Happiness

Well, we are only 17 days in 2011 and I am rather pleased with how this year is going so far. The current mood at the Roche house is happiness, absolute happiness. We have so many things to be happy about and thankful for and I am so excited for the year that lies ahead of us.

About a week and a half ago, I had to attend a funeral which you are probably thinking is not something that I should be happy about. However, I am happy about it because I honestly had a great time at it. I know, this is really weird. My great-grandmother "nana" passed away on January 2nd. My grandfather (known to everyone as Bubba) is technically my mom's step-dad since he married my grandma after my mom's father passed away when my mom was 18. Anyways, Bubba's mother passed away at 92 years old and she was a wonderful Southern lady. Bubba's daughter spoke at the funeral and did a fabulous job of articulating every detail about nana and just how everyone felt about her.

Afterward, we had a big family dinner at Mediterranea. This restaurant has been in the same location ever since I can remember. It was right next door to my 1st dance studio when I was little. Over the years, the dance studio closed and the restaurant bought the space and expanded their dining room. The area that we were eating in was the room that used to be my dance studio; it brought back a lot of good memories. At the end of the day, I was so happy to have been able to get off work and attend the funeral. We really had a lot of fun at the dinner; there was great food and wine and it was great to get to see some of our family (even though we are only related by marriage) that we never get to see. I know that nana would have been happy to know that everyone had such a great time celebrating her life :)

It is no secret that my first year of teaching (last year) was anything but easy. Some days were pretty good and others were hellacious, but that tends to be pretty normal for a first year of teaching. Fortunately, I made every mistake in the book last year, so this year I knew exactly what not to do. So far this year is going really well, now that I know what I'm doing. Some of my current happiness can be attributed to the fact that I am actually enjoying teaching and that I have finally figured out how to balance teaching and life.

Every year, we are required to have formal observations of our teaching done by an administrator. My observation was this past week and it actually went really well. Luckily, my students were on top of their game and realized that they needed to behave :) I was pretty nervous about getting my feedback from my observation, but it ended up being awesome so I was very proud of myself.

Although I was excited about my own good news, we were more eager to get the results of Jared's CFP test. Jared has been working on his Certified Financial Planner license for the past year and half and I honestly could not be more excited that this process is finally over. Acquiring the license requires taking a series of classes and passing a cumulative test for each one. After all of the classes are complete, then you take the final CFP test which is cumulative of the information from all of the classes. The test only has a 51% passing rate so a well executed study plan over the course of many months is a must. Jared's test was in mid-November and by the time the test rolled around Jared was sick of studying and I was ready to have my husband back. Jared completed his final class last summer and then spent the next 4 months constantly studying. He put so much work into this test, something that I could probably never do. After the final test was over, we spent the next 2 months waiting around to find out the results.

This past Saturday, the good news finally arrived in the mail. Of course Jared brings in the mail looking all sad and upset, but he was just being mean and messing with me. To say that we were excited doesn't do it justice, we were ecstatic and relieved! Luckily, both Jared and Ryan Bush passed the test, making for much celebration to be in order :)

Needless to say, life is good over here at the Roche's. I can't even begin to express how thankful Jared and I are to have good jobs that we actually enjoy. Now if only this ridiculously cold weather would go away so that I can stop looking so white and start wearing sundresses. We are feeling very blessed with what 2011 has given us thus far and I can only hope that the rest of this year is just as wonderful :)