it'll be ok

today was our first farmers market, we have both been excited since yesterday because this was the trial run of "can kevin make enough money doing this while i still don;t have my teaching license?" i spent a lot of time yesterday making our signs and kevin was busy getting his stuff ready.

when we got there today, the shade we had been promised was non-existent, the chairs we were expecting were non-existent, and we were allotted half a table (my fault for signing up for the wrong thing). so we set up - and i cry - ... i told kevin i was sad because we looked so unprofessional. kevin didn't understand my sadness until he saw people literally render us invisible because we had no canopy. our society is all about presentation.

after about an hour, one of the managers came up to us and offered us her canopy - and from then on we rocked it as hard as we could, we actually ended up doing much better than we thought we would at this particular venue. and i think we can actually make a go of this urban farming as a job.

it's all good - even if i get sad sometimes

so, i started my new job this week. i am lucky because my immediate "boss" is a good college friend of mine who knows that i am valuable to the program already, so i don't have to pretend i never have a cup of wine or that i don't have tattoos to make her realize that i am good at my job (yes, utah is like that - even salt lake, though not to as great an extent as ogden).
i have second graders this summer. before this summer, i thought that what i really wanted was to just teach kinders, but would be ooo-k(?) with first - but it was nonsense - i love all the littles. i think i am just going to get my degree so that i could teach any elementary grade. i am seeing that each year has its own special treasures and challenges - just like everything in life.
i am, however, looking forward to finding a job where i can STAY. one of the reasons i don't want to leave parkview is that i LOVE watching my kinders grow, and i LOVE how i get letters from pre-k kids saying how they hope they have me as a teacher because i had their sibling. but i know that i will develop that at any school i go to. and i think that my principal has created a culture of fear at my school, and that's not what i want.
sometimes i think it might be boring to read about how much i love my job and my man and my daughter, but that's where i'm at. i mean, i get depressed - mostly over money. i don't want to be rich, but i am tired of worrying if i can even pay my bills. i am sad that kevin and i have both found what we LOVE to do, but society doesn't choose to honor either of our (FUNDAMENTAL) career choices with much monetary compensation. and like i said, i'm not all about money - i am just tired of scraping to pay my bills.
i guess what i want to leave this blog with, is that i feel blessed - every day. i have an amazing love, amazing family/friends, and an amazing job.

moving on...or, at least trying to

today was the last day of the school year. i found out just last week that i have a job to come back to next year, but that they weren't sure where they were going to put me. last week, they said either i would be in kindergarten again or in the 3rd grade bilingual class. i was cool with either. then my favorite teacher there (who is retiring) told me that the 1st grade bilingual asked if she could have me and apparently was told yes. i was pretty excited about this, because i would really enjoy working with that particular teacher. on my way out of the building today, i stopped to ask if they had solidified my position for next year. i was told, not really, but not in kindergarten and most likely not even in a classroom. i would do things like babysit the in school suspension and the playground, and do groups like ERI (early reading intervention - a scripted curriculum that is my least favorite part of my job). so i am pretty depressed.

i came home and updated my resume. so next week starts a new job hunt. i am thankful that i have a job for next year to fall back on, since i know that my district is cutting people all over. i just know that i belong in the classroom, and i need to work for someone who realizes that. so fingers crossed. universe? help me out? it's frustrating to know exactly what you want to do with your life, and then have people or circumstances prevent you from doing that. all i want is to be in a classroom...

endings

well, tomorrow is our kindergarten musical celebration and "graduation". it's so amazing to think back to the first month of school and how much they have all grown and learned. i really wish i could post some pictures of them with this blog so you could see how utterly amazing my kinders are, but apparently that's a no no. i feel so blessed to be able to spend my working life with these precious little souls. i know many of them come from some difficult home situations, but at least i know that while i'm around they are all cherished.

i cry every year at the end. i know i will still see most of them next year, but i still miss them. we sing a song called "the children of many colors". here are the lyrics:
from the ocean, cross the desert, to the mountain high
live our people, hear our voices, rising to the sky

*(chorus)we are the children of many colors
and ever since our birth,
we've been sisters, we've been brothers
and we live on mother earth*

sun of daylight, moon of midnight, guard our mother's land
we together, must protect her, every grain of sand

*chorus*

we move to the rhythm of the circle of life
and listen to earth's song
we dance to nature's heartbeat
and keep our mother strong

we all share the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe
we all share the skies above, the river below, the land we love

*chorus*
-end of lyrics-

so, imagine 75 ethnically diverse 5 and 6 year olds singing this song. ya, it's that adorable and heart wrenching. it gets me every time. then we go back to our classroom and they get their "diplomas". we all made construction paper grad caps as well - TOO CUTE! and i cry again. someday i will have my own classroom.

stopping to smell the flowers

well, my mom left today. it was a teary goodbye. i am trying not to be too sad though. i will try to make it out next month to see her.

i went over to the big garden with kevin this afternoon just after it had rained. the house next to the big garden is full of iris, roses, and peonies. i did not know until my mom's visit that irises smell amazing! i always assumed that since they were such decorative flowers that they probably didn't smell that pleasant. while my mom was here, we were taking a walk and she stopped to smell an iris and told me that iris was one of her favorite scents. so i smelled one, and they are incredible! while i was waiting for kevin to be done building his fence, i noticed that some of the flowers had raindrops still on them, and it was beautiful. so i took a couple pictures with my cell phone. i bent to smell all the flowers and had kevin come join me. it reminded me of my mom. i am glad that she is helping me stop and smell the flowers and realize how precious and amazing life is. no one knows when their time comes to pass from this life, so do yourself a favor and go smell some flowers while you still can.

here's to you, mom!

life without my mother

i try not to dwell too much on the possibility of life without my mother, but it's always a nagging feeling there in the back of my mind. i know that nobody has any guarantees on life, but dealing with an illness in someone you love makes you ponder death more often than you otherwise would. every time i imagine my mother being gone it's too much for my brain to handle. my mother is one of my best friends and i think the world is a better place for her being in it. i know that her influence and the good she has done will live on after she does, but i can't hug influence. i wish that i could go live in portland too, or that salt lake was better option for my mom to live. i am a bit jealous that my brother and adrienne get to have my mom.

mom is sleeping right now. she is leaving tomorrow and i am sad about that. i wish i had more time to spend with her. at least i had this nice long weekend. i enjoyed cooking for her - we have always bonded over food. i have many things to be thankful for, but i wish i had more mom time.

thankful for life's little surprises

i went and looked at my old blog today - the one i had on myspace. it was really fun to look back through it. it made me want to blog more, so here i am.

this has been an interesting few weeks. i got a call from my brother like three weeks ago saying that one of his friends just landed in salt lake and was supposed to be picked up by a friend in a school bus, but that the bus had broken down in flagstaff, so could his friend stay with us. (i know this friend btw; he wasn't a stranger or anything). so we said yes.the bus has taken a bit longer to fix than anticipated, but i am grateful for the time we have been able to spend with our friend. cassidy absolutely adores him - in fact i think she will have quite a hard time when he leaves next week. the experience has taught me that wonderful things come in unexpected packages.

as some of you know, my mom is dealing with illness. i picked up a random book from the library sale last month because it was by an author that i enjoy. it is called "the blue lantern" by collette. i started reading it, and it is written almost like a journal, it is not fiction (which i did not realize). at the time she wrote it, collette was in her 70s and was pretty much bedridden. the book is her musing over her life - both past and present. i was truck with how appreciative she was about life in all its ups and downs. it made me hope that i will feel and think like that when i am nearing the end of my life (assuming i don't die in fiery crash or some such thing). i decided that i wanted to give the book to my mother when she came to visit me. so the first week our unexpected guest was here, we were all hanging out in the living room. i said to kevin that i wanted to give my mom our blue lava lamp to go along with "the blue lantern". knate looks at me and says "what did you just say?" so i told him that i wanted to give that book to my mom. well, knate is a comic book guy and he tells me the following:

in the green lantern comics, the green lantern is powered by will, but other lanterns started to pop up. the other lanterns had different power sources (greed, rage, etc.). then came the blue lanterns - and they were powered by hope. i thought that was an amazing synchronicity.

my mom knows knate from when she lived in portland. so, when it became clear that he might still be here when my mom was due to be here, i decided not to say anything to my mom about him being here. for anyone who knows me, you know that is hard for me. i am a TERRIBLE secret keeper. BUT i pulled it off. i am SO glad i did too, because the look on my mom's face when she found knate on our couch was priceless!! first she noticed him, then came the look of recognition, followed closely by sheer confusion. you could almost read her thoughts (wait...knate? where am i? which child am i visiting? what city is this? am i going crazy?). it was amazing!

i hope i can get out to portland this summer to see my mom. it's very hard to process the idea of her not being around forever. i want to spend as much time with her as i can.