Things That are Awesome

During the school term, I usually post very little, and if I do post, what's on my mind is ASL and stress.  But life isn't just about going from one stressful thing to another, even if some days that's what it feels like.  Our life is good right now.  Here are some things that are awesome about life as it is.

Take a Week Off
The full-time faculty at Cincinnati State are on strike this week.  This means I get a week off!  Not quite, since I still have to do homework, but I'm not at class right now.  And it's amazing what an extra 4 hours of time means for one's sanity.  Extra sanity in the middle of the school term is Awesome.

The Kids' School
I volunteer at the kids' school library once a month.  Well, once a month per kid.  Then I volunteer once a month in Tank's Kindergarten class, mostly making copies and filing papers and stuff so the teacher doesn't have to do it herself.  (I'm happy to do that - seriously, our teachers are under-appreciated.)  It all averages out to be once a week at the school.  Last Thursday when I was there during Elijah's library time, feeling run ragged, shelving books and thinking about all the things that I had to do that day and the next, Elijah raised his hand and said to the librarian, "That's my mom."  Yeah.  That's why I do it.  It's amazing how much they love me being at the school, even when all I do is shelve books and copy papers.

D Rex and Olivia
Tank did a medical study 2 years ago.  Got some shots.  Did some blood draws.  He got a substantial amount of money for that, especially for a 3-year-old who doesn't have any real-life expenses.  Some of that money was used for Key West (remember, all the kids contributed - which is something of a drawback now, since they're starting to say things like, "If we get another $200, can we go back?"), and some for tithing, obviously, but the rest just sat in a bank account.  And that's boring.  So we finally decided to let him spend it.

I took him to Toys R Us and let him pick out anything he wanted.  What he really truly wanted wasn't there, since it was a toy he wanted 2 years ago and toys come and go.  So what did he choose instead?  This:

He didn't name the horse Silver or something equally manly.  Not even Horse or Horsey.  He named her Olivia.  I asked why he chose the name Olivia and he said, "Because it's a pretty name."

I love that he picked out such a classic toy.  Anyway, we went home and searched for the toy he really wanted, a walking dinosaur.  You remember Chaga?

That's Chaga.  Well, Chaga has a "dad."  This is Chaga's dad:

He's huge.  And turns out he's expensive!  $300 expensive.  Which is a touch more than Tank actually had to his name.  I talked him into an older-child (and less expensive) version of the toy, D Rex:

D Rex is a COOL toy.  Seriously, we all play with him.
He named D Rex something you'll never guess.  ...  Yep, D Rex.  Ah, you guessed it.

Rob's Work
Things are going really well at Rob's work.  He just won a poster contest that gave him a $1,000 travel award.  He's applying for 2 separate grants that will give him 1-a small amount of money for research and a great bullet to put on his CV (CVs are science resumes), and 2-a bunch more money in salary for 1 year.  Obviously he hasn't yet won either of those, but still, nothing like this has come across his desk before, so we're excited for the opportunity to apply.  Plus, the grants he's writing are full-on grants, and that's giving Rob lots of experience in grant writing.

Also, Rob still loves the teaching that he's doing.  He teaches every Tuesday and Thursday night, and he has an on-line class, too.  He loves it.  It's nice to remember that he loves it, since it takes so much of his time.  And the extra teaching is allowing us to knock down a bunch of our debt, and that's awesome, too.

Working Out
Rob and I have been waking up every morning and exercising together.  We've been doing that for about 2 months now, and we love it.  Well, we're taking this week off (mostly), and it's weird to go back to how it used to be and feel that this is not normal any more.  I feel so ... lazy.  All I do in the morning is get up and take a shower.  What?  That's it?  7 a.m. is now a normal time to get up, and it's great to have accomplished things before 9 in the morning.

Part of the exercising has been running, and on Saturday we ran just over 8 miles.  What I have to say about that is:  8 miles is substantially longer than 6 miles.  Don't tell me "it's just 2 more miles."  You run them and then you can tell me that.

We've been training for a crazy run that's almost 16 miles, mid-Winter, up mountains and such.  Except it's getting cold outside.  And I don't like to be cold.  So the race is slipping back into "I don't want to do it" territory.  We'll see.  Either way, the working out will continue, cause we like seeing muscle on our bodies (even if it is just little ones), and breathing deeper, and feeling better, and eating better.  It's awesome.

Bike Riding
Rob finally fixed up our bikes!  So now everyone in the family has a bike, and while I was at school last night (mostly time off.  I said MOSTLY I have time off) they went on a bike ride.  The kids thought it was awesome.

Managing Time
I'm not going to tell you that I am suddenly amazing at managing my time.  That's not true.  But I'm better able to handle all the things on my plate than I was before we started on this Tamra Going Back to School Adventure.  I feel like my life is more balanced than it's ever been, even though it's busier.  And what I'm learning is that it's not EVEN THOUGH, it's BECAUSE.  Because my life is busier, I have to balance it or I fall apart.  I'm reading my scriptures and working out nearly every day.  Those things haven't consistently happened for years.  I direct the kids' homework when they get home from school, and they have it done in a timely manner.  We are ON TASK.  I have all my own assignments done on time.  The chores all get done, though not as often or as thoroughly as they used to.  Everyone, including me, is a little more patient when clothes aren't folded or dinner isn't made.  We get it all done eventually.

Some things have lessened, but they still happen.  We don't do social dinners as often as we used to.  We just don't have the time for it.  And we don't play with the kids as much, since we all have things to do.  But the weekends are suddenly precious.  That's our time to spend with the kids, to be a family, to do special things that we don't have the time for during the week.

So I'm grateful that we're this busy.  It's empowering to know that we can do it.  Rob will say, "I look forward to when we're not this busy," and I tell him that he's kidding himself.  We'll always be this busy.  Now that we CAN do it, we WILL do it.  We'll just trade some things for different things.  Rob won't work 3 or 4 jobs at a time, and I won't always be in school.  But we'll let the kids play sports, maybe even participate in the coaching, and spend lots of time in the car.  We'll take a couples' swing dance class once a week.  We'll volunteer.  We'll plan and take vacations.  Whatever it is, we'll find things.  So it's awesome that we're learning to manage our time better.

And a Random Assortment...
This sign language stuff is awesome.  That's a given.

Our van now has over 381,000 miles on it.  It's still running.  Not as smoothly as when we first got it in January, but hey, we'll take it.

Edith, Rob's boss, is awesome.  When I think about things in our life that are going right, she's always on the list.  I love that woman.

Miciah is on book 4 of the Harry Potter series.  She was borrowing the books from friends when Grandma called and asked if Miciah would like to own the series.  She then sent out all 7 hardcover books.  Awesome!

Now that I have glasses, I don't get headaches any more.  It occurred to me that 1-I used to get headaches on a more frequent basis than I realized, 2-I'm not getting them any more, and 3-this was a change due to my glasses, when I recently looked into my purse and thought, "Why do I have headache medication with me all the time?"  Thank you, glasses.  You're awesome.