High Speed January

Well, so far this first month of the new year is flying by!
We had a great time in Gboro for MLK weekend celebrating Jack's birthday, and see my family as well.  Although I love our time in Gboro with everyone, slowly, our home in S.C. is becoming home.  We are sometimes eager to get back to our little routines.  It is nice to be happy in both places.
So far, our favorite Christmas present is Audrey and Charles' gift of the BluRay player and Netflix!  We love being able to watch our favorite movies and shows instantly!

Even though our week was short after MLK weekend, is was a busy one.  I had my monthly bookclub meeting, which I look forward to each month!  We keep attracting new amazing women, and keep reading great books!  This month we read The Lace Reader, and we also found out that The South Magazine is going to do a feature article on our bookclub.  Miki, our founder, had the great idea of starting an Adventure Book Club, where after every book the host picks an adventure that correlates with the book.  It has been a blast so far, and I look forward to every adventure!

This past week I had a day of professional development, which is pretty much a bunch of teachers that sit around and complain about everything.  My profession is so hard to stay positive in!  I hope I can stay optimistic for a few more years.  I also had a girls night with some of my amazing coworkers, and then Jason and I went on a date on Saturday night.  We searched and searched for some awesome Bluffton restaurants to visit, and of course ended up picking La Hacienda.  Will we every stray from chips, salsa, and margaritas??
We are looking forward to February as we are hosting a SuperBowl party!!  Also, I will be heading out of town for a while to chaperone our school's Model U.N. team.  We are competing at Georgia Southern University where we placed 2nd last year.  I am excited to see so many bright high school students debate about the world's pressing problems!
As always, come visit if you wish! We love you!

Rainy Days

Well it does not feel like Fall is creeping in yet in the Savannah-Hilton Head area, but I can tell the seasons are changing because it is raining more and it is getting darker earlier.  I can not wait for cooler weather!
This past weekend Jason and I tried to go to our home opener football game but it got stormed out :(  We did however meet up at the "Hurricane Bar" with another new teacher Heather and her husband for a few drinks at the marina on the island before heading over the Gene and Nancy's to stay for the night.  Saturday Jason and I spent the day at the beach on Hilton Head and we LOVED their public access, especially compared to Tybee Island in Savannah.  HH was less crowded and had much nicer facilities such as showers and bathrooms (and parking!).  For those of you who do not know much about HHI, it was only developed in the 1960's by a man who wanted to create a community that could exist with nature.  The original community was called Sea Pines and then neighborhoods spread from there.  Because of his original vision, HHI has very strict building codes.  There are no neon signs, billboards, or any bright paint colors.  As Gene says it takes an act of Congress to cut down a tree limb.  The entire island is very wooded with tons of birds, animals and bike paths (oh, and golf courses!).  You will be driving along and then--- "oops, I think I just passed the grocery store!"  You can not see anything from the roads because of the trees.  The beach itself was wide and had clean water but very few waves so it felt more like a lake than an ocean.  But it is a very nice beach with far fewer rescues like Tybee!

Classes are still going good this week and I am already approaching Thursday!  Today was picture day and of course I forgot, so I will be featured in the yearbook this year rocking a ponytail. SWEET.

I have my other bookclub this Friday and the featured book is called The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.  It is a memoir about a woman who grew up in poverty because her parents chose to roam from place to place in the west instead of providing for their children.  It is painful to still watch as the children adore their parents despite the wrongful things they do to them and the amazing ways they can survive and find food.  I have found the book so far and enjoyable to read because Walls simply tells the stories- she doesn't give emotional commentary.  It is also interesting to see the development between the siblings and how they will all turn into successful productive adults in big cities like New York while their parents are still homeless in the same city.  It really is a fascinating and heartbreaking story.  It has made me enter my classrooms with a little different attitude because I now wonder how many of my students feed themselves or live without basic amenities like AC, heat, or even indoor plumbing.  Worse than those lack of physical conditions, the children in the book also lacked emotional care, which I definitely see everyday.  Sometimes I wish people would just not have children when they can not be responsible enough to care for them. 

Anywho- almost another weekend!  We are collecting boxes for our next move to Jasper County, SC.  I guess we will have to get new driver licenses and I will have to rename the blog to the Smiths Take on the GA/SC State Line. Ha.

Cheesy Craft Night

Well tonight my Adventure Book Club got together for our adventure concerning the Pretty in Plaid Book we read last month.  See, each month someone picks a book and then after we discuss it, they have to design an adventure about the book that we do together.  Last month we read a book about Savannah so in September when it is cooler (ha.) we are going on a tour with the author of the book.  For this book, we had a hard time coming up with an adventure because the book was a memoir.  So the girl who chose it decided that we would have a girl's night with wine to make cheesy crafts because a favorite part of the book was the author's description of her Girl Scout Days making cheesy crafts like ornaments out of toliet paper rolls or coin purses and pot holders.  Who needs these things right?? Well, when you give a bunch of women a little wine and get them talking 90 miles and hour and then put a bunch of paint in front of them you just won't believe what they will create and how theraputic it all can really be.  We had a great time painting little figurines terribly (I made a lion for Jason- roarrr), and making homemade picture frames, and wine coasters out of felt, and even braiding those pieces of plastic into key chains (remember those??).  It was a night that Jen Lancaster (author) would have been proud of!  We told embarassing stories from middle and high school (yes, I told me one about the horses) and we talked about boys (men?) and our families, money, and life all while painting away.  Some of us even ended up painting the table cloth and ourselves.
Here are my Labor of Loves..........

Notice Rebecca's amazing treasures and our messy workspace.  And for the record, those pearls I'm wearing are only because we were supposed to dress up preppy like the book- they are not a new fashion statement I am trying to make.

HGTV and me

Ok, well I managed to get through my rough spot yesterday with some wine and an episode of SYTYCD.  For you amatures out there that would be "So you think you can dance!" (must say this with an Australian accent like host Cat Deeley).  That show always makes me cry at least once per episode- and I'm not even kidding.  Last night they did a piece on children trying to help their parents through an illness and it was danced to the Coldplay song "Fix You"- total weeper. Watch here:
So after some wine and hummus I was feeling much better about my life in general.
I exercised today which also usually helps my mood and then I tried desperately to organize our second bedroom which really is piled with plastic containers filled with our winter clothes and shoes, plus all of the desk essentials like hole punchers and staplers that we can not seem to part with.  At least now I can see the floor in there so visitors are free to come and use our fancy new air mattress! 
Now I am doing my usual afternoon routine of HGTV and blogging.  I can not get enough of HGTV.  I love watching other people shop for houses I can not afford and am obsessed with watching people rennovate rooms and outdoor spaces with budgets that are outrageous! (Even design on a dime is at least $1000.00).  However I can not stop watching!  My dream is to be on the show one day!  Me and Jason laugh about what they would say about our color scheme and design approach... we call it "Hand me down chic."  But hey, at least it is all functional!
Tonight is my first book club meeting to talk about Jen Lancaster's Pretty in Plaid (love love loved it).  I am excited to go but also nervous because it will be the first humans I will be talking with besides Jason and the Food Lion clerk in about 2 weeks.  Will they like me?  Will I get sloshed on one glass of wine and chatter like a blubbering idiot?  Maybe one of them can get me a job!
Well I am off to shower and pick out my new outfit for bookclub- such an exciting life I lead!