50 Shades of Busy

I am feeling an enormous sense of pressure today.  Tomorrow is my last "me day" before becoming the SAHM.  I tell ya, I have been a roller coaster of emotions about it.  One minute I am totally okay with it and excited, and the next I am in a fierce streak of panic.

It doesn't help that when I pick her up from school, her teacher is slowly ridding the classroom of all things Kinley.  Each day, there is a picture that once hung on the wall, or like yesterday, her birthday balloon from the birthday board.  That one, made me cry.  It's just little silly things...but it rips my heart out.  Kinley loves her school and she loves her teachers and she loves her friends.  Will she miss them too much?  Will she wonder why she's not going to see them ever again?  Have we moved her around too much in her two short years?  So many questions that I bog my mind with.  And unfortunately, all of the answers fall into the world of wonder as a parent.  You never know the right answer, you just have to do the best with what you have at that given time.

I know that she loves me more than her school or her teachers or her friends, but I can't provide the things that her friendships can.  I'm fooling myself if I even pretend that I can.  But I'm keeping myself sane by realizing that I am offering her so much more than what school ever can.  And come fall, she will be back in a new school with new friends and a mommy two rooms over.

I am getting the best of both worlds?  Right?  Working but still "with" her (as in, same building?).

I think that more than anything, I am trying to justify in my head that preschool teaching, or this job in particular, is okay.  It's okay to have this job even though I have a BA degree in elementary and even though I have acquired 50K in college debt and am not putting it to use.  It's okay to take a 20K yearly pay cut.

It's not okay, but it's necessary.

Let's face it, teaching jobs are like a needle in a haystack.  Good luck finding one!  Maybe in a year or two, things will change, but until then.  I am doing what needs to be done.

I have become absolutely obsessed with budgeting since having time off.  I think I spend at least 2-3 hours each day going over the spreadsheet and our check book to see where I can pinch another penny.  But, it's working!  I have (on paper) put aside almost 2500 for savings this month!  Obviously, that's from the lack of day care and two hours of commuting each day...but that's a huge gain for one month!  I am pretty proud.

Our summer events calendar is filling up nicely.  We decided to take Kage swimming in the evenings since our community has a pool right across the street.  It would  be silly not to utilize it.  I'm telling you, Kage is a little fish!  She just wants to go, go, go!  She even went underwater a few times.  I was shocked!  I was planning to enroll her in swimming classes but I may not need to at this point.

Since my free days are down to the last two, I am planning to spend the rest of today reading the book that everyone and their mother has been talking about, Fifty Shades of Grey.  I know, I know, it's smut.  Whatever.  It will just continue my romance hangover from yesterday, right?!

It's one of the many that are on my summer reading list, and if I know me, I won't even get through one.  But good intentions are the best kind.  And I've got tons of those!  :)