Thanksgiving...

Ah, a time for thanks. :) I love Thanksgiving, but with my love of Christmas it's hard for me to focus on the Thanksgiving part. However, this year, it's a little different. I am so very excited to have family coming here for Thanksgiving this year. I hosted it two years ago and I have to say that it was by far my best holiday memory to date. It's hard not to expect the same thing this year. However, I am prepping myself for the fact that it will not be the same. Not everyone is coming and there is no year that could top the one we had two years ago. I loved how everyone was playing games, reading books, going for walks, taking naps, baking cookies...it was awesome! This year will be lots of fun too and I can't wait to see everyone.

My days have been stressful this week because there is no school Thursday or Friday (or Wed. at Eastern), so I have had to schedule in lots of make up lessons and have been working like a dog for the last two days. I started my day this morning by finishing a letter of recommendation I was writing for a student and then started cleaning. It's now 11 am and I have been cleaning since 7:00 am. The deep kind of cleaning where I scrubbed the bathtub and swept the porch. I am so excited for everyone to come. I have some work to do this evening and have rehearsal with students from noon until 1:00 and then lessons to teach from 2:30 until 7:00, so hopefully I can get through them. I am already tempted to cancel my later lessons so I can get home and be here when my family gets here.

Yesterday was a 9 hour teaching day and Monday was about the same. I sure love teaching, though. even the tough days when I feel like a failure and wonder all day why a student just isn't getting it. That can be pretty rough. However, the joy of teaching is worth every minute of the pain of it. I was listening in on Teun Fetz's Intro to Music Ed. class the other day and happened to over hear him talking about the joys of teaching and how fulfilling it is. Even though I had a full day and kind of a rough one, I had to smile and stand a little taller when I heard his words when walking by the door. Yes, teaching is a wonderful thing and so full of gratification.

You know what else is gratifying? My baby boy! :) He's not so much a baby anymore, but I can't believe how much I love him! He is so awesome. I have been prepping him for everyone coming over and we have been looking at pictures so he will remember who they are and have been practicing to say their names. He's saying anything these days. These are the days to be extra careful. :) He is just so full of joy all the time. Well...I guess not all the time, but most of it. :) He dances through life...quite literally. We always have some kind of music going in our house (duh) and he loves to dance and dance and dance until he falls to the floor. He's a natural!

I should go get ready to head up to the school while Ethan is still asleep. I still have a lot to do on the house, but it will have to wait.

I'll post again soon. Maybe after everyone is gone and I'll let you know how it goes.

Jme

A note on time management...

For my students, myself, anyone, and everyone...I did not know the meaning of time management until right now, today. :) If I thought I was busy before, I really didn't understand the meaning of the word and I do believe that things will get worse before they get better. the good news: I am handeling (?) it very very well. Today I was up at 6:00 at the table with a cup on hot tea studying. I worked until 8:00 or 8:30 when Ethan FINALLY woke up. Then, we played and read and got ready for the day, ate breakfast, brushed teeth, made his lunch and packed his bag for day care and were out the door by 9:05! I was teaching at EOU at 9:30 and had a great lesson with Mollie this week! Then, my next two students were no-shows so I took the hour and learned the music that I will be conducting over the Christmas season for the Presbyterian choir. Then, I taught a couple more great lessons and went to pick up my boy. We played from noon until 1:00 when he couldn't keep his eyes open any more and I put him down for a nap. I cleaned the house, swept the floors, did some laundry and worked on my music for 30 minutes. Then, Shilo came and I left to head to EOU at 3:30 and didn't have lessons until 4:30, so I worked on my music for an hour. Then, I taught from 4:30 to 7:30 and then got dressed and went to the gym to work out. Now I am home, sweaty and hungry, but very satisfied after a busy and productive day. Now it's time to hang out with my son and hubby, eat some dinner, put them to bed and annotate some books! :) I don't know who in their right minds would want to read this since it's pretty much a run down of my day, but I felt really successful today and wanted to share since I complain a lot in my blogs...:)

Just put your pizza in your poncho and go! --Molly Pants

So, it's been a while since I have posted, huh? Well, Darcy, my friend, you can't say much about taking a while to post now, can you? :) And Aunty Ann...you should blog my dear! Then I could read yours and trust me, it can be very theraputic! :)

Halloween was great this year. We took the tiny-est Jacobson downtown to the businesses dressed as a cute little froggy. He was fascinated that people just kept putting things in his bucket. Man, he's cute! (If I do say so myself)... So we had a blast doing that and then we got a sitter and went out on date night for a drink and then to the haunted house on the 3rd floor of the Union Hotel. I screamed my head off the whole entire time. I don't like stuff like that anyway and I kept telling Sam that I didn't want to do it, but a bunch of his kids were acting scary in it and really wanted us to go, so we did. And it was in fact very scary! I'm sure the kids had a great time listening to me scream my head off. I was so freaked out! We got out of there in record time because I kept pulling Sam from room to room. Creepy!!

Work is going great, but accompanists are hard to come by these days. Anyone who is reading this blog and plays piano, or has played piano, should be an accompanist! Someone who can sight read really well and get the pieces sounding great within a couple of lessons is really hard to come by. I have 4 accompanists working for me right now just to cover the amount of student and repertoire I am teaching! It's crazy! I wish Yuki could stay here in the states instead of having to go back to Japan. She's great! She can do all of that stuff! I miss her very much.

As far as school goes, everything is lining up and I am off and running. I have met with people in Boise to discuss the stuff that I need to do and present what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. They were all impressed with the different person I am now versus who I was then. I had to remind them all that I was a 23 year old graduate student who had been going to school since I had turned 5 with no break. I am definately a different person now! So, I have registered for my pedagogy class and lucky for me, she agreed to just have me finish the one assignment that I didn't finish when I was there. So, I just read a lot of books and write annotated bibliographies on them which....I can do from home! :) Yeah! So, I have to pay for the credits and stuff, but I can do the work at home. I registered for my remaining history/theory credits in the form of "Music History in the United States" which is taught as a night class on Wed. nights. I was soooo releieved to see that it wasn't two or three days a week or anything like that. So, I am scheduled to start driving to Boise in January on Wednesdays for a lesson and class. I am studying constantly for my history predictive exam. That thing is huge! It's a 4 hour exam and they give you sheets of papers with names of composers, titles of pieces, styles of music, whatever and you have to just write as much as you know about them. So, I have made flashcards and have broken it all down into sections and am studying like crazy. I always have them with me and yesterday I was sitting on the floor at the oil changing place watching Ethan play with the toys and running my flashcards while waiting for my oil to be changed. I have also started working on my 5 pieces I have to sing for "audition" for the faculty at BSU. I am already admitted, but my voice teacher wants to see how I work on my own and how fast I can get pieces to a performable level. So, I have been busy. If I thought I was busy before with momming, working, etc..., I really had no idea. Every single spare minute I have lately has been spent on studying in some way. My poor house is suffering, but I plan on taking this morning to clean it and then have a social hour with a friend coming for tea. I am working hard, but I am so very excited to be finished with this degree. It's been hanging over my head for a long time and I am excited to have it finished, solved, done, and over!

Let's see...other than that...there really isn't a lot going on in my life these days. Sam and I are finishing up our kitchen one weekend at a time and are looking forward to hosting Thanksgiving dinner here for all our family. Some won't be able to make it, but it looks like lots of them are coming. It should be really fun.

Sam's first concert was last night and I thought all of his groups did a very nice job! They sounded good and looked good and from what I heard, everyone loved them. The fall is such a fun time with the weather getting colder and colder and I feel more excited about this fall than any because I am so motivated by all we have going in our lives. I am sad that it's dark by 4pm, but we live in a beautiful valley and that's one of the prices we have to pay. I am a little worried about winter travel to and from Boise, but I have 4 wheel drive and we are getting studded tires on our vehicle this year for specifically that reason. Plus, just to put all your minds at ease, they recently did a bunch of construction over Ladd Canyon and put in heating strips under 1 lane of the freeway going both ways, so at least one lane will be ok to drive in. I have Timmy and a couple of other friends in Boise should I need to stay the night if the weather is to bad to travel in and Sarah and I have already come up with an emergency child care plan should that happen. I know, Ross, you are laughing at my because of my crazy planning personality style, but I am ready! :)

Well, I am off to get busy doing my busy day things. More later...
Jamie

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, yesterday was my birthday. Being that I blog, it should come as no surprise that I write myself birthday letters every year that I seal and opening the following year. For the most part they are a review of what has happened over the year, a review of how I did on the goals I had set for myself and a time to set new goals for the next year. I found that I actually did pretty well meeting all the goals that I needed to meet for the year and was very happy with the progress that I had made in my life. It really is amazing how much stuff can happen in a year. It seems like every birthday letter I have written in the last (at least) 5 years has had a divorce or marriage, or death, or birth, or some kind of major event in my family dynamics. There have been lots of trips and lots of fun times and some hard times too. It's great to keep them and go back over them and see what a difference a year can make. I love them and look forward to writing and reading them every year.

I had a great birthday! I taught in the afternoon and went out for a beer with my hubby in the evening and then out for a date night to hear George Winston in concert here in La Grande. The man was great! I enjoyed the concert very much. There is a lot of talk going around as to whether what he does is art. I think it's silly to even question. Just because some people aren't fond of that kind of music or whatever doesn't mean that it isn't an art form. It was great and I will probably go again if he comes again next year.

My grandparents are in town tonight and staying over on their way back down to Yuma for the winter. I am excited to see them, but sad that I still have to go back to work tonight for another few hours. I already taught EOU kids this morning and would have liked to stay home now. :) Oh well, I can't complain, it's a great job!

So, I have to admit something and I am kind of hoping that it doesn't affect anyone too badly that I am going to put it on my blog, but it's been on my mind a lot lately. I have had a lot of trouble (especially lately) finding balance in my life. I know we all struggle with that and lately, I have struggled a lot. Especially when it comes to Ethan. Sarah is such a fabulous care giver for him while I work, that I could never have asked for better! In fact, she's so good that now he doesn't want to come home and when she is visiting our house, he goes to her when he needs something. I would imagine that for a full time working mom it's probably even much worse, but it kills me. Granted, (and I've told her all of this) I am really really really really glad that it's her and not some stranger at a day care. But that doesn't make it any easier. I have a lot of guilt about the fact that I work. I feel that I need to work at this point in our financial life and even if I didn't have to, I would want to. I love my job, I love my students and I am passionate about what I do. I think it takes a special kind of person to stay home all day and I don't have what it takes. I want to be out with people and I love my job! But since the start of the term, it's been extra hard to leave Ethan and go to work in the morning 3 days per week. So that's an issue in and of itself and the past week, someone made a comment to me about how "lucky" I was that I didn't have to stay with 3 kids all day and that I got to leave the chaos and go to work to escape it all. That was the indication anyway because one of the boys was throwing a fit at the time I had to leave. It really hurt to hear how "lucky" I was because I'm not lucky. I am a better mom, wife, friend, daughter, and .... when I am working and have structure to my day. I spend more quality time doing fun things with Ethan because my time is somewhat limited. I cried that day. I cried all the way to work and I walked, so it was a while! I don't think she (it wasn't Sarah) meant to hurt my feelings with her comment, but she did. Then, when I went to pick Ethan up, I offered for him to give hugs goodbye and he didn't want to. He just snuggled closer into my neck and the same person said that I was just doing that to make myself feel better. I couldn't believe the comment. I was really hurt and ended up crying all the way home and for most of the rest of the afternoon. I struggle a lot to balance all the things that I do and all the different roles that I play in life and it's really hard when I know that people are judging me the whole time about the decisions that I make. I think that I am a better mom because I work and I think that Ethan will be a more rounded person because he is growing up spending 20 hours per week with his cousins. I think he is getting the benefits. I know that I am doing the right thing even though I have days where it's a bit much. I am a busy person and I have a lot going on, but my situation is how Sam and I want it to be. If I didn't like my life the way it was, I have the power to change it, but I am happy. Except that day. It's hard when you are going along and start questioning yourself and then have someone you look up to and admire hint that you are doing everything wrong. It really set me back for a couple of days. I was off my game at work and questioning everything I do. It also made me think about things that I say to people. Students, friends, my spouse...if she had such an impact on me, I need to watch what I say to others because for some people, maybe I have that kind of impact on their day. Anyway, I'll get off the subject, but I wanted to get it off my chest because it occassionally keeps coming up for me to deal with.

On the whole, things are going great! I got the best compliment ever today! Someone said that I "have a very successful life". She was right! I have an education and am furthering it to the next level, I have a great job and great prospects for the future, I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful baby boy. I have a great extended family and a nice home to live in with a few nice things. Life is good and when I look at the big picture, I have no right to complain. Life is great and I have led a successful life and am pleased with where we are and how far we've come. We have had our share of hurdles to get through and over and some have even tripped us up a little, but we've always hung in there and I know for myself, I have a lot to show for my 28 years on this planet! :)

So, happy birthday to me and many happy returns to you all!

Life is what you make it?!?

Isn't that such a funny idea? that life is what you make it? I think that's rather silly, actually. I thought a lot about this last night as I lay awake unable to sleep. I had a bit of a break down yesterday in realizing that I have not found a balance between work-ing, mommy-ing, wife-ing, and being myself. I went to bed feeling like a total failure in all things. My house was still a mess, my laundry was still not caught up, my son and I had only spent about a total of 2 hours together during the day and I hadn't seen my husband at all. I have become one of those people who I pity. One of those people who has so much going on in their lives that they do lots and lots of things, but do them half way instead of being good at any one thing. That's how I felt yesterday. To add to that, I straightened out a few other things to finish my degree. One more thing to add to a very busy plate. I find it difficult to function sometimes. I have students who come in to their lessons and complain because they didn't have any time. They are carrying 16 credits. Well, that's a lot of credits and if you have a job and credits or a family and credits or, god forbid, a family and work and credits, then yes, I can see how that would make a person busy. There are those people. People who work and go to school and raise a family and are in the musical and ....... I know there are single mom's who work full time and sometimes more than that and have kids and they look at my complaining the same way I look at some of student's complaining. However, I had a bad day yesterday and it didn't start off great today either, but did get progressively better! :)

It just bugged me. The idea that life is what you make it. I don't think that's true. I think the statement has to be that life just is. Yes, attitude has a lot to do with how we look at our situation and I can see that our outlook could potentially change our lives, but I don't think life is what you make it. I think life just is and how we deal with it is what we make it. I couldn't help lying awake thinking about the fact that I haven't had a solid night's sleep in weeks due to Ethan being up in the night. I have 21 private students and 13 at EOU and a voice class. All those things are very good things. I love my son more than anything in the world and there is nothing I would rather do than spend time with him, but I do love what I do and I don't think I could be a good mom if I was the mom who stayed home all day. It's just not my personality. I think I am a much better friend, mom, wife, and person when I have something productive to do in a day. I guess it's just the key to find that balance. To make sure that I am getting what I need to do my jobs, whatever they may be.

Anyway, I will blog more tomorrow because I have the morning to do so, but for now, I am going to go change the laundry and watch some TV with my hubby.

There's nothing like feeling successful!

So, this morning I woke up after a fairly rough night (hopefully the last of about a week of very little sleep). I got up and fed, bathed, and dressed Ethan. While I was doing that, I had started some apple butter in the crockpot that I had prepared the night before and started softening some pears on the stove for pear butter. Once Ethan was ready for the day, I turned my attention to myself. I fed, bathed, and dressed myself, put on my make up and did my hair and changed my clothes only twice (did I mention today was opening ceremonies day at EOU and it's time for me to be a professional now...). Then, I picked up the house and started some laundry and made our bed. I shut off the boiling pears, left the apple butter on high in the crockpot and had Ethan's lunch made and bagged packed and had him at Sarah's house by 8:15. Just in time for me to grab a cup of coffee and head to my 8:30 meeting. I sat in meeting at EOU from 8:30 until 12:30 or so, came home, collected my son from Sarah, put him down for his afternoon nap after some "mommy time" with a couple of books. I put my softened pears through the food mill and got my pear butter going in the other crockpot. I cleaned the kitchen, switched the laundry and here I sit with a few minutes to myself before I head up to teach at 3:30. I teach until 7:00 tonight after which I am supposed to go running for 30 minutes (straight through for the first time!). Then, I come home, eat dinner, spend some chatting time with my hubby, put the boy to bed and then sit down to veg out in front of the TV until we both fall asleep. I have to say, that is a successful day and it feels great!!!

Just wanted to put it down for the record. :)

The important thing is to strive towards a goal which is not immediately visible. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Ok, so this will be a very motivating blog as I have just come from a very motivating run!! This is a picture of me running the "Basic 5" 5K race in Boise as a grad student. I was overweight at this point and had been working hard to get in shape. Not too long after this run, I proceeded to get into the best shape I had been in since high school in preparations for hiking the PCT. In fact, I remember a picture (that I couldn't find) of me at the ski trip the winter after this spring photo and I looked great! Even to me! :) So, I made a goal a while ago that I wanted to run this race again. It worked to get me focused on something then and it can work again.

My run tonight was awesome! Just like the last time I wrote, I overdid it and it didn't even feel like over doing it. :) I ran for 15 minutes, walked for 3 and ran another 12 minutes! I felt like I could run for longer! I am very happy that I am going along at this so quickly. I am scheduled to increase my running time on Monday to 10 minutes of running with 5 minutes of walking in between and do that twice, but I think I will see how I feel. Tonight felt fantastic!

I was a little bummed about our plans for the weekend. We were supposed to go camping and welcome in the next 30 years of Sam's life (instead of mourning the passing of the last 30) at Anthony Lakes this weekend. However, the fires have closed off most wilderness areas around us. So, we are staying home. Sam still went riding with Schwartzy (Eric Schwartz--a friend from college and choir/band teacher in Union) and they had a great time. Then, Sam came home and I went for an invigorating run! So...

That's all I have to say about anything! I want everyone who reads this post to go and do something for yourself after reading this. Go hike in the hills, play a game of touch football or soccer with friends, try a new sport like tennis, or just go for a walk out your front door and around a few blocks or so or your local track. You will feel better when you are done!

So, that's all for now folks...I will be running the Basic 5K in March if anyone wants to train and join me and there is also a 10K and walking races if that's more your thing. It'll be fun and I can't wait to run a full 30 minutes without stopping. From there, I just increase my running time! :) YEAH!

Ok, now I'm really done. have a great rest of the weekend rest of your life!