"How do you do it?"

Without a doubt my second least favorite question (the first being "How are you (doing)?")

Why?

It's simple. I can't answer it (either one) honestly or easily. But I get the question quite often. I don't know why. Usually it has to do with Dan and for this reason he gets the question just as much as I do. "How do you deal with it?" "It," of course, being the fact that he spends 95% of his work day in a wheelchair so that he can spend 95% of the rest of his day out of it. "It" being the fact that the pain keeps him from sleeping well at night making him suseptible to illness, bad temper, and stress in a nasty cycle. "It" being the fact that he can never tell from one minute to the next what he'll have to endure or how to cope with it. This sounds like a lot and when I put it down in words it sounds like too much. I can see how people ask me (and him) the dreaded question. The only answer I can give is.... "I just do." I don't think about all of this and what it means. I take things day to day or minute to minute. I (try to) do what I can to make things that much easier for Dan and accept the rest. In a way this answer isn't honest, because in truth the answer should be, "I don't." I'll get to that in a minute.

Lately I've been getting it in another context. I have many responsibilities. I have two young children. I go to school full-time. I work part-time. I have callings (assignments for those of you who are unfamiliar with the word) in the Church. Many of these are fairly time consuming. And so people look at this and ask me the dreaded question. "How do you do it?" Again the answer I usually give is.... "I just do." For many of the reasons I list above I shrug it off and go on with life. But again the honest answer (and one I'm starting to give to others) is, "I don't." There are many things in my life that I should do that don't get done or get done less than perfectly (which is almost worse if you know anything about my personality). There are many things in my life that I should do that others do for me. For this I am deeply and eternally grateful to friends and family who support me. And lastly, there are many things in my life that I couldn't possibly do without faith and trust in my Heavenly Father who I know won't give me anything I can't handle without His help. I have received promises that I know He will keep as long as I hold up my end of the bargain. These covenants are another piece (the whole piece if you consider that the other pieces are only possible because of Him) of the answer to second hardest question for me to answer, "How do you do it?"

Fall Term 2010 or How I've Been Driving Myself Nuts For 3 Months

First, to catch you up, Thursday (the 12th) marked the last day of Summer term. The last two classes I needed to complete my Pre-Management associate's degree from CNM are finished. Grades haven't posted yet, but I'll be shocked if I didn't get A's in both. I've also been accepted at Anderson School of Management at UNM. Needless to say I'm registered and ready to go, though I'll only have a week off before I start on the 23rd. This will be my first official term as a full-time student (I took one term with four classes before, but one was only one credit hour so I only had ten credit hours instead of twelve). I've been working out child care (Gabe starts kindergarten this year so I'm mostly worrying about Val) and pricing books and I was simply amazed at what I discovered even though I've been doing this for a few terms now.

My first term back at school I spent around $300 for two textbooks. Seems like an awful lot of money, right? A few terms ago, Dan spotted an ad for a textbook rental site: Chegg.com. I priced my textbooks that term and found a pretty good savings. I honestly can't remember how much though which is why I'm sending this out now. So you can know, as I know, exactly how much.

My textbook options this term are as follows:

1. $747.25 new
2. $560.75 used (assuming I can find them)
3. $217.99 rented from Chegg

What choice to you think I should choose?

Now keep in mind this is base price. I also have a promo code! Those of you who are or know students pass along promo code CC106269 along with the website. And if you find that you'll want to keep the book (which I have with a couple), you can always pay a little more before you have to return the book to buy it.

So.... I think what makes me most nervous about this coming term is that I'm not just changing schools, I'm changing just about everything about this term:

• University instead of community college
• Four 3 credit hour classes instead of two or three
• Monday/Wednesday schedule (with Thursday night at a different campus) instead of Tuesday/Thursday
• Public transportation instead of my own car (parking permits, gas, and wear & tear are costly)
• Scheduling around Gabe's school hours instead of just available child care (Thank you so much Tony & Lucynthia for your help so far and continuing help in this area & thank you to Meri for your help when my parents aren't available)
• Working at least once every 1-2 weeks instead of the occasional day now and then
• Big outside the classroom group projects in addition to the normal personally done homework

As I write this and wonder to myself "Is this something I can do? Will I really make it?" I glance up and see a candy wrapper I saved for just this occasion.... it says, "Believe in yourself!"

Bring it on....

Months pass...

In which:

• I finish my Spring 2010 term. It was a tough term since only one of the classes was among my strong subjects, but I managed to do okay. I got A's in all three classes so my GPA is safe for now.
• I spend 6+ hours of my life in the emergency room. I have come to the conclusion that the reason they have you admit yourself through the emergency room when you deliver your child is so that you know where it is since you'll be back. Gabriel managed to trip, while running through the house, into the coffee table corner and slice open his ear. 3 hours in the ER later it was clean and super-glued. This was about a month ago on a late Sunday afternoon. Last night Valerie some how (we still aren't sure what happened since neither child is talking... helpfully) hurt her arm when we stopped by to visit with Grandma and Grandpa Wilhite (Dan's mother and step-father). At first we thought it was just a mild injury and that resting it would help, but when we got home and she was still crying, craddling her arm, and yelping out loud whenever it was touched or moved we determined it might be more serious. Dan determined the pain to be closer to the elbow joint, but the swelling started near the wrist. It was ER time again. X-rays showed no fracture, but it took another 3 hours to determine that. Wouldn't you know it... it was on a Sunday :P. (Side note: Of the two other ER visits we've had, one was also on a Sunday.... our children are injury prone on Sundays appearantly.)
• We planted a garden. We decided to skip the pumpkins this year since we had such a hard time with squash bugs last year. We also only planted one tomato plant instead of two. Sadly, of the two rows of carrots and two rows of lettuce we planted we had only five sprouts (two lettuce and three carrots) of which one carrot has already wilted. Of the four rows of beans... I think every bean sprouted and I have learned that you plant them with space to spare not just because it allows the plants to get bigger but because it makes it easier to pick them :P.
• Gabe goes to school. Last year when looking for an inexpensive Pre-K program a friend of mine recommended the charter school that her kids attend and that she was PTO president at. Admission is free, but applications are reviewed on a lottery basis. Unfortunately, the lottery had already passed, but I put in an application anyway. School started without a word from the school. At the beginning of this year I put in another application for the Kindergarten program hoping that we'd have better luck. Then at the beginning of April I received a call saying that they had an opening in one of the Pre-K classes and would I still be interested. I jumped on the chance and Gabriel started school with three months left. He's loved it and since he was in the Pre-K program he gets preference in selection for the Kindergarten class (which it turns out he wouldn't have made it into anyway since the double-application resulted in an automatic in and an email saying "Sorry, we're full" :P).
• I began my business. It's official. I've got a State Tax ID number and a business license from the City of Albuquerque. I'm doing part-time bookkeeping for a local electrical contracting business that my sister has been helping out. She's been training me free of charge on the things I don't understand and I've been able to apply things I've learned from her and from my classes. As I get more experience, I'm hoping my client base will expand, but I'm okay with one for now since I'm still in school.

Me? A College Graduate?!?!

So, when I started this whole "going back to school" thing, I thought I'd just get an associate's degree from Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) in accounting and start a business. If you've been reading this blog, then you know that changed several months ago when I decided that it would be better to work towards a bachelor's degree at the University of New Mexico (UNM). With that course in mind I ignored the course requirements for the accounting associate's degree since most of the classes don't transfer and I was missing classes I'd need to get into the Anderson School of Management (ASM) at UNM.

Imagine my surprise last Thursday (March 4th), when I learned that the CNM has a pre-management associate's degree that is basically all the classes needed to fulfill the ASM pre-requisites. (Side note: I actually knew about the degree before, but thought it would be a bunch of classes that didn't transfer like the accounting degree. Since I never researched it, I never realized what it really was.) Since, by the end of this term, I'll have all the pre-requisites done, I paid a visit to an academic advisor to see where I was in the program. The advisor showed me how I could run a degree audit on my own, and then went over the one we'd run together. I'm two classes shy of getting the pre-management degree!!!

The BBA degree program at ASM consists of certain core classes and two of them just happen to be available for transfer from CNM (cheaper classes.... YAY). I was planning on taking those two classes this summer at CNM and starting ASM in the fall. Yup, you guessed it... those are the two classes I'm missing for the pre-management degree... which means that by the end of the summer term I would be eligible for a college degree. It boggles the mind.....

Lent Challenge

A new friend has challenged herself to give up chocolate for lent and get closer to Heavenly Father by reading the Book of Mormon as she would a regular novel. (You can see her post here.) I've decided to join her because I've been noticing some signs in my life that aren't encouraging. Things like headaches and nausea when I eat something pretty sugary and being tired way to much of the time. I've also felt somewhat adrift in my life spiritually and need to challenge myself to move forward towards Heavenly Father. I'll post (hopefully regular) updates here. Feel free to join us if you'd like and let me know so I can encourage you as you encourage me.

Realizations Become Resolutions

My life in the last few weeks have been riddled with realizations both good and bad. I want to share these with you and put forth a couple that I want to turn into resolutions. They are in no particular order (of time or importance) and I hope you'll bear with me as I ramble and try to get my thoughts onto "paper."

I have a wonderful family. I have seen so much love and support from my family that I can't even begin to list it all. A few examples include:

• My parents willing to look after my children week after week while I attend classes.
• My children crying/calling me in the middle of the night showing me how much they need my love and support.
• My sister and her kids willing to look after my children when my parents can't or when I need time alone or with my husband.
• My sister sending me a note telling me how much I help her when she's the one helping me.
• My mother-in-law calling to see how things are going and invite us over for dinner.
• My husband getting up when he doesn't sleep well just so I can sleep in on a Saturday.
• My father-in-law sending small notes in response to these blog posts to let us know he loves us and thinks of us.

I have wonderful friends. Following closely behind my family in the love and support department are the friends I've found (or have found me). One prime example is the friend who, before any offer of returning the favor or compensation, agreed whole-heartedly to watching the kids the once a month my parents aren't able to. Another is the friend who bugs me about going to volleyball. She claims it's because she needs to go, but I'm sure she's just giving me an excuse since it's really me that needs the exercise (she's on her feet a lot at work). :)

I spend WAY too much time online... specifically on Facebook. This one has been a while in coming. A few weeks ago our Bishop (the religious leader of our local congregation) passed along a lesson regarding spending too much wasted time in the clutches of technology. This lesson gave me pause, but I kept telling myself I was okay and that I just needed to cut back a little. Then came the realization that as much as my computer was on, it had been a few weeks since I'd last even glanced at any of the blogs from family and friends that I'd followed so faithfully and even longer since I'd updated my own since I'd been doing mini-blogging on Facebook. I'd partially admitted it to myself (and my sister) the other day when I told her I needed to unplug my network card to force myself to study for my CS 149 exam (can't study without the computer, but the temptation of getting online was... great). The hammer fell today as I read of a dear friend (my niece) who had gone cold-turkey on Facebook as part of an effort to get her life back under control (though there is really no such thing as control in our own lives since all we can do is take one day at a time, handle what we can, and leave to Christ those things we can't). I resolve to spend a lot less time wasting away on Facebook. I won't be off completely, but I'm going to limit the time I spend on there and try hard to ignore the hydras that get away, the mice that do or do not steal my cheese, the treasure that is hidden in the swamp, and the orders piling up in my cafe.

I'm smart. I have yet to determine if this is a good realization or a bad one. It's good because it means that I can usually grasp concepts pretty quickly and do well in my studies. It's good because it means that I can apply my intelligence in ways that will benefit my family, friends, and others that I love. It's not so good because it means that I don't have to work as hard to learn things so my study habits are appalling and it's easy for me to justify wasting time since I don't have to spend as much time studying... which eventually leads to other duties around the house being neglected as well. It's also bad because Dan is smart and our genes have combined to give us VERY smart kids.... sigh.

Budgetting is hard. With the recent remodel of our bathroom, our savings have disappeared and between Christmas and other "necessities" we're realizing how far we've strayed from our budget. This is less of a realiztion and more of a resolution to get back on track. I'm terrible at the couponing that my nieces do so well so I'll have to rely on self-discipline to try and get us through.

I think the time I've spent on this has just about used up my online time, but I think it was worth it. Even if the only person who reads this is myself. Sometimes it requires taking it out of our heads and putting it in "writing" to admit things. And having resolutions on "paper" helps you to set goals and succeed.

HUGS to all of you who've gotten this far. Know that I love you for your support (even if it's just "listening" to me).

Happy New Year You!