Before life gets away from me too much...

So my buddy, the small d., whom I will miss very much now that my days in the business world have ended, has this really cool blog, and it gave me the idea to start a really cool blog of my own.

Unfortunately, I know mine will never, ever compare to the coolness of the small d. But maybe I can find my own level of coolness? What do you think? Anyone? (I know, me = cool is highly unlikely, but I can try...)

So this is where we are right now:

- I have started going to graduate school for a Masters of Arts in Teaching. I'm in an Alternative Certification program, which sounds really cool on paper -- being in the program means I am certified teach while going to school at night. The major bonus is that we do not have to take an unpaid semester for student teaching -- we teach in our regular classroom and are observed while still getting a paycheck. It all sounds really sweet, except that if a fully certified (read: already has an education degree) teacher wants the job and I want it, the district is required to hire the fully certified teacher. That means those of us in the program are only eligible for the jobs that are left over after all the fully certified teachers are hired. I'm trying to teach Middle School Language Arts, but I'd really rather teach High School English -- unfortunately, I was told that there are more jobs in MS, so I went for it. Yet as of today, I don't have a teaching job. No substitute job; nothing. In fact, I have no employment to speak of as of July 25th. Which is both liberating and terrifying at the same time, especially in light of the fact that...

- I got engaged on July 1st! I'm very excited about this, considering I've been waiting for this wonderful thing to happen for over 2 years. We already have a date, a ceremony and reception venue, a DJ, catering (included in the reception venue), and a wedding party. Oh, and a guest list that keeps growing but a budget that doesn't....

But ya know, I haven't had a whole lot of time yet to enjoy it. I'm really looking forward to finding more time for planning, and I hope I can somehow channel my inner Martha Stewart (ha! not likely) to come up with some really creative, impressive decorations and whatnot. Truthfully, I have had to pull myself away from various wedding planning websites over the past month because it will suck the time and the life (that is, the life away from my laptop) right out of me. Part of me wants to talk about my wedding all day every day to anyone who listens for two seconds. The realistic part of me knows that I have just under 11 months until my wedding, and people are really going to get sick of hearing about it by the time the day actually gets here.... ;) So, I'm definitely looking forward to getting immersed in wedding planning...as soon as I can give myself permission to do so...

So I might find myself doing some blogging about my ideas and concerns and excitements and thoughts regarding the wedding...or I might write about challenges in teaching (or, at the rate I'm going, not teaching...).

And every now and then, I glance at my ring and it hits me all over again: holy cow -- I'm getting married!