She's a Dancer...

Last August, I signed Colleen up for her first dance class at a dance studio near my office.  Her class was on Monday's at 10 a.m., not exactly the best time for me but I wanted her to have some way to get some of her energy out.  I really wanted to put her in gymnastics since she is a monkey in disguise, but she was too young and this class had tumbling every other week along with tap and ballet.  After a few months the dance became too much on me, especially since in order to get her to dance every other week I had to take her to work with me for that first hour of the day and she got into EVERYTHING while she was there.  With tax season fast approaching I knew I couldn't do that anymore so I pulled her out at the end of October. 

In December my best friend sent me the following excerpt from a blog, not knowing I had pulled Colleen out...

Gillian Lynn – a choreographer who did Cats, and Phantom. They had lunch and he asked “how’d you get to be a dancer?” She said when I was in school, in the 30′s I was really hopeless, and the school wrote to her parents and said she has a learning disorder. Probably now they’d say she had ADHD. But this was the 30′s, and it hadn’t been invented, it wasn’t an available condition. People weren’t aware they could have that.  

So she went to see this specialist, in this oak paneled room, and she sat on her hands while this woman talked to her mother about all the problems Gillian was having at school. And at the end of it, (she was 8), the doctor went and sat next to her, and said “I’ve listened to all the things that your mother has told me, and I need to speak with her privately, we’ll be right back.”  

As he went out the room, he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk. and when they got out of the room, he said, “just watch her”. Soon as they left, she was on her feet, moving to the music. He said to her mother “Mrs, Lynn, Gillian isn’t sick, she’s a dancer. take her to a dance school”.   

She did. 

“I went to this room, and it was full of people like me. People who couldn’t sit still, people who had to move, to think. They did ballet, tap, jazz, everything.”  

Then she got a wonderful career at the royal ballet, graduated, founded her own company, met Andrew Lloyd Weber, and has been responsible for some of the most amazing ballets in history...   

Someone else might have put her on medication, and told her to calm down...

After I read this I felt horrible for pulling her out because this was Colleen - the young girl that has a hard time sitting still, who loved to dance around the room, who I know is very smart and gets bored easily and could easily be classified as ADHD but I will not be medicating her even if she was; yet here I took her out of something that she could redirect some of that energy to. 

A few days later I received a call from the owner of the dance studio, asking why we pulled Colleen out.  After I explained the situation she offered to switch her to a class on Saturday.  It was at a perfect time for me; I could drop her off, work for an hour, pick her back up and continue on with my day. 

Recently I began doubting if I would sign her up for next year; she will be old enough for gymnastics and from what I have seen, she wasn't very enthusiastic about dance.  Well, that was before her dance recital yesterday.  She was so excited about dancing on the BIG stage, she was absolutely ADORABLE in her costume AND she DANCED!  She had learned how to dance despite what I had thought.  After the recital she was even teaching me and Mom how to tap to the "Hot Dog" song.  I have no idea at this point if she will ever be a great dancer, but as long as she has fun it doesn't matter.  I won't push her to continue if she don't want to but as far as next year, I will sign her up again.   She is a dancer...

Time to breathe

Time to breathe…

For the last four months my life has consisted of sleep, work and school, papers and deadlines, tests and tax returns and most of all there was no time to breathe. 

This year I worked at least 116 hours of overtime in 2.5 months on top of being away from home for an additional 8 hours a week going to school – yeah, breathing time was not high on the priority list.  My husband was a real champion during this time, not complaining about taking care of Colleen or never seeing me.  He may have been a little fussy one night when I had to call him to rescue me at 11pm from the side of the road because I may have had a fight with a curb and it won, putting a nice hole in the side of my tire – but all in all my time away was pretty uneventful. 

I took my last exam last night, turned in my last paper last week, and now there is nothing to do but wait for grades; not that I really care what grade I make, just as long as I pass.  School is officially out of my mind for the next month and a half.  For the next 49 days I will get to go to work at 9, leave at 5 and actually have time to spend with my family and with myself. 

So my new dilemma – what to do with all this time I will have.  I don’t want to waste the time with mindless TV watching or internet searching.  I want to do something meaningful with my time, something that I will look back on and think it was fun.  I desperately want to be fun…it’s just my non-fun self holding me back.  So I did my traditional “Tanya” thing and made a list…

A few things I really want to do with my time:

1.       DEEP clean and organize my house – I would like to be able to have visitors, however, not being home for the past four months has really done a number on my house work.  Colleen keeps growing and outgrowing toys/clothes as well as her ability to persuade you into buying her more stuff at the store “OHHHH!  Mommy I LOVE THIS!  Can I have it PLEASE?”  Yep – enter guilty absent mommy here and soon you have overabundance of STUFF.

2.       Healthy living – I've been surviving off fast food and junk these past few months, no time to really cook good healthy food or even go to the grocery store so my weight has increased a few pounds – not that I didn't need to gain a few pounds, but my clothes are starting to get tight and after I splurged and bought good clothes I really do not want to have to go up a size. I want to actually plan my meals, exercise, and play outside (which means I will have to brave the bugs) with Colleen and get some color on my pale self.

 

3.       Spend time with Colleen – it was heartbreaking some mornings when I’d leave for work and Colleen would look up at me and say “Mommy, I don’t want you to go to work – can you stay at home with me?”  My sweet baby girl…

4.       Sew/Paint – I know I've been saying I wanted to learn how to sew for years; I have everything I need to do it, except the time.  Now I will have the time to devote to practicing; the same for painting – I really enjoyed going to my painting classes, and while I’m not very good at it, I think I am better than when I first started, therefore I can paint some pictures to replace some of the not so great ones hanging on my office wall – the ones that people keep asking if my child painted…yep – awkward.

5.       Build real relationships – I've always wanted to be the person who took cookies to the neighbors, who people stopped to say “Hello” to, but I’m not that person – YET.  I’m still “Mark’s wife” to the neighbors who even know who I am.  I want to be the dependable neighbor – the one people go to when they need something, emergency baby sitter, a cup of sugar, etc.  I want to have adult conversations with real people and not just post a status on Facebook to have people, who I never talk to, give me their comments on.  I want to have barbecues in my back yard (which means I need to clean up my back yard too – see “What I want to accomplish number 1” and add “Clean back yard”). 

6.       Grow spiritually – I need to discipline myself to reading and studying the Bible, I need to quit relying on my own ability to control things (since we all know how much I like to be in control).  I tend to want instant results in this area – I want to know everything quickly – do everything right instantly – so I guess the first thing I need to work on is my patience.  One step at a time.  I have been able to memorize one Bible verse – mainly because I've written it so many times trying to get it to look nice on my dry erase board…”Don’t be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” Philippians 4:6

Most of all I want to live a meaningful life and not just live life.  I want to be intentional with the things I do.  I want to be different, the good different, the different that people can look at and say “I can take charge of my life too” – I want to quit letting the world dictate to me how I am suppose to be, what I am suppose to do.  I want to be the person to make a difference to those around me and I will accomplish this during my new free time, the time I will use to breathe and live life to the fullest.    

Money vs. Happiness

Money…why do so many people hold this as their highest priority? You know the saying “Money does not buy happiness” – well it’s true. I consider myself lucky to have realized this early in life so I don’t waste my life chasing the dollars. While money is important to have in order to live my life, I don’t live FOR money. Are our finances tight? Absolutely. Do I worry about finances, or lack there of – constantly; but we always make it to the next week, the next month, the next year with a roof over our heads and have never gone hungry.

I could easily go make more money – I’m 26, have a BS in accounting complete with 9 years of experience in a CPAs office and I’m sure there are plenty of firms that would be willing to give me a chance, but what would I give up? I currently work in an office that is very family oriented – any time I need off to take care of my family – I got it. My office is not more than 5 minutes from my house – I don’t have a long commute that takes away from the time I could be spending with my family. I am able to bring my daughter to work with me if needed or leave to make doctor’s appointments. How many people can say that about their job? To me that is more important than making another dollar or two.

Mark has offered up several times the option of going overseas for a year to make a lot of money and every time I have shot it down. No amount of money could replace that year I lost with him and he lost with his children. I know there are so many people who are separated from their families because of their job and duty to their country – that is different…they don’t go for the money.

As many know, my husband is a police officer, and well…cops don’t get into the business for the pay and the pay in the city he’s at REALLY sucks but I’d rather suck it up and watch our finances carefully and not go out to eat all the time rather than have to deal with shift work at a different department. I’d rather not have matching furniture then him hate his job somewhere else. Sure, he has a lot of days off and could easily get a second job as many cops do but I’d rather Colleen get to spend her days with her daddy then in a daycare. The time she gets with her daddy is priceless.

Looking at my life in this light – I am very blessed to be in the position I’m in – looking at my checkbook some would wonder how we manage…we just get what we need and put our wants aside. I will never again let money rule our life.

Ten Secrets to a Successful Marriage

I found list in an article (you can view the story HERE) on Focus on the Family and it fit perfectly into my latest life changing declarations. While I had discovered some of these on my own I still have to work on others.

1. Happiness is not the most important thing. Everyone wants to be happy, but happiness will come and go. Successful couples learn to intentionally do things that will bring happiness back when life pulls it away. (This is very true. My daddy use to tell us growing up that nobody can make you happy, you have to choose to be happy. There are times that I feel like I could never make myself happy – usually that happens each month for about 3 days – and during those times I have to ask my husband to PLEASE do something nice for me just so I can have that little boast of happiness.)

2. Couples discover the value in just showing up. When things get tough and couples don't know what to do, they need to hang in there and be there for their spouse. Time has a way of helping couples work things out by providing opportunities to reduce stress and overcome challenges. (I have to work on this – I have a tendency of trying to handle things on my own rather than including my husband and when I can’t do it I get frustrated with him, thinking that he should KNOW that I needed him – sadly my husband cannot read my mind. I have to learn to start asking for help dealing with situations just so he can be there to lean on.)

3. If you do what you always do, you will get same result. Wise couples have learned that you have to approach problems differently to get different results. Often, minor changes in approach, attitude and actions make the biggest difference in marriage. (I can only tell my husband so many times to do something - it's amazing what gets done when I ASK him to do it.)

4. Your attitude does matter. Changing behavior is important, but so is changing attitudes. Bad attitudes often drive bad feelings and actions. (I have been practicing this recently and it has made a big change in my marriage even with it being only a few days into my new outlook on my attitude and how I handle situations. Read "Changing my ways and putting my Husband first")

5. Change your mind, change your marriage. How couples think and what they believe about their spouse affects how they perceive the other. What they expect and how they treat their spouse matters greatly. (Again something I have been working on and has made a big change in my marriage. I have come to realize there is a large difference between how men and women think and without realizing this I would put a lot of blame on my husband for some of the things he did because it is not how I would have done it. I forget sometimes that we are married, which means there are two people here and we needed to figure out how both of us function and work together.)

6. The grass is greenest where you water it. Successful couples have learned to resist the grass is greener myth – i.e. someone else will make me happy. They have learned to put their energy into making themselves and their marriage better. (Both my husband and I have been married and divorced before and are determined not to do it again. I also think that if you are married that you should not put yourself in positions that could potentially create that “grass is greener on the other side” attitude – meaning that if you ever feel attracted towards someone else you need to sever that relationship immediately.)

7. You can change your marriage by changing yourself. Veteran couples have learned that trying to change their spouse is like trying to push a rope – almost impossible. Often, the only person we can change in our marriage is ourselves. (Last week I would have said this was BS – now I would swear by it. There is nothing that I can do to change someone else but I can change myself and how I view things in life.)

8. Love is a verb, not just a feeling. Everyday life wears away the "feel good side of marriage." Feelings, like happiness, will fluctuate. But, real love is based on a couple's vows of commitment: "For better or for worse" – when it feels good and when it doesn't. (Read my blog post “Love is a Choice”)

9. Marriage is often about fighting the battle between your ears. Successful couples have learned to resist holding grudges, bringing up the past and remembering that they married an imperfect person – and so did their spouse. (My husband gets onto me sometimes about my tendency of keeping score and he is right (not many times I get to say this) In marriage you have to forgive and forget otherwise you will be 80 years old with a whole lot of hate in your heart.)

10. A crisis doesn't mean the marriage is over. Crises are like storms: loud, scary and dangerous. But to get through a storm you have to keep driving. A crisis can be a new beginning. It's out of pain that great people and marriages are produced. (Because of me and my husband’s “divorce is not an option” mindset we are able to ride out the storms – we might not be happy doing it but it’s not always about being happy right?)