House of Lloyd

No school again today. Most of the main roads are clear but many of the side roads are still icy. Since the day care was open we went ahead and sent Madilyn to school. I spent the day mostly doing nothing. I did make it to the GYM, that makes it 4 times this month. I have set a goal of attending 3 times a week. That goal could get complicated when I start at KSU later this week. I am trying to figure out if I actually have time to work out after work and make it to KSU on time for class. Guess it will take a few weeks to figure it all out.

No school today. It snowed through out the night. However, we only got about 1 inch and it really did not even cover all of the grass. Seems the biggest problem around town is the ice.

School got out at 1:00 pm due to impending snow. The snow started falling at around 1 and is suppose to continue through the night.

I registered for classes at KSU today. I was accepted in October to begin work on an Ed.S. I was not 100% sure that I would actually start classes but the long term financial benefits of completing another degree really make it worth doing. I just hate that classes are 2 nights a week. When I did my masters classes were only 1 night a week. Also, when I did my masters, we only had 1 kid the first year, Madilyn came along when I only had 1 year left. The Ed.S will take 2 nights a week for 2 years to complete. I know David is up to it, I just feel like a “bad mom” for leaving the family 2 nights a week. However, I feel like a “bad mom” if I don’t pursue the degree because of the effect the degree will have on my salary and retirement. Needless to say, I registered and I start classes on Thursday.

Made it to the GYM again today. That’s two days in a row, guess I am getting on a roll. Experts say it only takes 30 days to get into a new habit. If I can keep going, it will become a habit and become part of my life style. I am planning on going again tomorrow.

Had a small set back today. David found my lost GYM bag and shoes yesterday afternoon. Well I did not clean it out prior to packing it for the Gym. I just put in clean clothing and my new shoes. When was changing at the gym my pregnancy workout directions fell out of the bag. Why in the hell do all of these little reminders keep popping up in my life. Why can’t they all just disappear from my life so I can live a few days in peace without the pain of being reminded.

You gotta love teacher work days. We get very few of them. I spent the day at the copy machine making copies for all of my students for the entire semester. I did go out to lunch with Shelley and Sara, but spent most of the day getting ready for tomorrow.

It was not as hard as I thought it would be getting back into routine. I also made it to the GYM for the first time since before Thanksgiving. It felt good to work out. I just gotta keep it up and make going a priority in my life.

It is only day 2 of 2010 and I am not holding out much hope that it will be better than 2009. The day started with my backing my van into a basketball post and damaging my tail light and rear panel. Then I knocked a computer monitor over and onto the floor. If today is any indication of how the year will go I just want it to go by quickly.

Today we went to IKEA and purchased furniture for the recreation room that we are creating. We purchased an additional book shelf and a table and 4 chairs so that we can play board games. For the time being David is using the table area of the recreation room as a temporary office space. The recreation room is almost complete, we are still wanting to purchase bean bags and some art work for the walls. It feels good to be making progress on finishing up the room.

Jacob Arron Nunn arrived this morning. He is 6 pounds, 12 oz and 19 inches long. I kind of wish I could be there to help Kim since Daniel is deployed but it is probably better that I can not be there right now.

Also– from the ruins of the fire, smoke and water damage THE APPLE LIVES. David had pulled a few machines out of his office hoping to be able to salvage parts from them. To our surprise when he turned on his Apple a log in screen appeared. He was able to log in and it appears that no data is lost and the machine is working properly. WOW. We never thought it would work.

So today is the first day of 2010. I really hope that this year will be better than the last. We spent the day traveling home from Gatlinburg. Traffic was not too bad and we were home early in the afternoon.

We decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. It really scares me about how upset I can get over simple comments people make. One of the servers said, “you make such beautiful babies.” I know innocent comments like that should not get to me but they do. I love Madilyn and I am so blessed to have her as my daughter. Yes, she is beautiful on the outside, and with David and I as her parents she will grow up to be beautiful on the inside also. The comment the server made just hurt because I would really love to know what a baby girl “made” by David and I would look like. I will never find out and that hurts. You would think that I would be doing better by now emotionally but I am not. If I am not busy I am over whelmed with grief and sorrow. I really feel like I have to keep busy or I will go nuts.

People keep saying it takes time– how much time does it take? People keep saying God has a plan– When will we realize the plan?

We decided to do breakfast again at the Thirsty Miner since it was pretty decent. After breakfast we headed to the water park. I had thought that Caleb may be done with the water but he and Madilyn both were ready for more fun in the water. We had thought about going to Gatlinburg for the day but it was sleeting and cold so we just stayed at the resort, which seemed to be fine with everyone.

We did venture of for dinner at a local Mexican Restaurant. The food was pretty good, but the service was a little slow. Guess everyone was busy because of the holiday.

Caleb was going to attend the New Year Eve Water Park Party but after being there for about 30 minutes he came back to the room. He said, “Someone is going to die in there.” Apparently the party was a big success and everyone at the resort decided to attend. At least he had sense enough to come back to the room. So he rang in the New Year by watching “Band of Brothers.” David and I showed our age by being in bed by 10:30. Of course sleep did not come easily because the resort passed out noise makers earlier in the day and people kept walking up and down the halls making noise with the darn things.

At mid-night Madilyn woke up screaming because she had been awaken by all of the yelling and people in the halls with noise makers yelling “Happy New Year.” It took about 30 minutes to get her back to sleep. Thankfully the noise in the halls died down by about 12:30 and we were all able to get back to sleep.

We had a great day today. Because we were all too lazy to get cleaned up and ready to leave the lodge we decided we would just have breakfast at the “Thirsty Miner.” After the dinner we had there last night we were not expecting the breakfast to be very good. We were very surprised that the breakfast was good.

We have had a rough November and December so we decided to get out of dodge and take a spontaneous vacation. We ended up at “Wilderness of the Smokies Lodge” in the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area of Tennessee. A friend told us about the lodge and the 60,000 square foot indoor water park that sports a year round temperature of 84 degrees. We thought that it would be a blast for Caleb and a way for David and I to relax some. We were able to book a suite with a living area, kitchen and a very large bedroom. The bedroom itself sleeps 6 and the living area sleeps 4 so there is plenty of space for a large family here.