Summer update

I haven't blogged in a while. I've had a lot of computer issues, and my sister has been in town. Now I'm enjoying some quality vacation time for a week with my family at the Jersey Shore. I'm blogging this from a chaise lounge on the porch with a cool, salty ocean breeze blowing on me. As close to heaven as you can get.

Here are some pictures from my parent's camera I finally got around to grabbing from them. I'm stealing internet from the motel across the street, which makes uploading these pictures a little slow, but I've got nothing but time on my hand currently, so it works.

Here is one of Isaac taken at swim lessons. He has been doing a great job with swim lessons, overcoming a rocky first time.

These pictures are from the Sturgis Pretzel Factory in Lancaster. We got to tour this really old pretzel factory and try our hand at making our own soft pretzels.

We've also been spending some quality time at the Oregon Dairy in Lancaster as well. They have yummy icecream, some animals to check out and a big playground.

Weekend Wrap Up

What a great weekend!

Baking brownies.

Finally packing up all of the 4th of July/Americana decorations

Isaac's dad randomly taking him for the day/night Saturday

Finally buying him some new summer pajamas-- which he needed desperately.

Rock climbing at the Philadelphia Rock Gym with Jami

Then Zwahlen's icecream-- it had been been too long-- sooo delicious....

Great haul from the Phoenixville Goodwill:

brand new drying rack, H and M purse still with tags, Banana Republic shirts

Sitting around in Becca's backyard talking and playing with the dog

Getting mosquito bites

Coveting her rainbarrel

Riding around town in the "family mobile" (her dark green Mini-Cooper)

Getting free stuff everywhere we went that night because we were out with this guy (her hubby)

Free plate of breads and cheeses? Yes please!

20 dollars randomly comped off dinner at Tria? Yes please!

Belting out show tunes and oldies at a piano bar and starting a chorusline at Tavern on Camac.

Highlight of the night was the pianist busting out "Bad Romance" and then going straight from that to "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music.

Watching Sandlot with Isaac and being so thrilled that he liked it (You're killing me Smalls)

Texting all weekend with Nicole, a good friend I don't talk to nearly enough

Michael Jackson experience Redboxed-- so fun

Interesting church discussions this week

Planning a few fun things to do with JENNIFER when she flies in this week!

A healthy dinner with lots of veggies.

Life is good. =)

Rain drops on roses....

So I was just at my friend Becca's over the weekend. She and her husband had just gotten back from a workshop on making a rainbarrel a lot like the one pictured below. I'm so jealous!

I want one. Then maybe I would actually bother to water the poor tree in my yard.

ready to pay the price

*Sigh*. So it looks like I am going back to grad school again.

Long story (somewhat) short, I graduated from good ole Widener with a Master's of Special Ed, highly qualified to elementary education. As I interviewed for jobs it became very clear that the fact that I didn't hold a certification in elementary education was a huge strike against me, which is kind of infuriating to discover you are barely qualified after you have paid thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to get your degree.

I eventually did get hired in my current district. It has always been in the back of my mind to get to get back to work on my cert (see last year's goal list at the top of this page). This year when I watched some of my peers be laid off or cut to part time as our lovely Governor slashed funding to public education, it hit me that if I were to be laid off it would be impossible to go up against huge pools of applicants who were all more qualified than me. I would end up making hoagies at Wawa or ringing people up at Sears for the rest of my life. So this summer I got serious about getting back to grad school and just in the nick of time, as I found out that all of the certification requirements are changing very soon. I need to take 6 classes in the next year so get my stuff together before all the certification requirements change in the state of PA. Otherwise, I will have to take 11 classes under the new certification qualifications. Which was a little different than what I had pictured in my head (maybe taking one or two online courses and sitting for another PRAXIS exam).

I'm not going to lie, I had a pretty big breakdown about this. In order to qualify for financial aid loans I would need to take at least two classes in the spring semester, three in the summer and one next fall. If you were with me back in the Myspace blog days, you would remember that I am no stranger to working fulltime, doing grad school fulltime and juggling being a mom. It's not impossible. I have done it, but the tradeoff isI pretty much had no money, no life, no friends, my mother was Isaac's primary caretaker instead of me, and I was constantly under a high level of stress. The thought of going back to that lifestyle, without even the support of living with my parents was completely overwhelming. Not to mention the thought of taking out more loans to pay for it all had me panicked, as I already have an overwhelming amount of debt relating to school costs. I just really thought that chapter of my life was closed and the thought of going back to that pretty much caused me to totally fall apart.

Anyways, enough blathering on and on about this. As I do whenever I make a major financial decision, I asked my dad for his take on it and he helped me brainstorm some other solutions. I had forgotten to factor in tuition reimbursement, and when you take that into account my work will pay for a considerable amount of the cost, which means that I can take the first two classes one at a time, instead of doubling up. I will can do the bulk of the work during the summer when I am doing nothing anyways and I will only have to take out loans for three classes instead of six. This makes me feel better about things.

I have a friend whose dad is very into Indian Astrology and a few years ago he did a reading for me based on my birthdate, time and location. He reported that I would eventually find a lot of success in my career, but that I would have to struggle against many obstacles before I found that success. Anyways, I don't know how exactly you define "success" as a public school teacher anyways. I just feel like I have taken the long way around over and over when it comes to being a financially independent real live grown up and it's frustrating. It would just be nice to be be on top of the bills, maybe have something in the savings account, and not have something like having a fuel pump be a total financial crisis.

Anyways, I had all of this kind of stuff floating in my head when I was biking along the River Trail earlier in the week. This plaque was on one of the benches along the way.

And actually, that quote sort of helped me refocus.

livid

So, you may or may not have noticed that every single image from this blog (except the cookie one) is gone. I got an invite to Google+ and decided to check it out. I was very freaked out to see when I logged in that the site had automatically created an album with over 400 images from my blog and set the setting to be shared with whoever from the web feels like looking at them. . Many of them were irrelevant to a social networking site and I was a little freaked out that the site had (I assumed) imported them without my permission. I deleted the album with no hint from the site at all that Google+ and Picasa/blogger manage the same photos. The images were not imported but are the ACTUAL FILES. Now every image from the past three years of this blog is gone. Needless to say, I'm pretty unhappy. What a terrible design oversight.

Hey look!

I baked something and it actually turned out delicious! I've tried a few things from The Better Homes and Garden's Cookbook and been pretty successful. I was supposed to take a dessert along to a little BBQ this past weekend, so I figured I would give this recipe a try.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Rounds

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup of peanut butter*

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup chopped cocktail peanuts**

* I used all natural organic peanut butter

** I realized once I started that I didn't have any of these on hand, so I just substituted 1 cup of chocolate chips, because, you can't make anything worse by adding chocolate chips, right?

1. Mix butter and peanut butter with a mixer on high for 30 secs or until combined. Add sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Beat until combined. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. Stir in rolled oats and peanuts (or chocolate chips!).

2. Drop rolled dough 2 inches apart on un greased cookie sheets. Bake in 375 degree oven about ten minutes.

They were really yummy. I definitely plan on trying them again with the cocktail peanuts too.

So, going through my phone

I found some pictures Isaac must have taken...

So remember this post? (which incidently anonymous commenter, I DID have gas. When I need gas a little light turns on and then when I really, really need gas the car starts beeping at me.)

Well, today my driver's side window just arbitrarily decided to stop working. It makes the rolling down window sound but window does not move. =( Which pretty much sucks because my AC isn't really blowing out cold air anymore, so it doesn't take long till I feel like I am inside a greenhouse. Which is bad enough on it's own, but just when I thought driving in my car couldn't get anymore unpleasant/embarrassing, my brother warned me that window might arbitrarily just fall down inside the door at any moment and we might have to tape it up in the meantime. Thank goodness school is out, otherwise I would have to park my car a block away and walk to save face. I've never been a really vain person, but it seems like God is really trying to humble me when it comes to my car. Ugh, I can't even talk about it anymore.

Isaac's dad and I managed to have a series of civil enough conversations, including an awkward "Happy birthday!!!!" conversation where he said "It's not my birthday. My birthday is in nine days." Whoops. Anyways, M's father is coming for a few months from Sierra Leone. Isaac has spoken to him on the phone, but never met him, so we are all excited about that. He even asked me my preference about where I would like Isaac to sleep while his father is there, which shocked me. (One of our biggest fights ever was when he had Isaac sleeping in bed with some random girlfriend of his and then instructed Isaac to lie to me about it. AS IF Isaac wouldn't tell me that within 60 seconds after I picked him up.) So it should be a good weekend with his dad.

I've been doing some work as a secret shopper which has been fun. A friend of mine is the regional manager of a clothing store and asked me to secret shop some stores. Since I have nothing but time on my hands currently, it's worked out well. I'm definitely not the target demographic for this store, so it's been interesting to see what kind of service I get.

Other than that, there isn't too much to report on. Isaac has been doing soccer camp this week which has helped fill up our days a bit more. The instructors are all from England, complete with dreamy accents. It's also been good because Isaac is on the younger end and these are more experienced soccer players. In the local league we have been playing in he is sort of a big fish in a little pond, so I think this has been good for him.

Hope things are well with all of you.

On a less awkward note...

Jenny and Drew have a blog now! If you are interested, check it out! (If I did it right, their picture should be a link).

sooo.....

So Isaac and I went bowling today and had a great time. As I returned home I saw two Mormon missionaries trekking down our street. I figured I would honk and wave but then I realized they were walking up my driveway. There was no avoiding them so I greeted them and invited them up into my less than clean house complete with a huge trail of ants in the middle of my kitchen from some popcorn that was dropped earlier.

I wasn't entirely sure how they got my name/information because they said they I had met with the missionaries before, which wasn't accurate. They didn't even know that I was a member or really anything about me, so I guess I wasn't necessarily on some "MEMBERS OF CONCERN" list they were handed at a sunday morning meeting.

They were extremely nice and ridiculously sincere, but it's always a little awkward to have someone you just met ten minutes earlier ask you about the frequency of your personal prayers and scripture study and why I haven't gone through the temple. They tried to do their best to give me pat, easy responses to the things that I told them I struggle with. ("Do you like icecream?... Well how did you know you would like icecream before you ever tasted it? You didn't until you tried it!") I give them an A for effort though. I am certain that the one was closer to 19 than 20 and the other one tried to relate the alienation I feel as a single mom in a family ward to the alienation he felt as a college freshman attending Elder's Quorum for the first time.... yeah.

It's hard to even work through the feelings I have within my own mind, let alone articulate them to a couple of missionaries from Idaho. Would I probably feel more like a part of things if anyone would have made any kind of effort to talk to me or get to know me the first year I attended church in my new ward? Yes. But ultimately will I ever feel fully included in any ward at church? No. I don't fit in anywhere and I probably never will. My parental status leaves me not single enough for the single ward (which is an hour away) and not traditional enough for the family ward. I'm too old for YSA crowd but too young for SA stuff (not that I am interested in that crowd at all). I usually leave church feeling lonelier and more depressed than before I came, which, honestly, doesn't really motivate me to want to go on the weeks I don't have Isaac or have to teach Sunday School. But, do consider the church and it's teachings to be true? Yes, I do. I mean, if I had to choose between "yes" and "no" I would choose "yes". So that's where I'm at.

So anyways, I don't think anything they have in their arsenal of scripted role plays prepared them for that conversation, but they sure tried hard. I assured them that I would make a better effort, took their primary-style Book of Mormon reading chart and promised that they would see me tomorrow (reminding them, that I do teach Sunday School and more often than not, I am at church). It wasn't until after they left that I remembered that even having them come inside my house was probably breaking mission rules with me being single and all (but that's a whole different blog). Oops.

I'm disabling comments on this one. Just want to put my feelings down a bit, not really looking for feedback.

WILW

Reading! I've been tearing through a ton of Jennifer Weiner and I've almost knocked out The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. I haven't been able to put them down. I also got a big package from Amazon yesterday with books for the next four months of book club so I'm excited to keep that up.

My new highlights. I finally have gotten my hair back to a brown I don't despise but I had her put in a few highlights for fun. It's so nice to finally have my roots touched up-- I don't think I can pull off the two tone look as well as SJP.

Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Yummy.

These new shoes. They are pretty boring looking, but they will replace a totally worn out pair I wear to school all the time. They are brand new and I picked them up from a thrift store for 4.50!

This song/routine that we have been doing the past few weeks. You really get to channel your inner diva and throw around a ton of attitude. I love it.

Thanks for stopping by...

...Fourth of July....

First of all, how amazing is this cake that Hayley brought home from the bakery where she works? The burger is airbrushed rice krispy treat. It was so cute we almost felt bad eating it.

So Isaac has been begging for an escape to the beach. Finally, Thursday we had nothing planned, so I thought, why not? We had swim lesson in the morning and then we got on the road. I thought leaving around 11 would ensure that we would miss traffic but it was terrible the whole way there. Evidently President Obama was in town and there was also a Phillies game. Isaac was a trooper though and once we finally got over the bridge to Jersey we found Ocean City to be quite deserted and the perfect temperature.

We made sure we had plenty of time in the water and in the sand....

Isaac was so cute. He kept saying "This is fun, but the beach is more fun with your whole family." Then we did the old get changed with a towel wrapped around you trick (well, Isaac did. Not me!)

Of course we couldn't leave Ocean City without hitting the boardwalk. We went on a few rides....

and I almost got sick on the tilt-a-whirl, a sign that I am surely becoming really old. We also got some food, although we didn't sample what seems to be the big trend this summer:

A friend of mine assures me they are "life changing" but I don't want to find out.... There were also tons of crafty stuff. I took pictures of them to tuck away in my "things-I-could-probably-make-cheaper-if-only-I-had-the-time-and-motivation" file.

And of course, what would the Jersey shore be without the T-shirts? This was one of my favorites.

It was a lovely day. Hopefully we will be able to get down there a few more times before the summer slips away....

I'm out of control...

Ugh. Isaac's dad and I have been fighting the last few days and it has really been bringing me down. Last night we had a big explosion and I am still reeling from it.

The conversation started off okay but unravelled quickly. Within 15 minutes I was straight up screaming at him at the top of my lungs. He pushes my buttons in a way that literally no one else does. I am not a confrontational person at all. I would normally bend over backward to avoid conflict or discord. But any percieved criticism from him puts me on the defense and even though he has never raised his voice to me, or even used rough language, it seems that is is only a matter of time until I have totally lost all composure with him and am screaming like a lunatic and totally out of control.

The fight was a continuation of a fight that started the day before and really is a continuation of the same old fight it feels like we have been having forever. Yesterday morning I suggested that since we obviously both feel strongly about certain things and clearly we do not communicate well with each other and we both feel the other doesn't understand our own point of view, perhaps we should see some kind of counselor that could help us work through some of the big sticking points. Of course, he refused, saying he doesn't need any help and if I would just accept the things he wants completely there wouldn't be a problem. Cause clearly THAT's worked well for the past seven years. The things we are arguing over are things that can't easily be changed or compromised on, things that are extremely important to each of us. We both have dug in our heels and feel that the other won't see things from our point of view. I feel that I am willing to compromise on certain issues, but he is not willing to compromise at all.

The one issue I have proposed a compromise on is the same old arguement over Isaac's last name. We both would like Isaac to have our last name. Currently, Isaac only has one last name, which is mine. I am willing to hyphenate so he has both of our last names. He wishes for Stephenson to be Isaac's middle name and won't hear of anything different or consider any compromise. I keep trying to explain to him that the same reasons he feels strongly about Isaac having his last name are the same reasons that I feel strongly about him keeping mine. And also, really, it's already been done and he can't make me change it. But he just keeps repeating it over and over like it's a new idea that we have never talked about before "Isaac will have my last name and Stephenson will be his middle name". Not "what if" or "how about" or "it would mean a lot to me if" just "you will do this" which of course makes me say "To hell with you, I'll do whatever I want." He can't understand why I feel just as strongly as he does that he keeps my last name as well. His attitude was just the last straw and I totally lost it and started shouting and ranting like a crazy woman. Living in a townhouse, I am sure my neighbor's heard everything. He icily said that he thought we should end the conversation now while he could still be the bigger person, before he stooped to my level. Which, I mean, is true. I would never tolerate him treating me the way I end up treating him. I concluded the conversation by screaming and hurling the phone across the room.

I am so ashamed and disappointed with myself. After we fight, I think back to the conversations and so much of what I have said was so combative and unnecessary, just me lashing out in an effort to hurt him before he hurts me. These arguments bring out the very worst side of me. I am always berating him for being over the top passive aggressive (which he is). But in a way, how can I even blame him for not want to bring issues to the table, because it is very rare that I can discuss anything in a rational way. I think I need to go to a counselor. Even if M refuses to come with me to have a neutral party be a mediator, at least maybe a counselor could give me some tips on how to handle these conversations when they do arise and give me some strategies to use or something. The level of anger that I am unloading during these arguements is scary and intense. Clearly I need a healthier way to release the emotions that are bottled up inside me.

So that's that. Ick.