Thankful

I am thankful for so much.

I am thankful for my health, I know, I know, everybody says that; but it is true. I battle anxiety pretty badly and it tends to hold me back from a lot but over all, I am healthy and so are my boys. As many of you know I am about to turn 38 and that is about the age when my Dad was really getting sick. Thats been weighing heavily on me lately and again, another reason to be thankful for my health. I have it and get to continue to watch Antonio grow up and live my life with Albert. So thankful. Which leads to being so thankful, well grateful is a better word, to having my Mom healthy and living closer. (Thankful for no ferry lines this year too. :))

I am also thankful to be able to able to stay home with Antonio. It is something I have wanted to do from day one and I wasn't sure I would ever get to, but thanks to Albert working so incredibly hard for us, I can. It has been so rewarding. I get to have breakfast with Antonio and walk to the bus stop with him every morning and then be there when he gets off the bus and comes running to me. Now that I am working so much, maybe to much, with the PTSA at school,  I get to see him periodically through the day and that makes us both so happy! I am one lucky Mama!

That leads to my next thing; the PTSA. Yes, I am actually thankful for finding it and joining it. It has consumed my life right now and I have done none the things I was looking forward to doing once becoming a stay at home mom but I enjoy it. It gets me dressed and out of the house pretty much every day! :) I have also met an amazing group of ladies that I know I would have never met otherwise.

Last but not least, I am so thankful for Albert. He works so hard for Antonio and I and has been so patient with me while I try to find balance between the PTSA and trying get all the things done at home. We are so lucky to have him in our lives.

Balance

Balance is so hard to find. I thought staying home with Antonio would give me so much time to do so much I have been wanting (and needing) to do. Before leaving MM, all the guys kept asking, "What are you going to do with all your time" and my reply always was, "I plan on getting involved with Antonio's school and getting my honey-do list done". I had no idea, really. I knew I'd volunteer in his class and school but I was looking forward to having no real obligation to anyone.

Then I joined the PTSA. 

Now I am finding myself always at school between volunteering in his class and helping with the PTSA. I've had a good time so far with the PTSA and have met some awesome ladies who I hope become actual friends with. It's been a long time since I've had a some real girlfriends to "hang out" with. Lame, I know. I have my girlfriends but in reality, they all live just far enough away that we rarely see each other, especially after having kids. Between the distance and my anxiety; it plain sucks and I miss them! 

I am, as well as my house and husband,  in need of finding balance with the PTSA and everything else. I find I spend 4-5 days at school and for most of the day. Many days, I am quickly leaving school just to make it home in time to meet Antonio's bus. My house is a mess, laundry is getting done at random times and never done all at once. Oye. What happened to all that time I thought I was going to have? I have to try cut back on my PTSA time to be able to find time for everything else. Happily, events and other PTSA work slows down after the new year but in the mean time I have to try to cut back, and not feel guilty about it. Thankfully, we are getting more volunteers show up as the year progresses and hopefully that continues to be the case so I don't feel like I do have to be there as much. Like the say, "many hands make light work". So true. 

For the past year or so there has just been 2 core PTSA ladies doing all the work and I'm not sure how they did it an still get it all done. However, now that there are a few more of us we are trying to find easy ways to earn money for the PTSA. We have found a couple ways and are in process of one other. We currently have enrolled in Amazon Associates and Targets REDcard "Take charge of Education".  The Amazon Associates lets you use your Smile Amazon's charity you may already use and adds that to the link. You can use this link to make your purchases. It should take you to Amazon and using your charity you have chosen already. If you don't already have a charity, may I suggest Childrens Law Center of Washington Ps. Its a nonprofit founded by my stepbrother to provide low cost attorney services for help find permanence for foster children. Or Liberty Adoption Advocates. This is also a nonprofit that my stepsister is the founder of that provides financial assistance for families to adopt. Both are amazing charities to contribute to. If you have any issues using this link, please let me know. I have specific instructions that I can give you on how to add your "smile" charity to our link, basically go here, once there change the first part of the address to smile.amazon.com, from just amazon.com and leave the rest. Just please make sure "Code=sl2&tag=sunnyselemen-20" is still in the long web address; that how we get credit! If you for whatever reason don't want to use the smile amazon version, you can use this link which is just for the regular Amazon. 

Please bookmark this Amazon link or the other and use it for all of your Amazon shopping. We, the PTSA, can earn 4 - 8% back on all purchases and there is nothing you need to do but your normal shopping on Amazon through that link. The link is also on the right of this blog in case you need to come back to use it. The more money can earn for Antonio's school, the more fun events we can host and the more money we can give back to the teachers and school! 

Target REDcard's Take Charge for Education is just as easy. Just go here to link up your REDcard debit or credit card version to our school, Sunnyside Elementary, our school ID is 105887. Target gives up to 1% back to us. Again, all you have to do is link up your REDcard to our school and continue shopping at Target. Both in store and online works.

So there are two very easy ways to help support Antonio's school! It just takes a few minutes to link each up. I'd really, really appreciate it if you did; so much money that can be earned without you spending an extra penny! Do it now before you forget to and start your holiday shopping too! :) If you have any questions or trouble doing this, let me know! Thank you to those of you who link up!

I am still loving being at home with Antonio and all the extra time we've had. Hevloves it when he sees me at school throughout the day and is loving it even more when he gets to help out with events we host at school. I have no intentions to stop helping at school because we both, Antonio and I, love it! I just need to be/feel more balanced. So please, in the meantime, send me "balancing" thoughts.