My first pay day is in mid September. After that check is deposited Matthew and I will pay off our honeymoon loan from his parents and have paid all our bills for the month. We will finally be able to completely move forward with our finances and start stocking away our income into our savings account. I am so excited because that means preparation for the future... which means preparation for baby! Our savings will primarily go towards Matthew's further education, but a small percent of it will really be budgeting for baby. And the sooner the better, in my opinion. I am resigned to the fact that we may not have a baby for another five years though. Which I suppose is alright. I'll just have to keep busy until then.

Tonight was Parents Night at St. Johns. We met with the parents who came to see the school and meet the teachers. I enjoyed mingling with the parents and am so excited to meet the children tomorrow. I met one of our little girls tonight. She is so adorable and sweet and shy. We also have one more little girl added to our roster. So Miss Carol and I are hustling to get her cubby prepared (which included building another whole shelf outside our classroom since we weren't prepared for an extra child) and her chair etc. We have the largest class in the school already- you would think they'd put her in the other Pre-K class. But the more the merrier, I suppose.

I am excited to begin regular work with regular hours. I think my mornings at the Preschool will just fly by once we have our set schedule. I will come early in the morning to either help open the school or prepare our classroom for school to start, then we have regular class for three hours every day with our Pre-K's, then I help with lunch bunch- where a few children from each class stay for lunch while the rest of the school is picked up at noon by their parents. After lunch bunch I'm finished at the preschool. I think I'm going to try to find a gym close to our house to go to after I'm finished at the school. I should have just enough time for a good solid work out and quick shower before I have to be at the bus stop to pick up Peter- my second job. I pick him up at the bus stop and help him with his homework. After that the world is ours. He is a very active child (ADHD) so I'm sure we'll find lots to do in the afternoons and early evenings. They live in a nice neighborhood only about 5 minutes from my house so the location is ideal. We have a park we can go to and a shopping plaza with ice cream and refreshment within walking distance... if we feel really ambitious. I feel like once my schedule is set up and solid I'll really enjoy it. I will miss being home whenever Matthew is so when he has a day off we can spend the entire day together. He works on Saturday and Sunday mornings until mid afternoon so since I'll be working every week day until around 6 we won't have that chance again for awhile. But it's one of the prices we pay for being fresh out of college grads taking any work that will have us. But we both have respectable jobs and we're more than making ends meet. Just because our schedules don't allow for a lot of down time is no cause for complaint. Really, we can't expect any more down time for the next 50 years! And even in retirement, I don't fully expect us to have down time to enjoy. I will want to travel the whole entire world. Or maybe we'll just be raptured before that point and not have to worry about it all.

My fish bowl is getting a little out of hand. I changed half the water last week to keep from having to switch Simon to the small container and then dump everything out of the bowl and clean it. But it looks like it's about time to get down to business. He deserves to have a nice clean bowl to live in. So tomorrow when I come home from work I'll do it first thing so I'm not lazy about it all day and just put it off for another week.

I really want a puppy. I would walk it all over since we have good sidewalks all around Boonsboro. But we don't have the space for a large dog once it's grown. I wouldn't mind having a small dog like a cocker spaniel, but someday we want to German Shepherds... and we can't have three dogs, that's a bit ridiculous. So I will just wait. I will have to be disciplined to get my exercise in on my own.

It's raining. I love the rain.

Rebecca Iveson