So far so good

Hey hey!
It's me again. I am surviving a busy spring semester so far. I am taking my assignments and homework day by day and it's not going too bad. I also had my first day of practicum on the 27th and it went great! I was worried how things would be at the elementary level for me since I've been working in a high school for four years and didn't know if I'd be able to connect with the little ones as much as I do with the adolescents but I made some connections! The little kids loved me and they are all so accepting and friendly. They make you feel like you are the most important person in the world and it's just awesome. The guidance lessons are so bad either. That was the main thing stressing me out was guidance lessons because it involves classroom  management. I think I can be good at classroom management but I don't like to be controlling or mean in any way so the kids won't like me. Know what I mean? I hate the fact of not being liked. Especially when I'm trying to teach them an important social skill or something, but I think with little kids it won't be that bad. My first day I got a lot of direct hours and helped the school counselor with four guidance lessons and we were pretty much co-teaching the last lesson together. It was fun. All of our lessons had to do with tattling vs reporting and I loved the lessons she used. I just need to practice reacting to disrupting moments by the kids and do it in a kind sort of way....or should I? Oh well....this practicum is about learning so I'll make mistakes.

If school isn't stressful then it's wedding stuff. We recently had a little bit of a reception scare. The lady with whom we talked to and made arrangements with and signed the contract with at our reception place left at the end of October and we had no idea until about two weeks ago. Nice huh? I made an appt. to speak with the new lady in charge and she informed us that the other girl didn't write ANYTHING down about our reception details and lied to us about some things. I had a minor freak out.......but thankfully everything is taken care of right now. Everything got written down and we're good to go. Phew. If I run into the previous lady I'm going to give her a piece of my mind. Stupid.

Jared and I had our 2nd marriage counseling session today with my pastor and it went well. It's our last one which is just another check mark off of things to do before the wedding. We also made a deposit down for our honeymoon. Yeeeeeahhhhh buddy!!! Did I mention the picture below is the background on my computer and phone?

Oh, lovely St. Lucia. I can't wait to meet you. How can you help but not say, "Ahhhhhhhhhhh," when you see this picture? It's a daily reminder for me to relax and it helps me get my homework done because this place IS something to look forward to and I know that once ALL my homework is done for the semester I will be able to go there. Yippeee!! Can't wait. Now I just want my dress to come in......

Until next time. Time to keep truckin' on.

I. Can. Do. This.

Another blog update from me in less than a month? Crazy! But needed. Very needed. I am about to embark on a very tough spring and am nervous about it but with positive thinking, self-reflection, positive self-talk, and encouragement I know I can get through it. This spring I will continue to work full time at the high school as a paraeducator, will be taking 12 hours of class at night, start my practicum (one day a week for 12 weeks), and will continue to do more wedding planning. That is a lot. Plus Jared is still in the process of trying to find a job for when he is done with dental school so he's stressed out about that and I'm stressed out that I don't know where we'll be and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I'm getting a little side tracked as I write this because I'm watching The Bachelor. I usually don't watch it but the bachelor is an Iowa boy and I just have to watch it! It's ridiculous but entertaining to watch. I hope he finds a good girl for him who loves Iowa because lets face it...Iowa is awesome :) (although winter sucks sometimes) Anyway........so about this spring....which starts tomorrow because classes start up again....I don't want it to start at all. I will have class Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but two of the classes are hybrid classes (live class every other week with online modules the weeks we don't have live class) so that helps my situation. Working full time plus taking classes is tough with getting homework done and not having enough time to do anything but I've been handling it well so far. I didn't know if I would be able to work full time this spring with my practicum starting plus taking 12 hours because the last time I took 12 hours it was awful. I worked it out so I can more time to do homework at work so I'm looking forward to that. I hope having more time to do homework at work will keep me from going insane and homework won't take up my weekends as much.  I love the program I'm in and LOVE what I'm learning I just.....HATE....homework. It's just blah.

For my practicum I will be going to Hoover Elementary school in West Branch one day a week for 12 weeks.  Since I've been working in a high school for the past four years and know adolescents pretty well I wanted to try something different: going to an elementary school to see how I connect with the younger kids and I wanted the school to be a small rural school. I am interested to see how guidance lessons are run and how effective those lessons are at a younger level. I'm good with kids I'm just nervous and hope they will like me!! Guidance lessons freak me out but running small groups don't freak me out as much which is weird. I just want to be good right away but I know I will continue to learn as I go on and will figure out things as I start to practice in school settings. I just want to be a good school counselor and have students want to come to me to help them. I want to be effective as much as possible and have everyone in the school be comfortable with me as the school counselor, think that I do a good job, and trust me. Wherever I end up. I want to be competent and be able to back myself up.

And last..but not least...wedding planning will also be happening this spring. My dress and the bridesmaids dresses should be coming in sometime this spring, we are talking to the cake people in February, having another marriage counseling session (we had our first one this past weekend and it went well), getting the invites printed, assembling them, then sending the invites out in April, registering for gifts, booking our honeymoon, having my bridal shower, and possibly do some food testing for the reception. Don't get me wrong...I love doing all of this but sometimes....because of my OCD and the need to control everything...I feel like I'm doing it alone since I want things a certain way and it stresses me out. My mom offers to help quite often because I've pretty much done everything wedding wise up until now and she wants to feel like she's doing something so I might take her up on her offer this spring just so I don't get too stressed out. She's a pretty good mommy and will do anything to help me out :) Jared has been helpful too (don't want to leave him out) and he said he would help out whenever he needed to which is nice to hear. I sent out our Save the Dates about a week ago and it's been fun hearing and seeing people's reactions when they got it :) I will say one thing I can't wait for is our HONEYMOON!! We haven't booked it yet but we know where we want to go....St. Lucia!! We will be staying at a Sandals resort call Regency La Toc and it looks A-MA-ZA-ZING!! Here is a picture of our resort:

Ahhhh! I can't wait! Let's just say I will be needing a vacation after all of this wedding planning...Jared will need a vacay too :) Any time I feel stressed out during this spring I will just remind myself of our honeymoon and look at this picture. That should do the trick, right? ;) Haha we'll see!

Since today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day it is only fitting I find a quote from him to help with this situation. "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." Even though I don't know everything that is ahead of me this spring I have to take a leap of faith and do the best that I can.

Wish me luck as I take on this spring. Until next time!