Not too jolly...

Today marks the start of the Christmas holiday and I am feeling less than jolly about the whole thing. Not really about the holiday but about life in general. I just found out that my brother lost his job like two months ago. It was an executive level position too. My best friend just told me that she's filing for bankruptcy and she's thinking about moving even farther away from me. She also thinks her son might be autistic. Good news all around this morning. Throw together in there the whole North Korea situation and it makes for a nice black cloud over my mood today.

Along with all that, I am extremely worried about money in the near future. By stopping school in December, I will start to be hit with major student loan bills come January. Not only do we have those bills to worry about, but we are now paying 356 dollars a month for health insurance which is pretty much useless because I have to meet a $2400 deductible before they start to pay for things. Then I believe they only pay at 80% anyway. We already got a bill for one of the lab charges for this pregnancy, soon I will get another and then there is the ultrasound next week and Lord only knows how much they will cost. Not to mention the bills for the actual delivery and all the prenatal care. All this on one income.

I don't want my husband to resent me for quitting school and putting him in the position to have to pay back everything on his own. I feel awful but at the same time I was not going to waste another two years of my life getting a degree for something that I do not want to do. I am trying to get this photography thing going and it seems to be picking up a little. I did one family portrait shoot and I am doing a craft fair in a couple of weeks. I had business cards made up and I am hoping that at least if not a lot of people buy my stuff I can at least get some exposure and have some people request my work. In fact, a coworker of my husband's told me that if I can get a good picture of our local lighthouse, she might buy it for her husband's birthday. I'm being commissioned to take pictures! That makes me feel like maybe I can make something out of this. I'm hoping I can because I would really love to contribute something towards the bills and my husband refuses to have me get a job because he thinks it is more important for me to take care of the kids. I just want to feel like I can contribute and help ease his burden a little since I feel like it's my fault that he's so burdened in the first place.

The poor guy is working so hard at work and then he comes home and goes to his taekwondo class and then does homework all the time so he can get a teaching job. And even though he'll technically be making less with teaching, at least he will have benefits and that is worth it's weight in gold it seems. I have no problem leading a simple lifestyle and not spending a lot of money, but it doesn't seem to matter too much to do that with all these other mandatory bills to pay. I'm just hoping that we can make it and don't end up losing our house, our sanity or our good credit along the way.

We have been going to church lately and I know this week what I will be praying for. For things to get better for everyone with this awful economy and that the U.S. doesn't find itself in another war. I am praying for everyone to just get along as naive and hippyish as it sounds. Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving and will have a good holiday season. I am going to try to stay positive and focus on the blessings in life instead of all this gloom and doom. :-)

Update

Well, things are pretty good here. I had my first appointment almost a month ago already and we got to hear the baby's heartbeat. My blood pressure and everything seemed good. We told my daughter that day that she's going to be a big sister and ever since then she's been so cute about it. When I read to her at naptime and night, she looks up and smiles at me and then lifts up my shirt and pets my belly and says "baby!" I think she is very excited to meet this baby. The other day she said "see baby!" and I had to explain to her that it's going to be awhile because it has a lot of growing to do!

Everyone thinks or hopes that I am going to have a boy. Everyone thought I was having a boy the first time around, including me until the day before my ultrasound when I just had a feeling it was a girl. I am really hoping for Riley to have a sister though. I had such an awesome, close relationship with my sister growing up and I just don't think there is any bond stronger than that. It's just so nice when you can talk to your sister about anything. I'd love for her to be able to have that and if the baby is a girl to have a big sister to look up to. I hope I am not too disappointed if I end up having a boy. I of course just want a healthy baby, but I don't know what to do with boys. My whole family and my husband's family is just filled with girls. I also find myself worrying more about stuff with boys. Circumcision, autism, potty training and daredevilness are among them. Hopefully if I do have a boy, my kids can still be super close and I can enjoy having one of each.

On another note, I can't believe it is almost Halloween! Every time I say anything about it, my daughter says "candy!" She has already learned how to say Trick or Treat and she's going to be a bee. If you ask her what a bee says she says "buzz a buzz, buzz a buzz!" It cracks me up. She's very excited, I just hope she'll actually let me put her costume on and doesn't get scared when we go out trick or treating. She gets scared easily by loud noises, I just hope the costumes don't faze her much.

Well that's about it for now, just wanted to give a quick update. Night!

Blessings

It seems I have taken to blog writing mostly when in a state of "crisis" or turmoil in my life and I wanted to take a moment today to write about all the wonderful, positive things in my life. Firstly, I am so thankful for my husband who seems to know just how to make all my stress and worries lift right off my shoulders. I was feeling a little scared yesterday about my career prospects and money and all that and he calmed me right down and told me not to worry and that he would take care of me and I just need to worry about being a good mom. He just makes me so happy I can't even tell you. I love that he respects me as a parent and values my parenting as an asset and tries to find any way he can that I am able to stay home to take care of our daughter. I honestly think I couldn't have found a better match for myself and I am so happy I found him so young!

Second is my daughter. She is amazing! Such a sweet, smart, funny little girl. She is just a happy little thing and I enjoy 99% of the time I spend with her. Of course there is the 1% when she is showing off her two year oldness! I'm just so lucky to be able to spend my days with her. I know what she is trying to say and what she is referring to even if what she's saying seems out of place to most people. She has a ton of sound effects that she uses for things and I know what all of them mean. Of course she learned the sound effects from me so it's easy for me to interpret! I just feel so connected to her. She's like my little sidekick. I love her so much sometimes I think I might just squeeze her to death like Lenny in Of Mice and Men. (But I won't really, don't worry!)

The fall. I am thankful that it is not 100 degrees anymore and there are fun things to get out and do as a family. Today we went to a Fall Jamboree where they had food, music, crafts, animals, pumpkins and apple picking. We also went on a wagon ride to get to and from the parking lot and to and from the apple picking. My daughter really seemed to enjoy that. It was my first time apple picking surprisingly and it was a lot of fun. It was pretty warm though and close to naptime so we kind of did it in a hurry, but I think if we go again, she will really like it. On the way back to the wagon I carried her and she just put her head on me and snuggled and she stayed like that all the way back to the car. Just cuddling with me and saying "hi mama". She just melts my heart! Sometimes I find myself missing this stage already even though we're still in it. I don't look forward to the days when she is too busy with friends to hang out with me or the stage when I'm just too embarrassing to even be seen with in public.

Lastly, I am thankful for this baby growing in my belly. I've always wanted to be pregnant during the fall and holidays and now I am. I'm excited to give my daughter a sibling and get to experience the little baby stage one more time before we move on from the babymaking stage.

I hope everyone can think of a few things to be thankful for today, and if you can't, wait until tomorrow because there's bound to be something then!

Kind of down today...

I don't know what my problem is today. Maybe it is the rainy, gloomy weather we've had or maybe it's just pregnancy hormones. I don't know. But I feel physically and mentally down. I haven't wanted to do much of anything today and I've been kind of nauseous and tired.

I placed an ad for my photography work in the paper this week. It went in on Friday. It's been in the paper for two days and I haven't heard a thing. I know two days is not really long, but I'm just worried that I won't get any bites at all. I'm also worried if someone does call me and I don't have enough experience for them that I won't get the job anyway and then I'm worried if I actually do get a job that I'll screw it up somehow and that I jumped into this thing before I really had enough practice. Just because I have a degree in photography doesn't make me a professional and taking the last 4 years off from anything photography related was probably not a good idea.

Maybe I should have practiced and gotten people to let me photograph them to build up my portfolio before I just jumped into business and decided I wanted to stop school. I can of course still continue on with school if I want but at this point I've already put myself so far behind I don't know if I'd be able to catch up and I still really don't want to do it. I think it is unfair to the school, the children, the parents of those children and myself if I continued on in that field.

I just get so worried that I will never be good enough for people to want my work and that I don't have the dedication and confidence to pull this off. I really blame my father's genes for this. He hasn't put any effort into anything in his whole life and I sometimes feel like I'm fighting an uphill battle trying to succeed in something and put effort into something. It feels like a genetic hinderance, something I really have to fight to get around. I just wish I had more natural talent, more drive and more confidence that I am any good.

I'm just afraid that I am going to quit school to really work on this business but the clients won't be there and I will end up working at Subway or something for the rest of my life because I have no education to fall back on and the one thing I do have a degree in isn't panning out. I'm also kind of bothered by the fact that I have not received the same kind of support from photography friends that I have always given to them. Apparently my work is not of the caliber that they can click that 'like' button on facebook. Thanks guys. The support is really helpful.

So, all around I just feel like a big pile of crap and I'm having trouble envisioning a successful career. Hopefully I'm wrong. Hopefully I'll get some interest in my ad and I can prove myself to be a good photographer. I know I need more practice but I just hope someone out there will give me the chance to succeed. I'm sick of feeling like there is nothing I excel in. There's only things that I am pretty good at. The only thing in my life that I really feel like I succeed in is parenting. I know that's more important than photography, or anything else, but I still want some kind of talent that people can recognize and appreciate me for. I've never been one that is good at scientific, mechanical or mathematical stuff so all I have left is artsy stuff. I wish I didn't always do everything half-assed and could've really pushed myself earlier in life. UGH.

I need to find something productive to do. Bumming around with my vacationing husband all week has not helped me to feel a sense of purpose. I just don't know what to do! I can't really practice my photography much with no subjects and while I'm trying to chase a two year old around. I guess I could do school work that doesn't really matter. Yeah, that should make me feel a lot better! :-(

Trapped

I feel so trapped right now. I don't know what to think or what to do anymore. I recently found out I am pregnant which is great news but it makes my confusion even that much more. I am due in May. I had recently made up my mind to stop school and focus on starting my photography career. This is pretty slow going because first I have to have all or most of the equipment I'll need which is pretty expensive, then I have to find clients who are willing to let me photograph them and use the pictures in my portfolio and it has been easy to find someone to say sure, you can take our pictures, but then they never want to set up an actual time to do it. So, it's stressing me out because I can't exactly stop school and have my loans go back into repayment when I'll have no income.

However, I have realized that I don't want to teach. I don't even want to deal with the crap that I will have to deal to get the degree if I stick it out. The only reason I am considering sticking out going to school is because I was recently made to feel like maybe I couldn't really do this photography thing and I better have A) a backup plan and B) a way to not have to pay back my loans.

The problem is that I will have to do 60 hours of observation at three different levels of education (preschool, kindergarten and third grade) and a bunch of difficult projects while I'm doing that. Not to mention I will have to pay about $200 just to have a background check and fingerprinting done. I will have to do all this while I am pregnant and have a toddler. So, I will have to find some kind of part time daycare while I am doing these observations which I'll have to pay for too and then I'll be toting around a 6-9 month old fetus while I'm at it. I would also have to hurry to try to get all the stuff done in a shorter amount of time so that I could take off three months from school after I have the baby. Once I do have the baby, I will be nursing so I will have fewer options when it comes to student teaching and all that.

I am not enthused. Every way I look seems to be a dead end. Or a real pain in the ass. I'm really getting pretty depressed about it. I really wanted to do something where I could be home with my kids and make my own schedule and still make some money, but I don't know if I can realistically pull off a photography career. Especially if I don't book a lot (or any) weddings, I don't think there is a big market around here to have a professional photographer come to your home and do children photos or family photos. I think most people don't want to spend the couple hundred bucks on that and opt to go to places like JCPenny or the Picture People or something. It's hard to compete with such cheap prices if I ever want to make any kind of profit. And if I can't even get people to want me to take those kinds of pictures, I am never going to have a portfolio sophisticated enough to do weddings. I just feel like I'm screwed. I either try and do what I really want and have nothing to show for it and then no degree either or I ditch the dream and do something I don't even want to do. Sounds like either way I'm screwed.

I really wish the school I'm going to had something else I could go for besides teaching. I love the way the school works and being able to do it online working whenever I have the time, but I really don't want to teach. It's just a daunting task to me. Even just finding a job after I have a degree will be almost impossible. School districts are letting go of people left and right, why would they hire an almost thirty year old woman with no experience when they could probably get some 21 year old with more experience who is willing to accept less money and will be with them for longer? UGH! I quit.

Guess I'll have to mull this over for a while. I'll check in again soon.

Jumping off a cliff!

Soooo....I've been thinking. Dangerous, I know. I have been so completely and utterly unmotivated and un-enthused with school lately. It's terrible. I have absolutely no desire to do any kind of homework. I'm sick to death of it. I've also come to realize that after all this time forcing my way through education programs, I really don't want to be a teacher. I know, I already had this epiphany. I should listen to myself more often. I find that way back when I finished my photography degree and was looking for something different to do, I got into education not because I had a passion to do it and a desire to teach but because I thought that was the only thing I could do with a French degree which is what I really wanted to study. Then when I took time off from school and decided that I wanted to go online, the only program they had at this college was education. I thought that teaching younger kids would appeal to me more than older kids, but the truth is, I really just don't want to do it. I don't think I have the patience. Some days I don't have the patience for my one child, let alone a classroom full of them. I don't want to get sick every other day and bring home lice or whatever else you pick up from grimy little kids either.

So, this is very scary for me, but I think I am done with school. I want to put my full focus and energy into starting my photography business and possibly a cheesecake business as well although the photography is my main goal right now. I worry though because once I stop school, the bills will start coming in for my student loans again. I have some money saved up that I can pay them with for awhile, but I'm worried that if I don't make enough money it will be a real hardship on the family. It's not exactly steady work you can count on. Maybe one week I'll have three shoots that people want me to do and then none for another couple weeks. I'm looking into all my options too such as selling prints to gift shops in town and post cards or note cards to the bookstore or something. I'm hoping that if I have a lull in one business, the other business will take care of the income.

I just love the idea that I will be working for myself. I'll make my own schedule and be around to take care of my family. When my kids start school I can use the day to get work done and then still be home when they get home from school. It sounds wonderful. I just worry about the immediate future and daycare if and when I have to do weddings on the weekends because my husband works Saturdays and there is really no one around here who I would trust to leave my kids with for an entire day.

I have just been doing a lot of thinking and have realized that I am young enough now to really pursue my passions and be able to make a career out of what I love to do, but that will not be the case for too much longer. I really need to get my act together, pick a direction and go. I know that I love and have always loved photography and the only reason that I didn't try to make a career out of it earlier was fear. I was afraid of failure, I was afraid that I did not have the talent needed to compete in the market and I was scared of talking to people in order to network. I'm not anymore and I refuse to just do this education thing just to have a degree. I don't want to spend thousands of more dollars getting an education when there is no guarantee that I am going to be able to be licensed in this state when my degree is from out of state, I will find a job, and that I will even like it. I know I like photography and I already have a degree in that field so I feel like taking this chance isn't as big a deal as taking that chance. As soon as I have all the equipment I need and have a few shoots under my belt for my portfolio, I am going to start coming up with advertising, a website and prices.

I can't wait to start this new chapter in my life even though it is pretty terrifying if I don't make the income that I need to pay my student loans. At least I can start paying them off and wiping out the interest faster than if I waited to start until after I graduated. Luckily my husband is being very supportive about this. He's actually facing the same kind of crisis so he knows what it's like. We had a very deep discussion the other day where he realized that if he was honest with himself, he is not doing what he really wants either so he may change his plans too. I'm just hoping to make the most of this life and do what we really want before we get stuck in jobs we both hate.

On another note, we should find out thursday or friday if I'm pregnant this month. I can't really tell at this point. I feel a lot more hopeful about it this month than last because we were more precise with the timing and tried a lot more times this month. However, with being more hopeful, there is also a chance of being even more disappointed. If I'm not though, I will just be concentrating on my new career and let the chips fall where they may. I'll get pregnant when the time is right! Well, I guess that's enough for now.

Up in the air

What am I going to do? I am getting quite an unsettled feeling when I think about the near future. I want another baby and my husband and I are currently trying to get pregnant, but I just can't help but wonder where in the world that leaves me when it comes to school. It is going to be hard enough to do all the observation and student teaching necessary to graduate with one child, let alone doing it with one while being pregnant or with one toddler and an infant who needs copious amounts of attention and care. I just don't know how it's going to work. I want to be able to give my next child as much love and attention and care as I gave my first and I don't want my older child to associate her new sibling with me having to leave her at some daycare to do school stuff.

I really wish I would've gotten my crap together when I was younger so I didn't have to be dealing with this now. I am sick to death of homework and having every free second of my time consumed by doing it or feeling guilty because I'm not doing it. My student loan debt is astronomical and the only saving grace that my husband and I have right now is that they are in deferment since we are both in school.

On the other hand, lately my creative energies have been flowing and my desire to make money on my own. I have bought a new camera as I have previously posted about and I am trying to drum up a business using the one degree I actually managed to finish. If I can get it up and running and people actually like my work, I can make really good money. If I managed to get some wedding work, I could charge almost 2 grand for a weekend's worth of work. I also have an idea about starting a cheesecake business. I think I could do really well at that too. I could start by selling to some restaurants locally and then do a catering type thing where people order cakes from me for whatever occasion and I can either deliver them or they can pick them up. It would be low overhead cost and if I didn't get in too far over my head, it would be a doable task while the kids are sleeping. The actual work part of making a cheesecake is only a few minutes and then the rest is just baking and cooling.

I would love to be in business for myself doing things that I love and making my own schedule and still being here for my kids. For the first time I've actually started thinking that this is doable and I am capable at succeeding in my own business. I never felt like that before. I was afraid of failure, therefore afraid to ever even try. For some reason, that fear has subsided. Why? Maturity? Motherhood? Confidence? All of the above I think.

The only problem is I feel completely obligated to continue with school. I feel that I owe it to my husband who I've been hounding forever to finish his degree, I feel I owe it to my mother who has supported me in all my schooling choices but wants nothing more than to see me get a bachelor's degree after all I've put into it, I feel I owe it to my daughter to show her that even though it wasn't an easy roads by any means, I found a way to finish what I started and I feel that I owe it to myself if for no other reason than to get my money's worth. It will be an awful waste of money to spend on all those student loans if I never get the degree and potential job benefits from it.

To be perfectly honest though, at this point, I couldn't care less if I don't have a bachelor's degree. I used to think of it as kind of prestige thing and just a big accomplishment, but now I think it has just been a lot more trouble than it's worth. If I had started a photography business right after I got that degree, I wouldn't have wasted thousands and thousands of dollars on student loans and I'd probably already have some loans paid off. Now I just want to do something that I like to do while being able to take care of my family.

I just don't know how I'm going to pull off finishing this degree. I'm probably going to have to be doing all the student teaching stuff right around the time a new baby gets here if I get pregnant soon. I definitely don't want to put off having another baby because I'm not getting any younger and I want my children to be close in age. Also, I'm already getting spoiled by the independence that my daughter is exhibiting and I don't want to get totally used to it and then have another baby.

I guess I'll cross each bridge as I get to it and in the meantime keep chugging away at the degree even though I'm really not feeling motivated lately. God what a hypocrite I am! Every time my husband goes through these little periods where he wants to change and do something else I have a fit and tell him to stay on track cuz he's so close to being done and now I'm doing the same thing! I wish we could both just get our crap together! UGH! I guess I'll keep you posted!