It's official. I'm registered for classes starting this summer! I'm feeling smarter already :)

Gosh there is so much to think about and ducks to get in a row. Thanks Michelle for all your help!

This made me laugh outloud

I got this in my email this evening...

Back in wrestling again

Josh started a new session of free-style wrestling last night. It's a bit different. You get points, it seems, from every little thing. You want to wrack up as many points as you can to win each time period, or get a pin. As much as I whine about the cost of it, and the time commitment, I really do love my kids being in sports and being active and having fun. So it's really not as bad as I make it sound.

Usually I end up sitting alone and nobody talks to me, but last night I was in an unusually chatty mood and chatted with a lady I sat down next to. She has 4 kids of her own and is a single mom who also takes care of 2 foster kids at this time. Two of her kids are grown, one lives on her own, the other has autism and lives with her. He is not able to make the right decisions and is an easy target for people, so she lets him live with her so she can help him. She is about to graduate from college, I can't remember the degree she's getting, but she's having a hard time finding work too. She keeps getting messages from places she's applied that they've picked someone with more experience than her. Joel has been dealing with that kind of rejection for a year now. It's so hard to get your foot in the door now days in careers with so many overly qualified people being laid off.

Footprints in the Sand

Tonight while the older boys were at the Priesthood session of Conference I took the three little kids to play at the park. At first they threw a ball around, warming their arms up for the upcoming baseball season. Then they ran around the playground like maniacs and then finally settled down into a corner with their sand toys and tried to build sand castles strong enough to resist the damage of a tossed baseball.

As I watched my kids play and enjoyed the quiet chatter they made (they've been fighting like crazy lately) an older couple approached the playground with their teenage son.

I could tell that their son had recently had some sort of brain injury, his body looked as if he had been healthy until recently but for whatever reason he now had slow motor skills.I watched the father help his son onto a swing and proceed to push his son as a pendulum. The mother swaying in the swing next to him.

I imagined what this family may have recently gone through and was touched by the love and care these parents were giving their son. I thought about parenthood and how it really is a life-long commitment to another human being. Sometimes things go different than we plan and we end up taking care of our children a lot longer than we normally think we would. I thought about our Jacob, when he broke his femur. What a year long ordeal that ended up being and how much our family went through to take care of him. How thankful I was that his injuries weren't worse.

I looked at my children playing and watched them in wonder, what wonderful people they are and I was given a new persepective tonight, new gratitude, new wonder.

I watched the family walk down the path and out of sight, the son clinging to his mother's arm.

I guess we never really know the lives we touch, or the reflections we cause, when we are just living life the best we can.

The footprints in the sand under that son's swing will be gone tomorrow, but they will forever be in this picture, and probably in my head as well.

I caved...

HAWT

Uh huh, that's what my man is, in his new pair of these...This man in the picture below shows up when I Google "Hot business man in glasses" and Joel is even hotter than him, and he doesn't even have to stand in a desert to get hot.

But that could also be due to my "wife goggles".

I'll have to snag a picture of him later when he's not looking. He's more elusive now that he can see what's really going on around him.

Small Blessings

So many of you know the little saga we had with Joshua having a really rotten teacher for the first half of the year. We'll call her Ms. Meanie
Well, the saga continues....
So, Ms. Meanie sees Josh in the halls at school every day and he says she sometimes stares at him and always has a mad look on her face. That would creep me out. From the last parent teacher conferences we know that all the teachers know something happened. Jaeden's teacher basically said so, but said she didn't want to get into all the details, but wanted us to know that she has some say in who Jaeden goes to next year. She said the teachers all get together and hash it out. That was good to know.
Anyway, back to Josh....
Last winter Josh's class (with Ms. Meanie) worked on a writing assignment where they wrote their family's traditions for the winter holidays. Josh worked very hard on his and I know he had to rewrite it several time so it was nice and neat and had proper punctuation.
Yesterday I was going through his backpack and found a book in there called, "Family Traditions". I opened it and it was a pop-up book he'd made out of his story. A lot of time was put into this book! It was so cool to see. I said, "Josh, didn't you make this in Ms. Meanie's class?"
He told me that he was coming out to the school bus for home when his friend Duky, from Ms. Meanie's class, ran up to him and gave the book to him telling him that Ms. Meanie had thrown it away and he had rescued it from the garbage!
I couldn't believe it! I know that Duky risked something to rescue this treasure for my Josh, I was so impressed! What a wonderful friend Josh has. What a rotten teacher to throw it away knowing Josh was still in the school and she could have given it to him by other means.

Brett Dennen

is the guy who is singing many of the songs I have playing on here. I discovered him while watching Ugly Betty. I am so loving his voice and many of his songs speak to my heart. But also, there's another reason to love him... look at that hair! Looooove it!

Don't judge me

I caved. I'm sorry. You don't have to watch me use it. I prefer to call it a personal nasal irrigation system. It sounds more clinical that way.

Jobs

Jake's been hitting the pavement this week trying to find a job to help pay for the insurance for him to drive, and also to save for his mission. I forgot how it was to be that age, trying to get the same job that every other teenager in your school is trying to get. Only for Jake, it's worse. Now he's not only trying to edge out the other teens, but he's also going up against displaced workers for the same position. Poor kid. I hope he's able to find something that will give him a great first job experience.
I remember my first job I had. It was at McDonalds. I don't remember much about it, it was over 20 years ago, and man that makes me feel so old to say that! My most favorite job I ever had was working for a movie theatre. I had a blast with the people I worked with.
I wonder what my next job will be.

So glad it's done!

You have no idea what I have been through this last week and I am so glad it's done!
Now I can move onto other things, like portrait sessions and blogging and cooking and shopping and cleaning and all that other good stuff :)

Today I am going to work on a sample Accuplacer test to prepare for an upcoming one I have to take at the college next month (which really begins this week).
This morning I applied and sent in my application fee and also set up an account with the school.

I'm so nervous!
I worry that my family won't be very helpful while I go to school. I think Jake will, but I know the three little kids are going to be harder to get to work on making less work for me.
I'm nervous that I won't qualify for much help and have to take out huge loans.
I worry about the last three years of going to school that our finances will be ok without me working. I can do weddings in the summers, but I will have limited time for session during the rest of the year. I'd like to take on all I can, still.
Jake will be on a mission in two years, which will mean my last two years will be completed without him being here to help.
I'm more worried about not going and not taking the risk and chance to make our lives better.

A long long time ago in a land far away a little girl named Jenny had been expelled from the land of High School and sent to another far away land called Alternative Learning Center, otherwise known as ALC. In this land Jenny had a locker and one day someone left the poem below written out on a piece of paper in Jenny's locker. She never found who this mysterious person was, but she felt a connection to the poem as if someone had been watching her from afar, yet knew the deep thoughts of her heart.
Recently Jenny came across said poem and felt a need to post it on the "Hear Ye! Hear Ye!" board.

So Excited!

I have a new product I am going to be unveiling on my JensPortraits blog very soon!

THE MASK I WEAR

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks-
masks that I'm afraid to take off
and none of them are me.
Pretending is an art that's second nature with me
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake, don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure
That all is sunny and unruffled with me
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name
and coolness my game,
that the water's calm
and I'm in command,
and that I need no one.
But don't believe me. Please!

My surface may be smooth but my surface is my mask,
My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.
But I hide this.
I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my
weaknesses
and fear exposing them.
That's why I frantically create my masks
to hide behind.
They're nonchalant, sophisticated facades
to help me pretend,
To shield me from the glance that
knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
my only salvation,
and I know it.

That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
and if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself
from my own self-built prison walls

I dislike hiding, honestly
I dislike the superficial game I'm playing,
the superficial phony game.
I'd really like to be genuine and me.
But I need your help, your hand to hold
Even though my masks would tell you otherwise
That glance from you is the only thing that assures me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.

But I don't tell you this.
I don't dare.
I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh
and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing,
that I'm just no good
and you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game
With a facade of assurance without,
And a trembling child within.
So begins the parade of masks,

The glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's nothing
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying
Please listen carefully and try to hear
what I'm not saying
Hear what I'd like to say
but what I can not say.

It will not be easy for you,
long felt inadequacies make my defenses strong.
The nearer you approach me
the blinder I may strike back.
Despite what books say of men, I am irrational;
I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.
you wonder who I am
you shouldn't
for I am everyman
and everywoman
who wears a mask.
Don't be fooled by me.
At least not by the face I wear.
~Unknown

Depression

For the last few years I've gotten seasonal depression. This has been a hard winter on me. One of the reasons I haven't blogged much. I hate blogging negative stuff and it seems lately everything is negative. I really want to be positive and uplifting and my natural self likes to look at the lighter side of things.
I'm feeling better this week with more sunshine and I've been taking some vitamin D that I think might be kicking in now. I'm feeling more antsy to get out and play and have contact with people again.
Last night Joel and I got out on a date. Bad us, we skipped the adult session of Stake Conference. I considered us on vacation, even though we weren't actually out of town. We went to the eye doctor and got Joel set up with a prescription and glasses. I think he picked out a pair that will look good on him and be functional as he needs bifocals.
Then we went to Red Lobster for their Lobster Fest. We started out with a hot lobster dip and tortilla chips and both had steak and lobster. The tails were huge compared to what I got at Outback Steakhouse. I still have to say my most favorite place to get surf n' turf is a little Mexican restaurant in St. Paul called Casa Veja. Their steak was so tender, even though it was well done and the lobster tail was seasoned really good and the dipping butter was great.
We then went and saw Alice in Wonderland in 3-D. I think the 3-D effects were pretty good throughout the whole movie, but I was really disappointed that the colors didn't show well through the dark glasses we had to wear. So we basically had to trade in the wonderful colors of Wonderland for the 3-D effect. Boooo. The movie was good and I think it was a lot less scary than Where the Wild Things Are. Our kids are going to like it when they get to see it. We ended our date with a trip to Cub Foods for ice cream, hot fudge and children's Tylenol.
I like getting out with Joel. We don't have a lot to talk about when we are, but it's nice to just be with him alone.
Tomorrow Jake is going to try again, after school, to get his driver's licence. Wish him luck!