Due to education cutbacks, the following presidents will not be taught: Buchanan, Pierce, Carter, Bush, Bush...

It's that time of year! The time the kids go back to school and I go back to work. What a double rainbow summer it has been. The kids are at a great age where they can play independently but are also fun to do things with. I think summers are just going to continue to get better. I have to say, summers off a DA BOMB! I love my job! I met most of my new students tonight at Back-to-School Night and things are looking good. Some of them are so small, I can hardly believe they are old enough to be in school. I've been working a lot at school, getting my room ready and I'm thinking it looks pretty good. I'm feeling a lot better this time than I was a year ago. I'm glad I have a year of experience which I hope will make this year a bit easier.

I copied Mary and made magnets for my students. We'll use them in a variety of ways in class and then they take them home at the end of the year. This is as crafty as I get.

My room. I really like decorating/setting up my room. I told Ryan I should do this for a living.




Practicing for my annual beginning of the year photo. Note the shoes. These will only be seen at school on back to school night for 2 hours. My feet were KILLING me.


Evie
Friday is Evie's 4th birthday. I recently had a friend whose brother went through something very similar to what we did with Evie. I'm glad I was able to help in some small way. It's brought up a lot of memories, things I haven't thought about in a long time but as time passes the pain lessons. Still, I found myself crying in the car the other day. I still have moments like that but they don't come that often and they seem to pass quickly. The grief is a part of me that will always be there. I'm never going to be "over it" but I've accepted it as part of who I am. Recently I had a situation where I was told I didn't acknowledge a friend's grief over a miscarriage. I honestly don't remember the situation or email or conversation, so I can't really defend myself. I was very upset by the accusation because if there is one thing I felt like I learned from losing Evie/4 miscarriages, is how to show compassion to those who suffer losses. It was one of the most hurtful things someone could say to me. Luckily I have people in my life who are good at lifting me up when I'm feeling down and I realized I can't please everyone. I can just try to be a good person. I'll try harder. Friday, we'll celebrate Evie as a family and I'll probably have a good cry.

Please, please, please let me get what I want
Once, in high school, I was driving my mom somewhere while listening to The Smiths and she told me she couldn't understand why I liked this music because the singer sounded like he was whining. I wondered how she couldn't think this was the greatest music ever but chalked it up to the generation gap. Now I'm dealing with this and I feel her pain. I was listening to some Billy Bragg in the car the other day and Hanna told me, "I'll do anything you want if you'll turn this song off." Wha!?! Yet she'll listen to Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber all day long. I only make fun of them when they listen to popular country music. These are lyrics from a popular country song:

I aint much for mowin thick grass
I'm too slow for workin' too fast
I don't do windows so honey don't ask
But I'm pretty good at drinkin' beer

Now I know they aren't all about drinkin' beer but I just can't like popular country music. Give me some Johnny Cash any day but please let my girls grow out of this. So far they are only really into Taylor Swift and I can handle that. I'm trying to load their iPods with the classics and they do like a lot of the music I grew up on, so maybe there is hope yet.

the fear

I bought Lily Allen's "The Fear" on iTunes after having a good time singing it on SingStar in Canada. It inspired this blog post while running one day. I'm deep, deep as the ocean.

I'm a weapon of massive consumption. It's not my fault, it's how I'm programmed to function
The materialism of Utahan's is never more evident than when I come back from an extended vacation in Canada. The materialism is worse since we moved to Beaumont. Santaquin was pretty small town and down to earth for the most part but Beaumont is right on the border of a very wealthy town. Where children in first grade wear $250 jeans and have cell phones. I'm already prone to wanting to have the "finer" things in life so how do I resist this pressure and teach my children that things do not equate happiness? I guess by example? One thing I'm really happy about is we carry no debt except for our mortgage. I will fully admit that this is primarily Ryan's doing but I like no debt. I like it almost more than I like "things" so while I might go out and buy a $12 shirt at Target I don't really need, I'm not buying $1200 flat screen TVs. I have plans for our retirement and I don't want to be broke when that time comes. Ryan and I are both lucky to have steady jobs and while they don't pay as much as something in the private sector might, we need to learn to be happy with what we've got. A nice home, a car that runs and enough extra money to take a nice vacation now and then. I mean, isn't that the American Dream? When I start feeling sorry for myself because I'm at work and not on a fancy vacation, I'll remind myself of the very sad documentary I watched about blood diamonds in Sierra Leone. Just be glad you weren't born in Sierra Leone because you probably wouldn't have hands and you sure as hell wouldn't be going to Disneyland.

Now I'm not a saint but I'm not a sinner. Now everything is cool as long as I'm getting thinner.
I've talked on here before about exercise being my Prozac and it only seems to become more true as I get older. I'm not saying I'll never have to be on real Prozac but I'm a firm believer in regular exercise for both your mental and physical health. I have having some serious body image issues and while I'm not a therapist, I'm pretty sure they aren't normal. I've been reading a blog written by a woman who spends a lot more time and energy on fitness and nutrition than I ever could. She has got me thinking about what and how much I put into my body. I don't think anymore that 1200 calories of Cheetos is equivalent to 1200 calories of nutritious foods. I'm also becoming more in tune with what my body seems to need on a daily basis. I'm tired of the term "starvation mode". If I eat 1000 calories one day and I feel full at the end of the day, I'm not going to stuff an extra 200 calories in, just so I meet what some Internet program has determined to be my caloric needs. Also, if I create a "calorie debt" on some days, I can eat a few gummi bears on the weekend and not feel bad. I don't really like the term "intuitive eating" either because I think a lot of people use that as an excuse to eat chocolate, instead of an apple, when they are hungry. I'm not saying chocolate is bad, but not if that's your go to food when you're hungry. I'm also trying to be happier with how I look. I'm 36! Yes I've gained 15lbs since I was 18 but hello, that was 18 years (and 7 pregnancies) ago and I was underweight! I realize that I'm probably never going to be 100% satisfied with how I look but less crazy would be good.

I was feeling like this post was a bit grim so I'm including a picture of Lucy in the girl's bathroom sink. This is what she does when they are getting ready for bed.

I wish you didn't have the devil's curly hair

When Ryan graduated from University of Wyoming in 1996, we decided to move back to Utah so I could finish my education. He sent out resumes to a few companies in Utah and got a couple of interviews. He wanted a haircut before he went and since we were so poor we were eating bread and peas regularly for supper, he asked me to cut his hair. He had been doing it himself so I don't know what led up to me being asked to do it. Why we didn't take some of the extra money we had and get him a haircut at Supercuts, I'll never know. The whole situation seems doomed from the beginning now that I think about it. Maybe Ryan has a different slant on the story? I started to cut his hair with the clippers and almost immediately lost control, making a fine bald spot on the side of his head. I started to cry and ask, "Why did you make me do this?" So yeah, Ryan finished cutting the rest of his hair and I felt horrible about him going to interviews with a bald spot. I told him I would never cut his hair again and I never have. He did a pretty good job of cutting it himself for years, mainly because he hates getting his hair cut. Like how some people hate getting bit by monkeys, Ryan hates getting his hair cut. He's almost never happy with it and I have to admit, he's had some bad haircuts. This seems strange to me since he's always had pretty short hair. How hard is it? I finally convinced him to go to my stylist last year. I told him, "Wouldn't you rather pay twice as much as a stupid chain place and actually be happy with your cut?" What? I was right? Imagine that. Chad cuts his hair now and Ryan is always happy. This Saturday Ryan and the girls all had haircuts at Chad's salon. The girls go to a junior stylist whom I really like and is really good with kids. She talks to Hanna and Grace like they are teenagers and they eat that up. Hanna is going into grade six and because she thinks she is all that/queen of the school, she wanted to get a "style" with "layers". I have a thing about kids who get adult haircuts but can't style them, or can't get help styling them because their mom is a bad, bad working mom, so they just end up looking like crap. I convinced her to just get bangs and keep the rest pretty much the same. Amanda curled it for her after and Hanna was in LOVE with the end result. She kept looking in the mirror and doing little poses. I'm glad that it's helping her feel good about going back to school. I think she's a little anxious about it. Grace got a cute bob, that will be easy to take care of. I'm hoping that someday Grace will have the desire to grow her hair out again and take care of it. She has the most lovely head of hair that would make angels weep and double rainbows pale in comparison (for you Becky) but since she seems to be allergic to the brush, it tends to look like a rat's nest.