And my life gets a little crazier...

First of all, I love being a stay-at-home-mom. Although when I'm honest, I'll admit that there are days when I have seriously considered getting a job. A couple months ago I filled in at the church office for one day when our church secretary was on vacation and it was very nice -- Adult conversation. Respect. No screaming or fighting. No whining. The list goes on and on. And when I got home, I actually enjoyed being with the boys again. You know, absence makes the heart grow fonder. At one point several months ago, I even found myself scanning the help wanted ads in the newspaper. But when it comes down to the logistics of having someone else take care of my kids and having to follow someone else's work schedule and be on time, it's just too much of a hassle. And when it comes to the actual job of parenting, there are so many opportunities throughout the day to impose my own values on their impressionable minds (ha!ha! as if it were that easy!) Anway, I don't think I would trust someone else to enforce my personal values as well as I (try to) do. I know that there are a lot of good working mothers out there that have figured out a way to raise their kids with their own family values. But I don't know how to do that, I'm too saturated in the stay-at-home-mom approach. All I can do is wait until they start school...

In the meantime, being with the kids all day makes me feel like my brain is turning into mashed potatoes. I feel like being home is just where my life is right now and I accept that, but I still have great dreams of what I want to be when I grow up. I feel like I'm in a "holding pattern" as far as pursuing my passion. God has given me a passion for peacemaking and helping others and there are small ways I can do this now through my relationships and volunteer work. And now I have started preparing myself for my future work. The University of North Carolina-Greensboro offers a Master's Degree in Conflict Resolution. But even better than a local university offering the program I want - offering the program entirely online! I've waffled back and forth for years about which program to pursue for my Master's. I started with conflict resolution 4 years ago (after I saw Hotel Rwanda, the movie that changed my life), dabbled in international affairs and non-profit management, seriously courted the idea of law school (but I refer back to being saturated with the stay-at-home-mom statement) and came back full circle with even more enthusiasm for Conflict Resolution.

So I signed up to take a graduate level class in the Conflict Resolution program. I'm not officially admitted to the program yet (I keep procrastinating on that pesky GRE test), but I am taking the course for credit, so my grade counts. It's just one class and I will probably just take one class a semester for a while. Since I'll be crawling through this program at a snail's pace, I figured I should get started. My class starts tomorrow, the same day as Coulson's first day of school. It's online, but done through a live lecture that we log onto through the computer. I've already seen the syllabus and I have 2 short papers, 1 long paper, a group presentation and several journal reviews due. This will be fun - I haven't written a paper in 10 years!