And here I am again

I'm not very good at updating blogs. It comes and goes in waves, I suppose. I decided to check in on my blog today, and was pleasantly surprised to see what the quote of the day was for today: "Faith is the force of life." Leo Tolstoy.

Seems appropriate for me at the moment, since faith (and lack of it) has been on my mind a lot lately. I've posted about religion in the past- and thought I'd mention it again. Moving back home has been a challenge for me in this area. I am not a very religious person, although I would consider myself to be spiritual to a certain extent. But religion is just not very high on my priorities list.

This has become a problem for me, and for J as well. We were both raised Catholic, and both our families are very active in their churches. Neither J nor I are sure if we really want to be Catholic, or if it's what we want for our children. For the most part- we would be happy to just not go to church at all. However, living at home with J's family kind of rules that out. His parents make a point to remind us about Mass on Sunday mornings, and signed our children up for Sunday School. Since we are living in their home, we feel guilty if we "skip" either of these things.

It's hard to pass a faith and belief onto our children when we don't feel strongly about it. And I am not sure what to do about it. I'm really torn about it. Will our children be missing out if we don't give them the structure of religion? How do we approach this topic with both sets of parents- letting them know that we don't share their beliefs? Can we really send our kids to Sunday School and (when the time comes) the sacraments, if we are not practicing ourselves? S and F love Sunday School, and I don't want to take that from them, but how can I make myself embrace it along with them?

Of course, I also have to figure out what it is exactly that I DO believe, and that's harder than I ever thought it would be. In my daily life, I have replaced praying with meditation- which is used quite a bit in various Eastern religions. I don't feel comfortable claiming any of them though. I also don't really feel comfortable claiming any of the Christian religions, though. I'm not atheist, though, so it's hard to just be nothing.

Faith, of course, is about more than religion, I know. And, honestly, at this point, I'm pretty much lacking faith altogether.

I didn't expect us to be where we are now. I thought that, by the time 2009 rolled around, J and I would both be working full time, we would be in our own home, and we would be settling in to life here in MS. I'm starting to lose faith in our plans. I am starting to lose faith in myself. I work 2-3 days a week (on a good week) and am barely making enough money to cover grocery shopping at this point. I never thought I would doubt our ability to "make it", but right now I am feeling so overwhelmed, and there doesn't seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Being without faith is reminding me how comforting having faith was. And I guess what I need to do now is go searching for mine. I wonder where I left it?

It's Begining to Look a lot Like Christmas

I woke up early this morning to get S ready for school. The weather was awful, a mixture of rain and sleet- with the promise of snow later in the day. All morning I was thinking "Great, now the roads are going to be awful." "It will be freezing and icy, and getting to work will be a nightmare." "What will I do if they close work, I could use the extra hours"

Then, I noticed F standing at the window peering outside. She turned to me and said "WOW! Look at the snow!!"

Seeing my daughter's enthusiasm for this change in the weather reminded me to step back and readjust my thinking. After all, why spend my day being eaten up by pessimistic thoughts, when I could be out in the snow playing with F?

So F, P, and I took some time to enjoy the snow this morning. S will be coming home from school shortly, and I am looking forward to going back outside to let him play in it as well. I will try and update with more pictures later!

Trial by Fire

This seems to be the managers stance on training new employees. At least, it's how she does things with me. I honestly don't know if the other trainees are having to do what I am doing.

First, let me say, I do love my job. It's very busy but exciting (to me), it gives me plenty of opportunities to workout (which is something I happen to love to do!), gets me out of the house for a bit, and promises the opportunity for advancement in various areas and full time work with the coming new year. All of these are good things.

But WOW! This training!!!

There are three areas to be trained on; the gym floor, the front desk, and sales. Each area has a test and several days devoted to it. Silly me thought that I would complete my training, and take my tests, before I was actually turned loose on the unsuspecting members (or, in some cases, potential members)

This is not what has been happening.

Instead I have been given some (great) training and tips, been told "I think you're ready" and then sent to work. Little things that seem so simple when I read them in my employee manual "Thank You for calling Fitness Lady. This is M speaking. How may I direct your call?" suddenly seem much more difficult. Unimportant things like why can't I say "how can I" instead of "how may I?" suddenly become baffling! And that's the easy stuff!

I'm hoping my head stops spinning soon. I hope I can walk out of the building at the end of a shift feeling as confident as I did when I started the shift. Heck, some days I'm just hoping I can walk at all!

Happy Thanksgiving! (Part Two)

I meant to update this awhile ago! Starting work has limited my free time, and I am not spending as much time online as I used too.

The above picture is "the cousins" S and F with their cousins, W, JA, and H. They are not screaming at each other, although it looks like they are. Actually, they were having a great time- yelling and laughing and seeing how fast they could make the porch swing rock.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we had a small (ish) family gathering with my mother-in-law, father-in-law, J & I (with our kids) my younger sister-in-law, and my older sister-in-law with her husband and three kids. It was a lot of fun, especially getting all the kids together to act like little lunatics and play.

We didn't do the full blown meal, which was fine by me. Instead, we just had a deli type lunch. All in all, it was a good day, and it was nice to get the family together for a meal.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Part One)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated today with my side of the family, at my grandmother's home. The "Part One" is a reference to the fact that we will be celebrating again on Saturday with J's side of the family.

We had an ok day- family get togethers can sometimes be a little strained, and kids can get cranky, but overall it was a nice thanksgiving. It was the first one we have celebrated with J since 2005. In 2006 he was deployed, and last year S, F, and I had already returned home on leave. So having us all together was a nice change of pace!

Pictured above is most of my family (minus one of my sisters, who is still up in Delaware for school) My older brother (R1), J, my father, my mother, my younger brother (R2), my grandmother, S, myself, F, and my youngest sister (C2)

Story Time!

Time for a little picture comparison. Above are two pictures of S. One taken over the summer, and one taken last night. There are a lot of similarities between the two, since it is not uncommon to see S flipping through a favorite book, looking at the pictures and making up the story as he goes along. There is a big difference between these two pictures, though.

In the first picture, S is just flipping through the book, making up the story as he looks at the pictures. In the second picture, S is actually reading a story to his Teddy Bear.

My MIL recently bought S a beginner readers book, with six stories in it. S worked long and hard to sound out the words in the first story "Me Too, Woody" and was soooo proud of himself when he could sit and read the story outloud. He read it to me, to J, to my FIL, to F, to his Teddy Bear, and to my MIL. He can't wait to bring it to my parents house so he can read it to everyone there, as well. And I have no doubt it will make the trip to McComb for Thanksgiving, so he can read to the entire extended family.

Truth be told, it's not a very fascinating story. And, under normal circumstance, hearing it once would be enough. But I could listen to S read it all day long. We had been told that, due to S's difficulty with phonics and sounds, he would very likely be slow to learn how to read. And, while I know that one short story is not a huge deal- it's a very big deal for us. I love how determined S is, and that he won't let difficulty keep him from learning something new.

Hooray!

I have a job working at a local gym called Fitness Lady! I am very excited about this, and think this is a step in the right direction to pursue my personal trainers certification.

I am only working part-time for now, but there is opportunity for full-time work in January, so I think it's worth sticking out for now. I started work yesterday. I will have less time to goof off on the computer, but being able to get out of the house and help with the finances makes computer time something I am willing to sacrifice!!