Ambivalent

First Day of School: Exciting (new experiences, fresh start, more "me" time) and sad (I missed my kids today) at the same time.

These are pics of them. Ashley's last year of middle school.

Carlos is starting first grade.

Funny story about the Skechers. We went to Ross to go through the torture of "winter clothes" shopping for Ashley, and Carlos saw these Skechers.

"I need Skechers, mommy."

"What?" (I actually thought I heard wrong--how could my six-year-old know about Skechers?).

"These shoes, mommy. They're Skechers. I need them for school."

"How do you know about Skechers?"

"From T.V. I need them because my feet won't be smelly in them." (Where he got that idea I'll never know!)

They were on sale so I bought him his first Skechers. I have to scrap this story so he'll have a good laugh when he's older.

Many more new beginnings as well ...

New year for my Mom's group I belong to. We met on Tuesday evening at the Coffee Bean to iron out the details for the coming semester. I'm SOOO excited. I LOVE my mom's group. I get so much support, encouragement, and inspiration from them.

New year for Missionettes (My Wednesday night class at church.). This will be my third year with most of my girls. I feel like I finally know what I'm doing, and I'm so excited. I know the girls really well by now (they are a great group of girls), and I feel truly privileged that God has been using me to grow them deeper in Him. They all have such a heart for God and the things of the Lord; it's a pleasure to spend time with them and get to know them. I love watching them interact together, too. It's so cute! :)

And I'm going to be involved with the P.T.A. this year. I get to work with two retired teachers that I worked with when I was a teacher. I'm enjoying spending time with them again. But I might have to exercise my "No" muscle. Sometimes I have a hard time saying 'no' when people ask for help, and then my family pays the price because I get stressed out.

Sorry about how everything is scrunched up at the end. I had spaced the paragraphs nicely, but blogger is being "bad" and I have no idea how to fix it.