Happy Birthday, Madison!

Madison is 24 today! We have had the best, restful, weekend! I have the best husband in the world :-)
Happy Birthday, sweetie!

Rain, Rain, go away!

It has been raining for a LONG time now! It reminds me of home in Michigan. I can't believe I'm actually growing a little sick of the rain! I used to love storms and rain, no matter how much we got. I see lots of rainboots around town! It was really funny to see the Ole Miss girls in their dresses for the football game (yes, they wear dresses...) with rainboots when I picked Madison & Nate up.

Today I am working, we have a staff meeting in an hour, then I will know what I have to do this week. But for now, I don't know what the order of service is yet, and my boss usually arrives about 10, so I am able to breathe and take it easy this morning with my large Chai from Uptown. I already cleaned up from Sunday and such this morning. I haven't bought coffee (or chai) from a coffee shop in ages, but this morning was a large chai morning. I went to Bottletree Bakery, but forgot they were closed on Mondays! So I traveled down the street to uptown. Good choice...this chai is good. I think I'm getting sick, but I am ignoring that fact. I woke up like 10x last night...2 because our dog threw up 2x. Gross. I don't really sleep like a normal person. I wake up a lot for no good reason at all...especially when I need the sleep the most it seems! I went to bed early at 10:30 too!

Law school is going well for Madison. It definitely keeps him extremely busy! It's difficult to be married to a law student, but it's so worth it! I love having the support group of other girls married to law students to hang out with and commiserate once a month at our get-togethers. :) I am so happy Madison found his niche, something that he enjoys and is good at. That is enough to get me through being alone and having to hold back from speaking a lot while he's studying at night after I come home from work.

I'm finally getting used to living in a small town. Finally. It took long enough. Being without a mall and Target 5 minutes from home is SO weird! You have to drive 45 mins to go to a decent mall, and 50 minutes to a Target...Oxford should really get a Target. I hate Wal Mart. But...with that said, I have gotten used to having to plan on a future event to shop instead of sporadically shop. It does save me money I guess! Speaking of shopping, I am SO READY for it to get cold enough to wear my fall clothes! Being from the north, I have a very small amount of warm weather clothes still. I wish clothes weren't as expensive as they are...it's just too expensive to get what I need right now! I feel like I wear the same shirts every week, but I'm trying to learn that it's okay to do that. That is hard for me to do sometimes! I just need to learn how to be laid back and not selfish about it. Plus, I do have a very sweet mother-in-law that takes me shopping, so it's not like I have all cheap clothes either!

My mom used to take me shopping to a lot of nice places. I remember when she was sick, she was in Naperville, and shouldn't have been out and about. She came to school to take me to lunch and had bags of sweaters, pants, etc. from the outlet mall and from the Danada Square mall just because. It was no particular day, but she would take me shopping and get me more than I needed. I am so thankful that the stuff has lasted this long. It's starting to make me sad that the stuff that I have cared for for this long is starting to pill up and get worn. It's just a hard realization knowing that that last stuff she bought me is now old. I miss her so much! (obviously not just because she took me shopping!!!) :-) She was my very best friend and we had such a good time together.

I am determined that this is going to be a good week. I am sick of whining about the hours I am working, and sick of my house being a wreck. I am going to shape up and do what I need to do to have a pleasant environment to come home to. This IS going to be a good week, I am going to make it one!

18 days

I will work 18 days before a single day off by next Friday. Next Friday couldn't come soon enough. I am so pumped. It's Madison's birthday weekend, and we're going to the Taylors. I even get Sunday off! WOOHOO! That's a very rare instance. I am on the verge of tears at any given moment due to being overworked here lately. I am so run down and I just feel weak. I sit down at my desk at work and just want to burst into tears! It's really difficult not having a single day off for that long!!! I feel less patience inside for my students also. I try to still act patient, but it's hard juggling this much stuff right now. I will pull through and be fine, and at least I am making more money, but I am very tired. And again, our house suffers. Madison is in the throws of Moot Court stuff, and I get home between 4:30 & 9 depending on the night, so it has been interesting in the Taylor household here lately. We miss each other a lot but are getting along great still, even with the lack of seeing each other except just a few hours a day! He's home more during the day and then I am more available at night. He's able to let Lady out in the afternoons which is a huge help. Usually I can't leave work unless it's an errand for the boss. And the fact that we share a car doesn't allow me to go places much since Madison is the one with the non dayshift schedule.
Yesterday I ended up having to be at work on my day off (partially due to a broken organ), and then later I had to teach. Today I had to let a piano technician in at 8:30 in the morning and I set the church alarm off...then couldn't remember the code. Thank goodness I did and it turned out that the main alarm I was hearing was a false fire alarm coming from one of the daycare rooms! I did a little bit more work (finished prepping and marking Tom's big Sunday folder of music he uses with all the cues and such). I locked up and went home. Then I organized the music, ate a sandwich that Madison made me (it was VERY good!) and then had the trio over at 1 to rehearse for a bit. We left for Corinth around 3, got there 25 mins early (it was raining HARD so it took a long time!) then it was a short wedding, we drove through Arby's for dinner, then got here about 9.
Tomorrow I have to be at church at 7 to turn everything on and such. I am there about 8 hours on Sundays!

Lady is so sweet, we love her! She is so good. She has her normal puppy things like chewing socks and napkins, but other than that, she is housetrained, snuggly, jumps and whines at the door when she needs out, and her newest trick is she brings us her leash in her mouth when she wants to go for a walk! It's so cute! She taught herself! She is so smart! I'm amazed at what she has learned and such. She is going to be a blast to have around.

Well, I better get lady in the car! We are going to pick Madison up from the Ole Miss game!

Bad, bad blogger...

I am terrible at this! I am going to try to do better! I want to have a daily short post instead of these crazy, long ones that no sane person would get all the way through. ha. Life is crazy, as usual. I am really looking forward to Sept. 26, when my last gig until Christmas happens!!! It does mean less money, but now that I have my new job, my weekends are treasured and important to keep as free of a schedule as possible. I have now been working for 11 days straight without a day off. We had our retreat last weekend, so I had to work all day Friday until 9pm, then Saturday 6:45am-3:00pm. Then of course, my Sundays start at 7:00am at the church (which means 6ish here at home waking up and feeling like smashing my alarm clock).

I finally got my work computer, which feels awesome. I now can sit at my desk and not run to whoever wasn't at their computer at the moment. I definitely won't miss running up to my most frequently used computer on the humid, musty 3rd floor and sending stuff downstairs to the printer; running down the stairs, then often up and down 10 more times before the end of the day. I'm getting faster at my job. I'm still working more than I would like to, but it's getting better, slowly.

My work computer is a PC, but I'll live ;-) My mac is on its last leg and I fear for its life every time I use it. :( (and yes, I'm an OCD backer upper, so no fear there). It's not like we can just go buy a computer, so if it dies, that's it for now. Yikes! Poor MacBook.

Can I just say that my work, although incredibly stressful at times, is the best work environment right now for me? I have 3 motherly, sweet secretaries making sure I'm ok, 5 very nice pastors, and two very funny janitors. (we became friends quickly). I definitely feel like screaming half of each day with frustration, but I really am starting to get the hang of it. I am not incredibly type A, and only OCD about a few things, which makes my job difficult for me. My boss thinks like a type A person, and I act it out...which is a little difficult for a layed back, forgetful person like me! I try my best. Organization is not my strength...which is interesting when in charge of thousands of pieces of music...not to mention my list of 1,999,222,333 other things I have to do every week...mm hmm!

Let's see...this week, we (the law wives of "law spouses") are selling t-shirts. I am the president, so I have been busy organizing that. Tomorrow (at church) is crazy Wednesday to put it politely. Every Wednesday I feel like I won't make it through the end of the day. It's a lot to get done, and sometimes I cut it incredibly close. I'm getting faster though, as well as gaining a few volunteers to fill the choir folders. I am trying to force myself to take a break in the afternoon, but I don't know if that will happen. It hasn't been lately! I work straight from 8:30am-9pm with about a 10 minute lunch break and 20ish minute dinner at church.
Saturday my trio has a wedding in Corinth, so that will eat up my day...but it's ok...after the weekend after next when I have a sorority gig, I won't have any more tied up Saturdays until December! I will have most of Friday off at least. Sundays I am at the church for 8 hours!

I look forward to Fridays a lot...I teach for 2 hours and that's all. Fridays are my Saturdays. Teaching thrown into the mix makes for a lot of work, but I would never quit teaching my kids over this job and it also helps pay the bills which is obviously a plus!

I want to be able to have time to do fun things, like sew, watch tv, scrapbook, things I haven't been able to do once since my job, and especially since we moved and I haven't had time to unpack everything, especially non-essentials. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie or did anything for fun except very small things like cooking! I am going to try to make time for these things. I'm bound and determined to!

I want to try to make my life as pleasant as possible...this means I will have to work really hard while home on the front end and get this place squared away. I'm so worn out when I get home that I feel like collapsing instead of working on the stuff I need to work on at home, but I will get there. It's just a steep slope I am determined to conquer. It all takes time and I'm learning.