Money Madness

These tickers are here to encourage me on my journey to financial peace through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. Normal posts below!!!

I'm Going To Be In Trouble

Dave Ramsey will not be happy with me.

Neither will my accountability partner.

But here's the thing.

One of my best friends just had her second baby-

Elsie is adorable, from what I can see.

She looks just like her older sister-

With darker hair.

The problem is that Stevie chose to have Elsie

Six hours away,

You know, where they live and all that jazz.

I'm sure Dave would say to wait,

But babies don't stay tiny for long.

So I'm going to visit Elsie

In two weeks.

Go ahead and shoot me Dave.

I can't wait!

Fresh Air

Yesterday I was monitoring the playground when I found Zoe lying on the ground. I asked her why she was doing this, and her answer was,

"I'm just getting some fresh air down here".

I've been thinking about her answer since. I feel like I need to get some fresh air, move around, DO something. I'm bored. I have no life...of course once I figure out what I'll tell my boss on Tuesday, I guess that will change, but ever since the time change last weekend, I've been spiraling towards a dark hole- I don't want to and I'm working to fight it but something has to change. I don't look forward to weekends anymore, unless I have something planned. I look forward to Thanksgiving weekend- and next weekend I have a lot of babysitting going on, but...

I hate winter.

I'll be back tonight, hopefully in a better mood. Somehow working with the kiddles at work always puts a smile on my face :)

Adding To Subtract

I added a few things to my sidebar to keep better track of this darn Financial Peace University I'm taking part in. Last month I went slightly off budget with the whole getting sick thing- I had to buy some soup & medicine that wasn't in my budget and then I bought a small room heater because my bedroom is SO COLD.

Anyway, it's a new month so I'm attempting to be a bit more optimistic with all the money stuff. I added a bit from my babysitting jobs at the end of October to my emergency fund, found extra change and added that, same with any money I had leftover from last month. I'm at 14% of my emergency fund which isn't great, but not awful either. I have a few babysitting jobs this month but a lot of the money will be going towards Christmas- I want to be able to buy the members of my family something, even if it's small this year. That might not be Dave Ramsey's thing but I enjoy finding something for my siblings/parents. I already found a great present for my mom @ Big Lots...it's an Elvis container full of popcorn!!!!

Totally joking, Mom, and only one of my readers will get that joke anyway. Point of the story is, I'll find something a bit less tacky. ;)

I'm off to work...roasting pumpkin seeds for the kids for snack today. I'll try and take photos of them enjoying (or not) the tasty food if they turn out okay.

Meeting With The Boss

I had a meeting with my boss yesterday.

Usually meetings are freaky but I had only a few hours' notice for this one so it wasn't too stressful...also, I kind of knew what the topic of conversation would be.

In the last few years I've worked at my school, we had just one staff meeting a year, in which the following school year was discussed. Towards the end of last year, some of the other teachers called a meeting, which I ended up not having to attend because it involved classroom policies and for the most part, I don't deal with that. However, apparently that meeting was eye-opening for a few people within the school, resulting in three more staff meetings this year as well as more one-on-one performance reviews and boss meetings.

Due to these meetings, my boss is beginning to help people have "stretching goals" - two of my teacher friends (assistants in the classroom) are in charge of certain areas in their classrooms that earlier were taken care of by the lead teacher. They're both excited about this and are proud to be more involved. Another teacher's goal is to have a peaceful classroom, a goal that will probably span a few years. ;)

So, yesterday was my meeting with my boss to find out what she had in store for me. As it turns out, she had a few ideas...taking a few more classes @ the hospital that I haven't taken yet..but past that, I'm supposed to figure out my own goal.

EEK.

I told her I have no interest in going back to school full time, but would be willing, maybe even interested, in taking a class either in programming (thus helping to keep up the school webpage I built last fall/winter) or more child development. Past that, I have NO ideas yet...but I do have a week to think about it. I'm not sure where this is leading, but we'll see! (And if anyone has any ideas for me, pass them on! LOL.)

Beyond that, things are going well at school. The past week has been wacky crazy with Halloween preparations, the Halloween parade, and parent-teacher conferences. One of my friends was asking for kidisms and I haven't even taken note of any recently. And not that the kids haven't been funny...haha.I'm sure they have been!

Anyway...that's what's been going on here. Oh...and my new co-teacher will not be working with me full time anymore. She'll be working four days a week, which is STRESSFUL for me but I will get through it. If she's still exhausted after going down to 4 days a week, she'll go to three- double stress. If that doesn't work, I have no idea what will happen. Keep her (and me!) in your prayers. My boss almost had a breakdown last week because of all this, so needless to say the stress extends farther than just me!

Halloween: The Last Of It

My hands are cramped (okay, they aren't now, but they were when I started this post!), but there's a good reason. Over the past week, I carved somewhere between ten and fifteen pumpkins at school. I had a lot of fun doing it, and the kiddos absolutely LOVED watching. All of the kids who chose to carve rather than paint drew the face of their choice on their pumpkin, so no two look remotely alike. I didn't get a chance to take pictures of all the completed pumpkins, but here are a few!









One of my absolute favorites- the boy who designed this is going to be an engineer. He's hysterical!


Initials...

Also, our tie dyed orange pumpkin shirts were a HIT at school on Halloween. They turned out really cute!













Well... I suppose since it's now November, fall is over. I'll leave you with a tree that one of my 4 year old students painted. He's very artistic and draws us cartoons all the time- the way he interprets things is really interesting!

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest!

I never got past entering Oregon in my blogging of the trip out West...so here I go again! I'm hoping to be done with this by the end of the week...the trip was only two months ago...lol!

When we entered Washington state, the sun was just going down. A few hours later, we caught sight of Seattle- it was neat to see the Space Needle in person after hearing friends and family speak of it.

We walked around the city for an hour or so and found this cool art place

 

but it was nearing midnight and we still had a few hours on the road to reach our final destination of Bellingham! At about 2 am, we pulled into town and a few hours later had our first interaction with the seaside town police...

After a  few hours of restless sleep, my brother and I drove down by the water, which was absolutely gorgeous! There were even people windsurfing or paragliding- not sure which.

We went for a hike near one of the colleges- I don't remember which. We climbed many stairs up and up and were finally rewarded with some pretty nice views of Bellingham!!

I attempted to take a picure of myself here, but the sunlight was hitting me wrong- still, it was a nice view ;)

Later that evening, my brother slept away in our rented motel room and I decided to head down to the shore. I walked along the tiny town, where in the middle square they were hosting a family movie night. I really loved the atmosphere there- very family friendly!

The moon above the sea was cool looking and I couldn't resist snapping a shot!

I watched the sun set over the water, thankful to get to be by the ocean again. Seriously, it was so pretty! With the boats floating in the water...ah. Perfection!

I still had a week in Washington and we were off to Canada a few days later...stay tuned for my (way late!) pictures! :)

October 31

Last year on this day, I was babysitting a tiny seven week old baby named Chubster...

tonight, I'm babysitting the same cutie, now thirteen months old and sweet as can be.

However, there is one problem.

His parents left this HUGE bowl of candy, and trick-or-treating in this town was two days ago.

I'm trying VERY hard not to go near it...but I'm sure sometime between now and 2-3 a.m. I will cave.

Hope you have a great Halloween night!

Music Wednesday

Every once in a while, I hear a song on a radio, fall in love with it, and download it from iTunes shortly after. Occasionally, I also check iTunes top songs to see if there's anything I've missed that I like.

A few weeks ago, I found out about the group Owl City. I LOVE THEM!!!! (As an aside, while writing this post I found out they are coming to my city in the winter...I'm GOING. Even alone...heck, I've already done that before!)

Anyway. Owl City sings lots of songs, including the #5 song right now, "Fireflies"

I'm not going to tell you how many songs of theirs I downloaded because I'll get in trouble, but all of their songs are fabulous and I recommend them.

Some of the other songs I've been listening to...

One Republic's "All the Right Moves"

Any of the music from "Glee" (even though I don't love the show, I do enjoy the music!)

and last but not least, "Pomplamoose"

*By the way, I don't watch music videos so I have no idea what these ones are like...*

What have you been listening to? I'm always up for new music...haha!

How Darn Cute...

Remember when I told you that Jessa and I were making these shirts for ourselves and our co-worker Amy for Halloween?

We tiedyed them this morning and I had the chance to reminisce a little- I used to tiedye ALL the time as a teen. In fact, one of my youngest sister Rachael's first outfits was a onesie tiedyed by me. If I remember correctly, it didn't fit her until she was about one... I vividly recall taking this picture of her...oh the things she had to go through.



Anyway, the point is that I tiedyed a lot as a teen. I even sold tiedyed sheets, shirts...you name it. I thought I was cool.

That moo (haha, anyone watch "Friends"??) point aside, the theme for Halloween at school this year is jeans a Halloween shirt. Neither Jessa nor I owned one (a Halloween shirt that is, we're good on the jeans, thanks!) so we decided to be a little creative and tiedye ours, inviting Amy to join in the fun. We'll paint the faces on tomorrow but I think they're cute even like this!

Amy's


Mine


Jessa's


And...more on this later, because I'm literally covered in pumpkin goo still, but we're carving/decorating pumpkins with our 20 afternoon kids- here's the first carving. I am the Carve Master, while Jessa is in charge of the painting. Haha. I'll write more on it later, but I'm having a blast! Some of the kids have never done this before...but we're a fun school, and we like to dig in and get messy!

Random Sunday Thoughts

I just finished listening to my FPU class... I have SO many papers I need to go through from the past week or so. I need to call and schedule an oil change for my car, which was supposed to be done last week but...like everything else, got put on hold.

People are booking me for mid-December babysitting jobs already! I have been offered three jobs for the first weekend in December, but of course they're all on the same night. I hate when that happens! I always take the first job offered though, pretty much regardless of who it is. I don't wait for "better jobs" because the families I sit for are all wonderful!

I'm finally getting a chance to respond to comments from the end of September on, which is probably why most of you will be getting seemingly random emails from me (except for those of you who still have noreply@blogger.com as your email address :( ....) Ha! I have over 150 to respond to, which makes me feel popular! =)

Of course, in doing this...I discovered I never finished my posts on my trip out West! I got distracted by Picasa's new features, Jessa's departures from school, being sick...I'll finish it someday. All the posts are in my head, my head just doesn't have the ability to post while I'm working or sleeping.

A few news stories caught my eye this weekend. Of course, everyone is talking about the Balloon Boy story. I was at work or something when the story broke, so I didn't hear about it for a day or so. As soon as I read the first article and then watched an interview where the boy explicitly says "you told me to do it for the story" and the dad was all "uhhhhhh, no that's not what he really meant", I thought there was something very fishy going on!!!

I also found the story of the amnesiac teen girl who was found in NYC sad and slightly scary. How weird would it be to find yourself in a strange city, not knowing who you are? Judging from the latest story I read though, it sounds like she'll be back with her family on the West Coast soon. Still- I found it sad.

 I hope you all had a good weekend!