The Countdown Has Begun

I have been absent from blogging for a few weeks due to having waaaaaaay too many irons in the fire. This is the story of my life.
Yesterday I finished a post grad class that had been hanging over my head since May. I did a serious happy dance.
In 20 days I will say good-bye to my full-time teaching position and begin my journey as a stay-at-home mom. Ironically the world is supposed to end on this same day, according to the Mayans. That really puts a damper on my plans.
Jake has rearranged the ornaments on the tree about 11 times and has used them as ammunition to bomb poor Meow.
Today the official 25 days of Christmas has begun. The Teenie-Weenies (Santa's stealth like little super elves, otherwise known as me) have been busy leaving notes and ornaments, candy and small trinkets for my three little ones in anticipation of Christmas. Santa even sent them a video email that had them sooooooo amped up we couldn't get them to go to sleep.
I am interested to know what some of your special holiday traditions are in your homes that make this season so wonderful for you. Please share with me in my comments section. Enjoy the build up to the big event!

My Glorified Double-Wide

Last week my hard-working husband went on a much needed and deserved vacation to hunting camp, AKA our home. You see, that was his original intent on purchasing our home and property in this rural country area. Tired of living right next to the highway with the noise and lack of privacy, my husband stumbled upon our house as he was hunting up in this neck of the woods. The house had been abandoned by its previous two owners, the first had literally left it to ruin. Years later the second owners, with good intentions, tried to fix it up. They gutted it to the studding, refinished the floors and walls, put in a new heating system, and got a divorce. Thus leaving it abandoned once more.

Sounds attractive, doesn't it? I am sure it had "BUY ME!" written all over it. At least it did for Jim.
Jim is not a negotiator. He never put in a counter offer. He just bought the dang place at its full asking price before having even put a FOR SALE sign on the home he already lived in. He was determined to make his new place "CAMP", a retreat for him during hunting seasons.

Jim successfully sold his other home and had been living in his "camp" when I met him. It was practically empty. He had only a few pieces of furniture. There were not even doors on some of the doorways, no trim anywhere in the house, or anything that made it feel homey. It really did feel like camp with just the basic necessities.

I had already owned my home a few miles away. It was a cute little house, but I too didn't like the noise of the highway or the lack of privacy from living in a neighborhood. My first marriage had failed in that house, and I was ready to leave it behind. But my house was homey and cozy and not campy. And it was my children's home where I celebrated some of their most important firsts.

When Jim and I decided to get married and have Jake we realized my little house was just that, little. And his house was, well, camp. So needless to say I was very reluctant to move in to camp in spite of us needing the extra space. What actually made the decision final was at Easter when I wanted to have an Easter Egg hunt for my very large extended family (shout out to the Ecelberger's), and we decided to have it at camp because there was ample parking and it was wide and flat and we could accommodate lots of people and lots of Easter eggs. So I made Easter dinner and had everyone here and my aunts and uncles were so complimentary of the place, to my shock.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not better than a double wide, that's for sure. The only thing that made me leery of the place was its history and what the house had been through. But truly, the house didn't feel sad to me. It just needed loved. There are some really wonderful things about my home that I absolutely love such as my kitchen. It is big and I have a lot of storage and counter space and an island to prep my food or the kids can sit at. I love our big garden tub in the master bath that all 3 of my children can fit in at the same time. I love that it is a ranch style one level home. I love our in-floor heat. I love that I have a laundry room and mud room. I also have an entry way. These are all things that were on my list of things I wanted in my dream home someday.

We also finished the basement, which used to be just one long empty space the entire length of the house. Now it contains a very nicely finished space with my husband's man cave and trophy room, another large kitchen with lots of counter space and storage to put our canned goods, he has a gun room/reloading room, a huge man closet, a play room, 2 more bedrooms and a full bathroom.

Moving our family here has been one of the best decisions we have made as a family. It has created a new space for us to begin our journey as a blended family. We have painted and decorated it with all of the things that are special to us and if anything, it looks like anything but a camp. It is our home and we are proud of it. And we love it, and it loves that we are in it.

I am sure that not all of the hunting type of guys would take a week off of work to hunt in their back yard, drink beer in their own house, and spend time with their wives and children and call that hunting camp. If anything, I think most guys like that time away from all of those things to enjoy going away to camp. But that's one of the reasons why I love Jim so much. This is what he saves his vacation days for and looks forward to all year. And I am thankful that he loves hunting camp and I have my dream home.

Anxiety is the Enemy

I have a confession. I suffer from frequent panic attacks. I never know exactly when one is going to sneak up on me, but I am on a daily mission to overcome the anxiety in my life. Sometimes it feels like it is a minute by minute battle. Over the past 15 years I have done a lot of soul searching and have began to understand the role that anxiety plays in my life.
I am a high energy person. I usually have 40 irons in the fire. I have a very hard time relaxing and sitting for any length of time. I often overplan my days and feel inadequate that I didn't get everything that I set out to do done.
I can relate to those ADHD kids that I teach on a daily basis. I understand how noise can amp up someone's insides and make them feel like they are going to burst with nervous energy. I have trouble driving my car on sunny days. The shadows that the trees make on the road as I am steering make me feel like it's a thousand stroble lights going off. It's equally hard to listen to the radio and have a conversation at the same time with someone.
When I sense a panic attack coming on I immediately have that fight or flight response. This surge of nervous energy wells up in my stomach and it makes me feel like I could run laps around my house. I absolutely hate it. It makes me irritable, flighty, and oversensitve to every little thing.
This past summer the anxiety started to get out of control to the point where I didn't want to leave my house. I had designated safe places in my mind that I knew I had to go to and that I didn't feel anxiety about going there. Anywhere other than those places, I chose to stay at home. But realizing this was what was happening and that the anxiety was in a way handicapping my ability to function "normally" I chose to consult with my doctor for help.
He diagnosed me with a panic disorder that often can be alleviated through the use of medicine and behavioral therapy. I have been down the medicine and therapy route in the past, and it wasn't a very pleasant or positive experience for me, but I knew that this would be his suggestion. My soul objectives were to understand the anxiety and attain some practical coping strategies to help me get through the panic attacks without feeling like I was going to implode.
In an effort to minimalize some of the stress in my life, I have became a much more forward individual. I do not have the energy to lament over trivial things or get fussed up about people or new initiatives at work, or stewing parents. Instead, I have chosen to take the bull by the horns approach and problem solve as soon as it is possible so I don't take those things home with me and think about them at night. This has been a positive decision on my part, although I have been a little too forward on some occasions because I didn't give myself enough time to plan thoughtfully what I needed to say when I needed to say it. Let's just say this is a strategy in progress and I have some growing to do.
I have also tried to aquire the ability to politely say, "No thank you." I am a fixer. I want to help people. But sometimes I take on too many other people's burdens and causing more stress for myself. So I have chosen to try to keep my life as simple as possible, putting the needs of my family first and then if I have the time, energy and ability, do for others.
I have began to communicate more openly what is causing me anxiety and enlisting in the help of others that are close to me to offer me some suggestions that may help me get through whatever it is that is flaring up at that moment. This requires an open mind, and being willing to hear things that may make me feel badly. But it really is effective for my stress management.
Admitting this to the world feels a little like standing here completely naked, but for those of you who know me, it will probably put a few pieces of the puzzle together that you may have been thinking about when it comes to me and my personality. This is also part of my attempt to climb this mountain. We often find community with others, sometimes even complete strangers. I would love to hear your comments and feedback and click the like button if you can relate. :)

Resignation

I have been an elementary teacher for 13 years. I began my career in a tiny Christian school in the Weather Capital of the World, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. I went to Penn State University Park Campus, earned a degree in elementary education, student taught in Altoona School District in a Kindergarten classroom with a master teacher, and then upon graduation, I was so hungry to teach that I interviewed at a Christian School in Punxsy and was hired to teach at the Kindergarten level.
I loved it. I was overwhelmed, as most first year teachers were. But I enjoyed the happy chaos of my new career. I taught there for one year when, upon feeling the financial stress of a new marriage and pressure from my then husband to have better healthcare, retirement, and income, I resigned, only to substitute teach in a local public school.
Subbing is less than glamorous and fulfilling at times. Teachers like to complain about what you did and didn't do in their room for the day. It's a love/hate sort of relationship on both parts, that of the sub and that of the classroom teacher. I missed my classroom of students that I cared about every day and looked forward to on a consistent basis. I didn't like that 6 a.m. phone call, that wondering if I will get a couple days in a row because I made nice with the secretaries, or the anxious anticpiation of getting an interview when it was time for hiring.
I got two interviews with the same public school district. It didn't go as well as I had hoped it would either time. The first time I felt like I was just blowing smoke cause I was so nervous and distracted that I really didn't feel like I answered the questions to the best of my ability. I also felt like the questions really weren't that relevant to who I was as an educator, what I hoped to accomplish as a teacher, and what I knew about teaching. During the second interview the president of the school board fell asleep. When I saw him doze off, I was mortified. After that I am sure I didn't make any sense at all. I convinced my husband that subbing was not my path and I interviewed for a different local Christian School and received a 2nd grade position.
2nd grade was a similar challenge to teaching Kindergarten, but the Abecka curriculum that was used in those two schools was extremely detailed, fast paced, and laid out nicely so a teacher could pick it up and use it. I loved my job there, but the unfortunate thing about living in a depressed part of rural Pennsylvania is that private schools, such as both of the ones that I had taught in, depend on enrollment to pay their teacher's salaries. When enrollment is down, classrooms collapse and combine and a teacher loses his or her position. I was told that the class coming was too small to employ my position, so I went back to the public schools to apply for positions and be added to their sub lists.
I had received interviews in 3 local schools, was hired in 2 of those schools and chose the one that I currently work in because it wasn't in my home town, and I felt like, in theory, I could leave work behind and still have my own life when I returned home at night. That wasn't a true story. I do not possess an off switch apparently.
That first year was hell on earth. The district had just moved to full day kindergarten from half day, they acquired a new reading series, and they implemented a new assessment that, at the time was paper and pencil, and currently is performed using an app on an ipad. Some of my colleagues that I had to work really close with in the building that I had been assigned to were a little repelled by me. I had a lot of enthusiasm and ideas. I liked parent involvement. I was a novice with contract and union related stuff. I made a lot of wonderful friendships in that building because there were and still are some amazing teachers and women that work there. However, as it is in most work related settings, there are those couple that really make things difficult, and I was not having an easy time adjusting to that.
I have always been the black sheep in just about every setting that I have been in, but in this case I completely felt like I was the black, blue, green, purple, orange and yellow sheep, too. Needless to say, after a few years there I put in for a building change, thinking this would make my life easier somehow. I am not opposed to change when it feels good, and this change did, so I embraced it. I enjoyed my new building, which is my current building and I have had my shares of ups and downs there too, but they have felt much much more manageable than it did in my first placement.
While at my current building I have had a beautiful daughter, gone through severe depression and anorexia related to that depression, fought through a failed marriage, separation, and divorce, survived dating (which is not for the faint of heart because there are a lot of psychos out there), met the love of my life, married him, birthed a new son, moved from my old house to my current home, and all the while have continued to grow as an educator, getting better with each year in terms of discipline, effectiveness, and classroom management.
Last year was the best year of my career in spite of a 2 year long building renovation in which I moved my classroom and kids 3 times in 9 months and taught in a gymnasium with 6 other classrooms and no ceiling. My children were beautiful receptive respectful little people. They were well-behaved and ready to learn. They were kind and considerate. Their families were supportive and kind and helpful. They made me feel good about being a teacher and I loved to be their teacher. I had 3 children on the autism spectrum but because of early intervention, these brave little ones weathered the noise and adapted to the moves and learned in spite of all of the changes we had to endure together. We were a team, "Team Thomas" I called us, and I was proud of them for being such wonderful strong little people.
It is really hard to teach Kindergarten and then come home to three children under the age of 8, two of which I share custody with my former husband. I am happily remarried but marriage is not easy and takes a lot of time and work and effort. And my home has 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 2 kitchens and 5 acres. I am so exhausted from the work that I put into each child in my classroom each day, the fires that I put out every day that don't have anything to do with teaching and that do have to do with teaching, all of the requirements that public educators in Pennsylvania have to fulfill from the government and administration, the amount of parent contacts that I make regularly, and the neediness of the ages of these children, that I feel like I have so little left at the end of the day to give to my most deserving beautiful family. I do try my best. I am rarely grumpy and short with them even though it is taking every fiber of my being to hold it together. Routines are my sanity here, and my own children are very receptive to those and helpful to me and love me through hard days. My husband is amazing and helpful and selfless. He keeps me sane.
The face of public education is changing every day. It is not the same animal it was 10 years ago. Or even one year ago. I have came to the realization that I do not have it in me to do what I do for 30 years. Or 20. In fact, I am going to stop at 13.
Last week I turned in my resignation, effective December 21, 2012. It was with mixed emotions that I did so. In a way I feel like I am failing my students by leaving mid year. In most ways I feel like I am failing my family by going to work every day. I am leaving behind 2 wonderful teammates and a lot of colleagues who I have grown so fond of over the years. They have loved me through those hard times. I will miss that daily contact.
My supportive husband has afforded me the ability to not go to work every day. That is not to say that we do not need my income. It is just to say that I need to take a step back, get centered again, and do something part-time. Part-time in my field is back in the subpool. Only this time it is by choice. I don't have to care about so many things that I currently bring home with me every day. That I can't turn off when I lay down to sleep at night. I can go to school, teach and then I can leave it all behind me. But before I sub, I am going to test the waters of being a stay-at-home-mom. I have never had this ability before in a full-time sense.I am going to enjoy volunteering in my children's classrooms and spending days in my jammies with my toddler. I am going to do laundry and clean my own house and make good meals that take all day long. And I can't wait to do it. I have started blogging as a means of staying connected to the things I love the most, teaching included. I have so much to share about my past experiences, and so much to share on my journey to what is next. And I look forward to you being part of it.

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Meet Jake

Meet Jake Thomas, AKA Jimmy Junior. My husband waited 47 years to have him....I carried him the full 42 weeks and finally they induced me on January 19, 2011. My husband, the calm, tough, rugged man that he is, was helplessly rubbing my back and holding my hand and doing what he could to help me endure the pain. They broke my water and an hour and a half later, after my body felt like I was going to spontaneously combust, Jake arrived healthy and wailing. I was in a pain haze when he arrived, feeling immediate relief from the pressure I had endured for months, but I foggily remember my sweet and proud husband meeting his firstborn child. He cried at the sight of this tiny human who looked exactly like him. I was shaking so badly from going into a shock sort of state after having him, that Jim immediately stepped in as alpha-parent, care-giver and provider, and began his journey as a father.
Jim's voice is very deep and sexy and soothing. He kept kissing his tiny son, and telling him hi, and saying, "I am your dad." But Jake already knew that. Jim had talked to him every day while he was in my belly and Jake would roll around like crazy when he heard his voice. Jim would give him a pep talk towards the end of the pregnancy telling him he needed to come see us and give his Mama a break. And, being stubborn like his dad (and his mom) that little bugger decided he would make camp til them made him come out. :)
Within minutes of Jake's arrival, I watched my tough guy husband morph into a gentle giant. Those work worn hands never put that boy down unless I needed to feed him. As long as Dad was in the house, Jake was in his care. He was right there to change his first yucky diaper, and several 100's since. He gave him his first bath in which the nurses tried a bonding procedure where they removed the dad's shirt and once the baby was bathed they swaddled the dad and baby close together skin to skin so they formed an attachment. I think they called it a kangaroo method of some sort. It was so sweet to see that little human nuzzled in all that chest hair :) My husband never felt so proud.
These two have a kindred spirit and an inseparable bond. They have a need to be together. Jake's first words were DaDa. I feel privileged to have given him the gift of a child. Jim had never been married or had children of his own in his life before he met me. He had accepted that it may never happen for him. I am so thankful that God allowed me to have Jake with Jim. Jake is a gift and a joy and has made our family feel so close and complete. Caleb and Ava love him so much. They help us take care of him. They are so wonderful to him. They don't see him as anything less than their real brother.
Jim is a wonderful father, not just to Jake, but to Caleb and Ava, as well. He teaches them things and spends time with them. He helps with homework and baths and bedtime. He does everything that I do with them and most of all, he loves them and takes excellent care of them, just like he does Jake. Sometimes blended families don't always feel so seamless, but I am very blessed and grateful that mine does.
Friends, your children are a gift from God. Please treat them as if they are. They are divinely ordained to be loved by you, taught by you, and to be taken care of by you. Parenting is the hardest job that you will ever have the privilege of doing. Enjoy those simple things like being called Mommy 15 times in one minute because someday you will just be called Mom. Or stepping on the oodles of Matchbox cars in the middle of the night as you try to tuck them into bed because someday soon he will be driving a real car. Or wiping those tiny little handprints and smudge marks off of your new flat screen TV because they grow up way too fast. Don't miss it in the chaos of getting to work and the sitter's in the morning with your sanity half in tact. Don't hate it because your house is a mess and your car stinks like spoiled milk. Love what makes them little.

Meow Kitty

This is Meow Kitty, the one on the right….Meow entered our lives in May last year when we discovered that we had a little mouse problem in our garage where all of my husbands man-toys are housed. Fearing those little critters would chew wires, we determined we needed outdoor cats. Having grown up on a farm, we had barn cats all throughout my childhood that never spent time indoors, unless I sneaked them in, along with their fleas, and my parents would have to flea bomb our house and were very very angry with me about it. But that’s another story for the Funny Farm file.

 

Anyhow, back to Meow Kitty. I looked at online ads for free kittens, at which time there were very few. I looked for road signs for free kittens. There weren’t any in our area. And then one day I saw an ad posted for “8 week old” kittens and I called. We wanted 2 females so they could be buddies and keep each other company outside. We have quite a few out buildings on our property so we didn’t have any concerns about shelter in cold weather. And the ad said they were litter trained so we set up their little kitty camp in the shed attached to the garage and put a kennel in there and a litter box. Then Ava and Jim went to collect the kittens from the woman who wanted to give them away.

 

The kittens were NOT 8 weeks old. In fact, it would be safe to assume they were only 5 weeks old. They were left on her porch by an anonymous person because this woman was known as the Cat Lady in her neck of the woods. Their eyes were gunky, their bottoms poopy, and they resembled these little black puffballs except their paws were white. The only way that we could tell them apart was one had white on both cheeks of its face and the other had just one white cheek. Hence, my husband surnamed them Thing 1 and Thing 2 after the wild-looking Seuss creatures. Because our children were having some trouble sticking to one name for each kitten, (they named one Cupcake, then it changed to Sweetie Pie, then Shitty Kitty, oh that was Jim’s name for the one, sorry), I took the liberty of using my creativity and named one Meow and the other Kitty. Then when I called for them I could say, “Oh, Meow! Hey Kitty, Kitty, Meow!” Brilliant, I thought….

 

When we got them home, Jim feared they would become bait instead of fierce mousers, so he decided to put the kittens and their kennel and their litter box in the place that made the most sense. The chicken coop. The chickens were like teenager chicks at that time, still in their cozy stinky box with a heat lamp in the garage, and weren’t ready for the great outdoors yet, but the coop had windows and doors and linoleum and so Jim thought it would make a perfect little house for the kittens until they were big enough to explore their surroundings and come back in one piece. Those little guys loved their kitty coop. They played on the chicken run and hid in the grass under the coop. They stayed close to it and always let us put them in it when it got dark.

 

The sister kitties were very different. Meow was cautious and laid back. She hid from us a lot. She didn’t want to be the center of attention. She minded her business but was very docile and cuddly. Kitty was the alpha female. She hunted early in her little life. She ran to the door every time it opened. She followed my husband through the yard like a dog. She meowed at the door when she wanted in, meowed in the window when she wanted attention, and she ran right to us when we were outside. Both kitties took great care of each other, but Kitty was more of a mother to Meow. She bathed her, pounced on her, put her in a kitty headlock and played with her. They kept each other warm at night and rarely did you see one without the other. We were so glad we got 2 kitties and didn’t separate them when they were small.

 

By the end of summer the kittens had grown to young women kitties. They were long and sleek. And they had rid our garage of the mouse problem. Kitty would proudly kill a mouse and lay it by the door of the garage to show my husband in the morning before he left for work. They also were agile enough to get a few birds and bury them under our porch, which didn’t smell good on 80 degree days . We then decided we were going to bring the kitties in the house when the weather started to get colder because they were still litter trained and because they were Ava’s special little buddies. She fed them and played with them and took good care of them, so we thought we would wait until October and have them flea dipped at the pet wash and then we would bring them indoors.

 

Then one Saturday in September Jim had left for town. He had pulled out of the driveway and started down the road when I noticed him ripping back up the driveway and running to our backdoor. He was pounding on the door as if he had just seen a ghost, and he was welled up with tears, which is not something that my barbaric tough guy husband does very often. As it turned out, when he was driving down the road he saw something black and white and lifeless laying on the road just passed our house. He thought, please let that be a skunk. But it wasn’t. It was Kitty. She had gotten hit by a car during the night.

 

Our hearts broke for our little kitty and for our little girl who would be so devastated at the loss of her friend and for Meow, who has only known her life with her beloved sister kitty. We both cried off and on all day at her loss. Ava was at her dad’s house for the weekend, and I lamented on how to tell her what had happened. Jim recovered Kitty’s remains and buried her in the woods below our house. And he shared that when he got into his truck that morning before he went to town, there at the garage door Kitty laid a mouse out for him proudly as if to say, “Here, Dad.” He saw Meow sleeping in the stroller in the other part of the garage and figured Kitty was out hunting. When he saw her lifeless little body he was heartbroken. I couldn’t bring myself to help him lay her to rest. He brought Meow in the house from the garage with the intent to not let her out of our sights again for fear she would have the same fate as her sister. Then he went to town and bought the things we needed to make her an indoor kitty.

 

The next day when Ava got home, Jim and I sat the children down and told them the news of Kitty’s death. We all cried, even Jakey knew something was wrong. And Ava held Meow in her arms all day and talked to her about how special her sister was. Meow knew she was gone, too. She wouldn’t eat for days. She laid around in a sad state. I was worried about her. I am not a pet person, and this was our first experience with indoor cats, but I was amazed at how human they were. Meow started to come out of her sadness around day 3 and then she took it upon herself to put my little girl to bed every night. When I get Ava settled into her bed, Meow climbs up beside her, gives her kisses and nuzzles in right next to her. There she keeps vigil til she knows Ava is asleep and then Meow comes to find me and say goodnight.

 

She still misses the company of her sister kitty, especially at 5:00 in the morning. They must have had a kitty party at that time every day because she is looking for someone to cuddle with and wrestle with and runs around this house like a nut. It is hard not to think of Kitty when we look at Meow, because they were so similar in their appearance. And since she has gotten settled in our house, we have realized she carries the spirit of her sister kitty because she has opened up in ways she never had when her sister was alive. We are enjoying our feline friend. She is a nice addition to our home. And we miss Kitty very much.

In Loving Memory of Kitty



Ava's Eggs

This is my daughter, Ava, washing and drying her chicken eggs that she collects every day. It's like having an Easter Egg hunt in the coop on a daily basis. She looks forward to collecting, counting, washing, drying and packing the eggs in cartons, all by her little self. My husband built her a deluxe chicken coop and fenced the chickens in a 20'x20' area so they could have some room to roam. We ordered 15 chicks through the mail and one day in April we became the proud owners of 33 chicks. That's right, folks. There was a mix up in the chicken department at the farm that day and they sent us not one shipment, but two. We ordered a straight run of female Red Sex Link chickens. That's farmer talk for we ordered all females so we wouldn't have a rooster issue and Red Sex Links are the type of birds that we purchased. These chickens grow to a nice size and are good eatin' chickens when they have finished their egg laying duties, roughly a year or so after they start laying eggs. Their eggs are also brown eggs and are large to extra large in size, often producing double yokers (for you superstitous folks it looks like for my next pregnancy I will be carrying octuplettes).

I called the company and they were very apologetic however, they don't accept refunds in terms of chicks, so we had twice the amount that we really needed. This presented a problem when the box that we kept them in until they were big enough for the coop could only accomodate the number we ordered, not the number we received. Also, the company could not gurantee that the second batch of chicks that were sent were a straight run of females. So we ordered Raising Chickens for Dummies, this is a true statement, and began to look for signs of roosters in our brood.

Jim and the kids faithfully fed and watered the cute little buggers and wiped their little bums religiously so they didn't get backed up and sick until there was hardly any room in the box for them all. We then gave them away to a couple of nearby thankful farmers who put the chickens to good use on their own farms. Raising chickens has became quite a nice hobby for our family. And it's amazing how thankful you can be for something as simple as an egg. When we go out to the coop and lift the lid of the nesting boxes and see all of those eggs waiting for us, we turn and say, "Thanks girls!" before they start pecking at our toes.

One Time Diamonds

I am not an accessorized kind-of girl. For those of you who know me and see me on a regular basis, I am just thankful that I remembered to put on my bra and deodorant, and that my shoes match when I leave my house for work every day. I work with several women who are very accessorized and I admire their beauty and attention to detail and the care that they put into each day to make themselves look and feel better. But because I function in survival mode at work and at home, accessories, while I own them, are not part of my repertoire.

However, here's a vain little secret that I have....   I LOVE DIAMONDS!

And apparently, I am one of those One Time Diamond kind of girls. I may only ever receive diamonds for that one special momentous occasion. Upon the anticipation of being proposed to, there is an expected diamond figured into the equation. And then apparently that's all you get, cuz I have seen neither hide nor hair of one since and I don't get the feeling there are any pending in the future. I am chuckling while I say this because I know I am being completely selfish in wanting more diamonds in my future. However, they are a girl's best friend, aren't they? 

I stare at my beautiful sparkly engagement ring and diamond studded wedding band wherever I go. Some lights really capture all of the glittery diamonds and it reminds me how much I love my rings. My husband really outdid himself when he picked out my set, and I never cease to tell him how beautiful my rings are and add a little hint hint hint that maybe I need earrings too! :)

Do you have any quirky little things that you love selfishly and wish you had tons more of? If so, please share them with me in the comments section. :)

I, I, I was abstinent….

As a Kindergarten teacher, I have accumulated so many funny stories from the little people that I have taught over the years that I could probably write a book. But because I have the attention span of an ADHD Kindergartener, I am only going to share one of those stories right now (instead of starting that book) as a tribute to one of my former students (let's call him Chuck) who is moving out of my school and who I will miss seeing every day. :(

Chuck was what we call a "repeat offender." That's redneck for someone who has repeated a grade more than one time. I happen to be a repeat offender, myself. I went to Kindergarten twice, and now I teach it! I entered school the first time at the ripe ole age of 4 because I was turning 5 within a few months of starting school. My mom thought I was ready, until I clung to her leg every morning and screamed and cried and had to be picked up from school repeatedly because I was such an emotional basket case. I had never attended preschool and my mom was a stay-at-home mom, so I had never been away from home. And when she put me on the bus that first time I thought she was sending me to an orphanage never to return home again. It had finally gotten so bad that my teacher, who was extremely pregnant at the time, told my mom very clearly one day, "Keep her home for the rest of the year, and let's try this again next year."

Anyhow, back to Chuck. Chuck had a tendency to miss a lot of school for random reasons that didn't always pertain to sickness. Chuck also had a severe speech impediment and he stuttered, so at times I felt like I needed an interpreter to tell me what he said. One week he had missed school on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and finally on Thursday he came skipping in to class at arrival and I said, "Chuck! You're here! Where have you been all my life?!"

Chuck looked at me and stuttered out, "I, I, I was abstinent." (That's Kindergarten speak for absent apparently). Another teacher was walking passed us at that exact moment and I thought he was going to wet himself laughing so hard. :)

The Garden is Life

My husband has a need to plow and toil and plant and pull weeds :) … I love to watch it grow and harvest. Our daughter Ava loves to plant and pick. She is a pea-eater :). Jim and Ava plant rows and rows of peas and Ava picks them one at a time, putting them in her little sand buckets and gives them to her neighbors Pat and Sue and PaPa.

Last year we had the usual vegetables that grow well in our climate here in western PA: green peppers, Hungarian wax banana peppers, jalepenos, peas, zucchini, acorn squash, basil, watermelons, cantelopes, and of course lots and lots of tomatoes. We like to make our own spaghetti sauce, although the year before last we lost 16 quarts of our sauce because we didn’t process the long method. Cutting corners was a huge loss and made us both sick as we dumped each jar of that sauce we worked so hard for.

 

This year we were determined to not make the same mistakes in the processing department. We endured a very dry summer, producing tomatoes that we bought from a man on a back road one day on our way to a picnic, in which he said were heirlooms. The tomatoes were monstrous in size and very complicated and bulbous in their shapes and dense and not juicy. So on my travels to take the children to meet their dad we passed a little farmer’s stand owned by a preacher and his wife who have a bountiful garden. I asked if they had any tomatoes to spare and the lovely older woman grimaced as if to think for a moment until she said she thought she could rummage up "some". I waited all that Saturday for her to call me to come and pick them up and at about 7 p.m. I got a message from a very tired little woman that she picked quite a few and to come get um. 12 bushels of tomatoes were waiting for me on her door step! My husband nearly fainted at the thought of squeezo-ing that many tomatoes. Overly confident in thinking I could give some away I took all of them because I felt so guilty that she had picked and picked all day and could have gone into cardiac arrest, although she is probably in better shape than I am. I was only able to give away 2 bushels so my loving amazing husband and I washed and cored and squeezed 10 blessed bushels of tomatoes in one day. Exhausted, we froze the juice in gallon freezer bags and had to buy a new deep freezer to accommodate the massive gallons of tomato juice. Finally many weeks later we boiled it down into tomato juice to can into spaghetti sauce. 64 quarts and almost a month later and they are all still sealed! Hallelujah!

A Lineman's Wife

Being a lineman’s wife means my husband’s cell phone rings any time, any where and the dispatcher on the other line responds to names such as Donk or Bow. It never fails, if there is a telephone pole anywhere within the vicinity of a road, someone is going to hit it and my husband and all his buddies at work are going to get called out to repair the lines or pole. Linemen, at least the ones I know, are simple, hardworking, and down to earth guys. They tend to drink a lot of beer, chew a lot of tobacco, and use a lot of curse words. Their hands are beat up, their clothes get really dirty and grungy, and they love Sheetz coffee. In fact, I met my husband in a Sheetz (local convenience story chain) and the rest they say is happy history. J

Me, Myself, and I

A day in the life of…..

A farmer’s daughter

A lineman’s wife

An old school educator

An overworked underappreciated public school kindergarten teacher

Mother of three brilliant beautiful little humans

Hunting widow

Want to be hunter

Wife of an incredibly sexy barbaric hardworking intelligent and amazing man

Great neighbor

Harley Rider

Gardener

Canner/Preserver

Loyal friend

Open book

On a mission to become a personal chef

　

　

　
When I grow up I want to be….

All of the above J ….

I am who I am, and I am asking myself, who am I that I could write a “blog” and anyone would actually want to read it??? I am a multifaceted individual with a lot to say about each different facet of my life. My hope is that someone somewhere is going to relate positively to something I have said.



A country girl’s kitchen is what I want to officially name my someday personal chef business… that dream that I carry to not do what I do everyday. Or is it my dream to do what I do every day?

Every day when my eyes open I am that incredibly sexy barbaric hardworking intelligent amazing man’s wife and I am so thankful. Jim, or Conan as I will refer to him as, is my best friend. My drinking buddy. My support system. My encourager. My provider. My dream come true. He is an incredible father. He is simple and kind. He is smart and can fix anything. An amazing hunter. We share the same hobbies like riding motorcycles and 4-wheelers and gardening and canning, hunting and enjoying our children.

　

The children

Caleb is 8. He is such a sweet little boy. He is the best big brother I have ever seen in a child. He is a wonderful reader. He loves shooting his bb gun and riding his bike. He is an easy child to love and raise.

Ava is 5. She is my sweet little dolly. She is creative and giving and oh so smart. She went from being 3 to 13... Ava is the little girl my mother never had. I was a tomboy, A raggamuffin. Ava loves to wear her Christmas best all year round, has had up to 36 barrettes in her hair at once, and is a crafter and baker, both of which my mother is. When Ava says jump, MooMoo, as she calls my mom, asks her how high?

Jake is almost 2. That should say it in a nutshell. He is our Wildman. He is Conan the Barbarian Junior. He too is very smart for his little size, and comical. He is his father’s universe. He looks like him, acts like him, is just like him. On this day one year ago my husband experienced a part of his soul become human form and he is eternally grateful for the gift of a son.

Caleb and Ava are my husband’s step children. They love Jim, and he loves them and cares for them as if they were his own. They call him the “big guy” and think he has Super Man strength. They also think we are the richest people on the planet, which isn’t a true story monetarily. J They have a nice friendship, as well as a familial relationship. He jokes around with them and teaches them how to do things in the yard, woods, and garage. We have a wonderful family. :)

I hope you stay tuned for more adventures from our little neck of the woods :)