It's Winding Down

Wow, it's been way too long since I've written! We have 5 more days of school left, only three with the kids. I'm really hoping to have all my stuff done by Wednesday afternoon. That way I can get my checklist done and I can be done with the year and not have to come in on Friday. We have a first annual picnic with all the schools that are run by our management company on Thursday so I have to drive an hour and stay at the picnic for 4 hours, but that shouldn't be too bad.

My half marathon is one week from today!!!!!! I'm so proud of myself because I've been training for 13 weeks and I really have done an awesome job managing my time and getting all my runs in. Usually I have a hard time seeing through longer projects or tasks so this is a major accomplishment! Also, my husband and I usually train for things together and he isn't running this race with me, so it was all ME :) He of course is of course going to cheer me on but his foot is bothering him and he isn't able to run much anymore. He doesn't have insurance so we are unable to get him checked out.

I have my first 10 mile run tomorrow morning which I'm a little nervous about because the farthest I've run has been 8 miles. I'm very confident that I can do it though because I'm getting really immune to the longer distances and they don't bother me too much. Just a little update, have to get my "to do" list started for the day.

Wednesday's Words

Work is just insane right now. My coworker that I co teach with had her baby on Sunday so this week has been a whirlwind trying to figure out what she has and hasn't done. Needless to say there was a lot that wasn't done that we are trying to figure out. Her sub is great and we're getting along really well but it would have been nice to have more time to get prepared for her departure.

Speaking of my co worker, sh*t hit the fan the two weeks before she went off on leave. It was a total high school gossip fest and I was ready scream, well actually I think I did scream (into a pillow). You see we haven't had the best communication. I kind of gave up after she just did things without us discussing them first and deciding together our plan of action, and to top it off she's majorly controlling. It was just a disaster from the start. I tried to reach out to her via e-mail and she printed off the e-mail and gave it to administration. It was just a MESS but I think we finally got a few things ironed out and hopefully we'll make some progress while she's gone so we can get off to a better start when she returns.

I'm hoping that things calm down some now that the second quarter will be over next week but there's a lot to get done before then. I'm usually a VERY organized person but things are just out of control right now because I feel like I have no time to catch up. I've been working a lot at home and staying late at work. I'm just glad that we have some time the first week of February when we have conferences to get some planning and catching up done.

Oh and can I just say that I'm thoroughly disappointed with my O.lay wrinkle creams. My face is flaking and still very dry. I'm going to give it another month or so to see how my smile lines look and if I can really notice any other positives before I try another brand. I had Th.e Bod.y Sho.p sample face cream regime awhile back that I had forgotten about and I think I may try that again because the night cream was really great for my dry skin. The problem was that it was pretty pricey.

Have a great rest of the week, it's hump day!!!!!

Silence is Not Golden

I wish the phone would ring and it be some good news about a job for R rather than a family member, a friend or some stupid telephone solicitor. Don't get me wrong I like having friends/family call so we can chat and catch up about life but there is this certain heart jump when I hear the ring only to be followed by the sink when the caller ID reveals that it's definitely not from Arling.ton, VA or another job related company.

On a good note there have been some other jobs that have been added to the table so at least our options are expanding. R has had plenty of time since I've been done with work to devote even more time than he did when he was watching the kids, to job searching and all the rigmarole that goes into the process. It's just frustrating because everyone moves so damn slow.

Babysitting is going wonderful! I think all the details are ironed out from the showing up late and changing plans the night before episodes that we had in the beginning. The mom e-mailed me a weekly schedule for this week and though there was a late night there were some later mornings to balance it out so things are going well. The baby eats, sleeps, gets his diaper changed and then repeats that cycle throughout the whole day. We occasionally have some play time but for the most part he's still in infant sleep all the time mode. Speaking of he's awake now so I must be going.

Are You Serious?

I just felt the need to weigh on on the Jon and Kate debacle because I'm absolutely enraged. We don't have satellite anymore so I didn't watch the infamous episode announcing their separation but I did read several recaps and then caught the new info that they are divorcing online. Let me just say....."YOU HAVE 8 FREAKING KIDS!" Have they even given counseling a try. Everyone and their brother is giving them free stuff, e.g. tummy tuck, hair implants, free vacations, etc.... but no one seems to be ponying up the real help they need. Why is it that people will offer up things that are meaningless considering their situation now but not something that will help this family stay together? However, it's their responsibility to pony up the money themselves and get the help they need because you have 8 kids that really need both parents all the time.

This brings me to my next point, do fertility clinics do any sort of screening before people are allowed to get treatments that will potentially yield an obscene amount of children? I understand people want to have children and it's devastating that they can't have them without the help of treatments but seriously they already had twins so it wasn't like they weren't parents already. Then once they have the 8 kids there should be built in therapy on how to deal with all that responsibility and stress that goes along with raising a set of twins and sextuplets. It should be a package deal, fertility treatments with counseling before, during, and afterwards.

My last point, T.L*C needs to cancel the show. They have got to know that continuing with the show is not in the best interest of the kids. I can guarantee that those kids are not going to grow up and be eternally grateful that they have their childhood on tape, WTF. Jon and Kate always give this bull**it excuse that they do the show to record the childhood memories. I'm pretty sure that those kids aren't going to want to watch episodes upon episodes of their mom treating their dad like a piece of crap. All I can say is that I hope those kids have a snowballs chance in hell to grow up normal without severe psychological problems, but I'm afraid that the damage is already done.

Sometimes Being an Adult Sucks

Do you ever wish that you were back in college just going to class, working part time, and doing homework? The most important thing in life seemed to be finding the perfect weekend plans while managing to find time to work in homework and studying. Thinking back to college it felt like I never had enough time in the day but man was I delirious. I had all the time in the world back then and I didn't even realize it, nor did I seem to ever fathom that later on in life I'd find out what having serious responsiblities and being busy "really" meant. Well I'm here in the real world as an adult with real responsibilities and experiencing what busy really means, and I have to say sometimes I just want to run and scream and go back in time to when life wasn't really busy.

After work I went out to my car and it wouldn't start. It turned over and really acted like it wanted to start but it just wouldn't. I walked home, luckily I was at the elementary school pretty close to my house, and called the nearest dealership. The guy there was really nice and took all my information. Then I called my roadside assistance so that I could get a tow truck to tow the car to the dealership. I drove back to the school (meanwhile it started raining pretty hard) and waited for the tow truck. After standing in the rain to get everything all squared away the tow truck left with my car. The guy from the dealership is going to call tomorrow with the report as to what's wrong. I work tomorrow and it's at a school that's farther away from the house so R is going to have to drive me which means loading up the kids at 8am so that I can get to work and then picking me up in the afternoon.

I'm happy that I was able to get everything taken care of and after tomorrow the schools have Friday through Monday off so I won't have to worry about getting to work for the next four days. Work today was really good. I had a first grade class and there were only 20 kids in the class but two were absent. It was nice just having 18 kids all day. The kids were really good too, so that was really nice. R got his final e-mail today and can begin subbing so hopefully we'll be able to have my mom come down and both work for a couple weeks before she goes back to work full time.

R is getting SUPER frustrated because he still hasn't heard anything from the job in Chic.ago. I sure wish he would just hear one way or the other. I'm pretty much just making myself believe that it's a no go because then if he does end up getting it I'll be that much more excited, but if he doesn't then I'll have set myself up and be prepared for the disappointment. It will be three weeks on Friday since he's interviewed which seems like more than enough time to tell him one way or the other. Pray that we hear something soon, even if it's not good news at least we'll know.