Thousandaires...

Almost. By next weekend hopefully. The only financial upside to being unemployed and not collecting anything is an awesome tax refund. Yay! Despite the debt that we are working our way out of, we do give ourselves a little bit of play money. I am ordering myself 2 or 3 new cricut cartridges and I get to go underwear shopping. (I have one pair that is not hanging by a thread. One.). We also have to be smart and put money away for our summer.

More specifically for July. It it jam-packed. 3 of it's 5 weekends are planned for. And nothing local either.
Weekend of the 4th, my close cousin graduates from HS. We'll most likely spend 4, maybe even 5, days because its my mom's hometown so a lot of family is still there. Plus the town always has a big 4th to-do at the lake. That's a 6 hour trip, one way.
14th-17th. Maternal grandma's side of the family reunion. My mom has been doing a LOT in the way of family tree research and found quite a few distant relatives, so we're all getting together in my grandparent's hometown. We are dying to tent-camp at the beach there, but with it being in the middle of July, the weather may change those plans. We have two routes for getting there, so it'll be between a 9-11 hour trip, one way. Although if we go the 11 hour route, we are stopping approx. halfway.
The next weekend, 22nd-24th. Husband's Mamaw turns 80, my MIL and her sisters are planning a surprise party. I'm excited for it because I love visiting them. If we can't find a nice reasonably priced cabin around there, we'll be staying at a hotel. That's a 8-9 hour one way drive.

With the first trip we really need to just worry about gas and trip snacks. We've got plenty of free lodging options and will defiantly have free meal options :) With the second, we are toying with the idea of renting a mini-van. One to give us a chance to try one out, I do want one. And two to give us more space during a long and unfamiliar trip. Hopefully by then we are more financially stable to be able to rent a van and not break the bank.

Le Sigh...

Well. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will not be graduating next spring (2012) like I was planning.
And not because of the whole end of the world thing either.
I dropped my science class.  I still need a semester's worth of electives to finish. And there is no way I can do that at my current school without taking the intro courses for every major offered. No thank you. I would totally take those classes if they would in anyway help future career goals. But they won't. At one point I even seriously considered withdrawing at the end of the semester and enrolling in the local state school where they have almost the same program I'm in and about a thousand more class options. I had the application filled out, a scholarship application filled out, and transcript request forms filled out. Then I realized I was just angry with that science teacher and the lack of extra classes at that school. Exploring my options, I found out that I can continue where I am but also enroll at the state school as a 'transient' student, just taking the classes I need to finish up at my current school. And that's what I'm going to do. That and continue to look for my missing math book. I am beyond words when it comes to how I feel about that. I have a small house. Where could it have gone?!

I'm planning the Valentine's party for Lea's class. I'm going to decorate cookies on Sunday and maybe do pretzels too. I haven't decided that yet. I'm trying to come up with a craft for the kids to do because I want to split them into stations. The past two parties made me realize that kindergartners are still too immature to be able to focus all together on a project at the same time. I've got a quick game planned for one station, another will be a group passing out their own valentines, and I would like a craft or some other project for the third. My Halloween craft was a little too disorganized (on my part) so it turned into a bit of a mess.

I started back up with my scrapbooking. Kinda. I've been making valentine's\love cards. I think they are cute. If I am really ambitious, I would like to make card sets, maybe sets of 5 or 10, for different occasions, to sell when Husband does craft shows.

Off to search for the missing math book...

Nose to the Grindstone...

Things have started off all right. Just by cutting out pop and scaling down my portions some, my jeans fit better. They are not loose by any means, I just don't have to lay down and suck it in to zip em up. high five!

Although, I feel tired all the time. I'm sure its the weather and the fact that I have had to force myself awake at the ass-crack of dawn (5:45-6am) for the past week because Lea decided she wanted to take the early bus. I know its good for me, especially since I have an 8:30 class next semester. Ugh.
And it's Math.

Ugh and Puke.

Husband and I both start our spring semesters next week. Luckily I've talked him into taking only one class so things aren't as insane around here. As a last hurrah for me for the next couple months, we are planning on getting rid of the kids and having a date night. As much as I'd love a night on the town, our bank account says it's make your own pizza and a movie at home instead. But hey, a pizza the way *I* want it. An non-children's movie with no interruptions. I'm down for it. 

On the school front, I had made the dean's list the past two semesters. Looking back at my GPA from all 4 semesters so far, it has only gone up a couple tenths each time. If I keep working the way I have been, I don't see why I can't be at or very close to a 4.0 by graduation. While it would be sweet, I'm not going to kill myself trying to attain it. I usually feel like the walking dead near midterms anyway...

A New Year, A New Hope?

Apparently me + a blog in 2010 = fail.

I really want to try again this year. There are so many things that I want to have happen this year it would be nice to have some sort of written record of them happening or my wish for them to happen. I mean really. I can't lose this ginormous desktop computer so I can't say I lost my list or something.

1. This blog. This is for me to keep track of...well...me. My diary if you will. While it would be awesome if I had some readers (I LOVE feedback of all kinds, I thrive on it), I'm not going to curl up into a withering ball of tears if no one reads my rambling.

2. My weight. I NEED to do something about it. I'm miserable. At this point, my one goal is to not have to buy bigger clothes anymore. Yes, I need to desperately lose weight, but first things first, lets not GAIN anymore. Yesterday was a crap day, but in my defense, it was our last Christmas celebration for the season. This morning I had a small portion of leftover mostaccioli. It wasn't the best thing I could have had, but it wasn't the worst. I had a small portion and I was eating in the morning, something I rarely if ever do. Husband and I got new bikes for Christmas (yay!) and can't wait to get out and use it. Both the kids have bikes so there will be no excuse as to why we can't go for a bike ride. The only issue I could see is the fact that Husband and I have far more stamina than the kids so we'd want to go for longer. And at a slightly faster pace. Time to start pricing those 2-wheeled seat things that attach to the back of the bike. Plus, with one of those behind the bike things, I could ride to the grocery store that's less than 2 miles via a walking\bike path.

I am starting the year by only looking at the positives....

Future Plans

Provided I get accepted, I have chosen the school I would like to go to for an education degree. I will finish my communications bachelor next spring (I still have a hard time wrapping my head around that) and would like to start the education degree the following fall. If necessary, I am willing to wait til the following spring semester, but I do not want any more than a year go by before starting.
Since I will most likely not need to complete the year or so of general education classes, I am figuring an education degree should take me 2-3 years. So in all, I think I'm looking at 4-5 more years in school.
Side topic, but still related, I want at least 2 more kids. And I want to be done having them BEFORE I start looking for a teaching job. I really don't want to have kids past 30. Once I find a job, I don't want to have to take time off to have a baby.
Is that too much to ask? Am I being selfish?

I survived....

....my baby's first day of school. Best part is that she had a blast. She made it through her first day, loved it, and her teacher said she did very well :) There was a bad debacle with the busses this morning. We learned that the district changed their bus schedule and didn't tell anyone. We drove her, walked her in, Topher threw a fit because he couldn't stay at school. Husband was having a hard time leaving her there..haha. Because of the bus mess up, I told her teacher that I would pick her up. Topher and I went in a little early to get her to get there before the crowds. I thought it was cute that two kids in her class couldn't make it a full day of school, they were knocked out cold napping on a rug :)

*TEAR*

My baby starts kindergarten tomorrow morning. Her backpack is ready, her lunch is packed and in the fridge (except a juice box, mommy spaced on that one, Husband is stopping on his way home from work), and her clothes are laid out. Oh, and my camera is charged and ready to go...lol. I am excited because I have signed up for PTA and Lea is signed up for girl scouts. I can't wait!

Lea got a new bed, headboard, and dresser today. The dresser and headboard are *almost* put together. The instructions are very VERY effed up. I got quite frustrated and gave up before I broke anything..lol By the time Lea gets home from school tomorrow, her new bedroom set will be set up.

As far as me, I changed my semester schedule around so that I can be home at night with the kids more. I go Mondays 12-3:30 and Wednesdays 12-10. There will only be one night that I don't put the kids to bed. Luckily, it'll be my mom putting them to bed in their own beds, so I'm happy with that. I am still really excited about becoming a teacher (at some point) so that is a good sign. From the 9 schools I initially found, I knocked one off my list. The one that is the farthest away. I was reading over their program requirements and I don't feel that I would be capable of devoting that much time to that particular program. You need to devote 2-3 hours 3 days a week to observe a local elementary class. With it being an hour drive (one way), I can't see being gone for that long. I feel I can do it more locally. I really want to do this, but I don't want to spend half my day in the car driving here there and every where else.