March Madness

So I have been thinking quite a bit the past few days about how ready I am for spring break. Most everyone, at this point, has had spring break because colleges do it much earlier. As for me, I still have a week and two days. Nonetheless, I am counting down each day until a few days off and getting to sleep late.

Today was a great day though. We got to go to church and luckily, it was the 5th Sunday and therefore had a big Sunday school meeting which iincluded the youth teaching our class. That meant a break for a week. Don't get me wrong, we have some absolutely precious children in our class. Completely adorable ones. But we also have some that are quite a challenge. Let's just say that if I hear the words, "Doo Doo Jesus" or "Poo Poo Jesus" one more time from a four year old, I am going to scream. I will say no more about that. Anyways, when we got home from church, I immediatly went to change into the thing I could find that was closest to the Oklahoma Sooner's color. What did I end up with? A Virginia Tech shirt. ha ha ha. Samuel came out wearing a Carolina blue shirt claiming that every team he pulls for ends up sucking. (Atlanta Braves, NC State, the Redskins) He proceeded to cheer for the Tar Heels in hopes of them losing. Didn't quite work out the way we had hoped.

After watching a little basketball, cleaning the bathroom, and doing some dishes, I sat down in our new recliner and took a little nap. Now normally my Sunday afternoon naps range from 2-3 hours. Since we had friends over for dinner tonight, it only lasted about 30. Kind of bummed. Anyways, that leads me to the latest buy we have made. Our recliner. We had a nasty, ugly chair that we had given to us in our living room. Every once in a while you would sit in it and get a nice big whiff of something that reminded me of rotten meat. I could only tell that it came from the little skirt around the bottom which seemed to have a few stains on it. Well after a bottle of Febreeze and dealing with it for a year and half, AND finding mouse terds all in it, we decided it was time to bid farewell. Hence the new recliner. It is the greatest chair I've ever sat in. I also love it because it was cheap... we found it at the BL. Big Lots! All in all, we are pretty excited about it. We figure when we build a house, it will be a great piece of furniture to go in Samuel's "man room."

Anyways, 7 days of school to go.... 7 days..... I can make it

Family

So this weekend, I will have to say was one of the best weekends that I have had in a long time. Not that my weekends spent in Raleigh with Jodi and Jason aren't fabulous, but this one was just perfect and the timing was better than I could have picked. My dad's birthday was last weekend but Samuel and I decided to go to the beach instead of go home. Kind of sad huh? Well I love my dad more than he knows and so we decided to go home this weekend instead. To make things even better, my brother was home for spring break because Virginia Tech had their this past week. So anyways, we left as soon as we could on Friday afternoon which ended up being about 4 on Friday afternoon. We made it home in great time, say around 5:45. When we got there, mom had dinner just about ready. There was this tradition that my mother did growing up where every St.Patricks day, she made corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots. It was like our little Irish meal and she made it every year. Along with this, we ALWAYS had Lucky Charms for breakfast on St.Patricks day. I guess I get all my little weird traditions and having to celebrate everything from my wonderful mother. Anyways, we got there and dinner was about 5 minutes from being done. I gave my dad his birthday card and present (a lighter for making my lots of fires in the fire place this weekend) and then we sat down for dinner. Dinner was fabulous followed by lots of exiting conversation :). After dinner, we all started cleaning up and of course had the ACC tournament going on the TV in the living room. Dad immediately started the fire and we all gathered in the living room. I don't remember the last time my family just sat around and talked. I mean when I go home, we always spend time together, but very few times does it include everyone. Normally dad is asleep or out in the yard, Paul may be downstairs with the dog or preoccupied with something on the computer, and Mom and I are in the kitchen yapping away while Samuel just watches TV or something. Anyways, we all sat down in the living room for a nice few hours of talking and catching up on life. Most of it consisted of drilling my brother about his personal life in terms of dating, school, and job searching. As for me and Samuel, the conversation quickly died as all we had to share was our newest kick for graduate school. I have to say that I absolutely enjoyed Friday night more than anything I have in a long time. Saturday was also full of spending time with my entire family. I guess I got lucky that it rained all weekend because my dad couldn't do any yard work. Saturday, I woke up about the time I do during the week but forced myself to lay there until around 8. At 8, I proceeded to go down stairs where my dad had just gotten in from feeding the sheep. We sat down on the back porch and talked for about an hour and half before everyone else got up. It is so great to be able to sit and talk to my dad like I did that morning. He just gave me some advice, listened to many stories, and shared some of his own. I have the most amazing father in the world and the older he gets, the more tender hearted he gets. I can't tell you how much I love that!! When everyone else got up, we decided nothing said fun like going to Wal Mart. So all 5 of us got in my Jeep (because I needed gas) and headed to Wal Mart. Of course, we all voted for a detour to the bakery downtown and got apple fritters and cupcakes!!! YUUMMMMYYYY!!! My very favorite cupcakes in the world! Saturday night, my friend Savanna came over for dinner and we just all sat and talked and played Cranium. Dad made it until about 9:45 and then had to go to bed. Savanna stayed until almost 12:30 and it was so great to just listen to her talk about her future and coming to grad school here. It sure is interesting how the Lord works things out. Saturday night was also another fabulous night. (And plus, mom let Copper stay in the livingroom with us all weekend!) Sunday, we decided, was a great day to just be together again. So much so that we bailed on the church scene. As terrible as it sounds, we just needed a break. Our schedule Sunday consisted of more conference championship games, Man vs.Wild, Final Desination 2, Planet Earth, and Saving Private Ryan. Needless to say, we got our share of TV time. Last night, we got back around 11:30 and went straight to bed. All day today all I could think about was how much this past weekend meant to me. Living away from my family makes me appreciate them so much more. I talk to them on a regular basis, but being with them is another story. I am sure many find this a boring thing to read, but I had to share. I had to say that I have the most amazing family in the world and I know without a doubt that Heavenly Father hand picked them for me! Well, looks like I am in for a little Rock Band tonight before One Tree Hill. Samuel is already jamming away to "Livin' on a Prayer." Better get going!

P.S. I will be eating Lucky Charms tomorrow. You should too!

So, it's been awhile!

Wow! I obviously am not very good at this blogging thing and have room to improve on how frequently my updates happen. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a continuous cycle of blogging. Anyways, as sad as it may sound, not much exciting has become of my life since the fall. Other times, I think I should count my blessing for life being clam and very easily predicted. The years of hell we went through recently were enough to last me the rest of my life, although I am sure they are just the beginning of much to come. So let's see... what has been new news in the Nussman house hold? I am finishing my very last two classes at State this semester and will finally graduate May 9th. Up until the past few months, I bragged of my "job security in education." Everyone knows that they will never cut back on teaching positions, especially in a state that pays next to nothing for it. Well, i guess I spoke too soon. Wake county has decided that they will have to cut positions next year due to the downward spiral of our economy. What does this mean for me? It means I am crossing my fingers that something works out. I was banking on a job at the school I am currently working at, but I have come to the realization that I have to take whatever I can get. I am applying to Johnston and Chatham county school systems to open up more possibilities. We will have to see what comes of it. In the mean time, I am enjoying the days I have with the precious first graders I work with. I can't begin to imagine my life sitting in a cubicle working on a computer and having very little interaction with people, especially 6 year olds. I miss kindergarten tremendously, but love these kids just as much as I ever loved my kids last year. For example, I came home very upset last Friday due to the following story:
Recently in our dining room at school, behavior has gotten completely intolerable. For this reason, the admin has asked that the TA's begin sending children straight to the office with referrals so we can begining improving behavior. One child in my class had a hold of my heart so bad it isn't even funny. He is extremely hyper and seems to be constantly gazing off into space. I had reminded him several times about sitting on his bottom and not screaming across the table. Finally, after the 3rd warning, I knew I had to send him to the office. I called him over, sat him down, and began filling out the paper. The tears began coming uncontrollably. He was swearing he would never do it again and that he promised if I just let him go sit back down that he'd "be good." I went through with the referral and sent him on his way as my heart felt like it was breaking. About an hour later when I got off duty, I returned to the classroom where I fully expected to see him sitting with all the other kids like nothing happened. Well, he wasn't there. Another half hour went by and he still wasn't there. All I wanted was for him to come back so I could hug on him and love on him and tell him how "sad it made my heart to do that but I had to because I had reminded him too many times." Tiffany then asked me to take the class to recess so I did. I stood outside waiting for him to return and he never did. Finally after 2 hours of being in the office and with 10 minutes left of recess, he walks out the door. I asked him to come over to me, gave him a huge hug, and told him the above speech. I asked him what happened in the office. His response? "I don't know. They told me not to sit with Nick anymore, not to scream, and then they made me sit in this chair and........ ummmm......... fuu... fulect... no flect...no frect... no.... I don't know! It's when you have to sit in this chair and think about what you did."

Needless to say, I wanted to eat him up! But the precious things that happen with these kids everyday make me so happy to be in education. Regardless of what my job is next year, I know I will be with children and that's all I care about.

I guess something that has become quite the exciting topic in our home is our plans after Samuel graduates next May. Before now, we just assumed we would stay in Raleigh for a while before we headed back to Davidson county to build a house. From there, I may teach a few more years before a masters as would he. The latest draft of our plans for the next years consist of us moving next summer for my to start a graduate program somewhere. That's right, somewhere. As of right now, the programs I am most interested in are UNCC, Wake Forest, NC State, UNCG, and as horrid and despicable as it is to even type with these fingers, UNC. I can't help it. Their masters in counselor education looks incredible. Obviously, we will see what happens, but those are the current thoughts floating around right now. The one thing about UNCC is that they offer a masters of spanish in translating and translation studies. Samuel seems to be quite drawn to that as an option for grad school. We shall see!

Well, I guess that is, in a nut shell, some of what has been going on here in the wonderful city of Raleigh. We love it here and I get incredibly sad thinking of the day we leave here. It truly holds some of the most wonderful memories of my life! Well, off to watch the Pack play in the ACC tourney.... Let's Go Pack!