Sometimes You Just Have to Calm the F Down and Go Back to School

I've been stressed. Like really stressed or as I like to say, "EXTRA stressed." I'm not going to lie, that damn City of Houston violation has been a big part of it. Of course it couldn't have come at a worse time. Back to School is always stressful for me. This year I opted out of school shopping and I ordered everything online. SO MUCH easier! But an expense none-the-less and I also had to pay someone to cut the grass and weeds in my ditch. I have to pay him to do some other things in the yard later this week too.

The Kids in 5th and 2nd Grade at Oak Forest Elementary

It's hard to believe that the kids are going to be a freshman and a senior at DeBakey HS this year. They were just in elementary school. Miranda was in her last year of elementary in this picture and now she's going to her last year of high school! I was just doing all the applications for Vanguard for them and now here they are, they are almost done. Four years of school left for Seth and one for Miranda. Now it's time for college applications.

This past week was extra stressful with all the things that have to get done before they start school. They had to go pick up their laptops and of course on different days, Seth on Tuesday and Miranda on Friday. They had their yearly physicals and Miranda had her doctor's visit, follow up to her surgery. She's all clear! Seth wasn't as lucky. We have to have some follow up x-rays for something they saw in his back.

Add on top of all the things that I had to do that my lap band is not adjusting well to a small fill that I had on the 16th. I hadn't had a fill in almost a year and I thought that I needed one so I went in. Apparently my body/stomach didn't think I needed one. It's been rejecting food, even liquid. It's been very frustrating and I can't see the nurse to fix it until mid week. So meanwhile I'll starve and take advantage of it for a weight loss boost. I hadn't even been feeling well enough to do the Peloton the last couple of days, but I felt better today and I did 50 minutes. It felt good!

So sometimes we just have to calm the F down and we make the best of a situation. There is nothing I can do about all the things coming at me at one time. Like the old grandma says in the movie "Parenthood," life is either a roller coaster or a merry-go-round. I'd rather have the roller coaster so I can learn patience and resilience. I think...

Another Summer Is Gone, Welcome Fall

Another summer is come and gone! Where did the time go? Summer flew by between Miranda at Kinkaid EMSI and our Germany trip.

Miranda and I in the Black Forest

I finished the blog about Miranda's Sweet Sixteen trip or #GermanySweet16. Go check it out if you haven't. It's just a few blog posts chronicling our adventures through Germany.

Life has been good and I've been feeling very grateful. I'm so grateful for the trip that we had and for the time I got to spend with my girl. I can't wait to do the same thing for the boy in 3 years but his dad will take him on that trip.

Between now and then I'm hoping to take a trip to Canada with the kids and somewhere really cool in the US. Maybe Chicago in November.

I've also been very happy at work lately and really happy with my recent promotion. I have been very lucky to get another awesome manager in my career. I know that isn't always the case so I am very thankful for that.  Life has been good.

It's the weekend before the last weekend before school starts. Uniform shirts for Seth have been purchased via Amazon, ordered 2 different size pants from Target and will find out which ones are better when I receive them, but thank goodness he has 3 pairs I bought him in the spring when he grew. Bought Miranda some khaki pants today and a skirt online and buying her all her uniform shirts on Thursday when we go pick up her textbooks and laptop at the new school. I also bought basic school supplies today so they have something for the first day. I'm almost done with Back to School shopping! All I need now are M's shirts and her white tennis shoes for hospital visits.

The beginning of school also means a couple of important things. One is that fall is on it's way! The second big thing is that it's time to start our applications for high schools now. Even though he's only in 8th grade the boy goes to high school in exactly one year. Unbelievable.

Waiting for fall, scarves, boots and lattes!

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.

First Week of School, Structure Again & Blog Themes

Every year I can't wait for the school year to end so that I don't have to wake up so early every morning all stressed out in the rush to get the kids to school on time. I look forward to the summer break. But as I get into summer I start to long for the structure that the school year provides. I look forward to Fall and Winter!

(Photo borrowed from Manteca School District)

This year the summer flew by. It seemed like I always had something going on and I rushed forward to reach our family vacation to the East coast right before school started. We had a good time and we had some challenging times but I'm sure it will be a vacation we will remember for a long time. Next one is to the West Coast.

I came back to the "Back to School" rush, buying them their uniforms and school supplies and suddenly here we are. They started this past Monday. I woke up at 6:30 every morning for a week and this evening I finally crashed and burned. I fell asleep for about 2 hours.

I crashed because of the structure. Every day I stayed up all day and I worked. I had a couple of meetings and I worked on a project that I'm finishing up. I didn't come home and take naps like my friends may have thought. I'm not going to say I wasn't tempted, but I didn't do it. The results were that I got a lot of stuff done but my fuel ran out around 8 tonight.

Now here I am awake at 2 a.m. and I realized that I started this blog a few days ago and forgot about it. I'm kind of tired but I took a shower and my hair is still wet so I'm going to wait a little longer.

One of the cool things I did this week was to go hear Gwendolyn Zepeda read her poetry. She was awesome as always and extremely entertaining. Whenever I listen to people like her and like Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess, I'm always struck by how funny they are and I wish I could be funny like that. But being funny isn't that easy. You either are or you aren't and sadly I'm not really. At least not like them.

And I've said this before. I'm not brave like them either, especially not brave like Jenny Lawson who will say ANYTHING and I do mean anything. I want to blog like that. But I don't. I blog like this because this is who I am and I can't blog like Loida Casares pretending to be Jenny Lawson. It just wouldn't work. All of you who know me would be all, "Why is she talking like that all of a sudden." Yeah, that's not good.

Here lately I've also been hearing about how a blog should have one theme. Like Julie & Julia's blog was all about cooking. Then there are crafters and sex writers. I don't have ONE solid theme. I'm all over the place, but I kind of like that because really, that's who I am. That's why at the top of this blog I list all the things I'm passionate about. I like to blog about all these different things.

But I still worry that I'm supposed to be blogging about one certain theme and that if I did I would have millions of followers. What do you all think? My lovely readers who never leave me any comments. I know y'all are out there even if you don't comment. My Google Analytics tells me you are. Unless you just all happen to come across my blog because of my awesome Nike quotes and then leave.

So if you can, drop me a comment and give me your opinion. Should I stick to one topic, like the kids, the challenges of HISD, the challenges of having a son with Asperger's, my daughter who has been part of the Vanguard program in HISD since Kindergarten. There are a lot of things I can talk about or I can just stick to an education theme. Decisions, decisions....

I'm Out of Time!

Design by Anne Taintor. Check out their website.

I had such an ambitious To Do list written out for my time at home. I was going to finish my son's baby book and I was going to work on various projects. The only thing I was successful at working on was my writing. Other than that I spent my time playing a game, taking care of the kids, and logging on to work at least once a day. Just those things alone took up the whole day. Although I didn't plan on working while being out sick I was inevitably called at least once a day by my assistant. That took up time too.

Here I am at the tail end of my sick leave. I can drive now, although very limited. I've only done it once and to the store. Now that school is starting in one week exactly I have a few errands I need to run. I need to get school uniforms tomorrow. I need to register the kids for the After School program. Dance and Sports for my daughter again and Sports for my son. I'm thinking of adding a second activity to his schedule but I haven't decided what yet.

These last four days are going to just FLY by! I know they are. At this point I can only try to get the most important things done. We have Ice Cream Socials at the kids' school and they get to meet their teachers, Tuesday for one and Thursday for the other.

My cousin also has a reading Tuesday night at Brazos Bookstore. I'm going to try to swing both the school thing and the reading if I can. I may get to the reading late, but I want to show up for moral support.

Busy week ahead! And then there's my follow up doctor's appointment on Thursday so that I can go back to work on Friday. Fun!

I'm going to miss being a stay at home mom! Other than the housework, I think I'd be really good at it. In between everything else I also need to get my laundry done. It's amazing how much can pile up when you're limited on what you can do.

Back to work, back to reality! Just the thought of it is too much!! Calgon take me away, already!

Oh! And I'm already having crazy nightmares about the whole start of school thing!