Our New Ride!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Seeing that today is the Chinese New Year, I think it is a great one to take another crack at my new years resolutions. In China, today is the day to give your house a thorough cleaning and sweep out the dirt from the previous year and start the new year fresh and clean. Coincidentally, today is also the day I turned in my company car (out with the old), and will be riding home in our new 2008 Hyundai Santa Fe (in with the new!)! Hooray! I purchased the car on Saturday while Chris was in California and surprised him by picking him up in it at the airport last night! What fun! The Santa Fe is just what I had been looking for and I found a great barely used one at a great price. It sure made parting with the Honda easier to know that I had a great replacement. (...just realized I've used the word great about 10 times in this post so far. Great.) It's kind of funny, actually- It dawned on me that my first car was a 1988 model, my second was a 1998 model, and now my third is a 2008! I guess the universe was telling me it was time for a new car!

Now that that ordeal is over and done with, I can relax a little and enjoy my new car and my free evenings and weekends!

One LOUSY week.

Well, they say bad news always comes in threes, and this week that has definitely been the case. Yesterday was crap from start to finish. First we got the alarming and very sad news that the father of one of our students committed suicide yesterday morning. We spent the rest of the day offering support to students as a very somber hush fell over the school. Yesterday evening, after a grueling 2 hour drive home, Leah called me to tell me that she needed to cancel her trip to Atlanta at the last minute (she would have arrived this evening) because a dear friend of hers is in the hospital in critical condition. I was so very much looking forward to spending the weekend with my dearest friend, but feel much worse that she may lose a friend.
This morning, I FINALLY heard back about the company car, and the news is "Sorry, but we're turning it in next week." This means I have 4 days to find transportation, get a car loan, and buy a car so I can get to and from work next week. How's that for courtesy.

The good news is that despite my aggravation, I actually feel thankful today. I feel thankful that the people I love are healthy and safe, that I have a loving family, and that I am employed in a job I enjoy, despite obvious inconveniences. This week's events have really given me a reminder to have perspective, and to know how blessed I am in the things I have been provided.

So, now I'm going to try to enjoy car shopping as much as possible. At least "now is the time to buy!" Sigh....

More later.

-L

2009 has been interesting so far...

I haven't talked a lot about this on my blog, but over the past three or four months I have been feeling a little "off". Of course I have still been enjoying Parker, but have felt a lot of anxiety and stress, and just haven't felt like myself. I believe that part of this is because I really had taken on too much and wasn't making it a priority to take care of myself. My New Year's resolution was to reduce stress and take care of myself so that I will have more happiness and energy left to give back to those around me. This past weekend, I made the difficult decision to drop my online program. I did this so that I could come home from work and commit my home time to Parker and to Chris, and also to myself. I'm going to read books I want to read, take time to sit down and eat dinner, and maybe even fit in some exercise! I feel a little bit dissapointed in myself for not being able to pull it off, but moreso I feel an overwhelming amount of relief... or at least I did, until...

I got an email from the second in command at the University saying that they don't think they want to renew the lease on the company vehicle they gave me to drive a year and a half ago. Here's the even better part- the lease is up on the 27th of January. Chris and I only have one (running) car, and that car is the very same one I was driving in HIGH SCHOOL in 1998. It has been having all kinds of problems lately, and I know it wouldn't hold up if I were to drive it over 100 miles a day as required by my commute (not to mention that would leave Chris without a car...). I am HORRIFIED that my employer would give me this news with 14 days notice, and feel very disrespected by the way it was presented to me. I know that this is not a decision that was made by anyone I work with directly, but it still makes me loose a lot of faith in my employment situation. Chris and I can't just go out tomorrow and buy a new car in the next two weeks. That type of investment would be a stretch for us at this point and would require more preparation than two little weeks. I am really upset and not quite sure what this means for us. As always, I guess I just need to have faith that things will work out as they should.

Needless to say, my momentary feeling of relief after dropping my class immediately vanished and was replaced by anxiety. Sigh. I'm trying not to let this news distract me from my orginal goals of self care. The universe has been good to me and my family, and I know that with every closed door comes an open window. Keep your fingers crossed for a good resolution to our momentary dillema.

Ommm..... ommmmmm.... :)

Mima and Papa's visit!

Mima and Papa came to spend this past weekend with us and we had a wonderful time. As usual, Mima brought lots of good food, wine, and took lots of pictures!!! I don't have a lot of time to write, but wanted to get some of these great pics up!

Welcome Penelope Jade!

I won't post her picture with out parental permission, but I am so excited that my dear old friend Jessa had her baby, Penelope Jade, this past weekend. Little P was 3-4 weeks early, but she's cute as a button and already much adored by everyone, including me. :) Congratulations John and Jessa!!!

Next on the agenda- ACCOUNTING! I start my online accounting class tomorrow (gulp) and will hopefully survive with at least an ounce of my sanity left. I'm having some serious anxiety about this class, and even more so now that I have looked over the syllabus and noticed that a HUGE percent of my grade is made up of the midterm and final exam grade. I usually depend on my daily assignment and paper grades to help me out, since that is where my strength lies, not in test taking. I must keep reminding myself, all I need to do is pass. I know I can do that much at least.

Grandma and Grandpa also arrive tomorrow, so we have that to look forward to. We still have our (dried out) Christmas tree up waiting to celebrate with them on Saturday. I think we will get up, open stockings, open gifts, and then strip down the tree and give it the boot. :) We might also try to make it to the aquarium this weekend. We'll see how we feel about it and how much energy we have after our "holiday" food. I'll be taking some videos with my new camera and trying to rope Chris into helping me figure out how to get them into the compute and onto my blog. (Lindsay- maybe you can give me a quick tutorial?) :)

Parker is enjoying all of his Chrismas loot, and some of mine. One of his favorite "toys" from Christmas is my new excercise ball. His eyes got huge when we blew it up, and he kept saying "ball" with an inflection that translated into "my goodness, that's the biggest ball I've ever seen." He walks behind it rolling it down the hall and into various rooms. He also got a little lawn mower from Grammy, and has spent a good deal of time mowing the living room. Why don't they make those things pick up crumbs as they go?

New word update:

Out (get me out of this: tub, high chair, carseat, crib)
Up
Al (Emma's brother who is home from college)
Trash
Eye
Ear
Nose (sort of)
Feet
Socks
Shoes

Ok- back to work for me again.

Oh- PS. HAPPY 2009!

A couple of cute Christmas pics!

Here is Parker in his Christmas jammies and with his new lawn mower.