courtney rebecca

I got a new job! I am so excited to start managing the library of a non-profit health education organization in January. The opportunity was one that I just couldn't pass up; the job posting was basically ME on paper. While I'm very excited about this new opportunity, it is pretty sad to leave my two schools and all the people (and kids!) there. I spent my last week at work saying goodbye to everyone. It was a pretty miserable week honestly. I was so exhausted every night from the emotional toll that it took from telling so many people that I'm leaving. It will all be worth it though, because I'm very excited about my new opportunity. I really think it's going to fit my skills very well, and that I'll be very happy. I'm very hopeful that it will be a positive change for me.

I've been on a temporary contract at work for the last two years. But! The union just renegotiated the hiring process, and a lot of the temporary jobs are going to become permanent/continuing. What this means is that I have to reapply for my job. Again. But this should be the last time for this job! My job posted on Friday. The application is due a week from today. Then I will interview and know the results by Spring Break! (Which starts on March 23 here.) I feel super confident that there is no one better for this job than me. I appreciate your prayers that anxiety will stay away and that I can focus on the peace and faithfulness of God.

Jason made it through the phone interview and will be having an in-person interview on Tuesday or Wednesday next week. We're both really excited, and he's feeling positive about his chances. I'll let you guys know when we have a specific time! As always, prayers are much appreciated. This is an amazing opportunity for Jason.

Jason has a phone interview in the morning at 9 am Mountain time. For all you Texas folks, that's 10 am your time! We are praying hard and asking for another interview! Please pray for Jason to speak with wisdom and that the people talking to him in the phone interview to get to really know him for who he is. I'll post an update when we hear anything!

I don't think I had written about it yet, but Jason applied for a job recently. It would be a perfect job to bridge his ministry experience with his new career field. He's working on his masters in Instructional Design and Adult Learning. Well, he got through the first round (basically, turning in the application and getting a call) and the second round (he had to answer a few really in depth questions and email them in), so now he has an interview coming up! We aren't sure when it's going to be yet because it seems like the department is really busy, but it should be in the next two weeks. We're so excited and hopeful and very much appreciate prayers that he will get the job. I have been praying that they will see Jason with favor and that this will be Jason's opportunity to get experience outside of ministry. Thank you for your prayers during this time of waiting before the interview! When he finds out when it is, I'll post it on here.

Oh, bad blogger. I'm so terrible at blogging. Seriously. I know I'm going to wish I had been blogging though in the future, because I always have trouble remembering past events. I love going back to read my blog from when Jason and I first got married, and even the first year we lived here in Colorado. It's so much fun to see what I was thinking about. So I'll try again. I updated my last post with what we've finished around the house. Honestly, it's been slow going lately. Since we spent two full weeks painting the place and then spent a whole week moving in, we haven't really felt motivated to do anything else. Blerg. I did however, FINALLY pick out some fabric for our curtains downstairs! Unfortunately, it's only available at IKEA and ours doesn't carry it. It was at the Dallas IKEA though, and my lovely friend Liz offered to pick it up for me. Here are the two fabrics I picked out for our two giant windows (one of them is a sliding door) downs...

Hooray! I had my interview today, and I got my job back for next year! I will be the teacher librarian at Green Gables Elementary and Red Rocks Elementary. Praise the Lord!

Hallelujah! The call finally came today. My interview for my job plus half time at Red Rocks is this Friday at 2:30 Mountain time. So for you Texas folks, that's 3:30 pm! Pray pray pray that it goes great and they want me to stay for next year! I am hopeful and confident, but I value your prayers so much. Thank you! I'll post again the minute I know something!

I officially re-applied for my job tonight. Interview should be next week! Prayers appreciated!

I am so thankful for the opportunity to reapply for my job (+ half time at Red Rocks). I went up to Red Rocks Elementary today to talk to the librarian from this year and just get a feel for the school. Uhm, wow. First of all, their school has windows. So that's something we don't have at Green Gables. But the librarian there was so sweet and really seemed to be making an effort to leave her library in a good place for whoever is there next year. Hopefully me! I'm also thankful that many of my wonderful coworkers have been willing to write recommendation letters for me with very little notice. They have been so positive, and I'm so glad that we have a good relationship. I'm going to miss just being at Green Gables. I love my teachers. I'm also thankful that today is Thursday, which makes tomorrow Friday. I need another weekend! I am wiped out!

The first job I ever had was the summer after I turned 16. Up until this point, I had claimed that I didn't really like kids. This was pretty hilarious, considering I WAS a kid. Anyway, I got a job at the Cliff Nelson Recreation Center as a day camp counselor for the 5 & 6 year old group. At 16 years old, I was responsible for a group of FIFTEEN 5 & 6 year olds. Uh, yikes. When I think about that now, I have no idea why anyone thought this was a good idea. But believe me, I learned a lot! And it really changed the direction of my life... if I hadn't worked at Cliff Nelson, I think I would be doing something completely different now. But thanks to that first job, I continued on to work with kids in just about every other job I've had! I even got to be a counselor at Kadesh when my sister was a camper. And this summer, I'm back at it again. And I'm back with 5 & 6 year olds! I found out on Friday that I got a job at the Happy Trails Day Camp, which is just...

Today I am thankful for amazing sweet parents, who sent me a DIY Easter basket. ;) Thank you mom & dad! I totally cried when I opened it. It was a nice pick-me-up today. And mom, I loved the Book Fair stuff. Mine starts next week! I'm also thankful for an encouraging email from our district library coordinator. All the librarians in our district are getting shuffled around (or laid off) and it's a stressful time for everyone. I found out that the librarian at RR got a full time position, but I still didn't know what that means for me. I emailed our library coordinator, with a couple of questions about timing and the likelihood of me having employment next year as a librarian. This is what she wrote: " Now that Cami has accepted the position at Peiffer, I think you have a great shot at the GG/RR pairing or a number of other jobs. ... Stay hopeful~ I believe in you! " There was other stuff in between, but you get the point. My hope is hanging in there! Not...

Most of you know that my job is a bit up in the air next year... but we got some great news today! The deal is that my job got paired up with another school in our district. So whoever gets to stay will be halftime at two schools, thus making one full time job as a split position(technically... it's totally more work than one person can do). GG (my school) was paired up with another elementary school called RR. The librarian there has seniority, so I had to wait and see if she wanted the split position before I could move forward. I found out this morning that she got a full time job at another school!! So the first hurdle is out of the way! Now we just have to pray that no one gets placed into my split position. I want it to be posted so that I can apply for it and get my job back next year. So praise God! Good news is good. ;)

I should've been posting every single day, because I've been on Spring Break this week, and it has been awesome! Here's what I've done: - Cleaned out my closet - Went shopping with Rachel (didn't buy anything) - Took my clothes to Buffalo Exchange (they only took 2 things!) - Finished Season 6 of Bones - Slept in (every day!) - Went to Zumba class at church - Went to have dinner with the youth group - Had waffles with Loren - Went on a walk at Wash Park - Watched the entire first season of Friday Night Lights - Played 10+ hours of Harvest Moon: Animal Parade - Hiked Mount Falcon with Jarrod & Rachel - Ate at SmashBurger & watched Inception - Relaaaaaxed! Spring Break has been fabulous. I feel rested and ready to take on the rest of the school year!

Well, we almost made it to Spring Break without any vomit in the library. But a Kinder student broke the no-vomit streak today. Thankfully, there were many other adults around to handle the nasty, and she didn't puke on the laptop she was using! Oh man, I can't even imagine what I would've done if that had happened... *shudder* Oh, elementary school, you are such an interesting place. In other school news, I've been teaching a SmartBoard class for the last THREE MONTHS and today was finally the last class! It has been really fun teaching my teachers about using SmartBoards in their classrooms, but I will be glad to not have an after school commitment every Monday. Also, I just added a new widget to the right side of my blog. I use Goodreads.com to track the books I read, and this year I used their challenge feature to track the number of books I read in 2011. My progress will show up in the widget! I think I'm going to have to up my goal though... I'm thinking 1...

Well, I haven't blogged in a while because I've been a bit down. Logically, I should have come here and been positive, but I was making huge efforts in "real life" to be positive, so I didn't even feel like I had the energy. My job is up in the air again. There's no guarantee for employment next year, especially in my current position. I'm really bummed about it. Things will work out and I'll find another job if I need to, but it's not fun. Everyone around me has been so wonderful though. With so many of my coworkers that I've never even had spiritual conversations before, I've had conversations that have all ended in the other person telling me that they'll pray for me. It's awesome to see God show up like that in conversations. So we'll see. I'm trying to stay hopeful and positive, but I have my days. Like Tuesday when I just went for it and had ice cream for dinner. And Wednesday when I almost cried at our staff meeting b...

Huzzah! I'm still employed. ;) Our district announced $40 mil in budget cuts yesterday, and my position did, in fact, get cut to half time. However, my principal said they expect enough retirements (from librarians) that I will be able to be half time at my current school and half time at another school. Not an ideal situation, as I'll basically be doing two jobs instead of one during the same amount of time, but given the whole district situation, it's a relief! Praise God!

It was perfect drive-with-your-windows-down weather on the way home from work today. I read Dr. Seuss's I Can Read With My Eyes Shut to a second grade class today. When we finished, they immediately said, all wide-eyed... "Can we read another one??" Why yes, kids, we can! We read Horton Hears a Who next. I then got to read Green Eggs and Ham to a Kindergarten class. I love Read Across America Day. ;) I also realized that I must've read Dr. Seuss's ABC book a million time as a kid. I had such a strange feeling of deja vu as I was reading it today. Thanks for reading it to me as many times as I probably asked, Mom & Dad.

Well here's something fabulous... we have a SNOW DAY tomorrow! And they called it even before we left school today! I've started taking the bus to work when it snows, because it's just not worth the stress of driving on ice for me. Well, it's worth the $4.50 in bus fare per day. I could've driven this morning, but at the last minute I changed my mind and caught the bus. I am SO glad I did! It was really rough right after school. It is freaking freezing outside, but I can enjoy my night because I get to sleep in tomorrow. Huzzah!

To be completely honest, today was a bad day at work. Nothing worked out well... My brain is completely fried, and I just felt like an idiot all day. But this is supposed to be about good things. So here are some good things! Hugs from 1st graders. It still amazes me that the kids at school want to hug me. Sometimes it's weird and unwanted, but other times it is REALLY cute. I've been working with both 1st grade classes on the laptops all week, so the kids are even more "huggy" this week. It really brightens an otherwise frustrating day. Peppermint Hershey kisses. Seriously. Go buy some. Christmas lights in the library. Our speech pathologist gave us some lights to put up in the library, and they make it so great! I love looking at them around the SmartBoard and seeing the kids' faces when they see the twinkling lights. New books. We got a shipment of 73 new books for the library today. It's like Christmas! I bought a bunch of graphic novels because we only h...