The List

[festivalgirl]

Ok, I've got to start with a list today:

• my husband
• africa
• babies
• weight/ acne/ self confidence
• teaching
• sailing

You can think of this as a table of contents if you wish,

I have the greatest husband in the world, really. I certainly am very lucky, and I am not trying to gloat. Sometimes we take the good things in life for granted and don't always realize how lucky we are (actually I do this everyday with some aspect of life). I'm just taking a moment to remember and realize my luck. A "friend" asked the other day if we still haven't had a fight. I guess that sounds weird to some people, it's not like we agree on everything, but we're really good communicators and always give each other the chance to speak and debate the issue until we have found a common ground. We haven't even "agreed to disagree" on anything. Really, if you think about all your closest friends, do you fight with them, or just talk about stuff? Any friend I've ever fought with, I've left behind (you can correct me on this if I'm wrong), same with boyfriends. This is not saying that we will never fight or that I will leave him if we do, just an observation. I've been told that everything changes when you have kids, and things that were never a big deal become problems in the relationship and sources of tension. Yay, there's something to look forward to!

Anyways, a couple of my girlfriends invited me over to hang out, a girls night, and I had plans to see some live music with my husband... but I really missed the girls and needed that night. When I spoke to him and asked what a couple of his friends were up to, he asked what was up and I didn't even express how much I wanted to hang out with the ladies, but he knew and told me to go and that he would be fine without me, he'd take it as a personal-day that he was needing too. And then there is the fact that he has jumped into this Africa thing both feet with me... that is really lucky. As much as I have always wanted the guy that would encourage me to do these things, I never really knew that I would find him (but I did hope for it). He has been great at putting everything together for fundraising and communicating to others what we are going to do... better than me at it, he is very good with words actually.

Ok , Africa... I think we are going to go. At first we were only going to go if we raised $8000 by April 25. But that is Monday and we're not quite at $5000. We definitely need $5000 to pay for the flights, but how can we not go at this point? We have worked so hard to raise this money and we are so exhausted, it's like we owe it to ourselves and our bodies to just go, even if it puts us into way more debt. Hopefully we will continue to find support in the mailbox, and will find a few other ways to raise the $$... then we can leave some room on the credit card for emergencies. That's important. I still have to write a letter to the banks to ask them if they can help us out with payments and bills while we are away. Hopefully we will get a positive response from them. If you haven't already you should visit our website www.gonetoafrica.tk , it's really great, and now we have a running cheetah! It's worth it just to see him! I think I will name him... let me think about it... any cheetah names out there? I'm open to suggestions!

Our friends had a baby last Friday (the 15th)... she's sooooo beautiful! We went over for a visit and to bring them soup on Wednesday, and I got to hold the baby right away! This kind of thing used to freak me out... holding new babies, but since my friends and family started reproducing, I'm loving it more and more. I just held her and stared at her! I am sooo jealous. I want one too! I've been really struggling with the whole baby thing lately (or always?), I have it in my mind that the Earth could use a few less people, not a few more, and if I want to raise a child that will be socially conscious and do the right thing for the planet and for humanity, then I should really just foster a child that is unwanted. But selfishly, I really want my own children. We've even named them already (as long as we have one of each, if we have 2 boys or 2 girls, we're screwed). And I can't just want one, of course, I want two. I was so emotional when we got home that night, and my husband asked me what was up. I told him that I was ready, but I'm not. I am so so ready to have babies right now, but now we have to wait until after we get back from Africa. I've even contemplated asking the travel doctor if it is ok for me to get pregnant before we leave, or in Africa, but a friend pointed out that in the first trimester many women get morning sickness and I wouldn't want to ruin the trip with being sick all the time. So September, if my body allows. And then there's the whole sailing thing... more on that later.

Ok, I have to pause here, but I will add the rest later!
Unpaused Where was I? Babies, yeah, I want 'em. I just read my ruins and asked a question about babies... enlightening, what I got out of it was don't worry about it right now since you're not even trying yet, the Heavens will decide for you when the time comes. And that makes a lot of sense for me. My weight is bugging me, still. I'm on a cycle of doing something about it for a few days, and then getting really stressed and comfort eating, then getting it together and doing something about it, etc. I just looked at some pics of myself from my birthday party, and I'm feeling pretty motivated to "do something about it" again. My acne still sucks, but I have to remember how much worse it was before I got these natural products that I love so much! Perspective, it's all about perspective. And I could be eating better too (this ties in with the weight issue), I know that dairy and coffee give me acne, so I could definitely be avoiding them, and I am sure sugar doesn't help much either! Self-confidence follows all of this and actually I've had a really good start to my day and am doing really well today. I rode my bike to work one day this week and it was fantastic, but felt some tendon pain at the back of my knee. This worries me, because I like to work out a lot and it keeps me sane and a little less guilty when I eat things that aren't so good for me. The last thing I need is a stupid injury to supress the goodness of exercise! I have taken the rest of the week off to heal and I think I may try going for a run today to see how it goes. Any excuse to hang out in the sunshine! I'm loving my job lately, it's been going really well, and I have a great bunch of students right now. The ones that were driving me crazy earlier in the year are much better, and some of the ones that aren't better, I have just decided to leave them alone and let them make their own decisions. Want to hand nothing in and get "0"? Fine by me, your choice, I'm not gonna push you anymore, cause all that does is cause me stress, and I don't need any more thanks. We are in the beginning of hiring, the part where they talk about the procedure and how they are going to try their best to keep you in your job... we'll see. They are hoping to have us all figured out by mid-May this year, which is unheard-of-early, but they always say stuff like that. I'm sure I will know by the end of June anyways, and I'm not going to put any energy into stressing over it. I know my principal wants me and will do what he can to keep me and if he can't there will be another job elsewhere for me with my references and if there isn't for some reason, then it is my sign to move on. Yep. Simple as that. I've got another sailing trip lined up for next year again. There's some incentive to keep me too, but if I don't stay, the principal or gym teacher that I took this year could run it, so it's not really job security. I am, however, very excited that I will get to go sailing this year. I figured that if I get pregnant in September I should still be able to go, the boat crew was telling me that they had another pregnant teacher on board that was very "big". I'm not sure how I would get in and out of the dories (small boats that you row ashore for games and stretching your legs) though, maybe I would have to skip that part. So then I talked to my principal and said, "you will be coming sailing with me too next year, right"? and he said that it would only be fair for him to step back and let others do it, but that he believes an administrator should go, so that would mean our AP. To be honest here, I think that I would never be able to survive a week in a confined space with my AP. In fact some school weeks I can't get through the week without the strong urge to kick him really hard... maybe I will have to get pregnant and use that as an excuse even though I really really want to sail again and I will obviously not be able to go when I am on maternity leave or when my babies are small... crappy... maybe I will just have to accept that this was my last year to go, and I will be able to go again one day in the far away future. OK I'm done for today, hopefully I will be able to update more regularly these days! Have a beautiful, sunny weekend!