If it could go wrong....

What a week and it is only Weds. morning! I stayed at work until almost 9:00pm last night trying to get some uninterrupted work done. I did get a lot accomplished but man I'm tired today!

We have had several children pushing the limits at work this week and just lots of little stuff that has snowballed to make an UGH kind of week already.

I sent a child home yesterday after he bit 2 teachers and myself...scratched 3 different teachers, threw toys at other children and slapped a child so hard it left a red hand print on their cheek. He's 4. Old enough to not get away with this stuff.

Of course we have had the general fevers, runny noses creeping crud kind of stuff...oh and Hand, Foot and Mouth.

Lots of paperwork to be completed. Annual inspections to be completed and returned to the correct agencies, cleaning carpets in the "new" room and getting it set up and organized for use.

I have a cover to build for an A/C unit, testing to be done on several levels for staff because it was deemed "unreadable" as the bottom 3 millimeters (LOL) were cut off the bottom of some of the pages....I tell you they have to find something to issue a citation for don't they?

I will be running one of the corrections pages downtown to save time today and then back to work I go...I am VERY ready for this 3 day weekend.

Yet another new experience...

Last night was awful! Yesterday was not the greatest day ever but I had no idea what the night had in store.

I am a person who on occasion has nightmares. They have gotten much better since I have grown older and well... all those years of counseling have helped tremendously.

Last night I had a hard time falling asleep to begin with because I could not get my mind to "turn off" for the night.

It seemed like I had only been asleep minutes when I sat straight up in bed with THAT feeling in my stomach.

You see I had been having a horrid dream that I found to be truly upsetting.

I woke up so upset by this dream that before I was even conscience I found myself running to the bathroom.

Now a little side note here would be that I detest vomit. Once upon a time I was so skinny that I was constantly accused of having an eating disorder. I would laugh at them...I hate puking that much...no amount of weight loss could coax me to purge.

Of course after the "event" I felt fine. I couldn't go back to sleep because I was scared to have the dream again but I felt fine.

I basically have been awake since 4am and have been eating things slowly just in case but so far no problems what so ever.

I did skip church today so that I could try to sleep in but that didn't work. I will be doing a load of laundry so that my nephew will not get the "kitty sniffles" tonight when he sleeps over and then I am off to a softball game with the young lad later this afternoon.

I pray for good sleep tonight as missing work tomorrow to sleep all day is not really an option.

So busy...

I have been very busy at work trying to get everything in place for the new school year which starts on Monday.

We are adding an additional classroom which means waiting for the room to be available. It became ours late Friday afternoon. This of course means I will be cleaning carpets on Monday morning and trying to get materials etc moved by Weds. at the latest.

For this coming year I have enrolled at least 10 new children into our little center. Let me tell you that is a lot of paperwork! I believe we may have killed several trees in the process.

I also had my review at the new job...I don't know anything yet but I hope to receive word soon on if there is a raise in my near future.

As for this house thing....I think that if I purchase my Mom's house that I am living in I will regret it. I think she will always be in it...I will never have any privacy...it will be held over my head and she will think somehow I will be ripping her off. She actually asked my sister how much money I make. Growing up there were 3 absolutely taboo things you did not ask anyone:

1. How much do you weigh?
2. How did you vote in the last election?
3. How much money do you make?

So far since meeting and marrying Beau she has violated all of these plus some... she seems to under the impression that I am lying about my finances. I want to stand up and yell, "I WORK IN DAYCARE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!"

I will never be rich in this field.

That is an understatement.

I am seriously looking into renting an apartment. Starting over will be hard but eventually it is something I need to do...plus I don't think she would EVER have all her stuff out of this house. I think having a place that is all my own with all of my own things will be the final thing I need to get my self confidence back. Don't get me wrong I have come a long way since Big Red and I separated and then divorced. I am not even a glimpse of the shell I was back then. But there is still more to be done in my spirit.

Anyway I hope when things settle down a bit I will be back to posting more regularly.

And so it goes...

So I am continuing the interviewing process...I have a full time person in mind that is only waiting for the board approval but I am still looking for the part time afternoon person...It would be so much easier if I could just throw them in a classroom and see what they do but Noooooooo that would violate so many rules...LOL

Changes are every where

When I was a child every couple weeks or so my Dad and I (or the family) would be driving somewhere and we would go by a junkyard. Sometimes the same one... sometimes a random one.

My Dad would always joke that he would be getting my first car from this junkyard or that one. Kind of ironic that my first car was only 4 years younger than myself. But I understand why they did that...in the 70's they made cars like tanks. It also kept me close to home as it only got 12 miles to the gallon. Being in the country nothing was closer than that so I would dig through the couch cushions to come up with the $0.69 I needed for a gallon of gas.

I was thinking about this as I drove to the origins of One4jc Land this weekend for a birthday party. OK I drove to a little neighboring town for the party and detoured on my way home so I could go past the house I grew up in.

We used to have a HUGE evergreen tree in the front yard and this little sprout of a tree that wasn't even big enough to climb. I used to ride the streets of this little town on my bike from dawn to dusk with no fear. We lived next to a tiny green house that was the home of (what I believed to be) the oldest man alive. This little one bedroom house could have fit inside our house....twice!

This is also the house that most of the abuse occurred or at least started. It seems to be frozen in moments of time in my mind. Occasionally I drive by but I really have to go out of my way to see this little town.

I have seen the Post Office move to a new location, the school (yes singular) get new playground equipment, new housing additions pop up and many other things over the years.

This time when I drove through town I noticed the old evergreen was gone and the tree was almost too big to try to climb. The little grocery store where I got candy is torn down as is the little green house.

My Mom recently sent me an email telling me that an old neighbor was asking about my sister and I. She made it seem sinister in some way. She refused to give this old neighbor our contact information. I wonder if she is still trying to "preserve the family image"?

Life changes. Changes happen whether you want them to or not.

Oddly enough I am glad the old house has new windows, a fenced in back yard and a converted garage so that it looks different. Now maybe the house that was in my nightmares for so long will never appear to someone else in their dreams... well at least this is helping put some of those final parts of my life to rest. Again.

Just rambling I guess...

Gas Prices

So the price of gas went up again...

A trip down memory lane

I remember very little about my junior high and early high school years. I have blocked most of it out as it was a very dark time in my life....

BUT.... I do remember going on a few Youth Group excursions to see concerts in far away cities...well sometimes they were only a day trip. I remember the first time I saw DC Talk in concert was in Dayton Ohio when I was at a 3 day conference/youth rally.



And if that doesn't take you back to the 80's then I am sure that one of my other favorites from that same rally will. I LOVE Whiteheart! The first time I heard this song about forgiveness it was a totally new concept to me. I grew up in a house where everything was held over your head. To this day I am still reminded by my Mom of the time I spilled a quart of paint on the carpet and how they didn't have enough money to go buy more paint because it was a special color etc etc etc etc etc...

The little dialog he has before the song really helped me to understand what forgiveness was about for the first time. Of course it took another 14 years before the concept of God's love really sunk in but nonetheless here is one of my other early favorites.

My Legacy?

Since the divorce I have been struggling with the idea of not having a child. You have to understand that when I was a child I would stuff baby dolls under my shirt so that I could pretend to be a "Mommy". For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a Mom. A Mommy...

My current last name has had a few not so desirable people associated with it. I would love to make sure "the name" has a child of God as a legacy. I want to leave my own legacy as I am sure everyone does. This child doesn't have to look like me, talk like me, be like me but I want a child to pass on my legacy.

Through the song "Legacy" by Nichole Nordeman that I heard (with a new perspective) at the recent Women of Faith conference I have come to discover that I am leaving a legacy. It just doesn't look like I thought it would.



I am leaving a legacy by teaching and directing at a daycare. I am leaving a legacy by living my life for God through the good times and the bad. No matter what I do I am a living witness for my faith and for God. I have had many people comment to me about how I handled the divorce... how I handled losing my children...the death of my Dad... the abuse as a child that I endured...etc etc etc.

Those things have made me who I am today and that is part of the legacy I leave. Just being me and not giving up on God when it would have been so easy to do.

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Although adoption is not out of the question and I am by no means giving up hope that someday I will have children. I am just accepting my lot in life and becoming content with where God has placed me for this moment in time.

I have a new(er) computer!

So after fighting with my old computer and battling a virus (and being off line for almost a month) I am back!!!!

My computer guru sister has assembled a new computer system for me and after much debugging, defragmenting and fine tuning I am finally up and running! I think she got me back online to help deal with the REALLY ODD emails that our Mommy Dearest has been sending :o)

I have so much to say but I will start slow and catch you (all 4 readers I have) up over the next several days.

THE UN-ANNIVERSARY:

So earlier this month I would have had my 6th wedding anniversary. It happened to correspond with the Women of Faith conference this year. This helped tremendously. The theme was Amazing Freedom and that is what I was trying to grasp onto as this day rolled closer.

I am Free.

I am free of Big Red. I am free of the pain he has brought into my life. I am free to live my life according to God's will. I am free to date. I am free to hold onto God tightly as my Rock and source of courage and strength. I am free to be me!

It is a lot easier to type that out than live that out. But I try.

I have been reading a lot in the Message version of the Bible lately. This has caught my eye:

2 Corinthians 5:17

16-20Because of this decision we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don't look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend with you.

It is hard to be a light when the "F" word abounds...

I have learned many things while sitting at a strange place checking my email.

One of which is that teens swear....a lot....

They can swear and put some of the military men I have known in my life to shame.

I do have many many many things to post about but until my computer is internet ready you will have to wait with patience...

I just passed my First wedding anniversary as a divorced woman....Women of Faith was awesome....I am hiring at work again....we are opening a new room to deal with our high numbers of new students....

But alas until my computer guru from yonder visits you will need to wait...