Enjoying My Summer

Linda & I after the musical :)

This is the first summer that I haven't worked since I was sixteen, and I'm loving it! I love that I'm able to create my own schedule (even though I'm pretty good about sticking to the one I posted about) each day and really do whatever I want. For example, I was gone from Wednesday-Sunday seeing friends and hanging out. Tim's aunt Linda & I went to see The Book of Mormon musical in Chicago on Wednesday night - hilarious! Then on Thursday we stopped by the sidewalk sale at the teacher's store to pick up some things for my classroom. Thursday evening I was able to hang out with my great friend Jessie and her fiance Jeremy (who has CF), who we met in college and Jessie was one of my bridesmaids. On Friday, I was able to see another one of my bridesmaids and great friends since middle school, Amanda! Her and her fiance just closed on their first house last week so I helped them remove some wall paper and help prep their home for lots of painting. Finally I finished up the weekend Saturday with my maid of honor, Catie's bachelorette party! :-)
It was so much fun to be able to see all of my awesome friends and spend some time with each of them! That's the hard part about living at least three hours away and the fact that we're all teachers.

This coming weekend is also going to be filled with fun and family. We're heading up to stay at Tim's grandma's house with his sister and her two little boys, and Linda & Roger, Thursday through Sunday! I'm so excited to be able to spend more time with our nephews this summer.

Then next week I have my next CF clinic appointment, where I should be able to try out the TOBI podhaler for the first time. And the week after that I'll be gone for another long weekend with my friend Karissa, at Country Thunder! Then...if all goes according to plan, the following week (the last week in July) we should be closing on our house and moving!

Looks like this month is going to fly by! I cannot believe that pretty much as soon as we close on our house, I'll have to get back into "school-mode" because I'll have to go move my classroom down the hall and start setting up for first grade! I cannot believe there's really only about 6 weeks left of my summer break...which sounds like a lot, but with how busy we'll be, I know it's going to be over before I know it.

Oh, and to follow up from my previous post, I finished the first Walking Dead compendium (issues 1-48) in about three or four days. It was awesome! Totally different from the show, but still wonderful! I'd recommend it to anyone...not children though, it's pretty graphic and raunchy at times. Now I'm on to Compendium Two (issues 49-96) which I started last week Wednesday when I got it from Linda. I had been reading it all weekend while doing my treatments and I have one more chapter to go which I'll easily finish today. Anyone know when the third one is coming out?! I think I have a problem...

Positive Thoughts Tuesday: Updates

 Switching it up a bit and doing my Positive Thoughts Thursday Tuesday, today. Thankfully, things are finally, slowly, starting to look up for us!

*A few weeks ago I posted about all of our house drama which is also starting to come together. We actually submitted an offer on a major fixer-upper a couple days after that last post, on a Wednesday, I believe. We offered low because it needed a ton of work and before the listing agent even presented it to her client, she told our realtor that she thought it was too low of an offer and was acting really rude. Then the sellers told us they needed to talk to their attorney about the offer and they'd get back to us by the following Tuesday - this just turned me off. I didn't want to deal with annoying listing agents, more attorneys and delays all over again. We ended up looking at a foreclosure in the mean time that we really liked, so we withdrew our offer on the fixer-upper to submit an offer on the foreclosure Monday or Tuesday. Before we could even get our offer in on the foreclosure, it had sold. :( This meant that we were back at square one with no house, again.
So we decided to just keep looking, and we ended up looking at four houses in one night on Wednesday of last week. The last house we looked at Tim and I both really liked! It wasn't an estate, it wasn't a foreclosure, and it's not even really that much of a fixer-upper! :) We ended up looking at it one more time Thursday night and submitting our offer on Friday! We negotiated a couple times with the seller over the weekend and accepted their counter-offer on Saturday!!! Yesterday I went in to initial the papers, so we're officially under contract with a house and we're both very excited about it! Right now I'm in the process of setting up our home inspection and getting our loan approval process underway, again. :-) Let's hope this one works out this time!!

*Last weekend Tim and I drove down to TN to celebrate our nephew, Cole's third birthday and also to see his new brother, Liam who was born in the beginning of May. It was so fun to be able to hang out with Tim's sisters and their husbands and their kids for the weekend. We had a great time, but I cannot wait until they are living in Illinois so we can do this more often!

Aunt Colleen & Liam

Uncle Tim & Cole

Aunt Colleen pulling Cole & Isaac in the wagon

Baby Liam :)

Aunt Colleen & Cole reading "The Pout-Pout Fish"

Cousin love! :)

*After we got back from Tennessee, we pulled our offer on the fixer-upper, saw those other houses and put in our offer on our current home. Then we left for the weekend again. Tim and I ran our first 5K together on Saturday, along with several of my old co-workers from DeKalb. We did Brett's Run, which was my very first 5K last year. It rained the entire morning while we were waiting for the race to begin so we were soaked before we even started running. Once the race started, the rain died down, but it picked back up again as soon as we were finished.
I had not been training for this run as well as I did last year, so I wasn't too pleased with myself when I had to stop and walk a couple times along the route. But, I am very happy that I was still able to finish in 35:29.7. Tim, on the other hand, blew right past me as soon as we started and finished his first 5K with an awesome time of 26:53.3, that's an 8:40 mile pace! It was really fun being able to do this with Tim and several of our friends this time! I hope that I can keep in shape and that this is something we can do annually together.

Tim & I post-race, drenched!

Our whole team pre-race, nice and dry!

Yay, we survived the rain! :) 

*The other big news of the summer so far is my job placement for next year. Long story short, the district messed up their numbers thinking there would be enough students for three kindergarten classes next year, allowing me to stay as a kindergarten teacher...well it turns out there are not enough students for three classes, so back to the original plan of me moving up to first grade in the fall. I will not have all of my same students from my kindergarten class because we mixed up all of the students at the end of the year, but I'll have a few of the same. I'm very happy that I'm staying in the same building because if you didn't know already, I love my coworkers & job! I will be moving rooms this summer (going from room 15 to room 9 - movin' on up!) which I wasn't planning, but that's okay. It'll give me something to do on those days when I'm bored out of my mind. So this fall will kind of feel like my first year all over again with a new room and new curriculum, but the first grade team is great (one of them is my mentor) and I'm looking forward to working with them. :-) Better start thinking of a clever name to go with their quotes this year, can't call them 'kinder quotes' anymore!

*Even with all of this craziness that's been going on, I've really had a lot of time to relax over the past few weeks, especially during the day while Tim's at work. I've been doing pretty good about getting in an extra treatment during the day - probably about 1/2 the time I do. I just finished up a few weeks of TOBI which really helped clean my lungs out and I've been feeling really good. I had a great workout today - did a 10 minute standing ab video and then a 20 minute medicine ball video that Tim and I did a lot over the winter. I've got about six more weeks until my next CF clinic appointment, so I'm really trying to get my lungs in great shape and really trying to gain some weight. My goal is to cut back on the running and to increase weight training exercises like these workout videos to gain muscle weight.

I've been watching a lot of HGTV & Dr. Phil, doing some cleaning and laundry, but I'm planning on adding more reading this summer. First on my list is The Walking Dead graphic novel! We've been watching the show since it started and I've really enjoyed it. Tim's aunt Linda read this already and said it was totally different from the TV show, so I'm excited to read it. This is the first graphic novel I've ever read, so I'm curious to see how I like it.

I'm also going to see "The Book of Mormon" with Tim's aunt Linda next week, too, which is supposed to be really funny. Then I've got a bachelorette party, bridal shower, Country Thunder, (hopefully moving into our new house), and my best friend's wedding all before the new school year starts! I love having summers off! :-)

30 Days of Blogging: Day 25

Day 25 - Five of your favorite movies/books
Since I've already named several of my favorite movies here, I'm going to focus this one on my favorite books.

Robyn's Book is written by Robyn Miller who had CF and was born in 1964. This is an autobiography of her life and what it was like to live then with CF. It's pretty powerful and emotional, but I highly recommend it. Tim got me the book for Christmas several years ago, and I'm thinking I need to read it again because it's been awhile. I'm willing to lend it to anyone who'd like to to read it.

This is probably the best series I've ever read! The books are so well-written and so detailed! I cannot believe that one person could come up with all of this! I've read all of the books and I've seen all of the movies, and the books blow the movies out of the water! Highly recommend these books to anyone, any age.

The Guardian is written by Nicholas Sparks, but it's not his typical 'chick flick' style writing in this one, which is why it's my absolute favorite by him. It still has the love story in it, but it has an element of suspense which his other books don't have.

Something Borrowed is a total 'chick flick' book written by Emily Giffin. It was turned into a movie, which I never saw because it looked really cheesy. I really enjoy Giffin's writing style and I think I've read almost all of her books. Other books she's written include: Something Blue (sequel to Something Borrowed), Love the One You're With, and Heart of the Matter.

I know I'll probably get a lot of criticism for these, but I don't care. They're nothing compared to the movies, at all! I know they're definite chick books, and probably meant for 14 year old girls, but so what. I've read them all (twice) and I really enjoyed them. They're very easy reads but addicting. As far as the books go, I'm Team Edward. As far as the movies go, I'm Team Jacob...in case you were wondering! 

Right now I'm currently reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and I'm about 100 pages into it. After I finish the three books in the series, I'm planning on reading the Hunger Games Trilogy. Any other great books that I should read, please let me know - I'm going to need something to do this summer!

Books

I love reading! This definitely wasn't the case until I got to college. During high school, I felt "forced" to read, so it wasn't enjoyable. Throughout college, I finally started reading for pleasure, and I'm so glad I did. It's a wonderful stress reliever and I've become awesome at reading while doing my treatments (yes, I can read and shake in my vest at the same time!). Also during college, I gained a love for children's books and saw how important it is for children to have a love of reading, too. I have an enormous collection of children's books for either our future children or my future students...whichever comes first. Tim's gotten me several "banned books" for Christmases and birthdays that I learned about through my Children's Literature class, probably many books you've read or heard of (Lord of the Flies, James & The Giant Peach, Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Light In The Attic...there are many more out there)


A few years ago for Christmas Tim got me a book called "Robyn's Book." I had never heard of it before, so I was very curious as to why he got it for me. This is a book that Tim found online written by Robyn Miller, a woman with Cystic Fibrosis born in 1964. It gives many details on her childhood and adulthood. Of course, how she managed her CF was much different than the way I manage it-with all of the new medicine and treatment advancements-her thoughts about living with CF are very personal and insightful. It's a great read, especially to learn more about what it's like living day to day with this disease, especially over 40 years ago.

Another book I've read is called "A Little Love Story" by Roland Merullo. I learned of this book from a fellow CFer I met through a CF chat room. It's a cute little story (fiction) about a new relationship where the woman has CF. This book addresses some issues that come up in a new relationship if one person has CF and has a very interesting ending.

I've also read and own several other books about CF. But, of course, I don't just read books about Cystic Fibrosis. Yes, I'll admit, I've read the entire Twilight Series twice. :) I'm currently finishing up "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (4th one) and am hoping to read the entire series before the final movie comes out. In college, I think I read every Nicholas Sparks books, but "The Guardian" was by far my favorite one because it's not his typical style. I've recently read "Something Borrowed", "Something Blue", and "Love the One You're With" by Emily Giffin. I'm totally into the girly, lovey-dovey books, but don't mind expanding my comfort zone and reading anything recommended by a friend or family member. I really hope you take some time for yourself and read-you really can learn a lot. There really is something out there for everyone--get a library card and explore the library; it's cheaper than buying books! Plus, books are always better than the movies!