First Day of School Tomorrow, A New Year, Another Milestone for Kids

Tomorrow is the first day of school. Both my kids are crossing milestones. My daughter will be in 8th grade, the last year of middle school and my son will be in 5th grade, the last year of elementary school. This fall we will be visiting high schools and middle schools!

It seems like just yesterday they were this young. Here is a photo of them on the first day of 4th grade and 1st grade. Unbelievable that they are as old as they are now! They were 6 ad 9 in this picture and they are 10 and 13 now.

I was having a conversation with my dad today about how time flies and I said, "You, if anyone, should know that at 90." He said, "By the time I knew it I was an old man and I didn't even feel it. Time doesn't wait for you." What an important lesson to us all to get things done now!

By the way, Daddy is back on a roll with his Dicho a Day on my YouTube channel. He shares his nuggets of wisdom in Spanish and I provide a translation/explanation.

So tomorrow is the start of a new school year, a good time to revise resolutions I made in January and to see where I am at so far this year. It's also an opportunity to set new goals for the school year  New things are on the horizon and I'm excited to get started.

Have a great first day tomorrow everyone, parents with kids returning to school and teachers. To quote one of my favorite movies, "You've Got Mail." "Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.

End of Summer, Looking for a Job or More Clients and Life's Adventures

I was looking back at some old posts on FB and I was talking about looking for a full time job or new clients in March! March people! It is now August. Where did the time go?

The summer is almost over. The kids are going back to school in 23 days. I am counting down the days because that is also my target day to either have a full time job or another awesome client to add to the client I have now. I work 15 hours a week for her and I want to add another client at 15-20 hours.

It has been a really great year and an extra summer when I think about it. We went to DC, Philly and NY last year. In May we took a quick trip to LA/San Diego and Disneyland.

But the best part was Friday night when I was sitting on the sofa watching "Brave" with my kids. My daughter snuggled up to me and asked if other daughters were as close to their mothers as she is to me. Priceless. That moment alone makes the entire year and 3 months I've been home so worth it hands down.

I didn't set out to take this much time off and I didn't think about what age the kids would be when I started this adventure but as the year went on I realized what a crucial age she was at. She turned into a teenager this year and she completed the most dangerous grade that either makes or breaks a teenager- 7th grade. That is such an important year in the development of a teenager and I was here for hers.

♥

In other news, the fabulous Marisa Treviño, publisher of the online journal Latina Lista contacted me to see if she could feature one of my dad's "Dicho a Day" once a week. I told her that of course she could. I was so touched and surprised when I saw that she actually wrote a story about us as an intro to featuring his dichos.

♥

I changed my Facebook cover photo to a fortune from a cookie that I got at the beginning of the summer. It reads, "Do what you love and the necessary resources will follow." I want to believe that so bad. I want to believe that writing, blogging, doing these videos with my dad and his dichos, and consulting with companies to help them succeed will pay the house note, put food on the table and pay for sports and clothes. I want to believe that.

I have a quote by Crafty Chica, Kathy Cano-Murillo on my lap top where she says that "the only sure way to make your dream come true is to make it a goal, research, take risks, take action etc..." and she reminds us that "the way to NOT make your dreams come true is to wait for it to one day fall in your lap." So true!  So the question I ask myself is, "WHAT am I doing to make my dreams come true?" Because so far I feel like I've wasted a lot of time on things that don't work. I realize that she also says that we have to "accept that rejection/change/adapting is part of the journey" and that we must "be open for alternative paths" but I can't help but feel like I've wasted so much precious time this year on following the wrong path.

Now I'm out of time and I have to go back to work full time.... That doesn't mean of course that I won't continue to follow my dreams. I will still keep writing and blogging. It just means that I wasn't able to make it happen in this one year that I was off. It's just something that is still meant for the future and I'm okay with that. I have to be.