Joining the bandwagon...

Wow! I can't believe that I have actually jumped on the blogging bandwagon. I absolutely love reading other people's blogs and have many regulars that I follow on an almost daily basis in all of that extra free time that I have. Wait...I can't believe that the words "free" and "time" are actually in my vocabulary because I honestly have no idea what that is, but for some reason I manage to find the time to read about other people's crazy lives and really enjoy it. I have been wanting to start a blog for quite some time now, but for some reason I felt like you had to have one of the following credentials: a husband/boyfriend, kids, or at least a pet of some kind. Well...I don't have a husband or even a boyfriend at the moment for that matter, I would love to get a dog, but that probably won't happen until at least this summer, and I technically don't have any kids of my own; however, I still feel "blog worthy" because I have some of the funniest stories (or at least I feel like they are pretty darn funny) to tell about the 23 darlings that I spend more time with than anyone else in the day. Yep, thats right...the majority of my day is devoted to a bunch of 7 and 8 year olds and the truth is...I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!! You probably guessed it...I am a second grade teacher! I honestly believe that I have the best job in the whole entire world. I get the priviledge of working alongside some of my best friends while doing what I love to do the most. I feel so fortunate that I have a job that I enjoy waking up for every morning. I become even more thankful with every conversation that I have with my friends who have been in the corporate world for only a year or two and are already hating their jobs and dread what the next 30+ years look like for them. This year has totally confirmed for me that unless your a teacher, you have no idea how challenging, yet how rewarding this job really is. I firmly believe that you can't understand it unless you do it! I will fill you in more on that a little bit later, but I thought I needed to set up the situation before I could continue. After telling my dad about something that one of my kids said or did on the very first day of school last August he told me that I needed to write all of this stuff down because I will want to look back at it a few years down the road and remember everything that happened during my first year of teaching. Well...as wise as my dad is, unfortunately some of his fatherly advice tends to go in one ear and out the other (sorry Dad) and this is definitely one of those instances. This is also one of those instances that I wish I would have listened because so much has happened this year that I have already forgotten about because I simply didn't write it down. Oh well! As one of my favorite sayings goes...sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but unfortunately this is one that I lost! However, even though I will probably not be able to recap the first seven months of this school year, I figure that now is as good of a time as any to start writing stuff down so that I at least have a few months worth of stories to look back on when I need a really good laugh (as if I EVER have trouble finding stuff to laugh about)! I have always been a big journaler, but I thought I would move into the 21st century and start journaling in a more contemporary way. I have to admit that this is not the first time I have sat down to start one of these things...in fact this is probably my 5th attempt at it. I kept trying to come up with a catchy, can't-wait-to-read title, but NOTHING would ever come to me. I have decided that I'm not going to let myself get hung up on the title anymore..."Tales of a First Year Teacher" is just about as good as it is getting right now, but my friend Christy is putting her thinking cap on! Well...one thing that definitely goes along with being a teacher is an early bedtime and unfortunately it is way past mine right now. I'm sure it won't be long before I am posting a funny story for you with all of the craziness that goes on in my classroom!!