Pool Sharks

When Mike and I first moved to Virginia, I was absolutely miserable. We moved at the beginning of June, but I didn't start school until the last week of August. I didn't know anyone, and Mike was working full time. I did work part-time babysitting for a local family, so that meant I knew a total of four people, and two of them were under the age of five. I soon learned that making new friends can be extremely difficult.


I began looking for groups to join, so that we could meet new people. In August, Mike joined a wallyball league, but that was very short lived, and it was back to the search. Mike has been shooting pool since he could walk, so when I saw an ad on Craig's List for a pool league, I was hoping we had hit the jackpot! Mike began shooting pool in DC in September, and I would tag along helping to keep score, and "manage" the team. Then in January I joined the team as well. We met a lot of great people, and it was great to get out of the house once a week, and talk to people other than each other, but DC was a far drive, and we weren't getting home until after 1am most nights. So, after our second season in DC, we began a search to find  a league closer to us, and were successful. Mike has shot every season since, and I have played as my course schedule has allowed, which has essentially meant taking every third session off.


Pool really has been a saving grace for us. We have made amazing friends through the leagues, and it has given us an excuse to get out of the house once a week. As I mentioned previously, Mike is one of the better players in the league and I am one of the worst. This works out perfectly though, we both go to the same place, and Mike has fun playing pool, while I have fun socializing and pretending to play pool.


However, last night was my last night, at least for a while. The bar we shoot at brought back smoking, which gives me headaches, the nights are getting too late, and I need to focus on working on my dissertation, so that I can graduate one day. Mike is going to continue to play, and I will still stop by to hang out, but this way I don't have to go every week, and I don't have to worry about being out so late every week. So, for now I am hanging up my cue.

Advising

In order to pay the bills while I am earning my PhD, I have been working for the department in the advising office for the past 3 years. I meet with undergraduate students and help them to choose their classes, boost their GPAs, decide what they want to be when they grow up, apply to graduate school, etc.

Everyday I come into work not knowing who I am going to encounter. I have worked with so many students over the past four years, and each of them has their own dreams, struggles, and paths. For some students, my job is extremely easy, they have every semester from now until graduation all mapped out, they know exactly what they are going to do when they graduate, and they seem to be on the road to success. Other students however, are coming in to meet with me, because they don't know where else to turn. They are failing all of their classes, not getting along with their professors, etc. These can be extremely difficult conversations to have, because I am sympathetic to the students, but I also need to make sure that they are aware of the reality of their situation. I am sorry to hear that they have been having issues with their families all semester, but the truth is if they don't bring up their GPAs considerably, they are facing dismissal. More often than not though, the students who walk into my office are typical college students, looking for a little guidance as they make the decisions that are going to shape their futures.

I also see many students who have absolutely no respect for me or for my job. They dress extremely inappropriately, they are texting through the whole meeting, and they are continually cursing and badmouthing members of our faculty. These meetings can be extremely disheartening, and make me question why I do what I do.

There are many days when my job completely drains me emotionally, but then again there are even more days when I leave the office feeling like I actually made a difference. Whether I was able to help a student with their grad school application, help them stay off of academic probation for another semester, or was just there to listen as they talked about the issues they were having in their lives.

It has also been nice working in the office, because unlike teaching where there is constant prep work that needs to be done, you don't know what is going to happen until the students walk in the door. It is also nice because there can be significant down time, like the summer, though we definitely make up for it with the rush of students that schedule appointments during the month following registration opening up.

I have thoroughly enjoyed working in this office over the past three years, and am sad that I will no longer work here after the summer is over. I am going to be employed on our research grant, so I will no longer be eligible to do advising. So I guess I have to make the next three weeks count!

Catching My Breath

This past week has been a complete whirlwind. Friday morning at 7:38, I e-mailed in the papers that had a 9am deadline. DC also had an earthquake that morning; coincidence? I then spent the day running all of the errands I hadn't had time for the past month.

Friday night Mike and I went out for sushi to celebrate our two year anniversary. I can't believe that we have been married for two years and living in VA for three. Time seems to be flying by so fast that I feel like I am missing all of the things that are going on around me. I just wish I had more time to take in all of the small moments. 

Saturday I went to lunch with my advisor, and after venting about the exam for several hours he began to talk about how my life changed when I turned my paper in and the next steps in the process. Which left me feeling a lot less "done" than I had when I walked in the door. 

Saturday night Amy and I went to see Idina Menzel and Marvin Hamlisch in concert it was amazing! Plus it is always great to get a chance to catch up with Amy. I tried to upload a video that I took, but it won't work, so I guess you will just have to take my word for it! 

Sunday morning after church I left for my sister's house, since I was going to be watching my niece for three days, while my sister was at work. I was a little bit nervous to be watching a 4 month old for three days, but it was a lot of fun. She is such a happy baby; we had a lot of fun playing with her floor gym, going on walks, and getting extra assistance in every store that we went into. It was really neat to see the world through the eyes of a 4 month old, and to think of all of the things that we take for granted. She literally played with a stuffed elephant for an hour and a half, giggling and wiggling on the mat. 

Finally, this morning I packed up and headed to Cape May, where I am going to be spending a few days finally relaxing. I am staying with my grandmother, who all afternoon kept asking me if I wanted to go for a walk, or out for dinner. I just kept telling her that after the whirlwind that has been my life the past several weeks, I just wanted a tall glass of iced tea and a rocking chair on the porch. It felt good to just sit down without a purpose for a few hours. 

However, through all of the events of the past week, I cannot help but continually run off a check list of things that need to be done once I get back. My conversation with my advisor definitely left me with an uneasy feeling. Now that I have finally submitted my comps, the real work begins. I need to start putting together my application packets, as well as work on my dissertation and finish a paper I have been working on for two years. Can I really get all of this done in order to graduate in May? Am I going to have the energy to work as hard as I need to when I hardly feel like I have been able to stop the past several months? 

I am just hoping that over the next several days that I am able to relax enough that I am able to return home with enough energy and motivation that I can check off all of the items on my list. 

Financial Peace University

Every since Mike and I combined our finances, we have both felt like we were lost in a mirror maze. Mike is an accountant, so he is really good at balancing the checkbook and making spreadsheets to track our spending, but neither one of us had a clue about budgeting, investing or saving.

We had tried various times to be better about budgeting and saving, but that typically meant categorizing our expenses from the past month and saying, next month we shouldn't spend so much on x. One particular instance that really sticks out in my head was several months ago when we were discussing how much we could spend on a new kitchen table. We knew we had x amount in the account and that we still needed to pay the rent, and that we wanted to have some money left over for other expenses, but we just couldn't determine how much to keep for these hypothetical expenses and how much to spend now.

Well, about two weeks after, while waiting for me outside of the children's ministry at church, Mike talked to a couple about a financial class they facilitated. He brought some information home to me and suggested that we sign up for the class. Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University is a Christian based finance class that teaches the basics about everything you need to know to be successful with money, but does not go into so much detail as to bore you and scare you away.

Taking this class has been both enlightening and overwhelming. I feel so much more secure about our future and our ability to handle our finances. However, I also feel overwhelmed about the road ahead of us. The class is broken down into baby steps, which guide you along the way. However, some of these baby steps seem more like Everest at times. One of the nice things is that we now have a clear path guiding us, but one of the scary things is that we are only at mile marker 1, with hundreds of miles left to travel. I am glad though that we did this while we are still young, so that we have time to complete the journey and still enjoy the destination. Just need to maintain the gazelle intensity.

I think the best thing about taking the class was meeting all of the other people who were also feeling lost. We were all at very different places in our lives, looking for different answers, but were brought together for a reason. It was so great to have the support and understanding of our class as we faced obstacles, and overcame them, as well as sharing their accomplishments with them. Some of the things may seem simple, but to us on our journeys, they took a lot of strength and faith.

We were also asked to facilitate a new class of FPU in the fall, and am excited to do so. I am hoping to be able to bring the life changing message of FPU to others who feel overwhelmed. I am also excited to have the messages reinforced for myself, as it is a lot to take in, as well as to once again have the support of a class who is going through the same thing.

Look for more posts on our financial peace journey once the class begins in September, or if you are in the C'ville area you are welcome to join us on Tuesday nights!

Getting My Life Back

If you have not picked up on it yet, I am currently in the middle of one of the most stressful events of my life. However, I am very excited to say that today was my last official day of writing. That's right, I am finally at 45 pages! I still have some work to do with proofing and formatting, but the heavy lifting is finally done. It is a great feeling!

The last several weeks my life has been put on hold, and I can't wait to get it back. I am looking forward to being able to do my laundry, weed my garden, go to the beach, and think about something other than child development.

This weekend I am going to a volunteer dinner at church, a concert with Amy, an anniversary lunch with Mike, and then I am headed up to Philly to watch my niece for a three days. After that I am headed straight to Cape May! Can't wait to sit on the beach without a care.

Glass of wine by the fire

Yesterday was a long day. Mike and I greeted at first service, and then I volunteered in the children's ministry, which meant that I was at church from 9am till 1pm. Mike picked me up right after church and we took the cats to get vaccinations at Petco. We stood in line for 3 hours to get a 5 minutes shot! I don't think the cats were too happy to be in their crates for so long, but thankfully they were very well behaved.

We didn't get home till after 4, and I was exhausted, but it was time to make up for all of the writing that I didn't do all morning.

Though I didn't get as much writing done as I had hoped, Mike and I capped the night off with a fire out back, s'mores, and glasses of wine. I always enjoy sitting by the fire and just relaxing, and it never hurts to have chocolate in one hand and a glass of Merlot in the other.

Needing Incentives

I decided that I needed some external motivation to get this final paper written, so I set up goals and incentives for myself. Get a specified number of pages written in a day, and get to go out and do something fun at night. Yesterday was five pages of writing in exchange for a movie and nachos. 

I was a little nervous that it wasn't going to happen, because it was an 8:10 movie and at 4pm I still had less that 2 pages written. However, I pulled it off in the last few hours of the day, and Mike and I went to see Grown Ups and had nachos while doing it. 

The movie was cute, and it gave me the motivation I needed to get my writing done.

Today's goal is another 5 pages, and the incentive is going to Rio for queso and margarita swirls (for those of you unfamiliar this combo is amazing!).  So, back to writing so that I can enjoy tonight's treat...