The Best Advice My Mom Ever Gave Me

A few weeks after I returned to work after being home with my newborn daughter and my two year old son, I had a meltdown moment with my mom.  A moment where I told her that it was all too much.  Being a mom of two kids under the age of two.  The lack of sleep.  The full-time teaching job.  Keeping a house together.  Grocery shopping. Errands.  

She listened and then she said these powerful words.  Since that moment, I have learned to show myself grace and to let go of my own over the top expectations.  

My mom always worked full-time.  She wasn't giving me advice about something that she didn't know about.  She had been there.  More than once.  

I still have PLENTY of moments where I feel overwhelmed.  Mom life is non-stop. My older kids are now 9 and 7 which means I sleep more and they are fairly independent.  The time investment looks different in many ways, but it's still a significant investment.

Some days I have it all together.  Our house looks decent.  I try a new recipe. The laundry is caught up.  The reading minutes are done.  The backpacks are cleaned out.  My kids eat a wholesome breakfast.

Other days I make it to work in the nick of time.  My kids eat cereal for breakfast and take out or frozen pizza for dinner.  The house looks like a bomb went off.  

And both are okay.  

Why I'm Getting Up Earlier

I really am a morning person.  Deep down I know it is better for me to get up before the rest of my house. All that said, I have been struggling in this area.  Badly.  

During the school year, the absolute latest I can sleep and get all of us to school on time is 5:40am.  What time have I gotten up most of the 100+ days of the current school year?  5:40am.  Not good.  Every night I set my alarm for 5:00.  Every morning I hit snooze until 5:40.  

Weekends are worse.  For a long time I have been waking up to my kids on Saturday and Sunday.  7am or 8am or maybe even later.  I love them to pieces, but waking up to a constant stream of requests is not so pleasant.  It does not create a great tone for the day.  Not at all.  

Summers are just down right embarrassing.  Let's not even talk about that...

When I think about changing bad habits, this is #1 on my list.  I have to train myself to be an early riser.  

What's working for me...

1--I plug my iPhone in in the master bathroom and set my alarm for 5am.  I'm on day 4 and I've done pretty good so far.  Minus the snow day and the sick day this week.  But, progress is progress.  When my alarm goes off I turn on the light, start the shower, count to 10 (seriously), and then turn off the alarm.  

2--Going to bed by 9:30 or 10pm.  I read a little and then try to shut down for the night by 10:30.  

Today, even though it was Saturday I got up at 5:15.  Here's a list of everything I accomplished today:

• Showered, dressed, dried part of my hair
• Bible study, coffee
• Graded 3 assignments @ 20 students/assignment
• Started the dishwasher

Kids up at 7am

• Breakfast for kiddos
• Helped Miss G with her Hello Kitty sticker project
• Finished getting ready to go take care of a couple errands
• Washed and dried sheets
• Started second load of sheets
• Wrote long email to my student teacher outlining the week
• Went to Target to take care of Valentine's Day stuff
• Went to the local library to re-stock on books
• Lunch
• Read with the littles for 45 minutes
• Helped littles pick up living room
• Helped littles find activities for rest time
• Outlined and posted lesson plans for the week
• Snack
• 2 more loads of laundry
• Cleaned 2 toilets
• Dinner in the crock pot
• Unloaded and re-started the dishwasher
• Helped Miss G address and put together half of her Valentines
• Re-organized/cleaned out our mud room drop spot
• Spent 30 minutes cleaning out the basement
• Dinner
• Unloaded and re-started the dishwasher again.
• Cleaned up from dinner.
• Read to littles again
• Put littles to bed.
• Updated blog

I am so impressed with myself!  Usually I wouldn't accomplish half the things on this list during the whole weekend.  

Easy Pizza Sauce

Making your own pizza sauce is super easy, saves a few pennies, and takes all of two minutes.  I use this recipe at home and with my culinary students.

Combine:
8oz Tomato Sauce
1/2t Salt
1/2t Pepper
1/2t Oregano
1/2t Basil
1/2t Garlic Powder

*I usually leave the salt out as canned tomato sauce already has plenty of added salt.

10 Goals for This Week

What Happened Last Week

1--Eat at Home EVERY Night

Victory!  When Hubs started working seconds and I had gazillions of school errands the last few weeks of the school year, the eating out got really, shamefully, embarrassingly out of control.  

2--Read to the littles a minimum of 20 minutes each night

I so wish I could cross this off.  We almost made it.  Every night but one.  Stinking end of the school year madness.  

3--Organize entryway closet

I probably should have taken a before picture and I probably should have taken this during the day when the light was 1,000x better, but anyway here it is.  Before there were stacks of boxes from when we moved in, ahem, January.  Then, as time went on more and more random junk was thrown in there.  It's not quite what I want yet, but it'll do.  Little Miss is the queen of projects and I was desperate for a space to store (and find) all of her goodies.  I just took an organizer and baskets I already had and re-purposed them.  That cardboard box on the floor is a slipcover that needs to go back.  More on that dilemma another day.

4--Clear floor of school storage closet

The before and after pictures would be super impressive, but I don't have any.  One of my awesome students volunteered to come and help me with this; on her first day of summer break no less.  We threw out almost an entire dumpster of stuff.  This closet has been a disaster since day one.  I had oodles of stuff and no time to sort through the previous teacher's SIX crammed packed storage cabinets.  As the year went on, the disorganization morphed into something from Hoarders.  It was really, really bad.  I am so thankful that I can now tackle one cabinet at a time and get things in order.

5--Move Little Miss to a big girl car seat

I just couldn't do it.  I know I need to do it.  Putting her in a booster seat means she really is 3 1/2 and going to preschool in the fall.  Maybe next week...

6--Do a science experiment with Little Mister

We made some combination of shaving cream and cornstarch.  This looked far more impressive on Pinterest, but he LOVED it and played in it for a good hour.  Little Miss got in on the action as well.

7--Check out of school on time/early

First time in 11 years!

8--Daily Bible reading

Not so good.  I'm trying to follow the chronological plan.  

9--Prep 2 things for the freezer

Cooked and shredded some extra chicken to use later for something chickeny.

Made a triple recipe of twice baked potatoes.

10--Plan meals for the week

Thank you Pinterest.

This Week

1--Organize master bedroom and bathroom

2--Move Little Miss to a big girl car seat

3--Prep 3 things for the freezer

4--Daily Bible reading

5--Finish reading Little House in the Big Woods to the little Miss and Mister

6--Draft/Rough outline for my revised Intro to FCS class

7--Do 3 new projects with the kiddos

8--Try Peasant bread recipe

9--Eat at home every day/plan meals

10--Check out two new parks 

A Link and A Vent

Today I read Jen Hatmaker's blog and laughed so hard...several times.  I can so relate to everything she said!

I'm a teacher and I love school, but I seriously think elementary school is turning in to something ridiculous.

My son is in a preschool that is operated through our local school district.  He attends four mornings a week.   Some days he loves it, some days I have to bribe him with donuts to get him out of bed ...great parenting, I know.

I'm thankful for his teacher and that he has made a ton of progress this year, but I just think the powers at be have maybe forgotten that preschool is mostly about learning to like learning and learning to get along with others.

A few examples to prove my point...

• In January all of the preschool teachers started sending home reading logs for us to tally our reading minutes each month.  I'm a teacher.  I get that reading is important.  We read all the time.  There is nothing I love more than a good book.  My kids will sit for almost an hour at a time and look at books.  They sit and listen to chapter books.  But, I don't think I need to report to the school how many minutes we read.  I mean, really.  Can't I be trusted to read to my child as I am supposed to/because I want to.  I haven't turned in one reading log...shameful, I know.  I'll do better next year.

• Then there's the report cards.  That's right...report cards in preschool.    I get that it is probably tied to state funding.  My concern is that all the data is based on a few days of "testing".  I try to keep all of this in perspective, but all those needs improvement/doesn't meet standard indicators do get to me.  I want what's best for my child.  I want him to do well.  I see tons of progress.  Too bad none of those anecdotal observations matter in this current educational age.  

A Growing Year

I'm a teacher.  I tend to measure years by the school calendar.  So, here is our year in review...

April 2012 - Accepted a teaching position closer to where I grew up and my family lives.  

May 2012 - Packed up the classroom that had been mine for 10 years.  Said goodbye to students and some of my best friends.  Prepped our house to sell.

June 2012 - Listed our house with a real estate agent.  Began looking for a new house.

July 2012 - Keeping a spotless house for showings and open houses eventually led to a good offer.  Packing.  Looking for a new home with no success

August 2012 - Said goodbye to the home we had lived in for the last 9 years.  Moved into a temporary rental and started my new job the SAME day.  Littles started their fourth daycare in four years.  Little Mister started half day preschool four mornings a week.  Celebrated Little Miss' third birthday.  Began the school year teaching out of boxes in my storage closet.  Left Hubs behind to close on our house and keep looking for a new job.

September 2012 - Hubs joined us in the new house without a job.  God was faithful and provided plenty of temporary work.  Began attending (and loving) a new church.  The sale of our previous home allowed us to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in adoption loan debt.  Still no permanent house. 

October 2012 - Little Mister turned five.  Hubs was offered a full-time job with a decent wage and plenty of overtime.  Cried in the bathroom several times after a certain afternoon nightmarish 9th grade class.   Spent a lot of time researching classroom management trying to deal with my nightmarish freshmen.   Began looking at a foreclosure property to renovate.

November 2012 - Celebrated Thanksgiving.  Even though both of us struggled with missing all that was familiar, we felt very blessed for all that God provided and was teaching us.  I'll admit that I had my fair share of meltdowns this fall, but I never doubted or regretted our decision.  Walked away from the foreclosure property...just too many unknowns.

December 2012 - Ended first semester.  Celebrated Christmas and extended time off from school.   Temporary rental sold.  Put an offer on a home in the town where I teach.  

January 2013 - Moved for the second time in five months.  Second semester started, so all new classes.

February 2013 - The daycare squeeze began.  We pay almost as much for daycare as we do for our mortgage.  We had a cushion saved up, but it began to run out.  God provided every single week.  We didn't miss one tuition payment.

March 2013 - Spring break and another welcome break from school full of quality time with the littles.  Hubs started working second shift Sunday - Thursday.  Loneliness sets in as now I have 0 adults to talk to.  I haven't really made any friends here yet.  I am friendly with people at school and in our church, but haven't met any BFFs yet.  

April 2013 - Went to a women's retreat sponsored by my church.  This was an overnight gig and I wasn't sure I knew anyone who was going.  I almost chickened out (even the day of), but I ended up going and getting to know some people better.  Still super lonely at night.

May 2013 - Little Mister graduated from preschool and started losing baby teeth - two this month.  I finalized grades, packed up my classroom, and said goodbye to school year #11.  I'm ready for opportunities to meet my neighbors, go on fun outings with my littles, get caught up on house projects (hello painting over all the dark orange and yellow), and tweaking things for next school year.

Midweek Confessions

1--I love teaching (well most days anyway), but these last two weeks I have pretty much just given up and am counting the days until I'm free.  My students seem to have forgotten every procedure as of late and have taken to complaining about pretty much everything which tries my already rapidly fraying patience.  

2--Out of the past 14 days, I have cooked a meal/eaten at home a total of maybe 4 times.  Between a gazillion errands for end of the year school things, hosting a garage sale last weekend, and trying to stay on top of things so I could send my seniors on their way this week it's just been crazy. 

3--Not one room in my house looks presentable.  Garage sale leftovers, stray toys, laundry, dirty dishes, and yucky floors...oh my!  Trust me it is REALLY bad.

4--On Monday, I bribed my son with a donut so he would get up and get ready for school.  Poor guy is just ready to be done and had a super long weekend at his grandparents'.  It worked like a charm, but I felt like the worst mom ever.

5--I may or may not have had a mini meltdown in my classroom today after school.  After a day , weeks, maybe a whole year, of taking some serious attitude from a student, I definitely cried when she left the room. Ugh.  I hate that they can do that to me.