To begin again...

Now that I am 40, I think I will start acting like I am an adult. Don't get me wrong, I know that I do not act like a teen, but I know I am not like most 40 year olds. I started off the "new me" by wearing a very professional, yet cool since it was already 80 degrees this morning, outfit to school plus make-up and jewelry. The immediate reaction of my students was that I was going to have a meeting with someone today because although I dress appropriately for work, I rarely put make-up on and jewelry. My students were hilarious in their reaction! One student said that I "look different today, pretty." I think that was a compliment.

Anywho, now that I am 40, I will need to make a list of things I will try to do so that others will know I am an adult:

1. Stop chewing my nails! I am really bad about this. If I do not get a fingernail file within 3 seconds of damaging a nail, I chew on it! I also chew on my nails when I am nervous. My daughter also chews on her nails. I need to stop to encourage her to stop, so I am going paint her nails in the super pink/red nail polish that she picked out to try to keep her from chewing. Hey, maybe I will paint my nails too, that will really traumatize my students!
2. Be more organized. I know this has been said before on this blog, but I really, really mean it this time! My office is a nightmare, it needs to be cleaned out as it is the last place in my house that is truly, without a doubt, a disaster. Those who know me will say, "Yup, never look in the office, it will always be a wreck!" Part of the problem is that I just throw things in there to get it out of the way whenever people come over so it looks terrible seconds after I clean it up. Of course, now I am afraid to go to Ikea to get furniture after the last time I got something, I ended in the burn unit with BJ for 4 days. (Ok, it was not Ikea's fault, it was the coffee, but the anti-organized demon who lives in my house seems to get angry everytime I attempt to organize.)
3. Get my yard into order. Since moving to our house nearly two years ago, we have not done much to the outside. I convinced Andy to get mulch this year because we had not done it at all last year and the previous owners had only done about 1/2 an inch to make it look good. We have made much progress on removing about 25 truckloads of junk from the backyard (the previous owners used the space under the pine trees to throw junk, something we did not see until after the sale!) and we need to complete the weeding in the back garden. If I work on it daily, I should be able to get the back yard under control in about a week and a half.
4. Plant a vegetable garden. I say I am going to do this and MM really is excited about doing this, but the weather has not been in our favor and so I have not gotten around to doing it. I really, really plan to do it this weekend, hopefully with the sudden temperature spike, we will have the necessary temperatures to at least plant tomatoes!
5. Make a budget and stick to it. This is it, I have to find a way to squeeze the nickel until it moos (old expression dating back to when the nickel had a picture of a buffalo on it, mooooo). As I stated, I have to find a way to pay for $313.40 a week for preschool/ daycare for the children. This coming school year is going to be really hard, but if I use the summer to carefully coupon, stock up and garden, I will be able to live on what we have. I just wish there was a way to stock up on cheap gasoline!
6. Related to the garden, I have an orchard one mile from my house. When the fruit is in season, I need to go pick it and then freeze it. My mom has one of those sealing machines, so I figure I can borrow it and vacuum seal fruit so I am not buying fruit out of season and paying a higher price for it.
7. Plan my meals out. I saw a woman who planned out her family's meals for the whole year therefore there was never a time that they did not know what was for dinner. They saved loads of money this way because they knew in advance what they needed to have and could stockpile items when they went on sale. Which leads me to the next item:
8. I am addicted to the new show on TLC called Extreme Couponing. I know that I will never be as good as one of them, but I am going to try to use some of their techniques to create a stockpile of things when I find them on sale. I was recently able to buy toothpaste for 50 cents a tube, which was great because the type I use is normally $3.00. The best I have done so far has been to save $42.50 on an order that would have been $120.00; I then used $42.00 to fill up the car. Not too bad, for me.

I am not sure it others will see me as an adult because I have done the above, but I feel like I will be more of an adult if I do them. The coming school year is going to be a challenge, so I need to use my "free" time this summer to get as much into place as possible whether or not others will believe me to be more mature and responsible. I still need to find a job this summer, but if I do not, all the above will help me get things in order to hopefully make it to December. Yeah, adulthood! ;P

Thoughts on turning 40

I have been off line lately. I have been very busy with the children, teaching and just living. I have been so busy lately that most of this month zipped by and I did not realize how late in the month it really was. I find it hard to believe that the school year is winding down and that my daughter is four years old (MM turned four on the 14th!). Even more surprising is that I am about to turn 40. I am not sure how I feel about that. I remember how hard it was for my mom, and I can honestly say it does not bother me in that way, but I have mixed feelings about it being a milestone.

When I was younger, I thought that I would have more wisdom, be less prone to mistakes, and generally have a better handle on my life. How wrong I was. I still make the same stupid decisions that I did when I was younger and still make mistakes. Shouldn't there be an age limit for stupidity? I know that I have not become less klutzy, there really needs to be an age limit on that!

Some truths about myself as I reach this "milestone:"

1. I will never make the mother of the year. I really thought it would be great to make the mother of the month, but even that seems out of reach. The local newspaper runs a mom magazine/insert once a month and the women that make it as mother of the month are too chipper, so capable and so much not like me that I figure if I can not even get into the final 100 let alone the top 5!
2. I will never weigh what I weighed when I was in high school. I thought I was fat back then, so looking in the mirror now is a real horror. So I decided to not care that I will never reach that perfect number. Instead I have decided to make sure I never wear a size 20 or higher. That sounds more reasonable. So if I do get down to a size 12 (which is as low as I ever really was) I will be pleased but not too concerned. I was in a room a teachers yesterday who were obsessed with their weight. They were talking about how they are so careful about what they eat, they never touch this or that and must, must fit into a particular size or they would simply die. I thought to myself: "So, I can become so consumed by a number on a scale that I stop living or I can try to be the healthiest I can be and still live. I choose life."
3. I really wanted to go whale watching for my 40th. Bummer. No extra money anytime in the near future. Will have to put that off until I am 45 when BJ is no longer in daycare.
4. I still want to win the lottery, but still do not play. Have not figured out how to get the first part and the second part to agree with each other.
5. I am tired of all the stress that I have been feeling over my job. I love my students and what I do, I just do not like the working environment we are in right now and it will not be changing anytime soon because somehow PA thinks that cutting education funding will be a good, sound long term investment in its future. My heart aches when I think about all the vital programming my district is cutting because of the lack of money from the state.
6. I am looking forward to spending time with my children this summer, but really need to work a summer job so that I can afford daycare next year. The current quote is $313.40 a week. I have figured out that if I can work at summer school, I will make enough money to cover the first three months, but then need to figure out how to come up with the rest of the money.
7. I will never go through a mid-life crisis because I am so far behind, I will never die!