Summer has begun

Between work, school, family and fun, my blog has taken the backseat. I apologize to those who have asked about my new endeavours and have received the ever annoying sound of crickets as a response. I've been pretty busy, and now the summer has officially begun, its only going to get better.

Last weekend was spent in large part at the lake. Once by ourselves and the other with some friends and their kids. Between those days we were invited to a BBQ where we partook in some yummy food, jager and margaritas.

This weekend we decided to host our own BBQ. It went well, but the fun was halted when a sudden summer thunderstorm came on. So it ended a little early, but all in all, we had a good time. Jake happen to be browsing through classmates on FB and stumbled upon a girl he graduated with that lived in Reno (which is quite a coincidence given the distance). They emailed back and forth a few times, so I encouraged him to invite her over for the BBQ. I didnt think she would come (personally, I applaud her because Im not sure I would have had the courage to go), but she did! And I'm really glad too because she seems really fun.

Next weekend we are going to San Francisco and Monterey. My cousins wife (from Spain) is coming to visit her sister studying at Stanford so Jake and I are going to meet them for the weekend.

Life as a FT worker has been great. It has been easier to make that transition than I originally thought it would be. I really believe the kids are benefitting from being in a schedule driven environment - both at home and at school and the afterschool program. The constant bickering has decreased and keeping them in line seems to have gotten a little easier. As for work, its quite an easy job but its enjoyable. My boss keeps mentioning how I will have tremendous opportunities once we merge with the other division and how he wants to expose me more to the program side of things so that I can take advantage of those opportunities soon. That is definately nice, but at this point, having an easy job to get my feet wet is certainly coming in handy.

Working

I'm a working woman. Not that I wasn't before, but this is my first "real" job in over 9 years. The transition into the working world hasn't been as bad as I had anticipated. It's a little ridiculous, but the thing I was dreading the most was waking up early. I'm a night owl, and frankly, waking up before 830 is considered early in my book. Up until now, the kids didn't have to be at school until 9, so typically the kids and I would wake up about 8. That time has now shifted to 6am for myself and 630 for the kids. It helps a lot to have Jake around to feed them and keep them in line while I get myself ready and fix the girls' hair, so it has gone a lot smoother than I thought.

As far as work, its definitely a piece of cake. Granted, I'm the low man on the totem pole with an easy going boss in a relatively low work volume office, but hey, its still work. I work in the office of Disability Services, which facilitates the funding and grants that get distributed to non-profit agencies that assist those with disabilities (blindness, deafness, wheelchair assistance, etc). My main job requirement is to assist the program managers with council meetings. Oh yeah, and we also have "volunteers" (e.g. people that have community service alternative sentencing arrangements) that my boss decided I would manage as well. So really, its a pretty easy job - for the time being. We are being integrated into the division of Aging Services in July, so my duties may change. In the meantime, I'm surrounded by people that are much more educated that me (that's uncommon when working for the state government) and that are genuinely concerned about the people that have much more difficult lives than the rest of us.

The family has adapted well. Jake and I hit the gym every day at lunch, so we see each other a lot during the day. The kids no longer spend most of their time fighting and bickering with each other; they are much too tired for that after spending in scheduled activities in the afterschool program. I cherish the time with them moreso now than I ever did before. Tonight I even played a couple rounds of Uno with them, which is something I would not have had the patience nor desire for when I was at home.

The money is surely not the motivation. Our lovely governor wants to cut 6% (oh wait, he upped it to 15% on Friday) of my already low salary (which covers daycare costs with a little left over to pad our 401k and a few hundred dollars of extra spending money). But I have to start somewhere and as far as I can tell, this "somewhere" is about the best place I could have chosen to begin my working life.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things

We moved Lexi to a preschool near my new work (no worries, I will blog about that eventually). Its a christian preschool that Jacob attended for 3 months when he and Jake moved back to NV prior to us girls. Jake almost nixed that idea when he went to sign her up and he saw an enormous "We love Jesus" sign plastered across the main entrance wall, but he decided to overlook that given that the preschool is so convenient and we were familiar with it. Plus, he reassured himself that he was exposed to Jesus for many years and it failed to make him a follower.

Lexi and I always seem to have the best conversations while I'm in the shower. She just sits there and tells me about her day or whats going on in her little 4 year old brain. It was no different yesterday. As I am lathering up my hair, she begins asking me if I knew that god made the stars and the sun and everything else. It was cute because we haven't really mentioned the whole god thing to her, so it was all brand new information to her. I explained that some people think that, but that nobody knows for sure.

"But my teachers know. And they also said that god made the food too".

"Didn't the farmers make the food?"

"Yeah, but god helped them make the food" she said adamantly.

I was kind of curious so I started picking her brain a little. I asked her who god was and what he looked like.

"He's a monster. But a nice one."

"So where does he live?" I asked, fully expecting to hear something along the lines of heaven or the sky or something.

"He lives inside us."

"Inside us? I don't want anything living inside me. How do I get him out?"

"Well" she says "you have to punch your belly and your legs and arms and maybe he will come out. Lets do it together because I don't want him living inside me either"

After a minute or so of jokingly beating ourselves up, she decides to tell me more about her concept of god.

"Mom, god does everything and makes everything. He even made your shower. And he even cleans it too. Except that really you clean it. We just say he cleans it." Then she smirks with her 'I know, I don't believe it either' smile.