The One Where I Relate to AC/DC

You know...as in, one of two heavy metal bands proclaimed by the t-shirts of the two poorly animated, infamous-for-their-utter-lack-of-conventional-values characters of the 90's known as Beavis and Butt-head.

Yeah....the 80's have their fashion crimes of which to be ashamed.  The 90's?  We had Beavis and Butt-head and the dumbing down of humor to fart jokes for an entire generation.  *sigh*

Anyway....so, I do this thing where I associate moods, happenings, etc. with music, quotes, TV and all other things pop culture, right?

Today it was AC/DC's Back in Black playing in my little mental concert for one.  Because I am one Klassy Babe when it comes to my musical repertoire - thanks to one former step-father who never could break free of the hold of 80's metal bands, and Blondie as well come to think on it, had on him and that he saw to it that we, too, were appropriately indoctrinated uh, educated re: their cultural significance; usually such education occurred while he was drunk.  Fun times.


Why, you ask, did you have Back in Black playing in your head today, Heather?

Because quite simply,

...
I've been too long I'm glad to be back
Yes I'm, let loose
From the noose
That's kept me hanging about
... 

I'm coming back.  In ways that have been dormant for a good long time, I'm seeing glimpses of who I am and who God's teaching me to be along the way.

Kelsey and Colton started back to school Wednesday, and Heaven smiled down on me.  Writing that makes me feel like a bad mother, a bit.  Because I chose to be a SAHM in order to be more present with my kids and yet come July each year, I can't wait to be away from them for 40 hours a week.  Ok, so maybe that last part is hyperbole, but not by a huge amount.  To be fair, the kids were equally happy to leave me behind every day :)  I have been able to be productive and get my house in respectable shape again, there is a return of that blissfully quiet period, 2x/day!, known as NAPTIME, and routine, how I love thee.  School is good.

Colton was totally stoked that the new gym teacher (whom I foresee to be the object of many young girls' affections due to his youth and looks) was wearing the same Marvel comics t-shirt as he was.  2nd and 4th grades this year.

New School Shoes

While not going to school, little Chris was part of the obligatory 1st day photos.

Bus!!

I re-start my MPA studies, from which I took hiatus in 2008 and 2009.  I will only be taking one class this semester, but I'm excited.  I do keep cracking jokes about the class, as it is Leadership and Professional Ethics - joke being that there's a difference between personal ethics and professional ones?  Syllabus looks good and challenging, but not overly so.  Feels do-able.

As of today, we are caught up on our mortgage and all of our household bills - which is a place we haven't been since last November.  Medical stuff is still hanging out, but we've cut some serious fat out of our budget, finally saying goodbye to Directv, and hello to Hulu, Netflix, and a digital antenna, slashing our grocery bill with sites like CouponMom.com and GroceryGame.com, riding our bikes more than driving the vehicles, etc.  And, now that things are calmer at home, I'm really doing the free-lancing thing!  I got my first client this week - a local NPO seeking funding and yet lacking a grant writer.  Then, tonight I received an e-mail from a legitimate business in Denver asking me for my resume and references as they had a client in need of a funding researcher/grant writer. So, between the cutting of expenses and addition of some income, those medical debts are going bye-bye - no doubt about it.

A newer friend from church remarked how I was going to be superwoman this fall with 3 kids, going back to school, running high mileage, and starting a business.  Certainly, I'm not super woman, but for those of you who've known me since this blog's inception (or before) y'all know I like the busy, like the real busy and not the busy work.  I once worked FT, was in grad school, regularly volunteered in both the older kids' classrooms, took Kelsey to weekly OT appointments, cooked from scratch, etc. and did it fairly well.  Some situational things popped up occasionally, namely marital during that time period, that got me down.  And then I needed a break, so I slowed down and tried to follow God a little more closely.

The past 2 years have been huge in the growth department.  The latter part of 2008 being a preparatory season, 2009 being a sort of demolition/rebuilding year, and thus far 2010 has been further rebuilding with an unveiling starting to take shape.

I feel as if, structurally speaking, I have the same foundation, as in, I'm still the same stubborn, feisty, big-word loving kind of gal I've always been.  True, some parts of me have gotten those sort of whimsical face lifting reminiscent of HGTV's lower budget programs, such as the coupon clipping, cloth diapering, home-growing features that are new but not foreign to me.  But other parts of me have been completely gutted, refashioned, and repurposed...My kids are bearing the brunt of my stubbornness being channeled into my parenting.

So, Angus sings it for me in my mind...."I'm back.  In black".  Though usually not all black clothing, I can generally be found wearing black flip-flops on any given day.  
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