"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....