Random Musings for a Monday

I love children's books! I could read them for hours on end. I want a library like the one in Beauty and the Beast but I want 90% of it to be beautiful Children books. My passion for book has only increased since working in my Pre-K class. We read at least 3 books a day between lessons, snack, lunch, dismissal and quite time. We have read some wonderful books. Several have got me choked up. One I have to recommend is "I knew you Could: a book about all of life's stops" I was the one reading and I had to stop and take a breath after each sentence because I was starting to cry it was so inspiring. Books teach all sort of important lessons to young children. They also are visually stimulating and engaging. Today I went to Borders (which is going out of business.) I thought the sales would be better. But it was only 30% off of children's books. So 30% of of $17 is still a little more than I want to pay. At any rate I collected probably 25 books that looked good. I sat on the floor and read them all. I spent at least a good hour on the floor, in heaven. I went to the register with about 15 books and had them ring up 9. It came to $98. I knew that would make Mike a little unhappy. So I took 4 off and it brought it down to $55. I was excited about the books I got. I could use them all in a classroom. Four of them would make good books to read for writing prompts. I also go "Emily's First 100 Days of School." We use that in our school to count down the days to 100.

The more I have thought about it the more I know what I want to do after I have kids. I want to open a preschool in my basement. I'm not sure what certifications I would need to do that but I know I would love it. I could just do 3 days a week in the mornings. It would me enjoyable and not as time consuming or stressful as working in a real school. I would be in control over everything. This year I have been making my own personal files of all the work we do in my class. By the end of the year I hope to have an awesome file for each letter of the alphabet and some of the core sections. Hopefully I will be in the same class next year and can make files of the things I missed before I started working full time.

I picked up another after school babysitting job. I know, kind of silly. But I'm doing it for a good reason. Mike and I are going to FL with my family in June. The plane tickets are bought, the car rented and the room paid for. But after paying for all that stuff, going on the cruise last month plus our trip to Utah in July we needed some extra spending money for FL. So every penny I make goes to doing whatever I want in FL. I work Mon, Wed and Thur. Mon and Thur are 12 hour days. I leave straight from school to go babysit in Darien. Then Wed are even longer because I go to mutual right after. So I am gone for 14 hours on Wed. I sit for twin girls that are almost 4 and a 6&9 year old boy. I am more of a mothers helper. I help with the kids while she runs errands in the afternoon or takes a child to an activity. I really enjoy the family and the children. They are well behaved and I think I am growing on them. I am EXHAUSTED by Friday though. This Friday night I fell asleep at 8:00!!! I plan to babysit through the summer as well. I hope that I can keep up my energy to babysit throughout next school year as well. My dream is to go to Europe next summer for 2 weeks. I would love to pay for the whole trip with just my babysitting money. But I don't know if I will last that long doing both. It is so much work to work full time, babysit 11 hours, do all the grocery shopping, meal planning, laundry, cleaning and errands for Mike and I.

Mike would normally help around the house but right now we are in full blown CFA study mode. I don't mind so much though. I mean I miss having his help around the house but I would rather have him do his best on the test then help me out. He started getting up early this week and going to work early to study then studying after work and all day Saturday. The last few Saturdays have been nice. He has gone in at 9:30 or so in the morning then came home around 7 or 8 at night. That is about 10 + hours studying and we still have a little bit of time together. Only a month and a half till the big day!!

While we were on our cruise our fantastic ward was split. I was seriously depressed and maybe even got a little teary eyed about it. I understand why it was split. If you didn't get there by 8:50 you got a seat in the very back of the gym and you felt like you were at stake conference. I think we had something like 350 active members of our ward. We were lucky to have at least 25 couples around our age or a few years older than we call friends (even if time and space didn't allow for us to hang out with them very often.) Not to mention some really awesome families with older kids. I was also sad because I had just been called as the 2nd counselor in the YW pres 2 months earlier after working as an advisor in the YW for over a year. I knew would be loosing girls that I loved deeply not to mention being released from my calling and not knowing if I would be back in YW again. I'm glad that we were able to be apart of this mega ward while it lasted. I can't even tell you how amazing it is to be in a place where you have no family to speak of, but to look around and see 100's of people you consider family. It has been nice to have a good seat each Sunday. Meet new people since the ward is actually small enough to do that now. I also was called back into YW (YAY) and the 1st counselor, so I work with the Mia-Maids. THEY ROCK! I am soo excited to spend more time with them.

I have been trying to watch the 7th Harry Potter movie for the past few days. Friday I snuggled up and got ready to read it and BAM three scenes later I was asleep. Saturday I was busy all day and just as I was about to turn it on. Mike started watching something else. Sunday I started watching it at 5:00 and by 5:25 I was asleep. I'm watching it now, but I'm feeling very tired already. So we'll see how far we get.

I also can't help but get excited for FL. I am counting down the days (62) till I'll be on vacation in one of my favorite places ever! Not to mention that at that point I will be done with school and have the whole summer off. Man I can't wait for that!

Also I think I want to become a master pastry chef. But more on that later :)