39 Week Update and My Quest for Great Literature

Today is 39 weeks!  I have to be honest, besides morning sickness all.the.time., this is probably the worst part of pregnancy.  Marcus can attest to the fact that even though this is baby number four and I should be somewhat tuned into the signs of labor by now, I lay in bed at night and speculate on how much longer I think it will be.  I think it's more of a pleading at this point for God to hear how miserable I am and start labor, haha! 

 

I am past the point of getting dressed in the mornings and I might make it to the shower during Mason's naptime, but even that is pushing it.  I've still had lots of pressure and BH contractions, but they always seem to go away just as I'm starting to convince myself that I'm actually in labor.  I actually halfway packed my hospital bag this week, but since I should only have to be in the hospital for 24 hours, it seems kinda silly to pack a bunch of stuff besides a Boppy and nursing tanks.  I have a couple of cute outfits for Paisley, but I plan on going home in yoga pants and a tank top, lol. 

 

Otherwise, we're just playing the waiting game now.  This last trimester I've had restless legs whenever I lay down to rest, which has been really frustrating for both Marcus and I at bedtime because I'm constantly adjusting and trying to get comfortable and it's very disruptive for both of us.  Anyway, I figured out that if I take a hot bath before bed, it helps my legs to relax and I go to sleep much easier.  So during my baths, I've been catching up on a lot of reading and it's been wonderful!  I've read five books in the bath in the month that we've been here!

 

I know that all this uninterrupted reading time is going to come to an end pretty soon with Paisley's birth and school starting back, but I am using this time to work on my "Classics List" that I came up with several years ago.  I have always been a reader, but when we were exploring the Classical education model for our kids, I felt like there were way too many influential, award-winning books that I had either never read or skimmed over in school just to do well on a test.  So I compiled a list of books and have been slowly working my way through the list as I can find the time between my college classes and the kids' school/activities.  I also have to fight the urge to be on social media during any free moment that I get, and bath time seems to be a good solution because I surely am not taking my phone or computer to the bath with me!  Of course, I might be just as upset if I dropped a book in the bathtub...

 

 

It's a pretty extensive list and still have a long way to go, but I am steadily making progress.  The great part about this list is that there are books that I never would have chosen on my own, but now that I've read them, I see why they are considered classics.  I feel sorry for our generation of kids that will not be exposed to some of these books because these stories are powerful.  I just finished Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl right after reading Night by Elie Weisel, both of which are about the Jewish plight during WWII.  Very gut-wrenching stuff.   I've read books about migrant farm workers in California during the Depression (The Grapes of Wrath), Apartheid (Cry, the Beloved Country), and slavery (Uncle Tom's Cabin), as well as mental illness (Flowers for Algernon), racism (Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry), socialism (Animal Farm), Communism (1984), and I'm currently reading about the disgusting conditions in the meat-packing industry and the issue of wage-slavery that immigrants to this country faced in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. 

 

I am so glad that I created this list back in 2012 because, unlike with social media where something new comes along every 5 minutes, books like these force us to examine our own hearts and they tend to leave a lasting impression.  Although many of the books are merely fiction, we still find ourselves immersed in how we would react if we were the characters in the book.  I truly believe that great literature helps us determine where our belief systems lie in the real world.  In the abstract, it is easy to say how we would act in all situations, but when an author is able to challenge those positions, it either reinforces our convictions or it makes us realize that our beliefs were faulty to begin with.   

 

This is why I feel bad for a generation that is not being raised to read and think through some of these tough books.  Without grounding and reinforcement of a belief system, there is a much higher probability of just going with the flow and being blown about by whatever the popular school of thought du jour is.  I want my kids (and me!) to be able to articulate why we believe what we believe and why we always come back to the Bible as our moral absolute.  We may not always understand why God tells us certain things, but we can trust that His plan is sovereign and that He is in control.  There are so many theological lessons that we can learn from reading great books and bringing them back to the Bible, but this post is getting terribly long and I don't want to ramble, so I will save those thoughts for another day!  In the meantime, I'm going to go read!

 



 



It is finished!

My degree, that is!  Sunday ended my last three classes that I needed for my Bachelor's degree.  It feels so good not to have to worry about homework and fitting that into my already busy schedule, especially with the move and new baby coming soon.  So now all I'm waiting on are my grades to post and graduation!  Conferral will not be until August 15, but with Miss Paisley due August 18, somehow I doubt we will make it back to Nashville for graduation!

Of course, I'm not done with school because I still have a decent chunk of money left in my GI Bill, so I will most likely be starting my Master's in either July or September, working towards an MBA.  I don't want to take too much of a break or else I might get used to it and not want to go back!  I might be able to finish my graduate degree before the money runs out, but I will probably end up having to pay for my last few classes out of pocket, which is fine with me. 

 

This has been such a long road, it felt like I would never make it to this point.  I've been continually doing school through the past two pregnancies and nursing babies, when I was working full time, through moving houses here in town, while on vacation, and pretty much every other situation we've encountered over the past four years.  But it's finally here and I'm finally done and all the late nights and fun I missed out on has been worth it in the long run!

Trusting God in the Midst of Change

(Photo Credit)

The past few days have been very interesting to say the least.  After Marcus made it through the entire hiring process to become a Sheriff's Deputy, we got the email on Tuesday that they were not going to hire him.  Talk about a huge disappointment.  We have spent many hours praying for and working towards this goal, including flying him across the country twice on our own dime in order to go to interviews and testing. 

Once he made it through all of these steps, we honestly thought that the job was his and we began planning as if it was.  So that email Tuesday was definitely a sobering dose of reality and we began to wonder if law enforcement is really where God wants Marcus to be.  So we continued to pray for God's provision and we trusted that He would provide a job, whether it was in law enforcement or in a different field. 

Well, yesterday (Friday), Marcus got a follow up email from the HR director at the Sheriff's department saying how sorry she was that he wasn't selected for the patrol job, but would he be interested in a different job within the department?  They will be hiring this summer for jobs in the Detention Center, which is what Marcus has been doing here for the past eight months.  He has heard great things about the job itself.  The benefits are great, hours and pay would work well for our family and our schedule as well.  So although it isn't the job that he originally applied and interviewed for, it was one of the other jobs that he was interested in. 

I find it interesting that between Tuesday and Friday there really was no panic when our original plan went up in smoke.  I think both of us just knew that God would provide.  Knowing that we serve a God that is bigger than any of our little issues brings such peace in the midst of what could be a very stressful situation.  He has been so faithful throughout this whole process from us deciding to move and getting an offer on our house that would allow us to stay here until June, to working everything out with moving Marcus's truck and all of the other small little details that come with packing and moving cross-country.   Romans 8:28 tells us that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him.  We have seen this so vividly in the past few months! 

(Photo Credit)

The first verse that came to my mind on Tuesday night when everything seemed up in the air was Psalm 46:10.  The NASB says, "Cease striving and know that I am God." The ESV renders it "Be still..."  This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible because it reminds me that He is in control, no matter what our circumstances are.  He is able and He is faithful to do what He has promised.  Our part is to stop trying to do it all ourselves and allow Him to work! Our prayer is that we can continue to do just that.

Almost finished!

Monday started week five of my eight-week classes.  I have these three classes left and I will be completely finished with my Bachelor's Degree in Accounting!  It has been a loooong few years of taking two classes at a time, but now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

 



Hard to believe that in a little over three weeks, I won't have any more papers to write or homework to do or forums to write and respond to.  Honestly, I am looking forward to the break.  I have missed being able to spend time with Marcus after the kids go to bed because we've both been working on our assignments or having to plan activities around who has homework due that night.  Of course, he'll still be taking classes after I finish, so maybe I'll finally get the opportunity to catch up on some reading that I've been putting off for far too long. 

 

The next question is when do I want to start working on my Master's?  I need a break, especially with a new baby and unpacking from the move and a new school year for the kids starting this fall.  I'm ambitious, but I'm not foolish!  I am leaning towards starting in January and only taking one class at a time.  If I finish before my GI Bill runs out, great.  If not, we can pay for the remaining credits out of pocket.  I can't let my brother-in-law be the only one in the family with an MBA!! :-)

 

Goals for 2013

Now that it's 2013, everyone is making resolutions.  Why do so many people putter out after a couple of months and not follow through with their resolutions?  I am guilty of this myself, but luckily, back at the end of 2011, I found several goal planning worksheets from www.moneysavingmom.com.  (They're no longer there in the same format, boo! But she has TONS of other goal-setting resources and printables.) 

Instead of setting resolutions, this was setting up a list of goals for the upcoming year.  They were even broken down by category and had focus areas within each goal to break them down even further.  The nerd in me rejoiced!  Along with a clear list of what each goal entailed, there was a check box at the bottom for each month so that you could do a self-check at the end of each month and see how you were progressing. 

The difference between making resolutions and setting goals is subtle, but has been monumental in my life.   I can definitely see how setting attainable goals, writing them down, and holding myself accountable has allowed me to succeed in many of the goals that I set for 2012.  One of my main goals was to read the Bible all the way through and I did it!  There were definitely times that I had to go back and catch up on a few days (or weeks!) of reading, but I completed the goal and I know God has used that in my life quite plainly.  I have found myself in a situation and a verse or a passage that I had read recently would come back to me and be appropriate for that exact circumstance.  This year, I'm reading the Bible again-chronologically and I look forward to being able to dig deeper into the Word this year.

Many of our goals for 2012 were financial and one of those was to finish paying off my vehicle and to become debt free except the house.  We did it!  We piled money into savings until we had enough to completely pay off the truck!  We were also able to save our 6 month emergency fund AND sell our house in North Carolina that we had been renting out for the past 2 years.  So now our only debt is the home we live in!

This year, I have 7 main priorities:  Relationships, Financial, Reading, Fitness, Managing my Home, School, and Crafts/Projects.  I think this is a huge list and would be really overwhelming if it wasn't broken down into smaller (bite-sized) pieces.  Taking a large goal and making it doable is only possible by breaking it down into baby steps!  I am a list person, so being able to check something off a task list is HUGE for me.  I feel so accomplished when I can visually see progress.

For example:  Under the Reading priority, one of my Focus Areas is Classic books.  A few months ago, inspired by the fact that I was starting back to school and might need to CLEP out of a Literature class, I decided I wanted to go back and re-read some of the classic books I read throughout my academic career and finally read the ones I never got around to.  So I made a list.  Over 110 books later, I figured I'd better get started.  So I set a goal to read 2 books per month for 2013.  I am really into the fact that I can get MOST of the classics free for my Kindle and then read them while I'm on the treadmill during my lunch hour!  Gotta love killing two birds with one stone! :)

I have my goal planning worksheets in my Household Binder so they go with me wherever I go and whenever I have a few minutes, I'll sit down and review my calendar and take a look at my goal list just to see where I'm going strong and where I need to tweak things to make it work.  Small changes throughout the month are much easier to implement than trying to totally overhaul your life once a year.  It's also easier to get back on track if you fall off the wagon if you continually review your goals.  If I slip up and have one soda, it's much easier to give myself a little grace and start over than if I started drinking soda every day for 6 months straight. 

Maybe I should add a new category for keeping the blog updated! It seems like I have yet to come up with a workable schedule of how and when to get everything done and blogging has definitely fallen to the back burner.  With Mason scheduled to make his appearance here fairly soon, I really need to figure out a time when I can blog consistently (that's not 1am!)...  I'm adding that to my goal worksheet right now! :)