I pride myself in writing as often as I can. I like to write this blog, trying to get a post out once every 1-2 weeks. I like to get onto Twitter and participate in chats on a regular basis. I also kind of enjoy writing my assignments for my graduate program (I would rather write than have to complete a 100 questions multiple choice exam). So it has pained me that I have not been able to do much writing over the past month and a half. However, the changes in my life that I had outlined in previous posts like The Definition of Home, Uncertainty & Potential, Wow, 13 Years!, and The Pieces Falling in Place certainly had a lot to do with my absence from the keyboard. That being said, I'd like to take some time to bring you up to speed!
The most glaringly obvious thing that happened was the move from Las Vegas to Reno. Since my wife decided on the University of Nevada-Reno to further her studies back in the spring, we had slowly started to pack away things, get rid of some stuff, and figure out what we would need to put into storage, since we decided to downsize our home for the couple of years that she would be in school. We also had some visitors come to town to see us before we moved, including one of the greatest surprises that my wife has ever concocted for me.
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| What do you do when your best friend comes into town and totally surprises you? You take him to get authentic Mexican food that he can't get back home! |
On a stormy Monday night in July, Mary and I took the kids out to dinner with some friends, then grabbed Dairy Queen on the way home, running into what was first a horrific wind/dust storm before the sky opened up and dumped a ton of rain, knocking out power to traffic lights on our drive home. I went to bed around midnight, only to be woken up around 1:30 to what I thought was the doorbell ringing. In my grogginess, I assumed I was dreaming and rolled back over to go back to sleep (not that I would have gotten up to answer it anyway, you never know what that could have turned into). A moment or two later, Mary came back and told me that she needed help at the front door. I was furious/concerned that she answered the door that I thought I dreamt, so I was prepared for the worse. As I rounded the corner, I saw the door propped open by an arm, so I called out, asking what they wanted. The person outside on the porch poked their head into the doorway and said, "What's up sugar?" It was my best friend, John, and his son, all the way from Michigan! Mary and John and schemed for a month to surprise me. Granted, he was supposed to be in many hours earlier, but the storms had delayed his flights and they had to divert to another airport to get fuel before continuing on to Las Vegas. I also had a good friend from high school come to town with his wife to visit just days before moving. Between friends coming to town and meeting up with several friends in Las Vegas before the move, there were plenty of emotional goodbyes in the days leading up to picking up the truck.
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| As we worked out way north on US-95 from Las Vegas to Reno, Mary took this beautiful shot of our moving truck and the storm clouds |
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| Walker Lake, between Hawthorne and Schurz, is beautiful, but that beauty was diminished by smoke, and well, let's face it: the woman on the right is hands down more beautiful! |
A quick breakfast, a couple of cups of coffee, a fill of water bottles, and a quick search of Google Play Music, and we were on our way from Tonopah to Reno. The drive wasn't much different than the dozens of other times we had driven US-95, snaking our way across Nevada past small towns and ghost towns like Coaldale Junction, Mina, Luning, Hawthorne, Schurz, Yerington, and Silver Springs. The biggest difference on this day was the smoky haze clouding the mountains around us and the horizon. Fires like the Ferguson Fire near Yosemite National Park, the Mendocino Complex Fires west of the northern reaches of the Central Valley, and the Carr Fire near Redding, CA had blown smoke over the Sierras and had settled into the valleys of Nevada (the night of our arrival, another fire erupted near Pyramid Lake, just north of Reno, spewing more smoke into the air). As of this writing nearly a month after the move, many of those fires are still burning and others have ignited since, with thousands of people losing their homes and several losing their lives.
After getting everything unpacked and set up in the new apartment, putting our extras into a storage unit (we did, after all, move from a 3 bedroom house into a much smaller apartment), then getting the kids from my parents, it was time to start focusing on the whole reason for the move in the first place: getting Mary set up for graduate school and starting my new job. On top of that, both kids needed to settle into their new schools. The course of the next couple of weeks included a lot of school shopping, textbook purchases (which even with buying used and rentals from Amazon, I realized that I am in the wrong business, I need to sell college textbooks! Wait, no I don't, I want to be part of the revolution that sees college textbooks go by the wayside!), learning new streets and finding killer burger and Mexican places, and lots and lots of new hire meetings and trainings and learning the ropes of a position I have only been an observer to for my entire career (and I am still a deer in the headlights regarding many aspects of becoming a special education teacher, but luckily, I work with some amazing people that have been nothing but awesome in my transition).
Moving to a new school is always going to be tough, but my new digs have been nothing but welcoming! My new colleagues that I have met, from the school's support staff, teachers, and administration, up to the district superintendent, have been absolutely amazing! Working in a small town at the only high school also has its perks as well, a place where most everyone knows most everyone else and buys into the school and the community. I am really looking forward to what this school year has in store for me and my family.
Until next time...
