Congratulations! I'm also pretty new, my female(?) is 1y1m old. It's been really fun, with the occasional nervous moment as I didn't understand something.

I also wasn't sure what to do regarding feeding. So I just fed her in her tank. Until one day, she got a piece of bark (i'm tired here, I forget what it is) in her mouth. Having heard about impaction, I sort of panicked. In the end, it turned out it was very small and would have just gotten digested. Regardless, it really made me feel worried.

At this time I took two dishpans, put paper towel on the bottom of one, stuck the other inverted on top of it, and put a water bottle filled with water on top of that. This is where she eats now.

What I go through is, using F/T: Start air-thawing the mouse just before I go to handle her. I spend maybe 20 minutes with her elsewhere, then bring her into the room where the mouse is thawing. She smells it and immediately switches to feeding mode. I place her into the above container setup (quickly, or she'll get the idea to strike me). Then a bring a small cup of water almost to boil, place the F/T in there, and place this right next to the above container. Which just intensifies the smell and really gets her revved up.

After about five minutes of this, it's surely thawed, and not only that, quite warm if not sort of hot. Dump the water, use tongs to present (keeping my body and face away), which usually results in a very powerful strike. Pop the lid back on, come back 15 minutes later and see how it went. Sometimes, she hasn't eaten it and sits there like she's confused. So I just do it all again.

I have come to like doing this in a specific, separate container. She seems to figure out very quickly what's going on and get into a very strong feeding response. It also means that if she hits so hard that the F/T makes a mess, it's in that container and on that paper towel, so I can just put her back in her tank and clean the container up.

So, never again a risk of swallowing a chunk of bark or messing up her home. This subject is one of great debate, it's going to be about trial and error. One snake may respond well to it, others may hate it...