Gratitude Project

After reading an article on gratitude in one of my old church magazines recently, I decided that I needed to let those around me know what I am grateful to them for. I decided that I will first tackle my facebook friend list.

I am letting everyone yes, everyone, on my facebook friend list know what it is about them that I am grateful for. At first I was nervous. Some of these people aren't going to see the note I posted on this and know why I am writing them such a heart-felt note. I mean honestly, how many people on my fb list do I even talk to in person? But, it is going very well! I posted that I was going to send these notes privately, and that no response was needed. Those responses that I have received have been amazing! Some people were suprised that I even gave them a thought. Some people were sincerely touched. I think some people really think I am a dork. Well, this is still a work in progress, so I will keep you posted on this. I also have every intention of doing this with real people as well. I plan on telling everyone that I encounter something positive.

January 2011!!! Are you SERIOUS!?

I mentioned when I started this blog that I am NOT very good at blogging. I just realized that it has been pretty much a whole year since my last post. WOW! Well, let's just start from here, and you can have creative liscence and pretend that my past year was amazing!!! I did reach a few of my "aspirations" (I refused to use the word "resolution"). I did: Transfer to a four-year school. Didn't do well my first semester in real college, but I will do better this semester. I did: Achieve one full-time job. I left my job that I had worked for seven years, first full-time then part-time, to a full-time position at the second job that I had taken on. The best part of that deal was that I now make as much money now as I did working two part-time jobs at 50-hours per week. I have not really been good about the other aspirations that I had listed. A couple of my aspirations were to "enjoy my family and love my husband". Considering I had just started a new job with my own caseload, and I was going to a four-year school and living in the library, I had pretty much forgotten that I even had a family and a husband. I guess I will visit them in a few years. As for my "aspiration" to get healthy and go to the gym? Pppfffffttttt....If God had intended for me to be thin, I would be thin. Jus' sayin!

Well, for this year I have decided to do goals and work on each goal every month. This months goals are:

save $42.50 each pay period

Finish reading "The Last Symbol" by Dan Brown

Start eating healthier:

~eat breakfast in the am.

~brown-bag lunch

~drink more water

Do way better this semester. I went from a 3.65 gpa to a 1.95 gpa. Ugh! RIP MY HEART OUT!

Get caught up on my housework. I am not Mrs. Cleaver, k?

Get my finances/debt load at least caught up.

So far, it's not looking good. Oh, I have started taken my lunch to work...only because I am so broke right now. School has not started yet, but I have apologized in advance to my family and co-workers for when I begin to get stressed out. As for the rest...I have a couple mor weeks left in the month. I am not going to write myself off yet.

January has come and gone!

January has come and gone. It's still winter, and still cold. Not alot has changed. I find that as I update my blog, I have at least one hundred things in mind to write about, but as soon as I start writing, it leaves me. I also find that I have been getting very confused lately. I really don't think it has anything to do with my age, I think it's just that I get overloaded.

I am still working two jobs, both of which I love. I am also still going to school, which I also love. I have days where I literally wake up in the morning not knowing what day it is, or where I have to be. A friend suggested that I place a white-board next to my bed and write the next day's schedule on it the night before, so that when I wake up in the morning, it's all right there. I might take them up on that, but it echoes too closely of "Flowers for Algernon" for me: werk, werk, werk...

I have also been feeling bad in the sense that I am taking too much away from my family. I have to admit that I love having the two paychecks. We are digging out of our financial hole quite nicely. But, I am gone 12 hours out of the day between work and school. When I get home in the evening, I just want to decompress and not be bothered. That's not fair to them. My husband has been wonderful. He makes dinner every night for our daughters. I have asked the girls to help dad out every once in a while and make dinner so he doesn't have to. My youngest one is more than happy to oblige. She is going to be quite the cook someday.

I keep telling myself (everyday) that this too shall pass. This is only temporary. It's all part of the "Big Picture" that lays befor me. You have to make sacrifices, right?

Bribery

As I plead, beg and bargain my way through parenthood, let it be known that I am certainly not above bribery. Not at all. Moms are free to use this superpower of theirs when all else fails. When nothing else seems to work.

I have been trying for a couple of years to get my daughter, Marikate, to bring her grades up. She is a horrible student. I don't know why. She isn't stupid, she doesn't have a learning disability, she is kind of lazy, though. She is brilliantly artistic. She can play many instruments, the piano, guitar, clarinet, trumpet, mellophone, and French horn. She can also sing very well. Part of her problem, is that if she does not like a teacher, or a particular class, she will not participate. At all. This makes me crazy!

I have threatened her many times with many different things when the report card comes home. We have grounded her, taken priveleges away, taken away boyfriend time, I think I even threatened her with living in the camper. I have spoken to people she respects and asked them to talk to her. I have asked them to explain the importance of school, and how it is neccessary to get anywhere in life. I have even taken her to counseling. Things will pick up for a while.

If she ends up failing anything this year, she will not be able to join Marching Band next year. That is my bottom line! You can just imagine the attitude I got over that one.

Well, this time I think I found the "Achille's Heel". There is a concert she wants to go to in April with her friends. A whole group of them are going to travel to New York to see Opeth. Her favorite band in the whole world. I offered to buy her tickets (one for her, and one for her boyfriend) to the show, pay her way down there, and pay for the hotel. All she has to do is bring her grades up to a "C" by the end of March. I told her that if she did not pass every class, then I will give her tickets to someone else (or I will go myself, I like Opeth). I have posted proof on facebook that I have purchased these tickets, so she knows I am not pulling her leg. When they arrive in the mail, I am going to wave them under her nose everyday! I have even enlisted her friends into encouraging her.

I really hope this all works out. I am so tired of arguing with her about her grades. But mostly I am tired of her know-it-all attitude. Honey, I have been there! You seem to forget that I knew-it-all way before you did!

January 2010

As we begin this new year/new decade I want to begin by wishing everyone a Happy New Year! May everyone receive the blessings they so richly deserve!


I can feel it...2010 is going to be a good year. I just know it! If I enter the new year with optimism, then it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, of this I am sure. It's not that my life is terrible or that anything drastically bad happened last year, it's just that there is always room for improvement. I don't care to make resolutions because resolutions are something to fail at. I choose instead to aspire. To aspire to something offers hope instead of failure.

So, in 2010, I aspire to:

Have ONE full-time job instead of two part-time ones.

Finish my two-year degree and transfer it two a four-year school.

Enjoy my family.

Love my husband.

Visit my Scriptures regularly.

End my torrid love affair with junk food, and rekindle my romance with the gym.

It isn't a long list, and I know these are things that I WILL do, and failure isn't an option in this case.

Happy 2010! God bless!