There's something about Tennessee that feels... crafty.
I don't know how to explain it, really. But I've been much more inspired to do crafts since I've been here. I think part of it is that it's much more of the culture. Many people who crochet/ knit here do it because their grandmother or mother taught them... it's a passed down thing. Our first week here, there was a quilting expo at the convention center. For me, I was just interested (mostly because I liked wearing hats) so I got a book from the library. I love my mom, but she does not crochet.
I think another part of it is the scenery. The homes just look more... well, homey. They have big back yards, porches, and rocking chairs out front (yes, really). They're cute, brick houses with chimneys and flower gardens. Something about the look of a really adorable house makes me want to make something.
And... I'm finally not busy. I guess I'm working 40 hours a week, like I have for the last few years of my life, besides school. But for once... I'm not planning a wedding, I'm not dating someone long distance, I'm not managing a move, I'm not helping a husband apply to grad schools, and I'm not busy with family and friend obligations. I don't really have much to do. It is so nice!
So, this month, I've crocheted a hat and some mittens. That's unusual for me... I usually don't like crocheting in the summer because it just feels wrong. I'm itching to go onto other crafts... I would really like to learn knitting... and one of my life goals is to make a quilt (for which I will have to learn sewing). I'm even starting to think a bit about basic interior design (aka, making our apartment not look horrible).
Anyways, this is all to say that I did something awesomely FUN last week. I went to a crocheting circle! It was Scott's idea. How did I never think of this before?? I've been a bit lonely out here, especially since he started school. I mean, we know no one and we don't have a home church yet. There are 4 other people that work at my workplace, and I don't really hit it off well with any of them. We haven't really met too many neighbors. And now Scott has school friends. I was feeling a bit despairing about meeting people... since I'm not great at it, and it takes me a while to find friends. But Scott suggesting looking for other crafty people.
I looked online, and there is a group that meets up in Knoxville to crochet and knit! How cool. I went to a meeting last week. There were six of us, and we just sat in a coffee shop for 3 hours and chatted about craft stuff and life. They are my type of people, it seems. They meet once or twice a month, and they share craft ideas and advice. It's not a group of old grannies either... I might have been the youngest, but most of us were in our twenties.
So I am very very excited to go back. I can't go to the next one since it's on the day of the UCLA/ UT football game and we are definitely going to that. But I will definitely go back soon. After all, if I'm going to act like and old granny and sit around and crochet, I might as well make some cool friends while I do it!
Now I just need to find some friends who like to bake and eat ice cream and run :-)
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
An Update
Please excuse the recent absence, but I am back... hopefully more permanently this time. I know every blogger has their excuses, but I'm going to go ahead and say that two weeks including me starting work, Scott starting classes and teaching, me coming down with the plague/ losing my voice due to germy two-year-olds, and passing such onto Scott would qualify me for an excuse. :-) Maybe.
We are still liking Knoxville. Ok, Scott is liking Knoxville and I am LOVING Knoxville. I tell Scott at least twice a week that I like Knoxville.
I started work. I am so thankful to have a job. I also pray that I don't spend the rest of my life working preschool, that God willing I am blessed to teach older children some day. Preschoolers are exhausting. I mean, for anyone who has ever had ONE two-year-old to deal with... imagine seven of them. In a little tiny room. For most of a day. Most of them have just turned two, so they are old enough to have definite opinions about everything, but young enough to need help with most everything. We've been doing a lot of coloring, playing with cars, having story time on the circle carpet, and playing on the jungle gym outside. Some of the children are very challenging, some of them are very cute, and they are all very active.
We are settling well into a routine. I work 7:30 to 3:30, right over by UT (about 6 miles away). We drive over and park at the church in the morning, and Scott heads to campus. He works on homework when he's not in class, and he's usually done by 4:30 or 5, when we head back home. The commute isn't really that bad... it's on the main street (other than the interstate) between West Knoxville and downtown. In the morning, there are no cars on the road! It's a very welcome break from LA and San Diego morning rush.
I will write more soon about why I love it so much here and how much I hope we'll get some visitors some day so we can show them the awesomeness of Tennessee... but it's bedtime. The morning comes early around these parts.
And yes... I do have a slight drawl now.
We are still liking Knoxville. Ok, Scott is liking Knoxville and I am LOVING Knoxville. I tell Scott at least twice a week that I like Knoxville.
I started work. I am so thankful to have a job. I also pray that I don't spend the rest of my life working preschool, that God willing I am blessed to teach older children some day. Preschoolers are exhausting. I mean, for anyone who has ever had ONE two-year-old to deal with... imagine seven of them. In a little tiny room. For most of a day. Most of them have just turned two, so they are old enough to have definite opinions about everything, but young enough to need help with most everything. We've been doing a lot of coloring, playing with cars, having story time on the circle carpet, and playing on the jungle gym outside. Some of the children are very challenging, some of them are very cute, and they are all very active.
We are settling well into a routine. I work 7:30 to 3:30, right over by UT (about 6 miles away). We drive over and park at the church in the morning, and Scott heads to campus. He works on homework when he's not in class, and he's usually done by 4:30 or 5, when we head back home. The commute isn't really that bad... it's on the main street (other than the interstate) between West Knoxville and downtown. In the morning, there are no cars on the road! It's a very welcome break from LA and San Diego morning rush.
I will write more soon about why I love it so much here and how much I hope we'll get some visitors some day so we can show them the awesomeness of Tennessee... but it's bedtime. The morning comes early around these parts.
And yes... I do have a slight drawl now.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Even Greater Provision
First news first: SCOTT GOT A TA-SHIP!! I'll let him tell you more about it later... but we have been praying for this for months. UT accepts more grad students than they have TA-ships for, which means some students are left paying for grad school while trying to be a full-time student. Which is a very difficult situation. We took out loans and we were all ready for it... but God provided at the last moment. I mean... he starts orientation on Monday, they couldn't have waited much longer!
I just know he will be the best TA in the world. He's a fantastic teacher and makes things really interesting. And I think he will enjoy teaching a lot! So this is wonderful wonderful news. We are both marveling at the provision we've received in the last three days. Now we can even buy some furniture!
I got to meet the little pip-squeaks today. Sometimes it really is amazing how little two-year-olds are. I was there for three hours, just hanging out while the teacher did her thing. I will do the same thing all day tomorrow, and then on Monday she moves up to the threes class and I have my own classroom for the first time.
On one hand, I feel so unprepared. I've never studied how to do this, I've never made a lesson plan in my life, and I don't have good ideas of fun activities to do with pre-schoolers. But on the other hand, I know that if I love them, that will impact them more than a really well-executed ABC lesson. I am excited to love these seven little children... 3 of them that I've met, and 4 who will be new with me. I'm already wracking my brain for ways to show them love and teach them well. I'm sure it will be a huge learning curve, but it will be so exciting!
I just know he will be the best TA in the world. He's a fantastic teacher and makes things really interesting. And I think he will enjoy teaching a lot! So this is wonderful wonderful news. We are both marveling at the provision we've received in the last three days. Now we can even buy some furniture!
I got to meet the little pip-squeaks today. Sometimes it really is amazing how little two-year-olds are. I was there for three hours, just hanging out while the teacher did her thing. I will do the same thing all day tomorrow, and then on Monday she moves up to the threes class and I have my own classroom for the first time.
On one hand, I feel so unprepared. I've never studied how to do this, I've never made a lesson plan in my life, and I don't have good ideas of fun activities to do with pre-schoolers. But on the other hand, I know that if I love them, that will impact them more than a really well-executed ABC lesson. I am excited to love these seven little children... 3 of them that I've met, and 4 who will be new with me. I'm already wracking my brain for ways to show them love and teach them well. I'm sure it will be a huge learning curve, but it will be so exciting!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
A job, a mattress, and lots of rain
We are still alive!
And we have our own apartment. I guess I have been so excited about it that I haven't posted here in a while. We moved into our apartment 12 days ago. It's a great little apartment. You know, you worry that your first night in a new place, you will realize all of the terrible things about it and you'll regret your decision. Like neighbors upstairs who clomp around all night, or terrible water pressure, or cricket infestations, or something. Well, we are still loving this place. So far, it is perfect for us! (And I'm sure if I told some of you SoCal people our rent, you would fall out of your chair! It is a third of what we paid in LA) Unfortunately, we are still very unfurnished. We are building up furniture slowly as our finances become more stable. Our first week here was spent sleeping on our camping mattresses, which were SO much better than the floor, but still not the same as a bed. Well, we bought a mattress and box spring, so at least that is taken care of. It feels luxurious! We'd still like a table and chairs, couch, bookshelves, and desk at some point. But we're waiting at least a bit on those. Oh, the adventures of being young and poor.
BUT, there are two fantastic things.
One: a kitchen. In our last place the kitchen was pretty dirty, and it wasn't really ours, and we were on a super budget. So it was sandwiches for lunch and pasta for dinner, every day. It seems like such a small thing to complain about, because many people in the world would be delighted with that much... but for me it was very hard. I love to cook and to eat, hahaha. I think we were both cranky because we weren't eating very well. But now I have my OWN kitchen, with big cabinets and counter space. Our grocery budget still isn't luxurious, but it's enough to eat decently and even to eke out some homemade sugar cookies :-)
Two: a mall. This might be the ruin of me (or maybe of Scott haha). We are on the very end of the complex. Thirty seconds from our back door is a path through the grass and the trees, and at the end of that path is a gate leading into a parking lot. And in that shopping complex is an AC Moore (exactly like Michaels... lots of yarn!), a Borders, a teacher's supply store, an Off Broadway Shoes, a Bed Bath and Beyond, and a grocery store. Which is pretty much the only stores I need in life. Throw in H&M and I'd never leave. But in all seriousness, it is soo nice having a major grocery store a 4 minute walk away! Plus, right on the other side of that is a big indoor mall with a movie theater and lots of clothes stores. See, we don't live in the boonies!
In other news, Knoxville is very rainy. Locals say this is very unusual. Average rainfall for August is 2.9 inches... I feel like we've had that each week since we've been here. But it's let up on the weekends for us, which has let us have great adventures!
Let's see... any other news? Hmmm... I'm not sure... what am I forgetting.... oh yeah! A JOB!!! I have been applying to jobs since before we even moved out here, and now I have one. For a while when we moved out here I was applying to anything I was remotely qualified for, and I was starting to apply to retail stores and such. Which would be fine, but it wasn't really what I wanted to do. I had a talk with Scott, and we decided that I really should be concentrating on applying to schools. My dream is to teach elementary school. While I knew that I probably couldn't get a job in an elementary school this year, any school experience would be good. So I concentrated my efforts on that. And lo and behold, I am now a teacher. I will start Monday and have my own classroom of seven little two-year-old kiddies. I'll be with them for eight hours a day. I'll teach lessons, Bible stories, art, potty-training, and more. I think the most exciting part is after being the newest teacher in a classroom with SEVEN teachers at my old school, I'll get to run the classroom this time. It will be my first real experience with it, so I'll get to see how I like it. I am very excited about it. It seems like God just wants me to be reallllllly good with two-year-olds. They're a fun age :-)
I think that's about all the news for now. We are off to dinner to celebrate employment!
And we have our own apartment. I guess I have been so excited about it that I haven't posted here in a while. We moved into our apartment 12 days ago. It's a great little apartment. You know, you worry that your first night in a new place, you will realize all of the terrible things about it and you'll regret your decision. Like neighbors upstairs who clomp around all night, or terrible water pressure, or cricket infestations, or something. Well, we are still loving this place. So far, it is perfect for us! (And I'm sure if I told some of you SoCal people our rent, you would fall out of your chair! It is a third of what we paid in LA) Unfortunately, we are still very unfurnished. We are building up furniture slowly as our finances become more stable. Our first week here was spent sleeping on our camping mattresses, which were SO much better than the floor, but still not the same as a bed. Well, we bought a mattress and box spring, so at least that is taken care of. It feels luxurious! We'd still like a table and chairs, couch, bookshelves, and desk at some point. But we're waiting at least a bit on those. Oh, the adventures of being young and poor.
BUT, there are two fantastic things.
One: a kitchen. In our last place the kitchen was pretty dirty, and it wasn't really ours, and we were on a super budget. So it was sandwiches for lunch and pasta for dinner, every day. It seems like such a small thing to complain about, because many people in the world would be delighted with that much... but for me it was very hard. I love to cook and to eat, hahaha. I think we were both cranky because we weren't eating very well. But now I have my OWN kitchen, with big cabinets and counter space. Our grocery budget still isn't luxurious, but it's enough to eat decently and even to eke out some homemade sugar cookies :-)
Two: a mall. This might be the ruin of me (or maybe of Scott haha). We are on the very end of the complex. Thirty seconds from our back door is a path through the grass and the trees, and at the end of that path is a gate leading into a parking lot. And in that shopping complex is an AC Moore (exactly like Michaels... lots of yarn!), a Borders, a teacher's supply store, an Off Broadway Shoes, a Bed Bath and Beyond, and a grocery store. Which is pretty much the only stores I need in life. Throw in H&M and I'd never leave. But in all seriousness, it is soo nice having a major grocery store a 4 minute walk away! Plus, right on the other side of that is a big indoor mall with a movie theater and lots of clothes stores. See, we don't live in the boonies!
In other news, Knoxville is very rainy. Locals say this is very unusual. Average rainfall for August is 2.9 inches... I feel like we've had that each week since we've been here. But it's let up on the weekends for us, which has let us have great adventures!
Let's see... any other news? Hmmm... I'm not sure... what am I forgetting.... oh yeah! A JOB!!! I have been applying to jobs since before we even moved out here, and now I have one. For a while when we moved out here I was applying to anything I was remotely qualified for, and I was starting to apply to retail stores and such. Which would be fine, but it wasn't really what I wanted to do. I had a talk with Scott, and we decided that I really should be concentrating on applying to schools. My dream is to teach elementary school. While I knew that I probably couldn't get a job in an elementary school this year, any school experience would be good. So I concentrated my efforts on that. And lo and behold, I am now a teacher. I will start Monday and have my own classroom of seven little two-year-old kiddies. I'll be with them for eight hours a day. I'll teach lessons, Bible stories, art, potty-training, and more. I think the most exciting part is after being the newest teacher in a classroom with SEVEN teachers at my old school, I'll get to run the classroom this time. It will be my first real experience with it, so I'll get to see how I like it. I am very excited about it. It seems like God just wants me to be reallllllly good with two-year-olds. They're a fun age :-)
I think that's about all the news for now. We are off to dinner to celebrate employment!
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Did you ever see the beauty of the hills of Carolina, or the sweetness of the grass in Tennessee...
First person to name that song gets lots of high-fives from me.
Today was perhaps the best day in Tennessee. And North Carolina, for that matter.
We knew today was going to be super-hot, and we didn't really have much productive to do today, so we had an adventure. We wanted to find a swimming hole. Being from SoCal, swimming in rivers is a relatively new phenomenon to us. I think I've gone swimming in a river once with Maggie in NorCal... we have both been white water rafting once... we've gone swimming in lakes... but in LA, the concept of "river" doesn't really exist. The "LA River" is a concrete basin which is usually empty, and sometimes has a slight trickle down the bottom.
So we took our lovely apartment-mate Michiko and headed out to the Great Smoky Mountains. First stop: Sonic. I'd heard a lot about Sonic, especially from bloggers who live in the region, but none of us had been. It was pretty good. I liked the limeade. Not as good as InNOut, but you know.. nothing is.
Then we headed up into the 'mountains'. The trip up had so many cute little houses with rocking chairs and horses and Southern Charm. The mountains are really not that big, but they are so gorgeous. So many rivers and streams, tons of cool hiking paths with beautiful tree cover. In the park we saw so many white water rafters and horseback riders, so we can't wait to go back and try those.
We parked in a very crowded lot and hiked a mile and a half up Big Creek Trail to Midnight Hole. It was fun to see that there were so many people up at the top... kids everywhere and families just hanging out and swimming and relaxing. The hole was pretty large, maybe 15 feet across, with a waterfall coming in. It was surrounded by big rocks (maybe 10-12 feet high) that everyone was jumping off of.
It was a hard process getting in the lake. The rocks were very slippery, and the water was numbingly cold at first. At one point, Scott was in up to his knees, and turned around to see Michiko and I standing on separate rocks, completely avoiding the water. But we girls slowly crept in, and of course Scott headed right to the top of the rocks. Eventually he got both of us to jump in too, and it was amazing! The water felt so refreshing.
The day was just so beautiful! I love living out here, where we can drive an hour away and be in such a beautiful place. One thing that I didn't like about San Diego was that it was harder to get to beautiful mountain areas. If you drive north, you just hit city after city. If you drive east, you're in the desert. If you drive south, you're in Mexico. And if you drive west, you fall in the ocean. Which is beautiful, but salty. There are some pretty areas, but nothing close like this.
It was so nice to be out and smell nature and hear silence. The temperature was perfect, the swimming hole was perfect, and the company was perfect. So fantastic! I love living in Knoxville!
Today was perhaps the best day in Tennessee. And North Carolina, for that matter.
We knew today was going to be super-hot, and we didn't really have much productive to do today, so we had an adventure. We wanted to find a swimming hole. Being from SoCal, swimming in rivers is a relatively new phenomenon to us. I think I've gone swimming in a river once with Maggie in NorCal... we have both been white water rafting once... we've gone swimming in lakes... but in LA, the concept of "river" doesn't really exist. The "LA River" is a concrete basin which is usually empty, and sometimes has a slight trickle down the bottom.
So we took our lovely apartment-mate Michiko and headed out to the Great Smoky Mountains. First stop: Sonic. I'd heard a lot about Sonic, especially from bloggers who live in the region, but none of us had been. It was pretty good. I liked the limeade. Not as good as InNOut, but you know.. nothing is.
Then we headed up into the 'mountains'. The trip up had so many cute little houses with rocking chairs and horses and Southern Charm. The mountains are really not that big, but they are so gorgeous. So many rivers and streams, tons of cool hiking paths with beautiful tree cover. In the park we saw so many white water rafters and horseback riders, so we can't wait to go back and try those.
We parked in a very crowded lot and hiked a mile and a half up Big Creek Trail to Midnight Hole. It was fun to see that there were so many people up at the top... kids everywhere and families just hanging out and swimming and relaxing. The hole was pretty large, maybe 15 feet across, with a waterfall coming in. It was surrounded by big rocks (maybe 10-12 feet high) that everyone was jumping off of.
It was a hard process getting in the lake. The rocks were very slippery, and the water was numbingly cold at first. At one point, Scott was in up to his knees, and turned around to see Michiko and I standing on separate rocks, completely avoiding the water. But we girls slowly crept in, and of course Scott headed right to the top of the rocks. Eventually he got both of us to jump in too, and it was amazing! The water felt so refreshing.
The day was just so beautiful! I love living out here, where we can drive an hour away and be in such a beautiful place. One thing that I didn't like about San Diego was that it was harder to get to beautiful mountain areas. If you drive north, you just hit city after city. If you drive east, you're in the desert. If you drive south, you're in Mexico. And if you drive west, you fall in the ocean. Which is beautiful, but salty. There are some pretty areas, but nothing close like this.
It was so nice to be out and smell nature and hear silence. The temperature was perfect, the swimming hole was perfect, and the company was perfect. So fantastic! I love living in Knoxville!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Randommm
There are a lot of blonds in Knoxville. It's strange, having moved from San Diego, where everyone is supposedly blond-haired, blue eyed. But it seems like Knoxville has twice the Norwegian population.
Also, happy birthday (yesterday) to Scott! We celebrated by eating real, non-pasta, non-sandwich food, at PF Changs. It was one of the best meals ever.
I'm ready to have my own kitchen again and to be able to cook. And to get my cookbooks out of storage. Because I read cookbooks like novels, you know.
Also, happy birthday (yesterday) to Scott! We celebrated by eating real, non-pasta, non-sandwich food, at PF Changs. It was one of the best meals ever.
I'm ready to have my own kitchen again and to be able to cook. And to get my cookbooks out of storage. Because I read cookbooks like novels, you know.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
A message from the husband - Driving in Knoxville
Hey all!
If there's one thing you've done a lot of coming from southern California, it's driving. Driving to the grocery store, driving to see friends, driving to/from LA. Everyone does it and, excluding those who are asian, elderly, female (choose two), everyone can do it pretty well. But driving in Knoxville is, to say the least, an adventure.
Let's begin. So say you're driving in the right hand lane on the freeway (say, the 405) and suddenly the dashes to your left become short and close together. This would seem to indicate that your lane has become an exit only lane. So if you're getting off at the next exit, no worries! Except suddenly you find yourself driving on the shoulder! What happened? Here, those little short dashes mean that the lane is ending now. Not in 1/4 mile, not in 500ft, but now. More than once I've been caught off guard by this bizarre method.
Nextly, you find yourself driving on a normal suburban road. Nothing in particular about it. Say it's a fairly busy street with many side streets coming off of it. Now your gaze drifts to one of these streets as a car comes towards your road at 30mph. You think, "He has a stop sign. He'll stop." But he doesn't. He keeps going. and going. and going until you think that there is no way they are going to actually be able to stop in time when the SLAM on their brakes, barely out of the way of the right-of-way traffic. Oh my gosh. This scares me every time. People seem to think that they should break at the very last possible minute here. Not just 18yo kids who think they are invincible, but everyone! oh...my...gosh I've thought several times that I was going to get hit. Scarytime.
So that wraps up this edition of Driving in Knoxville. I'm sure that there will be many more to come as I encounter many more things that just don't quite make sense to me.
~Scott
If there's one thing you've done a lot of coming from southern California, it's driving. Driving to the grocery store, driving to see friends, driving to/from LA. Everyone does it and, excluding those who are asian, elderly, female (choose two), everyone can do it pretty well. But driving in Knoxville is, to say the least, an adventure.
Let's begin. So say you're driving in the right hand lane on the freeway (say, the 405) and suddenly the dashes to your left become short and close together. This would seem to indicate that your lane has become an exit only lane. So if you're getting off at the next exit, no worries! Except suddenly you find yourself driving on the shoulder! What happened? Here, those little short dashes mean that the lane is ending now. Not in 1/4 mile, not in 500ft, but now. More than once I've been caught off guard by this bizarre method.
Nextly, you find yourself driving on a normal suburban road. Nothing in particular about it. Say it's a fairly busy street with many side streets coming off of it. Now your gaze drifts to one of these streets as a car comes towards your road at 30mph. You think, "He has a stop sign. He'll stop." But he doesn't. He keeps going. and going. and going until you think that there is no way they are going to actually be able to stop in time when the SLAM on their brakes, barely out of the way of the right-of-way traffic. Oh my gosh. This scares me every time. People seem to think that they should break at the very last possible minute here. Not just 18yo kids who think they are invincible, but everyone! oh...my...gosh I've thought several times that I was going to get hit. Scarytime.
So that wraps up this edition of Driving in Knoxville. I'm sure that there will be many more to come as I encounter many more things that just don't quite make sense to me.
~Scott
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