Crossroads or the View from Here

Take a deep breath.  It's going to be okay.  Let it out, silly!

I'm at a point where a great many decisions with long reaching consequences need to be made.

Do I buy this house?  If I do, do I live in it?  Or do I move to another state to be close to my fiance?

Where is my career path taking me?  I've spent so many years arranging my life around my children, that it seems weird to have options.  Previously, I felt like a plant clinging to a rock.  Anywhere I could get my roots into would work.  Now, I'm an animal looking for a territory to claim.

I love my Shaklee business.  I don't have to give that up.  Everything else can change and unless I move to another solar system, I can keep this.

So the question is, what about everything else?

I can be a truck driver or a bus driver wherever I end up.  I like being a bus driver, but I think I'll enjoy being a truck driver just as much and it would be a good experience.

I'm studying for my EMT practical and I don't intend to back down on it, but there is a little voice bugging me about how I might be a little too busy over the next year to volunteer much anyway.  I wish someone would invent a mental gag for all these little voices as it would be much easier to think positive that way!

The Party Bus

These kids are a little rambunctious, but they are still my kind of people.  It's going to take a little time to get them to understand the limits, but I have full faith in their ability.  The radio provides some specialized behavioral modification opportunities.

I cannot believe how much I'm looking forward to visiting my fiance.  I've been feeling a little extra stress with all the uncertainties coming to a head soon.  I love that combination feeling of excitement and calm when I'm with him.

We can have the house IF contractors and a real estate agent respond and IF we can get financing and I'm studying for my EMT practical exam and I'm still not sure where I'm living at the end of the school year, which building if I stay in Virginia and if I am staying in Virginia.

Permanent Substitution

I have my own bus route.  I'm still officially a substitute, but I will be on this route for the rest of the year.  This means I get to crack the whip and get the kids in line and enjoy the progress I make the next day and the next week and the next month!

I need an identification badge of some form though.  Every time they call the bus drivers into the school for a meeting, I need to go.  Every time I go into the school, some well-trained staffer "catches" me and escorts me around till someone more official confirms my identity.

Oh, and the bus has a fm radio and a loudspeaker system.  Pretty sweet if you ask me!

Accepted?

Our counter offer was accepted.  Now, we have to jump through a bunch of hoops to see if we can get 203k financing.  I'm excited.  I'm nervous.  I'm annoyed.

How hard is it to get a contractor to call me back and set a time to come out and do estimates?  

Plans and Schemes and other ways to Mentally Play in the Dirt

Hello, my name is Yvonne, and I'm addicted to garden catalogs.

Oh, I rarely even buy from them, but I look through them and sometimes catch myself drooling.  I mean to get rid of them after a quick look through, but I end up keeping them and they float around my house and  my car, taunting me with organic kale seeds and fragrant hyacinth bulbs and... Oh my!  Is that a ginko biloba?  I need one, right?

No...

It's been 27 hours since I perused the Southern Seed Exchange.

Tentatively, sort of, maybe

We put a bid on the house and we've heard back with a counter bid.  I'm putting together a response, but it's amazing how easy it can be to find information on the internet and how hard it is to verify the correctness and legality of that information.

Fake Estate

Seriously, my brain is wired a little different than most, but when I was growing up and someone mentioned real estate, I figured the other estates must be made of plastic or something.  Not real.

We're looking at a house.  It needs major renovation.  Crossing my fingers!

Risk is part of life...

There is very little joy in life with out risk. 

You know this.  I'm not going to spend pages telling you what you know.  So add a little hot peppers to your latest meal and where navy blue with black when you go snow skiing for the first time.

Me?  I'm going to go dancing in front of other people.

Valentine's Day Zombies

For those of you that know me, you're not surprised that I'm looking at this stuff.  I call my exercise/health plans and skill set increases as Zombie Apocolypse Training.

I love these two songs, the Zombie Song by Stephanie Mabey -

and Zombie Love Song by Your Favorite Martian - 

 and this song by I even found this adorable looking children's book for Valentine's Day.

Zombie in Love

Happy Little Trees

Bob Ross of the show the Joy of Painting had a few familiar sayings.  Mistakes weren't mistakes to him, but happy accidents.

Life is full of mistakes.  I know I can't make them all myself, but I'll try.  Why?  Because if I'm trying to do everything right, then I'll miss out.  I'll miss going for the exploratory walk down the by the creek while waiting for the swim team because I remembered and found my swimsuit, towel, etc.

I'm double booked this week.  My bus route doesn't end till 4:30ish 20 minutes away from where I'm supposed to be picking up a team at 4:30.  So, now I'm spending my time looking for someone to fill in for the team, but I'm not upset about the double booking.  It's giving me an opportunity to call people and chat with people that I don't normally have an excuse to call.

When we make mistakes on purpose, they become less about mistakes and more about learning and exploring.  Taking a wrong turn on purpose is definitely about exploring.  Deviating from a recipe is what allows us to take what we know and tweak it into something amazing or disastrous.  Is it really a mistake or an accident if we do it on purpose?  That depends on how you view mistakes and accidents.

I've move around quite a bit due to marriage to someone that needed to move.  It's irritating to get lost when I need to be somewhere at a specific time, but I've found some of the best places by getting lost, whether by accident or on purpose.  Sometimes, life is Better by Mistake.

Better By Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong

“Fascinating, vivid, and spectacularly useful. Alina Tugend is a whip-smart guide to the secret landscape where our (so-called) errors are transformed into powerful opportunities. Make no mistake: this is a great book.” – Daniel Coyle, author of The Talent Code

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea...

Yay!  I get to swim!  The swim team driver needed a break and I'm on the job!  She's toying with stopping completely so it might become a semi-permanent gig.  I pick them up at the high school/middle school and drive them an hour away to a school that has an indoor pool.  Wait 2 hours while they practice (and swim if the pool isn't crowded) and then drive them back.  Makes for a long day but I'm okay with that.  There are also some really nice trails around a nearby creek that make for a nice area to explore.

I can barely believe it got down to 7 degree Fahrenheit this Wednesday morning. It was crazy cold.  First, I decided my gloves weren't thick enough.  Then, I decided my jeans weren't thick enough, quickly followed by my coat.  I eventually decided my skin wasn't thick enough and that I would much rather be a bear with a huge thick shaggy coat.

Taking on too much!

Not today, or even in general, but I had this crazy idea that I was going to knit something for my fiance for Christmas.  You may have noticed, it's not Christmas anymore and I'm still working on this blanket.  I picked the wrong yarn.  I picked an ambitious project.  I'm not stopping though.  He's going to get this blanket.  Maybe he'll get it in time for his birthday.  Maybe in time for next Christmas.

I've found that taking on too much is the best way to get things done.  Planning a big garden might net me a little one, but it's better than none.  I like to putter at getting things done; trying to do everything at once makes me susceptible to feeling overwhelmed.  It's a matter of breaking down the job.

Each thing can be broken down to smaller and smaller steps till I find something I can manage.  Immediately after my first surgery, the idea of pushing myself to walk seemed insurmountable.  So I worked on getting up.    I broke that down to untangling the wires and tubes and sitting up.  Each motion can be broken down further and further, including the decision to move a certain way in the first place.

If you don't dream big, I won't get anywhere.  I'll keep dreaming big for now.

Your only limit is your imagination.

Stew Weather

I love the winter!

I grew up south of Miami, Florida, where I'm pretty sure it only snowed once in recorded history.  I still haven't tired of cold weather and I love snowy weather.

The best thing about cold weather are soups and stews. Oh sure, you can make them other times, but there is something about snow collecting on the grounds outside that whispers insistently, "Mmmm.  Stew would really make everything perfect."

Today is my son's birthday, so we're having pizza and ice cream, but I'm making stew as soon as the kitchen is clear.

I used to have a big recipe book of soups and stews that I bought in England.  Aside from the random challenges of converting the Queen's English to American English, and the measurement conversions, it was an excellent book that unfortunately was lost to water damage and mold some time ago.  I'm thinking about getting another one, probably one of these two from Cooking Light.

Any other recommendations? Don't worry if they are decadent.  I'm obviously adept at conversions after my last soup cookbook.