Hello Refreshed Me

As you all know, I've spent time struggling about writing since everything happened with my blog. Today marks day 4 of school and I've finally taken a moment to sit down and open up my blog site. Forgive me for being behind on reading but I think I might have found a spark for writing again. A spark...but it's there...it's not forever gone.

The end of last week and beginning of this week held LOTS of tears for me. So many firsts and so many lasts when it comes to school and I had a hard time channeling it all. How did I ever deal with it before? MY BLOG! Yep, thats what I did...I WROTE! So here I am again!

Last Tues & Wed was Open House at school. We met Kacey's teachers on Tuesday and we met Kayleigh's teachers on Wednesday. I was a little upset because we had not met anyone from Kaceys school and we were walking into Open House and they had NO idea who she was. Then I got a phone call from the nurse and felt an overwhelming calm feeling when she said she could set up a meeting for Thursday afternoon. PERFECT! Kacey's schedule could not have been a better day. It's almost like it was handpicked for her...ok maybe it was...*wink wink* She has Math and Language Arts every day and then she has Science one day and History the next day  Then she goes to a class called Intervention....this is a time block that she can catch up on work missed, get help if shes having trouble and if shes absent then she can make up tests, ect. It was a GREAT addition to her schedule. After that she goes to lunch...this is about 12:40pm. Once she finishes lunch then she goes to Band and then to Chorus. She is so in love with these two classes and shes thrilled that they're getting to try every instrument before they choose what to play for the year. So after we met all her teachers (which BTW, every single one of them was VERY nice) then on Thursday we went in for the meeting.

Ahhhhh the meeting! Yep, you know the meeting where you have to tell everyone what diabetes is, how to care for your child and trust they absorbed some of what you said so you aren't bouncing around like a frantic monkey all day worrying whether your child is safe during the day...yeah thats the meeting. Well...her nurse was so on top of things that we had the nurse, all of her teachers, the assistant principal, the 504 coordinator and her guidance councelor in the room. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!! I was so excited to have so may pairs of ears in the same room. I passed out the handy dandy notebooks that I'd put together, I went over what diabetes was, how to care for her, what she can do on her own, what they would need to help with, what everyones roles were and the feedback I got was beyond anything I could have ever imagined. Once again I was blown away by the willingness to stay on top of her care. I was thrilled to find that her nurse had 20 years experience in IV therapy and when I talked the "Diabetesenese" she knew exactly what I was talking about. There are a couple other T1's in her school and there were several that have gone through the school. Can you hear the sigh of relief I breathed? Her nurse wasn't familiar with Cozmo, obviously because they're out of business now, but Kacey showed her everything and shes comfortable with it. She has never had a student on Dexcom but we showed her how to put a Dex site in and showed her how it all works and shes on top of her game. Another sigh of relief :) As I walked out of the meeting, tears streamed down my face. Why tears? Why in the world was I crying? Because I had so much anxiety built up from worrying about Kacey going to a new school, new teachers, new nurse, new surroundings and the anxiety was replaced with comfort. I had only met all these people once but I was VERY confident she was going to be in GREAT hands.

Now for Kayleigh...a SENIOR?!?! Where in the world did the time go? She only has 4 classes this year to get her Advanced diploma. Shes taking English, Government, Oceanography and Trig. Only 4 core classes and she gets out of school at 11am one day and 1pm the next day. We met her teachers at Open House and I was thrilled with them! One of them went to high school with me, one of them is the step mother of a friend of ours that I've known since middle school, one of them my mom knows from the Army and the other is a football coach. Ahhhhhhhh! Could it be a more perfect Senior year? We've already been hit with ordering graduation announcements and we already know when graduation is this year. She has already started her Senior boards and next step is the scholarship process. This year is gonna FLY! She's already making plans for college and she knows what Culinary school she wants to attend. Also, there is a job opening for a catering position that will be opening up the end of this month and she was recommended for the job and the owner is thrilled with her cake portfolio.

Right now....Life is GOOD!

The first week of school went GREAT! Kacey made new friends right away, they both love their classes and teachers and I'm one very happy Mommy!

So now what will I do in my spare time? Well...I just got a NEW camera so I'm sure you can guess what has been taking up my time. I had to say goodbye to my Nikon Coolpix after it fell off my van seat and hit something on the floor. The LCD screen was damaged. LESSON LEARNED....NEVER carry a good camera without a case! So what did I replace my Coolpix with? Well God has a way of working. He never gives us what we WANT when we want it, right? We get those things in His time. My birthday was Aug 22 and my hubby knew he wanted to get me a new camera because I was a crybaby without mine. Seriously...I cried for days after mine broke because I carry my camera everywhere with me. He went to several places looking for the new Nikon Coolpix and when he finally went to Walmart the girl there told him that they were discontinuing the Coolpix. WHAT?!?! So then he had to tell me that there was no Coolpix within 50 miles...he didn't have a present for me...and we had to try and find a different camera that was comparible to what I had. Ummmm...try getting through those tears! I cried even more because I had 2 upset kiddos that didn't have anything for me the day of my birthday because they thought Daddy was getting me a camera. So I sat through tears and sent my brother an email. If anyone knew anything about good cameras, I knew he'd know since he's a photographer on the side. He was bummed because he'd just sold his Nikon D60 before he moved from Hawaii a few weeks before. That would have been a perfect starter camera for me. So now what? I surfed Craigslist but you have to be careful with something like that because you don't know how "used" it is. Then I got a phonecall....my brother had contacted my cousin who had a Nikon D5000 for sale. Seriously?!?! This was Sunday night and he'd just put it up on Craigslist the day before. NOWAY! My brother told him to hold it til he talked to me. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! He hadn't taken many pics with it but he upgraded to a newer camera and took $100 off the price. That made it only $50 more than what my hubby was going to pay for the Coolpix. With puppy dog eyes, I pleaded and he agreed that it was time for a GOOD camera. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! So my cousin shipped it to me 2 day delivery  and by the end of that week I had a camera back in my hands! (Thanks to my hubby, my brother and my cousin) God had bigger plans for me and everything fell into place like it was sopposed to. In the meantime...Ive been snapping pics of flowers, bugs and most of all...I've been working on taking Kay's senior pics. I LOVE IT!! It was worth every penny and I'm so glad I took my brothers advice :) I'm still new to it. I still have a long way to go. I still have ALOT to learn. But the thrill of having a hobby like this is so much fun!

So heres a little of what I've been up to....

Keep in mind...all of these were taken in Automatic setting. I still haven't gotten comfy with it enough yet to understand manual settings. I'm sure I'll be sharing tons more!! :)