I was headed out to get the mail and heard some trickling water. The kids are asleep and Jason is at work, so I figured it must be the ice machine...until I looked outside. It's pouring down rain, so i decided to put my mail-getting plans on hold and sit down here instead.

It's very peaceful here right now. The house is quiet except for the sound of the rain and the clicking of the keys on the keyboard. It's not like this often around here. Mostly because I make myself so busy and fill my world with noise, without taking the time to just be. A nice thing to do every now and then :-).

My job is going very well. I'm starting to relax and enjoy myself and my boss is appreciating my work. I made a display for my classroom a couple weeks ago. It took me about 30 hours, so most of it was "pro-bono" work, since I only get paid $25 for my story boards. Yesterday, my manager asked me how many hours I spent on it. When I told her, she was floored! I don't think people who don't do cakes realize how much goes in to making them. Anyway, she came up to me a couple hours later while I was doing my demo and went over some paperwork with me. She told me that she wanted to make sure that I was getting compensated adequately because, in her words, "we really like you here, and we want to make sure that six months down the road, you don't look at your husband and say, honey it's not worth it." She gave me another display to do. This one pays $46, she provides the supplies AND I get to do it at home. SWEET! I was going to do a display cake for practice anyway and now she'll provide the supplies and I get paid for it. Free money!

I'm also really enjoying seeing people feel successful. One of my students sent me an email last week around 11pm of a cake she had done. A cute teddy bear she was practicing for her cousin's baby shower. She was soooo excited and it just warmed my heart that she would want to share it with me, and that I had played a part in her happiness. In my Saturday class, I have a student who joined because her friend wanted her to. She informed me the day they signed up that she would never be able to do it. I told her that yes, she would, and even if she never got the hang of the rose, she could at least do stars. She told me that as a kindergarten teacher, she could probably do stars, but that was it :-). Last week, she made some really cute cupcakes, with teddy bears, piped figures and flowers. She was so excited! She took pictures to show her dad in Florida. Now mind you, this woman has to be around 50 :-).

Another student on Saturday came into class and informed us that this was just not her thing. By the end of class, she was beaming as we all ooed and aaed over her cake with cascading flowers down the side. Now, my students' technique and execution sometimes leaves something to be desired, but the joy they get from creating something that they've never been able to do before makes me realize that it's not about perfection. My job has more to do with bringing people joy than it has to do with mastering the Wilton technique and to me, that just makes it all worthwhile.

Gabby has definitely developed a creative side as well. She spends literally hours coloring and/or painting nearly every day. She takes her coloring books and her crayons to bed with her and has almost learned to color within the lines. She loves to sing, as she always has. Her latest favorite song is "No one" by Alicia Keyes. She's so adorable in her little cutie voice, singing "No one. No one. No one!" at the top of her voice. Her beautiful blond hair is getting really long and she informed me today that she wants to grow it down to her feet ;-). She's also been growing like a weed. We measured her at 39" last week. Only one more inch to go before she can ride the bumper boats at Boomers!!! YAY!

She had her first kiss this weekend. My friend Kelli from church has a little boy who is almost 3. We went to pick up our kids from the kids program after church Saturday night and Kelli asked Drew if he wanted to give Gabby a hug. He walks up to her, gives her a hug, walks away, then turns around, walks back over to her and plants one on her lips. Too cute!! Kelli told me that maybe they would get married someday ;-). Whatever happened to arranged marriages anyway? I like this family :-).

James is growing up so fast! He's getting really excited for Kindergarten. We get to register him the first week of March. He's excited to go to school every day that Daddy goes to work. He is learning to count to 100, colors within the lines and is starting to sound out words. He's also learned how to tie his shoes. Both he and Gabby have been begging to do play dates with their friends and I've decided that I liked it much better when I got to choose their friends because it made play dates a lot easier.

Jason, poor guy, has to get a tooth pulled this week and an implant put in. One of his molars broke and unfortunately, it's at the very end of his mouth, so it's not possible to bridge it. We discovered through all this that dental insurance hardly ever covers implants and won't in this case. $2000 out of pocket. Thankfully, we have money left over from last year in an HSA, so it won't affect our day to day finances. Thank you, Lord!

Well, there seems to be a lull in the rain. I think I'll run out to the mail box.

Gabby

I have to go to bed, but I wanted to relay an interaction that Gabby and I had earlier today.

Me: "Gabby, I'm the luckiest woman alive because I get to be your mommy."

Gabby: "I'm the luckiest kiddo alive!"

Me: "Why?"

Gabby: "Because I get lots of princess stuff."

So much for a tender moment.

The good in the world

As we all know all too well right now, life can feel pretty heavy these days. Jason and I, for some reason, have been protected from hard hits as of yet, but too many people we know are REALLY struggling and sometimes, things look so gloomy and dismal. And yet, in the midst of all this, I have been struck by the good in the world. Perhaps all the hardships have created a backdrop where these things stand out, but whatever the reason, I wanted to share a few things that have jumped out at me and warmed my heart this week. First, I read this article on the drudge report. Pretty amazing!

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/st ory/904842.html

The other two things are small, but sometimes it's the small things that impact us the most. I've been waiting for our local Gottschalks to run Clinique's bonus. For those of you who don't know what that means, a couple times a year, Clinique, the makeup company that I buy from, runs a promotion where you get a bunch of free stuff (lipstick, mascara, eye shadow, etc.) when you buy a certain amount. It started today and I've been stretching my makeup until then so that I could get the free stuff. I went in today and all I needed was the foundation (I only buy two things from Clinique. The rest I get somewhere cheap, if at all). The minimum purchase to receive the bonus was $21.50. My foundation came to $20.50, of course. The sales associate tells me that with tax, it will be over $21.50 so she'll give it to me, even though technically she's not supposed to. THANK YOU! She didn't have to do that, but she did out of the kindness of her heart and I was really grateful. Then Gabby and I went to play in the kids area. Gabby had to use the restroom and on the way out, I asked Gabby if she wanted to share a soda. We couldn't agree on a flavor, so we decided to just not get anything. An older gentleman was walking by with his walker and dropped a whole bunch of quarters. I picked them up for him. Then he asked if Gabby wanted a soda. I told him that she was ok, that she has had a lot of junk food lately anyway. He asked how much the sodas were and I told him $1.25 as we started to walk away. He called after us: "I have a couple dollars. Do you want a soda little girl?" For some reason, that brings tears to my eyes as I type because this man didn't even know us. He had no idea whether we "deserved" a soda, or whether we were down on our luck, or anything. He just wanted to be nice. Now I'm dying to do the same for someone else. See, it's so easy to make someone smile. To warm their hearts and make their day and yet, how often do we do things like that? Gabby probably won't even drink her soda. She doesn't really care for pop all that much because it's "too spicy", but the selfless act of that older gentleman is something I definitely won't forget for awhile.

A new month, a new job, a new post

Life has just been trucking along here and I figured I should pop in for an update. I never would have guessed that I could get sick of winter (what winter?) in CA, but I'm ready for summer to arrive. I'm looking forward to the warm days when we can leave the windows open all day and the chance of rain is slim to none, where play dates at the park only get cancelled because of too much heat or poor air quality :-). I'm looking forward to being able to comfortably bbq every night of the week if we want to, although I really do need to figure out how to operate a bbq :-). Jason's our bbq expert, but when he doesn't get home until after 6, it's too late to cook the meat for dinner. I guess I'll make that my goal for the summer: learn to bbq. As all of you know, I have lofty aspirations in life :-).

I got to teach my first cake classes this week, to a total of 13 students in all. 9 the first night, 4 on Saturdays. My Saturday class is a HOOT!!! It's 4 elementary school teachers who are doing this just because it's fun and they are a riot! I had more fun in that class than I had had in weeks, and I got paid for it. Doesn't seem right in a way :-).

My manager told me that I have more students in my first class this year than they had all year last year. YES!!! Thank you, Lord! My Thursday class is so large (I know. Only 9. But that's large for a hands-on cake class) that I went up a pay grade. I get an extra $10 per class because of it. SWEET! I've been pretty stressed the last few weeks because of all the learning and organizing involved, but I really do enjoy what I do and I know the stress will diminish as I become more familiar with how everything works and build confidence in myself and my skills.

Jason's had a tough go the last few weeks, but still really seems to be enjoying his job. The kids LOVE having so much time with Daddy and I love the flexibility of him running home if I need to run out for an hour or so. He works incredibly hard and in return, he gets to set his hours and take time off when needed. Pretty good deal, all in all.

Gabby has definitely left her baby years behind. She is now 38" tall and has an incredible vocabulary. She sings her way through the day and tells story after story to her babies and stuffed animals at night. She has become quite the night owl (GRRR!) and would rather take a nap so she can stay up than skip her nap.

We had moved her gymnastics class from Monday evenings to Wednesday day because she was starting to skip naps and would be really tired by the time her class ended at 8 on Mondays. Unfortunately, when we switched her, she went from looking forward to gymnastics all week long to crying and clinging to me every time she had to go :(. She said the class was too big and that she missed her friends. I didn't realize that she was close to the girls in her Monday class, although now, looking back, the fact that she asked me every week if she could have them over for a play date should have been an indication. duh! After talking to her teacher, we decided to switch her back. She went back to her old class last night and the jump in her step was back. She was grinning ear to ear and she came out from the class at the end and said: "Mommy, that was fu-un!"

James has developed a strong interest in God and anything related to God. He started AWANAs two weeks ago and while the memorizing part is not his favorite, he loves the stories. I took him to Borders to pick out a new Bible with actual chapters and verses, rather than the kids' story Bible he had. I showed him the kids' Bibles with pictures and things, but he adamantly chose an NIV backpack Bible with no pictures. I asked him if he was sure he didn't want to get one with pictures and he said: "Mom, I don't want a Bible for the pictures. I want it for the words!" Over the last week, we have read Matthew 1 through 11, geneologies and all :-).

That's all for now! I need to go start the brownies so the kids and I can make Valentine brownie pops for James' class on Thursday.