Glass throwing

After I graduated from UGA in 2006 I got a job, like you're supposed to do, teaching in Anderson, South Carolina. I had many interviews and almost just as many job offers (though a few did slip through my fingers) but ended up chosing the position I did because I would be teaching in a small town (hopefully easier, right?) and, most importantly, I could live at my parent's lake house for a fairly decent price (okay, and pretty d@$n good price). And who can argue that living on a lake wouldn't be a blast?

Well, that year ended up being what I deem one of the worst of my life. I was a new teacher nearly drowning in lesson plans, grading, tests, failing children, and home phone calls to be made. I hated it. I didn't have any idea what I was doing so I had to work hard to plan quality lessons. The time spent doing that meant that the piles of homework and tests to be graded mounted. And in the meantime I had to deal with the hormonal youth that, though they may have meant me no personal harm, sent me home in tears 4 out of 5 days of the week. And the phone calls... if you know me, you know I DESPISE the phone (and I do not use that term lightly), but we were required to inform parents of failing and nearly failing students. Making calls informing parents that their students aren't doing well is not a fun call to make, especially when you hate phones.

You would think that living at the lake would have offered pretty good opportunities to escape from my "torture", but unfortunately I didn't partake in the beautiful outdoors nearly enough. Instead I always seemed to tell myself I could enjoy it when I was "caught up" and trapped myself indoors wallowing in my piles of papers.

Even though we lived nearly 30 minutes from what I regarded as "civilization" (a fact that I grudged), Jason and I found a few things that we enjoyed and that made life a little more bearable including a little downtown cafe that made awesome calzones and another dinky roadside restaurant called Dad's 2 where we ate every Thursday night and where I always enjoyed a plate of potato skins (just about the only vegetarian option) and a liquorless margarita (it was made with a wine cooler because the sale of liquor was forbidden in the county... yet another fact I grudged.)

But there was one thing that I absolutely loved and was one of the few highlights of my life at that point, and that was taking the trash to the dump.

Yup, you read it right. Taking the trash to the dump. It actually wasn't the trash part that I enjoyed, it was the recycling.

You see, they had these large green dumpsters for the recycling, kind of like this one...

You drove up a hill and these dumpsters were actually below you. You stood on a concrete walkway and threw your recycling down into the appropriate dumpster.

The reason I enjoyed it so much was because of the glass. When you threw in your jars and bottles they would SMASH into tiny pieces. It was such an amazing feeling, like you were throwing your stresses and worries away and letting them blast into smithereens. And it was made even better for me knowing a) I was helping the environment by recycling (and not making a mess destroying things elsewhere) and b) because I got to organize while doing it because you had to separate the different colors of glass!! (Yeah, it's ok, I am a little obsessive compulsive).

My best friend Stacey is now in her first year of teaching and we have actually been saving up glass for over a month now with the sole purpose of going up to Hartwell to smash it. We went this weekend to do just that but unfortunately we did not time our trip well and the dump had already closed when we arrived and didn't open again until after we had to leave today. We will definitely be making a return visit soon for some recycling therapy.

We did take advantage of the beautiful weekend though and did a little jog taking in the fall foliage and the views of the lake. Daddy and Drew enjoyed some scenery too...

Drew also enjoyed a crackling fire with Aunt Stacey...

And some Waffle House!