hungry? grab a snickers.

i subbed today for the first time today. all day. 4th grade.

a few observations....
i don't ever want to be a full time teacher. ever. at all.
i get cranky when i don't eat.

overall, it was a good day. it was fun and i enjoyed the kids. i subbed for the same class that i teach in the afternoons, so it was nice to already know the students. but it also meant i had a looooooong time with them. other than probably getting played by an overly dramatic child when i told her i was emailing her parents, getting my snickers bar stolen by one of the students, and having a student flatly refuse to do any work that i assigned, it was a great day.

cheers to all you teachers out there. for real. 

summertime!

back to blogging. as a little catch-up, here is what has happened since you last saw us.

-i had a wonderful vacation in the bahamas with my bff. i highly recommend trips like that. we have four days to do nothing. and when you are a full-time mom (or even a part-time mom, or a babysitter, or whatever), that is invaluable. we talked, laughed, read books, slept, ate, drank, didn't do dishes, didn't change diapers, didn't do anything we didn't want to do. when i came back, i was disappointed at how quickly all of my relaxed feelings were sucked away, but jason pointed out that the trip was mostly about anticipating, not so much being relaxed afterwards. so i'm anticipating our next trip in five years already. let the countdown begin.

-summer is in full swing. it is hot and muggy and i remember why i hate the south. but, the pool is open, so that makes it a little better. hiba knows no fear when it comes to the pool and matthias is slowly warming up to it. i bought them both puddle jumpers, which was one of the best decisions that i have made recently.

-i finally got everything worked out for school and i really am going back to school in the fall. i'll just be part-time for the first year, which i think will be a good way to ease into this whole student/mom thing.

-we spent a weekend with my family in branson and had a great time. it was great to all be together and hiba and matthias love seeing grammy and oscar and all their aunts and uncles.

-matthias has learned to talk. i used to think that he would be less verbal than hiba, because it took him longer to start talking. which is not to say that he was a late talker, since hiba started talking when she was like eight months. but i was wrong. he loves to talk. all. the. time. and he is at that oh-so-delightful stage where he wants me to repeat back whatever he is saying, so he knows i know what he is saying. all. the. time. he's started putting two or three words together, but pauses between words. it's so cute. and it amazing how fast he is learning new words or phrases. i guess that's what happens when he has an older sister who talks like an adult.

-jason and i got to spend a weekend in nashville with two of our best friends and see U2 and florence + the machine. in concert. our friend, matt, scored some really great tickets, so we were on the floor, about 40 yards from the stage. it was pretty amazing. florence was a great opening act. and then there was U2. i adore U2. i love their music and i love bono, so really "pretty amazing" doesn't even begin to describe how i felt about it. epic. and the weekend was so fun. i love my new friends, but there is something so great about hanging out with old friends. and it was a fun to road-trip with just me and jason, something we haven't gotten to do in a while.

so i missed february. i don't know what we were doing that kept me from blogging, but i'm sure it was super exciting and super important. which is why i didn't write about it....

so now it is march. this year is flying by. spring is on the way, which makes my life a lot better. days always go better with the windows open, at least in my opinion. we're all staying busy with life - mops, play dates, rugby games, teen mops, dishes, laundry, dishes, laundry, rugby games...you get the idea. mostly it's the same old, same old.

but, i do have one interesting development. i've figured out what i want to be when i grow up. i think. my plan right now is to go back to school in the fall for occupational therapy. only this time, it's more than a plan. i've emailed and chatted with the admission counselor for OT at UCA, looked at the classes i need, figured out when and where i'm going to take them, filled out my fafsa. which is much more concrete steps than i've ever taken towards this whole "back to school" thing. so i think it's for real this time.

matthias and the next step

i have been sick for the last week. which would normally be a great time to curl up in bed with a cup of tea, a heavy dose of medicine, and reverb away. however, in reality i was stuck at home with hiba and matthias, trying to not throw them out the window because my meds were not working no matter how much or what i took. so, no blogging got done. but now i'm better and want to start reverbing again. so here we go.

This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

the thing that immediately came to mind was matthias' birth. i know it was in 2009, but i feel like anything from his birth forward was this year, because it all runs together in my mind. he was born in 1 1/2 hours. for those of you who don't know anything about the birthing experience, that was fast. i think most people would say a 4 or 5 hour labor would be a short labor. and as great as it was that it happened quickly and wasn't drawn out, it was awful. it was so painful, because it was all natural. not so much by choice, but because i didn't have time to get any pain meds. when it was happening, it did not seem like i was there, but my body just took over and got the job done.

and then all of a sudden, there was a little baby laying on me. he had big eyes and looked just like his sister. at that moment, just for a brief second, all the pain seemed to wash away and i was just there, holding jason's hand and holding my son. it only lasted a moment, but it was a wonderful moment.

Action: When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

i don't know.

this is mostly because i don't know what my aspirations are. i mean, i know i want to be a good wife, a good mom, a good friend, yada yada yada. but i have been thinking a lot lately about what else i want to be, what else i want to do.

jason is interested in homeschooling our children. i am very open to the idea of them being homeschooled, but i have zero interest in doing the homeschooling. right now, i am counting down the days until i do not have to be at home all day with my kids. i mean, i love them and all, but....yeah. anyway, jason has said that he will homeschool them, which is great, but it means that i would have to get a job that could support our family. and as much as i loved jbu, a b.s. in family and human services doesn't pay so much.

so, i have been thinking recently about going back to school. the problem is one, i don't know exactly what i want to go back for and two, i hate school. so problem one - i'm thinking either a masters in social work (which wouldn't really solve the whole get-a-job-that-supports-my-family problem), rehabilitation counseling (which is only offered by online classes at ualr and i'm not the most self-motivated student), or occupational therapy (which is at uca, a thirty minute drive from here, and i would need to take a bunch of science classes before i could start the program). problem two - i think i would enjoy school, or at least tolerate it, if i wasn't taking gen ed classes. i worked way harder in classes for my major when i was at jbu than i did in gen ed, so i've pretty much convinced myself it wouldn't be too bad.

so now to answer the prompt - making these ideas happen. well, i need to get on that. first, i need to decide if i really want to put the work, energy, time, and money into going back to school. i think i do. i think jason is supportive of this. but we need to decide for sure. second, i need to decide what i want to do. i need to start taking the classes i need to get into these programs. i can do a lot of them online or over the summer, so i have this semester to kind of figure it out. i need to take the g.e.d., which based on practice questions won't be that hard, but i just need to do it. the plan is pretty simple - mostly i need to just start moving.

so my next step? spend christmas break really researching these different programs, talking through the ideas with jason, praying about if and what degree i should go after. and then talk to the schools as soon as the semester starts so i can actually start moving towards the goal of going back to school.