Just Simply Jennifer!

Wow!  My 30th year was really full of changes as I reflect on it.  I am grateful for most of them though.  I am now hoping that my 31st year will be a year of calm.  My job seems settled, my relationships seem settled, my life over all is pretty settled. Kyra is actually settled too.  She pretty much knows the rhythm of her life.

For my birthday, Stephen’s mom, sister and grandmother took me and Kyra out to dinner.   Stephen and his dad are fishing in Baltimore for the weekend, so it was just us ladies.  It was really nice.  We went to Ruby Tuesday’s.  The salad bar there is so good.  Yum…

Robin was having a party, but it sort of fizzled out when the rain storm hit.  They are all down in her house, but the bon fire is not started and some went home, like Kyra and me. 

Yeah, it really does.  I almost everyday think, man I should post on my site.  The days just come and go though.  I have been ignoring all my online friends, never logging onto my messengers.  I do log on and get the where the heck have you been from like 20 people all at one time.  I never get off.  LOL….

Kyra is doing great.  She is fun to be around, she sets new higher goals for herself constantly.  This morning on the way to the lady that watches her while I work, she wanted to be a farmer, a doctor, and a pilot.  She wants to do everything she sees.  It is spring around and a fun time to be out doing things too, so that is what we are doing.  We are doing as many of the things that she wants to do as we can.

I think I have every single weekend this month booked full of activity.  We are going to the aquarium one weekend though finally….that was my goal for last summer.  It didn’t happen.  We are having bon fires and cook outs.  We are going fishing.  We are going to rodeo one weekend.  We are booked up though, it is amazing full of fun activity.

This past weekend we went to Earth Day events at Renfrew Center.  They had this lady with snakes that were 50 lbs.  Bigger than Kyra.  Kyra was holding them.  There were tortoises she was touching too.  She wouldn’t touch the Lizard.

There was a band there that was playing kids music and had all sorts of "junk" for the kids to use as instruments.  They had old tin cans, pots and pans, wooden spoons, all sorts of stuff.  Kyra was loving it. 

Tom sold rocks at this.  He had his best weekend at this event ever money wise.  Which is good.

We went to a food tasting party afterwards at a friends house and Kyra was playing pool with them.  She sucks almost as much as I do, but it was fun. We sampled all the foods spent a little money on some of the dips and stuff.  Yum…

Otherwise, everything with us is just busy.  I take my state exam on May 6th again, so all my evening sort of free time is studying for that.  I now have 3 books to study, so I have basically no excuse this time for not passing.

Hope everyone else is well.

Kyra has big dreams which is wonderful.  She wants to be a farmer mostly, so she can have sheep and chickens and cows.  Today though we drove past a backhoe, like we sometimes do.  She says “Mommy, I want to do that, move that dirt.”  So I tell her that those people are excavators and when she grows up she could be an excavator if she wanted to be one.

We go probably 10 more minutes down the road.  There is another backhoe and this time she proclaims so excited that she wants to be an excavator.

So, I have a future excavator here.

She went to bed early tonight.  She went to the Explorer Museum for Kids today and didn’t take a nap.  She was a complete grump from the time I got her until she was in bed.  I didn’t get to play any fun games with her or anything.  I hate this.

My work is going good.  I am busy, but it is sort of good.  The day went pretty fast today.  I have been neglecting my site, so I am told.  I don’t see a break in sight.  I really do want to tell everyone about EFF as well.  The man that is in charge of that periodically e-mails me with a hey what are you waiting for type e-mail.  I think he will give up on me soon right when I get to doing it. 

How long does this transition officially take??  How long does it take a stay at home mom to accommodate working hours?  I wasn’t exactly stay at home, but it sure does seem like I was now looking back. 

My excavator is growing and I am not seeing it.  Does that happen even when  you are watching close as I used too?  I sort of think it does, but sometimes wonder now.

Who ever came up with the idea to have raspberry smelling markers should not be allowed to come up with any other brilliant marketing ideas.  This is the dumbest thing ever.  My Kyra now has to smell every marker she ever sees.  I have no idea why this is sticking in my head right now.

My life is moving along pretty boring.  I have accomplished having plaster fall off the wall though while I was scraping it to paint it.  Yeah, it isn’t painted yet.  That was Saturday.

We made a cake last night and it was done so late that Kyra was asleep when it was out of the oven.  She woke up this morning and the first thing out of her mouth was cake, so guess what we had for breakfast.  It was good.  Is there a rule anywhere really that says you can’t have cake for breakfast??

I am at work of course now, I have a million things to do.  I sort of thought I would be more bored here at this office, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  I have to make notes to eat because I could go without and there is nobody else around eating.

Anyways, wanted you to know still kicking.  Everything is pretty good, just normal though I guess.

I have never studied so hard for a test and not succeeded in passing it.  My study material for this test is not complete enough for the test.  I am now ordering another $50 book (this one costed $50 as well but my office paid for it), I will than take a week off and play with Kyra. 

I think she thinks I am ignoring her because I play with her so little.  I play for an hour or two and then we go lay in bed while I study.  That is a complete change for her from when I was driving bus.  I miss her extremely.  I used to just play with her from like 9 to 2 all day.  Now she is at the babysitter’s playing.  I end up playing only from like 6-8 in the evening which is also when she is the least happiest of the day.  I still get to play all weekend though and I try to make that my plans for all weekend every weekend.  We go someplace fun usually on the weekends too.

I used to get on my computer in the evening when I am now playing with her, but now it has all changed.  Here I am on the phone on hold working on 3 policies at work and typing on my site now.  It is such a dramatic change even after 2 months, I am not used to it yet.

Even though I failed my test, I did start working full time in the other office at work.  That means I don’t spend anytime in the office that is right in my own town and essentially I am the only person that works at my office. There are two other agents that work in and out and a lady that is going to come file for me one day a week.  I will like it though.  It seems based on only two days that I will stay pretty busy.  I also have a lot of control.  I can do essentially anything I want so long as the work gets done.  I think I like that.  I am still a little unsure about being alone in the office, but there is an office next door and the other people that work there.  That and customers some whom I seem to already know.  So hopefully, I won’t mind it.

I take my state test again on Thursday of this week.

Kyra has been doing great.  It rained Monday, so we did the whole rain gear thing.  It was fun.

Yesterday was windy as all get out, so we flew kites when I got home from work.  Kyra was funny because she wanted to chase the kite itself and not hold the string, so there you saw me holding the string and Kyra underneath where the kite was screaming and jumping for the kite.  It was fun, and probably very funny to watch.

She is going to a pancake breakfast this morning.  She has an exciting life.

Stephen is doing good.  He went to the doctors on Monday and they have him back on regular duty.  He had pulled a nerve out of wack in his arm, so was on lite duty at work.  Lite duty where he works is scaling logs, so he was still working all the time.  I have no idea what lite duty would be where I work…I think I am permanent lite duty.  LOL…

I may finally be going to go to the aquarium.  You might remember way back that I said I wanted to go by Christmas somewhere in here.  Well, never made it.  If I pass this test though, I will be going on Saturday. 

Anyways, that is my update.  I should be updating more frequently.  I am also starting to work with a organization called the EF Foundation.  They are on the look out for people to host foreign exchange students and other people to supervise.  I was working on this hook up back before I stopped driving bus, but soon.  I will make a post all about them and what they are offering because I think they are a great organization and hosting these kids is good for everyone.  If you are interested in doing these, click that link and  make sure you tell them that Jennifer sent you.

I failed my test, I got 100 questions right and I needed 105 right to pass.  I don’t feel so let down though because the answers to a ton of these questions were not in the material that I studied.  I read that book 3 times and when I question pertaining to something I studied popped up a little cheer went off in my belly as I answered, there just were to many that I didn’t know or have studied.

So, I have to take it again.  I have to pay for it myself this time.  I can schedule it on Monday, so I don’t know when this will be.  I am now downloading more different study references to supplement what I already studied to make passing this next time much easier.

I suck….

Wow, it is the 28th and I haven’t posted anything here since the 20th.  Yeah that is so unlike me.  I had a crazy Easter, I took Stephen up north to meet my family for that festive annual event.

We stayed at my brothers house and our girls played together.  That was the good part.  My brother and Stephen seemed to get along based on the fact that photo albums were being shown.  I think they were better though because they had already met Stephen at my house and have the whole divorce in prospective. 

Haley and Kyra are really great together and I really need to work on making sure that they stay that way.  Which is hard with the gas prices.  It cost $120 in gas alone for that trip.  There weren’t really other expenses though, so you know…  It used to be a $20 ride though in my car.

I think most of my family was in shock because last time some of them saw me I was with Adam.  They don’t have the whole divorce in prospective as far as time frame.  So they didn’t know how to react and the other 1/2 just didn’t care, which is fine too.  I don’t go to my family very often because it is like a high school party.  If you aren’t in the “in” group, you basically go unnoticed.  I am definitely not in the “in” group and that is rightly so. 

I probably won’t be going back for awhile.  I really do like staying close to home on holidays and always find someplace to go.  The hustle and bustle is sometimes unsettling going up there, so it probably puts me in an off mood for holidays.  Home is calm always. 

Kyra is doing great.  I absolutely just adore her, she is getting so she wants to do everything she sees either other people doing or on TV.  I always tell her either we’ll do that this summer or you do can that when you grow up.  She smiles and says OK.  We really have to make paper hats this week like Curious George does in his cartoon though.

As far as work goes, I have my state licensing test today.  Yeah, today.  I start working at my full-time position on Monday, so I won’t be running all over the place anymore at work.  I’ll be the only one in the office pretty much all the time.  I am still not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing.  I’ll have to decide later. 

The office I am working in has a cool new printer, copier, scanner, fax machine that is fun playing with.  LOL…  The computer that I will be calling mine needs some work, but that is on my list of things to improve.  I got a left handed mouse that will go in there but will just remain mine.

Hopefully I get a nice salary raise after today and passing this test.  I know it entitles me to commission based income which will be a pretty big deal when I get going.

Well, there is my update.  I am off to go study more about liability for my test.  I’ll be back to say I passed.  If I do pass though, I got plans to go out tonight with a bunch of friends.  If I fail, I come home and slumber.  LOL….

I never meant for these photos to get published like this and with all that junk after them. I think a spammer has some access to my site, so I have to figure out how to lock it down. I will be upgrading to the new version of WordPress later tonight in hopes that it has that security fix in it.

These photos are of Kyra helping me measure buildings for my job. I got to leave work early one day last week and go measure a few buildings in town, I scooped up Kyra early and she went with me. It was fun for us both.

The other one is her after she got into the lipstick. She uses her whole face for lipstick, but it does look sort of cute. Don’t you think?? LOL…

Here is the happy kid with her new rabbit.