"Steady Days"

We moved again and are in Logan, Utah now. Logan is an amazing city. Before we moved we heard comments like, "Logan? I used to live there, you will love it!" No one explained why we would love it, just we would. After a month we do love it, and I can't seem to explain why either. It is a lot of little things. Everything is so close. We can walk to the store, the library, the church, the transit center where we can hop on and ride somewhere further for free. Running errands takes 15 minutes total instead of 15 minutes just in travel time. I am sure there are other reasons I love Logan, but this cozy feeling is one attribute I just can't get over!

Cam's started school (the actual Computer Science coursework, yahoo!) and we are settling in at home. We started going to the library since the cold and wet weather of January made going out to play difficult most weeks. By chance I looked up some parenting books and stumbled on "Steady Days" by Jamie C. Martin. It is a small, thin book so I figured I had a fighting chance of actually finishing and applying the book.

The subtitle is "A Journey Towards Intentional, Professional Motherhood." Intentional and professional mothering is something I have struggled with since having Dallas.

Up until Dallas was born I was constantly in school or working, usually a combination of the two. I had something other than myself telling me where I needed to be, what I needed to do and my sense of hard work and responsibility (I felt guilty if I didn't do assignments to the best of my ability, I couldn't even fathom intentionally skipping class or sloughing off assignments) took care of the rest. After he was born I was suddenly at home ALL THE TIME and no one telling my what to do. I had no idea what to do with myself. I had intentions of setting specific days to clean, of always having dinner of the table when Cam got home and other "homemaker" duties. Unfortunately, I didn't. There were times it got very bad (we won't go into details, but I never left the house so I wouldn't shower until Cam told me I smelled... yeah I guess that was too much detail, huh?). However my work ethic was still there making me feel incredibly guilty, but I didn't know what exactly what I was feeling guilty for.

I only felt accomplished when I was working outside the home so I found a job and kept working. I felt I needed that something telling me what to do! After working part-time in the tutoring, para-educating, and substitute teaching realm; I finally landed a full-time teaching job! If that wasn't going to make me feel accomplished I didn't know what would! However, even while teaching full-time and being told how much I was benefiting the 150 students in my classes; I felt guilt for what my children (and, to a lesser degree, the house) weren't getting.

So what gives? I realized "doing" work didn't fulfill that guilt for sloughing off my responsibility to my children. I was a good professional educator, why couldn't I figure out how to be a good professional mother? That is why this book really caught my eye: "Intentional, Professional Motherhood."

The book has been an eye-opener. It isn't full of ground-breaking thoughts or techniques, but has given me clear ideas and methods to make being at home with my children productive and meaningful. Along with creating a "Steady Routine" the book suggests finding one thing to improve upon at a time. It is so easy to tackle things one at a time.

If I sound like you, or you sound like me, I would recommend giving this book a gander. You'll take some, you'll leave some, but I believe it will be a good experience :)

My Name is Kassie and I have a problem...

I buy way too many toys for my kids at clearance sales... Seriously. Kmart and Targets seasonal toy clearances kill me. I don't really spend too much but I LOVE going there for birthday/Christmas presents. However, we were pretty set for said holidays after the LAST clearance sale, but I still went to another one today and Target hasn't even done their summer clearance sale yet. I can't miss Target's sale...

Today I went shopping at Kmart in Kent, who is having their "additional 50% off clearance toys sale", but I brought the kids with me, which I am deciding is not a good idea. The one purchase I am super happy about was a pack of 10 transformers, all about the size of matchbox cars, that actually do transform (and some rather complexly). But Dallas saw them and LOVES them; so of course they were taken out of the box and "transformed" within a half hour of returning home. So much for Christmas and Birthday presents.

I should probably just take the other three things I bought at Kmart back, especially if I am going to hit the Target sale coming up in the next few weeks...

No Children in Student Housing?

Cam received an email assigning us to out campus housing on Thursday. Also in the email was a "reminder" that children were not allowed in married housing... say wha?!

I badgered Cam into making an irate phone call (he wasn't really irate but I was) to the housing office. There was nothing on the school website with that stipulation, but apparently there was something in the contract Cam signed, but didn't read. I can't be mad at him, I never read it either...

The campus housing person said that no children in married campus housing is a Utah law (say wha, again?! we had a kid not four years ago when we lived in BYU married housing... however they are a private university, maybe they got out of it, so I let it slide). We did the only thing we could do, pulled out of our contract. Luckily we hadn't paid any deposit, just an application fee.

We have been looking at renting websites all weekend and found a few places, and hopefully will be starting on the paperwork for one today. There is an upside, campus housing didn't have W/D hookups, and I am not fond of community laundry.

On a side note: I think that law was made up. A web search turned up the exact opposite: "Any rules which limit the rights of families with children violate the Fair Housing Act and are not enforceable."

Maybe schools have special circumventing rights, but it is by no means "a state-wide law" considering Utah State University allows children in their housing.

In the Last Week

Subbing for 4 days this week, totaling 20 hours, I have worked for about a quarter of the hours I pull per month tutoring/managing at Mathnasium.

The clincher? I have made almost half of my regular Mathnasium paycheck.

I wish we could work out a schedule so I could substitute more often and not just when Cam is on break (which won't happen again until the end of the school year).

But don't get me wrong I am thankful for having the job at Mathnasium (the stability and the experience it gives)... I am just very thankful for when I can substitute too.

Sometimes Sims Is Like Real Life

Cam and I enjoy playing Sims. It is like real life, only better. We like making ourselves and reliving those great moments like marriage, the birth of the first child, achieving world domination...

Sometimes Sims even gets the details right like Dallas being born before Chelane, giving the kiddos blue eyes, or making Cam a famous painter... wait...

Other times it makes me wonder if it is showing us what is in store for the future. Cam made most of my family and had Karma and I rooming together at college before his character and mine met. For some reason when I moved out, Karma came along and cozied up in our basement. Cam didn't have the heart to kick her out, so there she stayed. And from our innocuous basement she progressed along to her life-long goal of world domination as the Evil Emperor.

Sometime I worry about Karma...

Waxing Philosophical

It just occurred to me that I have a wonderful life. My two 'babies' are great little people with their own budding full-blown personalities that I am privileged to shape and teach to be honest, obedient, good people who love the Lord and can be a force of good. I am also married to a wonderful and loving man who is a good father and works to be a better person. I have a good job where I have advanced quickly, have been given new responsibilities, and get to help people every day.

I am usually so stuck on "life will be better when..." or "I can't wait until...
Cam finishes school, we move somewhere else, we get a house, the kids are older... blah blah blah blah blah " No matter how perfect life is there is always something you can find to complain about. Lately I have been a complainer rather than a optimist that counts her blessings and does the best with what has been gifted to her.

Hopefully this post will remind me (and maybe all of us) of that when I want to be a downer.

New Year's Resolution!

I am horrible about New Year's Resolutions. So bad that I gave up making them years ago. Apparently deciding I am going to do something simply because a new year started and everyone else either does it or says you should do it, isn't a good motivation for me.

But I have seemed to found a good motivation: my kids. Cam and I are planning on having more kids (not anytime terribly soon, but probably being pregnant within the next year). I don't take the best care of my body. I tend to skip meals on occasion just because I get too busy and sitting on the computer or in front of the TV is so much easier than working out and pushing myself. When I was pregnant with Dallas and Chelane, I would get motivated to get in shape, but (especially with Chelane) the morning sickness/all around blah-ness really detoured me from wanting to do anything. I didn't start feeling good until I pretty far along, and by that time the only work-out that is feasible (for me) is walking. So this time I figured, why not be pro-active and start early?

So, this last week I have decided I will start working out, and guess what? I have actually stuck to it. Usually my goals like this fizzle out after a day or two (seriously, that is all the longer "working out" has lasted in the past if I am doing it on my own). But this time I have been sticking to it. My legs and arms have been achy from squats, lunges, and push-ups; and I have been running on the elliptical until my legs burn, and then running some more. Luckily I have my parents' elliptical and Weight Watchers work-out videos (I recommend these).

Since the kids are around when I am doing this (I do it in the morning when Cam is at school after the kids have breakfast... I could wake up when Cam does and be done BEFORE the kids get up, but as we have stated earlier: I seem to lack in the self control area sometimes...) so I either barricade off the elliptical side of the family room and put on a movie (awesome parenting skills!) or I get a little set of weights down for Dallas and try to get the kids in some degree of participation (this doesn't work at all... unless having Chelane run into my leg and not let go while I am trying to do squats counts...)

Before anyone feels that I am bragging too much these work-outs have only been 20-30 minutes a day, hardly anything amazing, but it is amazing what 20-30 minutes can do for how you feel about yourself.

If you feel motivated, try it with me. Don't have an indoor cardio-machine or workout videos? Just do a few sets of push-ups, sit-ups and squats. Even these little things make a difference!

That Test

I figured I would put a little update in about that test I took a month ago that I was complaining about over two months ago.

Apparently there was a need to complain and not a need to worry.

I passed.

The scoring was 100-300 with anything over 240 passing. The test was broken up into three sub-tests: reading, writing, and mathematics. I passed all of them by a wide margin, acing the math portion.

After I got my scores in the mail I just had to show it to Cam. Then, like a little kid, I had to go tell my mom and dad how well I did. I guess you are never too old for some parental praise.

Baby Songs

Anyone ever watch "Baby Songs" back in the day? It is a compilation of songs with catchy lyrics (scroll down on the linked page and read "Security" if nothing else... it is totally Dallas), upbeat music, with fun (usually related) skits all written by some dude named Hap Palmer and a lady named Martha Cheney. I remember there being three volumes and I loved them when I was little.

While looking through my parents' video cabinet I found one volume survived my sister's mass de-junking and put it on for Dallas.

I have very mixed feelings about the video:

1) Dallas requests to watch it at least once a day since I made him watch it the first time.

2) Dallas is trying to (and does a very good job many times) sing along. He tries to match the words and the notes, since he is still barely talking, this is AWESOME!

3) I knew all the songs when I was little and it only took one go-through to remember them and now they are always stuck in my head. This is not so awesome.

Luckily this lone surviving video is NOT the one with the freaky monkey-highchair skit, but does have the disturbing alien-bathtub scene.

You win some, you loose some.

Just Because I Couldn't Leave August Out...

I realized I hadn't posted yet in August and felt I couldn't not do this month it's justice (All you English majors are totally cringing at that sentence... I can feel it). So here it is, the fat and the skinny of it:

This month I got old(er).

I applied to school districts all around this area (we are talking Tacoma out to Snoqualmie) and only got one callback (to the job I think I wanted the most out of everything that I applied for; it was teaching math at an alternative school in North Bend with a student body of about 300), but they ended up not wanting me. Turn out schools like prior experience... Go figure. So, I am going back to the job I got last February. I am happy to have a job, just annoyed to not have made any progress in the getting-out-of-my-parent's-house-and-having-a-stable-life direction.

Chelane is 11 months today! She is a crawling fiend and is starting to lean out. She is still very happy, loves to play with her brother, and enjoys cleaning things up (or it might just be "putting things in" because, many times, she promptly takes them out again...). You know how people call kids "ankle-biters"? Well Chelane is a "knee-biter" and I am not saying that to allude to her height... she really is a knee biter.

I am sure there are cute pictures around here somewhere, but chances are my mom took them (since my camera SUCKS) and I haven't gotten them on my computer yet. She is following in her brother's footsteps as a curious, energy reserve of moving chaos (I like to call Dallas "Entropy in Motion" because I am a geek). She is still sweet as can be and we all love her to death, even when she is trying to eat the rocks in the bottom of Grandma's bamboo planter...

Dallas is getting more and more verbal. He is attempting words and yesterday when we were walking out of a store to the car, I was telling him we were looking for the "red car" (because our car is, you guessed it, red) and I asked him where it was. He was looking around with me and trying to say "red car" but he didn't have a strong 'r' or 'd' sound; so it was more like "eh co." I asked Cam if he could hear him (Cam was a few steps away with Chelane) and he couldn't. But I could tell what he was saying.

Wow, that was a very anti-climatic story. The point of it was that I can't recall Dallas doing spontaneous correct sounds before, many times he just mumbles and then you have to focus his attention on your mouth so he can get the visual cues and have him try again.

Anyway the kid is doing more compound wordage (more than one word at a time, so like two-word sentences?), mixing words in with his signs, and can be frequently caught babbling or singing to himself (and others). It is all very exciting for us since he didn't do that babbling or singing when he was younger. The language is coming!

I feel like I should write something about Cam... but he isn't doing anything nearly as exciting as the kids. Although, he did do chores yesterday (lots of them, in succession) without being asked; that is pretty major for him.

Frost

The hail and frost we had a week ago killed all the zucchini and tomato plants Dad and I put in the ground. They look really pathetic just standing there all dead. We need to go get some more if we want to grow anything this year but it is already late in the growing season (it was late in the growing season when we planted the stuff in the first place).

The lettuce, herbs and onions seem to be thriving. I would have thought frost and hail would kill herbs. Herbs just scream "fragile" to me (don't worry; plants don't really talk to me, that would be silly). Apparently peppermint, rosemary, and basil are heartier than they look.

Comments

So I haven't had any comments in over a week. It isn't due to lack of posts - there are three in the last week. So am I just too boring for you? You are all giving me a complex.

I Hate My Camera

This thing makes not-so-hot pictures. I can't even get what is on the veiw screen. It is either too dark or washed out (you have seen some of my pictures) and can be grainy and weird to boot.

It is very hard to capture the cute pictures (like Dallas building on Chelane and trying to pick her up) when you have to try five different settings and none of them give you a good picture. The cute poses don't last forever.

This is my excuse for lack of pictures lately.

HA!

I realized after my last post that Dr. Seuss didn't write Go Dog, Go! Is there a reason no one pointed this out to me?!?!

Worthless Post...

I really should post about my first day on the job, but I really don't want to right now. So this is me commiting myself to some future post regarding it. Hopefully that will expidite the whole blogging process, but, let's be honest with ourselves, it probably won't help...

Rolling, Baby Clothes, and Leap Years

Saturday evening I was in Dallas' room making his bed and getting everything ready for him to sleep. Chelane, Dallas, and Cam were in the family room (just down the hall). Chelane was crying because it was her tummy time. She has no problem being on her stomach as long as it isn't for longer than a minute or two. She had been on her stomach for a while now with us coaxing her to roll over. Cam started yellng to me that Chelane had rolled over, I rushed out and immediatly and put Chelane back on her tummy. She wasn't too thrilled about that but did humor me enough to roll over again. She has stubbornly insisted on not rolling over since.

Also Chelane is now wearing 6-9 month onsies and sleepers. I also had to put her in a 6-9 month dress for church on Sunday, her 3-6 ones are just too small now. Yes, she was born September 30th, she is only four months old (plus a week or two). My little baby is getting so big. Thede larger clothes are drowning her as far as width goes, she really only needs the length.

On an entirely different note, last night at dinner Mom was asking about Friday the 13th birthdays (the question hd stemmed from the observation that we will have two Friday the 13th's this year). I knew I as born on a Tuesday (don't know why I have remembered that, but there you go) so we started counting around years and days of the week (it sure makes it easy knowing that a day moves forward one day of the week each year... I wonder why that is). I calculated that my birthday this year is on a thursday, so my 25th birthday (next year) will be on Friday the 13th. It also seems that my 75th birthday will be as well... So I am wondering if it will be on a 50 year cycle. If that is true then since my Friday the 13th birthdays so far have been turing 8 and 14, it should also happen at 64 and 58... however, I haven't tested this hypothesis yet...

It Has Come to My Attention...

That I have never had a formal interview before... EVER. Yes, I am 23 have worked in three or four jobs (without much of a break since I was 16.5) and have never interviewed. I haven't even had a "fake" training type interview. Absolutely NO interview experience (have you caught onto that yet?)... until yesterday.

I realized this startling (and detrimental) fact while driving to the Auburn School District to interview for a Special Education paraeducator position. Well, sitting in a room with a person asking questions wouldn't be too bad. Except it was four people. Four principals. Four principals that all have a paraeducator opening at their school. Four principals with two pages of questions on which they will rate my responses.

During one or two of the questions I actually started answering before having a complete thought of where my diatribe was going and was thinking "oh shoot, what was the question again?" All-in-all I think it went just fine (although they were curious as to why someone with a Math Education degree was looking for paraeducator work, they understood when I told them I had to take tests to get my Washington licence). If I haven't heard from HR by next Wednesday it "would be appropriate to call"...

Sanctity of Human Life Day

I meant to do this post on Sunday or even before to give everyone a heads up, sorry I didn't get to it! I don't know how many people heard about President Bush proclaiming this past Sunday as "Sanctity of Human Life Day" but he did. He made, what I feel, was a very moving yet short talk with his announcment. It use to be on the Whitehouse press release page but since Obama moved in it has been moved or deleted. Luckily I found his full text on another page. As you could guess it has gotten pro-choice people up in a huff and proclaiming that Bush has "waged a war against women" during his presidency.

As a woman I don't feel threated by Bush, in fact women that don't exercise enough self control to not have unprotexcted sex and decide they can fix their "mistake" by killing a human, disgust me. Twisting it and saying a human fetus isn't a human and given that "inalienable right" to life until it is out of the womb or wanted is ridiculous. Of course there are exceptions: rape and the mother being endangered by the pregnancy, are the most prominent in my mind. There are so many adoption agencies and other provisions to allow mothers to give up their babies after birth, why is there a need to destroy them instead?

I know this is quibbling about opinions and I don't mean to offend anyone, this is something I feel strongly about. I think Sanctity of Life Day is a worthy cause and look forward to see if it is honored in the future (probably not though, huh?).

Stagnant

I really hate when blogs get to be more than a week old. I read many friends blogs and frankly get annoyed if there is nothing new for a while (*cough* Christine *cough*). While I was thinking about this today I realized MY last blog post wasn't very recent itself, so to avoid being a hypocrite and annoying myself I decided I should write something intelligent, witty, and above all engrossing for all my blog readers... but I couldn't come up with anything.

Cam is still waiting to hear back from job applications. He is thinking (I think he is thinking at least, sometimes it is hard to tell with him... and sometimes his opinions and plans change quickly... sometimes I wonder if he is pregnant... oh shoot, where was I? Oh yes...) of applying with the Washington State Patrol (WSP) again (he applied back before Dallas was born while we were living in Utah but they somehow missed that he was out of state so we never got the info packet that he needed and it turned out to be a big mess so Cam just said "no" and focused on something else), but he needs his discharge papers from the Army reserve and we just found the form that he needs to fill out to request it. Average response time is 2.9 weeks, but that is including all the really, really old forms from before the 70's that they have to dig up. Hopefully the response time will only be a week or two. I guess if he doesn't end up wanting to apply with the WSP having his papers isn't a bad thing anyway; who knows, other employers may want the papers too.

I have applied for two positions with the Kent School District, both para-educator positions. I have to go through some tests and classes and who-knows-what-else to actually teach and I don't know if that is what I want to do anyway *sigh*. I just finished filling out an application that I will probably go drop off or mail tomorrow for the Auburn School District (again para-educator).

Yeah, I know, this is all over stimulating to the point of unconsciousness.

Dallas on the other hand is making some progress in social abilities since we moved up to the great Northwest. We went to Grandma's "Moving and Grooving" class at the Children's Therapy Center last Friday (and will be going again this Friday, it is an every Friday sorta thing). They have a play-time then a singing-time then another play-time followed by a group activity. At the end of the first play-time Dallas had some reluctance to put the toys away and go sit in the circle. At the end of the second play-time he picked up and walked himself over to the circle to do the group activity without any prompting. Yesterday we went to a story-time (that really wasn't a story-time, it was an activity reserved by some mother-group, but they let us stay anyway) at the Maple Valley Library and Dallas would get up and dance with the other kids at appropriate times and then come back to sit with me. He still doesn't obey all the time and he still has some fits, but the kids is improving lots.

Chelane is a talking machine. I think her and Dallas will probably progress with their talking together (I believe she will be an early talker). She is babbling up a storm in her crib right now actually, and the babbling is getting progressivily more annoyed sounding... I think she may be hungry so I should probably get on that...

The Christmas Debate

When should you start Christmas preliminaries? After Halloween or after Thanksgiving? I can see both sides of the fence in this one.

Growing up we were not allowed to play Christmas music or put up any decorations before the Friday following Thanksgiving. Of course on that Friday all Christmas-ness broke loose as we climb up to the loft in the top of my parent's garage to fish out all thing Christmas. My sister would make sure that Christmas music was playing bright and earl. We put up our fake tree, decorated the downstairs with my mom's collection of Nativities, and (sometimes) put the lights up outside.

I asked my mom one year why we had to wait until after Thanksgiving and she gave me a very astute (as always) answer. It is to give Thanksgiving a fair shake (that is me paraphrasing). The more I think about it the more I agree that Thanksgiving does get swallowed up by Christmas too often. In stores the day after Halloween all the Christmas things get put out (if they weren't out already) and, in some cases, Christmas music goes on the radio. I can understand the stores' reasoning: unless you are a grocery store, you get more revenue from Halloween and Christmas than Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a very important holiday though. Even if you don't want to celebrate the Native-Americans-save-the-English-settlers bit just the idea of having a day of the year soley devoted to thinking about all your blessings and to be especially grateful towards you Heavenly Father is, I think, a very good thing.

One another side of the same coin, Christmas is also an extremely important holiday and should really get more than a month for celebrating the birth of our Savior, so is starting the day after Halloween such a bad thing? Honestly Christmas could just be thought of as an extension of Thanksgiving (actually that should be the other way around).

Like I said, I can see both sides; and now, being the mommy and needing to decide holiday traditions and everything that comes along with that, I still am far from making up my mind on this matter.

Of course this is all a moot point since we will be moving right before Christmas and be spending the actual holiday in Canada...