I honestly don’t think so. I am of the opinion that life is what you make of it. If you make it fun and simple it will be. If you make it difficult or complicated, it will be. But I also believe that there are things you have zero control over. Some of the things with the house purchase are completely out of our control and we are at the mercy of other people. Initially, being the control freak I am, that stressed me out. I was a wreck worrying about what those people were doing or not doing or whatever. I have however let all that go. I have reached a very zen place where I’m hoping they do the right thing but I’m not stressing over it since I have zero control. I can not control what they do but I can control my reaction to it and that’s what I’m doing. It really does make life much simpler. I just wish the house would resolve itself one way or the other. I want to buy a Nintendo Wii but I don’t dare spend that kind of money if the house is going to close. I’ll have to wait for a month or two. But if the house is not going to close I can go out right now and buy one. Ugh!!!! Patience is not my strong point…..

Cheesy saying, I know, but true.  This week is Catholic Schools Week and for the last 3 days we have had special programs at school.  Wednesday and Thursday they brought in speakers and broke the students into groups for various topics.  The speakers were not exactly religious but they all have a strong relationship with God and they credit him for all their success.  I only heard them speak to the girls so my view may be a little biased, but one speaker talked about staying pure, another spoke of what kind of woman they want to grow up to be, another talked of their attitude and what they say to themselves.  The speakers were very good and I think it’s things that the kids needed to hear.

One theme that ran through everything though really hit me.  They all told the kids that they needed to think of the future, they needed to have an idea of what they wanted to be. Not that they had to plan their future and decide everything now, but they had to be actively involved in considering what they want to be as a person. They needed to think about how they dress and having sex.  Do they want to advertise with their clothes or do they want to accentuate?  Do they want to remain pure until marriage or do they want to be 30 years old with a couple of kids by different men who aren’t around?  Okay, that last one might be a little extreme but it brings home a good point.  What do want to be???

This theme really hit me hard because when I was their age I had a vague idea of what I wanted to be but I really didn’t think beyond today.  When I was 14-15 I wanted to be a veterinarian and while it was encouraged by my family, I didn’t have a real idea of how I could accomplish that.  When I was in high school they didn’t have all the AP courses and college counselors that they do now.  So I did not have any idea of how to accomplish my vision.  Watching these kids listen to these speakers and think that if I had someone like that talk to me when I was that age my life may have turned out very, very different.  Not that my life is so horrible but things may have been different.

These last few days have made me realize that it’s not too late.  I tend to not have goals and visions and that needs to change.  I’m going to make a list of my goals or wishes or whatever you want to call them and work towards them one by one.  One of the things I need to look into is a health savings account. Hubby and I are both getting older and something like that could be a real benefit.

I’m off to work on my list.

First of all I have to state for the record that I hate the term “green.” Living green. Going green. Being green. I hate it, it annoys the crap out of me. Now, having said that doesn’t mean that I am against the concepts. I believe that we should reduce, reuse, recycle as much as possible. For years I’ve lived by the saying, “leave only footprints, take only pictures” in not just natural places but all areas of my life. Lord knows I’m not perfect at it but I try. I was looking for trash cans in public long before it became popular. Hubby has been recycling his beer cans for as long as I’ve know him. It may not be a lot, but if everyone does a little….yada…yada… Lately though I’m beginning to think more and more about green shopping, especially for food. I have never been a fan of the way our food animals are treated in this country but there weren’t a lot of alternatives to their meat and I knew I would never go meatless completely. I just like meat too much. But now there are so many more ways to get meat that has been raised properly. We have a Whole Foods here in Hawaii and we are getting another one not far from us. The supermarkets even sell organic and free range meat now. Yes, it’s more expensive but do we really need to eat as much as we do?? I don’t think so. I think that everyone of us could stand to cut back on our serving sizes. If When we move into the new house I plan on having a garden year round and having a worm farm.  The worm farm will eat most of our food scraps thereby cutting back on our trash and produce excellent soil for growing in.  A win-win situation. So yeah, much as I hate to admit it looks like I’m starting to live green…..

So the silly dance continues…. Every time I completely and totally give up on the house something happens that makes me think it really might work. I spent most of Monday and yesterday though convincing myself it’s a done deal. I am starting to make other plans. We have the money for the down payment and it’s either pay off every single bill so we have nothing but living expenses and can save $2,000 a month, or put it in an account to collect some interest and pay things off slowly…. Not sure which way we are going to go but at least I’m starting to think about other things and not dwelling on the fact that we might not get the house. My mental attitude has shifted to the point where if we get it I will be completely shocked and surprised. At least I no longer feel like opening a vein with a box cutter… I guess that’s a good sign…

Things quickly went from zero to 60. It’s amazing how that happens. Monday I had an in-teacher service day at school. Tuesday and today was a seminar. Tomorrow I’m back in the classroom. Thankfully Monday is a holiday The seminar was really interesting but I’ll go into that more on my other blog. I want to document some stuff.

It’s been really, really cold here lately and I hate it. Cold is okay, but as cold as it’s been lately we are just not prepared to handle. I hate it!!!

I have decided to start accepting myself and stop beating myself up over it. I’m 50 years old, isn’t it time to act like a grown up??? For years I’ve been searching for the best weight loss supplement and I haven’t found it. Maybe I should just accept things the way they are and get on with my life…..

That’s it for now. I’m off to document some stuff on my teaching blog.

I wrote a really long post the other day but it seems to have gotten eaten by the blogging gods. I hate when that happens. Anyway, it’s a new year. I am usually the type who looks forward to the new year with great anticipation. The new year is always like a line in the sand for me, I cross it and everything changes. I can throw off all that happened before and start new. If it was a bad year/month/week/whatever, I can start with a clean slate and none of what happened before affects me. This year is different. First because I’m literally in the middle of buying a house. We had the offer accepted about 30 days ago and the house closes in 27 days. So I’m smack in the middle. I can not throw that off – it’s there and it’s not going away. Second, last year was a pretty good year, as years go. It was not perfect at all but it was darn good. A lot of things happened that I’m very pleased with, not the least of which is the aforementioned house. So this year I was not all gung-ho about the new year and it’s weird to feel that way. But you know what? It happened anyway and it is a new year so here goes.

Today we are meeting the electrician over at the new house. The electrical needs to be upgraded and he’s going to give us an estimate for it. I have my fingers crossed that it’s not too much. We are trying to get the seller’s to pay at least some of it, we’ll see what happens. The house needs a lot of things the electrical is just the most urgent. It needs new tiles, new appliances, new Danze faucets, new paint, the floors redone, okay I’ll stop there, you get the idea.

Well, I have nothing else to say. I guess I’ll get ready to go for my run.

That’s what’s happened here. Serious neglect. If this blog was a child it would be taken away from me. If this blog was an animal I’d be charged with abuse. It’s terrible. I have just been so busy lately that I can not seem to find time, or the energy, to write things here. So I’m making a commitment. I post on Cake almost everyday. That seems to be my main blog. The others, Teacher, Pet, Photo, and this one, I tend to let slide and that is wrong. So, starting today, I’m going to alternate the blogs I post on. I’ll probably do Cake about every day, but the other four I’ll rotate so that each one gets posted on every week. That will take the pressure off me to try to keep them up constantly but still have them posted on regularly.

I’ve also been a real slacker on Entrecard and Adgitize. I’m thinking of pulling some ads on Adgitize, a different blog every month, and working on dropping again every night. I enjoy visiting and dropping on all the other blogs and it really only takes about 30 minutes or so. I spend 30 minutes on Farmville I can certainly find 30 minutes for blogs. Plus it helps me relax and unwind. So I think I’ll get back on that wagon again.

If only life wasn’t so busy and I didn’t feel like I was riding ellipticals all the time. Seriously!! Sometimes, okay lots of times, I feel like I’m on a treadmill that’s going way too fast.  I feel like I’m barely able to hold on.  Well, I guess that’s better then being bored, right??

Okay, I’m off.  Things to do and this is not getting them done.

again. Hubby and I have been married for 20 years. During that time we have argued. Big. Time. Then we grew up and just had little disagreements. For about the past 5 years or so we haven’t had any real arguments because I’ve learned how to handle him. We’ve gotten angry with each other but there have been no real fights. As a result we’ve kind of lost the ability to argue effectively. That has to change. Soon. We had our first argument over the house today. Hubby wants to paint the house before we move in. I, knowing that we are going to redo each room, don’t really care and think it’s a waste of time. That lead to a fight. He got all pissed off because I thought painting was a waste of time and he said to forget it and didn’t want to talk about it anymore. That’s what he does. But that is not going to work this time. We are talking about a house and the things we want to do with it. We are not talking about whether to take the dogs for a walk or not, that’s usually what we get angry over. So I told him we are going to have to learn to argue again. There is going to be a lot of things we disagree about and we are going to have to work them out. In this case, even though I think painting is a waste of time, I just don’t care enough about it. If he wants to paint, we’ll paint. Whatever. I’m not going to be excited about everything he wants to do and I don’t expect him to be excited about everything I want to do. So what. If it really matters we’ll come to a compromise. If it doesn’t matter to one of us, the other wins by default. I can see the disagreements that will be coming; the furniture, the kitchen appliances, the counter tops, the bathroom, the plasma mounts; yeah, it could get ugly.

I’m so excited. I just can not wait until that house is ours and we can move in. I have so many ideas for the house but I want to wait until we move in and live there for a little while. I want to get the feel of the house, how it flows, how things work in it. I want to wear it for a while before I decide to alter it. But I’m very, very excited.

I have to tone down my excitement though. The economy is bad and there are people hurting a lot. I know one person who is on a string of medicines. His list is so long and he can rattle it off like it’s nothing; hydrocodone, ambien, vicodin, Fastin, just to name a few. I don’t even know what half the drugs are he takes or what they are for. I have to remember to keep my excitment to a minimum when he is around. I don’t want to make him feel bad.

Okay, that’s it for now. It’s Friday night and I plan to relax some.

I’m really getting excited about the house now. Initially I was literally sick to my stomach over the thought of buying this place, but after sitting with the loan officer yesterday I see now that it’s all going to work out and now I’m getting excited. As soon as I saw this house I knew it had potential but now that I’m starting to get excited I’ve got some great ideas. I want to build a porch that goes all the way around three sides of the house. I want to paint my computer room/office a vibrant color and then decorate the walls with some cool painting. I want to tap into my creative side.

Buying a house also involves other non-house related stuff like life insurance. When you are a home-owner you have to have life insurance, the mortgage company wants to be sure they get their money if you die. So many grown up things I’m doing. It’s crazy.