Back to School at AIU

Well, I have been thinking of going back to school for a long time now, and watching my husband work on his degree for the past couple years and decided it’s my turn to do something for myself.  So, I am now enrolled in school and will begin my first class the first week of February.  Yes, its a little scary to think about since its only been about 22yrs since I was in high school but it is necessary for me to be competitive in todays job market.

I have been online looking up grants and scholarships for women, GA residents and undergraduates and have applied for a few but haven’t got much money yet.  SO, I am also doing student loans and hoping to push through both my Associates and Bachelor degrees over the next couple years.

If you have recently returned to school and have any advice for me on how to manage my time, where to go and apply for student loans, grants and scholarships, I would greatly appreciate your help.

My daughter Taylor has been a big inspiration for me as well to get back to school, she does so good in school and she just loves learning and doing things. I want to show her that mommy can go back to school and do it as well, also I want her to know that it doesn’t matter what age you are, that you can always still follow through with your goals.

I am open to any advice you may have for me, so please feel free to comment..thanks again and I plan on getting back to my blogging for 2010..

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Lately things have been stressful at home, with my husband now out of work and here in the house all the time it gets kind of nerve racking.  He talks alot about things he is going to do or needs to get done and then sits here in the office and doesn’t accomplish much other than talking.. 

We closed in our garage a couple years back a made 2 offices spaces with a wall dividing the offices so that we wouldn’t be in each others faces all the time. But then my husband moved his office furniture from our commercial space to the house and moved it to the larger open area of the office and made that his office and now sits right where we can see one another and hear one another, and its like it defeated the idea of seperate office spaces.  So, he lost his job a couple weeks ago now and he is here sharing the office with me and it gets quite annoying at times as I am working and trying to concentrate on work and he just likes to talk alot.   I mean it seems he can’t stay focused on his own tasks he needs to complete and it drives me crazy.

Also, you can forget him getting any work done when either one of his ex-coworkers calls him or he calls them, they get on this rant about the job and talk for hours about something that cannot be changed.  I mean lets focus on the future and make something happen here as we have alot of bills to pay and I don’t have time for him to wallow in self pitty over his job loss when there is absolutely nothing we can do about it but move forward.  I mean I am looking to the future to figuring out how to survive and make money and keep my bills paid and the roof over my head.

I love him but, he has a hard time staying focused and it drives me nuts. We can be eating or something and boom out of no where, he will begin talking to me like we were in the middle of a conversation and I will have no idea what the heck he is rambling on about. Then as soon as I figure out what he’s talking about, he is already on to a new subject having nothing to do with the conversation he was speaking of 2 seconds earlier, I mean its mind boggling at times.

I work from home as an appraiser (broke as hell), and I also bid on government contract with HUD for inspections and I contract work and I run our business for local home inspections and appraisals.  Let me just be honest for a minute business has really just sucked since the crap hit the fan in the summer of 2007 for our industry.  So, with that said I don’t make tons of money, I mean I make some but not nearly enough to support our household without my husbands income as well and with his job loss we can’t afford the health insurance which really sucks, as I have several medical problems and my daughter has  2 holes in her heart that have to be monitored, so it sucks losing my health care.

With all that said my point is I work from home, so I am on the computer or the phone etc. and with my husband here it seems he gets distracted easily and then it distracts me as i can see him and hear him at all times.  I think I am just frustrated that he talks about all these things he is  going to get done or needs to do and then doesn’t do them and it makes me crazy.  He would act like I am not contributing to our household because I work from home and make my money here in the house, and I have to remind him that before he took his office job a couple years ago he also worked from home with me for about 7 yrs and as manager of the company, I contribute, as his wife I contribute, as mom to our daughter I contribute, as the person responsible for the house, cooking, laundry, dogs, fish, pool, etc..I CONTRIBUTE every single day of my life to my household.

To many times men don’t realize how much we contribute to our households, whether it be financially or through other things we contribute.  But I have never not worked and just sat on my ass at home, I work all the time.  Like I said before right now the money isn’t that great but it comes and goes as the contracts I have come and go and as the real estate industry goes through its changes so does my money, but I contribute..

Hopefully now that he is back at home out of the corporate world and back to doing our company he will realize how much I contribute and how much work it takes and descipline it takes to work from home and stay motivated and make your own income.  I am always pushing forward looking for a better tomorrow and praying for a brighter day as I will not let the struggles I face today bring me down.

Well, with all that said my daughter Taylor started second grade this week and some how has managed to break 2 water bottles in 3 days, I give up..I told her to pull out the one she used last year and use that one as it lasted all year with no problems.  She is loving school and glad to be back with her freinds, hopefully she can stay there through the school year as it is a private school and with the loss of my husbands income things may have to change there but since it is such a wonderful school and we know she is getting a good education we will do our best to keep her there. Our children our the future so we have to do our best to provide them the best pathe possible.

Som this is whats been going on in my house this week..what the hecks going on in yours?

Wow, it seems like my daughter was just a toddler and now she is in 2nd grade, for some reason I keep thinking she is going to 1st grade but, no it’s 2nd grade.  I am not sure if its turning 7 yrs old or what but over the summer she has become very independent, before she would only take bathes and she has long curly hair so I always had to shampoo, condition and comb out the tangles. But in the last few weeks she has started taking showers, and then she started shampooing, conditioning and combing and styling her own hair.  

Now, she has decided she wants pop tarts and she wants to make them herself, and she talks to me like she is a teenager and not 7yrs old.  Even her older step sister said she couldn’t believe how much she changed in the 3  weeks since she last saw her.  She says things that just seem so grown up for her age, nothing bad just more mature or educated than I expected from my 7yr old. 

Today was her first day of school and beginning 2nd grade, and she got up told me how she wanted her hair to be, told me that she was going to have pop tarts and I wanted to make her different healthier breakfast but she wanted to do her own thing, so I allowed it.   She ended some how breaking her water bottle on the first day of school, it was one of the nicer hard plastic bottles and I guess she either dropped it or dropped her book bag when it was clipped to it and broke it, so I was not so happy about that but I took her to get a new one.  When we get to the store, I buy her a totally different water bottle that is the softer plastic that shouldn’t break as the other one did and she was like “NO ONE ELSE HAS A BOTTLE LIKE THAT’,  I was like so what you broke the expensive one on the first day and so this is what you get.

It just seems like our kids at earlier ages are so concerned with what everyone else thinks or has, but right now my husband just lost his job and I am not wallowing in cash, so we will have to do with what he have or can afford.  I am not one of those moms that thinks my daughter has to have all the most expensive brands, I didn’t grow up that way and i am not going to buy a pair of shoes over paying a utility bill at home right now. 

But anyways its just amazing how fast she has grown to 7yrs old, it just seems like the years have flown by and she is getting bigger, smarter, and more independent each day..Pretty soon she will be a teenager and hate my guts, so I have to try and enjoy what time we can get together before those dreaded years come along.. Thank goodness we are only disagreeing on a water bottle today, because soon it will be boys that we will be disagreeing on..Cherish the moments with you kids as they grow up so fast, I spent this summer with my daughter home with me and I made sure we had our special hang out days each week because I want to have those memories together and I want her to think her mom is a little cool, even though I am probably not..I still hope she looks at me, and thinks “my mom is the best’.

I loved having her home with me this summer BUT thank goodness 2nd grade is here to give me a break !! 

Til next time!!

Today has been a hectic day with alot of running around.  My daughter to school by 8am, then home for a few minutes and then back to the school for the kids talent show by 9am, later back home to call a couple clients, start the laundry and then off to Wal Mart then Radio Shack, back to the house to put the clothes in the dryer and then off to pick Taylor up from school.  That wasn’t the end of my day after picking Taylor up I still needed to pack her a bag for a weekend with Grandma, and I needed to make sure I had the laptop I was giving my mom was all set up properly for her to use, and then off for the long drive out of town to meet up with my mom and then spending time with her showing her how to operate a laptop computer as my mom has never had her own computer and never even used a laptop and then I was back on the road back home and finally around 9pm, I get to stop and sit down for a few minutes before I begin working on my blog.   So, as you see I have had a long, busy day…

But now its my free weekend, no kids, no phones, no clients, nothing for at least 48hrs, its my anniversary weekend and we are going to breakfast and then off to the lake for some peace and relaxation.  I don’t get many days off to myself of with just time with my husband just the two of us.  So, when I get my 1 free weekend each month when my mom gets my daughter, I try to relax or do something for myself because there isn’t anyone taking care of me and many times that included me as well, I get so wrapped up in taking care of the kids, my husband, the house, the dogs, the fish, our business and now that summer is closing in the swimming pool as well. So there isn’t alot of time left for me and no one seems to think I also need to be cared for, but I guess that is how many women live.

I love my daughter but I also need a little, “me time”.  I think we could all use a little more time for ourselves.  Well, my day was so busy I didn’t get to the gym but I will be back on Monday.  Well, since its been such a long busy day I think  I will sign off for now and hopefully be back on the blog on Monday as I said this weekend is relax only weekend..Til next time..