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Cake Catalogue #9

Girl baby shower cake for one of Kevin’s co-workers.
I think this might be my favorite one so far (besides the SEC cake of course…)
Now let’s just pray that it arrives to the shower safely!

GREAT News

Everything lately has been about cake, so I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about something else going on in my life.  On Monday I received the most wonderful news.  I finally have electricity in my trailer at school and get to move in this week!!!  Some of you will know right away that this is a huge deal for me because you’ve probably heard me talk about it for the last year.  But for the uninformed, here is how the story goes…

My first year at GCS I shared a trailer with the counselor.  Not the ideal situation but we made it work.  Around the beginning of my second year all my stuff had been moved because I was promised my own trailer.  I was really excited about this but although the trailers arrived in late July of 2008, they did not have the power hooked up yet.  So all my stuff was dumped in there and “they” (being my principal and everyone else at school) promised me it would be done in about two weeks.  So I thought no biggie, I can just travel to classrooms for a couple of weeks to get started.  Well- long story short- weeks turned into months turned into almost a year and a half later they just connected the power last Friday.  I can’t even begin to tell you what a difference this is going to make in my work life…

Before I was ever a teacher I’m sure I would have been very snobby and thought that teaching music in a trailer would be a huge step down from a classroom.  Now that I’ve gotten a reality check I feel like I am in heaven just getting half of a trailer!  That’s because traveling to classrooms has been so much harder than I imagined.  The toughest things have been:

• I am physically exhausted from hauling my ’stuff’ around all day.  I push a cart carrying big heavy things like xylophones.  In some ways I feel like I shouldn’t complain because I make the decision to do that, but honestly it wouldn’t be fair to my kids if I didn’t use instruments.  I think that my lessons would not be as engaging and they wouldn’t get the full experience they deserve.
• It is much harder to have classroom management because I am not in my room, I am in their room.  The students don’t understand that My rules apply for those 30 minutes, and if the regular teacher is in the room it makes it even harder because they constantly try to talk to her and ask questions.  Then she’ll just say “pretend like I’m not here” but that’s impossible.
• Space is a huge issue.  I maneuver around desks and chairs and classrooms that just aren’t set up for music.  Kids are always whining about someone being too close and bumping up against them.
• I feel like I will be in trouble for being too loud.  Teachers who stay in the room often give me looks because I am disturbing their planning time.  I want them to understand that music is not always quiet!
• Sometimes the students have to stay at their desks and finish classwork that they haven’t completed.  “He can come to music when he’s finished.”  While I’m not opposed to that, it takes away my time with them when I only get 30 minutes a week.  And again it makes it harder for the students to distinguish between music time and regular class time (goes back to the management thing).
• When I have planning time I literally have nowhere to go!  Not even a small closet to sit and do something.  Usually I hang out on a bench or chair in the library which makes me feel like I waste so much of the day when I could be really getting something done.

Whew, I apologize because I really didn’t want to make this whole post sound negative.  I just want to give you a small glimpse of what I’ve been dealing with for the past year and 3 months.  And perhaps now you can understand why getting my own space, even a tiny space, is such a huge deal!  I began moving things in today and will continue to work on my room this weekend.  My hope is to start having classes out there Monday.

Trying to end on a positive note- because this is a positive story!  God really has blessed me so much through this job.  This is exactly the job I prayed for and He provided on the exact day that I asked for.  If you don’t know how that happened I’ll share that story in a later post…
The people I work with and especially the kids are so wonderful.  They are the reason I show up each day.  They make all that hard stuff I rambled about worth every moment.  And to be honest it’s only affected me not having a room.  Kids are no less thrilled to make music on a small 12 x 12 reading mat.  They still love it anyway.  Their sweet faces and their precious personalities (most of them) keep me smiling and laughing all the time.
I pray that through all of this I have learned perseverance and how to be content in any situation.  (Not that I have always been content, I’ve done my share of complaining!)  But I can see how God has strengthened me and always provided just what I needed at the right time.  I hope that I am becoming the teacher He wants me to be.  To HIM alone be the glory!

Cake Catalogue #8

Auburn Tigers cake for another teacher friend.

I have sort of a funny story that goes with this one.  I definitely learned my lesson: always be sure to mix the right colors.  On Saturday I began icing this cake in blue.  As much as I tried to add more blue coloring, something about it was definitely not right.  It just wasn’t Auburn blue…and the more I stared at it I soon realized…oh no, it’s Florida blue.  Well I certainly could not give my friend who is a die-hard Auburn fan (along with her husband whose birthday the cake was made for) something that resembled gator colors.  But I also was not willing to start all over and make another cake.  Solution: just add another layer of icing!  I mean, who would be upset about that?  So it took my a while but I finally figured out how to mix the correct navy color and it turned out to be a happy ending =)

Here is a before/after shot of the two different colors.  See what I mean?

Cake Catalogue #7

This morning I delivered this fire truck cake to a 3 year old boy’s birthday party.  Kevin was my driver and he laughed at me in the back seat, holding the cake, holding my breath and squealing as we went over every big bump in the road.  I would yell “go slower!” and he would inform me that he was only driving 15 miles per hour.  I have decided that the delivery is the most stressful part of cake making.  But the cake arrived safely and made a sweet little boy very happy.  So it was worth it.  Here ya go:

Cake Catalogue #6

Here is a fall-themed birthday cake for my co-worker’s sister.

This week is shaping up to be very busy.  I have three cakes to work on, a couple of dinners with good friends, and looking forward to meeting our nephew next weekend!

Will write more when I get a chance.