First Semester!

So, the first semester has come and gone.  It has been a very…interesting… and busy first semester.  I'll go month by month:

I started the school year with a student teacher, Jaimie.  She was a sweet girl who was very sensitive, and very optimistic!  She wanted to teach in our neck of the woods when she graduated (more affluent kids…)  Paul's school went I.B. this year so the school hired a Chinese Teacher from China.  His name is… well, I couldn't pronounce his real name, and he never really gave it to me because I am lowly female, but he goes by "Terry".  Terry moved in during Labor Day Weekend.  He needed a place to stay with reasonably low rent, plus he couldn't drive, and didn't have a driver's license or permit, so Paul could take him to school.  Our extra bedroom for the most part we were just using as storage unless guests came into town, so we figured why not.

Terry was… a nice enough fellow I suppose.  He wasn't very cleanly, but I guess I was getting whatever I deserved from how I was as a roommate in college.  We'll get to more of that later though.  For the most part, things went okay.  It was definitely a cultural experience.  Terry expected us to pick up the bill whenever he joined us for a happy hour, and he never trusted anything I said because I was female.  When he would ask a question and I would answer he would look to Paul to make sure whatever I said was true.  That definitely got tiresome…  He would also bring his computer into the living room and play his "online Chinese classes" at full volume, but then watch them, go around the house, and left it playing full blast for Paul and I to enjoy…  He also spent a lot of time yelling on speakerphone in Chinese.  I'm unsure why we needed to hear what his counterparts were saying, since we couldn't understand anyway, but there it was.  We also only asked that he pay 1/3 of the power, gas,  water, and garbage, which usually totaled less than $100/month.  Even though he was on the internet more than we were we didn't charge him for that.  One day towards the end of September I awoke and found all of the windows and doors open, and nobody home.  I was a little disconcerted and texted Paul, he didn't know anything about it.  I asked Terry when he came home and he let me know he had turned the gas on the stove, but hadn't actually lit it, so he had just let gas permeate our house, and he was trying to air it out...

That was basically September, onto October.  School was/is going fine for both Paul and I.  We both have over 300 students in our programs, and I have a prep buy-out so I can teach them in 6 classes instead of 5.   October we had plans… We were going to spend Halloween at Disneyland, which is something I've always wanted to do!  Terry let us know his wife was coming to visit in two weeks, and she would stay for a month.  We were also planning on hiking to the petroglyphs that aren't that far from our house.  On October 17 we went to Bonnie Screams (a haunted village) with some friends, I hadn't been feeling very amazing lately, and I was talking to my friends about it.  They laughingly joked that I might be pregnant, we laughed it off though.  The next morning I thought I may as well take a test, and sure enough, on Saturday, October 18, the test came back positive.  I woke Paul up, because I was a bit… I'm not sure how to describe it… but I was.  We were going hiking with my parents to the petroglyphs that morning, they were going to come over in about an hour.  As I was running back into the bedroom, I stubbed my foot on the bed, and cracked my  pinky toenail.  We did an 8.5 mile hike and told my parents about halfway through the hike.  They were ecstatic of course.  Once we got home my pinky toenail fell off (gross, I know).  We called to wish Paul's Dad a happy birthday and to let them know they are going to be grandparents.  :)

The next day we got a phone call from Paul's parents that his grandma wasn't doing well, she ended up passing away that night.  Paul and I flew up that weekend to be with his family and attend the funeral service.  We still didn't tell any of his relatives, since it was so soon.

The following weekend we went to Disneyland with our friends (and two of their kids), I had to tell them I was pregnant since I couldn't ride any of the fun rides.  It was definitely interesting going to Disneyland in that capacity.  Other than being really tired though, it was fun.  We left Thursday night, and Terry's wife flew in as we were leaving, they left Friday morning for Chicago (Halloween morning).  We returned from Disneyland Saturday evening and found our front door wide open.  Terry had left the house not only unlocked on Halloween (and for the whole weekend), but he left the door open for strangers to come in…  Thankfully we live in a nice neighborhood and nobody came into our home, or stole anything.  We were FURIOUS!  Jaimie was offered a job at a middle school closer to where I started teaching.  It is a Title 1 school, highly at risk, with a teacher who quit in the middle of the year.  Those poor students… Jaimie will start once she graduates in December, until then, my mom will long-term sub there.  (Side note, it is a rough school… I have never heard my mom complain about a school as much as I have this one…).  Jaimie will definitely have her work cut out for her.

And now November.  The first Monday was a Staff Development Day, I woke up, didn't feel amazing, and proceeded to vomit for the first time.  I left Tuesday to fly to Wyoming to conduct the Middle School Choir Clinic.  So far, I had only been sick the day before, but that all changed… I was severely sick the entire time I was in Wyoming.  I couldn't keep anything down, and was throwing up water if I drank too much of that.  I drove down to Cheyenne to see my brother, nephew, and sister-in-law (who was having her baby 4 days later), and let them know I was pregnant, too.  I came home Saturday and finally got to meet Terry's Wife.  I had cooled down (some) from them leaving our house open, and didn't go off the way I would have had I been home when the returned.  We had a low-key party for Paul's birthday this year, some friends of ours hosted at their place.

November I was incredibly sick the whole month, same with December.  Morning Sickness (which is actually 24/7 sickness) hit me with a vengeance and I lost 15-20 lbs in those two months.  While Terry's wife was here for the month of November they didn't clean any dishes, or do anything to help around the house.  In fact, they would use all our pots and pans, and then leave them in the sink and go out of town for the weekend, so if we wanted to cook, we had to do all of their dishes, and since I was so sick, it meant Paul had to do ALL of the dishes.  He cleaned up after Terry and his wife the entire month.  It was disgusting what he was doing to our house… The day after his wife left I had a talk with Terry about how rude it was for him to expect Paul or myself to clean up after him.  He was living here, but he wasn't paying us enough to constantly be cleaning up after him.  (We won't get into his food handling… Paul had forbidden me from eating any of his cooking because of how long he would leave food out, I couldn't eat anyway).  He apologized, and said he thought his wife had been cleaning… or at least the one time she did clean a pot/pan I put it back in the sink.  I showed him the picture (yes, I was so angry at this point I was taking pictures) of the filthy pot and asked if he would eat out of it?  He said no… I told him from now on he needed to clean all of his dishes before he went to bed.  You use it, you clean it.  After the last month we had gone through with him and his wife, we felt that was fair.

Onto December… we still hadn't told many people we were expecting (other than a few close friends down here and our immediate family).  Terry didn't even know.  He would cook hamburger or some weird rice stuff every morning for breakfast, and I would wake up throwing up from the smell.  Because his wife had been here for a month, and Paul and I had been out of town so much, we split the bills in half.  Terry didn't think that was fair at all… In fact, after he paid us his half of the bill, he told us he was thinking of looking for a new place (this was a Wednesday), on Thursday (the day of my winter concert) he had moved all his stuff out of the house.  He had found a new place.

Paul and I were relieved.  It was nice to have our home to ourselves again.  We were going to let Terry know during Winter Break he had until Spring Break to move out, but we didn't have to tell him after all.  The guest room will be our nursery, and we're excited to get moving on it.

Paul and I had good winter concerts, they were overflowing as usual.  Winter break was nice, low key. I was sick all the way through it.  Paul got bored and ripped up the linoleum in our kitchen.  We bought tile and he is going to replace it… someday… :)

And… Happy New Year!  Our Christmas Cards this year let people know about the upcoming baby.  I've only been sick a few times since New Years (which is AMAZING)! And I am starting to eat again.     I also started teaching voice lessons this school year.  The students are great!  I only have two right now, but it has been a joy to watch them grow!

I know this started out as a book blog, but I have felt so terrible the last 3 months that I've barely done anything, and have hardly had any energy to do anything.  I'm just now starting to come around and talk to people again.  I hope you are doing amazing.  Love to the like (three of you) who might read this.  ;)