I'm still here...

This poor little blog of mine… so neglected. Silly me- I thought life after the holidays would slow down a bit. You know, more time to relax. Nights at home with nothing to do but spend time with my amazing little family. So not how 2011 is starting out.

I honestly don’t know what I would do without my planning calendars AND the iCal feature on my iPhone. Rick and I are able to sync our calendars together with iCal and I have everything color coded… there’s not a single date on the calendar that doesn’t have a little “dot” indicating there is something planned for that day. It’s a little crazy, but we’re making it work.

As my last post said (yes, the one from, like, 2 ½ weeks ago), I started selling Premier Designs jewelry just after the first of the year. That’s my newest adventure, so I’ll write about it first… My training party was just fantastic! I couldn’t have asked for a better night or a better group of women to share it with! When all was said and done, I had 16 supportive, thoughtful women there to cheer me on in my new venture and my sponsor, Renee, was just awesome! It was so fun seeing all these women from different areas of my life come together in one room; family from out of town and family from in town, friends from church, Bunco ladies, flight attendant friends, teacher friends, fellow mommies… amazing! And about 8 of those women agreed to hold a Home Show for me in the next few months, which was great! I had my very first Home Show last Saturday night and surprisingly enough, I wasn’t nervous at all. The show went well, the hostess had enough sales to qualify for several bonuses and the hostess incentive of the month, which is 50% of her show’s total in FREE jewelry. We closed out her show last night and she earned $404.50 in FREE jewelry- unbelievable! I have 3 more Home Shows in the next week, and I’m really looking forward to spending time with all those fun women, talking about beautiful jewelry! The great part about my third job is that it doesn’t really feel like a “job” at all. So nice.

As for job number 2, subbing, I’ve been keeping pretty busy with that as well. Flying has replaced subbing as my number one priority, so I’m not subbing as much as I was in the fall, but I’m still working about 90% of the days that I am available for. I’ve even had to learn how to say “no” sometimes, which has been tough for me to do, but ultimately it’s the best thing for my mental and physical health, as well as for our family. The occasional day off at home while the kids are at preschool and Rick is teaching is ALL I need to feel caught up around the house and refreshed. I still sub a majority of the time at Rick’s school, which is nice. I love being in a familiar building filled with friendly faces. Today and tomorrow, I’m subbing for the librarian, which is relaxing… also why I have time to actually blog. No classes to actually teach (except journalism one of the days), and down time to get things done. Such a treat. (Although I feel really guilty, because Rick is down the hall teaching 3 classes today and barely has a voice… maybe we should have switched spots today!)

So, job number 2 is good, and so is job numero uno- flying. After nearly a year of barely flying, or not flying at like while I was student teaching, I’m back to flying my full schedule of 3-4 trips a month. That roughly adds up to 10-12 days of flying, and so far it has been working out really well. Flying is where the “real” money comes from, if we were comparing all three of my jobs side-by-side, so it was important for us to put flying back at top priority this year. Student loan repayments and full-time daycare/preschool can really add up… :) I don’t regret having the kids go full-time to child care, because it allows for the amazing flexibility for all my jobs AND they love all of their teachers and friends. They are learning so much more than I would have time to teach them right now, so I’m grateful that they enjoying going so much.

Tyson cracks us up every night when he comes home with new information he’s learned at school… last night, he told us about the vines (veins) in his eyes and all over his body and how his heart is the train station and all his vines (veins) are the train tracks. Awesome. I think he’s drawn to the sciences in some way, because he’s constantly sharing with us all the fun stuff he learns in P.E./Health class. Riley continues to LOVE math and finds patterns in all areas of life, like if we’re sitting boy, girl, boy, girl at the table for dinner, for example. Cooper is in the midst of a language explosion that we are enjoying SO much. I have a blog post in the works filled with words I’m going to miss when the kids grow up and there are several from Cooper’s mouth that we just love!

There you have it, my currently crazy existence, wrapped up in one blog post- probably enough words and information for 3 or 4 posts, but who knows when I’ll find time to sit down and do this again! Flying, subbing, jewelry Home Shows… I also forgot to mention Blazer’s games that Rick and I have been attending (together and separately with friends), Bunco once a month, Riley’s dance class each week, and our date nights. As always, feeling very blessed. And surprisingly well rested. :)