Good morning!

Lucky us!  Chels was able to spend the weekend with us in celebration of August birthdays!

Today is Monday, which is the day I (now) have to be my cleaning/errand/planning day.  Since I took that new job at Valley Life Charter School, many of my minutes have gone to getting the beginning of the school-year in order.  This is only a part-time job, ten hours a week, but any teacher knows that things take time to get started, and that's where I am.  I'm hoping that after I get this week finished, I'll be in a good place to (somewhat) stick to the two hours of paid prep time they give me.

I usually give my quick life update on my Tuesday Tidbits, but I am not ready to start cleaning yet, so I'm using my blog to procrastinate and wait for the motivation to come.  First of all, the root canal: Things at the dentist went fine.  I usually have a lot of anxiety, but with some medicinal help and my ipod, I got through it with minimal sweating and heart rate acceleration.  Little did I know that was the easy part.  The hard part came the following week when I found myself in excruciating pain due to another infection!  Yep.  That darn tooth's abscess would not go away, and it seems it became even worse.  Thanks to some heavy duty antibiotics, I felt better by Thursday night, and am doing world's better today.  The main problem now is that these are some crazy antibiotics that kill all the bacteria in your body, even the good bacteria.  As you probably know, we need good bacteria to keep us...um...regulated.  So, my meals for the last four days have been paired with a side of yogurt and lots and lots of water.

Second, work:  My work now consists of my part-time job at VLCS and my part-time job of piano teaching.  I now have eight piano students, my newest being my youngest second cousin.  It's so fun having students who are excited about playing piano!  I feel so blessed to have these jobs, especially with their hours and flexibility, and it's awesome how both of them fit with my strengths.

Third, church:  I always have excitement at the beginning of the school year with the new things going on at church.  This year is even more exciting for me, and I'm not sure why.  Perhaps with each year we're here, we get more and more settled.  I can't tell you how awesome it is to have six little girls telling me how they can't wait for Kids Praise to start up again.  I also feel like this past year Robby and I have sought the Lord's will together in ways we haven't before, praying together and reading Scripture together.  I feel like he and I are more in line with what God is wanting in our lives and are able to accept the "waiting" that comes with being in God's will :)  (Because there always is waiting with the Lord, isn't there??)

Fourth, family and friends: Sometimes I am just overwhelmed with how blessed I am to have our families and friends.  We often feel like we don't get to spend as much time with them as we'd like, with church commitments taking up many of our evenings, but they are still so present and supportive in our lives.  This weekend was extra special as we celebrated my dad's 58th birthday and an early birthday with Chelsea, as well.  (Pictures to come...)

Well, I think taking some blog time actually helped motivate me!  The cleaning doesn't feel quite as overwhelming now.  Happy Monday to you all!