Resolutions for 2008

1. Find a worthwhile job - I’m making this top priority because I realize that I really do want to work. Not only do I need a break from being a stay at home mom, but I want to meet people, I want to make money (and be successful at it), and I want to be able to contribute to a retirement account so that we have a nice little nest egg when we are older.

2. Teaching my kids better values, morals, etc.. - My kids are good kids, but I think that we, as parents, need to really work on making sure that they turn out to be better adults. Because we are not raising them with a religious upbringing, they don’t have the “god sees everything you do, and you will pay for it” threat. Instead, we want them to be good without there being some supernatural threat or a reward that most kids are taught. We want them to make the right choices because it benefits everyone, not just them.

3. Weight loss - Duh! How can this NOT be on a resolution list???? According to the stats, I’m about 10lbs away from being at a healthy weight. Granted, that’s on the high end of the range. So I plan to lose another 20lbs. According to Jake, my butt is becoming flat as a pancake, but I told him he’d have to overlook that and learn to appreciate other parts of me :o)

4. Have a kick ass 30th birthday – Instead of being depressed about it, I’m going to party like no other birthday. I feel more confident than I ever have and I’m going to celebrate my age rather than sit home and cry about it.

5. Go on a week long vacation with Jake by ourselves and have the honeymoon we never really had 10 years ago. August will be our 10 year anniversary, so I want to make sure we take the time to celebrate it and appreciate eachother. I’m hoping for Costa Rica. Jake is hoping to go to Maui, since we have already been to Oahu and the Big Island.

GIMME MORE

I got to thinking today at how it’s possible that so many people have an infinite amount of spending money and how much more of a consumer driven society we have become. Whether it’s the massive car payments on the fully loaded vehicles, the numerous monthly subscriptions to services we don’t need, the expensive preschool and daycare tuition, or the $200 shoes.

I am cheap. No, not cheap as in I’d gladly let someone else foot the bill, but cheap as in, I put a lot of thought into every single thing I buy. Do I really need it? Is it cost effective? How much enjoyment will I really get it out of it? When I go grocery shopping I calculate the cost per ounce of everything, and most things that I buy are store brand. Same goes for all the toys we buy. Why spend a ton of money on an Ipod when I can go buy an MP3 player for $50? It still plays the same music, right? Will my 5 year old son know the difference between an old Playstation or the new Wii? Probably not.

My husband makes a decent salary. It pays the bills and then some, but since I don’t work, the “and then some” part needs to be carefully thought over before its spent. I just don’t get how other people can afford to put their kids in all kinds of activities, have gym memberships, drive $40k vehicles, and still have enough money that eating out for every meal becomes standard practice. Maybe its because I refuse to carry a balance on my credit card. Or maybe I’m wrong and people really do make a lot more than I think.

Today I was watching Oprah (yes… I was that bored! You know its bad when I begin watching soap operas..luckily that hasn’t happened yet.). There was this lady on there that was so proud of herself because she created a pajama program for foster kids and kids in shelters. Oprah in turn got her audience to donate 36,000 pairs of pajamas. Now, I don’t mean to be a Grinch or anything, but it seems to me that foster kids could use a lot more than pajamas. They were acting as if the poor kids had missed out on so much because they didn’t own a pair of PJ’s. It just made me think about how consumer driven we are that we can’t even imagine not having something to change in to go to sleep. I bet these kids are happy to even have a bed to sleep in!! I remember when I was growing up, kids didn’t have 6 pairs of PJs. 1 or 2 was the norm. That is still the norm at my house. If they need more they can use old sweats and tshirts.

I've decided that stuff doesnt make me happy. Its experiencing stuff that makes me happy. Going new places, doing new things, meeting new people, and learning new things. If I could choose a trip around the world or a brand new fully loaded Cadillac Escalade, I'd most likely choose the trip.

Speaking of which...I need to start working on Jake about that 10th year anniversary trip. Hawaii isnt going to cut it this time. :o)

No Deal!!

As I suspected, the grant funded position was not funded enough to convince me to accept the position. I'm not too disappointed. There will be others.

Negotiations

A few days ago, I wrote a post about my deliberating going back to work. Well, today I was offered a job with the State of Nevada, at UNR. Im pretty excited because to be honest, I was a little afraid that after being out of the job market for so long, I would have to start back at the bottom - answering phones and filing, despite having a college degree and quite a bit of experience. Although this isnt a very advanced position, its nice to know that I still have the ability to get a decent job.

I mean, when it comes down to it, if I would have pursued teaching, I would have had an extra year of student teaching and started out a salary that is LESS than what I would be making now. Granted, teachers only work for 9 months, but its nowhere near as easy of a job as most people think.

So I have decided to accept the job on the condition that they start me at a higher salary. Because this is a grant funded position, I don't know what the likelihood is of them being able to meet my request is, but I emailed them late today and expect to hear something hopefully by the end of the week. In the meantime I wont be losing any sleep over it. Knowing that I can still get a decent, professional job after so many years of being out of the work force has put my mind somewhat at ease and even if this one doesnt work out, there will always be another one.

Tada!!!!

Most of you are probably wondering what the whole "tada" thing is all about. Well, its not what you see, but what you don't see. That would be 20 lbs! Ok, so its nothing spectacular, I know, but everyone that knows me knows that I have battled my weight my entire life. Late this summer, I decided it was time to get serious about losing weight and keeping it off. Its difficult for me because its not as easy as cutting fast food and sodas from my diet. I already eat a decent well balanced diet. Carbs are my downfall, but its hard to fill up when you don't like meat. Going to the gym is not really a solution either. Not only is it expensive but I feel like the whole room stops and stares to see how out of shape the fat girl on the eliptical really is.

So I got a treadmill and started running..... and running..... and running. Well, I guess in the beginning it was a brisk walk. At first, "running" a mile in 14 minutes was accomplishing a lot. Now, I am down to a 9:40 mile. Granted, the second mile is usually a bit slower, but the fact that I can even run a second mile is a huge achievement. Now I'm up to 3-4 miles a day and I would say that Im almost addicted to it. I have found that its more effective if I break it up into 2 sessions - one in the morning and one at night.

So the other day, my dad, a former avid runner came over. I was all excited about my newly acquired abilities and wanted to see how I compared, so I asked him how fast he would run back in the day.

"Oh, I don't know. I probably did a 9 or 9 1/2 min mile.", he said.

Woo hoo!!!! So I'm doing pretty dang good, I thought. That is until he started calculating his mile speed.

"I'd manage to run about 6 1/2 or 7 miles in an hour, so I guess that puts me at a 9 min mile, right?"

Here I am all excited about my 3 or 4 miles and he's doing 7 at one time???? I guess I have a long ways to go.

The Race Is On

I happen to catch part of the democratic debate the other day. I've already decided that I absolutely cannot vote for a republican this time around so I thought I'd take in a little of what these candidates had to say. In the past I have voted republican pretty consistently, but this time around I feel as if the past 8 years of the Bush administration really needs to be balanced out by a decent democrat. Some may say that its my liberal California education that has changed my political views, but I think my change in perspective has more to do with maturity and age.

While I am not dismissing all the republican candidates, I can say for sure that I will not vote for neither Huckabee nor Romney. The whole religion thing is just too extreme for me. I can't stand when political figures base their policies to please the religious right. As much as they say they are against big government, they love to impose their "morals" on everyone else (ie. gay rights). Guliani seems ok, but still very polar on issues I find important. John McCain has no shot of winning and at this point, I don't know enough about Fred Thompson.

So that leaves the democrats: Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. There are others but those are the front runners. Now, I already said that I am going to vote democrat in order to balance the power, but I also have a few issues that I find important to me and only seem to be heavily backed by democrats; the environment, socialized health care, the economy and education. As much as it pains me to admit it, Hilary seemed to have very clear answers in the debate (at least the parts I caught between the crying and whining going on at my house at the time). She answered the questions very straight-forward and honest, while some of the other candidates dodged their questions. All the candidates were asked what their realistic first year acomplishments would be if they were elected. Most of them answered as if we lived on Jupiter and had a 4000-day year. Obama and Clinton were the only two that had realistic goals and answered the question accordingly.

It will be an interesting election. We could end up with the first black president, the first female president, or maybe the first Mormon president. Honestly, I was more excited when Stephen Colbert was running.

Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

What do you do when your mom takes away your most cherished source of entertainment??? Apparently you tell her how her husband prefers another woman, even if you know it’s a lie. At least that’s what my five year old son thinks.

The other day he got in trouble so I took away his video games for the day. He proceeded to tell me how nobody likes me anymore – not even dad. When I asked him why he thought that, I saw him thinking hard about what his answer would be. He answered with “well, the other day dad said “oooooo….that girl is pretty”” I know that in most cases if a husband said something like that in front of his wife, he would probably get smacked. In my case, however, I am very comfortable in my marriage and know that Jake is madly in love with me. Because of that, I have no problem with him telling me that he thinks a certain girl is cute (and vice versa). In fact, it’s nice to know what type of look he likes. So, I tell Jacob “that’s ok that dad thinks another girl is pretty. Mom isn’t the only pretty girl on this planet”. I could see that he was disappointed that his plan hadn’t worked, and suddenly I could see that his expression changed from disappointment to “hey, I got a bright idea!”. So he follows up with, “well, mom, he said that he wanted to marry her.” I wondered how this plan was supposed to lead to his getting his video game back, but nevertheless, I knew he was lying and called him out on it. He eventually admitted to the marrying part being a lie, but I couldn’t help thinking about why he would tell such a devious little lie. Was he trying to turn me against Jake so that way I would forget about him being in trouble??? That seems like pretty advanced conniving for a 5 year old, don’t you think?

The Dilemma

So I’m facing a personal crisis – ok well that’s a little overstated, but you get the idea. While I love my children and am grateful that I have been able to be home with them since birth, after 8 years, I’m starting to feel antsy and unfulfilled.

I know, I know…. All those working moms out there are wondering what the hell is the matter with me. Then there are the stay at home moms who get complete satisfaction from cooking, cleaning, soap operas, Mary Kay type multi level marketing schemes and carting kids around all day, every day. They scoff at those women who choose to go to work (although, in most cases that’s not always a choice). How could they possibly be good mothers if they devote their life to a career just so they can afford that luxury SUV and 3000 sq ft house???

On the other hand, I can’t tell you how many men I have had comment on the fact that staying at home is probably like going to Disneyland everyday. No bosses, no deadlines, nothin… I must be living the life!!! Let me tell you, fighting with a daughter that wants to wear spaghetti strap shirts to school as snow is falling outside, or the constant “MOM!!! He hit me!!!” followed by a few smacks, thuds and then crying in the background is definitely no picnic. Oh yeah, and what about when your kid takes a nap (or so you thought) only to wake up and find poop smeared everywhere. I bet you never have to clean up poop at work. A stay at home mom can’t call in sick, no matter how much of her guts she puked up the night before, and 5pm is not even close to the end of the day. So yes, work sucks but staying home is NOT Disneyland.

So, I guess I’m looking for a change of pace. The extra money is nice, but not completely necessary. Its the fact that I worked my butt off in college and now I want to put it to use. But can I handle 40 hours a week plus devote time to cooking, cleaning, homework, laundry, kids, a husband, and everything else that I normally take care of? On top of that, I know my decision to go back to work will be judged. Should I just play the part of the happy fulfilled mother so that my kids will grow up in a traditional household or should I put some effort into satisfying some of my own needs, knowing that I will have to work extra hard to keep it all together????

The New Blog

Everyone else I know is starting a blog, so I thought this would be a good time to start my own. Most people tend to write about their family, hobbies, jobs, politics or their religion, so that got me thinking as to what kind of blog I would like to create.

Unless the readers are your own family, most people don't find blogs about your kids and family life very interesting, so I guess I'm nixing the idea of a dedicated "family blog". Those of you with kids know that hobbies go out the window once children are in the picture, so there isn't much to write about in that department. And, because I have been lucky enough (or unlucky depending on how you see it) to stay home with my kids, I have no job or career to write about. So that leaves religion and politics. While I have strong opinions on both of those subjects, devoting a blog to either one of those would be very boring and maybe even offensive to those of you which have differing opinions.

So I'm left contemplating.... I guess we'll just have to wait and see.