Counting the Days

I am counting the days until Summer break. I have 5 1/2 more days with students and then 1 1/2 work days. It will be a busy summer. I am planning on doing some mystery shopping in June and my mom and I are taking Elijah to Alabama to visit the family. My grandmother turned 89 this month and I really want to see her. It has been two years since I have been back home. Jacob is down in Waco for his summer semester at TSTC. It is a full 15 week semester, not summer school which moves at a much faster rate and is only about four weeks. He has already texted me to tell me he needs some help with math when he comes home this weekend.

I got some good news this week! I received a $7,000 scholarship for graduate school. It will cover my summer class that I am taking that starts July 7th and my Fall semester classes. I am going to call Texas Tech and cancel my school loan! This will cover tuition, books, and any other supplies I need. I plan on quitting mystery shopping come July 1st and focus on school and the family. It will be hard to give it up, because I love the thrill of getting good shops and extra pay. Next Fall is my last semester in grad school and I will graduate in December. I will be completing my internship for my certification as an educational diagnostician, so it will be a tough semester, but I know I can focus on school now and still be able to focus on the boys, my honey and the rest of my family! It is really wonderful that this happened, and I feel blessed!

We really aren't doing much except for the trip to Alabama. I have one two day workshop in June and Jacob's girlfriend is going to watch Elijah for me. It is close enough that I will drive back and forth each day. I plan on taking a few days here and there to go to the movies, visit some museums and plan some other activities with Elijah. We are also planning on joining the rec center here in town. It is a good price and I like to go walking there. The library is right next door, so Elijah and I will go and walk and then go to the library. Once my class starts, it is a good place to work and let him hang out in the teen room. He also likes to check out books and read. I want to have him read to me this summer.  Hopefully, my honey will be able to join us on a few of these days when we go to a museum or go shopping!

The Dirty Truth from Dirty Jobs

I watched Dirty Jobs the other night on the Discovery Channel. It was an episode where the host, Mike Rowe, reminisces about the 250 dirty jobs he has undertaken. What I write here are some things he stated in the show that really seemed profound to me about working a job.

1. Work smart AND hard. You need both of these to keep a job and/or find a job.

2. Don't follow your passion, bring it with you. Don't make happiness or passion a condition of your employment. Passion should be something you bring with you.

3. Stay in school, but not too long.

4. Make a date to imitate. Meaning you can learn a lot from watching others. He showed a lot of manual jobs where people watched others and learned from watching them.

5. Efficieny is for robots, be effective. I really like this one also.

6. Beware of experts. Just because an expert says it is the best way to do something, doesn't mean it always is.

I went to the Dirty Jobs website and found some clips from the show. I tried putting them in here, but I can never make it work as a link. You can cut and paste them if you like!

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dirty-jobs-the-passion-of-mike.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/dirty-jobs

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dirty-jobs/