About Me

 

My Family

 ”Give a child a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a child to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.”  – Chinese Proverb

I am a first grade teacher at a K-1 school in Iredell County.   This is my fifth year teaching and I enjoy every minute of it!  I love working with children and want to ignite their passion for learning.  My husband and I have a 15 month old daughter who keeps us both very busy.  We live in Statesville.  I enjoy reading, cooking and scrapbooking. 

I enjoy being outdoors but find little time to do so.  My husband loves to moutain bike, build model airplanes and ride dirt bikes.  We usually find some time during the summer to do some of these things together.  During the summer we also enjoy rafting and tubing down the New River.    My favorite hobby is to scrapbook.  I can spend hours cropping and pasting pictures of my child and family into albums.  Recently I have discovered digital scrapbooking.  I love it! It has made my house much cleaner and is less time consuming. 

I recently made a transition from teaching in Catawba County schools to Iredell County Schools.  The move has drastically reduced my commute time.  I enjoy living in the same town where I teach.  It excites me to see one of my children at Walmart or at the grocery store on the weekends or over holiday’s. 

Baa Moo Farm

Aside from being a teacher I am a wife.  My husband builds houses and is smarter than anyone I know.  He can design anything in his mind put it onto paper and then transform it into a real-life creation right before your eyes.  We have been married for five years.  I look forward to continuing a spectacular journey with my wonderful husband.

Around 15 months ago I became a mother.  I still can’t imagine what I did before she was born.  I enjoy looking down into her bright eyes as she smiles at me and utters “mummmy”! I love the feeling knowing that she loves me so deeply.  I feel that from becoming a mother I now  have a better understanding of how my parents feel when they walk their children into my classroom and they share with me their concerns and cares.   I also understand what it is like to go without sleep for days and weeks.  My daughter is a true blessing I hope that I can be an awesome mother as we travel this journey together.

Although I have only been a teacher for five years I was born a teacher.  I remember as a child sitting in my room lining my bears and dolls up and teaching them.  It was my dream as long as I could remember to be teacher.  I enjoy everyday what I do.  I have NEVER imagined doing anything else.  I believe that to be a teacher is to be life long learner.  A person who reflects on their practice and tries to make it better.  I am pursuing my masters in reading so that I can learn how to help my students in reading and writing.  I work with little minds everyday who are learning to read and write.  I want to have best tools to be able to equip them for what they need as they go through their school career. 

I believe I am blessed to first be a mother and a wife.  I also believe that I am blessed to enjoy and pursue my life long dream! TEACHING!

 

                                                             

  Carli with her 1st helmet!                                                                Isn’t Life Grand!

Part 1

I hope that this journal allows me to reflect on my readings and teachings to better improve my art of teaching.  I hope that from my reflection I gain insight in how to teach my first graders how to become better writers and reflectors.  I want to ignite an excitement in them for writing.  I believe that this journal will help me gain an insight on my own personal teaching style and improve.  Like Joann Wolfgang Von Goethe said, ” A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form.” I want to be that teacher for my children. 

Things that really matter to me:♥

• relationship with Christ
• the bible
• my husband, Matt
• my daughter, Carli Beth
• my home
• my church
• children I teach
• chocolate
• starbucks
• Olive Garden
• Cheesecake Factory
• scrapbooking
• planting flowers and watching them grow
• internet shopping~ it makes life so much easier
• jewelry, makeup and purses
• taking pictures ~ captuting the moment
• Floating down the New River
• painting a pretty picture
• New York City!
• the beach~ anywhere
• London

Things I do not like:

• talking on the phone
• being cold
• people who are mean to children
• people who say hurtful things to others
• painting walls of a house
• laundry
• cleaning toilets – ugh!!

 

I have been through many struggles in my life.  But through every one of them God has taught me a true lesson.  I truly believe that God allows us to encounter situations and things in our lives so that we can help and encourage others.  At 14 my father suddenly died. It was an extremely hurtful time for me.  It has taken me many years to come to grips with his death and to see God’s purpose in his death.  As a young child my mother became disabled and had many health problems including polio.  However, she has shown me to overcome weakenesses and “keep on going”.  She has true strength and takes each day a day at a time. 

One of the greatest times in my life was the day that I married my friend, Matt. After being married 5 years it is safe to say that we have been through many struggles together and we are stronger because of it.  He is my partner in this life and my companion.  When I am weak he picks me up.  When I am down he helps me.  When I am stressed he remains calm.  He is completely opposite of me but he makes life so much fun!

One of the scariest times in my life was during my pregancy and the birth our wonderful blessing, Carli Beth.  Matt and I were so excited when we found out we were pregnant in January of 2007.  We thought every thing would go as planned.  Up until my pregnancy I always tried to control my life and plan the way it would go.  Boy was I wrong! During my third trimester I began getting sick and experiencing high blood pressure.  I still thought things would be fine.  Around September I kept getting sicker and weaker.  At this time I was labeled as a high risk pregnancy.  The doctors put me on bed rest about a month out from my due date of October 31.  I was so worried about my class.  I kept thinking I hadn’t planned for this to happen.  I had to get my lessons ready and I wasn’t finsihed with this or that.  I just kept getting sicker.  I started experiencing pain in my upper right side.  I would sleep at night in the bathtub.  I couldn’t find comfort.  I was going to the dr. 2 times per week.  Still the doctors didn’t have an explaination.  About three weeks before my due date I was so sick and felt so awful my mother convinced the dr. to check my liver enzymes.  Several hours later I got a phone call for me to rush to the hospital.  It was urgent that I have an emergency c-section.  My liver was enlarged and my platelets were extremely low.  They were afraid I would go into a coma or have a seizure and the only way to cure me was to deliver the baby.  Things were not going as I had planned.  I would not be able to experience giving birth naturally or put all those child birth classes Matt and I had attended into practice.  Matt was not even allowed into the operating room during Carli’s birth.  I know that God allowed me to experience such a near death experience to teach me a lesson ~ He is in control not me.  I now have a different perspective on life.  Live each moment that God grants you to the fullest!  We were blessed by having such as healthy wonderful baby girl.  Although she was small and my recovery took a long time we got through it. I will never forget when they laid my daughter on my chest the feeling of love that was felt in my heart.