Around Here: Week 10 2024

 {March 3-9th}

Besties :: Jack & Ainsley

Logan's response to the wedding pic I shared. Haha!

Spending... the day with my girl, getting her rolled ice cream at our local boba shop and getting us lunch to take home and eat while we watched a movie together. She is so fun and her enthusiasm for everything makes me so grateful for her. Later she had her neighbor friend over to play while Wyatt went to his friend Kaeden's house to hang out and I binged Love Is Blind. (I love that show!) 

Loving... Carly & Wyatt's new glasses.  It's always nice to see them in new specs after their yearly appointments. Cuties!

Car shopping... for Logan and trying not to spend all our money. Goodness sakes cars are expensive now days! My first car was $600 I think. (Granted, it was a 1970 Volvo station wagon... but still!) Thankfully we have Josh's dad's truck that Jack will drive, so we only have to buy one car, which is such a blessing.  I know I will miss the conversations and time spent with them driving them around, but at this point, I have to be honest and say that I cannot wait until they get their licenses. I want to send them to the store, I want to have them drive themselves to their friends' houses and take their younger siblings where they need to go.  I am ready to retire from being their uber. Haha!

Reading... A Little Life (it's so good- I am staying up way too late every night reading "just one more chapter") and The Boxcar Children with Carly. She gets so excited about everything happening in the book and has said more than once, "I wish this was real! I wish this was true!" She's so cute. 

Visiting... with my counselor in our second to last appointment before she departs for Africa.  She's deploying there for 8 months as a therapist to Navy Seals, and I'm all "What about my needs?!?" Haha. No, it's amazing what she does, but I am going to miss her something fierce. I've been seeing her since 2020, around twice a month, so not seeing her for the next year is going to be rough. I considered not getting a counselor in the mean time, but I talked openly with Josh about it and he agreed that would be risky.  With all the changes going on around us (specifically me potentially getting a job in a few months) he thinks having an interim counselor would be smart. So I bit the bullet and signed up to meet with a new one. 

Struggling... with the idea of having to tell a new counselor all about my life. Gah. Starting over with a new counselor is daunting. So if you're having to do that, I see you. Good job. It will be worth it!

Sending... the twins for a sleepover with their twin friends Easton & Channing.  They always have fun together and I'm glad for their friendship that's lasted since the third grade. 

Taking... Jack over to spend some time with his bestie Ainsley. Man, we love that kid.

Doing... chores and homework on Sunday to start the week off right. 

Taking... Jack to the doctor on Monday for an ingrown toenail. But he decided not to do the removal because of how painful both his brothers have said that it is. I am hopeful his will heal on its own with time. 

Dealing... with a messy middle schooler. I am not sure what happened when Wyatt was opening the Tide box, but oh my goodness.  Haha! He laughed at himself when I told him that there's a peel tab to open it. Sheesh.  He's also a mess when loading the dishwasher. I mostly let it go because at least I'm not doing it, but the chaos of that messy dishwasher makes my head spin. 

Remembering... to spend my Old Navy $ and getting myself some new dresses and Carly new clothes for spring. It makes me excited to think of sun dresses and shorts with sandals!

Loving... the increase in morning light. It just makes me so happy. And to compound that joy, I ordered myself a crystal to hang from my rearview mirror and the way it catches the light and throws rainbows on the dashboard delights me to no end. 

Receiving... notes from my students tucked in the locker I use for my purse and lunchbox. I love their little pictures and notes. They make my day!

Settling... into a groove teaching and feeling so good about it. I love our schedule, our day and all our interactions. I am so blessed that this class is amazing and I don't end any of my days exhausted or exasperated. That's such a blessing. 

Suffering... senioritis bad. I am SO over having homework and classes and participation discussions in our online forum. I am having to FORCE myself to do the homework and it's like pulling teeth. It's like now that I'm in the classroom I am ready to be the teacher and am all done being the student. 8 weeks left. 8 weeks left. 8 weeks left. 

Turning... to Facebook to see what everyone uses for laundry baskets because my family is so hard on them! When we moved here I had hard white ones, but all the handles broke. Then I bought black flexible plastic ones, and all the handles broke on those as well. If you have a laundry basket you love, I'd love to hear about it!

Working... late on Wednesday to finish up lesson plans and school work (for my masters classes). I find that staying after one day a week allows me to get my work done and not have as much to do over the weekend. Josh usually swings by to pick Carly up on his way home from work and I stay for two or three hours. I can get so much done during that uninterrupted time, it's awesome. I am so lucky to have Josh as my partner. He is totally willing to do dinner, do dishes, clean house, do laundry, stay home for appointments with the kids, anything I need him to do so he can support me as I work and finish my degree. His love, support & encouragement is what lets me know that we can make the transition to both of us working and make it work. 

Opening... a letter that came from a middle school teacher in our district. I opened it, unsure what awaited me, and it turned out to be a letter from Wyatt.  He was instructed to write a letter to a teacher who impacted him, and he said that was me. It was so unexpected and so sweet!

Watching... our kids play outside together and feeling my heart burst from it.  The sunshine, the laughter, the games... it all just makes me so happy.

Celebrating... my mentor teacher's birthday with brownies & flowers and the cutest little cards each of the kids made. Their little flowers and birthday wishes were so sweet!

Showing... of my school spirit this week with outfits for each day- fun colors, pajamas, sports day... And I wore my teacher socks that I ordered off Amazon. I have school bus, pencil and crayon socks. They're so fun. 

Continuing... on with parenting the twins. Grades, school, friends... Oof. Raising teenagers isn't for the faint of heart. They are good, good boys, but the fear of failure or mistakes is really hard. Watching some of their friends make big mistakes with big consequences is making it even scarier to let them grow and spread their wings like they should.

Taking... Carly & Wyatt with me to our school's STEAM night where they got to build boats and play with Legos and make bubbles with dry ice and all kinds of other cool stuff. Wyatt is such a good sport about coming to this kind of stuff with Carly and me. I think he had fun, too!

Heading... to bed early Friday night instead of staying up with Wyatt to watch a scary movie. I felt bad for bailing on him, but I was just too tired. 

***

An oldie but a goodie of my friend Brittney's birthday.
I'm in the back in the striped vest and bangs. 

***

Around Here: Week 9 2024

 {February 25th-March 2nd}

My cousin Savanna's baby Alanna

Weekends... are for laundry. I bust my butt starting Friday night and wrapping up Sunday night to get through everyone's laundry so that during the week it's no big deal if I don't get any done.

Blogging... makes me so happy. I was glad to get some done this weekend. Being so busy with school, life and field experience, blogging definitely fell to the wayside in the last year, so catching back up and taking pictures of life fills me up.

Reading... A Little Life, which is so good. Thinking of when I get to read the next chapter consumes me!!!

Finishing... Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and watching the movie with the boys on Sunday night. I enjoyed the movie very much, but I would say that all four of the other movies would rank over it for me personally. 

Getting... medicine for Maggie, whose eye is infected.  Hadley was also suffering an eye infection earlier this month, so I knew what it was right away. I also got them L-lysine supplements. 

Taking... Carly to the eye doctor for her yearly check up.  She got new glasses (purple instead of pink this time) and her prescription actually went down. That made me happy for her. She wanted these cute glasses with rainbow hearts all over them, but I thought they were too "loud" for her cute little face. So I talked her into the purple ones. 

Changing... out the play stations in the classroom, swapping out the doctor's office for a vet clinic and swapping the sensory table for new items that the kids were thrilled to experience. 

Showering... 2-3x per work week, usually on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays, but sometimes on Tuesdays & Thursdays. This is both because there's not enough hot water for all four of us (Josh, me & the twins) to comfortably shower, and because blow drying and doing my hair every single day takes up so much time. Josh and I have said that one of our first purchases when I get a teaching position will be a tankless water heater. If you're a working mama, what do your mornings look like? On shower mornings I get up at 5:30am. On other days I wake up at 6:00am. Wyatt and Carly shower in the evenings. Lots of logistics to work out when getting all six of us out the door five days a week.

Grateful... that Carly has truly adjusted to my student teaching schedule beautifully.  Two months in, she is really good at entertaining herself while I'm lesson planning in the mornings or afternoons, and when I have meetings, she often brings her tablet and watches The Baby-Sitters Club or Bluey.  I had worried about her, but she's doing beautifully.

Panicking... about parenting the twins as we deal with grades & teenage freedom. Letting go is so hard. Hoping their undeveloped teenage brains don't make any rash decisions with dire consequences and that possibility feels scary. It's just heavy and hard.

Laughing... at George as he helped himself to Josh's seat at the dinner table one night. Lately his begging at dinner is as bad as the dogs! Hah!

Loving... bedtime with Carly.  Snuggling her while we read The Boxcar Children and play songs from her bedtime playlist.  Her favorites right now include This Is Why I Need You, Perfect, Thinking Out Loud, Never Grow Up, Fire and the Flood, Someone You Loved, and Last Dollar (Fly Away). 

Admiring... the way Carly asks for snuggles all the time.  She wakes up asking for them, wants them whenever she or Josh get home and also asks for them at bedtime. She is so good as making certain her needs are met, and I love it. I also admire the way that Josh never says no to her. He will sit on the couch or pull her into his lap in his chair any time she wants some hugs and snuggles. What a loved little girl she is. 

Fond... of the way Carly always says "meant to". For example, she asked if I had done her laundry yet and when I said no, she said "But you were meant to!" Or when I asked if I was doing something right with her math she said, "Oh yeah, you're meant to do that!" 

Visiting... with my GCU supervisor about my second observation and feeling really proud of how it went. I presented a lesson on Martin Luther King, Jr and it went really well. 

Staying... late at work to do homework (because it's quiet there) and feeling so excited that I got all my lesson planning done during my breaks & before work. Finding that work/life balance is no joke, and I am happy to attempt at figuring it out. 

***

Love this movie. So much.