"Shut up about your dumb job already!"

I had one of those pesky moral dilemmas pop up today and I don't know if I made the right choice. I went with the majority and made a choice because it would be easier for me in the long run. This whole Presidential speech uproar has really got me feeling down. I can't talk specifically about school because I don't want to cross a line (or get fired) but I just find it sad that so many in this country do not want their children to hear the president speak about working hard and staying in school. My kids did not get to see it at school today and I find that very disturbing. Enough said.

School is going well but I'm super tired and overwhelmed. Starting a new career/working full-time for the first time in 14 years is hard. Right now I just feel like I'm keeping my head above water but I'm hoping in time, things get easier. I'm working 10 hour days now and sometimes on the weekends. Seeing a paycheck in our account this Friday was exciting. I also had one of my students look at me while we were waiting in the lunch line and tell me, "I like you." That is pretty freaking rewarding. I was thinking this week about how glad I am that I stayed home with my kids. I think it was the right thing for me. I'm fully supportive of women who work when their kids are young and I'm also supportive of women who never go back to work. I'm just saying I think my decision was the best for our family. There were days that I would have rather had my eyes poked out than get up at 6 a.m. and watch Dora but mostly I enjoyed being home. Finishing my degree before we had kids was also a great decision. Another fabulous decision was to buy my new sun-glasses with part of my first paycheck. I've been wanting some Ray-Ban aviators for a couple of years now and tried some on at Nordstrom the other day. Well they didn't fit my face at all and I looked like a complete dork so I was feeling sad about the loss of my dream. The next day I was at Macey's and tried on these Ralph Lauren aviators and I just knew they were the ones. Usually I buy my sunglasses at Target for under $20 and then end up sitting on them in the car and breaking them. I'm being extra careful with my new glasses because sitting on them and breaking them is not an option.

I took this extremely dorktastic photo at 6 a.m. one morning in my classroom. I think I was trying to look cool like "Ponch" but I ended up looking like Sgt. Getraer.

Mystery Solved

A few weeks ago we noticed these animal droppings on our front porch. They were too big for a mouse and since Beaumont has voles we thought that might be it. It just seemed strange that a vole would come to our house at night just to poop on our porch. I told Ryan he should just sit out there one night until the mystery animal stopped by for it's nightly poop. He didn't think that sounded like a great idea. I also said we should get a cat to rid us of our supposed vole problem. I have to admit voles kind of freak me out with their pointy teeth and all, so I was all for getting rid of it.

Then I googled vole and they actually aren't that scary. I thought it would be like a rat with pointy, sharp teeth but it actually looks like a hamster. Still, it's poop is annoying, so laters vole. Last night Ryan went outside after dark to enjoy some of our last warm nights on the porch and discovered what was the cause of the nightly poop. He asked me, "Do you really want to know?" Which caused me to freak out even more because I started to think of super creepy things in my mind, like leprechauns or hill people. I told him I did want to know because not knowing was worse. Well, it's a bat. Yep a little bat likes to come to our porch at night to hang out and poop. It isn't a huge deal, I'm not worried about bats as long as they aren't flying in my face or hair or sucking my blood. Mainly it's the amount of feces it leaves on my porch that I find irritating. So we are going to think of a humane way to get our bat to find a new home. Mystery solved.

It's that day but I think I'll be okay

It's Evie's 3rd birthday today. Just saying "three years" sounds so strange. It doesn't seem like it happened that long ago but yet it seems like a lifetime ago. Here it goes, the crying. Guess it makes me human to cry when talking about my child who died. I'm not such a robot after all. So many things have changed since those horrible days three years ago. I'm harder in some ways but softer in others. My marriage is stronger and I think of my children as miracles, most of the time. I still suffer from some PTSD, especially when it comes to hospitals, shows about hospitals and anything to do with an ultrasound. I can hold babies now but don't expect me to get all "goo" up in it's face. I'll hold it and appreciate it but I won't get too attached to it. The last baby of mine I held was dying, so yeah, bad association. My friend Noelle and cousin Chelle visited recently and they both had 2ish year old daughters, which is the age Evie would have been if she'd gone full-term. They were so fun! That age is just full of moving and squeals. I babysat Noelle's daughter Noemie for her when she went to her sisters temple marriage. I took her back to our house and everyone fell in loves with her. Hanna was the little mother while Grace was the playmate. I was the poop changer. What is cuter than a little girl who squeals in a delightful french accent when she gets the cookie monster diaper. There is nothing, except my own children. I wanted to tell Noelle that Noemie was now going to be a part of our family and she could visit her when we come to France. I was considering kidnapping! That's the bundle of cuteness Evie would have been had her chromosomes not broken off and reattached at strange places. It breaks my heart, but I try to fight and not let it consume me. I miss her, the girls miss her and Ryan misses her. Grace told me today that Evie is probably happy that we are thinking of her birthday and making her a cake. If she is aware of us, she probably just wishes she could be with us.

Happier things

Teaching is going well. I'm getting the hang of it and the girls love their classes/teachers. I think my kids like me and I've even had some hugs. That's right, the ice princess lets children give her hugs. I even sing songs with them and dance. Gasp!

My two munchkins on the first day of school. Daddy had to take them and I had to let go of my first day of school hair designs.


Me on my first day of teaching in my very own classroom. I told my friend to take the picture because my mom would be mad if she didn't get one. Really, I wanted one but was too embarrassed to say that.

Oh blog, I can't stay away from you

I wasn't going to blog tonight because I'm like, starting a new career tomorrow and it's like, wearing me out and stuff. That's right, one more sleep and I'm officially a grade one teacher. I survived Back to School Night Open House where I was very charming and sweet, whilst acting professional and competent. I'm starting to think I can do this which is something I really need to think the night before I start work. The girls are excited to be starting school and have had their "first day" outfits picked out for weeks. We've had a fun summer and I'm going to do a little photo essay now.
My freshman year BFF Noelle came from France, where she now lives with husband Pierre and cutest baby Noemie, for a wedding and we were able to get together a few times. Noelle and I were roommates our sophomore year with the OG Fascinating Girl, Mindy. Mindy's grandma wrote The Fascinating Girl and she was bat-ass crazy. Mindy, not her grandma who I never met but assume was crazy because she wrote that horrible book.

Freshman year doing what we did best, acting stupid.

Dressed up for something our sophomore year at Wellington #9. Dig our rented TV. I found those Picasso posters when we moved to Beaumont.

Hanging out at General Conference in Salt Lake City.

This is us at BYU 17 years after we met. I don't know why we stood so far apart because I luvs me some Noelle.

Ryan and the girls went on a trip to Wyoming to visit Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Mike without me. Those are the kind of sacrifices I make now that I have a big girl job.

Char bought the girls these adorable pink hats. This is the view out of Char and Mike's front window.

Horse riding is always on the agenda at the ranch. Hanna looks forward to this all year and she is really a good horsewoman. She got compliments from Aunt Cindy who is a real cowgirl.




They ended the holiday with a trip to the Cody Rodeo. I thought this sunset was amazing.

Elvis Costello and the Utah Symphony were at Deer Valley and Mark Jones was kind enough to get us tickets. We had VIP seats and it was a fabulous night. One of the best concerts ever.



Please forgive my horrible singing but you have to do what Elvis asks.

Elvis Costello with the Utah Symphony from Shea Van Fleet on Vimeo.

You know... I've never really liked paying bills. I don't think I'm gonna do that, either.

I've been in training for first year teachers this week. I went Monday morning at 7:15 a.m. for a complimentary breakfast that consisted of fat, fat and with a lovely side of grease. That kind of food that early in the morning does wonderful things for my delicate digestive system. I won't tell you what I texted Ryan after but I had to find a bathroom in the ginormous high school, and quick! So the day didn't start off great but then it got even greater. I got the priviledge of sitting in a desk for the next 2 hours while I listened to administrators tell "amusing" and "inspirational" stories about teaching. I know I want to be a teacher, that's why I applied for the job. I don't need to be inspired anymore. Also, I've been out of university for 10 years, I'm 35 years old and it is damn uncomfortable for these old lady bones to be sitting in those teenager desks for 2 hours straight! After the first 2 hours we moved into the auditorium and had the opportunity to sit there for another hour, at least in soft seats, listening to the head of HR tell us what not to do. I summed it up much like this for Ryan that night:

1. Don't date your students
2. Don't send sexy pictures of yourself to students
3. Don't make YouTube videos of you talking about your student's boobies
4. Don't have sleepovers with your students
5. Don't "friend" your students on Facebook
6. Don't wear flip-flops

You get the idea, wearing flip-flops and behaviour that could land you in prison are akin. I shouldn't make light of it because obviously teachers do things all the time with students that are horribly innapropriate and illegal. It's just that it makes me kind of sad that we have to devote almost an entire day to this. Still, the best part was when the director of HR said, "I'm so glad you are all here today (it was manditory) especially since you aren't getting paid." I about yelled out WTF?! in a auditorium full of people. I shouldn't be surprised with all the budget cuts in education this year. I'm lucky I even have a job. They said that each job posting got, on average, 100 applicants. So I don't want to sound ungrateful but I would have rather spent that time working in my classroom. The point of this rant, other than to just rant, is that I decided when I got this job that I wouldn't be blogging about work. My blog is public and I want to keep my job. I might write things like, "Work is hard." or "I love work." That's going to be about it. It's going to be hard because I'm guessing I could get a lot of mileage out of this new job thing. I'll just have to make the rest of my life equally as interesting. I also want to add that today's training was much more valuable and tomorrow's is sure to be also. We split up into grade levels and the training is much more specific to our needs. District training, boo! Individual teachers training teachers, yay!

Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler...

I've been taking a break from blogging this week to get some work done at the school. My mom and niece got here on Monday and we were working in my room everyday. I have to thank my mom again for coming and helping me. I wouldn't have been able to do it without her. Having a mom who was a teacher for 30+ years came in very handy. I think I have developed some sort of stapling related injury from all the bulletin boards we put up. I finally went to Wal-Mart and bought my own Swingline stapler. I'm beginning to feel a bit like Milton in Office Space I love my Swingline so much.


"...then they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire..."

The room before. Pretty overwhelming.

My mom doing some stapling. She was a trooper.

This is pretty much the finished product. I still have a few more things to put up and arrange but the bulletin boards are finished. I'm lucky in that it's a really big, bright room. There is also a separate coat closet with an door to the outside. I kind of loves my school.




I've been feeling some depression/anxiety again I guess related to going back to work/starting a new career. Plus I'm really going to miss having a couple of days alone at home. I know, wah me. I'm also starting to feel badly about not being able to take the girls to their classrooms on the first day of school or waiting for them at home after school. The other day I had the realization that Ryan will be in charge of their hair in the mornings. I'm not worried about Hanna because she is starting to do her own but Grace would go to school with serious bedhead if she had her way. I have to remind myself that they will be at the school with me and Ryan is quite capable, so I need to just take a seriously big chill pill and get on with it. I also need to keep up my exercising or the depression will creep back in and I really would like to stay off the meds. Utah does not need another teacher on anti-depressants. We are thinking about joining Beaumont's lovely recreation center which will hopefully enable me to take a lot of different exercise classes during the winter. Maybe one will be drunken dancing in an old steel plant. Boo-yah!

I've been loving some products I've recently started using and thought I'd share them here. I wish I was being paid to recommend them. I'm so totally ready and willing to sell out.

I'm loving this Kenra Volume Spray 25. Karen has been using it for awhile but I just decided to try it and it's perfect for someone like me that doesn't like a lot of producty feel in their hair. Plus it smells really good.


I bought some Body Shop Body Butter when I was in Canada but they have a body shop at the University Mall now. I have really dry skin in the summer from sitting out at the water park and trying as hard as I might to get skin cancer. I love the body butter. I got Mango and Raspberry too but the Shea is my favourite and not because it's made out of me.


I bought some Miss Dior Cherie parfum when I was at the Cancun Duty Free Shop (you can get it at most fine department stores) last May. To me, it's the smell of summer. "Notes of chic, green tangerine, violette, and pink jasmine mingle with soft patchouli, musk, and delectably sweet strawberry leaves and caramelized popcorn for a delicious scent that's truly irresistible."


I finally invested in a Chi hair straightener and I love it! I'm a little late to this but I was cheaping out. I did a search online and found one for a good price but the other day I saw them at Costco for $59 which is a great deal. It's really hot! I mean it will melt it's own cord in seconds if it touches the metal. My goal is to never, ever touch it to my skin.