I Am 40 Now

My 40th birthday has come and gone. I was so busy with Mandy's graduation and company that I hardly had a moment to give that milestone a second thought. I didn't have the opportunity to ponder my life; am I happy, am I old, am I where I want to be, how can I improve? Probably better not to dwell.

I do know that I have never been happier. Every decade life seems to improve by leaps and bounds. Hope that continues.

This summer I am very busy with work. I work from home on the computer. When my job starts to take more than say 6 hours per day I have trouble spending time doing other things on the computer. I think 6 hours is my limit. I have also become addicted to facebook games and my poor dear blog has suffered. I miss all of you though. So hello, again.

For a while I was considering going back to college this fall and finally getting a degree. I decided to change my degree path yet again and go back to my original goal of becoming a high school math teacher. I was very excited, I applied and was excepted. However, these past few months I have been incredibly busy with work and life and I got to thinking. How in the world am I going to be able to fit school into my schedule. I was also thinking about Jeff's deployment and how that taxes me. I decided to cut back on as much as possible while he is gone in order that I might be half way civil to my kids. I have the worst habit of being horrible to the girls when I am overly stressed. My dear sweet girls are very stubborn and are ALWAYS fighting me and testing me on every thing every day. I strive for a balance of disciple, consistency, and my love of spoiling those dear sweet girls. I tend to fly off the handle at their ungratefulness when I am over my limits. They are ungrateful at times but I want to steer them toward being sweeter by example rather than by screaming criticisms. Strive is the best I can seem to accomplish at times.

I am rather proud to say that my girls are very kind, to people other than their mother. Ha. Both have been showing some good manners on occasion, enough to make me want to weep. I am near to giving up my dream of a degree entirely. Still there is just a glimmer of the dream left in me. Don't feel bad for me. I am the happiest person on earth. I have a lot, just at times I miss a sense of accomplishment. Not that raising two beautiful girls is not an accomplishment. But, the little girl in me still wants to rule the world. Weird but true.

So how are y'all doing? Enjoying the summer?

We are keeping busy with swim lessons and a lot of lazy afternoons in front of the tv while I do my work. I try to throw in some educational stuff for Lily to keep busy. But, honestly it is mostly tv. Trying to find a new path, a rhythm or schedule that is fun and keeps the tv to a minimum. Lucky for me Lily doesn't like tv very much and usually turns it off and goes off in the backyard to play. Yesterday, she cried for hours because she was on a trip to a hotel. She moved all her stuff to the garage. She said goodbye, that she would be away for three weeks. We kissed goodbye. Then when she found out she couldn't actually eat her dinner, take her bath, and sleep in our garage she was very upset. Upset doesn't actually cover how mad she was. She cried so much she fell asleep and then woke up two hours later, after a moment she remembered how upset she was with me, and started the crying again. I was ready to move into the garage myself. Poor Lily, no one understands her.

I think you are all caught up. Except about the family visit and graduation and Mandy. That will all have to wait for another day.