Hey! I've moved!

No not really.  Just to a new site. I am venturing into reviewing books and blogging some more so I needed to change up a few things.  So come on over!  Will my awesome two followers follow me there? :)

Lots of love,

Carmen

Work Life Balance

I realized today that many of my fellow homeschool moms don’t realize that I actually work too!  I thought for a minute (duh!) that I since I am very passionate about what I do, I should share a little about what I’ve been doing for the past 4 years (whoa! It’s been that long?).

In 2007, I saw an opportunity to serve as an ambassador for a program called the Phoenix Teaching Fellows.  This program recruits, selects, and trains professionals and recent college grads to become teachers in high-need schools. Since then I’ve served in various capacities but my most favorite part of the job is recruitment. Last year, the Phoenix Teaching Fellows changed its name to the Arizona Teaching Fellows to reflect its expansion to other parts of Arizona. Yay!

I mentioned that my biggest dream is to see that my boys will eventually hold a career in something that they are passionate about and love. While I only work seasonally for the AZTF, I truly am grateful for the opportunity. Why? Hundreds of students who because of AZTF will have committed, high-quality teachers who will give them them the best education they deserve. There is no doubt that there is a true disparity in high needs schools and wealthy schools. That’s why AZTF exists.  Because students in high needs schools truly need these dedicated, high achieving college grads and career professionals to pour into their lives. To become that constant that they truly crave and need. Every year I get to personally meet the new Fellows and I beam with such excitement. They have no idea that the commitment they made is going to impact so many children.

When my sweetie taught he carried around this Starfish Story in his wallet.  I love knowing that the work we do will bring just one more teacher that will impact one more student. WOW! Talk about making a difference!

Going back to my dream of our boys doing the kind of work they are passionate about is why I wanted to talk about the work I do.  It doesn’t feel like work. It feels like play. I love what I do. I look forward to the time I set aside to do it. I schedule it in right after our homeschool day and the time FLIES. Isn’t that a blessing?!

So when someone talks about work life balance I think about the fact that when you love what you do, your life is balanced. I’m not saying that there aren’t difficult days or some days in which it’s really hard, I’m just saying that' it’s definitely nice to have that passion and drive.  Have that in whatever you do.  If you are a homeschooling mom, do it with passion and drive. LOVE IT. Look forward to it. If you are a stay-at-home mom, have passion in it. Enjoy homemaking. Read articles and blogs about homemaking and get good at it too. You know?  Homemaking, homeschooling, being CEO of the home is totally work and while that doesn’t really add zeroes to our paycheck, it is an investment into our children.  And that my friend, is work and life balance .

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Man oh man was this G-double-oh-D good! Had to take a pic and wanted to notate my changes from this original recipe.

1.Instead of the Pace picante sauce I substituted my all time favorite Southwestern Salsa from Safeway.  Seriously, that stuff is good!

2.Rather than corn tortillas within the soup I added crispy tortilla chips instead.  OMG. Have plenty extra!

3.Add freshly sliced jalapeño peppers for mom and dad.  The boys gobbled it up without the jalapeños of course!

4. Put sour cream in a zip lock back (ghetto piping bag) and top with sour cream.  The boys had smiley faces on theirs .

This was so super easy that it will have to be included in my recipe rotation.  There is no reason to eat out when we can have something this good and so delish!

Love letters = Journaling

I read about this awhile ago on a homeschooling blog and thought I would give this a try.  I am so excited because since I began this journal this year, we have already written over a dozen letters to each other.  One of the great things about this vs. a writing journal is because it is personal and you get a sort of immediate feedback.  The boys look forward to my letters every morning and love to write to me what they are thinking. Ira loves to draw pictures of superheroes for me and Nani likes to talk about how he’s looking forward to his upcoming birthday party.  I am so thrilled on their writing progress and it keeps me accountable to write them back each day.  I am sooo loving this!

This week in review

Not sure if you would call this week the most productive but I didn’t have high expectations anyway being that it would have been a 2-day school week.  We had MLK day off (hard to do “school” when daddy’s home) and had a field trip planned for Thursday and with no school on Friday’s it was definitely going to be an off week.  I am grateful for the fact that nowadays, the kind of off weeks don’t stress me out so much.  It is all about a balance anyway and on most days we hit school so hard we start as early as 9am and work non-stop (eat lunch at our desks) until about 3pm.  The boys and I wrote goals at the beginning of the year and I tailored our learning to make sure to meet those goals. More on that later

Our field trip on Thursday to see this guy at National Geographic Live was pretty awesome.  Nani is pretty adamant about being a mechanical engineer and was soaking everything the guy was talking about.  He talked about how he grew up playing with Legos, and loved to learn math and science.  This love landed him the opportunity to be part of the team that constructed the Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit.  He is currently working on Curiosity in which this rover will be launching later this year to Mars.  I sat there visualizing Nani as the person speaking in front of hundreds of children about “dreaming big.”  To be honest, all I could ever dream of for our children is that they would hold a career that they LOVE and are truly passionate about.  But NEVER, EVER, forgetting about giving back.  This life is more than just thinking about ourselves and worrying about us.  There are children who go every night hungry.  There are children who barely have any security or love in their home. These are the children we need to advocate for and pour into and speak up for.  I forever want our boys to see that their parents lives were dedicated to that. We model that so I pray they would do the same.

At the end of the presentation our boys got the unique opportunity to take a picture with the presenter.  Pretty cool huh?

Wednesday Morning Bible Study

Every Wednesday morning we hop on a conference call with my girlfriends and we talk about our struggles, our ups and downs, our goals to become better wives, moms, and servant of God.
It is very uplifting to have the opportunity to be real and say what’s on our mind without feeling judged or worried what they might think of me because of my imperfections. Together we learn that there really isn’t a woman who has a perfect looking clean house with no dishes in the sink, laundry completely clean and even more folded neatly and put away. Why do we even think that this is the case? It’s because we don’t dare allow even our closest friends to see that we have spent two weeks the night before madly cleaning when we find out that we are going to have visitors.  So that when they come over, they see that somehow we have this perfect image of a clean house. All of my closest friends know that there is a non verbal policy of at least a 24 hours notice before “dropping by.”  Reason? It's so I can make my house look like it hasn’t been lived in before they come by.  Isn’t that so sad? 
Matthew 6:20 says, “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.”  My morning Bible study included that there’s only one thing certain about life.  We know that tomorrow isn’t promised and that’s why it’s so crucial to spend our time investing in what really matters today. I need to constantly remember what is eternal and what is temporary.  Yes, the dishes need to be washed, kitchen must be mopped, and laundry needs to be tackled but our family and friends is much more important than having a perfect house. I need to remember to invest in our time together and do the things that the boys really want to do.  It’s been so nice outside.  I can take them to the park and just play with them.  The stars don’t have to be aligned and the planets in perfect order… I just need to do it.
I am so amazed on how simple the solutions to many of our problems can be.  I just need to play more and have fun more.  How easy is it to forget with all the responsibilities and stresses in our life that it boils down to the very thing we used to do as little ones.  I am so grateful to have such wonderful friends who can help remind me on how to stay in balance and enjoy the blessings I have right now.  Not the things that shouldn’t even really matter anyway .