Don't let the blog bite you!

A glimpse at our weekend.

I am feeling so torn with this whole blog thing.  Now that I am teaching, I feel that it may be too risky to continue sharing.  And if I were to continue sharing, I almost feel that I couldn't be as real as I like to be on my blog.  I already have co-workers asking me to be friends on Facebook and allowing them in on my Facebook would eventually lead them here.  And while I am not the least big ashamed or embarrassed of anything I have ever blogged about....I just don't know if I want them that close. 
I have read of too many teachers losing their jobs and ruining their reputation because of blogging--or what was said on the blog.
It's always been my policy to not blog about my students or work--at all.  And I think that I've held up to that.

But let's face it, Google "teacher fired for blog" or "teacher fired for facebook" and the results are numerous.  It's just scary. 

I would sure hate to have my beloved blog be the one to bite me in the end.  And when you work as hard and as long as I did to get this job....you surely don't want to risk losing it.

So what is a girl to do?

I have hope

Jealousy sure sucks, doesn't it?

I even hate to admit it sometimes because it makes me feel so pathetic.  I mean, jealousy is not a good thing to feel.  Nothing really good comes from it. 

I can't help but to feel some sort of jealousy when I see people that have "done it right."  They were "most likely to succeed" in high school....or were just really good students.  They then graduated and went to a great school where they finished, with honors.  And then they landed a super great job and earned an awesome salary. 

A few years later, they marry the person that they have been with since college.  And, as if it were clockwork....two years later, a baby comes along.  To complete the whole picket fence idea, you know.

People that just seem to have done it right.  The way that it was supposed to be done.

Am I the only one that sees things like that?  maybe.

I got things done....  I have the marriage, the perfect daughter, the college degree, the great salary and good job....but I still feel myself saying that it's not enough.

And I guess that it's a good thing that it's not enough...because it keeps me reaching for higher and brighter stars.

I just wish that I could be content/satisfied with the choices that I made and the paths that I took.  It may not have been the right path or the best path, but it was the one that I paved.

I have so many "coaches" in my corner these days.  We have our marriage counselor that we're seeing, like, once a month.  We have a parenting coach.  I see my personal counselor.  And now, a financial coach. 

How can I fail?

We met our financial coach last night.  Talk about amazing.  I found her from the Dave Ramsey website.  If you remember, we took the Financial Peace University class at our church.  We loved what the program taught.  We loved the plan.  We loved the idea.  But we took it no further that the class.  We didn't know what to do next.  We have irregular pay because of my husband's job and that makes budgeting very difficult.

After speaking with the financial coach, we feel on our feet again.  She's going to work with us for six months to get us on the up and up.  She will write our budget and give each dollar a name.  Everything we bring in, will have a purpose.  I can't wait.  She thinks that we'll be out of debt, including my huge student loan, by December 31, 2013. 

Honestly, I don't see it. 

But if she does....I am with her!  Even if she can get us close, I'm with her.

And two months later...

I finally get to enjoy my birthday present.

I asked for this necklace for my birthday, back in November.  It came in and was too short.  :(  I have a thick neck, I guess.

Luckily, it was an option to exchange because that is just what I had to do.  But it took me weeks to actually get it rewrapped and shipped back for the exchange.

Yesterday, I finally got my birthday present.  Two months late.

Show Off!

I'm giving a new meme a test drive.  We'll see how things go...

Introducing:  Show Off!

Each week (or so) I will be asking you to "Show Off!" something in particular that you may not normally mention in your regular blogs.  Sound fun?  Let's get to it!

If you'd like to play along, just grab my button (I didn't have a special button made...yet) and enter your link below.






This week, Show Off! your 9-5.  What does your office/cube/workspace/classroom look like?  Where do you spend your days?  Are you a working mom?  A SAHM?  A work from home mom?  Do you keep a neat and orderly workspace?  Do you adorn your walls with pictures of your loves or do you keep a professional space?  Do you have a swank corner office?  Show Off!

This is my 9-5--or more like my 7:30-5:00 space.  My classroom.  And while it's my classroom, it kind of isn't.  You see, I was hired on a half year contract.  I am covering an extended maternity leave for a teacher.  So this is her room but with my touch.  There are things that I would do differently if it were my room.  But that's a whole 'nother post in itself. 

But for the meme's purpose, this is where I spend my days.

Does that chair look familiar?

Your turn!  Show Off!

My Baby Ballerina

I use the term "ballerina" very loosely, as it is far from what she performed today.  Ugh.

I had the crying one.

The one that wouldn't unlatch from my leg.

The one that made her mom come into the class with her.

The one that sat on her mommy's lap for most of the class.

Ugh.

Why is she so rotten? 

Oo,ohh, oooo!  I know!

Because I made her that way.

Have I mentioned that we see a parenting coach?!  Did I blog that yet?  I can't remember.

So today was her first ballet class.  And while her father caused more of a scene than I think she did (because he was embarrassed of her behavior--and he's yet to figure out that a two-year-old's tantrum is much more socially acceptable than a 31 year old's tantrum)....I still say it was semi-successful.

She did participate for about half of it.  So that's not too bad for the first class.  Or so I tell myself.

And yes, ballerina's get time-outs too.

Up for the challenge?

It's totally not a challenge for me, because I already do it on the daily.  But, it may be just the challenge you need to start your year off on the right foot.

Not everyone can get K-Love where they live (and what a shame, what a shame) but the challenge isn't just about K-Love but about giving Christian music a chance for 30 days.  Listen to it for 30 days and see if it brings any change into your life.

I know that it's changed mine.  I remember the first song that I heard on K-Love that really opened my eyes.

I believe that it was almost a year ago that I made the change from country music to Christian.  Not saying that I don't occasionally "stop by" at my old stations just to hear the latest, but 99% of the time, my car station is set to K-Love.  It's my own private worship and I think that it helps me survive my two hour daily commute. And life, in general.

A couple-few that I just love to hear are:

So that's it....are you up for the challenge?

Ma Bling

Joining in the fun with a little link-up!

Bling, Bling, Share Your Ring!

Here is my bling:

And I loooooove it.

To read a blog about my "bliggin' issues," click here.

A personal request

If I had a dollar, or ten, for everything I did that I said I would never do with my child....I would be on my way to a very wealthy life.  But, I don't.  But I still do things almost every day night that I say I wouldn't ever do, as a parent.

Case in point:

For the past couple of weeks, she's been joining us in our bed sometime between 2-4 in the morning.  Luckily, she is still in her crib and she can't join us unknowingly.  I hear her wake up, I go and get her and tuck her in next to me.  She then proceeds to steal every inch of our bed away from us.  No one else could ever get away with that.  Who knows what happened to my perfect sleeper. 

I subscribe to National Geographic Kids for my students and now that Kinley's favorite "chore" is to get the mail, she gets to scope out the goods before we do.  Today, she found the magazine, ran to the couch and proceeded to read through it--upside down.  Oh, it was adorable.  I love my little reading baby!

When I picked her up from daycare today, she was sitting at the table reading quietly by herself.  I can't help but beam with pride that she loves books as much as her mommy.  She's my future scholar.  For sure.

I don't usually want to blog about downer things or things that aren't so fun to read about but tonight, I'm just feeling so sick and tired of being sick and tired. 

When Kinley was just a couple of weeks old, I had my gall bladder removed due to severe blockage.  The stones were so large that they were blocking my liver ducts (sounds so gross).  The days following Kinley's birth, I was so-so-so sick.  My husband and I blamed anxiety.  We blamed the pregnancy.  We blamed the whole NICU situation.  I had severe back pain.  I had stomach pain.  I had just plain misery.  And it was sad because those were my first weeks as a mommy.  I sometime feel that I was robbed of those innocent firsts with my baby.  And having my husband barking at me to "just calm down" or "stop the anxiety" only made it worse because I honestly didn't feel anxiety.  But it just made sense, so I thought he was right.

I finally couldn't take it anymore and went to my OB for post-partum help.  I thought that if the pain didn't stop, I would die.  She immediately knew what was wrong and sent me straight to the hospital.  When they saw the blockage, I was admitted for emergency surgery.  My newborn baby went to a friend's home so that my husband could be by my side.  I didn't sleep that night.

After the gall bladder surgery, I felt relief.  But then started having problems of a different kind.  Those that have had gall bladder surgery know the "problems" that I speak of.  Food that used to agree, didn't agree.

Here I sit two years, post surgery, and the problems persist.  Out of a seven day week, I have maybe three good days where I'm not feeling absolutely miserable.  I feel sick.  I have to run to the bathroom several times throughout the day.  It's just not a happy situation.  I have gone to the doctor once before and she gave me a prescription stomach acid med.  It did nothing for me.  So I just quit taking it.

I guess I'm back to the point of needing to try a different doctor.

I really can't keep up this game of pretending that it will just go away.  It's not.  It won't.

So, even though I hate to post such a "poor, poor me" blog post...I do it in search of prayers.  If you are the praying kind, say a prayer that these issues resolve and that I can find a doctor that is willing to discover the real reason for my illness and help me get better.  I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Merry Belated

Christmas has come and gone, and I do believe that I neglected to share our attempted Christmas family photos.

I went so far to hire a photographer to come on location at a place where Kinley had plenty of space to run and play and scream and shout...thinking of course that it would only help the whole photo shoot idea.

Haha 

Joke was on me.  Take a look:

This is her saying, "I am so not interested in these pictures."

Luckily, the photographer is also a mom, and fully understood and sympathised, and kept on keeping on and we were able to get some decent shots.

And then we let her get comfortable and attempted some two year pictures.

Yeah..
That wasn't happening.

Here we are begging her to please, for the love of God, just pose with us.

And here she is loving every minute of having three adults chase after her...

I think that I was promising her a pony or something....if she would just sit still.

On our way to the car, we tried one.more.time. 

Merry Belated, from ours to yours.

It's A New Year: New Goals, New Plans

I always say that I won't do resolutions because truly it's just setting myself up for failure.  I mean, how embarrassing is it to jump on the whole bandwagon of eating healthier, losing weight, blah, blah, blah....only to get fat again in March.  Really.  Cause that's how I roll.  That being said....I'm doing it anyway. 

I'm not just doing it because it's resolution time or anything...and technically, with it being after New Years, they are more goals than resolutions.  Right?

I didn't even stay up till midnight.  I pretended that I was on east coast time and crashed at 11:01 after Dick Clark told me good night.  Call me old, or whatever.  I'm so okay with that. 

Our very good friends were in town for the holiday and Bethany and I decided to hit the town on Friday night.  We had a blast....which in turn made it easier to stay in on Saturday.  We vegged in our jammies with our babies all day.

It was such a great visit...even if our two-year olds made us a tad crazy with the "mine!" and the "not oors!" comments that were flying out of their mouths.  They are definitely in the selfish phase and oh boy....
Luckily, there were times when they were getting along and being best friends like usual.

This picture is totally over flashed, but I love it anyway.

Kinley has been running a fever of 101+ since Friday and I am so worried about her.  I am pretty sure that it's teething related but you just never know...and so off to the pediatrician we'll go if there is no improvement in the morning.

We sat down to do our budget today.  Or what I would consider a very rough draft of our budget.  Until I receive my first paycheck on the 27th, I won't really know what to budget for...but I do have a rough guess.  But our decision of whether to stay or go is due by the end of January.  Are we extending this lease or moving somewhere else!? 

You know how badly I want out of here.  You know how much I want to buy a house and get Kinley in a permanent home.  But....I know how important it is to make smart decisions for me and my family.  And, after seeing our budget, I see how staying put for six months may greatly improve our situation.  We could walk away from renting with zero debt and a clean slate to buy (and possibly) with a good down payment.  Big picture...the answer is clear.  My impatient self....doesn't want to wait!

The bigger issue, I guess, is the fact that we live an hour from my work.  So that's two hours a day that I'm in the car when I could be with my daughter or being productive with lesson planning.  Also, I spend about $240 a week on gas.  And, I just realized today that I spend $60 a month paying tolls driving to and from work.  Those little tolls really add up.  I mean, really!?  $60 a MONTH?!

Those are the reasons that I feel that we should be looking elsewhere.  So with advice from some of our family and friends, we thought about looking for a house rental more central to both his work and mine.  So, I guess that is an option...but is it truly worth the hassle of moving?

With all of that said, I guess you can figure that one of my biggest "resolutions" or goals for 2012 is to get our finances straightened out in order to buy our dream home-our long term home-by 2013.  We also still own a home where we used to live...and currently rent it out. We really need to just sell it and not have to mess with it anymore. And that could take months.... 

And, of course it's a goal to lose weight, eat healthier and feel better about myself.  Student teaching was not kind in that department and I put on a good 8 pounds through the semester.  While I won't go crazy and join the gym again, I will be more aware of what I put into my mouth.  Get your minds out of the gutter!

Let's just throw in a happier relationship, becoming a better more patient mommy, cooking at home for my family, better at keeping life organized, being excellent at my job and just being a happier person. 

No short order.  But I think I can handle it.