Spring is here! Spring is here!

Well the time of nice weather seems to be finally upon us, and after avoiding a cold or flu all winter we both finally get hit with it when the weather is nice. We have been very bad about this blog thing, and haven't posted anything in a while, but we will improve. There may even be pictures once we get batteries for the camera. Until then here is a puzzle for anybody who actually reads this thing to work on: if 10 + 1 = 11 why does 11 + 1 = 100? Think about it.

New Drugs.... mmmmm

Well... we haven't updated in a long time, but we are hoping to get better at that. L finally got in to see a neurologist on Monday and is starting to take Carbatrol. It isn't the drug originally recommended by the doctor, but insurance won't pay for the other one. So this was his second choice and it is covered by insurance. Both J&L have decided to take a couple of personal enrichment classes online to help focus our scripture study and have something to work on together as a couple. J has been very tired lately and is trying to juggle all the at work and after work, but work related, and non work items that he is in charge of. We will post more pictures when we are able. :)

teaching spanish!

We are down in Independence, Virginia now, teaching spanish at Grayson County High School.  It has been a bit of an adventure; James was the one plotting to teach spanish at the high school, with the other spanish teacher there mentoring him in his first year of teaching.  At the last minute, she decided to quit and leave James as the only spanish teacher at the high school.  Rather than getting a substitute teacher who knew no spanish at all to fill in, we decided I would go for the long term substitute teacher position, teaching the other spanish classes.  So James and I are both teaching spanish at Grayson County High School now.  Poor James has to plan all the lessons since I don't have any training as a teacher whatsoever, just the degree in spanish.  I am trying not to stress out too much and have seizures all over the place, since that would just leave even more for James to do.  I keep feeling like I am messing things up all over the place, but I just have to remember that I am helping out a lot just by knowing some spanish and by trying.   Something else James is trying to work out is planning a study abroad trip for the kids, going to Guatemala to learn some spanish.  If he gets it all approved, it would be this summer, two weeks long, and the kids would get to learn all kinds of spanish by living with a host family, taking classes, and they would get to go visit some cool sites too.  We'll see if we can get it all approved and all the fundraising done to make it work.  I hope I can make things work as I try to teach with no training.  As long as the kids learn at least a little bit of spanish, right?

Knitting Pretty

This is one of my first big knitting projects, and I think it counts as really big since I wasn't following the pattern exactly this time. I took a pattern for a duck, and adjusted it to make a hokie bird for the youngest son of some friends of mine, Hyrum and Bethany Bronson. Hyrum went to Virginia Tech, and graduated, and got a job in Florida and moved away. With so little time in Blacksburg, little Samuel wouldn't have a whole lot of time to really become a hokie fan, so I thought that knitting him a hokie bird as a toy would be a good step in the right direction to help him in becoming a true hokie fan after the order of his father! It took me a long time and a lot of trying again, undoing, and figuring things out to be able to make this hokie bird. I even undid the head after i had stuffed it and sewn it up because James said that the eyes needed to have eye whites; I had only sewn in little blue dots. So this hokie bird gets to count as one of my major knitting accomplishments, and one that I had a lot of fun with. It might just count as the transition between smaller knitting projects, like hats and scarves, and moving on to things like socks and sweaters! That, and the afghan I finished not too long ago for my nephew. I've been having fun figuring out this whole knitting things. Go fighting gobbler that was knit by me, right?

Goal Setting

We are plotting to do better with goal setting and self-improvement type stuff. James made some check sheets for us to use to make ourselves accountable, with places to write in the goals, and report how we did each day, he was suggesting using smiley and frowny faces as our method of reporting if we accomplished the goal or not. This seems like a good idea for me - to have it all written out and reporting regularly so I don't forget or get confused with things. James will probably benefit from having more accountability too.
Some of the things I want to work on include writing at least thirty minutes a day working on the novel I am writing (Abish), figuring out more about how to do a decent housekeeping schedule, learning more about knitting and working on that, and reading more just for fun now that I'm not in school anymore and don't have to read assignments for class all the time. I also want to read in Spanish at least a little bit each day and keep the language in my head. I also need to figure out how to keep a better attitude and not be so down on myself, but I'm not entirely sure how to go about doing that, or how to measure that as a goal. Maybe just keeping more evidence of the goals I am working on will help me not to have such a negative attitude - more evidence that I am doing okay with things.