The Wet Week that Was

There aren't really words to describe what this last week has been like. If you've been watching the news, you know that we got epic amounts of rain for about seven days. The worst of it was Sunday night into Monday. Last Sunday, we had a tremendous thunderstorm come through in the middle of the night. It woke all of us up (even Andrew, who usually sleeps through anything), and it stormed and POURED for close to two hours. I just lay in bed worrying about the fact that it was a Sunday night which meant that the next day was Monday, and I was going to have to make it through the day on very little sleep. I never imagined what was going on outside.



Here's what was happening while we slept.

(Pictures courtesy of the ajc)

Those buses are parked about a half mile from my house at Parkview High School. There's a creek that runs right next to where the buses are parked, and the water rose to about 7 or 8 feet overnight. And we didn't even get the worst of the flooding. Over on the west side of Atlanta, entire neighborhoods were under water. In some places, you could only see the roofs of the two story houses. Six Flags had many of their roller coasters under water. The pictures on the news were just surreal. You see stories like that in other places, but to realize it's happening to people right where you live is very disconcerting. An elementary school in Cobb County, Clarkdale Elementary, was completely submerged. Those students had to evacuate on Monday as water starting pouring in. Our school was cancelled on both Monday and Tuesday because it wasn't safe to drive on the roads. People were getting swept off of the roads as they tried to drive through the water. It was like nothing I had ever experienced.

Thankfully, our house stayed dry. Our house is set up on a rise, and the water flowed down the lawn and into the neighbor's. During the worst of the rain on Monday afternoon, it was pooling quite a bit just past our neighbor's house, but it didn't get up very high. We don't have basements on our road, and I've never been happier about that. I spent Wednesday back at school just looking around my classroom and realizing how thankful I was that it was still there. I can't imagine as a teacher, or a student, losing absolutely everything in your classroom. Many of those students also lost everything in their homes as well. The thought of it is overwhelming.

Our only problems have been with our phone and internet service. The phone was out Monday, (I'm beginning to think something got hit by lightning) and the internet went out completely on Tuesday. I was finally able to get a hold of someone on Thursday, and everything should be up and running no later than Tuesday. A lot of the roads around us are closed as a creek that meanders around our area washed out or weakened many of the bridges that cross it. It's made getting around a little interesting. Matthew's soccer field (which sits across the street from where those buses were parked) suffered some severe damage, but they are hoping to get everything back up and running by next week. They lost a few of their soccer goals and most of the fence, and in some places the ground washed away, but I drove by there today, and there were people out getting it cleaned up. Unfortunately, it's pouring right now, as we are expecting another 1 to 2 inches of rain today. Hopefully, the ground has dried enough to handle it.

Soccer Pics

Here are some pictures from Matthew's soccer game last week. It's an instructional league, so they don't keep score, but he still had a great time!


I'm actually very impressed that I got this shot. :)

While I'd love to post pictures tomorrow from his game, we are beginning to build arks down here in Atlanta, so there aren't going to be any games tomorrow. I'm just hoping the rain stops someday. My children (both my own and the ones I spend my days with) really need to go outside to play.

It's Official!

I just finished talking to my mentor at Western Governors University, and I'm officially enrolled in my first two masters classes. The orientation course is a kind of get to know you course. If you don't finish it, you don't have to pay for it. Now, I'm on the hook for tuition. Or Sallie Mae is since they're borrowing me the money to go back to school. I'm enrolled in Introduction to Special Education, Law & Legal Issues Policies and Procedures; and Literature Reviews for Educational Research. They sound fun, don't they? Both of them are introductory courses which involve a lot of reading and learning of terms and procedures. The Literature Review course will also get me started on my capstone project (think masters thesis). During that one, I'll get assigned a capstone chair who will help guide me through the entire process. During my last term, I'll write the project and then have to present an oral defense of it. That's the one thing that has me worried. I've never done any sort of big research project, so this will all be new to me. But before I get to all that, I have to get through the next three terms and lots of classes. Guess I better go start studying now.

Matthew's New Sport

Before I start, I blame all of this on my Aunt Judy. You'll see why in a minute. :-)

Matthew is starting soccer this week! He's mentioned it off and on for a while because one of our routes to church on Wednesday takes us right past the soccer complex, and he would see the kids play. But it was never a big thing. That changed this summer. My cousin Penny was down here visiting her mom, and her oldest son, Jon, introduced Matthew to soccer. They played one Sunday evening when we went over for dinner. Matthew had a blast. Plus, he was pretty good! (To my untrained eye.) I figured it wouldn't be too long before he was asking about playing. He waited until we were home. Being the wonderful mom that I am, I decided to sign him up. (Actually, I had already decided to put him in something this fall, so it worked out fabulously.) I picked up a soccer ball and backpack a couple of months ago when the Wal-Mart near me did a big clearance before they remodeled, and Matthew and I went out tonight to get him cleats, shin guards, and socks. His first practice is tomorrow, and he's getting pretty excited. They'll only play on Saturdays, and the games only last an hour or so, so it won't stress the schedule too much. With this and KidzLife on Wednesdays, he's going to stay pretty busy. No time to bother Nathan then. Wow, this really is a great plan! :-)

First Day of School

Not only am I a teacher, but starting today, I'm also a student! Yep, I FINALLY got around to starting my master's degree. I wanted to try and start last December at Georgia State, but things just didn't work out for me. So this summer, I decided that I was going to find a school and a program that would work with my schedule. I did LOTS of searching online and found lots of diploma mills, but finally I stumbled on a great university. It's called Western Governor's University, and it's located in Utah. Like its name implies, it was the brainchild of the governors of the nineteen western states. It's a completely online campus. Plus, instead of credit hours, its classes are based on competency units. Once you show competency and pass the assessment for the class, you are finished! It's really designed for working adults who have lots of experience, but need a college degree for career advancement. It's also really easy to apply to, and it's the only completely online school that participate in federal financial aid. It took me about two weeks to go from application to acceptance to start date. Instead of paying for credit hours, you pay a flat per term fee no matter how many classes you take and pass, so it's very affordable. I'm hoping to be able to get my whole degree done for less than $10,000. (Which is ALOT cheaper than some schools I looked at.) I decided to get my master's in special education. My ultimate goal is to teach in a primary self-contained special education classroom. Hopefully, I'll be able to get done in 18 months. We'll have to wait and see. I started my first class today. It's an orientation course that needs to be done in the first two weeks. It's not too difficult, so hopefully I can get it done sooner and get into the meat of my classes. While it will take a lot of organization and planning (and mountains of help from Jeremy), I'm so excited that I've finally taken this step!