1st Mother’s Day (+ a million more things)

In the excitement of finding out that we’re heading to ND the day after tomorrow, I forgot to write a post about the happenings of this weekend. It was quite a busy one.

My weekend started with Home Group vespers on Friday night. “What is that?” ask all of you non-boarding school teachers/former boarding school students. Well, allow me to enlighten you. Home Groups are something that boarding schools (at least ours and every other one I’ve been to) have to create a sense of family in an environment where the students aren’t around their parents on a regular basis. We meet once a week during chapel time (Wednesdays) and hang out. And once a quarter (aka, four times a year) they come up to our house for a Home Group Vespers on a Friday night. We cook them dinner and then we do something special together. This weekend the Biology teacher offered to take a few groups into San Francisco to go to the Marin Headlands (a former military base during the Cold War which is now a National Park and just a pretty beach) and then let the kids walk down the SF Bay Bridge. We fed our kids early (around 4:45) and met up with some other groups down at the school to head into the city. The kids had a great time, but it was a late night. Lily did wonderfully of course, though. She’s such a happy, flexible baby. Definitely a must in our crazy, busy life. It was her first time on a bus and she LOVED being around all the kids and getting to feel the wind in her hair with the windows down.

Saturday was the day we’ve been anticipating/dreading all semester: my drama class’ performance. I woke up feeling fairly calm at at peace about the whole thing. I told myself it was going to happen whether we were ready or not and I just had to be happy with the outcome. Well, at around 5:30 I started having my first round of panic attacks. My heart was pounding and my stomach was churning. I haven’t had that feeling since my drive to the hospital to have Lily 11 months ago. I made myself stay home and do other things (eat, pick up the house a little bit, feed Lily, give her a bath) until about 7:00, when I couldn’t take it anymore. I went down to the school and started getting things ready for the kids who were set to show up an hour later. I got everything done without much effort. I put my props in order, made sure costumes were ready, cleared the stage, and set up my office for Lily’s babysitter to watch her in there during the performance. At about 7:30 the A/V guys came and got the mics and lights ready. Then the kids showed up and chaos ensued. We had to get people costumed, miced, make-uped, shown where their props were, talk down some nerves, and a lot of other things. I had to glue on a beard and turn hair grey, zip tight dresses and fix smudged lipstick, and give the same motivational speech about a half a dozen times. It got to 10 minutes before curtain time and I called the kids together, told them I loved them, prayed, and sent them to their sides of the stage for the first scene. After doing prayer and a slight intro to the play, we got started. My kids BLEW ME AWAY! I kept running back and forth to make sure I could feed lines to people if they forgot. A few of them did, but for the most part they were INCREDIBLE! Only one cue was missed, but the rest of the time they hit their marks every time. They knew their lines (again, mostly). They ACTED better than they ever had in any rehearsal. In short, it was a miracle. By the end I was almost in tears I was so proud. After their curtain call they pulled me out on stage and gave me a dozen beautiful roses and a bouquet of lilies (awww) and thanked me in front of the entire audience for being a great teacher (their words, not mine. haha) and for making an impact in their lives. Then they did some of my dirty work for me and let the cat out of the bag that I won’t be back next year and said they were so sad about it and that they’d miss me (and I did a vindictive happy dance and pointed and said “HA HA!”… in my head). Then they surrounded me and gave me an enormous group hug which I’m still feeling tingles from four days later. They totally succeeded in reminding me of what on EARTH I’m doing here. I’m such a phenomenally blessed woman to have the job that I do, even if it is less than ideal right now. My drama kids have been the bright spot in this year. I’m so grateful for them. SO so grateful.

Sunday morning I slept in until 8:45. A year ago that would have been early for a weekend… and now it’s unheard of. Matthew got up at 6:30 when Lily woke up and after I got up he made me breakfast. My life-long vegetarian husband even made me turkey bacon (my breakfast favorite) and egg whites. Yummy. Then I got presents. YAY! I’d already received a super pretty necklace in the mail from my mom (a lily pendant), but Matthew gave me some stuff from him and his mom on Sunday. My MIL got me some yummy smelling body lotion and some herb scissors (she always gets me such handy kitcheny things!) and Matthew (and Lily) got me a set of earrings and a matching necklace. Both had lily charms and they’re beautiful. Good job, husband. After we got ready two of my drama girls showed up to watch Lily for the afternoon while Matthew and I went out for a little Mother’s Day date. We went to see The Avengers (which was great!). We got home and I had to do lesson plans (blah) and get ready for the week of work. All in all, it was an incredibly busy, but great weekend!

Happy Dancing!!!

AHHHHHHHH!!!

Hello blogosphere! Today we got some good, great, WONDERFUL news. This weekend we’re putting on our traveling pants and heading to North Dakota. Bismarck, to be exact. To be even more exact, we’re heading to Dakota Adventist Academy for a face-to-face interview with the Board and to let the Principal see Matthew interacting with some students. This, friends, is a very VERY good thing. It’s a good thing because it’s the last week of school for DAA. It’s graduation weekend, in fact. If they want to see him with students, he’s the ONLY one who they’re seeing with students, because there’s no time for any other candidates to make the trek out there. I’m jumping the gun, yes, but this all seems to be VERY VERY good stuff, if you ask me.

We leave on Thursday afternoon and will be getting back home Sunday night. Hold on a minute while I catch my breath as my life begins to gain traction and the world starts to be drastically LESS terrifying. I could very well be coming home this weekend knowing the direction my life will be heading for the next several years. I can put down roots, make plans, feel safe, STAY HOME WITH MY BABY!!! No seriously, I’m having a little bit of a flip out here.

Prayers are still needed and very much appreciated for this weekend. Hopefully all will go well and God’s plan and mine are aligned for the first time in a LONG time. What a blessing that would be.

She Walks

We have a walker on our hands, ladies and gents. Here’s a quick “trailer” I made of the “journey” to walking”. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bRG5YjLFjM&list=HL1336855283&feature=mh_lolz

Much Ado About… Something?

My drama kids and I are putting on our play this Saturday night. We’re doing Much Ado About Nothing, my favorite Shakespeare play. I’ve learned something in the process of directing this play. Shakespeare + teenagers = bad idea. Unless the kids are SERIOUS about drama and acting and all that jazz, it’s a bust. Oh the things I would redo in life if I had a rewind button. I thought after modernizing the script and putting it in a 20th century setting and giving ourselves over five months to rehearse, it would be doable. Oh how wrong I was. But the time has come and, ready or not, here we go.

Last night was our dress rehearsal. It was actually the best rehearsal we’ve ever had. That was encouraging. My problem people had their lines down MUCH better than in the past. However, there were still some flub ups. I think I might have to sit off stage and feed lines to some of the less dedicated members of the cast who still, three days before the production, don’t have their lines memorized. Oh boy. But I’ve done all I can. Programs are made, costumes are assigned, props are purchased. Now we just need to do what needs doing and pray it’s not a COMPLETE bomb. Ooooph.

Also this weekend is 100,000 other things on Rio’s campus. I picked this weekend for our performance because: 1) it gave us as much time as humanly possible to practice and 2) it was the same weekend as the choir performance and I figured parents who were coming for that would be happy to have something else on the same weekend rather than have to choose between the two. Turns out there’s more going on than I anticipated: home group vespers tomorrow, Open Table Sabbath afternoon (our school’s community outreach thing done once a quarter), a spelling bee in our chapel on Sunday morning, the choir concert sunday evening, oh ya, and my first Mother’s day. After this weekend is over I’m going to release a sigh of relief that will be heard around the world. No joke.

This weekend ending will also mean that Matthew and I have to start studying for our Constitution test to clep a class for our Master’s program. I know, I know. ANOTHER test? Yes. Another blasted test. If this quarter got any more busy, I’d implode. I’m also doing my last observed student teaching day in Senior English next Tuesday and I have to finalize my lesson plan for that. BUT I will have no more drama class after this weekend so that will free up a LOT of my time. I will also have virtually nothing left to do for lesson planning in my actual classes because we’re just doing a grammar review to prep the ESL kids for their exit exam in two weeks. Finals are coming and that means moving is coming (is it bad that I still haven’t packed a single box? Yikes). Lily’s birthday party (and birthday, imagine that) are coming and… oh boy. I need to stop thinking.

I would, however, welcome the stress of planning a move if we knew where we were going. Wouldn’t that be novel.

Here Comes the Sun… Possibly.

Matthew had a surprise phone interview yesterday morning with a school he applied for so long ago that we completely gave up hope. The interview was very positive, and after hearing from a couple of Matthew’s references today, a job offer could be forthcoming. Problem? It’s in North Dakota. We have a record of never having been picky with the location of our jobs, but we’ve also never been offered a job so far away from home. Either of our homes. My parents are in a bit of a tizzy about us being so far away and them not getting to see Lily as often as they’d like to. However, they’ll be dissatisfied until we’re living right next door. It’s not that I don’t want to be close by to my family; I definitely do. Still, I’ve grown somewhat attached to my independence since we’ve gotten married and started trotting the globe. And this school could be something really good and semi-permanent for us. A good friend from PSR (the summer camp Matthew & I met and worked at, for those of you reading along who don’t recognize that acronym) is working there. Actually she’s the Vice Principal there. We’d have someone our own age right on campus with us. It’s also only a stone’s throw (if you can throw a stone 6-7 hours away) away from some of our other good friends living in Minnesota. And the best thing of all, for me, is that Matthew could work and I could stay home with Lily, and later (much later) with baby #2. I wouldn’t complain if things ended up like that at all.

What upsets me is not that my parents are dissatisfied with this possibility, but that they (namely my mother) actually expect us to consider turning down a perfectly good job offer. As if we have better options. Of course, to them, moving into their house and becoming one big codependent lump IS a better option. I’m determined that that isn’t going to happen, though. What a nightmare. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t just been offered an interview at a school close to them (so close, in fact, that it’s the same one! haha). It’s just an interview, though. And it’s still ME with the job, not Matthew. Our relationship has taken a hard hit with me being the one working and him staying home with the baby. It’s taken every ounce of strength I have, everyday, not to be so discouraged about the fact that I have to leave and he gets to stay that I just completely fall apart. I don’t think I could do another year of that. I don’t think he could either. It has to be demoralizing for a guy to have his woman as the breadwinner.

So now, once again, as I seem to always be, I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock being my mother and the hard place being my family’s future. The people-pleaser in me wants to throw my hands up and say, “FINE! You win. We’ll move in and stay forever.” The crazy, independent, risk-taking, partially-still-rebellious teenager in me wants to say, “It’s my life, not yours. Butt out!” In either case, nobody really wins. One party (or both) is left upset and dissatisfied. Still, I CAN’T be unhappy with the prospect of a job offer. I just can’t. It’s what we’ve been hoping and praying and BEGGING for. And if I have to move to North Dakota for things to start turning around for us, well then Bismarck or bust!

Of course, there’s still the possibility that all of this soul searching is a waste of time and Matthew won’t be offered the job and I will do the interview I have set up and I won’t get that either and we’ll still have to move in with my parents and be failures at life. What a cruel reality it is that I get my hopes up SO high after every interview and am only disappointed every. single. time. I will learn someday… right?

Day 30: Who are you?

I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend and teacher. In that exact order. I’d like to think that I’m strong, though I’m probably overestimating myself in using that word. I’ve been through what I perceive to be a lot, but in comparison to what others have survived, I’m a pansy. Still, I hold up fairly well under pressure… for a while. I’d also like to think that I’m considerate of others’ feelings. Sometimes too much so, yes, but I think it’s mostly a positive character trait. It’s certainly one that I wish more people in the world demonstrated. I’m a people-pleaser. I’m terrible at saying no. I can’t ask for favors (we’ve covered this ground already). I’m stubborn. I’m determined. I’m dramatic. I’m ambitious. I’m impatient. I am many, many things.

I’m a person who always wants more for her life. In a good way, I think. Not an unsatisfied or hard to please way, but in a way that says I know what I want out of my life and out of myself and I’m not willing to stop working toward those things. You know those people who have to drop out of school to get a job and people say, “Well now you’ll never got back.” I’m not that kind of person. I’m not one to get “stuck” in a place or situation and not do everything in my power to get out of that situation and into one I want. I suppose that’s why I haven’t had a consistent job (reason for leaving this job excluded). I don’t get “comfortable” in uncomfortable situations, I move on from them and find something better.

I’m also a person with a lot on her plate, so I should probably skeedaddle and get some things done. See ya later, blog challenge 2012!

Day 29: In this past month, what have you learned

I assume that this question is meant to limit my answers to what I’ve learned through the blog challenge itself. Well, it’s taken me not a month, but rather three-ish, to complete this challenge. Still, I have learned some things in the past month. Whether or not the blog challenge had anything to do with it is debatable…

1. I am not superwoman. I knew this already, but I think I might have forgotten a little bit. I put too much on my plate and forgot to calculate in the amount of lethargy/exhaustion that sets in around April/May on a high school campus. Especially if that’s a boarding school campus. Between the drama production that I’m putting on with my kids (next weekend, holycrap!) and my regular lesson plans and my own schooling AND this stupid CSET test I’ve been studying for (tomorrow, holycrapER!!), I’m totally shot. I had a complete mental break from reality this past week. Thank goodness for my amazing husband who grounded me and kept me sane. That brings me to number two…
2. It’s ok to ask for help. I have to relearn this lesson every time I get in too deep. Each time I think, “Never again. Next time things get really dodgy and I feel even slightly overwhelmed, I’m going to practice some healthy delegation techniques.” Each time I fail. I constantly find myself juggling everything and doing favors for 10,000 people and feeling unable to ask for help. Whether it’s because I’m embarrassed to look weak or I don’t want to inconvenience other people (that’s usually the one), I don’t do it. This month I learned (again) that it’s ok to ask for help.
3. I deserve the same consideration that I give to other people. As spoken of above, I usually don’t ask for help because I’m afraid that I’m going to be troubling others. This is something I struggle with in a big way. I’m terrified of inconveniencing, upsetting, or coming across in any negative way to other human beings. I go out of my way to placate people. I fear what they’ll say, or worse, what they’ll think. This usually keeps me from a lot of opportunities and gets me stepped on by more dominant personalities. Matthew is always telling me that I need to stop assuming that everyone in the world is a big, bad monster. He’s right. It seems like this only gets worse when I’m put in a situation where I feel insecure. So this year, I’ve been basically terrified any time I’m not in my own house. Yay!
4. My husband is a rock star. I don’t give him enough credit. He stays home with Lily all day and I get fixated on the fact that I’m jealous that he gets to spend everyday with her and I don’t. I forget to take into account that he has to spend everyday with her and I don’t. If that doesn’t make sense I’ll just assume you’re not a parent. Maybe he doesn’t get as much done as I think I could if I were the stay-at-homer. Maybe he takes days off and stays in his pajamas all day long and doesn’t do the dishes and I have to pick up the slack a little bit. However, 90% of the time he is on his game and gets things done that I could never summon the energy to accomplish after working all day. He also knows how to navigate my freakouts and calm me down. When I woke him up at 3AM this week crying and listing all the things I couldn’t accomplish, but had to, he stayed up with me planning and making lists and convincing me that this all was doable. And if it didn’t all get done 100% to my satisfaction, I just needed to accept that. When we went back to sleep at 5AM, I felt like the world was a much more manageable place. Thank you, husband!
5. I hate boarding schools. Is this career suicide? Are future perspective employers reading this? Possibly. Do I care? Not in the least. At least… not at the moment. This is another lesson I’ve learned repeatedly over the past three years. I hate them. Hate hate hate HATE them. I hate the way they make me feel guilty if I’m not at the school until after dark every day. I hate the way they cause my job to invade my family time. I hate the way my students look at me if I have to tell them no about something. I hate that weekends off are nonexistant. I hate that my coworkers are my neighbors (This has only applied this year, because this is the only year I’m not friends with any of my coworkers. In fact, I feel like my coworkers completely loathe me and are constantly watching/judging the things that I do.). I hate that I have to worry about being a parent to my students when I just want to be able to focus my energy on being their teacher; a GOOD teacher. I can’t be good at both. I. HATE. BOARDING SCHOOLS! (Disclaimer: Many apologies if I offended anyone with my tirade. I’ve done it before. Some people are built for boarding school life both as students and/or faculty. I am not one of those individuals.)
6. Life goes on. When things are horrible. When I’m not ready. When I want them to speed up. When I want them to slow down. Life just goes. I need to learn to accept and enjoy that fact.

Day 28:A picture of you last year and now, how have you changed since then?

This EXACT TIME last year (taken April 28, 2011, so two days short of one year ago)

And now…(as in literally, right now)

Ok, so you can’t see the same parts of me in either of these pictures, but one thing is obvious: someone as pregnant as the woman in the first picture is certainly NOT pregnant now. That’s the biggest change. I guess we could look at a picture of how much Lily has changed in a year. Refer to picture one for last year’s reference point.

And this picture for now:

Ya, she’s changed a little too, I guess. Mostly because she’s three times the size she was and eats, breaths, and expels waste independent of another being (me). That’s a big change, definitely.

How have I changed though, aside from not having a human being inside of me? In so many ways that I can’t begin to even name them all. But I can try to name a few.

• I’m quieter than I was a year ago. That probably has a lot to do with the environment I find myself in. I’m a loner these days. I keep to myself at work because it feels like I have to. There’s that isolation and feeling of being unwanted and in the way all the time. Not a good feeling, so I choose to avoid other people like the plague. Mature, right? :/
• I’m more worried. Before becoming a mother I worried about everything. Money, the future, freak accidents, act of God and nature, the works. Now that I AM a mother, I worry about all of those things plus a million more tiny, completely illogical things that will never and most likely COULD never happen. I worry about escaped convicts breaking into my house and kidnapping my baby in her sleep. I worry about being on the road with a drunk driver. Ever. I worry about my baby contracting West Nile Virus, Smallpox, Polio, Anthrax… any number of rare or eradicated diseases that might not be curable. I just plain worry.
• I’m less confident. Much less. Last year I felt so alive in my career and in who I was as a person. I was ready to be a mom, a world-class teacher, and just a generally good person all around. I felt like those things were part of who I was. I just felt GOOD about myself in every respect. Now I’m lucky if I can look myself in the mirror without being overwhelmed by self-loathing. My job has made me feel completely inadequate professionally. And not just because of how other people perceive me, but because it’s so incredibly hard to do a job well that you so greatly dislike. ESPECIALLY if that job is teaching. I feel like I look disgusting all the time. And I probably do. I’m so busy working and with Lily and taking stupid Master’s classes that when I have free time I just want to sit and stare mindlessly at the television. I don’t want to cook healthy food and I CERTAINLY don’t want to exercise. So I’m overweight and slovenly looking. My clothes don’t fit and I’m reverting back to pregnancy level acne breakouts. I have no friends to laugh at my jokes or reinforce my self image, which has always relied heavily on the feedback I receive from other people (bad, I know). I’m a mess, people. No joke.

So those are the main talking points for Lynsey’s 2011-2012 metamorphosis. When I look at pictures of me last year or read old journal entries and blog posts, I can’t help missing that person. Such a huge part of my life hadn’t happened yet and I was so excited and ready and confident and happy. I wish, for my sake, but mostly for Lily’s, that I could combine who I was then with who I am now. She deserves a mom who smiles more and values herself outside of the safety of her own. She deserves a woman who can teach her to be confident and strong, two personality traits that I have lost in the past year. I hope I cant look back on my life from my seat on this day next year and realize how much I’ve changed for the better. How much happier and stronger and better of an example I am for my daughter. I do want that.

Day 27: Why are you doing this 30 day challenge

I’m doing this challenge because I need something to take my mind off the absolutely abismal chasm of stress that is my life. Plain and simple.

Normally blogging is my outlet for my frustrations, annoyances, sadness, and just a general airing of all my grievances with the world and the people who live in it. Sometimes I have happy things to write about, but not often. It’s not that I’m not a happy person. I just find it easier to share my happiness with people than I do my sadness. Does that make sense? If I’m excited about something or have good news I have no problem calling up my best friends and assorted family members and sharing with them so they can take part in my joy. That doesn’t come so easily with the bad things that happen in my life. I don’t know why I have so much trouble telling people when I’m going through a hard time. Maybe I feel like they think I’m whiny. No one wants to be around someone who’s constantly complaining about their life. I certainly don’t. I make it my mission to be happy and fun when I’m with my friends and not to waste our time together running them through the gambit of my stressers.

I’ve always been this way, I think. It’s why I’ve latched so tightly to writing. It’s easy to put my thoughts on a piece of paper. No one has to read them except me. Also I appreciate the heightened sense of awareness that comes after writing everything I’m feeling down. It helps me sort through things and figure out how I REALLY feel about something. However, I got to a point with this blog where I just felt like the negativity was creating a vicious cycle and making things worse instead of better. I’ve always been a believer of mind over matter. If life sucks, put on a smile anyway and eventually even YOU will start to believe that everything is going to be ok. I haven’t been doing so great of a job thus far with this situation, but I have been trying. It’s hard to put on a happy face when you spend the majority of your day in an environment that seems to excel at nothing but sucking all the joy and happiness from your life. That’s how my job feels right now. It’s like a happiness leech. I come home from work and just hold my baby for a good five minutes to remind myself that life IS good and I DO have something to keep moving on for.

I started this challenge to pull my focus away from my situation and reflect on something else for a change. I also did it to get me into the habit of regularly writing again. It’s a healthy thing for me to have a way of venting my feelings and expressing my voice. When I don’t write, I don’t feel whole. My blog has become like a friend I can turn to for comfort. The people who actually read it are my sounding board for the things that I go through in life. It feels safe because no one HAS to read what I write. If I start to complain too much or ramble on, they can just close the browser and go on with their lives and I’ll be none the wiser. It’s safe and comfortable, yet still personal. I love that.

Day 26: What you think about your friends

This is an incredibly ridiculous question. What do I think of my friends? It’s not as if they were forced upon me or genetically linked to me for life. Friendship is a choice. One that I have UNmade with several people several times. If you don’t think good things about your friends, don’t they cease to BE your friends? I don’t get what I’m even supposed to say… I guess I could be more specific about what I think about them.

I think my friends are, most of the time, the best people I’ve come into contact with. Now I say most of the time because we’re all human and my friends are not exempt from screwing up sometimes and ticking me off. They do it. Some of them do it more often than others. Still, there is something about each one of my friends that gives me the ability to forgive them and them to forgive me. My relationships with my friends (all of them) have grown and changed with time. As that process has occurred, we’ve experienced some growing pains; misunderstandings, fights, lashings out. Our relationships are different today than they were the day they started. Some of us are less clos, some of us more so than ever before. I wish that last one were true for more of them, but sadly it’s the opposite that seems to be happening.

I appreciate that my true friends make an effort to be involved in my life even though I’ve been far away from basically all of them for the majority of our friendship. I appreciate that they choose to involve me in THEIR lives in whatever capacity. I like that they support me when I struggle, they pray for me when I’m in trouble, they offer help whenever they can. There have been quite a few jobs that have come as a result of friends who have heard something or friends who have recommended us for something or friends who have just prayed and encouraged us to go out on a limb. I appreciate the faith they put in me and my abilities. I appreciate the differences they accept about me.

My friends are funny. I don’t usually bond with boring people. If they’re not naturally funny on their own, they appreciate my sense of humor enough that our interactions are still full of laugher. I can’t abide by a dull friend. That might sound snooty, but a sense of humor is what keeps life livable in my book. If you can’t laugh at life with me, we probably won’t get along very well. I appreciate most the friends who allow for me biting and oftentimes self-deprecating humor to be HUMOR and not take it seriously. I like the people who poke fun at me (gently and tastefully. haha.) and allow me to return the favor to them.

I think my friends are all strong and independent people. At one time my friends were primarily men, but as I’ve grown up I’ve discovered that my best friends have become the strong women in my life who show me a reflection of something I want to emulate inside of myself. They inspire me to be soft where my edges are still rough and unwavering in matters of protecting my dignity and my family.

Quite simply, I think my friends are just top notch.