Where is Time Flying????

I cannot believe that it's already almost March!!!! Little Man is almost 7 years old!!!!! Baby M is almost 3 1/2, WHOA. Time is just flying by so darn fast!!! I wanted to do a little update on my New Year's Resolutions, mainly to keep myself in check!

• Run a full marathon-My husband and I are going to sign up for a full at the end of June and we have begun our pre training :)- We are signed up for the marathon and full out marathon training starts this week!!!! I am very excited but also very nervous. Part of me is like "damn straight I can finish a marathon" but then I keep having flashbacks to how my body felt after just 13.1 and that makes me kinda nervous!
  
• Read 52 books this year- I love reading and I received gift cards for ebooks for Christmas so I am going to get started on this goal. I am not going to say a book a week because I just want it to be an average. I am also going to keep a running list so that I can actually keep track of how many books I read.- I read 4 books in January but then sorta pooped out in February. I was sick so I didn't read as much at the gym. I seriously need to get on the ball and get back on track!
  
• Reduce credit card debt-it's a continuous struggle with unexpected life events but I took on another job and will still online tutor to try to work on reducing the debt and saving for the future!- My Thirt.y-one business is turning out to be really successful so I'm earning lots of extra money! We are almost done paying off the bunk beds we got the kids so that will free up an extra $100 per month and then I'm looking forward to hopefully getting a tax refund to jump start our debt pay off!!!
  
• Drink 8 glasses of water per day-I don't drink nearly enough water and I feel parched on my most days because of it. My skin, hair and nails are in rough shape and I know my body needs the water!-I am not doing great with this but I have been drinking more water. I need to be sure that I'm monitoring my intake more closely especially now with beginning marathon training!
  
• Stop biting my nails- Now that I am in a professional job I want my hands to look nice. Due to not drinking enough water and constantly chewing my fingers my hands look terrible. I am going to really try to take care of my nails and cuticles so that I have healthy hands in 2012!!!-I have been more conscious of this and gotten some really great hand lotion that is helping. They are looking better but I still have a long way to go!
  
• Have more sex- It's true......I need to have that sexual connection with my husband more because our relationship needs that intimacy. It's our 7th year of marriage and damn if I am going to go through that 7 year itch!!-Things have been going pretty good :) Still trying to be more conscious of not waiting until 11pm to go to bed but rather start the routine much earlier so I'm not so exhausted when I crawl into bed.
  

I'm Back!!!!!!!
I am finally getting around to posting my progress from the last year on the resolutions that I made for 2011 :) and hopefully begin blogging more as I share my resolutions for this new year!

Progress from 2011

• Take the G.RE and decide on a PhD program, possibly begin my program this fall. It has always been my dream to get my Ph.D and pursue a career in higher education teaching college. I am going to study, take and hopefully score well on my G.RE this year. I have begun researching what field I would like to get my Ph.D in but I need to finalize my decision and start the process to apply. With all the changes this year in my job I did not complete this resolution but it's still in the fore front of my mind and it will happen someday, just not in the near future.
  
• Leave work at 4pm at least 3 days per week so that I can get home at a reasonable hour and spend time with my family. I work far too hard too hard for how much they value me at work so I need to make it a priority to get as much done throughout the day as I can so I can leave work at 4pm and not waste time there.- Quit that crappy job and took a new one, got laid off from the new job, and got another new job that is by far the dream job. I leave work everyday at 4:30 because those are my hours and in case I didn't make it clear enough, I LOVE MY JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
• Have a sit down family dinner at least 6 nights per week. This is extremely important to me because I know it's so very important to having a healthy family that communicates and shares their days with each other.- We have been sitting down most nights for family dinner and it's been great! I am not sure if it's averaged out to 6 nights per week but we've had some wonderful dinner time memories over the past year!
  
• Cook dinner 3-4 times per week leaving the rest of the nights to my wonderful husband. I love to cook and with everything going on this past year the job of cooking has flown out the window and it makes me sad because I love it and lately it's seemed more like a chore. I want to get that love of cooking back this year!-I cooked a lot more this year but I hope to increase it to more this upcoming year. I would love to tackle more of Rach.ael Ra.y's 30 minut.e mea.ls :)
  
• Reduce my credit card debt by 50% this year. I will have to online tutor at night and sell things that are unnecessary to daily life but I'm going to vow to find a way to reduce my debt this year!- After taking a new job and working part time along with subbing, then getting laid off this did not happen. It's going to be a continuous goal for quite a few more years.
  
• Run and workout at least 5 days per week. Even if it's just a walk around the neighborhood I want to stay active to help reduce stress and improve my health.- I have been working out a great deal and I think that I pretty much fulfilled this resolution on the average :)
  
• Find a new job by the end of 2011. I want to find a position that will value my talent and be happy that I'm a part of their workplace.- YAY!!!!! I did this :) Not only did I find one new job in 2011.....I found TWO!!!!!! I am valued for my talent and incredibly happy right now!
  
• Read at least 24 books this year. I am part of a book club but I really need to carve out time to read each day so that I can meet this goal- I am not sure how many books I read because I didn't keep track... whoops! I read a great deal but I'm not sure if I hit that 24 book amount.
  
• Run a full marathon. I'm thinking the Charle.voix marathon since I ran the 1/2 last year and it was awesome.- I trained for another 1/2 but got sick and also didn't have the money to run it but this will be on my list this year!

So here goes nothing.........The New List for 2012!!!!!!

• Run a full marathon-My husband and I are going to sign up for a full at the end of June and we have begun our pre training :)
• Read 52 books this year- I love reading and I received gift cards for ebooks for Christmas so I am going to get started on this goal. I am not going to say a book a week because I just want it to be an average. I am also going to keep a running list so that I can actually keep track of how many books I read.
  
• Reduce credit card debt-it's a continuous struggle with unexpected life events but I took on another job and will still online tutor to try to work on reducing the debt and saving for the future!
• Drink 8 glasses of water per day-I don't drink nearly enough water and I feel parched on my most days because of it. My skin, hair and nails are in rough shape and I know my body needs the water!
• Stop biting my nails- Now that I am in a professional job I want my hands to look nice. Due to not drinking enough water and constantly chewing my fingers my hands look terrible. I am going to really try to take care of my nails and cuticles so that I have healthy hands in 2012!!!
• Have more sex- It's true......I need to have that sexual connection with my husband more because our relationship needs that intimacy. It's our 7th year of marriage and damn if I am going to go through that 7 year itch!!

This is the list for now.....we'll see if I need to add anything in the next couple of days :)

Baby M is 3!!!!

So he's totally not a baby anymore. I'm going to have to come up with new ways to refer to my children because Baby M and Little man just don't fit, lol. We had a great day today. His party was last Sunday and of course he chose Light.ning McQ.ueen for his theme :) Today we went to the park, went to an indoor play place, and opened some more presents. We let the kids pretty much do that they would like for their birthdays so of course we had Happ.y Mea.ls for lunch and played a lot of games and stayed up late! Here is a cute picture of Baby M from his birthday. On Sunday we get to go to my grandpa's 90th birthday so we're pretty excited about that!!!! I feel so blessed to have my grandparents still alive and that my children get to know their great grandparents. It's not the norm these days for that to happen!!!!

And Then There Were 9

Got a little bit of good news today...... They recalled more teachers and there are only 9 of us left that haven't been recalled. It's not great and I probably won't be recalled before school begins but I thought there would be more around 15 that were left. 9 is a little better than 15! I'm still hoping that maybe as the year progresses they will need teachers. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Floundering

I'm supposed to be setting up a classroom right now. I hear all my teacher friends talking about getting up early, going to meetings, putting up bulletin boards, meeting their students, etc... and I'm home. I knew it was going to be this way but knowing and actually going through it are two very different feelings. Going through it makes me feel like a bit of a failure. Now I know that I'm not a failure so no need to leave me uplifting positive messages (not that anyone reads this anyway, who am I kidding) I really thought by 31 years old that I would be almost 10 years into my career and have some stability. Which I totally would have had if I was still in FL. Around this time of the year I really miss FL. Keeping my fingers crossed that something good will come my way. I'm so sick of being in debt and not having the money to support my family. I'm sick of feeling like I'm never going to be successful. Ugg...after writing this I have to pick myself back up and go on with my day because I've had my 20 minutes or so to feel bad and that's all I allow myself each day.

Everything is Going to Be Alright

I haven't posted in forever....well like 6 months. It's not that I haven't thought about it but it just seems like it's been hard to say exactly what I was thinking. I know that seems weird but it's the best way that I can explain it. I have several drafts of blog entries that I haven't posted but none of them seemed to be right to publish. Now seems as good of time as any to explain my past 6 months.

1. Quit the charter school in February and it was the best feeling in the world.
2. Took a job at a public school and had the most amazing experience of my life being in charge of the math intervention program and pretty much doing what I needed to help the struggling kids without being micromanaged.
3. Got my pink slip and the end of April and hoped for the best keeping a very positive attitude because if anyone knows, it's me, that crying, feeling sorry for myself, worrying, etc... doesn't help the situation. It was far enough out and so much could happen that I have to say I wasn't really worried about it.
4. Had a great rest of the school year and was so happy that I was a part of such a wonderful staff. Said goodbye to everyone in hopes that a miracle would bring me back on staff in the fall.
5. Started collecting unemployment....it's $315 per week and will last for 26 weeks.
   
6. Had and am continuing to have the most wonderful summer of my life. I am truly blessed to have had so many fun times and memories with my kids this summer, life just seems perfect.
7. Mid July they called back 160 teachers (242 were laid off).
8. The beginning of August the situation really started to set in because I realized that if I don't get called back, which it absolutely doesn't look like I'm going to, things will be really hard come the beginning of Sept.
9. Went to the substitute teaching meeting at my local school district so that I could sub this upcoming year if need be.
   
10. August 18th they called back only 20 more teachers.......did I mention that I'm DEAD LAST on the seniority list!
11. Started finding a lot of jobs posted for the different school districts and have applied for them all along with applying for jobs that are in higher education.....the phone hasn't rung once.
12. The charter school people went back to work today and I'm still so glad that it's not me!!!!!
    

So now I'm at the point wondering what to do if something doesn't "work" out. It seems like though we've gone through hell the past 3 years.....yeah it's been 3 years!!!!!.......that things do always seem to work out. The problem is that we're so far in the hole from all the rough time that we've had that we have yet to get ahead! I'm keeping faith though that things will work out and that something will happen because I'm working so hard and have kept my chin up for so darn long when I could have just given up. I've been hearing of people left and right that are just ending their lives because times are tough but I know better. I know that even though things seem impossible that nothing is impossible in life. It may seem bad but if you stay positive and work hard things will be okay.

I'm keeping faith!

Life

If anyone had a crystal ball in my early 20's and told me what my upcoming life would entail I think I would have turned and ran. I would have ran so fast and far away from life. Looking back on the past 10 years I cannot even believe all the events that I have made it through and surprisingly I'm still alive. I feel like I should write a book on how to get through life when the rain keeps pouring down and will not stop. When you keep repeatedly getting kicked down. The difference between me 10 years ago and me now is that I KNOW that whatever life throws at me I can and will handle. I won't just handle it, I'll man handle it and kick it back to where it came from, trembling from even stepping foot in front of me.

I got pink slipped today. I knew it was going to happen before I even interviewed for this job. I'm not worried about it because dammit I can handle anything. This is not going to make me sad, mad, upset, depressed, etc.... At this point in my life I say "what else can you send my way," "bring it on!" I will conquer any task, feat, problem, event, etc.... I know that this isn't personal and I will cross the bridge and figure out what to do when I'm at that point. There is absolutely no sense in worrying or crying about something that I cannot change. If I keep a positive attitude and hold my head up strong, I will prevail! It's just one more mountain that I will be climbing in this hike that we call life.

What a Year!!!!

2011 sure is turning into an interesting year! Here's a little about what's been going on in our world:

• I turned in my keys and turned my classroom over to someone new in February. I started my new job as a math intervention teacher at a PUBLIC!!!!!! school. I do math intervention for half of the day and the other half of the day I substitute teach in my building or in a building close to mine. I am in heaven and still can't believe that this is my life! I love my job and I love the public school atmosphere. I have had SO many great experiences and professional development opportunities in the past 5 weeks. I will be pink slipped at the end of the year but I hope that I get something for next year.

• R had his business name and website content pretty much stolen by another business in our town. They started the SAME business as him with the name only varying by one word and changed two words of his mission statement to use as their own. It makes me sick to my stomach that people would do this. Our town in small and the last thing that R really deserves is having the rug pulled out from underneath him. I mean they pretty much stole his name and business and are claiming it's their idea and original content. We consulted lawyers and are going to try to avoid sending a cease and desist letter but it may come to that if they won't be amicable about it.

• In more exciting news R got a part time job as an executive director of a foundation. It's a really great opportunity and barring anything coming up on his background check or credit report he has the job. It's just about 15 hours per week and he can mostly work from home! I'm very excited for him especially since he just took a huge blow this week with the whole business stealing. I just pray that it works out because our credit isn't completely stellar with the issues we've been dealing with for the last 2 1/2 years!

• Little man and Baby M are doing WONDERFUL!!! I love them to pieces and I couldn't ask for better children. They are comical, have contagious giggles, and are so smart! I hope that I can spend the summer NOT working and home with them.

• We're on sprin.g brea.k this coming week so I'm looking forward to having the week off. My mom is going to take the boys for a few days to spend time with them so we're going to have some time off. I'm looking forward to a little break and having time to read and get some things done around the house.