First Day of Joy School

Today was the first day of Joy School, Nan had been looking forward to for the last week, actually the entire summer.  She was so excited to go to "her school" and have a backpack to wear just like J. 

She seems so young to me for school.  Probably because she is!  She is only two and half, but she has decided she needs it, so luckily we have friends we are obliging, all the rest of the girls are already three. I kind of wish we had one more year of no scheduling for her, but she has convinced me and I know this will be for the best for her.  She loves school.  I stayed and shadowed the class today, I wasn't sure if I could teach two hours of Joy School, why I was unsure I have no idea, I teach two hours of three year olds every week in church.  Anyway, Nan did great if I do say so myself, but she has more experience than most of the girls in class since she did group speech therapy last spring. Eventhough none of the mom's are trained speech therapy I'm hoping the social interaction well help her speech to continue to improve. She is in class two days a week, with five little girls total. I teach one week every five weeks, and then assist another week.  So two mornings a week for three weeks at I time I will be childless.  I don't know what I'm going to do with myself! I guess go to the dentist and all that stuff.
It makes me sad that my babies are all in school, but I'm glad they have the social interaction, and that I do too.  I love seeing the mom's at Joy School, and seeing the mom's at Kindergarten pick up.  Its so fun.

P.S. I love living here.

Update on Homeownership

Update on Homeownership:

• There is no grass in the xeriscaping (rocks) in my front yard, and have been wearing a bandaid on my hand for the last three days from a popped blister. But boy is my xeriscaping beautiful, don't believe me, ask my neighbor, Ms. Mary. If we are lucky the xeriscaping on the side of the house, will be beautiful by next time this week.
• My garage door is broken, there is a gigantic spring on front top of garage doors, it popped broken.  I didn't have a car for two days because it was trapped inside.  Finally when the repairman said he was late and couldn't come until 6 pm on  Friday, Brent said let's reschedule on monday, and so we manually opened the door to free old subaru-y. After calling around and getting a lot of answering machines, I decided to cut my losses and take the $140 bid, after hearing the $260 bid. No my home warranty does not cover it. Blah.
• My two year old now has a big girl bed (twin mattress) but it is hiding in the garage until next weekend.
• My dryer is very loud and squeaky and probably needs someone to look at it.

Needless to say, we are house poor and broke.
But in case we aren't having enough fun, we are thinking about reseeding our grass.
Did you know I absolutely love living here?  Because I do, I never want to leave.  Although one day my husband does want to upgrade to a large than a quarter acre property lines.

Did I mention I have shin splints?  The walk to kindergarten and back, twice a day is getting to me.  Pushing the stroller up the steep hill twice a day is gets rough.  But in good news, I'm walking over three miles a day.

Growing up

You know how old people always talk about how one day you'll miss the toys everywhere?
I don't know if I believe them, to clean the house and it stays clean seems like a dream... ahh.. dreams...
But I've been feeling a little emotional about my kids growing up.  I have a kindergarten, and both children wearing underwear.  I have no baby! No body will be wearing a onesies next summer! Few things are as great as a baby in the summer wearing a onesie without pants.
Well today, I've been quite busy, and so there are toys everywhere!  I was putting away laundry, and every room upstairs including our master had toys littering the floors.  It honestly made me sad, thinking about one day when I'm old, when my children are growing up, and toys are no longer on the floor.  Sad day, why do children have to grow up, can't they just stop crying, and stop peeing their pants, but stay little?


Here is another sad thing.  My daughter will essentially be in school from the age of 2.  She was in speech therapy last year, that we called school, and it piked her interest.  She is a social butterfly and loves loves school.  So we are doing Joy School this year, and hopefully next year, and then maybe pre-k, something that year, then kindergarten. Speech therapy piked her interest, and she WANTS to be in school so bad.  It makes her sad that J goes to school without her.  I kind of wish we had more time without school for her, even if is only Joy School, but she needs it.

A month

Its a month until my birthday!
I really haven't been planning much this year.  I don't know if that means I'm growing up, or house poor.
I assume I already got my present from my husband, this computer desk I'm typing at.
But I would also love to paint our bedroom, and finish it up, ie hang the curtains, get lamps, hang some wall art.  But that is now getting pricey, and winter is approaching-- we want new winter coats, and I want new boots.
My coat is starting to get cold, its nine years old, and my boots leaks. So other than painting my room, and hanging the curtains I'll put the rest off.
I did tell my husband to take my kids down to Sam's and pick out a cupcake/cake combo for my birthday.  Plus he said their orange chicken.  When we came out to buy our house we ate at PF Chang's, and I told my husband maybe this should be my yearly birthday date.  Well he decided he liked Sam's orange chicken better, and hes right that I would rather spend the other $40 on the house, than dinner out.  Anyway, we'll see what my birthday brings me.

Modesty

Yet another reason to modest, and not wear spaghetti straps. A few weeks ago, Brent and I were at his graduation dinner, as you walked in they gave you name tags.  We talked with many people that night, a few were females wearing very thin strapped tank tops.  I watched one of put on her sticker name tag, she didn't know what to do with it, eventually she did what the other females with tank tops did, they put it on their skin.  I saw another one fidget with the sticker, it looked terribly uncomfortable. I was grateful to have a full coverage shirt on. I wasn't so grateful to have long pants on, it was miserably hot, a skirt would have been preferable.

Talks that Spoke to Me

This month's Ensign (Aug 2011) there is a talk by L. Tom Perry.  He quotes Spencer W. Kimball a few times, and they are great quotes.

In contrast to this secular lifestyle, President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) taught us the importance of seeking knowledge from God:
“In proper sequence, first comes the knowledge of God and his program, which is the way to eternal life, and then comes the knowledge of the secular things, which is also very important. …
“... Mortality is the time to learn first of God and the gospel and to perform the ordinances. After our feet are set firmly on the path to eternal life we can amass more knowledge of the secular things. …
“Secular knowledge, important as it may be, can never save a soul nor open the celestial kingdom nor create a world nor make a man a god, but it can be most helpful to that man who, placing first things first, has found the way to eternal life and who can now bring into play all knowledge to be his tool and servant.”

That quote was good, and I know when I was getting my bachelors degree I always had time for my homework as long as I studied my scriptures first and attended the temple regularly. While Brent was doing his MBA, he decided to read the entire LDS standard works in a year, once he did that he seemed to have the time to meet all his obligations.  Work was such a mess, homework was getting done, and the kids and I were finally getting some attention.  But the quote I loved was this:

President Kimball reminded us of the importance of consistent scripture reading when he said: “I find that when I get casual in my relationships with divinity and when it seems that … no divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures the distance narrows and the spirituality returns.”

I just love it.  A few weeks before that I read that talk I read, Boyd K Packer's May 2011 Conference Talk, and I've been thinking about it ever since. I love the first paragraph.

It has been 400 years since the publication of the King James Bible, with significant contributions from William Tyndale, a great hero in my eyes. The clergy did not want the Bible published in common English. They hounded Tyndale from place to place. He said to them, “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou.” 

As President Packer said that is has been fulfilled ten fold, by ever child who reads the Book of Mormon and Bible, but I was more thinking of Joseph Smith when I first read it.
The whole talk was good in my opinion, and inspired me I marked it all up in my magazine, but I've also dwell on the last paragraph.

If you are carrying some burden, forget it, let it alone. Do a lot of forgiving and a little repenting, and you will be visited by the Spirit of the Holy Ghost and confirmed by the testimony that you did not know existed.

I think maybe I'm always thinking about forgiveness.  My husband is a master at forgetting and forgiving.  His ability to forgive is always inspiring to me. I'm the opposite I love to hold grudges, to hold on to them until the fester and grow.  But between my husband's righteous example, and my father's wise counsel when I was a teenager I'm learning the blessing of forgiving and forgetting.  I remember my dad teaching me, "what does this have to do with your relationship with the Lord?"  Inevitably the answer is nothing, and with that knowledge you can move on your spirituality.

Club member

Years ago we bought our tires at Sam's so we of course bought the membership.  Back in January I decided we weren't saving any money going to Sam's, because who ever walks out without spending at least $100.  Sometimes I can get out with only giving them $60.  Then we bought a house three months later, so it seemed no big deal not to go to Sam's I was trying to use what I had, not stock up. Since our move, there has been a few times in the last few months, I've thought what? where am I going to buy my bulk kleenex or my trash bags. Not to mention the orange chicken, we love Sam's frozen orange chicken.  In fact a year or so ago we thought about trying out Cosco, it was closer than Sam's so we borrowed a card, and bought stuff checked out the prices, it was bigger than our Sams, but the orange chicken was terrible, so we said forget it.
But like I said there was only three things I wish I had my Sams card, oh and paper towels, so I figure life would go on.  I was working on the orange chicken we hadn't found any frozen orange chicken we liked at Walmart yet, but we still had another four brands to go, and we have two other grocery stores in town I figured eventually we could find something.
Then last week my husband got a nail in his tire, it wasn't flat but it did need to be replaced.  So signed back up, we are now proud card carrying Sam's club members.  Again.  Guess what, we spent more than $100, in our first visit.  But at least we had good tasting orange chicken again, its the first time in six months.
I don't know how I feel about myself anymore, I was kind of feeling smug for pushing of the shackles of the club membership.  Now I've bought back into the man.