Rainy Monday

There are dishes to be done...

Laundry is halfway complete and piling up in the basement.

I just finished Jodi Picoult's book "Handle with Care" while holding Bug, and he fell asleep. We've had a busy two days and today's dreary weather gives us the perfect excuse to sit and read, play games and watch movies. I guess Bug decided it was perfect weather for a nap on my lap, though... And I don't mind. I can finish the laundry and dishes tonight, when he's sleeping soundly in his crib. For now, I'll hold him as long as he wants. 20 month olds don't stay still for long!!! :)

And There Was Much Rejoicing!

I'M DONE!!!!!!!!

I'M DONE!!!!!!!!

I got through graduation without crying, although there were a few iffy points. Most of my coworkers refused to say goodbye to me because "I will see you soon!". One of my poor coworkers didn't even know until today that I was leaving, although she wasn't one I was terribly close to. 

I've spent the afternoon grabbing lunch with Hope (roommate/friend/former co-worker lol) and packing for my weekend with Bug as well as my trip to Pennsylvania. Between now and next Friday, I'll have Bug for two days, Care Bear for one, and then spend two days with my bestest girl Stevie and before moving on to my friend Lyn who moved to PA last summer. Whew...and that's only the first week of June! I've also been delving into Jodi Picoult's book "Handle With Care"-- it's really good!

So, I'm signing off for now. HAPPY GRADUATION DAY to my kindergarteners, and to all my coworkers, I'll MISS YOU SO MUCH!!!!! (not that any of them read here, they don't know about it. lol)

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_357/1232914691JSCMu4.jpg

The End

We're at the end. 

Tomorrow is the last day of school. 

Friday is graduation. 

About to my breaking point emotionally here...so it should be interesting. Thankfully I have to babysit immediately after work tomorrow and have a meeting on Friday evening so I won't have time to sit and ponder, which could be a good or bad thing, I think...

Think good thoughts for me, please? I'll miss my job!

Déjà Vu

As challenging as work has been recently (yes, even though we are down to the last few days, it continues!) there is one thing that is absolutely cracking me up...and it's a continuing trend from the spring of 2008.

Two years ago, Aniya and I wore matching clothes quite a few times. This year, it's me & Hope. It's happened probably five times in the past three weeks, and our coworkers absolutely notice and make fun of us. At first, we would both play along and say, "Oh, we planned it!" but now...

it's starting to not be so hilariously funny because we live together, and how embarrassing would that be to show up in matching clothes? Granted, she leaves a good three hours before me so I wouldn't even know what she was wearing, but we are making sure to discuss our clothing choices each evening before we go to bed. 

It's okay to be friends, matching friends even, but matching co-workers AND roommates?

Oh, the humor I find in simple things!

Quick Updates

I'm all moved in! I spent last night organizing my new room- hard to cram a whole apartment into one bedroom, so my parents took a bunch of my belongings to their house. 

It's been a nice weekend, really. It's fun to move to a new place and get all organized~ not for long, of course. 

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We have four days of school left! I found out today that everyone at school knows I'm not coming back so I'm preparing for an emotional week. Oyyyy. I'm so ready for summer though, how about you? 

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Today was a perfect, sunny Sunday. I biked about 4 miles, almost finished cleaning my old apartment, went to two parks to sit and bask in the sun...ahh, I love days like this!

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Well, I'm off to watch 27 Dresses. I let my friend Hope borrow it months ago and since I moved in with her, I finally get it back. YAY!

Orange Juice

What are you up to this week?

I'm up to my eyeballs in orange juice. Orange juice, burgers, packing, biking, sinks, and burns that is!

Let me explain.

The orange juice story begins almost two weeks ago. My sisters and I went shopping at Wally World to buy a ton of food & drinks for a Mother's Day brunch & cookout. Unknown to us (and apparently no one was counting!) one of the orange juice concentrates was left in the back of my car when we were unloading bags. On my way to a graduation last weekend, I was driving my car in the hot sunshine and heard a *POP!* but wasn't sure what it was. The following day, I was unloading boxes and found the OJ allllllll over the back of my car. Yep. Gross.

So, I've spent a few days applying water & soap, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and some kind of odor eliminator over and over on the carpet. Rinse, repeat. Rinse. Repeat.

It's exactly how I planned on spending this week. Of course.

And the car still smells like fermented OJ. It's awful!

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Burgers- Ohhh- there is a local hotspot that has $3 burgers on Wednesdays. My coworker Aimee and I were both needing some girl time this week and the baseball game we planned on attending Monday was rained out, so after work on Wednesday, we headed over there. I love their decorations and we had so much fun! It was great to do something other than work and pack and well, deal with the OJ.

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Packing is pretty much done. I have a few random stuff hanging around that I'm planning to stick in boxes tonight but I'm excited to get to my new (temporary, at least!) home on Saturday and get settled...which won't be hard. This is all I'm taking with me (& clothes and books)…

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Ahh! Okay, so I've still been biking a lot, but the weather this week was crappy and today was the first day weatherwise that I could go. Last time, I biked about 9.2 miles so tonight I was shooting for 10. Guess what?

Yep, that’s 16+ miles! YAY!!!!!!!

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Oh…and a few other lovely amusements of the week- my clogged sink (good luck doing dishes in that sink!) and another self-inflicted burn. Not nearly as bad as last time!

So, that’s what my week has been like- soooo much fun! ;) How about you?

The Process

Let me start off by saying I know I made the right decision regarding leaving my job. 

However, that does not make it any easier. It's hard. My coworkers are slowly finding out. One of the girls had today off and when she picked her son up after nap, she asked me whatever became of my meeting with my boss last week-- so I had to tell her I'm not coming back. Her face just fell and I almost started crying. She said, "Definitely? For sure? You have to?" and I confirmed it. She's bummed. Everyone who hears is bummed. One girl wrote to me via Facebook (since we can't really talk too much about it at work) and just said, "I'm so sad!"

I'm sad too. Sad, and scared. Sad to leave the girls. Scared, extremely scared, of my future. I know that tears are healing (supposedly) but I don't cry easily. Except lately...all I have to do is think about not seeing my coworkers again, my dark unknown future, and I start crying. :(

Aniya told me on Saturday that her school is hiring. However, the thing about that is I'd have to jump on it NOW, because they will probably hire someone within the next month. I don't have any qualms with working at her school, although I don't really know much about it either. 

I guess where I am at right now is that I want to finish the school year, process that I won't be going back to my school, and then worry about a job. If I end up nannying/babysitting for a year, so be it. I don't know that I want to go into another school setting. I don't know WHAT I want to do. At all. 

Think it's possible to go through the stages of grieving with a job? I think so.

Pattern Poll

I am looking to buy a Beco Butterfly to use this summer with Care Bear, the baby girl I'll be watching. Any experience you have I'd love to hear about-- in the meantime, these are the patterns I'm trying to decide between...which one(s) get your vote??

**Update: The poll is to the right of my blog on the sidebar. I can't get it to work inside the post. Thanks!**

#1- Aiden pattern

(all photos via Ebay)

#2- Lucas pattern

#3- Natalie pattern

#4- Carnival pattern

Happy Weekend!

Image credit (http://www.ableremovalsandstorage.co.uk/images/packing-montage.png)

What are you up to this weekend?

I babysat Bug last night and it was a late night....so when I got home I absolutely crashed but had the best sleep I've had in a LONG time. 

It's an absolutely gorgeous Saturday morning and I am heading out of town for a graduation. I'll be gone most of the day but when I get back I plan to clean and pack. I move in a week! Tomorrow will be my final big packing day so I'm hoping I can get everything done! :) 

Enjoy your weekend- and thank you ALL for your support from the past two posts. I am working at responding to them but I really appreciate it. I'll update soon :)

Breathe

Well.

I told my boss today that I won’t be back to teach next year. It was a decision that took a lot of time to come to, and I’m sad but think it was the right thing to do. I am SO relieved that telling my boss is done, I haven’t been eating/sleeping well all week and knew I’d feel better once I was just done.

I don’t think it’s really hit me yet though. I’ve been there for three years and some of my best friends work there with me. I’ve made wonderful friends and met amazing families who I will definitely miss, but with the whole situation with Jessa this year, and how it was handled…I wasn’t willing to deal with it another whole year.

Sadly, my boss’ reaction to my news was a curt, “Well you don’t need a reference, do you?” Sigh. It’s really a situation that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but my boss needs prayers, because there’s got to be something else going on in her mind. The woman who hired me almost three years ago would not speak to me like that normally, at all.

But it still hurt.

And though I know in my heart (and through reading my journal entries and talking to my coworkers) that I am good at my job, how can I not think of her response as against me?

And now…to figure out what comes next in life. Anyone want a nanny? LOL.

Depression

I haven't really talked about it much (or maybe at all) on my blog, but I struggle with depression. It runs in my family and I remember two summers in particular when I hit rough patches. The first was when in 2004 right before I spent a semester in Europe. I distinctly remember driving past a certain tree in between my parents' house and their church and thinking, "I should just run into the tree. No one will care if I die. It's not worth it anymore." It was a fleeting thought, but one I've thought about occasionally over the years. Obviously, I didn't kill myself that day. 

Usually for me, something will throw me into a bout of depression. In 2004, it was moving home for the summer after enjoying a year living on campus with friends. My parents and I didn't get along and fought all the time, I didn't want to be living where I was or doing the work I was. As it turned out, and as silly as it sounds, the TV show "Friends" really helped me. I had never seen the show before and ended up buying all the seasons...they kept me in good spirits if I watched them almost constantly. 

In early 2007, I moved from Massachusetts back to my parents and quickly found a job here in Big City. As it turned out, the nanny job was not a good situation for me. I was living alone in a new city where I knew no one and one of the parents in my nanny job was overbearing and around all the time. I cried every day, sobbing and sobbing and eventually fell back into a bout of depression. I didn't want to be living alone, I thought my life was going to end before I got myself out of the nanny job, I was pessimistic, lost a ton of weight, wasn't sleeping well...the list could go on and on. 

So, in the summer of 2004 I was 19. In the summer of 2007, I was 22...now again, it is three years later. 2004-2007-2010. I just realized the date and that it's been every three years since I was 19. I fear that I am slipping into depression once again as I head into this summer. I desperately want to have a wonderful summer. I keep telling myself that there are less than three weeks of school. I have less than two weeks until I move in with one of my best friends, a girl who always keeps me laughing. I am not to the point of crying every day yet. I had one breakdown a week ago when I had a hard reality check that my job is likely ending. I haven't cried since, but another wall will break soon. I make it through a day of work and don't care about cleaning or packing. I sit on the couch and turn on the tv and zone out. I just don't care anymore. 

Please, God, don't let me fall into depression again. I don't think I can handle it. 

Thankful for Weekends

I've been putting off blogging, writing a "real" post, because I don't know what to write! My days are mainly governed by work. Lately the weather has been wonderful meaning afternoons are spent outside on the playground. There have been days where I've been outside for three hours straight, like today. I loooove the sunshine but it makes me tired, especially combined with biking and running after the kids!

Work in general is eh...it's okay. I'm really down about the fact I most likely won't be returning to my school, and it makes work sad and stressful for me, even more than before. Jessa hasn't been around much...of the past 10 days she's been scheduled to work with me, I've seen her four. FOUR. So ridiculous I cannot even wrap my mind around it. How she was not fired months ago, I do not know, but it's crazy. There are so many behind the scenes things going on that I can't even mention, but suffice to say that on Saturday, after spending the day with two of my closest co-workers, I completely broke down and had a sob fest. I don't cry...almost never. But it got to the point that I couldn't hold it in longer so it's probably a good thing that I let it out. I'm sure it will happen again. 

In other news...

my current roommate moved out...

my lease is up at the end of the month...

I am moving in 16 days...

Lots of address changes, utilities to turn off, calls to make...

(This is probably why I never blog when I'm moving, haha)

School will be done three weeks from today...

I'll be traveling a lot in June- Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire

I am really looking forward to the summer!

I need to run now--- I'm packing, not for the move today but to spend the weekend with my family. One of my sisters is graduating from college! Go, Amata!

Post-It Tuesday

     

Decisions

It's been almost a week since I last posted...I don't really know what to say about that. 

So, I will leave you with quotations on decision-making, since that is what is consuming my life. That, stress, and not sleeping at night because of the stress. I miss being able to sleep.

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It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped- Anthony Robbins

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If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much - Jim Rohn

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If you put off everything until you're sure of it, you'll get nothing done- Norman Vincent Peale

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In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing - Theodore Roosevelt

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We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present- Adlai Stevenson

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One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment...if it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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The H.A.L.T. method. Never make a decision when you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired- David DeNotaris

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A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion- Chinese proverb