Long and winding road.....

A year. How can it be? And what a year it was. Could it have been worse? Sure. Could it have been better? I sure hope so. I don't even think I can sum up a year in one post. I'm not even sure why I felt drawn back to post. I think or maybe I hope I am free to say more here than I am on Facebook. I'm still trying to sort out the year.
We lived through....
a senior year
1st year teaching
major snow storm
2 weeks of continual snow days
change of job
graduation
EF5 tornado
7 weeks of summer school
oldest child turning 18
figuring out how to parent an adult
send a child off to college
figuring out how to live as a family in 2 states
4 drivers and 2 cars
Did I mention the EF5 tornado?
an abrupt end to the school year
leaving a job I loved
being moved to a different school 5 days before school started
and that's just what I could remember in 3 minutes.

I'll be back to continue sorting through the last year.

I can't believe I haven't updated since Feb.

No excuses! I just didn't do it. Since Facebook has entered my life I have just been ignoring my blog. It was really just for my anyway. There have been a few times I've thought of something to add. I try and keep Facebook not quite as real as life really is. I just update what we are up to. General comments really. So where does that leave us? We were always a little more real with each other. Not sure who checks in or why they would check in.
Life since February... Subbed a lot this spring. It was good and not so good. I liked subbing for the longer gigs. I could get to know the kids names. It was easier to manage the class. I meet a lot of people. I fretted a lot about a job. There were so many teachers jobs cut this last year. Normally teachers were being hired in March for the next school year. That was not the case this year. I did get hired at Irving but it was not until the last week of school. I had really prepared myself for the worse. I find it is easier to be a pessimist and be proven wrong than the other way around. It's so disappointing and I guess even at this older age I've not really learned to deal with disappointment. So now I teach 3rd grade. I love it. I love the kids and the teachers I work with. I really feel like I'm exactly where Gods wants me to be right now.
The kids. Well there is one with one foot out of high school and one with one foot in high school. Who knew how stressful the senior year could be. Where to go to school? How to pay for school? Which degree is best? Play volleyball or not play volleyball? Makayla would love for someone to tell her this is where she is going and how it will be paid for. I'm not going to do that. So we have spent a lot of time talking about options. I just think we need to get done with this season and then figure out what is going to happen. Hannah has slid right into her freshman year without skipping a beat. She seems to have worked the kinks out of her friendship issues in middle school. She has been playing on the varsity volleyball team. What a pleasure that has been. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would see Hannah and Makayla play on the same team and the same time. I feel like I won the lottery! Sweet baby Jordan is not such a baby anymore. He is only about an inch shorter that the girls now. It's really hard for this mom to see her baby so grown up. He has been showing some interest in girls. Oh my! Along with this new interest comes showers, actually hair styles, some attention to clothes, and even deodorant. All good things! He is still working hard on his Eagle Scout. This spring he went on his ordeal and joined the Arrow of Light. He is still sweet and thoughtful. He still gives me a hug and kiss every night before bed.
Really summing up 8 months of time is hard to do. Where we are now is no where I thought we would be 3 years ago. So many twist and turns. God stretching us. Always showing us He has a plan. He is in charge. He is taking care of us. There are still things I wonder about. I don't question them anymore. I just wonder how they will work out or why it had to happen the way it did. I'm also far enough away from the initial event that the pain has dulled and I love the new path. I don't hope for such a life altering shake up like that anytime soon but I also know if it should ever happen again, we will survive and we may even love the new path.

Life on hold...

yet in fast forward...
Confusing huh?
I feel very out of balanced right now. I feel like my life has been on hold for several years. I have a plan. I've even done the hard work to get to my goal... yet.... I'm still waiting. I'm bored. I'm staying busy but it's just stuff.
I'm ready to get to it.... I do not want to wait another 6 months. Jeeze... who thought that was a good plan? But worse than waiting to get started is waiting to know where I'm going to be. I feel like I'm going to shoot out my finger tips.... I need a game plan. Waiting... waiting.... waiting.... really? I have things I want to do.
So even though I feel like my life is in a holding pattern my kids are shooting on ahead. In those same 6 months I will have a senior and a freshman. It just doesn't seem right.
I feel out of control.... really not a good place for a red personality to be.
So now what?
Continue holding pattern while my family moves in fast forward.

January is 1/2 over? How can that be?

Well I guess 2010 is in a race to see if it can go by as quickly as 2009. Why does everything and everyone have to be in such a hurry?
Classes started at MSSU today... and I didn't have to go. WEIRD huh? Guess this is part of the new normal. I slept in until 8:30. Watched some tv on the computer.... that's my new favorite thing to do. Someone and Dave Ramsey wont let us have cable so we have 5 channels and 3 of them are PBS. That was ok when I had no time to watch tv... but now... I need something to waste my time on. So I've been watching all the channels we don't get. Man times have changed!
We tell the kids stories about how we had to talk on the phone when we were kids. HA! We tell them about a time when the phone was actually attached to the wall. It was an exciting day when we got a cord long enough to reach my room so I could shut the door. I even remember it being a huge deal to have your own phone in your bedroom... imagine that! Fuller even remembers having a party line... I love telling the kids stories like that.
I told them last night that the papaw actually got a job when he was 15. He had to give up sports and work. He had to start paying rent to live at home when he was in high school. Fuller's dad only went to the 8th grade because he had to work and give money to the family. It sure does put our lives into perspective now.
We spent the weekend running between Springfield and Springdale going to volleyball tournaments. Makayla's team took first... not really sure where Hannah's team ended up.
This week I'm hoping to sub.... I really don't want to paint the living room!
Take some time to enjoy January 2010 before it is gone...... and it is going fast!

2010.... already?

Man when they say time flies they mean at warp speed.
2010... I honestly never gave any thought to living during the year 2010. It sounds so weird. It sounds like the future. Weird huh?
Plans for this year..... (these are not in any particular order... just how they came out of my head)
1. Get a job! Sign the contract already so I can quite wondering about it. I'm not really worrying about it but I do wonder about it quite a bit. Where will I end up?
2. Get my house ready to sell. Don't know if that means we will put it on the market or just be ready to put it on the market. If I had my way if would be on the market and sold already. Do we wait until more bills are paid? Do we do it before Makayla is gone so she can call it home too? Dilemma....
3. Pay bills.... getting a job will be helpful with this!
4. Sub as much as possible until the school year is over and never have to sub again!
5. I could say loose weight and exercise more... but really? I'm not make those promises anymore.
6. Be more thoughtful. Send cards to my friends, be a better gift giver, call and check on people I haven't seen in awhile,.... here's a tough one.... tell people I love them. I am not very good about saying I love you. Why is that?
7. Don't freak out about a dirty house. We all know that at any point I can clean it back up. Is it really going to matter if it is today or tomorrow? I will really have to work at this one!
8. Don't sweat the small stuff.
9. It's okay for my kids to fail at something... this is called a life lesson. I do not need to micro manage their existence. This excludes the big stuff... at any point I can and will intervene when it is important.
10. Actually blog... hummmm.... we'll see. We are trying to figure out a new normal at our house. We must be slow learners because we have been working on this for awhile. Normal has changed so many times for us in the last 2 years nothing feels normal. It seems that every time we seem to start to feel comfortable some thing else changes. I realize this is life... but these were some big changes. Big changes take a long time to make adjustments from. Every time I think I should blog. I can't think of anything to say that sounds like something I should share with the world. I'm going to work on that.

So welcome to the future.... it's 2010.

Oh my... 2009.....

Wow... what a year. I've learned a few things along the way. I thought if I was going to be taught some lessons it might be a good idea and learn them fast so I don't have to repeat that lesson again.
1. Life is gonna had you lemons so you had better get a good recipe for lemonade and keep all the ingredients on hand at all times!
2. Use gloves when you cut up jalapenos! I am not stronger than the pepper and they will burn.
3. Life is going by very quickly.
4. I can do things that I never thought I would do let alone could do.
5. Life is about changing, either you get on board or the ship will leave with out you on it.
6. I really don't do bored very well.
7. A clean house always makes me happy.
8. I don't really like change... maybe changing the room around, cutting my hair a little... that's all good, but drastic change is hard to make.
9. I really don't know very much. The more I learn the more I realize I really don't know anything at all.
10. When God is in charge it really doesn't matter where you want to be or what you what to do... you are exactly where you are supposed to be.

Life....

Probably gave up on me.... that's ok. I would have given up on me too.
Wow... September 1st was a long time ago. Much water has passed under that bridge. I have not even done a good job of taking pictures during that time.
Makayla's volleyball team went to state... won 3rd place.
Hannah finished up her last season of middle school volleyball and turned 14 in October.
Jordan has earned his 1st rank as a Boy Scout.
Makayla now lists herself as "single" on facebook. All good things must come to an end. There has since been a parade of boys through our house and it's only been a week. I'm not sure I can put myself out there anymore for these boys. I think I'm not recovering very quickly from this one.
I finished up my student teaching.... which mean I graduated. I have spent the day reminding myself that I graduated college. I have no idea how that happened. I remember driving down the road calling my friend Missy who works at MSSU and asking her what I needed to do to enroll in school. I knew the store was going to close and I didn't have a clue what to do with myself. It made sense to be a teacher. I had started the degree in 1990. It made more sense than just going and looking for a job. I tried to think about what I would want to do. I couldn't come up with anything else. So spring of 2007 and started taking some classes while the store was still opened. Looking back I remember that I really thought we would fix the store. I thought it was all going to work out and I would either drop out or just take a couple of classes here and there. Well... we all know that story. It didn't work out. I didn't drop out. And I took as many classes as fast as I could. Now it's over. I survived. It just still doesn't seem real.
There is so much more to say. Almost 4 months is a long time. Will I be able to keep this up again? I really don't know. I feel like facebook gives me more of a connection to the person on the other side. Facebook is a quick glimpse into the lives of my friends and family. I'm not sure what I'll do. I will post some pictures later. I don't even know if anyone is checking in here.
Later.....