Sunday, November 28, 2010

Exhaustion

Matt is officially done at his job. That means that, for now at least, I have to pick up as many extra hours as humanly possible in order to try and make things work. It isn't "ideal" for me, but it Matt and the kids are loving it. A mom's got to do what a mom's got to do, right? This coming week I am working 32.5 hours at the store, 14+ hours at the school and 16 hours of classes. Not to mention that we are quickly winding down towards finals week. There are projects to be done, essays to be written, tests to study for and CHRISTMAS to get ready for too!

Yeah, life isn't crazy enough around here, so we agreed to host Christmas at our house this year. WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!?

I am pretty excited about Christmas this year. We got the kids just about everything (reasonable) on their list. Matt is getting most everything on his list too. He also got a BIG surprise this year. I did some rearranging, some wiggling and some saving and surprised him with a Toshiba 40" HD LCD TV. He got that early because I had to buy it on Black Friday and there wasn't anywhere to hide that beast until Christmas. He is thrilled with it, and I am glad that I could give him something that he really wanted.

I was amazed, but even with Matt quitting his job we were still able to pick up little things for pretty much the entire family. I still have to get a few gift cards for my family, but other than that and candy for stocking stuffers, we are all finished with Christmas shopping. Actually, we have the tree up, most of the decorating done, and about half of the wrapping is finished. We are on a roll this year.

A few more weeks and the craziness around here should start to settle into a much more manageable level. December 17 is the last day of finals (though I think mine actually are all finished up by the 15th). Next semester I am taking a much lighter course load, so it should be easier to keep up with everything I hope.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Long time, no post.

Wow! I didn't realize it had been so long since I had posted here. So much to share. So many things have changed, or are getting ready to at the very least.

During my last post I mentioned that Sierra had auditioned for a role in The Sound of Music. The play was last weekend. She actually played two small roles. She did great. Everyone did great. It was amazing!

School is going really well. I have a 4.0 GPA. I also am working a second job. That's part of why it's been so long since I posted. My days start around 5am when Matt gets up for work. As he leave at 5:45 the kids get up and get ready for school. When they leave at 6:50 then it's time for me to get ready and head to class. During my long breaks between classes I know work as an office assistant at the school. I love it. It's challenging and fun. I get along amazingly with the office staff, and alot of the other students are great to work with on a regular basis. After I am done with classes for the day I head to the store for work. We close at 9pm there and once I get home (usually around 10) it's time for homework. I usually fall into bed somewhere between 1 and 2. Then I get to do it all over again! lol

Other big changes to report......Matt's job. In one of my last posts I mentioned that he had moved to a new department. He did adjust well to that department and was enjoying work. Well, he decided he wanted to go back to school. I did some checking, filled out some papers and he got financial aid, so in January when the new semester starts, he is going to school to. That means he has to give up his full time job though. He is giving notice in the morning. He is going to start applying for part time jobs around here very soon. Hopefully it won't take him long to find something. There are a couple of very real possibilities, so we are hopeful. We've thought this out though, and we know that even if he doesn't find something right away, we are going to be fine. January might be a bit of a struggle, but in February we will be getting excess checks from our financial aid, and not long after that we will get our income tax return. We are going to use that money to pay all of our living expenses for a year and the money from my checks will buy groceries and put gas in the car. There won't be any money for extras, so we will have to cut ALL non essential spending, but in the end it will really be worth it.

Another change is that I have changed my major. I was going for nursing, and I still think I would have enjoyed it, but I quickly realized that it just wasn't realistic for me. I wanted to be a labor and delivery nurse and to counsel parents who lost their babies to miscarriage, stillbirth or early infant death. The problem with that is that the nearest hospital with a L&D unit is more than an hour away. One semster of driving that distance to the main campus made me realize that I just don't see myself driving like that for long periods of time..... especially in the winter. Since Matt doesn't want to move away from where we live (and neither do I most of the time) that career path just wasn't realistic. Right now I am just going to focus on getting my Associate of Arts. I am taking some business electives, because I think that is likely the path I am going to take after I get my AA.

I am going to try to continue posting here on a regular basis. Finals week is quickly approaching though, and I have ALOT on my plate right now, so I have no idea how often it will happen.