This Side of Perfect

The kids have been back in school for two weeks and I've been utterly lost without them.

I've been bored. I've been emotional (for what I can only assume was Precious Preteen's going into 6th grade). While most women probably would have thoroughly enjoyed the two week hiatus from work, school, and kids - I did not.

I was just blah.

And then something wonderful happened.

I attended the first Girl Scout leader meeting of the year. Suddenly, I was a part of something again and I felt excited and alive. I had a purpose.

As I drove home on this emotional high, I realized that the blah-ness I've felt for the past two weeks had been depression.

It sounds a tad pathetic that I would wrap my entire reason for being around something as trivial as Girl Scouts. That fact that I tie up every ounce of who I am in The Man Beast and the kids is the antithesis to the "modern woman".

I was talking to a friend/co-worker/mentor about her recent retirement. She admitted that…

Life has a way of sorting things out for you.

Since going back to school, I've had to delegate a lot of things in order to not lose my sanity.

Four years ago, The Boy was 10 and Precious Preteen (this is the name she gave herself, by the way) was 6. (Wow...allow me to pause on that fact for a moment. Four years ago, my babies were babies!)

Despite the fact that my children were, what I consider, young, they had to take on certain responsibilities.

Could I have done it all by myself? Absolutely. And a part of me wished that I could. But I couldn't and now looking back, I'm glad I didn't.

Stacey, over at I'm a Lazy Mom considers herself a lazy mom. Furthermore, she encourages other moms to be Lazy Moms as well.

Obviously, her suggestion is a tongue-in-cheek reference because a Lazy Mom is anything but lazy! I wrote about Stacey here.

Since this week seems to be a week of reflection for me, I've decided to reflect on the positives my circumstances have created in…

I'm scheduled to graduate with my Bachelors of Science in Elementary Education/Special Education in December. Did I mention that? I am amazed that a task that has taken four years to complete is almost over - and I'm in one piece!

Of course, I still have to get through 16 weeks of student teaching.

But I'm looking forward to it. I am eager to learn new things from teachers who know what they're doing. I'm excited about picking up some really good ideas in real life (verses Pinterest) and implementing them in my own classroom (God willing!).

For the past three years, I've been in survival mode as wife, mother, paraprofessional and full-time student. I've been spinning these plates, trying not to let any of them fall and break. With the amazing support from my family and co-workers, I've done well. But there have been a few things that I've had to put on the shelf.

Aside from this summer, I haven't been much of a reader these past four years (unl…

This past weekend, the Turtle Clan drove four hours north to visit my little brother and his family. Having two small and very active little boys meant finding an activity that would expend some of that energy. We headed to the lake.

While Baby Girl Precious Preteen and The Man Beast were wading in the water, The Boy and I played around on the beach with various objects and my iPhone.

The Boy grew animated in a way I had not seen for quite some time as he started talking about things he might want to do after high school. His interests are many, but they are all in the arts. For example, he loves to draw and as such, spends all of his spare time drawing. He's tech savvy like his father, and enjoys drawing on the computer, composing music and animating. His latest interest, it would seem, is photography.

So he and I played around a bit. I tried to convince him to ask for a camera for his birthday/Christmas but he refused. "I really want a new computer," he says. Spoken li…

I've had the chance to read quite a few books this summer. Despite the fact that I start student teaching Monday (!!!), I went to the library and grabbed three more reads. In the past, I've read one at a time, but I told The Man Beast that this time, I'm reading at least two at the same time. One is in the living room by my recliner and one is by my bed, ready for me to pick it up when I read at night before I go to sleep. He doesn't understand how I can do it. "I'd get all my characters mixed up."

I find reading two books at a time relatively easy. It usually takes me a page to "remember" which story I'm in and from there, I follow along easy as a can be.

I can do this, I think, because as a mom, I'm a multi-tasker by heart. (The only thing I cannot multi-task is cooking with anything. Apparently, it takes every ounce of my being to prepare a palatable meal.) For most everything else, however, I've got it pretty much in the bag.

Wh…

During the school year, my family's schedule follows a pretty predictable routine:

Rise and (somewhat) shine at 6 amBaby Girl gets dressed and eats breakfast while The Boy gets dressed and takes the dogs out6:30 the bus comes for Baby Girl (middle school this year!)6:50 the bus comes for The Boy (high school this year!)7:30ish The Man Beast gets ready for work By 8:30 am, it's just the dogs and me and a very quiet house. Too quiet, sometimes.

This new phase in our life - albeit for just a few more weeks - is very new to me. The last time I stayed at home while the kiddos went to school was back when The Boy was in Kindergarten/First Grade. The Man Beast was working a wicked schedule at big chain pizza place and our schedules were completely backward. In fact, the only reason I got up in the morning, was to get The Boy dressed, fed, and out the door to catch the bus. Then, it was back to bed for a couple of more hours before Baby Girl would wake up and then our day would start.

…

Before I started working in the school system, I had lost 40 lbs through Spark People.  I was still a good 20 lbs overweight, but I was feeling pretty good. Then slowly, over the years, I gained almost all of those 40 lbs. back. (Working with students with severe disabilities means that a lot of their curriculum includes life skills lessons, which included grocery shopping, which included cooking, which included a paraprofessional eating a lot more than she should. Add to the fact that we were able to celebrate everyone's birthday and well, it was just a weight gaining disaster waiting to happen. (Note: I do not blame my students or the job for my weight gain. I used to but soon realized that this wasn't actually blame, it was an excuse and it was unacceptable.)

That's my back story. Long story short (too late!), I stumbled upon the low carb way of eating. Many people know this as Atkins. The program has undergone massive changes in the past 20 years, one of which include…