Thankful November

I'm feeling particularly sentimental this morning, so as opposed to naming one thing a day, I'm going to name all 30 right now.

1. I am thankful for a Loving Heavenly Father that always gives me exactly what I need when I need it.

2. I am thankful for the most fantastic kids that just deal with whatever they are thrown like champs.

3. I am thankful for Haylee, who is compassionate and loving, and willing to help when I need her to.

4. I am thankful for Ky, for his loving spirit, and desire to please everyone.

5. I am thankful for Ian, for the loves he gives me and all the snuggles I could want.

6. I am thankful for Kyle, for the fantastic dad he is to my kids.

7. I am thankful that Kyle and I can talk and be friends, and civil.  I have so many friends that are much less fortunate and I am so blessed to be in a situation where we can discuss and work out schedules and kids and things quite easily.

8. I am thankful for a house, especially one that I don't have to stress over whether I can afford it or not, which leads me into my next (also, these are in no particular order).

9. I am thankful for the best parents in the entire world.

10. I am thankful for loving sisters that are always there when I need it (blood and in laws).

11. I am thankful the best parent in laws in the whole world, and also the knowledge that I will always be welcome there, despite what a piece of paper says.

12. I am thankful for a job.

13. I am thankful that that job allows me to still be at home with my kids and tuck them in at night.

14.  I am thankful for a car that is paid off.

15.  I am thankful for full cupboards.

16.  I am thankful for friends that are willing to put up with me and never grow tired of me (or at least don't admit it, yes Jena and Carolyn, I'm talking about you).

17.  I am thankful for nights out and days off.

18.  I am thankful for the internet, and the ability it allows me to keep in touch with old friends and to make new ones.

19.  I am thankful for an awesome ward that doesn't look at me funny when I cry every time I make a comment in church (not necessarily bad tears, but they are usually there).

20. I am thankful I don't have snow.  Yes, I had to include that one.

21. I am thankful for the desire to always do my best, which allows me new opportunities at work that are of benefit to me.

22.  I am thankful for prayer and for the knowledge that Heavenly Father never gets tired of listening to me.

23.  I am thankful for guidance from the Prophets, who know how to tell us exactly what we need to hear.

24.  I am thankful for priesthood blessings and the comfort they give.

25.  I am thankful for the opportunity to go back to school and not have it cost a small fortune.

26.  I am thankful for good health.

27.  I am thankful for teaching opportunities that allow me to share my testimony with my children.

28.  I am thankful for great school teachers that love my children.

29.  I am thankful for talents that allow me to take care of my family and make repairs and improvements that I may otherwise not be able to afford.

30.  I am thankful for the knowledge that families are forever, and no matter what, as long as I do my best, everything will work out.

School

I will start with an apology for a post with no pictures. I do have pics waiting to be posted just need to find the time. Also Ky's bday is in 5days! Plans are well underway and he is very excited. I'm just in shock he's actually going to be six.

So I've decided I think I'm going back to school. I'll go full time and quit my job and li e off student loans, yeah! Really though, I need to work towards a career, not just jobs.  I already have a major picked out, digital art, shocking I know.  Hopefully I'll be able to start in Jan at the community college and transfer to ASU after I get my associates to complete my bachelors.  I'm actually really excited and a lot nervous but it should be good.  Then I can sit with the kids at the table while we all do our homework together.  I'll continue to do preschool through the end of this year, then really dive in when Ian starts Kinder. We'll see how it all goes. I suppose better late than never!

As I stated, I'm getting my motivation back and want to finish the quilt I started way too long ago.  I'm wasn't sure if I had shared it with everyone, so figured now was as good a time as any.

The Spider monkey

Macaw

Anaconda

Toucan

Marmoset

Jaguar

The iguana is coming soon, hopefully by the end of the week.  I'm taping the pattern together tonight and starting to sew him up.  Then I just have a cursed tree frog.  I have yet to actually draw that one up, I have a mental block against him for some reason.  Any suggestions on how to actually quilt this thing?

How are you?

I actually wrote this post quite a while ago, and then I started having a bad week.  So, I couldn't hit post.  Just to prove that I am human, during that bad week I was furious and couldn't control the anger.  Luckily I also realized I was PMSing, so hopefully I can try to avoid hitting a low like that again.  At least when it happens next month, I'll be prepared for it.  So, in case you are wondering, I'm going into complete honesty with all of this.  This blog is not intended to be about what's going on between me and Kyle.  As far as that goes, he was a good husband and worked very hard for his family and he is a fantastic dad and he loves his children and they love him very much.  I will always love Kyle on some level, and as the father of my children, and he will always be an important part of my life, just in a different role from here on out.  So I'll stop rambling and just let you read the original post.  I haven't read through it fully again, but figure it's probably still very accurate.

So, just to answer the question I get asked periodically, how are you?

Well, to answer honestly, I'm OK.  I have moments of good, and glimpses of great, but spend most of my days at OK.  I'm probably still in shock a little, things still seem very surreal, like this is all temporary and we'll be going home any day now, and I know that will probably simply take time to fade and for me to accept completely that this is home and normal, so I'll keep giving it time.  I got my first paycheck today and the feeling of accomplishment and gratitude I have at being able to provide for my family is huge.  I know this job was lined up just for me, and while I still have days where I wonder how I'm going to schedule everything and still give my kids the time and attention they deserve, while working full time, and being a single mom, (especially once school starts since I'll still be working evenings since Ian's still home all day, but only one more year then hopefully I can adjust that), but I just keep going one day at a time and placing my trust in the Lord.  He's gotten me this far, there's no reason to believe he'll give up on me anytime soon.  I just keep hearing in my head, it will be okay, it will work out, so I'm leaning entirely on that right now.

I got my room painted, and am starting to put a little money towards completing it and really turning it into my space, hopefully that will help me feel a little more settled and less homesick.  I still can't stop thinking about all the projects I wanted to do/need to finish at Kyle's house, but if I start a long enough list for this house, eventually they'll have to fall off the bottom to make room for new ones.  By the time I move out, Mom just might have a completely redone house.

Overall things are steadying out, the tears are coming less and the smiles more.  I still have bad days, but I can see things slowly getting better (I think anyway).  I've fully taken advantage of friends who are willing to put up with my outbursts of emotions when I have them and to smile with me when I can.

I'm getting motivation back (as you'll see in subsequent posts) and hope to be able to continue working on a couple dreams I have in my head.

Thank you to all the support I've received so far, and I know one day I'll get through this.

The journey

So, with facebook and such, lately I've let myself get really far behind on the blog, I don't think I ever even blogged Ky's 5th birthday, and now here we are planning his 6th, so I plan to try and catch things up.  While pictures and stories get shared, I don't go into depth on things on Facebook like I do here, so hopefully I can change that, even if I just stop in once or twice a month.

Along with that and recent events, I found myself wanted to start a new blog as we continue on this journey called life (cheesy, I know, but hey, it applies :)).  Also, do you have any idea how hard it is to pick a new blog title?  It seems everything is taken and you have to be really creative to find something.  So, I finally came up with "Learning to be", why, well, cause right now we are all learning to be, whether it's learning to be a chef, or an artist, or a reader, or strong, or some days, just happy.  

I've been so blessed to be the mother of these 3 children and have a huge responsibility as their main teacher as they learn to be and know that I couldn't do it without the help of those around me.  So, while we aren't on a path I thought I'd ever find myself on, we'll figure it out and go a little different direction then we originally thought and hopefully learn what we need to along the way.