Life

Words Fail Me

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 3 Comments

I have been trying to articulate what’s been going on–but so much of it is stuff that I have blogged about before and people don’t necessarily want to hear me rant about the public educational system again and again.  This topic is consuming much of my life now–as I have been observing student teachers and teaching interns–who are all working in urban public schools.  The state of those schools and the education in them is horrible and I don’t know what else to say about it without ranting and getting on my soap box.  I can say public education is broken and needs to be fixed–while we have schools for our kids–many of our kids aren’t getting an education and that is just as bad (if not worse) than not giving them health care.

I am down a total of 28lbs–that makes me smile.

My kids are healthy and happy.  Noah has a big boy bike w/training wheels and loves riding it.  Z got on it the other day and her legs are long enough–she pushed a little on the pedal and the bike moved–scared her to death.  That made me smile too.

Overall, life is good.  I am just busy and exhausted and trying to balance it all.  The semester is only 9 more weeks.  I can do it.

I Should Be Working

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

but instead, I am sitting outside on a gorgeous fall morning at Starbucks drinking a skinny vanilla latte after working out with my personal trainer contemplating life.  Well not so much life in general–more specifically my life and how much longer before I will actually be able to fully live it without the demands of being a student, working 3 jobs to pay for my kids schools and for the life we lived before we had kids and realized how expensive kids would be.

I know quite a heavy topic for an early Saturday morning…

Last night we went to the Trace Atkins and Toby Keith concert.  We were spoiled and go to sit in a VIP box–which is a great way to see the show.  I will openly admit here to being a huge country music fan.  It all started when I moved to Santa Barbara and got a job at a restaurant in the mountains that use to be a stagecoach stop.  Country music was popular with many of the regulars who worked the nearby ranches and with a few of my fellow waitstaff who became good friends.  I haven’t been able to kick the habit and it really is what I listen to most often.  I have been wanting to see Toby Keith–because he just seems like he’d put on a great show–and I have to say that he did.  It was a really great time and a nice way to end a week from hell that had me running in 8 different directions seemingly every day.

The kids crashed at grandma and grandpa’s house and hubby is at home in bed nursing one hell of a hangover.  I didn’t drink–as I have too much to do to be compromised by the effects of alcohol.  I should be reading rough drafts of memoirs for my online composition class.  Can I just say they are horrible and it really is impossible to teach writing online. I need to be face to face with the students and we need to be able to have a real discussion about what writing is and how to do it better.  Online is so hard.  But that’s okay because when are they going to have to write a memoir?  That is what I keep telling myself.   The writing itself isn’t terribly horrible.  If I am honest it is the style and that is what I would like to impart on them.  But can’t do it through the computer.  If I had more time I could podcast a lecture, but really let’s be honest–how many are going to watch it?  Three maybe four out of 26 and it would be the four who do really well and don’t necessarily need it.  UGH!

I am done whining and hope to be able to find a few minutes at work or in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep because Quantitative Statistics is haunting me to blog more.  I miss writing and blogging.  I do this for me.  It is nice to have other people read and have an “audience” but that isn’t really why I started this blog and it won’t be why I keep doing it.  So, if you are reading…I hope you are well and I promise to try to get here more often.

38-Years-Old

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 6 Comments

Today I celebrate my 38th year, with creaking joints and sore muscles.  I celebrate by working a crappy office job that makes me wish I had paid more attention in high school and gone to college out of high school instead of 7 years later.  I celebrate by teaching students eager to learn and others who don’t participate or even understand their fortune for being able to sit in a class and receive an education (that they are paying for).  I celebrate by going to class and having my mind scrambled with t-test and z-scores, reliability and validity, sample size and standard deviations.  I celebrate by spending money on a new car further reminding me that at 38, I am no where near where I want to be but have everything I have ever wanted and how those two ideas are not related.

I celebrate by thinking about my amazing husband who after all of these years of me being in school and a bit of a bottomless pit of debt (student loans) loves me completely and made me my favorite cake–that he remembered from years ago.  I celebrate with my kids who tell me they love me and hug me and sing to me “happy birthday.”  I celebrate by being thankful and remembering that I am lucky and blessed beyond belief.  I celebrate by knowing there isn’t a debtors prison system anymore.

I celebrate by being the best I can be and accepting that it often isn’t as I wish it could be.  I celebrate by making the tough choices and by doing what I can.

Thank you mom and dad for being reckless teens and thank you grandma and grandpa for making them get married so that I could be here and that I could have the life I do. Without them…I am not.

Enjoying The “Calm”

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 3 Comments

I have two weeks left before the chaos that is my life starts and picks up again.  I have one more semester of pure and utter pain and chaos and then I am hoping things will settle down to a manageable amount.  This coming semester is going to be crazy.  I will be working my 20 hour a week grad assistantship, teaching 3 classes at the community college (also during the day), having office hours for those courses, taking the kids and picking them up from school (limiting my work time from 8:45 am and 2:30 pm) and take classes M/T/W nights from 5:30-8:10, supervise student teachers and still have time to see my children, husband, do homework, grade papers, and prep for teaching.

Sounds crazy doesn’t it.  I know.  But this is my last hectic semester–aka the last semester I have to take more than one night class.  I don’t know how much of the other will really change much but at least I’ll be able to be at home in the evenings so that my family doesn’t forget what I look like.  I know that my predicament is of my own design–if I wasn’t set on sending Noah to private school–I wouldn’t need to work three jobs on top of going to school.  I am getting so close to being finished with my PhD and I try to ward off my mommy guilt by reminding myself that my kids have a great dad who is wonderful with them on the nights that I am not home and that they are so young they aren’t going to much remember that I am gone so much at night.  If I put school off or stretched it out–Noah would get to the age where he would begin to notice my absences.

So for now, I am going to enjoy being at home and maybe take a nap…