Mistakes

Right now things in our part of the world are pretty rough. I won't go into it all right now, because too many things are up in the air, but changes will coming this week for my family, ready or not.

It is really frustrating to be put into a situation that you can do very little about. When decisions are made for you because of a mistake you made several years ago and are ready to fix, have been ready to fix, but nobody wants to listen- it's hard.

Right now, I ask only for prayers, understanding and no judgement. We know the mistakes we have made. We have punished ourselves more than anybody else can. Right now, we need support. We know we messed up.

Now we are pulling ourselves up from rock bottom and we are going to be successful once again. Who knows when, but I know we will. I know deep in my heart we will be ok. Josh and I have put this situation completely in God's hands. I know He will stand by us in our shame. I just hope that everyone else will as well.

First day of school

Around these parts kids have been staring shcool either yesterday or today. I started my new teaching job, with kids in class yesterday. It was a day.

My kids started school today. They were all dolled up and daddy took their pictures before taking them to school. Hard to beleive they are in 2nd and 4th grade. Seems just yesterday we were bringing Emily h ome from the hospital.

Here are obligatory first day of school pictures in front of the door.

Attitude

Recently we have had abit of an attitude problem with my nine-year old daughter Emily. This evening, after returning home from the pool and heading up the street to see her friend for a minute, she returned home to change out of her bathing suit. However, it was already 8pm, which is late for us, especially since we are trying to get the kids acclimated to earlier hours because of school starting next week. Her father told her that she actually needed to call it a night and was going to need to get a bath and get ready for bed. I followed Josh by saying, "But first, please run up and tell Jacob to come on home."

You would have thought I poured hot acid in her ear.

"I thought I was supposed to get a bath!!! I was going to get in the bath!!" Never mind the fact that she still had one foot out the front door.

I politely told her to get her butt in the bath and I would get her brother, and deal with her in a minute. When I went outside, her friend Danielle, told me should would be more than happy to send Jacob home.

I returned inside to discuss with Emily how her attitude needed adjusting. When she gets upset becasue she is in trouble she begins to almost scream "I am sorry! I didn't know!!" over and over. I told her that I accepted her apology, and she needed to stop, calm down and listen. And then I had nice little talk to her about the need to listen and had she been listening rather than throwing me attitude she would have heard me say that she would actually been given a few more minutes with her frined this evening, while walking back to her house to pick up Jacob. We had a nice chat and it almost seemed to have made an impression. I didn't drone on and on like I normally do and left her to get her shower.

About a half hour later Josh called me into the hallway to point out this:



Here is the note:


After talking to Josh, we decided this might be a little drastic, but we agreed to have no electronics, including her phone, radio, computer, and TV. But only for one week. But she was informed that if we encounter attitude again, the punishment would be extended.

I don't know why, but I think we really got through to her this time.

The sweet is so sweet.

So as many of you may or may not have noticed, I apperantly took a little bogging break for the last week and a half. I have been so super busy with new hire training, and in-services and my on-line courses that time has become very precious. Gone are the days of sitting in front of a computer for hours a day with nothing to do.

But I love it.

I am SO tired and my feet already hurt. I can hardly sleep for all the thoughts and ideas racing through my mind as I try to fall asleep.

I have not loved a job like this in years.

Now I may not feel that way in a week, when the students actually show up, but I am toughing my exterior, preparing my first weeks lessons and gritting my teeth.

I know it will be sweet, because I made it through the bitter.

My classroom

I have been spending my time this week attending the first of my three weeks of training that I am required to have prior to the beginning of the school year. I was released early today around lunch time and I headed out to my school so that I could take a look at the class room I might be placed into, hopefully get my schedule and find out exactly what I will be teaching and finally take some of the materials home with me in order to start completing some of my lesson plans prior to the school year starting.

I was shown the room that everybody thinks I will be occupying.


The room is in the middle of being painted and cleaned out prior to the beginning of the year. I am excited to have such a huge room and I am really glad they got rid of the blue paint on the wall and painted it "Navajo" as I was told by the nice painter, Joe, that was in the room working. This is not for sure my room, but the councilor and my teaching partner seemed to think this is where I will be placed.

I also was given my tentative schedule. I will teaching 5 sections of the same class: Personal and Family Development and 1 section of Housing/Interior Design. There are 8 periods and I will have 2 conference periods, 1 each day as we are on a block schedule.

And I brought home tons of books. I brought home as many as I could carry in one trip.



I know it will be hard and over whelming and I know I will cry, but I am SO excited!

Changes are coming

I recently was looking back at my blog posts from when I left my previous job and took the job I currently have (for 6 more hours). I was looking to see if I had written a grand farewell to this job kind of piece, I mentioned that I had found a new job and that I was excited about the new opportunity and such but nothing like the post I had written in my head over the past couple a weeks about this job I have now.

But then, as I was looking at the posts I came across this picture:



And I immediately thought of the picture I had just posted earlier this week:



And I got mad at myself.

Really, really, really mad.

Because that sweet little boy has grown three years in my time with the Evil Company (EC) and I missed a lot of it because I spent my time angry about my job. I missed first days of school and Kindergarten recitals and parent/teacher conferences because of EC. I have been mad for the last three years, and you know what? That makes me mad! I missed so much of my babies childhood because of my situation.

And that day I vowed that I was done being mad. I know that this next year will be hard. I will be angry, I will be frustrated, I will feel unappreciated, I will cry. But I will not let it allow me to miss anymore of my children’s lives. No job I could ever hold will be more important that the one’s I already have, Christian, Wife and Mother.

With that said, I am SO stinking excited at the gigantic change that I am making right now. It is scary and nerve-wracking, but I know it is the correct choice, because I have no regrets of leaving EC. None, zero, zilch. I feel like I had to work at this place, I had to have these experiences, I needed them to grow as a person. But I also know that my time here is done. I have no reason to think this is a mistake. And I am ready to wake up again and start living my life, as a happy, joyful person.