at the end of the school year. I always told myself that I would stop when I didn't enjoy it anymore and honestly I don't enjoy it right now. There are lots of moments when I do but there are still too many moments that I don't. It's bad when you lay in bed in the morning and contemplate calling in sick cause you just don't want to deal with it but you go because you don't want to subject anyone else to it. I still love music and I still want to teach it but I need a break. Like I've said in previous posts, I'd never received a bad evaluation until I came to this school and that is part of my mindset for not teaching next year. It's far more complicated than I'd write here and if you really want to know email me or call me, neither of those contacts have changed in a really long time.
I'm sitting in Juneau right now hoping that today at the settlement hearing some resolution with come rather going to court.
It's been nice to be in Juneau for the weekend. I've gotten to see some friends and just have been able to relax a little bit, which it feels like it's been forever since I just relaxed. It's been pretty refreshing, of course I wish it could last longer but spring break is right around the corner and I'll be able to do some of that then.
Bryan and I bought some flooring on sale on black friday and are looking forward to putting that in over spring break (which starts friday afternoon).
I finally got some water frogs for my fish tank, they are amusing to watch. I painted my living room and I'll have to post pictures of that. My kitchen project has been finished for several months but I have failed to get pictures up of that too so I will work on that.
Overall life really is good. I'm grateful for the people in it and all the good things. Honestly I'm kinda grateful for the not so good things to cause they really make me appreciate the good things.
Oh and if you haven't heard, Anchorage has had a ton of snow. And it's supposed to snow more. I'm still not tired of the snow. We've gotten like 120 inches of snow this winter and winter isn't over with yet. Bryan texted me yesterday to tell me that the shovel broke but like most good craftsman things it has a lifetime warranty on it so he exchanged it for a new one. He has scraped down the driveway and the picture he sent me looked really impressive. It absolutely amazed me that he would do that. It's supposed to snow another 3-5 inches today. We are on our way to breaking the record for the snowiest winter in Anchorage. The current record is at 132.8 inches. We'll see what happens.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day and I'm going to get going on mine.

Merry Christmas

I haven't felt very festive this year. Maybe it's because I didn't go to tuba christmas. Maybe cause I didn't put up a tree. Maybe it's because there has been a lot of stuff that has happened in the last couple weeks that has made me stressed out. I'm voting on the latter. I know Christmas means more than just a tree, stockings, gifts, etc., it's a time for remembering the birth of Christ and being thankful. (And I'm trying to be thankful). It's just been a rough couple of weeks.
To start things off my job is giving me fits. I've made it through half the year and part of me wants to stop teaching. The kids are great (for the most part) but there are other things that are making it difficult. To the point of either I'm teaching at another school or I'm not teaching next year. There were a few days I was angry about all of this and then I talked to the union and talked to Bryan and just decided that they were winning if I was angry.
The next little fun surprise was that Bryan became unemployed. I'm still trying not to be angry about this one. I realize that it's not my job but I don't think he was treated fairly. That's the part that angers me. Hello people grow up and be adults.
And finally, it looks like we will be going to court. So I have to take time off (unpaid) from work. Ugh. Oh well.
Enough with the bad things.
We had a very snowy November and then December has been kinda bipolar. We have had "warm" windy weather (like 80mph wind gusts) that has melted snow and caused ice. Then we've had a good bit of snow. Monday the 12th school was closed for a snow day. We just got like 9 inches of snow in a 6 hour period and no one was ready for it. Thankfully all the big snow this week has been while winter break has happened. Thursday it snowed all day and we got about 5-6 inches and then it really snowed that night and we got an additional 12 inches. That was fun to shovel. Thankfully the neighbor across the street came and helped out with his snow blower. It was particularly nice since the plows left a huge berm at the end of my driveway. *Random side note: The plows are never here right after if snows, we usually have to wait a couple days for them to do our street. It was a big surprise for them to be out right after it snowed.* Well last night it started snowing again and we have probably about 4 or so inches of additional snow. At some point today I'll get out and shovel the driveway since I have to go to the airport tonight. I'm flying to Illinois to see my family for a few days. One last snow comment. We have shoveled so much snow that we have a snow pile in between our driveway and the neighbors that it's taller than I am (by quite a bit).
This week has been a lot of cleaning and organizing. My friend Carol moved into the 3rd bedroom about a month ago so almost everything in there got moved into the living room so that it could be sorted and have the appropriate thing done with it whether labeled and stored or thrown away. It has been a slow process and it's not quite done yet. I've also reorganized my room.
Bryan has cleaned the kitchen and his room and has been very helpful with all the other projects. Although it's a struggle to have him unemployed, I have really enjoyed the time I've gotten to spend with him. When he was working 60+ hours in the week and I only saw him a couple hours on the weekends, it made it really difficult to be happy with our relationship. My frustration was mostly with his work. Although I never have felt that they treated him the best there. It's been nice to talk and sit on the couch and watch a movie or cook together. Heck it's been fun to shovel the driveway together. This whole thing has really made me appreciate him and our relationship a lot more. I know that it will be rough for us financially for a little while but we'll make it. He's been looking for work and working on finding money to go to school and finish his IT program.
On this past Wednesday, a new teacher at school (Kevin) and I drove down to Portage so he could see some glaciers and on the way back there was a Dall sheep about 10 feet from the side of the road. As we continued down the road there was at least half a dozen more viewable (not all that close to the road but a lot closer than usual). He came over for dinner too and I made indian tacos. They were tasty, as they always are. Of course I'm kinda a fan of fry bread.
Speaking of food, I'm making prime rib for today and it smells so good right now. Well I guess I better be productive.

Midterms

I can't believe school has been in session for a little over a month. Things are going so well. I have 104 beginning band students. It's not 104 of them at one time. I have it broken down into 3 classes, 49, 14, and 43. It's not too bad. I'm also taking a class in Love and Logic. It makes for really long days. I've also added community band to the list. I'm also attending a training at the end of the month for a week that is an all day thing (with 3 hours of class afterward).
The kids are sounding good. I'm enjoying this year a lot more than last year but there are times things are still rough. It's getting better.
The kitchen still isn't finished. It's a sore subject at my house. Oh well. I'll get it done. I can't believe I've been in my house almost a year. It's crazy how time flies.

This is the weekend that I get to drive back on the road into Denali. I'm pretty excited. It should be awesome. I'll probably take a ton of pictures. I'm still not totally ready but it won't take me long to get everything in order.

Well, life goes on and that's the way I know it.

It's that time again

Even though I've been back at work since last Wednesday, the kids come back on Tuesday. It's going to be a busy week. As usual inservice with the music teachers was awesome. It's great to see everyone, even though I don't really know many of them. One more day of inservice and then students. I'm kinda excited. We'll see how it all goes. I need to finish some copying and some planning but otherwise I feel pretty good.
In other news the kitchen is still in about same state as it has been for a week. All my staining last weekend made me really sore. My low back bothered me for several day. I guess 6 hours of staining isn't the best thing for your back. I still have 14 doors to stain and I'll get to them. The flooring is about half done. I'll be glad when this project is done. I think I'm going to paint the hallways a light seafoam greenish color. I'm thinking of a yellow for the living room wall. We'll see though.
I really need to do some cleaning and I know life is going to start getting busier. Well I better get on to doing something productive.