Teaching: A Thankless Job

What exactly is it that makes a job thankless? I have students who say thank you every day. Even after I make them take notes..... So why is it that teaching is a "thankless job"? I'm not going to say that all of my students understand what education gives them, making it more-so "thankless" but I'm not sure I fully understand the term.

What jobs are thanked? We probably are thankful to our doctors. But do most people say thank you after getting shots, blood drawn, or chemo? Probably not. Some will. Like my students who tell me thank you. But like education people aren't sure just what the doctor has done for them until they feel better which is usually long after they walk out of the doctors office. So how do we thank them? With money. We pay them more. If that is the case, then yes. Teaching is a thankless job.

Why do I bring this up? I'm just still stuck on a comment that the administration made at faculty meeting today that our job may hard but the job gets more thankless the higher up you get.... But aren't they compensated more fairly for their job? For the most part can't they leave their jobs at work? I can't. As a beginning teacher I am often at the school before most and I am almost always the last to leave. I bring work home and I think about it constantly.

I hope some day that I wont.

They tell us all the time that they are there to support us. Well today I decided the support that I need is to not be reminded how much worse their jobs are than mine. I don't go to E.R. doctors who have to work nights and say "Your job is hard, but I'm a teacher." I don't go to Sanitation Workers and say "Yeah, but at least you aren't a teacher."

If you have to add a caveat at the end of your thanks, maybe you should just follow Thumpers advice and not say anything at all.

Decorating

I have been neglecting the blog. I want to put up more pictures of the house, but I'm not good at decorating and so I feel like the house is still unfinished. I have a room full of boxes that I haven't dealt with yet. I did however go through 3 boxes in the past 24 hours and put things away or into a designated DI box. My personal goal is to have nothing stored in a cardboard box. I don't have a set time line for accomplishing that goal however.

I have this desire to have things in my home that I made. I feel proud when people compliment something I've done. My sister-in-law is crafty and makes really nice things. I envy her abilities and love her decorating style. I mentioned to her that I wanted to try to make a Halloween wreath so she took me under her wing and was my decorating guide on my very first wreath journey. We made the whole thing from a stick wreath and some dollar store flowers, lots of spray paint and some eyeballs later we had a final product.

She found a cool wreath online that we tried to copy and I think it turned out great. The biggest problem I've had is that nobody ever comes to my door to see it! The only exception being my visiting teachers who showed up this week and appropriately reacted by telling me how crafty I am. Lets hope some trick-or-treaters have something good to say tonight as well.

Light up my life

The Dining room light was not a favorite when we moved in. I'll show you why.
Boring. We looked at a couple of light fixtures at Lowes and Home Depot and found one that we thought would work. Then while at Brads parents house one night we began talking about light fixtures and they told us they had one that we could take. They were in the midst of a remodel and so this is a theme you will see happen often in our decorating.... We took a look at the light. It was in good condition. Only one problem...


The color. I'm not a fan of gold. So after some design blog reading I decided that I could look past the color. That is what they make spray paint for. So I used some tin foil on the base.



Some plastic wrap on the individual light sockets. (you can see the first layer of color is on already in this photo)



I sprayed all the removable parts and washed all the glass. Washing the glass may have been the biggest change for the light. It had been sitting in a scrap pile during the remodel at his parents just waiting to be taken to either the dump or the DI.




Then the husband hung it up for me. It looks pretty dang good up there. If I had to change anything I'd add a few more links to the chain so it hangs lower... so there just may be a follow up post some day on that update.

Round 2

I have an interview at this school again tomorrow. I will preface this with the fact that I wont do this but this is how I secretly want part of the interview to go....



Principal: Well it was very nice to meet you Mrs. Dimick.
Me: I know. You told me in the letter you sent me last time. Even though this is actually the first time you met me. Because your letter was full of lies.

Master Bath

The master bath before and afters. I did the walls a medium gray and the ceilings white. We also installed a rounded shower curtain rod. It makes a big difference. We were spoiled with our big shower at the last house so going to this tiny shower/tub was difficult and it felt much better to not have the curtain touch your elbow when you go to lather up your shampoo. Not pictured is the hand-held shower head, we purchased it with wedding money to BB&B, we love it and have taken it everywhere we've lived since our first apartment.The before: Builder boring.
The middle: the shower curtain rod just wasn't working right. The wall/ceiling meeting point wasn't finished at this point either. That actually took me until last week to finish.
After: I feel like I should take a picture from inside the shower to show you just how much room that rod adds.

Now it just needs art. Like every other wall in my house.

Gambit

I have never had a puppy before. Now I do. This is Gambit. A Maltese/ Schnauzer mix. He is 7 weeks old we don't know the exact day he was born just that he is "7 weeks". Exactly 7 weeks ago was my birthday so we are going to say he was born on my birthday!

Hanging with Baylee

I love my extended family. My mom is the oldest of 10 children and so I have aunts and uncles that are not that far removed from the cousin age range. (But mostly you all know that since for the most part only my family reads this...) My aunt Trudy (child 9) lives in Cache Valley and so she took good care of all of the cousins who were at Utah State while I was there. When Brad and I were engaged we were able to find an apartment for us to live in while married but one of us would need to live there for about a month before we got married. We decided to both put our contracts up for sale early in hopes of one of us being able to sell ours early and also in hopes that both of us would be able to sell at all. Well both of us had people request our contracts mid semester. Brad moved into our apartment and Trudy let me come live in her basement for the month and half until we got married. I think Brads mom was surprised at the wedding to find out that the Aunt that I had been living with was such a young hip aunt and not at all a spinster.

Because we were blessed to live in the grandparents house we had ample room for visitors to come stay with us while in town. Pretty much this meant Trudy and her husband Dan and my cousin Baylee. (and a couple others, just not as frequently) The last time they came to stay with us Dan and Trudy had signed up for a conference in Salt Lake and so that meant I had 2 days where I got to hang out with Baylee. Baylee is 9 and probably will pass me up in height this year. I don't know who I will give my hand-me-down clothes to when this happens. I pulled out all the stops, so as to not seem boring and we went swimming and to the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. It is a pretty awesome museum. If you've never been you should go.

Here are some photos that I took on my cell phone to send to her parents to make them jealous of all the fun we were having while they sat in meetings about investments.
We invented a 2 headed dinosaur. They probably really existed.

Baylee would make a good paleontologist. The prehistoric shark almost ate her. But I rescued her.

We almost didn't get to swim because someone forgot her swimsuit. But it all worked out thanks to Targets 10$ suits. Why can't adult suits be that much?

It was a great 2 days and it was probably the most active I've been all summer. I hope we still have family come visit us in our new place. We'll buy an air mattress!