My home away from home...

Well, I thought it was about time to share pictures of the place where I spend more of my time that at my house...you guessed it, SCHOOL!  Since most of you will never get to come and see my classroom, I thought that I would share it with you via the blog. 

I have a wonderfully cozy room-where I can control my own heat and air...I am VERY lucky!  For those of you that do not know, I am an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher at an inner city school in Tennessee.  I LOVE working with the demographic and socioeconomic population that I do.  I feel like they are thankful and appreciative for all that I do.  It is truly encouraging when you see kiddos who don't even have food to eat every night, come to school with a smile on their faces.  It really puts things into perspective.  My bad days never top the ones that some of these children have daily. 

With that being said, I like my room to feel like a cozy home, not a cold, boring classroom.  I only use soft lighting-lots of lamps, which is proven to help inner city students feel at ease and more prone to learning. 

Here is a view from the door...

The view from the window to the other side...

 The desk area...

The window area by the desk...

The writing board...

The front of the room...

The view of the library...you better believe I have my UGA flag up!

And my behavior chart...ha!

I'm in the process of putting up my 'winter' themed door and flag...more pictures to come of that soon!  It's the little things, like decorating for the seasons and holidays that make all the stress, tests, scores, etc. a little more bearable.  Plus, my kiddos love when I break out all my snowmen!  Gotta keep it PC...I am the ESL teacher after all, I should be the most culturally aware and sensitive person in the school!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well, I must confess.  I put up our Christmas tree before Thanksgiving.  But before you judge me, allow me to explain myself.  Brad and I cooked our first Thanksgiving meal in our new house.  His whole family came down to partake and overindulge in all of the food.  The tradition I grew up with was that we always put up our tree after we ate on Thanksgiving day, but with that many people in my house, I decided it would just be easier to do it ahead of time.  I was definitely right!

Another issue about decorating for Christmas in our house-one that always brings conflict into our marriage-is the color of lights on our Christmas tree and decorations.  I grew up with WHITE lights on our tree.  I like WHITE lights.  I think they are classy and oh so pretty.  Well, the hubbs-for some reason unknown to me-LOVES colored lights.  Hence where the problem starts.  For the last 2 years he has won the battle, and he will probably continue to win this battle due to the fact that we got an amazing pre-lit, skinny tree for next to nothing after Christmas a few years ago.  It is 9ft, but with the tree stand and all it is easily over 10ft.  It does look great in our living room, and I guess I just have to embrace it.  I mean, who doesn't love a tree that easy, that looks that good, that was almost free?

So, I added ribbon to the tree and some glittery berries to make it look a tad more "Dolly"!

And the garland with ribbon...no lights because apparently this builder decided plugs in the hallway were unnecessary...LAME

More pictures to come as I continue to decorate...happy decorating!

Picture Wall

With the holidays looming, I have been on a warpath to try and get some things done in the house before everybody comes in town-yes, we are having Thanksgiving at our house this year.

I talked about having a picture wall on one of my first posts on this blog.  It is something that I have seen in countless magazines and other blogs, and I just absolutely L.O.V.E. the idea.  It is a great way to show off pictures and other things that you might have around that need a special place to hang.  So, with this in mind, I bought some frames from Goodwill back in the summer.  Here was the picture from then:

I thought this was the way that is would look in the house, but that was back when we thought we were buying our first first house instead of our second first house, which we live in now.  Anywho, so with renewed strength and inspiration, I started on the picture wall again.

The frames were gold and not so pretty looking when I started, so I just spray painted them all the same color.  Not all the frames were the same when I bought them-which I was ok with-so using the same color finish for all the frames is a nice way to bring the wall together.

This was when I was spraying all the frames.  As you can tell, the top ones are the original gold, and the bottoms are after a coat of spray paint.

 

Here are the frames after they have all been spray painted and are ready to be filled with pictures. Most of these pictures had mats in them, and I was worried that they might be an irregular sized mat.  BUT I went to Michael's and they had the exact sizes that I needed for the frames.  For $20 I got all new mats for the frames to give it a unified look.

After the frames were filled, or at least prepped-I still do not have all the pictures made that need to go into the frames-I placed them out on the floor to give me an idea of how they would look on the wall.  Eeeek!

 Here are some pictures of the frames so you can see what is inside.  I didn't put pictures in all of them.  I thought it was much cooler and meaningful to put some other things from our wedding in them.

Here is the key to our 1st house.

 

This is a napkin from our wedding.

This is a speech from one of the groomsmen at our wedding.

So after I did all this, I put them on the wall.  I started off like this....

And it ended like this...

So...what do you think?

Don't mind the sunflower picture in the middle.  I'm waiting on our wedding pictures to be developed! ha!  And I'm thinking of finding a B & R to maybe go on the wall somewhere. 

A year of wedded bliss

On November 6, Brad and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary!  I think it is absolutely C.R.A.Z.Y. that we have been married for a year and 10 days...but who's counting?!?  Everybody assured us that after the wedding, "things would slow down," but that has yet to happen.  The last year has flown by, and I find myself sounding like my grandmother thinking, "time sure does fly."  I used to make fun of those parents who gushed about their babies being all grown up-placing emphasis on how quickly they grow up and time goes on, but now I get it.  We have done a lot over the past year: watched some of our best friends get married, gone on COUNTLESS road trips, had amazing friends come visit, and most importantly bought our 1st house! 

We've learned a lot-I need to stop being so damn anal about EVERYTHING-he needs to learn to actually get his clothes in the hamper, not just aim for it-but all these things have made it one great year.  To those couples out there that say they never fight, bicker, argue, or disagree-you lie-and are missing out on one of the best parts of marriage.  It's these moments that make you thankful and make you grateful for the person you married.  Lord, if Brad did everything exactly how I wanted it, then he would be my girlfriend, not my husband.  We help balance each other, and the times when you want to physically harm the other one (said with <3), are the times when you learn the most:  patience, compassion, kindness.  So, cheers to the past year, and cheers for those yet to come!

I love you BHD!

Long Overdue

Well, we have been in our house for over a month now, and we absolutely LOVE it.  Like Love with all capital letters, hearts, rainbows, and all that jazz.  Our neighborhood is wonderful.  We no longer live in the ghetto, have to worry about another thug breaking into our house, and Blu (no I didn't spell that incorrectly, let's just be glad the hubs isn't a teacher...just sayin') actually has a yard where she can play and lounge in the sun!

I know I am a SUPER slacker because I haven't updated the blog with pictures of the house or anything, but we have just been oh so busy.  It seems like we haven't had a chill weekend since we moved.  When we closed on the house-it was a Thursday-and we had company coming the following weekend.  So we had a week to get moved, unpacked, decorated, and settled.  Being OCD I had a plan of attack from the beginning.  Mom came in town and things were done, like promised, by Friday when Indy Lindy & Dave arrived.  I know, I'm just that good.  Aside from the sheer exhaustion that came along with that, it was wonderful to have everything done...or at least unpacked and functional. 

Since then, we have been tackling small jobs around the house.  Adding things here, doing things there, and this weekend was no different.  Mom and Dad came to town to help us with a few jobs around the house that needed just a tad more expertise than Brad and I could offer.  Our conversations normally go something like this...

Brad: "does that look level?"
Me:  "yeah, that looks level-put a nail in the wall."

So, Brad and Dad had a long honey-do list.  The list included:
1. Turn Brad's closet in the mancave into an office (obviously this was the MOST important project of the weekend, thus the #1 ranking)
2. Put the closet doors on in the master bedroom (yeah, we have been living sans closet doors for a month and a half.  The previous owner didn't have them up because she had curtains on tension rods...and a task that we thought would be quick and easy, since the doors were already there, turned into a $150 2 hour project.)
3. Fix the dining room light that mysteriously stopped working after Brad tried to shorten the chain...
4. Put up blinds in the master bedroom
5. Fix the toilet in the guest bath upstairs
6. Fix the outside light that WOULD NOT TURN OFF
7. Fix attic light switch

Whew...that is a long list, and I am proud to say that Brad and Dad successfully finished every single item on the list, with the help from their two lovely assistants and better halves.  :)

Sooo...the mancave transformation was the biggest and best of the weekend.  Since I am such an AMAZING wife, I gave in and let Brad turn the smaller of the 2 guest rooms into a mancave.  It isn't like we have lines of guests trying to stay at our house, so Brad continually pointed out that 1 guest room would be plenty.  He won only with the stipulation that once we decide to have kiddos (this is not an announcement saying we are ready...don't get crazy) he will forever lose the mancave to a cute nursery. 

Being that the room is tight on space, with the inspiration from mom, I pitched the idea of turning the closet into an office area, allowing more space in the room.  After much doubt from my wonderful husband he gave in and said the 'trusted' my idea...I mean I am ALWAYS right.  So, this weekend the process began.  There were already existing shelves in the closet on one side, along with a white wiring shelf to hang clothes.  Out came the white hanger and in went the custom shelves made by Brad and Dad. 

Brad and Dad measured, cut, and installed everything before it was painted or stained so we could see how it was going to work.  After the 'ok' from the boss...aka me, off to Lowes mom and I went to pick out a color for the closet.  We really wanted the closet to stand out instead of just fade into the room, so we decided to give it a punch of color...a maroonish red.  After we painted and painted...it took 3 coats, the shelves were installed, baskets were bought, lamps and accessories added, and we had ourselves an office space!

Here is one picture...

I'll take some more tonight and add some of the process too. 

Lots more pictures to come very soon...definitely before Thanksgiving.  All I have to do is make some pillows and we're home free for a long while on home repairs and updates....at least until our 'Kitchen fund' is large enough for a glass back splash and new counters! :)