new week, new life

What a difference a week can make! Last weekend, I was unemployed. After a month of school district "hiring season" I hadn't been offered a job, and I was feeling incredibly sad and frustrated. Then came Monday, another interview, and an offer! I wrapped up the interview where I was offered the position around 3:30 on Monday, and reported for work as a public school speech-language pathologist at 8:00 am Tuesday! Definitely a quick turn around! I've been doing a lot of "blog-able" things, but since I went straight from interview to work (12 hour day my first day!), none of it has been blog'ed. The weekend before my interview, I finally got around to painting the bedroom like I had been wanting to do all summer. Definitely look for a post with pictures by the end of the week.


Since then, most of my creativity has been going into transforming the dingy little space at school that I call my office. As soon as the principal showed me to my office last Monday afternoon, I knew it needed some work! The first three day school week for employees was all meetings and work time, so I used my work time to start the transformation from cramped and boring to functional and inviting. The room is small, to be sure, but totally workable. I felt a little guilty devoting so much time to making things pretty when I have loads of other things to be doing, but just like I could never sit down in a messy room and write a paper or work on paperwork in grad school, I could not relax and think clearly enough to do the important job I have to do without getting things in order first. Unfortunately, after spending about 2 and a half days working on it, I didn't take any pictures. I have no idea what I was thinking! I do have some before pictures, so I'll leave you with those until I go back in tomorrow.

I'm loving it so far, and it's slowly starting to feel like my own space. Tomorrow is the first day of school for students, and I am so excited! Even though I'll still be taking some time to get my room together and beginning of the year paperwork things set before I see students, I'm really excited to help kiddos find their teachers tomorrow morning, and see the halls filled with kindergarten and first graders :-)
On Wednesday, I'll head over to another school, where I'll be seeing second and fifth grade students.

To help make the transition from unemployed recent grad to full time recent grad a little easier, I took time today to organize for the week ahead. My outfits for the next four days are all hung up, meals are planned, and much of the prep for each meal is done.

roast chicken for dinner (tonight) and lunches

pasta salad for lunches in progress

fresh picked berries freezing so they can be enjoyed all winter

Meatloaf "muffins" and potatoes ready to mash for dinner on Thursday

the meatloaf went into the freezer-won't even need to look up cooking directions!

I even packed up my lunches for the next two days-greek pasta salad over spinach

Feels so good to know something delicious is planned and started for each night this week! I'm also planning on having leftover soup from a batch I made and froze last week, and a celebration dinner out on Friday...when I get my first pay check!