Friday, March 25, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Changes in Thinking
One of the funny things about kids is that they completely change your "original" idea of life. My "Plan" for life was I was going to have 2 kids, a boy and a girl, and be done by the time I was 28. 28 because I wanted to still have energy to run after my kids, and I wanted to allow my children to have a good relationship with their grandparents, so I needed to start the family earlier.
Well, this year I will be turing 31 (yuck! making horrible face that you can't see) and I am blessed to have Clark, but he obviously didn't want to leave heaven to come to Earth on the same time frame I had in mind. And neither are any sister or brothers that we would like to join us, hopefully more then just one more.
Very clearly the Lord has a plan for me and my family, and now looking back, if we'd had Clark at the beginning of Vet school or before Clint had started, it would have forced us to make tough decisions about me working or staying at home and the consequences of either of those decisions.
Clark has also brought about SEVERAL changes in my views of life. I never thought of myself as the stay at home mom type. I always thought I would have a career and a family and life would be wonderful. Well, once Clark was at home with us and I had to return to work, I went back kicking and screaming. I kept myself from crying, because despite how often I do tend to cry, I HATE crying, but was sucessful in not crying on my first day back to work. Although, I did call G.G. (Clint's grandma) several times that day to make sure all was well. As it was! :)
Clark made me realize that being a stay at home mom is AWESOME! I have been having so much fun watching him grow every day and I feel I have a wonderful connection with him because I am always there. Once I decided that the staying at home mom gig was the future I wanted, I imagined me playing at the park and hanging out with other moms during the day.
This changed a littel because after I had quit working, we moved back to Orange County. Although I grew up here, many of my friends live in San Diego and I didn't have any friends here. So I had to make new friends.
After we bought our house, we were blessed to have great neighbors that have a 2 year old son and not only did a friendship start for Clark, but us mom's have become good friends. We walk together almost every morning and take the boys to the park. Our new ward has also introduced us to other new moms and so Tavi, my neighbor, and I go and meet other moms at the park and we're slowly making a network of friends to hang out with, just like I had imagined.
I guess the biggest change that Clark has brought to my way of thinking is education. As a teacher, I haven't necessarily thought that public eduation was a bad thing, especially being a public school teacher, but I do feel that it's VERY flawed and needs LOTS of revisions.
Part of watching Clark grow has also allowed me to see the individual he is developing into to. He picks up on skills quickly and maybe it's my mommy goggles, but I feel that he's an intellegent kid. This I see as a problem and worries me as a teacher/parent. Since I am a teacher at heart, I am already doing things to teach him letter, numbers, and so on. Reading is most important on my list. I see Clark going to school and getting bored and becoming a behavior kids because he already knows the material. Let's face it, it's not a common situation for a public school to have small class sizes, ESPECIALLY in California. (This is something else I could write an entier blog about in itself). For at least the next few years the Army owns us and we're subject to going where they want us to go. And as thinking about our making the Army a career, I worry about gaps in his education becoming an issue due to moving around with the Army.
This has lead me to thinking about home schooling. My experience with homeschooled kids was that they were freaks. They were socially awkward, and miss fits. I did have the advantage of working with a girl who was homeschooled and was nothing like my previous experience. She said that her mom networked with other homeschooling kids. To me she was "normal" and I was very surprised that she was homeschooled.
As I've talked to parents that homeschool and done research I've noticed that homeschooling has drastically changed over the course of the years. I started thinking about it because my friend Jeanette had brought up some valid points on her blog and that later got me thinking. Also just the thought that, "Hey, I'm a certified teacher, and I can do just as good job, if not way better, because I won't have a bazillion kids in my class to teach."
So to keep this from being the longest blog post ever, I'm going to stop here, because I really just wanted to write out my thoughts on homeschoooling because it has been the biggest change to my thinking, so far, that Clark has done for me.
Well, this year I will be turing 31 (yuck! making horrible face that you can't see) and I am blessed to have Clark, but he obviously didn't want to leave heaven to come to Earth on the same time frame I had in mind. And neither are any sister or brothers that we would like to join us, hopefully more then just one more.
Very clearly the Lord has a plan for me and my family, and now looking back, if we'd had Clark at the beginning of Vet school or before Clint had started, it would have forced us to make tough decisions about me working or staying at home and the consequences of either of those decisions.
Clark has also brought about SEVERAL changes in my views of life. I never thought of myself as the stay at home mom type. I always thought I would have a career and a family and life would be wonderful. Well, once Clark was at home with us and I had to return to work, I went back kicking and screaming. I kept myself from crying, because despite how often I do tend to cry, I HATE crying, but was sucessful in not crying on my first day back to work. Although, I did call G.G. (Clint's grandma) several times that day to make sure all was well. As it was! :)
Clark made me realize that being a stay at home mom is AWESOME! I have been having so much fun watching him grow every day and I feel I have a wonderful connection with him because I am always there. Once I decided that the staying at home mom gig was the future I wanted, I imagined me playing at the park and hanging out with other moms during the day.
This changed a littel because after I had quit working, we moved back to Orange County. Although I grew up here, many of my friends live in San Diego and I didn't have any friends here. So I had to make new friends.
After we bought our house, we were blessed to have great neighbors that have a 2 year old son and not only did a friendship start for Clark, but us mom's have become good friends. We walk together almost every morning and take the boys to the park. Our new ward has also introduced us to other new moms and so Tavi, my neighbor, and I go and meet other moms at the park and we're slowly making a network of friends to hang out with, just like I had imagined.
I guess the biggest change that Clark has brought to my way of thinking is education. As a teacher, I haven't necessarily thought that public eduation was a bad thing, especially being a public school teacher, but I do feel that it's VERY flawed and needs LOTS of revisions.
Part of watching Clark grow has also allowed me to see the individual he is developing into to. He picks up on skills quickly and maybe it's my mommy goggles, but I feel that he's an intellegent kid. This I see as a problem and worries me as a teacher/parent. Since I am a teacher at heart, I am already doing things to teach him letter, numbers, and so on. Reading is most important on my list. I see Clark going to school and getting bored and becoming a behavior kids because he already knows the material. Let's face it, it's not a common situation for a public school to have small class sizes, ESPECIALLY in California. (This is something else I could write an entier blog about in itself). For at least the next few years the Army owns us and we're subject to going where they want us to go. And as thinking about our making the Army a career, I worry about gaps in his education becoming an issue due to moving around with the Army.
This has lead me to thinking about home schooling. My experience with homeschooled kids was that they were freaks. They were socially awkward, and miss fits. I did have the advantage of working with a girl who was homeschooled and was nothing like my previous experience. She said that her mom networked with other homeschooling kids. To me she was "normal" and I was very surprised that she was homeschooled.
As I've talked to parents that homeschool and done research I've noticed that homeschooling has drastically changed over the course of the years. I started thinking about it because my friend Jeanette had brought up some valid points on her blog and that later got me thinking. Also just the thought that, "Hey, I'm a certified teacher, and I can do just as good job, if not way better, because I won't have a bazillion kids in my class to teach."
So to keep this from being the longest blog post ever, I'm going to stop here, because I really just wanted to write out my thoughts on homeschoooling because it has been the biggest change to my thinking, so far, that Clark has done for me.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Baking
A few months ago I made the decision to start making my own bread because it's MUCH cheaper and totally more delicious! A friend of mine, Julia, gave me her recipe and it's been very easy to make and tastes great. Over time, I've experimented with changing the flavor a little. I've added flax seed, which tastes o.k., but hasn't been my favorite. I've also made another recipe that was handed down from Clint's mom. Unfortunately this recipe calls for 10 cups of flour, which will either make 2 GIANT loaves or 4 regular size loaves. I like this recipe because it uses dried milk which I have WAY too much of. When we moved here, I thought our box was ruined, so I bought some more to come home and realize that our original box was perfectly good.
The part that I'm having a difficult time with is this:
Holey loaves! Every loaf I make has a stinken whole in the middle of it. I have done some research on how to make the bread more fluffy and spongier but I can't find a straight answer about how to not get a stinking hole in it!
I guess on the good side, it it tastes good, except I think this loaf is going to feed the birds at the lake or something because it's not cooked all the way through either. Plus, I've been having a good time feeling like I'm being a good mommy and making more food at home.
On another semi-good, semi-disaster note, I made a lime meringue pie for St. Patrick's day.
I didn't realize you had the beat the heck out of the egg whites to make the meringue more fluffy, but it tasted REALLY good. I had 3 slices. (Don't tell Clint). HA! Like my green fingers?
The part that I'm having a difficult time with is this:
Holey loaves! Every loaf I make has a stinken whole in the middle of it. I have done some research on how to make the bread more fluffy and spongier but I can't find a straight answer about how to not get a stinking hole in it!
I guess on the good side, it it tastes good, except I think this loaf is going to feed the birds at the lake or something because it's not cooked all the way through either. Plus, I've been having a good time feeling like I'm being a good mommy and making more food at home.
On another semi-good, semi-disaster note, I made a lime meringue pie for St. Patrick's day.
I didn't realize you had the beat the heck out of the egg whites to make the meringue more fluffy, but it tasted REALLY good. I had 3 slices. (Don't tell Clint). HA! Like my green fingers?
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Jen's Story of Love at First Sight
As much as a romantic I am, I have to admit that Clint and I didn't have love at first sight. For one, he was dating someone else when we met, and I was too consumed with surviving high school and my desire to be at the barn instead of being at school.
So the first time I saw a 58 Chevy Corvette it was LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT! I was driving down Antonio Parkway going to the barn and saw a baby blue 58 Corvette driving the opposite direction of me. My thought was, DANG, that is an awesome car! What is it and how do I get one?
Unfortunatley today when Clint, Clark and I went to the Temecula Rod Run there wasn't a 58 Corvette, but this was the closest to it that I could find. It was a yucky orange, blah! And if I did want to go out and buy my own they really nice restored ones start around $35,000 or so. Guess I'll just have to wait a while.
Clint also found a love. He has been thinking about building a hot rod and this is the one he has been thinking of building.
This is another one that he liked.
We took this picture of a Ford Falcon for Clint's friend Jon.
Along with the Corvette, I'm also a big fan of antique trucks.
This truck was called a Cameo and had a cool paint job.
Here are two pictures of a Ranchero that we took for my brother. It's actually for sale for $16,000.
Picture of me and Clark infront of a car with a really cool grill.
The inside of a 57 Chevy Bel Air
Pretty blue car.
Oh and for the record, I just have to say that Clint is lucky that I like cars so much and that going to the rod run was almost as fun for me as for him!
So the first time I saw a 58 Chevy Corvette it was LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT! I was driving down Antonio Parkway going to the barn and saw a baby blue 58 Corvette driving the opposite direction of me. My thought was, DANG, that is an awesome car! What is it and how do I get one?
Unfortunatley today when Clint, Clark and I went to the Temecula Rod Run there wasn't a 58 Corvette, but this was the closest to it that I could find. It was a yucky orange, blah! And if I did want to go out and buy my own they really nice restored ones start around $35,000 or so. Guess I'll just have to wait a while.
Clint also found a love. He has been thinking about building a hot rod and this is the one he has been thinking of building.
This is another one that he liked.
We took this picture of a Ford Falcon for Clint's friend Jon.
Along with the Corvette, I'm also a big fan of antique trucks.
This truck was called a Cameo and had a cool paint job.
Here are two pictures of a Ranchero that we took for my brother. It's actually for sale for $16,000.
Picture of me and Clark infront of a car with a really cool grill.
The inside of a 57 Chevy Bel Air
Pretty blue car.
Oh and for the record, I just have to say that Clint is lucky that I like cars so much and that going to the rod run was almost as fun for me as for him!
Friday, March 4, 2011
Week's Recap
This week has been a bit rough because Clint has been gone and in my attempt to keep myself busy I made dentist appointments and doctor appointments. NOT the best idea! I had a root canal on Monday which caused IMMENSE amounts of pain. My vist back to the dentist on Wednesday wasn't much better. So the beginning of the week wasn't that great for me.
Clark also had a rough week. He REALLY missed Clint this time. Wednesday night was the only night so far that he slept the entire night and in his own bed the whole night. On top of him not sleeping very well, he has been falling A LOT! I am not sure if he is just growing or if he is trying to learn to run and falls. He fell on the corner of a toy and got a big goose bump on his forhead. Then the same day he fell on his face at the park and got a mouth full of sand and a scratched up lip. Today he fell and hit the back of his head and to add insult to injury, he slammed our roll top desk down on the finger he smashed on Sunday.
But on the positive, he is talking, or trying to talk a lot more. He already has a clear vocabulary of:
Hi
Bye bye
Ut Oh
All Done
Momma
Dadda
Then he is saying the same stuff that we say. We were on the phone with Clint and I told him to say I love you to his daddy, and he totally said it. Of course, if he said it out of the blue, you might not be able to tell what it was.
He also says thank you and please if you tell him.
So maybe all the falling is doing some good. HAHAHA!
Clark also had a rough week. He REALLY missed Clint this time. Wednesday night was the only night so far that he slept the entire night and in his own bed the whole night. On top of him not sleeping very well, he has been falling A LOT! I am not sure if he is just growing or if he is trying to learn to run and falls. He fell on the corner of a toy and got a big goose bump on his forhead. Then the same day he fell on his face at the park and got a mouth full of sand and a scratched up lip. Today he fell and hit the back of his head and to add insult to injury, he slammed our roll top desk down on the finger he smashed on Sunday.
But on the positive, he is talking, or trying to talk a lot more. He already has a clear vocabulary of:
Hi
Bye bye
Ut Oh
All Done
Momma
Dadda
Then he is saying the same stuff that we say. We were on the phone with Clint and I told him to say I love you to his daddy, and he totally said it. Of course, if he said it out of the blue, you might not be able to tell what it was.
He also says thank you and please if you tell him.
So maybe all the falling is doing some good. HAHAHA!
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