Does this work?

Yes!!! FTR, that's me at the end, yelling, "Swim!"

Now I'm Really in Trouble

I know what I want to do. The job/money thing. I know what I want, and that is a terrible thing, because now I really need to act on it. That will require work, effort. It will not fall into my lap like a ripe plum. It's also going to take time, and may never pay off. But this is it. This is my thing, and I can't believe I didn't come up with it earlier, when I was kicking around other ideas (Etsy store, Ebay, making Photo Books for people). The German classes, I'm still going to move forward with, because that is relatively easy, I do have (hopefully) something of a market for it, and it can move fairly quickly once I get rolling.

I had my dreadful epiphany Monday morning, while looking through this WHAM-IT! document. (I still haven't finished reading the whole thing, such as the part about actually getting traffic to your site, but I'm still a little overwhelmed by all of it.) I was thinking about what kind of content I could put on a site that would draw people in. What do I know; what am I good at? Well, last November I did a fair bit of blogging about homeschooling, and that seemed to interest a few people, even those that don't home school their own kids. Hey, we all want extra ways to enhance the kids' learning, right?

I also remembered a conversation I had with a homeschooling friend on the way home from a co-op meeting (we joined a co-op, and although the drive will suck, I think the experience is going to be fun). She said that she loved looking at my lesson plans--she's a lot more relaxed about schedules and such. I told her that my schedule was my crutch: without it, nothing would get done. But I do like lesson planning, and even writing materials. Well, mostly. Sometimes I am hugely relieved to get lesson plans that are complete with little to no extra input from me. Since I don't buy a pre-made curriculum, I put the bits and pieces together myself. Generally, I like that flexibility, but sometimes, it's a lot of work.

When I was in college, one of my jobs (my best job ever, in fact) was working at a private reading clinic. One of my jobs was to write new content for the students to work from. I loved it. I loved planning it, writing it, creating the attendant worksheets, etc. We had big dreams of publishing our materials, although that never came to fruition.

But now. The world is a different place now. I can write and publish my own materials online. I've seen other unit studies available, though I've never bought them (I'm way too cheap). This is something that has enormous potential. It is also a potentially huge amount of work. Of course, it doesn't all have to be done right away. It's the sort of thing I can build slowly and accumulate over time. I'm nervous about it, because it means putting myself "out there," and taking a risk. Like I said, it's also going to be effort, and my plate is pretty full already. But I can't help it. This is my thing.

I'm going to make it happen.

Good News/Bad News

Sometimes, it's the same news. In spite of keeping me quite busy last spring, my computer classes have dried up recently. I was hoping that they'd pick back up again next month. When I talked to my friend at the office yesterday (she'd been in training all week and couldn't call me back sooner), she told me that she'd gotten a phone call from the owner. When she paused, I knew it was bad news. They're planning to sell all the equipment. Essentially, they'll no longer be in the computer class business. This is no big surprise to me--they haven't been actively advertising classes in quite some time, and have let things slide a lot. They're taking their time and resources in a different direction, so I knew this was possible.

So the bad news is that my income potential has now been razored. I'm not devastated by this, though--note I said income potential. Classes from them have always been somewhat spotty & unreliable.

As it stands now, I have a couple ongoing classes I think I can count on for about four to six hours a week (a pre-existing computer class that I hope will continue, and a couple ESL students). That isn't enough, though. I've been thinking about selling last year's dance costumes on Ebay, and maybe starting an Etsy store to use up some of my fabric stash ideas (taggie blankets, tooth fairy pillows). It's also hopefully the kick in the ass I need in order to really get German classes going. My goal is to get something posted somewhere for an 8 week session starting October 2nd. Any amount will be a big help, but my goal is to get at least eight students, distributed over three classes.

I've complained a lot about my computer class company. I've gotten frustrated enough to want to leave, and looked at other options more than once. But I never did anything concrete, because it was too easy, too convenient, to stay. Now, I don't have a choice, and I'm hoping this ends up being good news instead of bad.

Jinkies, an imposter!

I know it's only August, but my kids are already talking about their Halloween costumes. I still can't get them to go for the mermaids, sigh. Sarah has wanted a Chinese costume ever since she saw the kimono & cheongsam dresses at an import store at the mall. She says that she'd rather have a jacket and pants than either of those, though. I could buy her something for about $30, and they have the tai chi slippers, as well. I'll have to price out brocade to see if I could do it for cheaper, and it would be easy to do.

Lauren, who has been in love with all things Scooby Do this year, decided she wanted to be Daphne. (I didn't help matters by taping the Scooby marathon from a few weeks ago. We finally got through the last one yesterday.) I know Daphne costumes are available, so I checked them out on line.

This? This is Daphne? I don't think so. Daphne's dress had sleeves, for one thing. She didn't wear go-go boots, either. Her dress was dark purple, with lavender bands at the cuffs, dropped waist, and hem. Her scarf was a big poufy thing, not some skinny band that went down to her hem. The hair is the only thing they got right. Luckily, a true Daphne costume will be pretty easy to make, especially if I do a skirt & top instead of a dress. The hardest part is going to be choosing the fabric. Fleece would be easy, but too hot for the indoor party, I think. Knit is probably the best way to go, even though it still intimidates me a bit.

More Pool Progress

At the pool last week, Lauren started swimming underwater. Not deep, but with her face submerged for several seconds. That was big progress for her. She's been "swimming" in the shallow in for a few weeks, but it's hard to tell how often she puts her feet down.

This week, we had some other friends over (cousins are on vacation), and the middle child is a girl two months younger than Lauren, although she seems more mature to me. Anyway, she was swimming like a fish in the deep end, which surprised me a little.

So I had Lauren stand on the "deep" side of the rope (there's still enough of the shallow end for her to stand) to see if she could swim to me a few feet away, and she did it easily! I moved farther back, and she still could. Eventually, she swam all the way to the diving board! It still makes my toes curl a little to think of her doing it, and her dog paddling isn't the most graceful thing I've ever seen, but she did it! She also did a lot of jumping off the edge and swimming parallel to the rope, which I was better with, because I could touch bottom and knew I could grab her if need be. I never did, though.

Now I have to work up the courage to let her go off the diving board without a ring. Really not sure about that one, though.

The Search is Over

Remember the search for a bed for Lauren? The saga continued, on and on. For a while, I decided that we would use the headboard from the day bed, until I realized that the cost of a full size mattress & box spring is a lot more than a twin size. It also takes up a lot more space in a fairly small room.

So I went back to looking at twin beds. We'd already been to the store where my Dad used to work, and spent at least an hour looking at kid's beds there, before deciding they were just too much money. We looked online, and Saturday decided to go down to a local store. The only option that was remotely within the budget wasn't appealing at all. Just didn't look well made. So we went to the store where my Dad used to work. Very limited selection, and higher prices (although by that time I was willing to finance part of it), but I didn't like the quality. We finally realized that we had to go full circle, back to the first store.

Again, we spent a lot of time looking, but in the end it came down to the one we originally liked. When we asked Lauren if she liked it (they'd been playing in the "Kid's Castle" before--fabulous concept!!!) and she immediately fixated on the pillows & comforter, for all our telling her that she'd have different sheets, etc. Went right over her head, of course.

We ended up paying about $250 then, and will pay the other $300 over the next three months. I can live with that. The mattress was out of stock, so it should be delivered sometime this week.

Now comes the hardest part: making room. I have to clean off and get rid of the treadmill in our room, then I can bring in the hope chest from Lauren's room. Doing that will also give me room for a TV stand, where I can keep all my sewing stuff. It'll be a much better result in the end, but a pain to accomplish.

Dance Decisions

It's almost that time of year again. Time to sign up for extra curricular activities. Those fun things that not only eat into our budget, but also our time. Brownies (and this year, maybe Daisies), dance, music, sports, and various other potential classes that I'd love to over schedule my kids with.

My big decision right now is dance. The girls have been in dance through our Rec Center for two years now. If they make it to five years, they get a nice little trophy. We love the teacher, and the cost is very good: $160 per kid for September through June. Our other choice is through the local homeschool group: $75 per kid for September through November. The Rec Center is cheaper per hour, but the HS group doesn't have the associated costs: t-shirts, costumes, recital tickets, pictures, video. It easily comes to another $150 - $200. I think the HS group does some little demo of their dance at the end of the class, but no big recital.

Don't get me wrong, I like the recital. It's cute as all get out, and seeing what the other classes have done is fun. I like getting t-shirts for the girls as mementos, and the costumes are reasonably priced. But it does all add up.

Also, the Rec Center doesn't offer Irish Step dancing, which I think the girls would really like. The HS group does, and the class is ages 4 - 10, so both girls would be in the same class. One class means one day of driving instead of two. It's a considerably farther drive, though--at least half an hour, compared to less than ten minutes for the Rec Center.

I'd like to stay at the Rec Center, but feel like the HS group is the smarter choice. I think I went through this whole thing last year as well, now that I think of it. :/

Totally worth the $

I don't think I raved enough about the Aquapac enough last time. I'm a complete convert. It's going to be so hard to pick pictures for this year's album . . .