Do you think she likes it????

The heat has been unbearable here lately and I can only imagine how a long haired golden retreiver must feel. So on Saturday night I decided to go ahead and buy some dog clippers in hopes of using them to give my dog a much needed hair cut!


Sunday morning I began the long process of cutting Nevada at 9:30 a.m. I decided to just dive right in and use the clippers. I used the biggest attachment which would leave her hair an inch long. Here she is before and after:
















Check out that pile of hair next to her! It took me almost two hours to do the whole job. Partly because I didn't know what I was doing and partly because I did take two breaks for both her sanity and mine! She was a really good girl about it though. I did learn though that it will probaby be easier in the future if I cut all the long hair away first and then take a razor to it. Do you think she looks sad? I swear she has been moping around and looking at me with that sad face. Perhaps I am just taking it personally. I hope it helps her to feel more cooled down. She was so hot before.













Here is a picture of her playing with our cat Shadow. They have always enjoyed eachother and still play with eachother to this day. So what do you think of her haircut? Did I do a good job? Do you think she is embarrassed now to be seen by other dogs--hee, hee....

Dress up days

Aly has really been having fun dressing up lately. Not only is she dressing up in Disney princess clothes but she is making her own creations as well. She dresses up daily now and walks around feeling very pretty. I am glad that she has started to like dress up. It is a fun way for her to get in touch with her feminine side. Perhaps I should start playing dress up as well! Maybe that will help me learn to be a girlie girl! Hee, hee...

The picture on the left is Aly dressed up in the Disney princess Jasmine's top, a dance skirt, and a butterfly wand from her fairytale tea party. The picture on the right is an amazing hand me down we got from my friend Cindy. It is a Disney Princess Aurora dress complete with a crown and wand. This is Aly's current favortie.

Here are pictures of Aly and KK dressing up as Aurora and Cinderella. KK loves to dress up when she notices that her big sissy Aly is dressing up! They are so cute together!

mexican omlet

Here is one of my favorite breakfast recipes. I had it at a local restaurant and recreated it myself. It is so good. The first few times I made it with chorrizo but now I am making it with ground meat as I read what chorrizo is made out of and I don't think I will ever eat it again. This recipe serves two people.

One 12 oz. package of chorrizo prepared or one pound ground beef prepared as taco meat.

2 flour tortillas

Four eggs cooked sunny side up

1 cup of grated sharp cheddar cheese

1 avocado cut up
1/2 cup salsa
2 tablespoons sour cream

Cook chorrizo or taco meat. Cook 4 eggs sunny side up. Grate 1 cup cheddar cheese. Cut up one avocado. Once the meat and eggs are cooked begin assembly. Heat up flour tortilla and place on plate. Put half of the meat on each tortilla. Put two cooked eggs ontop of the meat. Put half of the avocado on the meat. Put 1/4 cup of salsa on top of that. Finish with 1 tablespoon of sour cream. Grab your fork and knife and enjoy!

To work or not to work, that is the question

FYI-this is a long post that explores my thoughts and feelings of returning to work!

Back on May 6th I had applied for a position to be an ECE quality facilitator for the county through First 5. This position would require going around to all of the preschools in the county and trying to help improve the quality of education by helping them through the NAEYC accreditation process. Travel through the county would be a range of an hour and a half drive from one side of the county to the other. This position was a new position to be developed and would take a lot of start up time and dedication.

What a challenge this position could be for me. While I wasn't 100% qualified I had worked in preschools for three years and volunteered in preschools for two more years. I worked in two different NAEYC accredited preschools so I was familiar with appropriate practices and standards.

Their ideal candidate however would have been someone who had gone through the accreditation process or would have rated preschools on quality before. I applied anyway in case they felt I was enough of a match in other areas.

On June 16th I received an email letting me know that my application had been approved and I was selected for the interview process. I was THRILLED! I felt like it was such an honor to be selected for an interview for this position.

Two days later I received the questions for the interview.Questions:
1. Tell us three specific things you know about First 5.
2. Tell us three ways to measure quality in an early childhood setting.
3. How would you begin your first meeting with a provider who wanted to apply for the High 5 for Quality program?
4. This program requires community collaboration. Who would you invite to your first meeting and what would the agenda be?
5. It is your first day. You are ready to go! Where do you start?
6. Specifically identify two of your strengths.
7. This position will require working with people from a variety of personalities and backgrounds. What are some strategies you would use to be effective?
8. Questions you may have about the position.

These were the questions they gave us before hand. At the interview they also asked additional questions such as:
1. When you first enter a group situation how do you handle yourself? What would your friends say about how you handle yourself?
2. You enter a preschool and find that they have a Title 22 violation. The director doesn't agree. How do you handle this?
3. Who was the last difficult person you worked with? Describe the situation and how you handled it.

There might have been a few more questions but I forgot what they were.

Anyway, when I first saw the 8 questions I had to prepare for I was pretty confident I could answer them at least on a surface level. Of course I wanted to do a great job at answering the questions so I began doing lots and lots of research.

To some they may find the researching boring and frustrating but after being a SAHM for the last four years I found it interesting and challenging. I looked forward to learning more and finding out new things that I hadn't known before. The biggest challenge was learning all about the appropriate way to run a collaborative process. I had never had any experience with a collaboration so it was fun reading a 22 page article learning about the process, who should be involved, what would be a typical agenda, and what the end result should look like. I had a lot of memorizing to do for this question and it was truly my hardest question to answer.

My interview wasn't for three weeks since the date of finding out so I had plenty of time to prepare. This time also allowed me to stress and continually weigh the pros and cons of returning to work full time.

I can't tell you how many times I would go back and forth on what I wanted. One day I was confused as to whether putting the girls in daycare full time was the right decision. The next day I was sure they would be fine. Then the day after that I was worried again at how they would handle being away from me for so much time.

I had been contemplating going back to work for some time now. Mostly for a sense of independence and an opportunity to have social time, a sense of pride over my job, a feeling of security, and a piece of myself back after giving all of myself to raising my children. However, I thought I would probably be returning to teaching, a profession I love and with hours that are more conducive to raising a family. It wasn't until all of these budget cuts and problems that I realized there just weren't any teaching jobs out there! (in the entire county it ended up that there were only 5 elementary positions--you can only imagine how many people applied for those! Not to mention I cost 10k more than a first year teacher so districts can save on their budget by hiring brand new teachers)

So getting back to the point I kept swaying from day to day whether I wanted this job or not. I was worried it would require long hours. I would be leaving the house shortly after 7 and not returning until 5:30 or so due to our location. The job would be 35 minutes from our house. Plus all of the travel with the job! Some days I would be an hour away from my children. What would I do if they were sick or even worse what if they got injured?

Additional fears came to my mind such as how would Aly transition from going to a new kindergarten and a before and after school care facility. The worst part was they didn't even have before and after school care at her school! She would have to take a bus to the junior high and go to a program there. This is what had me worried the most. That is a lot of responsibility to put on a five year old. To be honest I was not comfortable with it one bit.

The day before the interview I was starting to feel like this was just going to be too big of a change for our family. I was feeling like this was just not going to be a good fit for us. I have to admit though I was worried that I could be giving up a great opportunity for my career and future. I was worried that I could look back on this some day and get angry at myself for putting my family first and not allowing myself to opportunity to follow my dreams or passions. So I decided that it was in my best interest to go to the interview anyway and just see what happened.

I was still nervous at the interview though. I think mostly because the director from Aly's preschool was on the interview panel and I was nervous what kind of impression I would make on her. I knew that the next two years I would be seeing her daily as I drop KK off for preschool. She was nice at the interview and I do feel like I did pretty good. There were two questions I could have answered a little differently but it wasn't like I totally messed up.

Even after the interview I kept trying to think of different things I could do with Aly to make it easier for her to attend kindergarten and a before and after school care program. I considered switching her schools down to a school near where my job could be. Some of those schools do have before and after school care on campus so it wouldn't be as difficult.

In the end though it didn't matter. All of my silly stress and weighing out options were a waste of time. I was not offered the position. This is probably a good thing though because had I been offered it I would have turned it down. I had finally decided it was not the right time for me to return to such a demanding job. I am glad I wasn't selected because I might have had major regret in 5 years or so for not taking such a great opportunity.

I was accepted as a sub for the county so I will be substituting at Aly's school on the days KK is in preschool. I think this is a happy medium for all of us. I will get a social outlet and a feeling of connecting with the community, KK will get to be socialized at school and learn to be away from me, and Aly will be happy on the days that I am subbing at her school. I am also hoping that this subbing will get the schools to know me and that in the future if they are hiring they will consider me. In a county like this it is all about WHO you know!

From cling on to Ms. free

Two weeks ago we were invited to a neighborhood pool that is exlusive to community residents only. Since we don't live in that community we can only go with someone who does. Well lucky me, one of Aly's preschool friends had invited us and wants to try and make it a once a week playdate thing. So we went to the pool with our life jackets and water wings and looked forward to having a great time. Aly chose to have a life jacket and decided to double up on her protection by adding a swimming ring as well! She was so nervous in the water that she never let go of the side.

Flash forward to a week later. Aly is still wearing a life jacket and a swimming ring but is now happily swimming around the pool and even started jumping in alone from the side of the pool and not asking me to catch her!

So when we decided to stay at the hotel to beat the heat I knew this would be a good opportunity to continue helping Aly to get more comfortable in the water. By the last day of swimming Aly is now swimming only with water wings and she is swimming quite fast around the pool. She is doing the doggy paddle and even comfortable enough to float on her back and try swimming backwards a bit.

Last night onour last swimming trip hubby agreed I could sit on the side of the pool and watch him do both girls himself! I was thrilled as I had had my fill of swimming lately! Hubby even got lucky and two teenage girls joined him in the pool. They loved children so they asked if they could play with the girls! Lucky hubby to be able to sit back and watch too! I was thrilled as well and ran up to the room and grabbed my camera!

These pics were all taken from my cell phone. When I have a chance I will try and upload my camera pics and a cute video as well!

It is so hot we are outta here!

Wow, this week is crazy in the way of hot weather and we absolutely can't take it! Yes we live in the mountains but it is still reaching 101 up here and we do not have any air conditioning!!!! Not to mention the fact that our house is over 20 years old and has very poor insulation. So we are hot, sticky, and miserable.

So it got me thinking? How much is a nice air conditioned hotel near hubby's work? I decided to check on some last minute deals on hotels and found one within 5 minutes of his work for $52 a night. If we stay three nights we get a $50 gas gift card back so essentially that brings our cost down to $106. Next I decided to calculate how much gas hubby would spend commuting those days and it would save us over $70 in gas. So I decided it was a no brainer. For $30 we can have three night of air conditioning, a pool for us to swim in, and oh yeah we are close to an air conditioned mall during the day where the kids can play at their indoor play centers. Don't worry I will keep my wallet in my pocket! Remember I am the frugal one and it is not too hard for me to resist!

Hope you are all finding ways to keep cool! What are some of you doing to keep out of this heat?

M.I.A

Yes, it is true, I have been missing from the blog forum for almost the past week. Why you ask? No I wasn't on some awesome vacation soaking up the sun rays, I didn't go anywhere to celebrate the fourth, in fact I was home all week! So why didn't I post anything you ask? I was very busy studying and preparing for an interview I had today. Any free chance I had I was on the net learning more about the company and preparing myself for the questions I knew they were going to ask and questions that they might possibly ask.

I also did not sleep well all. The primary problem: my girls weren't sleeping well which meant I was woken up at least two times a night and some nights I was woken up four times. Grrr. So even if I did get my girls back to bed rather quickly I had a hard time falling back to sleep. I began thinking about the interview, thinking about life if I had the job, thinking of the changes that could come for our family if the position was offered to me. The list of my thoughts goes on and on.

The good news is it is over and I should be able to return back to sleep rather quickly now that I won't have so much on my mind. Part two will be working on getting my 3 and 5 year old to sleep through the night. I currently have a plan of action for my 5 year old and after that is successful I think I will work on my 3 year old. One step at a time!

June's Gas n grocery bill

Well I tallied the gas and grocery bill for last month. Gas came in at $741.23 for the month which was down almost $100.00 from the previous month. I sat at home a lot more now that we are on summer break and Aly is no longer in school. I also tried to just do things near our house when we did go out and about. Pretty soon I won't have a choice though once Aly starts school. Our gas bill will go up again. I feel like the Corrolla will never be fixed. The struts were replaced and that didn't take care of the problem. So that ended up costing $270 between parts and labor. Now we are going to try a front end alignment which will cost around $60. I have started to belive that we could just keep sinking money in and never find the problem...........

Groceries were $377.19. Probably a little higher than normal but with all the birthday parties and company we did spend more on food.

We spent more than I would like on eating out so this month my goal is to seriously curb that spending habit.

How did you do for the month of June? Find any tricks to help your budget?

Letter from kindergarten

We received a letter in the mail yesterday informing us of their upcoming assessment day, and Early Screening Inventory Parent Questionnaire, and the classroom supplies they will be needing.

I am sure many of you are wondering why they are doing an assessment. Typically this is just so they can balance out their classrooms. Having the opportunity to observe children and see their skills can help them have classrooms with children of varying levels and temperaments. Schools that decide not to do this can have teachers that have rough years. For example, by luck of the draw a teacher can have a class filled with children that have difficulty listening and following directions. Or they may have a class with students who have never been introduced to colors, numbers, shapes, alphabet, etc. It is always nice to have a balance of skill level in your class so that other students can have role models.

The parental questionnaire is four pages and covers topics such as parents highest level of education, child's vision, hearing, coordination, health, temperament, favorite activities, and how much time they watch TV. They also leave a space large enough to write things you would like to tell about your child--I am so happy about that! Hee, hee....

Just for those of you that are curious I thought I would post their supply list:

Each child needs to bring:

(must haves)

Backpack with their name

1 complete change of clothes (in a bag kept in their backpack)

1 pair of Scissors (fiskars preferred)

2 boxes of Crayola Washable Markers (10-classic)

3 Large Glue Sticks

1 box of hand wipes

1 box each : Large and small Zip-lock bags with slide close

Homework Folder:

1 Flat plastic folder with 3 prongs and pockets inside

1 3 hole clear zipper pencil pouch

Extra Items for the Class:

(Bring if you can throughout the year )

Scotch tape refill roll

soft kleenex

brown lunch sacks

paper grocery store bags

cotton balls/q tips

play dough

extra snacks for kids that forget:

Pretzels, grahams, Gold Fish

Small Dixie cup

That is both lists. I am sure with budget cuts teachers need all the help they can get! If we don't provide it they will probably be using their own paycheck to buy it. So I will wait to the school supplies go on sale and happily full fill the list. If prices are good enough I will try to buy extra for those students in a financial situation where they cannot afford to buy all of these items on their own.

My how things have changes since I was in school! I am looking forward to going shopping with Aly for some of these supplies. I think it will help build the excitement for her. If you here of a sale of school supplies let me know!

Great Budgeting Tool

I was reading my consumer's Report magazine and came upon a great article on Budgeting money and creating a spending strategy. While I have attempted to do this recently I was never able to be quite organized enough. Last year I tried Quicken but their account linking tools were not good enough for the accounts I currently had.

So this morning I checked out one of the three websites recommended by Consumer Reports to track your spending and create a budget. The website I am using is called Yodlee Moneycenter. I am so thrilled with it. You can link all of your accounts such as your credit cards, bank accounts, etc. It will take your spending and chart it into categories. It did a great job too. There were a few I had to fix like my Safeway Fuel spending was in groceries but it was easy to correct by just changing the category to gas.

It will also allow you to go in and make a budget. It will take your current spending and put those amounts in for a guide and let you change them to what you want to budget for.

If you are looking into becoming more organized and want to see exactly where you are spending your money this is a free, easy to use program that you will be glad you tried!