Just Call Me Mama

Welcome to my blog and the inner-workings of my brain. This is my method of coping with my life: the losses, the joys and my struggle back to being a writer. You'll find my most private thoughts as well as my most recent attempts at writing again. Enjoy and feel free to share your thoughts with me.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Diet Week 14

I'm not sure where they came up with that, but apparently, by their count, it's only been 14 weeks since I started. Last week we bumped up my food because I was so hungry and... I lost 2.5 pounds this week. And I was even cheating because we have candy in the house. Yay!


So here's the break down.

Thurs 7/5: Sign up day. Starting amount I want to lose: 46 lbs to go

Friday 7/6: Got my menus. Somehow I was down 3 lbs. 43 lbs to go

Wed 7/11: First weigh in and Day 5 on diet: down 5 lbs. 38 lbs to go

Wed 7/18: Second weigh in and Day 12 on diet: down 1.5 lbs. 36.5 lbs to go

Wed 7/25: Third weigh in and Day 19 on diet: down 4 lbs. 32 lbs to go

Wed 8/1: Fourth weigh in and Day 26 on diet: down 2 lbs. 30 lbs to go

Wed 8/22: Fifth weigh in and Day 32 on diet: up 1 lb. 31 lbs to go

Wed 8/29: Sixth weigh in and Day 39 on diet: down 3 lbs. 28 to go.

Wed 9/5: Seventh weigh in and Day 46 on diet: down 1 lb. 27 to go.

Fri 9/14: Eighth weigh in and Day 55 on diet: down 2 lbs. 25 to go.

Thurs 9/27: Ninth weigh in and Day 68(?) on diet: down 1.5 lbs. 23.5 to go.

Friday 10/5: Tenth Weigh in and Day 76 on diet: down 1.5 lbs. 22 to go.

Thursday 10/18: Eleventh Weigh in and Week 13: up .4 lbs. 22.4 to go.

Thursday 10/25: Twelfth Weigh in and Week 14: down 2.5 lbs. 20 to go.

I have lost 26.5 pounds so far!!!

Friday, October 19, 2007

Diet Week 13

I've decided to start counting weeks instead of days.

I've been VERY frustrated because I'm so hungry all the time.

I met with someone else yesterday. I told her that the last time I was in I got the wrong food journal. She went to get me a new one and write in it that I needed to add a dairy, a protein, a starch, and a fat. She gave me the wrong one again. After talking to her about this, the person who switched me, gave me the wrong plan and I've been eating so much less than I was supposed to. Two of everything less, to be exact. No wonder why I was frustrated and always hungry!

So, now I'm doing much, much better and am back on track... I hope. We'll see what the scale says next week.

Sick

The update in the news paper today said that he turned himself into police. He was said to be boasting about the stabbing to other kids.

The article reported that he was subdued during court, but waved at family as they lead him out.

This is totally typical of him. He would always brag about what he did and would fess up to it without hesitation.

Ugh.

I was watching a TV show yesterday and it made the comment that people go into public service (police was the context, but I'll substitute teaching in there too) to save people, but that not everyone can be saved.

I guess that is where I will leave this - not everyone can be saved. But, how freaky is it that I pushed this kid's buttons and now he's sitting in jail - held with no bail.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Just Hitting Me

Holy smokes! I went back and read my last post and it struck me.

I had a kid in my classroom that is a murderer. Not just murdered, but stabbed him to death.

Now that I think about it, how freaky it is that I had this kid in my class. I even got into confrontations with him about his behavior in my class.

I can't even imagine what could have been going on his head to get him to that point. What goes through someone's mind to rationalize those actions? How could one even think those actions are reasonable?

The gang issues there are one of the reasons I have no desire to go back to my old school. It is also the main reason we moved out of our old house.

I just can't even begin to wrap my brain around this. I just feel ill. This kid was in my classroom and I pushed his buttons to get him to work.

How does one live with this? How do I rationalize that one of my students killed another person? It's not just someone over there. This is a kid, with a face that was in my classroom most days. This is a kid I didn't reach. This is a kid with no future now.

How do I accept that I didn't help this kid? Did I do enough?

Sad and Annoyed

Sorry, but this is going to be a bit political - so if it bothers you, then skip this post.

First: I'm sad.

I just read an article in our local paper that they arrested a 18 year old in last week's stabbing death of a 19 year old. I saw the title of the article in my RSS feed and decided to look at it just to make sure it wasn't one of my former students - no such luck.

One of the kids, that I will truthfully use the idiom of "a bad seed", was the murderer. I hate to say it, but I knew he was going to do something really bad and end up in jail. As long as I knew him, he had a PO and was constantly being suspended. That isn't to say that I gave up on him. In my class, he was still expected to do the work and I still got on his case to live up to his potential (where I know other teachers had given up on him). I tried to engage him in conversations about graduation, school, life, etc, but he couldn't have cared less about anything.

It makes me sad that we (the school system) couldn't "save" this kid. In this case, he truly did not want help, did not want to change, and he wanted to do these bad things.

Secondly, I'm annoyed.

With the RSS feed, I get access to the comments people can add after the article on line. People we spouting off about how "illegals" are ruining our neighborhoods. Here is my response: HOW IGNORANT AND MORONIC CAN YOU BE????? Most of these kids that are doing these things are home-born and homegrown hoodlums! Some are not, but most are. I worked with these kids - I saw the issues of gangs and I taught most of these little gang-bangers. It makes me sick that people are trying to blame the ills of our society on "illegals." First, I have to say that I'm sick of people judging all hispanics as "illegals." Get a freakin' clue! We are all immigrants here, just some are centuries removed. Yes, I get frustrated that I don't get jobs because I'm not bilingual. Yes I get frustrated that everything needs to be translated into spanish. But, putting all people based on their race into one group makes my blood boil. The kids that I knew to be illegal immigrants or the kids of illegal immigrants embraced education as an opportunity to better themselves and their families, were so respectful, and worked so incredibly hard.

I have to go make dinner, but needed to vent because I am so disgusted with people.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Work... Ahhh!

So I had a very frustrating week of work.

To make a long story short, I was asked to train their new person who had never done this before. So, instead of being able to do my work in a timely fashion, I spend twice as long training this woman. Annoying, but hell, I'm a teacher. So, I do it with at least a fake smile on my face... for two days. Then today for the presentations, I'm told that since I'm not an employee, I'm supposed to sit there and say nothing. So, I do all the work and then I'm not trusted enough to actually to participate in the meetings? Gee, thanks. All the hard work I did last year to establish myself as a hard worker, reliable, etc does not mean a damn thing.

So, this brings me to the question. Why does someone work?

Money? Better lifestyle? Purpose in life? Better the world? Give back to society?

So, why do I work?

I went to college knowing that I wanted to teach. Why? Because I liked working with kids. Also, I knew there was nothing else I really wanted to do - business jobs are too structured and recreation jobs don't make enough. So teaching let me work with kids, but was a stable career.

Time went on and I started to get burned out and I had a chance to leave teaching. Why did I stay? It had become more altruistic than just stability and income. I was young and "cool", so the kids trusted me. I could talk to them about things that others couldn't. I could have real conversations about real issues facing these kids: drugs, sex, friends, etc. I was able to instill an enjoyment in success in school. I got kids to read and truly enjoy literature. I was able to get them to discuss the merit of pieces in "the cannon." They wrote. They expressed themselves, their opinions, their feelings, and their perspectives. They enjoyed math. I made it real and practical. I helped students find the intrinsic joy of finding the correct answer. I helped them see how problem solving skills applied to life as well as math.

Those are the reasons I miss teaching.

So why do I do my contract work? At first it was purely to make money to ensure that we can eat. By the end of the school year last year, I enjoyed working. I really liked the comraderie, the intellectual stimulation and problem-solving that came with my job.

Now, after my week and being very insulted in how I was treated, I'm back to viewing it as a necessity. I work because we need the money.

I am subbing next week for the first time. I always hated subbing on my prep periods, but here I am voluntarily going to sub in a small district near here. Why am I subbing? Yes, it's about the money, but I very much miss the interactions with the kids. So, I will be spending yet another day away from my girls, but I am looking forward to it (the teaching, definitely not being away from the girls).

I enjoy the mental stimulation of working, but I really just want to be home with my girls. I do struggle with the idea that I used to give back to society by teaching kids and now... I'm home with my girls. I love that I'm home with the girls. I love that I am the one influencing their development. My hope is that my girls will be the kind of kids and teenagers that are good influences on others. I hope that our house will the that place the kids come to hang out. So while I'm not directly impacting kids now (other than my own), I hope that way we're raising these girls will have an impact on their peers because of the quality of character these two girls have.

There is the constant battle between the philosophies of living to work or working to live. I think for me, I made the cross over from living to work to working to live when the Jana was born. Work was no longer my life - I just wanted to finish my work and leave so I could get back to what really mattered: my family. The down side of this is that I am not nearly as invested in my work and do not get the same kind of satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment as I did before.

I know there has to be some kind of balance, but I can't find it.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Feeling Down

I don't know if it is exhaustion. I don't know if it is PMS. I don't know why, but I'm feeling really low at the moment.

I spent my evening catching up on blogs of people who have been through some horrendously hard times and here I am feeling down. I feel a little petty, but the feelings are real to me.

I had my interview on Monday. I felt like I had "the right answers" for all of their questions. I felt like there was a personal connection between them and me (they have a 5 month old and we also know some of the same people through my dept of ed work).

But as time passes, for some reason, I am feeling worse and worse about it. It may be nerves or it may be a bit of lack of self-confidence creeping in, but I'm feeling very yucky about it. I just have this gut feeling that I didn't get the job.

Today I had to work in the office and be away from my girls all day. It sucked! I was too busy to pump more than once, and so I don't have enough milk to get through tomorrow. Our frozen supply is not going to last long at this rate. Anyway, I had to work and then we had our class, so I got to see the girls for about an hour. I don't like that at all. Jana was crying when I left for class and just clinging to me. It absolutely broke my heart - I was in tears too. I don't know how working parents do it. I'm so miserable without them. Here I am wanting to cry now as I write about it. I feel so awful for being away from them so much already this week and I still have at least two more days of work this week.

I'm not doing so well on my eating. We had cake for my mother in law's birthday and some gummy bears at class. I know it's not much, but I should have just said no. I also haven't run since Saturday and doubt I'm going to be able to get up tomorrow morning to run either. It's so aggravating. I'm so tired and yet here I am writing because I can't seem to clear my mind enough to sleep.

I just feel so yucky over petty things. But I just feel so off.

I guess I'll just go pump and then lie in bed hoping to fall asleep soon.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Summed up by a song.. and other random stuff

In church today, we were singing a song that struck me. I'm horrible about remembering words, but the chorus was something like, "I'm bringing it back to be about You"

There was a line that caught me: "I'm sorry for making it about a thing it's not meant to be."

Wow. Does that describe it or what!?!?!

I've been so caught up in the stupid "I wants." I've wasted so much money and thus energy and worry because I've spent so much money on things that don't matter. I've been so into having the 'things' that make life comfy that I haven't spent time making life what it should be.

As someone in our class said, "We're use to the life we see our parents have and want to match it, but in reality, they didn't have that life when they were our ages - they had to work for it and earn it." My parents live a very cushy life (and they have earned it). Did they when we were little, no - so why do I expect to live that way now? I have no idea.

It's actually been kind of freeing to be on this tight budget this month. I have realized that I can't spend money because I feel like it. I have bought groceries and today I bought Jana two pairs of shoes (BOGO) because she has no shoes that fit anymore (Yay, my little girl finally is out of pre-walker sizes and into toddler sizes. She finally is a size 5). It is so empowering to know that I am spending money we have and that I'm in control of our progress.



As requested, here are some recent pics of me. I'm not often in pictures (since I'm the one that always takes them) and when I am, it's usually with a kid. So this is the best I can do.

Here's a before pic.

(Don't you love how I find the most unflattering pictures for the before pics? I guess they just make me feel better about where I am now.) Part of this isn't fair because these before pics were very soon after I had Kara.

And a now pic.

(I'll try to get one of me that I'm not hiding behind a kiddo and post it.)

Friday, October 05, 2007

Diet Day 76

So, I think Fridays will be my new weigh in day because I can never seem to find time any other day of the week and I know Fridays are my last chance.

I've been better about recording what I'm eating. I am not consistently eating everything: some days I'm over and some days I'm under. However, I am getting better about being on track. I ran three times last week and only once so far this week - I seem to be exhausted again. I'm hoping to get back into the habit of going to bed at 9 or 9:30 instead of midnight. Despite everything that has been getting in the way, I lost another pound and a half.

Thurs 7/5: Sign up day. Starting amount I want to lose: 46 lbs to go

Friday 7/6: Got my menus. Somehow I was down 3 lbs. 43 lbs to go

Wed 7/11: First weigh in and Day 5 on diet: down 5 lbs. 38 lbs to go

Wed 7/18: Second weigh in and Day 12 on diet: down 1.5 lbs. 36.5 lbs to go

Wed 7/25: Third weigh in and Day 19 on diet: down 4 lbs. 32 lbs to go

Wed 8/1: Fourth weigh in and Day 26 on diet: down 2 lbs. 30 lbs to go

Wed 8/22: Fifth weigh in and Day 32 on diet: up 1 lb. 31 lbs to go

Wed 8/29: Sixth weigh in and Day 39 on diet: down 3 lbs. 28 to go.

Wed 9/5: Seventh weigh in and Day 46 on diet: down 1 lb. 27 to go.

Fri 9/14: Eighth weigh in and Day 55 on diet: down 2 lbs. 25 to go.

Thurs 9/27: Ninth weigh in and Day 68(?) on diet: down 1.5 lbs. 23.5 to go.

Friday 10/5: Tenth Weigh in and Day 76 on diet: down 1.5 lbs. 22 to go.


I'm now at the lowest weight I have reached in a long, long time. This was the lowest I ever reached on WW. This is what I weighed when I got pg with the one we lost.

I have to admit that I am down to very few clothing items that fit anymore. I have a pair of khaki pants, one pair of nice jeans and one pair of scuzzy jeans. Most of my shirts aren't too flattering because they are pretty baggy, but oh well. I figure my treat to myself for Christmas (when I'm done with the weight loss) will be new clothes. Hopefully by then we'll be able to buy some more, too. hee, hee

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Humbled

I'm mortified about the situation and hate to admit it on here, but I feel like I have to write it.

In my last post, I talked a little bit about how "tight" we are financially this month. "Tight" is not quite the right word, but more socially acceptable than "broke." We usually do a good job of living within our means and being thrifty when thriftiness is needed, but since I haven't gotten a real paycheck since June, we're, plain and simply, out of money.

J and I have never had to budget. He remembers having to go without the luxuries as he grew up because his mom stayed home and they lived off his dad's teacher-salary. My mom also stayed home, but my parents worked hard to be able to "keep up with the Jones'". We both have always felt pressure to live well and have been able to do it. Now that I have a job that pays me randomly, we've done okay. We managed to save a lot of my earnings to hold us over the summer, until I worked again. We made it until halfway through Sept, but now we're struggling. We also didn't exactly live thriftily at times when maybe we should have. All of this leads us to struggling right now. This is really good for us though. If we truly want me to be able to stay home for a few years, we need to learn how to live.

So, we are taking this financial peace class at church in an effort to get ourselves back on track. We've always been making progress on the debts we had (student loans, cars, house, and a few stray credit cards) until lately. We've been unrealistic about how we need to live now that I'm not working. Truth be told, neither of us have wanted to admit that we can't live like that, so that is how we're here.

We've always able to make payments and make them on time, so we're not anywhere near what I know some people face - part of the reason I'm mortified about the events of this evening.

I'm now shopping on a cash-only basis. We set the budget, put money in envelopes and now I can only spend what is in those envelopes. This month, we're really trying to see how little we can spend. So far it's working really well.

Today I went to Costco and our local wearhouse-type grocery store. I knew going into the grocery store that I had limited funds. I prioritized and thought I was close. I had a few items I was going to have her ring in last because they were more of the splurge type items (soda, J's ice cream bars, etc - things we could live without) and I thought I was over. As she was ringing things in, I asked her the subtotal a few times. When I hit my limit, I told her to stop and asked if I could just go put those items back after I bagged my groceries. Fine, no problem - happens all the time. I go to bag my groceries and look up. She's sending down all those extra items. I went to stop her and the man behind my friend in line spoke up and said, "I've got it for you. I remember being there and am not anymore. I'd like to do this for you. Just do it for someone else some day." I guess he had overheard me talking about how I really wanted to make this budget work until I knew about the job and how strange it was to not have to juggle my girls while shopping. He talked to my friend for a little while and he insisted on paying for the rest of my groceries. He said he was lucky enough to be where he is in his life that he would probably have just spent the money on something silly, like gambling at the casino, but he'd instead like to do something good with the money.

Needless to say, I thanked him profusely with tears running down my face (part from being mortified and part from the realization that there are truly kind-hearted people in this world who look for small opportunities to help someone else out).

I feel horrible because we're not really hard up. I wouldn't have been able to get everything, but we're not in a dire situation. There are so many other people in this world who could have benefited more by his help....

If you've read this blog for very long, you know that I've been struggling with my relationship with God for a while. I have strong beliefs, but have a hard time with organized religious groups and how people "screw up" God's word. Hypocrisy, judgments, and discrimination have really turned me off of churches.

I feel like some amazing things have been happening through the last few years... especially right now. I have spent much time "talking" to God about my fears and how I'm feeling lost right now about what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. I don't have the opportunities to impact others' lives like I did with teaching, but raising these two girls to be good people is also important. This amazingly random act of kindness and generosity has stunned me.

More importantly, it has stunned J. (J is very skeptical of organized religion after bad experiences with churches and has no interest in being involved in my church. I was shocked when he agreed to go to the class with me.) I called him, and through my tears, shared the story of this man. His response, "This is a sign that giving needs to make it to the top of our financial priority list as soon as possible."

Floored! I love that this is affecting him. I love that this is changing him and his priorities.

I'm so interested to see how this class and these experiences continue to shape us.

So, my goal tomorrow is to take some of our barely used baby clothes to the pregnancy resource center in town. They are short on items for the boxes they give to low-income families of newborns. It's not much, but it's something helpful and after what that man did for me tonight, I feel like I need to do something to "thank him."

When it rains, it pours (hopefully).

I don't think I've mentioned much on here about it, because I'm not handling it well, but we've been having some money issues. Last year I taught for 2 months, had a larger contract than I do for this year, and then taught online classes. That basically means I made about $18k more than I am this year. YIKES!!!! We've never been good at budgeting. We've always made enough to not really worry about spending money. If I wanted something that was reasonably priced, I just bought it - hence why the girls had so many clothes.

Now we are living on a VERY tight budget. It's scary to be living that close to the line every month. While we saved up for the months I wouldn't have an income, that money is now gone, so we don't have any extra cash.

We're taking a class right now through church on financial peace. It's proving to be wonderful. We calculated our budget last week and realized that I need to bring in $1500 a month to make ends meet. Most months that's fine because of my contract work, except for Oct, Nov, and Dec.

So, I've been looking for extra things I can do to bring in money. We know we still want me to be home with the girls because when we looked at my full time salary, we'd have less than $1k left over - can we say daycare for two? So, we'd be pretty much in the same place, but have the girls in daycare.

Yesterday I had lunch with my friend at the dept of ed and she asked if I would be available to help with some of her work. This means a new contract to the tune of $5k. YAYAYAYAY! It's work that would start asap and be done by Christmas (yay, we can have Christmas this year j/k). That was a relief to say the least, but not a solution.

So, I went on craigslist last night and looked up local jobs. I saw one ad for an SAT prep tutor. I thought it would be in the afternoon-evenings and pretty flexible, so I sent in my resume. They called me this morning as soon as we walked in the door after our playdate. They explained that although I had applied for a tutor position, they would like me to consider a managerial position instead. Instead of being a tutor, I'd be the coordinator of the tutoring programs in the district here in town. It's 20-30 hours a week. All but the appointments at the schools can be from home on my own hours. It's even better pay than subbing!!!! They even don't mind that there would be weeks that I'm doing my contract work for the state. I'd be making double our deficit each month plus my contract work.

I'm almost in tears right now! I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but this is an amazing opportunity. I could keep doing my contract work, which I love, and still be able to stay home. I wouldn't have to work nights and weekends for minimum wage (which was another thought we were considering). I'm scared to death that this won't work out now that I have the idea in my head.

The conversation was great with the woman. She has a 4 1/2 month old and works from home as well. She hires a nanny for a few hours each day so she can do her work. We talked babies for a while as well, so we had a great conversation that lasted about 30 minutes. I have an interview on Monday.

I'm in awe. I saw the job posting, but wasn't sure there would be enough flexibility, so I didn't send my resume in.

We had a wonderful conversation and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Part of me feels like crying because this is so needed and the other part feels sick to my stomach with worry that it won't work out.

Please think good thoughts for me and this situation - it really has the potential to be the answer to a lot of our problems.