Trying this again

I haven't posted in over 2 years! WOW! I started this blog because I thought it would be fun and a theraputic. I enjoyed posting when I had the time and felt pressure from myself to try and post more often that I did. Hopefully I can be a little more consistent with my posts and not pressure myself so much. I'm doing it for fun so I need to remember that so I don't spoil my own fun! :)

Frustration x 10

Let me just say that I am a talker. I talk all the time with pretty much anyone about almost anything. I not one of those mysterious people you look at and say "wow I wonder what she's thinking. " I pretty much will tell anyone completely personal details about my life. I've been this way as long as I can remember. I like to share and I find that my sharing encourages others to share with me which satisfies my nosy nature. The problem with this is that I am not a single person anymore, I am part of a "we." This means that sometimes the things that I share include details about others in my life and this is causing problems. In my defense I'm not attempting to demean or embarrass my other or "air dirty laundry" I just like to share my life with others. Now, I would not betray a confidence. If I am asked not to share something I won't, but if there is no disclaimer then I feel most things are fair game. I find it very frustrating that people who have know me for over a decade now find huge fault with this aspect of my personality. I'm going through a time of great irritation and dissatisfaction. I've had a very stressful past few months and currently no aspect of my life feels stable. I feel so frustrated (hence the creative title of this post) and I honestly am to the point where I just don't give a damn. I'm tired of the struggle, I'm tired of the disagreement and I'm tired of trying to please everyone else. Screw 'em all I say.

Panera Surprise

OK, let me start by saying this is the FOURTH time I've had to type this post. The first two times I accidentally deleted it after a couple of sentences and then once I had finally typed the whole thing in and clicked on publish post I got an error that blogger was down!!! FRUSTRATION!!!!!!!

Ok, that's over. I actually want to share an exciting thing that happened to me today at an otherwise boring time of day. I went to lunch with a friend from work and she suggested Panera Bread. We went to a location near the hospital that I actually have never gone to. While ordering my sandwich and giving my very specific instructions for toppings someone behind the counter started mocking me a bit and said "you obviously haven't been to Panera in a long time. . we don't have sprouts anymore" normally I would have ignored this person or made some smart remark but her voice made me actually look at her and Oh my goodness it was one of my best friends from high school! I was so excited that I screamed and ran over to her and gave her a big 'ol hug, completely forgetting to finish ordering my food. I haven't seen Carrie in 6 years so it was so cool to randomly see her at a restaurant I never go to. Last I knew she was living in St Louis, but it turns out she moved back her a few years ago and didn't know my new last name (marriage and all that) so couldn't get in touch. Crazy huh? Of course we exchanged email/phone numbers and hopefully we can get together very soon. I don't know if we have anything in common anymore but it'll be fun to find out! Bob has kept in touch with so many of his friends from high school and I have not. When I went away to college I kept in touch with a few of them but over the years I've lost touch with all of my closest friends. It'd be so great to have friends around again who new me before I was just some body's mommy/wife/employee etc. Also it'll be fun to be able to say "remember that time when. . . . . " I've been thinking a lot about family and friends since Grandpa died last week. I realized how much I've missed out on over the years by not being as close with my family. I hope that I can do a better job of maintaining relationships in my life that really matter.

Just a few things to say

I've just spent the last hour or so catching up on some of my favorite blogs. It's been so long since I've taken the time to read some of my favorites. . I've discovered I've missed quite a bit! My cousin in her blog made a comment about how her employer has blocked blogger and it just so happens we work for the same place and I agree totally that it sucks! It's so much easier to blog at work that at home. I have the kids and husband hounding me for this and that and it's so hard to sit down at the computer and write. This is why my journals are sitting unopened on my nightstand. Today is the fourth of July which happens to be my grandparents anniversary. I think that is a very cool day to get have gotten married. My family usually gets together at my grandparents house and has a really fab celebration. I haven't been to it myself in several years but I have great memories of it. This year I'm spending my evening at home with my now 17 month old Emie while my 4 year old Max is off with his daddy. We went to a celebration last night and didn't get home until 10:30 which is super late for my kids. Emie is always in bed by 8 so tonight she was in no kinda shape to be around anybody! It's been awhile since I've posted so I'll share a bit of info to catch anyone who is interested up. My temporary job has become permanent. I love the job but miss being at home with my kids. Fortunately we have found super childcare for both kids but I beat myself up daily for paying someone else to raise my children. Both kids are doing super! We've had a couple of great mini-vacations this summer. We spent a weekend in St Louis and went to the Arch, Union Station and the Zoo. The zoo has a great Dinosaur exhibit and Max loved it! Emie wasn't as impressed but we got a kick out of her saying "moo" to all the dino's! We also took Max camping a couple of weeks ago. That was a great time. Emie spent the weekend with her Poppa and Grandma which was totally the right decision. It was hot and it rained and she would have hated every minute of it. Max had the best time and we are going to go again soon. I'm going to get either my husband or my oh so tech savvy cousin to show me how to add pic's so I can put Emie and Max in these posts so you'll see how adorable they are. Well I've started blogging again and hopefully I can at least make it a weekly habit 'cause I know I can't do it daily.

Where has time gone???

Wow, it's been forever since I've looked at my home computer let alone had time to blog. I have started my full-time very busy job and It's going well so far. My kids are having a hard time adjusting to the new schedule but it'll be ok. We had a really good week thanks to Halloween! This is the first year I've actually taken Max trick-or-treating door to door. In the past we've just gone to the grandparents houses (which takes all night) and called it good. This year we decided to make it easy on ourselves and we dressed up both kids and walked down the street to the neighbors that we've met. Max was a cowboy and looked so cute and Emie was a flower. She was adorable! Max was so excited about going to all the houses and eventhough we really only went to about 6 houses he thought he struck the candy jack pot! We were only gone about 30 min's so I was able to put Emie to bed on time and Max helped Daddy pass out candy to all goblins that come to our house. I think he liked that almost as much as getting candy himself! One more really exciting thing that happened is Emie actually crawled for the first time up on her hands and knees. She has been mobile for a while doing a version of an army crawl but on Halloween she got up on all fours and crawled across the room to me. I was taking pictures of her at the time in her Halloween costume so I got some cute pictures of her coming toward me. I was so excited that she did it when we both got to see her. I miss spending each day with the kids but it is nice to be doing something other than laundry and changing diapers!

Quality child care???

I start my full-time temporary job in just a few weeks and I'm feeling very stressed! Not about the job, but about child care. I've been so lucky that family has watched Emie (& Max when he's not in pre-school) while I've subbed. But that has only been one or two days a week. Once I'm working Monday-Friday and actually required to be there I know that I need more reliable care for them both. Max will start going to pre-school 3 days a week instead of 2 and Bob will have to start taking his day off on Thursday and my parents will watch Max on Tuesday so he's taken care of, but that leaves Emie. She'll be 9 months old when I start working and I really hoped that my mother-in-law would split the time with my mom at least until January, but I don't think that is going to work out. So I've started the search for child care and it is so scary! I've called the lady who watched Max for me to see if she might have an opening and hopefully that will work out. Eventhough I do trust her and she did so great with Max I still hate the idea. Emie goes to bed about 7:30 each night and wakes up about 7 each morning. Once I'm working I'll be lucky to spend 3 hours with her during the work week. That absolutely kills me! Max stays up later but not by much so I'll maybe have 4 hours with him. I know tons of moms do this, I did it with Max but it makes me so sad to think of leaving them again. I just need to look at the positives of it. Max is doing so great at pre-school. His teachers are amazing and he has learned so much in a very short time. I know that Em will like being around other kids, she loves Max and it'll be fun for her to have other little girls to play with.
On to other news, Emie is now crawling. She can't go forward yet but she goes backwards anywhere she wants to go. It's very cute! Max thinks it's so funny to crawl with her and that usually ticks her off pretty good. We are getting ready for a trip to Ohio in two weeks. That should be an interesting drive with both kids. We are leaving in the evening so hopefully they will sleep most of the time. It should be a lot of fun. It's our first official vacation as a family of 4, thankfully it's only for a long weekend!

The wise lady at the table

I've been getting called a couple a days a week to substititue and it's going really well. I've taught kindergarten, high school and 6th grade. So far I've liked 6th grade the best which is good because that is the age-range I'm planning to become certified in.
I had to go for an orientation training for another district last week and it was really very informative so I'm glad that I went. I did have a bit of an eye-opening experience while there. There were four of us sitting at the table listening to a gal go over all the instructions for the paperwork in our packet. We had to fill out w-4's, emergency contact info and the like. I breezed through it pretty quickly and waited for the next step of the orientation. While I sat there the girl across from me (early 20's I'd guess) looked at me and asked me a couple of questions about how to fill out her form. I answered her. Then the gal sitting next to her (also early 20's) asked me a couple of questions about what the instructor had said. I answered her. Then the guy sitting beside me (maybe mid 20's) asked me more questions about the forms and about our next instructions. Once again I answered him. It occured to me then that I was the most experienced (i.e. oldest) person at the table. These college-age students were looking to me for advice because they could tell just by looking at me that I was way older and therefore had probably done this kinda thing a time or two. As I've said before my age doesn't bother me, not at all. But I have to admit it is a bit of a shock to realize people look at me and instantly know that I'm not young. I wish I could see what others see when they look at me. My sister-in-law was looking at pictures of me from a few years ago and she made the comment "Boy you sure do look a lot different than you used to." I laughed and asked if that was a good thing, she didn't respond. A good friend of mine turned 30 today and I had to give her a bit of grief as she did to me 3 years ago. I welcomed her to the club of 30-somethings and she responded "thanks, but you're still closer to 40 than I am." I'm not concerned about turning 40 however, I might start investing in some good anti-aging cream.