I'm Soooo Tired!

I'm exhausted.  I started a new job on Thursday at a local elementary school.  I'm a Title 1 Assistant, which means that I'm actually a Title 1 Teacher, but the district is too cheap unable/unwilling to pay teacher salary for this job, so they are calling it an assistant position in order to get away with paying the instuctional assistant, 29.5 hour a weeek, hourly wage instead.  Yeah....I sort of found that out the hard way.  I don't mind the job when I'm there-in fact, I think it will be kind of nice once someone has time to train me I figure out all by myself what's expected of me.  I'm working with groups of kids K-4, basically moving from place to place every 15-30 minutes, back and forth throughout the building.  Maybe I'll lose weight!  All of that is good, I certainly don't have time to get bored, and I enjoy working with the kids, but oh my.....the planning.  The.  Planning.  I've spent at least 4-5 hours yesterday and today working on lesson plans for next week.  Unpaid hours, of course.    Yes, if I were a salaried teacher, the hours of lesson planning and materials gathering is just an understood part of the job, but I'm not.  So, I'm whining about it.  But only at home, on Facebook, and here.  Keeping the smiley, perky, "just happy to be part of the team" on at work.  Anyhow, enough negativity.  I'll just stop and not mention the fact that I've already spent nearly $80 on supplies.  I had to buy my own stinkin' paperclips!

So, it's Saturday evening.  My son had an 8 am basketball game this morning, so no sleeping in for us, I'm up to eyeballs in laundry, I've grocery shopped and done my lesson planning.  I'm trying to get all of this done now, because, did I mention? I still have to work at my old job (the tutoring company) for the next two weeks on Monday and Wednesday evenings, too.  I'm stressing out, and exhausted, and my husband's frustrated advice of "Just quit, then!" isn't helping.

Enter some comedic relief.  My son, who had been peeling and eating a clementine at the kitchen table, comes over and grabs a freshly washed and folded washcloth off the coffee table (I tend to spread my folded laundry all over the table as I sit on the couch).  After he wipes his sticky face with it, he takes it to the table to clean up his mess.  He brings it back, clementine pieces hanging on to it and all, folds it neatly ( I had no idea he even COULD fold that neatly!), and sets it carefully back on the pile of clean washcloths.  This is the boy who never remembers on his own to put anything away.  I had to laugh-he was trying so hard to be helpful, since he could tell I was tired and stresed.  I guess I could put him to work folding the clean clothes...

Really?!

I feel like I'm always doing laundry-I do several loads a week.  But, I always have a serious back log of excess laundry.  This past weekend, I was determined to get it ALL done.  Really.  I started on Friday afternoon, and washed, washed, washed.  When my husband got home from work on Saturday, I asked him to please get his laundry from the floor of the bedroom his "special" laundry hamper and sort it into piles by color with the rest of the laundry, because I wasn't sure what needed to be washed.  He replied that all of it needed to be washed, and promptly fell asleep on the couch.  Mmmmmkay.  Guess I'll do that for ya there, honey.  Anyhow, not one, but TWO loads of laundry came out of the washer with packs of gum in them.  We like our laundry with a clean, minty fresh scent.  I found most of it before it hit the dryer, but not all of it.  Thankfully, the clothes were somehow unscathed, but Saturday evening found me peeling tiny bits of gum out of the inside of the dryer, and I ended up with gum on the bottoms of my socks and on the knees of my jeans. I know you envy the endless glamour that is my life.  After lots of complaining, and many dramatic sighs, I announced to my groggy husband that he was in trouble for leaving gum in his pockets.  Again.  (Yes, this has happened before.)  His response? I should have checked his pockets first.  Really?! I just washed 100's of articles of clothing, and I'm supposed to make sure everyone's only his pockets are empty after I pick them up off the bedroom floor myself? REALLY?!  His next response was that he didn't ask me to do his laundry.  Well, guess who will be doing his own laundry from now on?
Disclaimer-He's a pretty good guy, so I feel sort of guilty for posting this, but really?! C'mom! Be a grownup and pull the gum out of your pockets before you throw your clothes on the floor before you put your clothes in the hamper!

I got the kids haircuts last Thursday after school, and then Friday afternoon, I got them all dressed up, curled my daughter's hair, and took loads and loads of festive potential Christmas card pictures in front of the Christmas trees.  This is pretty much an annual tradition, and one that I generally stress over-usually needlessly.  The kids looked cute, behaved well, and didn't give me any "weird" smiles, like they do sometimes.  Pleased with our efforts, I let them change their clothes and play, as I downloaded the pictures.  Every. Single. Picture.  turned out grainy and sort of blurry. Really?!  I couldn't use a single one.  We repeated the process on Sunday with a different camera, which worked better, but the kids were sort of over it, and the pictures didn't come out as cute as the others would have been.  Bah Humbug.

I've had lots of little "really?!" moments lately.  I'm trying not to get bogged down with the frustration of it all, but it's difficult to "rise above".  I've risen as far as I can go! (And now I see that I need to knock the cobwebs out of those high corners again...)  Sometimes it's good to vent.  Speaking of "vents"...I hope there isn't any gum stuck to the dryer vent...

Oh, hi!

So, it's Thursday, and you've yet to see a post from me.  Well, technically, you are seeing one now, but it's probably Friday.  I'm such a creature of habit-I don't really have a specific topic in mind, and I'm too tired to come up with one, but it's killing me to not have a Thursday post!

Whew-it's been a busy week! My daughter's softball tournament was this week, which went well, then got rained out, then went well, then went badly, but still kind of good, and then turned out reeaaaaallllyyyy bad. Sorry, I know that makes no sense.  Did I mention I was tired? We are also preparing for vacation, which means I'm constantly doing laundry in order to pack, and then yelling at calmly and rationally chiding my family for wearing the stuff, so that I have to wash it AGAIN.  Actually, the kids knew better, my husband gave them clothing out of the "to pack" stack to put on today. Argh.  Don't screw with my organization. 

Packing for 3 people is a daunting task, but one that my control issues won't allow me to give over to my kids or husband.  Actually, I may be packing for my husband, as well.  On a trip a couple of years ago, we reached our destination before he realized that he "forgot" to pack his clothes.  Conveniently for him, there were lots of nice outlet malls nearby, so he bought all new clothes.  If I pulled that, with my luck, there'd be nothing but a Dollar General or a farm supply store within 50 miles to shop at.  Which means that I'd be wearing tube tops, overalls, cheap flip flops and a John Deere hat everywhere.  Another time, he forgot all of his socks and underwear, so our first order of vacation business was undies shopping at Walmart. Yeah, I think I'll pack for him-I already tell him what he likes to eat when we go to restaurants, and remind him to take his medicine, so, why not?

We're going on a 13 hour road trip, and I'm halfway wishing I could send them along without me.  Did I just admit that out loud? Don't get me wrong, I love my husband and kids, I really, really do.  Pinky swear. I could wax poetic about how much, or write some nauseating, public love letters, or post some softly lit, artsy fartsy pictures of us frolicking around a field in coordinating clothing with goofy smiles in order to prove it, but...yeah.  I don't do that crap here, so you'll just have to take my word for it.  Your welcome. It's just the whole, cooped up in either a minivan or a small hotel room together for 7 days thing that concerns me. Once we are there, I'm sure it'll be good-it's just the getting there that mostly concerns me.  Vacations (at least the preparation and travel parts) stress me out-anyone know what I mean? I always get stressed and grouchy before a trip, and then we have a wonderful time, after all (except for that one horrible trip to Chicago which I may share someday).

Anyhow, it's not storming here for once! We've had storms nearly everyday for the past several weeks-bad ones, too.  My poor son is both fascinated and terrified of storms. His little eyes get huge when he sees storm warnings scrolling along the bottom of the tv screen, and he flinches and cries out when he hears thunder.  He worries that every lightning strike will hit us, and that every tornado watch will send a tornado right to our house.  During the second storm that forced us to run off the softball field and to our cars last week, Tot kept telling me through clenched teeth, "Mom, I NEED to see a radar.  I won't freak out, Mom, but I NEED to see it." I have a weather radar ap on my phone, and he knows more about what all the radar colors mean than any 7 year old should.  Poor kid, we try to convince him that he is safe, and everything is ok, but he is such a worrier. My husband was teaching the kids how to read the maps for our vacation route in mini-atlases in great detail, and before my eyes glazed over, I heard my son ask whether there would be a Tsunami there. (Trust me, if we can drive there from Indiana in a day, there can't be a tsunami there.)  Any tips for helping Tot not be so afraid?

Well, that's all I've got for tonight. My posting may be a bit more sporadic than usual for a while, but I'll be back!