Where does all the time go and how can we get more???

I love to blog!!! I love that I have a place to put my thoughts, feelings, pictures and fun things that happen to me and my family. I am a stalker of blogs I have to admit. I go on other blogs who have a link from either friends blogs or blogs I found in other places. I look and get ideas, I use their ideas, I copy some of their blogs to use on my blog with a reference back to them that I am using their stuff, I don't claim it as my own. They are helpful and very informative. You can access them from my blog if you want to take a look at some.

What I don't get is where do they find the time!!!!! I mean you need time to sit here and type up a blog, information to put on a blog and then if you add a picture you need to take the pictures and down load them into your blog and then arrange them how you may want them and explain each picture or they would make no sense.

The blogs I have been visiting lately is the DIY type. You know the ones where they redo some thing they bought at a yard sale or found at a thrift shop, or sometimes on the streets at curb side. They bring them home and redo them to their taste and how they envisioned the piece would look. I LOVE TO DO THIS!!! BUT........I don't have time. I print the instructions on how to do things and have all good intentions of getting to it, but I just don't have the time.

So where do THEY find the time?????? How are they able to not only find the exact piece they want ( which I would love to know how because believe me I have been in Thrift stores and the picking is slim), get it home, strip (which takes a long time and a lot of muscles work), sand the piece, stain or paint it, distress it, and put a finish on it. This all has time in between each step to dry so you can go onto the next step. I mean where is the TIME!!!!

I love to finished a piece and if I bought something and brought it home I better have the time to get it done. I mean I don't want to have things laying around and not get to them. That would be unproductive and a waste of money.

I have so many ideas I would like to do but old Father Time is short in the coming. I mean why don't we have more time???? What do we do with all the time that is in a day???? How can we use time more to our use????? To think about this you need time and no distractions to get a plan together. I'm a good get a plan togetherer (is that a word??)...I love to make list and check off things as I get them done...but I also love to relax and let the chips fall where they will too.

I just I need to sit and think and make a plan of all the time it would take to write something interesting on my blog and hope that I get feed back from people, and go shopping for that really cool thing to redo, and then blog my way to how I got it done. I am not bashing anyone I am jealous of the time they have to do something I would love to do.

So with all that is said let me pose this question. How do you have time to enjoy the things you like to do???? What do you have let go of to have time to enjoy them? What is important to you????

Can't wait to see what others have come up with!!!!

Just thinking!!!

Wow!!! It really was a hard thing going back to work after having so much time off..I know...I know...the ones who don't have the luxury of having the time off that I do would say why all the whining we don't get that much time off. I mean who wouldn't want to have time to get to the things I can't when I am working. Like sewing, scrap-booking, cleaning out a closet or two, DE-cluttering the house or just a room, just have time to yourself, read a good book, catch up on TV shows, or just stay up past 8:00pm. These things I can't get to when I work full time.

I know...I know... you will say but you DO get to have time off..you get a winter break, a spring break, AND the summer off. And you would be right. I get to have the same days off as Beth does. I get to have long weekends. I get to have snow days off.

I also get to have 27 children every day for 6 and a half hours everyday....when they are sick, in a bad mood, whining, have runny noses, have them cough in my face, and when they are crying. I get to have them not listen, say no a lot, not pay attention, they may not be on their medicine that day and that will send them into a whirlwind all be it self. I have to discipline them or the whole class, try and get them to learn while they are playing, to fight fair, to get along, to share with others, to be able to be good students and get them ready for Kindergarten. I get to then come home and deal with the problems in my own house and life.

But what you don't see is teachers stay late to get caught up on the paper work they have. The mounds of prep work that goes into lessons plans. They give up their free time during the school year to grade papers, make lessons plans for the whole school year, figure out what works in teaching this class this year, the many sessions they attend to better themselves and understand how better help a child who may be having difficulties. I have seen another side to teachers that the public and parents don't get to see. They deserve everything they get and they would and will fight for any student in their classroom. The children become "ours" for 9 months out of the year the same as it takes a mother to give birth to that same child. We know each one as an individual and try and mesh that with our personalties and the other 26 children we may have in the class.

So the next time you run into a teacher in the summer and you think how lucky they are to have the summer off, know this they are probably planning the next school year in their spare time, and they do it because they have a love of children and a love to teach.

Memories of Christmas past

As I sit here and think about my Christmas and all the things that happen and taken place it takes me back to a few Christmas to when the kids were younger.

Like Amy....she ALWAYS asked for Tonka trucks, you would give her a catalog (because back then you could look at a catalog and not the internet), she would sit with this big book on her lap and circle everything she wanted. The thing she circled were trucks, farm sets, more trucks and did I mention trucks. She did grown out of that stage but not for a really long time. Now she is married to a man w loves trucks...hummm was there something in all the truck liking....

David was more on the Techie side. He always wanted things that were more electronics's. They had these small computers he would sit and play with for hours...no wait that is what he still does...hummm in the blood I guess. He also loved taking things apart to see how they would work. One Christmas he wanted an Alphie robot type machine where you would put in a card and he did things like talk or you could play games with him. David you won't believe this but I did see an Alphie of today they still are selling him.

Stephanie was all girl!!! She wanted shoes and dress-up clothes and beads and jewelry. she would take off her shoes, hat and dress and lay them next to her so she would have them ready to be put on in the morning when she woke up. She loved and still loves pretty things!!!

Beth she had many interest but the one Christmas that comes to mind is when "Santa" brought her her play vanity. She was so surprised and just LOVED that piece of furniture. We put it in her room and she would sit there and put on her play makeup and she would get her sister's nail polish and put it on. By the age of 3 she was an expert in how to apply makeup and nail polish.

Those were the days and there were many more Christmas with all good memories. Some day it would be nice to be able to get them out of my head and on paper some where. Things to do when I no longer work I guess...

New Years Eve Eve thoughts

A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. (Author Unknown)

That quote kind of saids it all. Every year I seem to want to change some things that did not work so well in the previous year. Like lose weight, travel more, eat healthier, be nicer and kinder, keep a better house, don't shop so much (this one is really hard to keep), go to church more, have people over for dinner more and so on.

I want to be better and do better but time just gets away from me. Here it is the Eve Eve to a new year and I am wanting to make more resolutions that I know will be hard to keep past the first few months. Why is that??? I have good intentions! I want to change or do better at what ever I say but still I just can't seem to do it....

Sometimes it is a time thing, I either did not realize how much time it would take if I do this or that. Sometimes it is are you kidding me thing. Or a how much it that????

I then think why change, we are who we are right!! But we all seem to want to do things different no matter who we are or how good our lives look to others. So is that the reason we all want to change. So the appearance will seem better??? I know I have spent a lot of time looking at myself this year and the decisions I have made. Some good some did not turn out so good.

I think instead of changing things for other people I will change as I go along. As I see things work and not work. Say things I hope will lift others. Help in any way I can. Be there to listen, hug, and just cry if need be. I don't think that all changes are meant to be KEPT they are meant for us to take a better look at ourselves and change the things that we SEE can be changed. If we make a pre arranged plan and things don't go according to that plan we are more likely to not change anything.

So this year my New Years resolution will be to take each day as it comes, and go with the flow. I will said what is wrong at the time it goes wrong, help when I see the need, pray when it is called for( which for me is every second of the day), always have a shoulder for others to lean on. I just want to be more aware of my surroundings and with my eyes open.

So I wish everyone a very Happy New Years and may this coming year be all you would like it to be!!! Love you all!!!

What the Store Clerk Won't Tell You

I don't know if it is legal to use someone else blog post but I will give credit to the writer she has a blog called Joyful Living and her is her most recent post. I just thought with the Holidays coming up and all of us shop I thought her blog hit home. Please enjoy reading and maybe keeping somethings in mind when we are shopping this holiday season!!!


What the Store Clerk Won't Tell You

A trip to the mall yesterday was a vivid reminder that the busiest shopping season is almost here. Through the mall there were huge signs posted for Christmas "Be the Santa", Christmas music playing and plenty of merchandise being put out. If Thanksgiving had already passed, I would have fallen in the Christmas spirit, but I like to wait until Thanksgiving is over before jumping in to celebrate the season.

Here is a cute reminder to think of the hard working store clerks as they deal with the Christmas rush. Let's spread Christmas joy and good will when we shop by being good customers and bringing a spot of cheer with a smile and kind word.

13 Things Your Salesclerk Won't Tell You


1. The greeters who welcome you to our store aren’t really there to greet you. If we look you in the eye as you’re coming and going, you’re less likely to shoplift.


2. I won’t ask a yes-or-no question like "Can I help you?” Instead, it’s always an open-ended “What can I help you find today?"

3. Many retailers count the shoppers who come in, then calculate the percentage who actually buy something. If I don’t “convert” enough browsers to buyers, I hear from my district manager.

4. New merchandise goes at the front of the store, bargains at the back. The end caps on the back side of aisles at Target, for instance, usually have items 15 to 75 percent off. If you want a deal, try to figure out when your favorite retailer does its markdowns. Some do them on Thursdays or Fridays, others at the end of the month.

5. When you ask me if something looks good on you and I suggest a different style, take the hint.

6. Sure, I’ll put that sweater on hold for you. But most of the time, you don’t come back. So don’t blame me if I sell it to someone else.

7. My pet peeve? Customers who paw through a stack of shirts. Now I’ve got to spend 15 minutes board-folding that whole pile again.

8. Even though most of us don’t work on commission, sometimes we’re given a sales goal for each customer. If we meet it consistently, we’ll get bonuses and, eventually, a promotion. So when I tell you about a pair of earrings that would go perfectly with that sweater, I might have an ulterior motive.

9. Please don’t tell the cashier no one was helping you after I brought you six different sweaters in the fitting room. It’s rude.

10. We do a lot more than unlock fitting rooms. We scrub the bathrooms, Windex the mirrors, dust the shelves, answer the phone, and clean up after our customers. And that includes two-year-olds.

11. And what is it about fitting rooms that brings out the worst in people? You stick gum to the walls and even leave dirty diapers in there.

12. After you buy something, keep your receipt and pay attention. Most mainstream retailers promise a refund if the item goes on sale within a certain number of days after you buy it. Websites like priceprotectr.com track the prices of hundreds of products from retailers such as Best Buy, Amazon, and Sears.

13. With savings clubs, e-mail deals, coupons, Internet discount codes, and other incentives, fewer and fewer people are paying full price.

One year older

Well I hit the 55 year old mark this year in October. A girl at work asked me my age and I said "I am 55 years old today!" and she said " that isn't an age thats a speed limit!".

So here I am a speed limit. A little over half way to a 100. I now can get some SENIOR CITIZEN discounts in some places. This I really don't mind, but I don't even feel close to 55. I mean in my head I am still that 18 year old person who wants to have fun, like sledding...I think if I got down on a sled today I would break a hip or something. I thought of this today as I bought tubes for Beth to have for the snow this year.

I may not be able to sled but I can go tubing!!! I know this because I went last year and had a blast! In my head I can walk the mall for hours shopping, looking in windows, watching people....but now the next day my hips are so sore I have to relax and not do much for the day. The mind is willing but the body is not. Famous words from my father. I now am beginning to understand those words.

I know I push myself to do things because I don't want to admit that I can not do them as well as before. I believe I can do all I used to do but in a more slower relax and careful way. Anyone who knows me well knows I am not careful or slow. I walk with a pace most have a hard time keeping up with, I am so spontaneous it is not funny, I don't look before I leap, I go full speed ahead.

Age is that funny thing that creeps up on you and one day you look in the mirror and wonder who is looking back. I can't be as old as my reflexion shows can I? I have wrinkles where there was none just a few short years ago. I now have white hair, which I do like but it is a age meter to people who I meet. They see the white hair and just assume I am old.

The wisdom I have learned thought the years is such a hind site thing. If I had only known then what I know now. I hope to past this insight on some things to my children.

Well age will come every year and I will get older. I want to live my life best I can, take care of this body I have to enjoy this life with, give wisdom when needed, be able to have a good relationship with my children, make them proud to have me as their mother and be someone they would like to share things with. I do have experiences in life to share.

I would not trade my life so far for any thing, the good and the bad because that is what makes me me. I will grow old, that is the way of life, white hair and all. I want to enjoy my life and not put a number on it because age will keep knocking at my door.

A Contracted Employee Finally!!!!!

Well I am finally an employee of the Christina School District!!!!! It has only taken me 6 and a half years to get to this point but I am there now and that is all that counts.

I got the call on my birthday to see if I would like to accept the position that I am already working in and that I have worked in for the past 4 years. Nothing changes with my duties but a lot will change with this new temporary contract. Don't let the words "temporary contract" scare you, it is just because they offered a contract to me after the start of school.

What will change for me:
1) I GET PAID IN THE SUMMER!!!! Yes I now can have my pay for 26 pays which will enable me to get paid though the summer.

2) I get benefits at little or no cost to me. The state will pay for me to get health, vision, and dental free. I get a stipend allotted to me which covers this. I might be able to cover the family but will be looking into more.

3) I get personal and sick days!!!!! Before if I did not work I did not get paid. This will be nice.

4) I get paid holidays!!!

5) I get a pension!!! I know how much can be put into it since I am 55 years old but something is better then nothing.

6) I get a pay raise!!! Have to find out how much but then again anything is better then what I am getting now.

7) I am thankful to have a job. At this time of year and the way the world is today I am so thankful to have employment and be able to contribute to m,y family and the comforts we are able to have. I also am thankful to be able to help the children I work with. They learn so much and get such a jump on their education. They also teach me a lot so it goes both ways.

The winter is coming and hopefully we don't get a bad one again this year but what ever happens I will be warm in the knowledge that I have a job.