Normal Park

I started working on my room at school this week! Normal Park seems to be a great school - a huge arts emphasis like OG. The halls are filled with bright colors and tons of student-made art.



Here's the 'before pics' of my room - it's still a mess, but i'm loving the high ceilings, bright colors, big windows, and tons of storage!


James says the colors are pretty girly, so we'll have to work on something for the boys :)


The view from my windows - not too bad!

Love the bright colored halls!


Here is some of the art in the halls, most of it made by the kids. Love it!












I'll be back soon with the 'after' pics of my room. So excited about 2nd grade!

we made it!

Despite James having to drive in the July heat with the heater in his car on high to prevent his car from over-heating on the way up here, we have officially made it to Chattanooga! We can't move in to our apt for 2 weeks, so we're staying at Emry's house.

We've never actually met Emry and he's in Africa right now, but James talked to him on phone to ask if he had any houses available and he said we could stay with him, soooo here we are! Apparently he really likes to help people in need because his roommates didn't seem too surprised when we showed up on their porch at 10 last night even though they didn't really know we were coming.

So here's where we are:
Click on it to make it bigger, sorry about the oddly angled pics but all 3 houses are next door to each other.




We've had a great day scouting out the town. Apparently Chattanooga has more churches per capita than any other place in America and I'll believe it because there is literally a church every couple hundred yards. You gotta get really creative with some church names when there's that many around.

And in case you were worried, we've found Him... :)


Gotta love some church signs.

Tonight our soon-to-be-acrooss-the-hall-neighbors heard we were in town and came over to ask us to eat.
They took us to Greenlife Grocery which is owned by Whole Foods but has more of a "hometown vibe" (apparently).
It was awesome! They had a hot bar and salad bar, pizza, paninis, sushi, soup, coffee, gelato, and tons more. We sat at a great little place outside where a guy was playing the violin and dogs were howling along with him. We had a great time but I didn't bring the camera so I totally stole these pics off their website :)




James had a great meeting and orientation at Richmont today and we'll head up to my school tomorrow to start setting up my room. Things are going great so far! Can't wait to see what God has planned for us here!

I'm working on...

2nd grade!

I told God I wasn't applying to any 5th grade positions.
No way.
You have obviously made me for little kids, Lord. I LOVE K and 1st, and I'll definitely go up to 3rd, and just for pushing it, I'll apply to 4th. But no 5th.

A couple of weeks and no calls later I decided to apply to the 5th grade jobs, BUT there was no way I was mailing them my info or faxing them my resume.
No way.

Imagine my surprise after months of waiting, I get a call from an inner-city 5th grade school.
inner-city. 5th. grade.
James was excited. I was trying to be.

A couple hours later, I got another call from a magnet school for a 2nd grade position.

Nothing for 3 months and then 2 calls in one day.
The Lord has great timing, doesn't He?
I'll never understand, but I love it.

So we headed up to Chattanooga and 2 interviews, a follow-up interview, and 2 trips later, I found out I got the 2nd grade job!
The school is about 3 miles from our apartment and right across the river.
They have a partnership with 7 different museums in Chattanooga and go about every other week!
And one of the teachers already e-mailed me to say welcome!

Thank you Lord!!

heirloom pillows

My mom and I were cleaning out some old boxes in storage and found all these beautiful quilt squares that my great-grandmother had sewn.




Aren't these hand-stitches amazing? I can't imagine all the time it took to make these. They are just beautiful.



Apparently, they used to sew patchworks onto newspaper to keep them together. The old newspapers were so neat to read. They were sewn around Christmas in 1948.
Can't you just imagine her sitting in a rocking chair, sewing these by hand next to the stove, thinking of all the last minute Christmas gifts that needed to be finished - I'm totally imagining Little House on the Prairie :)





My sewing skills are not near ready for a quilt, so I decided to take a couple of them and make them into pillows. This was my first time using piping! I added some more of my $1 Dirt Cheap sheet for the back. Not perfect, but I think they're fun and I love the reminder of family.



And here's another project on to sewing to do list - a bigger-than-normal pillow for James to use on the couch. My 2nd time to use piping - you can totally see my white thread in places because I don't have a zipper foot, but James doesn't seem to mind.

One more thing off the list!

the barn

One of the things that I will miss most when we move is the barn. It has been the most wonderful blessing to be able to live here for the last 3 years!

Here is a conversation between me and James the other day:

Me (dramatically) -" James! Aren't you sooo sad about leaving the barn??!! It's like a whole season of our lives is ending! This is where we started our lives together! We're not newlyweds anymore!"
James (not dramatically) - "We've been married for 3 years, we haven't been newlyweds for a long time."
Me -"But you know what I mean, it's a chapter of our lives CLOSING!"
James - "I think we'll be ok."

Just wait till we start loading the furniture - he'll get sentimental...



James picked out that rug all by himself before we got married! He definitely had me in mind when he got it. Isn't he great?

And he painted the bathroom red just for me. Love...





Zoomed in and uncluttered shot...


And now the real picture with James' "man-shelves" on one side, trying to cover up the hunting guns with the curtain, and the chairs and bags on the other. That's real life...




Don't you love the mis-matched furniture here? We always had great plans for this wall - 2 matching armoires, open shelving, large shelves, etc... - but just never got around to it...


As I pack, I'm wondering how in the world did we squeeze so much stuff into this space! The blank walls make me sad. We have some wonderful memories here and I am so thankful to James' sweet parents for letting us live here.
It is a chapter in our lives closing! But I'm so excited to see where the Lord is going to lead us next! He is definitely taking us on a great adventure!

Easy Summer Dress

$3 tank from Wal-Mart
$1 sheet from Dirt Cheap
$1 elastic band

Orange is way cuter than white, right?

And you've got a fun summer dress!