Still Around

 Checking in on old sites and saw this poor abandoned blog still getting hits.  Wow.  

Facebook became the go-to for life updates and all such things for a while.  Now, not so much.  

Twitter isn't really for life stuff.  

But probably not going to really start on here again.  

We made the move to Texas.  It was a very crazy move once we got here.  Long story short - we showed up for closing on the house in VA on the right morning.  Signed all the papers, and started the two day drive to TX.  The buyers of that house ended up finally doing there part over three weeks later.  That was a very stressful three weeks!  

Life is good here.  We will be eternally grateful to have been in Texas during the insanity of the past few years, it was much less insane here.  

Noah is great!  He's taller than me now, almost taller than Ching.  He's about to finish 7th grade.  He's in band and plays golf.  He's an amazingly good kid.  

We still have Bloo and Peppa.  We now have a boy cat named Ghost.  We also have two chicken ladies running around the backyard.  And a couple of fish.  

If you actually read this - leave a comment and say hi. 

I'm Not Stressed. You're Stressed

I keep waiting for the point in this process - this sell your house, move halfway across the country, to buy a house, start a new job, hope the boy isn't too worried or sad about all of it, start life over process - when I exhale and enjoy the process.  Life is all about the journey.  Right?

This week was not that week.  We got the pictures of the house done this morning for the listing.  The house wasn't perfectly ready, but that's ok.  It is ok, right?  I'm a list maker, a planner with backup plans for my backup plans.  There are still many steps in this process, and even as it becomes when "when" than "if" there are too many unknowns for my taste right now.

I keep telling myself this is where the rubber hits the road in Christian life.  What's the point if there's not peace and joy even in these stressful parts of the journey?  It's not about my faith, it's about His faithfulness.  It's tough sometimes.

But.  There's a lot of life on this side of the move.  There's beautiful weather - even if half of the days are rainy.  There's the boy playing in the neighborhood with kids.  Sitting in the front yard with Bloo because she loves to be there watching our current little part of the world.  The end of the school year.  The coming end of the dance year.  Time with friends before the move.  So much to enjoy.  

There's a song lyric on Amanda Cook's new album that is so simple, but means so much.  "This I know.  Of this I'm sure.  That You hold, my whole world." 

The Rest of the Story 2

As I mentioned, Tuesday we met with our realtor to put our house on the market.  That meeting went well!  Now we're working on getting the house "picture" ready.  Whew.  Going all Marie Kondo around this place!  Ha!

On Thursday and Friday, a company Ching had applied to flew her down to Dallas to do an extended interview - get to know each other.  I was so nervous Thursday.  Lots of thoughts and prayers about faith, and having any, and that it's not faith once you know the outcome.  But mostly I felt things would work out. 

And they did.  Friday they worked out a start date, which she and I had discussed.  She'll be down there on the 28th of this month.  That'll give her time to house hunt while Noah and I finish up things here.  It'll be hard on Noah, but hopefully excitement will win over worry. 

So much to do.  Listing pictures, small and medium sized repairs.  Applying for mortgage for a new house.  Finding a new house.  Packing.  And on and on.  I know so many of you are experts at all this stuff!!  I joked when I got my Virginia teacher license I'd end up trading it in for a Texas one.  Gotta start that application process soon. 

So it's really happening.  Going home. 

The Rest of the Story

I posted on facebook this morning - because it so awesomely reminded me - that it was ten years ago today I got the keys to our house.  Crazy.

We'd been in Northern Virginia for two years and houses were cheap enough and we thought it made sense to buy.  We didn't really intend to stay for ten years. 

Ching wasn't even in town.  She was down south doing Army officer stuff.  That ended up being a weird series of events that ended up with her finally getting out of the Army, although not quite the way she intended.  I did the entire move - even having to sign all the paperwork for her, packing and moving all the stuff, plus our dear Ramen and Silly and Little Man.  Then I got to unpack it all. 

We had a LOT less stuff then!

Just over a year later, we had Noah. 

Fast forward to the past almost ten months, and her finally getting out of defense contractor work - again just not in the way she intended. 

As part of this crazy time in our lives, and it seeming all the doors were closing on reasons for us to be here, we had scheduled an appointment with a realtor for today.  We had no idea it was ten years to the day later. 

Our house is going on the market.  We're moving back to Texas, the Dallas area. 

God has been so amazing this year.  He's taking us down a path we could never have anticipated.  It hasn't been easy, but it's been so good. 

The other day I decided it felt like being at an amusement park - waiting and waiting and waiting in the long snaking lines to get on a roller-coaster - hot, tired, bored but excited, nervous.  And now we're just getting into the seats. 

We know God is going before us, and making straight the path.  And if the setup has been this crazy - then what's on the other side should be amazing. 

Thoughts on Standardized Testing

I was a student in Texas in the 70s and 80s.  I remember when testing became a thing. I understand why it became a thing - kids graduating high school with no reading or math abilities - AND no one being held accountable.  Yes, it sucks we couldn't trust teachers, or parents, or principals, or anyone else to actually make sure kids were learning what they were supposed to be learning.

Then, I suppose understandably, testing took over.  There became a loop of matching test questions and outcomes to curriculum and so on.

In the 90s and 00's, I worked various jobs for the testing industry.  I saw how test questions were tested, how passing standards were set.  I spent at 8-10 years scoring essays of all grades.  (I also saw a real decline in writing abilities over that time.)

So now we all complain about the stress, and the teaching to the test, and the teaching of testing strategies. 

But what if we didn't?  What if we just stopped stressing about the test?  What if we didn't teach to the test? What if we didn't teach test taking strategies?

What if - we simply never put the curriculum standards (the actual standard by number) in the classroom?  What if we never talked about the test with the students? 

What if we simply taught the students what the curriculum says is appropriate for age and grade level, gave them testing assessments along the way that were similar enough to "THE TEST" - and when the time came, just gave them the test. 

I know, I know.  It's all about the results, and the money - all the money - so much money - tied to those results. 

But what if we just left the kids out of all of that part of it and just let them be students, learning cool stuff in school? 

What he remembers

Every day when Noah gets in the car after summer school, I ask how his day was.  First, he always tells me what he ate.  Of course.  Then I ask if they did math, how did that go (not well).  What did they read - he doesn't remember.

The other day there was a funny exception to his not remembering what they read.  I wish I knew exactly what the lesson was.  There was reading and some video.

He told me all about Einstein and when they took out his brain to study it.  He asked if that was real.  How did they get his brain out.  He also vaguely remembered something about cars traveling. 

At least something got his attention! 

Long standing jokes with Noah

I can't believe our boy is going to be 8 in a few days.  It's getting harder to remember life before him.  (At my age that's not really surprising!) 

I started playing with his little feet while Ching was still pregnant.  She'd be asleep, I'd have insomnia, and Noah would be moving around - I assumed it was his feet.  Somewhere along the way I started joking with him at bedtime that I was going to eat his feeties.  I'd joke how delicious they looked, that I might put some bbq sauce on them.  He always squeals and says NO, Don't Eat The Feeties.  We still do this some nights.

The other thing we've done for a few years is joke that whenever he has the hiccups it's because he's growing.  Every time he gets them I tell him to stop growing. 

Traveling Man

As school was ending, Noah was telling his teachers about his upcoming trip to Colorado.  His special ed teacher has worked with him since kindergarten and loves to hear about his travels.  We got to talking about how many places he's been to.  Here's the list - not really in any order:

Texas - Dallas, Ft. Worth, Houston, Austin and Galveston.  Some multiple times to visit family.
Las Vegas, NV  He was too young to remember this one, too.  Now he wants to go again.
Nashville, TN  Twice. Ching and I wanted to go, it's the most like Texas without flying.
Ocean City, MD  I think 3 times, he likes the beach there.
Atlantic City, NJ  He was too young to remember his first beach.  Second time he was scared of the aquarium.
Warren, NJ  to visit family
Philadelphia, PA
NYC, NY.  His idea - he loved taking the train there and everything about it.
West Virginia - we took a scenic train ride that was cool.
Denver and Breckenridge, CO.  So happy he really enjoyed the mountains!

That's a lot in seven years!  He loves it.  Before we even left Denver last week he was asking where we're going next! 

I, like so many other moms who blog about their kid(s), started off strong when he was a baby and toddler, then lost the thread as he got older.  Some stop because the kid asks them to, or the kids become more aware of being written about.  Some because like just gets too busy. 

For me it just became easier to do quick updates on facebook.  But now we know they're evil.  And, honestly, it would be very time consuming to get all that in a format that he could show his kids. 

But, Noah is still such an interesting kid!  And I love him more than ever.  Maybe I miss writing 

Our boy is a planner.  And a master asker of questions.  When I told him he was going to have dance rehearsal this Saturday, the questions weren't just about what time, and exactly where, but down to the level of would I walk in with him or just drop him off.  Ha!

Bath Time With Noah

He again told me just how very old I am. Which led to more talks on dying. I told him I'll be around to see his grandchildren. Which led to having to reassure him that girls have babies and not boys. Then he told me him and his bestie had babies in the 80s. (not sure where he heard "the 80s" but he thinks it's ancient history) HUH? So I asked if he was going to live with (marry is not really a word he gets) her in the future. He said yes, but he still wanted to live with me, too. And in this house, he doesn't want to sell this house.

If he wasn't in the bathtub I would have tried to record some of this.  He's so crazy.  

Real Estate Update

There have been no updates because there has been no real estate.  I spent the first few months after I got my license doing the normal new agent stuff.  I sent out letters and postcards to my neighborhood.  I hosted a couple of open houses for another agent.  (This is supposed to result in getting buyers who don't have agents yet to work with me.)  I tried helping another agent find tenants for his rental listing.  (The goal here is that potential renters either decide to become buyers, or over the long term become buyers in the future who will remember me.)  None of this resulted in anything.  Nothing.  I didn't even end up finding the renters who moved into the rental. 

During all of this, my personal life was going through some of the most down times maybe ever.  The worst of it hit just as about the time I was going to finally start cold calling people in my neighborhood. 

Now, it's summer and Noah is home.  And while I know there are tons of moms who make work and being a stay at home mom happen, apparently I'm not one of them. 


So I'm at a professional impasse.  I can't do anything for a couple more weeks until Noah is at least at summer school three hours a day.  But it's hard to be any kind of motivated when the meager effort I've put forth so far has been futile.  I'm not ready to call it quits yet.  I just need one thing to go right.

Conversation With Noah - Puppies

Our boy listens to everything.  Every.Thing. 

While putting him to bed, I told Ching she can talk with the vet about when to schedule Bloo's girl surgery.  (Bloo was in there with us being her little bit crazy self.)  Noah asked what we were talking about.  Now, not only do I have an extremely hard time lying to him, we also have a general policy of telling him the most truth we can for his age and such.  We simply said Bloo would have a little surgery so that she wouldn't have puppies in the future. 

Oh My.  First, it took a long time to clarify that there are currently no puppies in Bloo's tummy.  He's very familiar with babies in tummies because two of our friends have very recently had babies.  It was also difficult to explain "never in the future" because he's not great with time, and his "future" generally consists of stringing together tomorrows - ie. the day after tomorrow is "tomorrow tomorrow". 

Then he asks us Why Do You Hate Puppies??  And we busted up laughing.  He thinks puppies are wonderful and beautiful even when they come out the belly button and are a little bloody.  (Oh yes.)

At this point we really wished we'd been recording this whole conversation.  It was quite circular. 

Noah now wants to breed puppies so he can give them away. 

God is Good Part Two

How funny I never got around to publishing the previous post.  Probably so many reasons for that. 

I can't really explain the last four months at this time.  I have traveled from one of the darkest times in my life to one of at least renewed hope and optimism.  Ching has had her own journey during this time as well.  I'll leave that to her if she decides to share.  I tend to see these journeys at Divine intervention.  In the darkness I was able to reach out to a couple of friends just enough to ask for prayer. 

Anyway. 

The other night we took Noah to his first concert.  We've been listening to Clean Bandit since Rather Be was getting decent air play.  When Ching saw they'd be playing at DC's 9:30 Club we thought Noah would really enjoy it, even if it did fall on a school night!  Zara Lasson was the opening act, and while I didn't know her name, I had heard a few of her songs.  She's really good.  Noah seemed to like her music, he was sort of head banging and then dancing his little heart out.  It filled my heart with joy for him.  We didn't get to hear all of Clean Bandit's set, but that was ok. 

It was also refreshing to me to get out and hear some live music and recall all the shows we went to see back when we lived in Austin.  It did my heart and soul good. 

Back to the previous post and Ching's job situation.  It ended up even more convoluted than written.  The company that took a chance and hired her before they knew if they'd won the contract - did NOT win the contract.  Sigh.  Once again, though, the recruiters there were so cool and found Ching another job within the company.  Even better, it got her back to her previous salary.  Worse, it's now at CIA headquarters - which will be her worst commute yet.  Today was her last day at the location she's been at for almost a year and a half. 

Due to the transition period, she's been able to be home in the mornings and cook some breakfast and spend time with Noah.  We're really going to miss that come Monday. 

As for me and the real estate endeavor - I'll try to write about that later.  So far, nothing is happening.  But I'm going to keep at it a while longer.  Nothing in the past four months has been conducive to getting a lot done work wise.  We'll see how that is going forward. 

God is Good

I'm writing this Friday morning, inauguration day.  Not sure exactly when I'll be able to post it live.

Almost two weeks ago, Ching was called into her bosses office and essentially fired. As you know, it was very unexpected.  Ching was in an odd situation at work, even for a contractor.  She was hired by the contracting company and placed in office X.  Office X, not long after she started working for them, said "hey, office Y across the hall needs someone with your skills, why don't you work a few days a week for them."  So she was "owned by office X, but doing most of her work for office Y.  Office X then had a change in the contract, which made Ching no longer eligible to work for them, so they had to let her go.  That left office Y without her as well.  They had no idea she was going to be let go.

This started a series of actions on the part of several people to get her a contract under office Y - to get her back.  That never happens in the contracting world.

With the presidential transition and other factors, Ching was really feeling this job search would be different than the others.  It had been a few years since she'd even had to look for a job, as one would end, another company would already be in contact trying to hire her.

We've been so blessed in regards to Ching's work.  It sometimes stresses her out, but she's been able to provide so very well for our family.

As I've mentioned, back in September, due to my optimism for the country, and on a word from God I'd read many times from the preacher I followed that God was going to give favor unprecedented to His people, I decided to give this real estate career a try.  This whole process has been a real exercise in patience.  I had a couple of really down weeks after the holidays, and then bam, Ching lost her job.
So, for the past week or so my thought has been, God hasn't brought us this far to abandon us now.

Yesterday, Ching got a call from her contracting company boss saying everyone was working on getting her moved to a contract for office Y.  Wow.  They had already agreed to pay her two weeks severance (through the 24th) - that also doesn't usually happen.  Her boss said they'd keep paying her until they worked out the new contract, which could take a week or two.

Basically, her being fired turned into a paid vacation.

She really needed this break.  She's gotten to rest, exercise, and spend some great time with Noah.  But, she's also seen just how valued she was at her job.  And her line of work can often feel pretty thankless. 

The Contracting Cycle

Last Monday night, Ching got a call from her boss boss.  (There are too many layers of management in contracting.)  He asked her to meet with him the next morning.  He left the impression there might be some small matter to address.  Nope, she was let go from her job.  Some higher up somewhere re-wrote the contract so that she was no longer qualified to do the job she was doing.  It happens.

In the ten years she's been a contractor, she's never had a job for two years.  Sometimes it's by choice, sometimes not.  This time really caught us by surprise. 

We have a decent emergency fund for times like this, but it probably isn't what it should be due to my real estate stuff and new stairs.  (We really didn't see this coming.)

As for my real estate stuff...  ugh.  I'm still waiting on two things to be able to actually list a house for sale or to represent a buyer.  Not that either of those things look likely to happen soon.  We'll see.

Ching was feeling a little burnt out and overly tired, this is never the ideal way to get a break.

Noah is just happy to have Ma home more, taking him to school and picking him up.  We've tried explaining it to him, but it's just as well, he doesn't really understand.

Sunday, we go get the new puppy - so that's something fun!

A New Career

Back in early September, I asked my cousin, Dean, what it would take to get my real estate license, and what the job is really like.  Shortly thereafter, I started down this path.  It's definitely been a one thing, one step at a time journey.  I took an online class, then I had to take a final for that.  Due to snafus, the test took a little longer to get scheduled and done than I liked.  Then I had to register and take the actual licensing test.  I passed that yesterday.  Thank God I'm good at classes and test taking.

The other process involved finding a company to work with.  That's been a little tougher.  There are two very different compensation approaches.  But, as a complete newbie, I know that going with the more training/less money is the smart move.

Today we sent off the official license application.  Week after next I'll be signing all the paperwork to actually partner with a broker.

Throughout the process so far, it's been a roller coaster ride.  Between the stress of getting this preliminary stuff done, there was the stress of the election.  It actually ended up that I took the class final the morning after the election.  Yeah, that was some smart planning on my part!

So, at this stage of life I'm starting something entirely new.  I've said for over a year now that I'm optimistic about life and the future.  This is me trying to put that into a tangible form.

My brain still makes all of this a roller coaster ride.  What if I suck?  What if I never sell a house?  Blah blah blah.  But the other side is the optimism, that I can really do well at this.

First Grade

This is what I wrote this time last year. 

Today is the same and different.  The same in that I'm going to miss him during the day.  We've been together almost 24/7 the past month.  Towards the end of summer it was a little iffy, maybe we were both a little bored.  Different in that he and I have kindergarten under our belts, we've got this school routine down already.  Thankfully he's still excited about going to school. Although he's not clear on why there are different kids in his class this year.  That's a hard one to explain.  

This year he has a Korean woman for his teacher.  I know it's supposed to make a big difference in kids' lives that they have role models and teachers and such that look like they do.  We don't really know how much it matters to Noah.  There's so much diversity in our world already.  She's very positive and optimistic about getting all the kids reading this year.  We'll see how our boy does. 

Mother's Day - This is being a Mother

The past 24 hours are what parenting is about. Changed plans where we end up at an airshow which Noah loves. Soccer games cancelled both Saturday and Sunday. Three hours after we get home from the airshow Noah tells us his ear hurts. Uh oh. Give him tylenol and hope he can sleep until morning when we can take him to a clinic. Wake up at 11:30 pm to him saying it really hurts. Poor baby, this is the first time he's complained of pain.

Off to the ER we go. Where he immediately pukes up the antibiotics and motrin as we're about to head home. My stomach growling because I went to bed hungry thinking I'd wake up and eat a decent breakfast. So, off to the all night pharmacy, which informs me their computers are processing the day's batch and so it's $50 for the antibiotics until I can make a second trip to have it re-processed. Many cuss words. Back to sleep about 2:30

Plans, new plans, changed plans this morning. Fun. (or not) Evil neighbor kid ends up in the house (with Noah and our friends' kids) and dumps 1/3 of a container of fish food into the fish tank. More cuss words. Figuring out how to clean out the fish tank while expelling the evil child and entertaining the good ones. Then Noah pulls out his current loose tooth. At least this one we have for the tooth fairy.

Off to see if the haircut place for Noah is open. Nope. (I kinda figured.) The pet food store to get the cats food. The grocery store for a few things.

Time to finally fire up the grill.

Why in the world don't I drink??

But, this is being a mother. And it's still the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Loopholes

Noah has the potential to make a great lawyer one day.  He is an expert at finding and exploiting loopholes.  (I joke with Ching that the osmosis between Noah and I is strong...  the red highlights in his hair, and now loopholes.  It's from all the nights he and I played while she was pregnant and sleeping.)

Noah has "self control" issues in school - you know, because he's a five year old boy.  The first month of school, when they did what's called walking feet after lunch, where they walk around the circular drive in front of the school, he tended to run.  We talked with him, and that problem got better. 

I think it was at the parent/teacher conference we found out Noah has a tendency to drop things on the floor, then get out of his chair and crawl around to get them.  And he still likes to throw things - like the dice when they're doing a math game.  Sigh. 

So, I gave Noah three rules.  Stay in your chair, keep your hand to yourself, and don't throw anything. 

And that mostly worked. 

Until yesterday, when after school his teacher told me he had spit on the floor and licked a kid.  (Ok, he licked her shirt, which is Ching's fault because they have this weird lick each other thing that he and I don't do!)

I asked him why he was spitting.  It's something he's done a few times here at home, but not often.  And he mentioned something about getting up to clean it up.

Ah-ha.  It seems he found a new way to get out of his seat.  Heh. 

Kindergarten Update

We got Noah's six week report yesterday.  It was the general one from his teacher, and then an update on his IEP goals.  The overall picture is that Noah is really, really distracted by all the goings on in the classroom.  We're not really surprised by any of it.  But it's hard not to worry a little bit about our boy.  Thankfully, we've had two years of pre-school and we know his strengths and weaknesses.

Every day he tells us he had fun at school.  He likes the other kids, and they seem to like him.  He's good at the routine of school.  We just didn't know how he was doing on actual school work.  The worksheets he brings home are fine.  And when he and I do his little bit of homework he does fine.  The biggest problem is he just can't pay attention in class to save his life.

We knew that this was going to be a problem.  It's a big change from 12 kids and 3 teachers to 22 kids and 2 teachers.  There's just so much going on in the classroom.  And he's a kid who from just about the day he was born loves to watch what everyone in the world is doing - literally.  If he were older, he'd probably be one of those kids staring out the window all day, and then having to do all of his school work once he got home.  In Kindergarten, it's a little bit more of a problem that he can't pay attention. 

One of the things we've learned about Noah is that he learns almost everything by watching videos - his alphabet, numbers, shapes, colors, everything.  Thankfully, there are some good educational websites where he can learn letter sounds and all the other things they're working on.  We showed him one of them yesterday and he spent a good amount of time on there and enjoyed it.

We have to keep coming back to our goals for Noah and school - that he enjoys being there.  We can't change what they have to learn in kindergarten these days, but we don't have to get caught up in it all.  That can be hard.  To not compare where he is to where all the other kids are.  He's just not a typical student, and we may never know why.

To us, the most important thing is that he's a happy and sweet boy who loves to go to school, loves music, and loves to play outside with his friends.  At five, not much else really matters.